chapter five
into the woods

         Alex has learned that anger is only a good thing when it's convenient for other people. She could hit other kids with dodgeballs, she could tackle kids on the field if it meant that her team won. But as soon as she lashed out because god forbid someone else made her angry, she was in the wrong, and they were innocent. She needed to learn to control her anger. She needed to just ignore them. They were just trying to get a reaction out of her.  James and Troy can get away with their jabs and jeers when they use her as an excuse.  It's easy to get away with things when you can use the angry girl as a scapegoat.

The living room was shrouded in dim lighting. The suffocating mixture of different incense that Steve had found caked in dust on the back shelves of Melvalds filled the air. Alex could detect several different scents, all that intermingled, but none that truly fit together. It was nausea and headache-inducing, but Alex supposed it was the thought that counted. The siblings participated in these supposedly therapeutic exercises prescribed by Kyra-the-Counselor whenever Alex felt as though she were about to crack; when the anger bubbled too close to the surface of her skin and started to slowly seep out, though Alex had always found the practice ineffectual.

"Breathe," Steve hummed softly from where he sat with his legs crossed before Alex. His eyes were closed tightly as if it would somehow enhance the experience.

Although it warmed her heart to know that her brother took time out of his day to care when their parents did not, even though it was their job.  Steve could disregard her problems, bury them underneath his own problems that Alex knew weighed down on him more than he would tell her, and that's why she does this.  Even though she knew that the practice was ineffectual. Her rage had simmered down quite some time ago, the tremor in her hands that was always the telltale sign that she was about to explode had faded away once more, her breathing was even, and her fists were relaxed. But she knew that Steve liked to take care of her, Steve liked to think that he could help his basket case of a sister as if maybe, she wouldn't end up like him. As if he hoped that maybe she would go places. She had always been his top priority, even though she never had to be. Even though she didn't want to be.

Alex never meant to be a burden, she never wanted to be something that people would look at and try to fix, but like the holes she punched into the walls, rage would always be something that needed to be fixed. And fixing his sister made Steve feel like he was useful for something.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Steve. This is stupid."

Steve cracked his eyes open. "You almost gave Troy Walsh a tracheotomy with a plastic butter knife today," he replied dryly. "Humor me."

Silence fell again and Alex noticed Steve's brow furrow ever so slightly. Alex didn't want to hurt people. She didn't want the cuts and bruises that she had. She didn't want the reputation and whispers that followed her. Alex didn't want to be yet another weight added to the load that Steve already bore. She wasn't something that needed to be fixed; Alex's anger had no root to destroy. It had always been that way, it was just what is. She had coexisted for so long with the anger, she could no longer pinpoint an exact time when it had not been present, she had a harder job at hiding it away. Clenched fists helped to channel the anger, but it only worked for so long before her nails started to cut into her palms. It could be suppressed, but it couldn't be fixed. You can't separate Alex from her anger because there would be nothing left of her. It had always been Alex and her anger.

"Steve?" Alex finally asked when the silence became too heavy. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

Steve opened his eyes to gaze at his sister for a long moment because all he saw before him was a girl who didn't get the necessary support and unconditional love that parents are supposed to give their children. Alex is the product of neglect and hollow promises. Like an animal trapped in a cage, she does whatever she can to survive because she doesn't have the necessary support that all children like her should have.

"I think that in this situation, you had to adapt in the best way that you could," he answered finally. 

"It sounds like you got that from a science textbook," Alex retorted.

"Shut up and breathe."

A few more moments of silence.  Then:

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I'm sorry," Alex repeated.  "I...I don't want to hurt anyone.  I never wanted to hurt anyone.  And I know it doesn't seem like it, but it just—I just—"

"I know," Steve told her gently.  "And that's why Ms. Fernandez is helping you.  And that's why I'm helping you."

"You shouldn't have to," Alex told him with a frown.  She couldn't help but notice the absence of their parents in his statement. 

Steve shook his head.  "You're my little sister.  It's my job."

This makes Alex want to explode all over again.  Steve shouldn't have to be weighed down the existence of her anger.  It should be their parents sitting across from her right now, not Steve.  Steve should be out right now, with his friends, maybe with Nancy, enjoying what little time he had left as a teenager.  She knows he's cracking under the pressure that their father puts him under.  He doesn't need her to add to the pressure but he just accepts it as if there's nothing wrong with it.  Because that's always been how it's been.  Steve is the golden child.  Steve gets everything, but that includes responsibilities that should belong to their parents

"No.  It's not," Alex asserted with a shake of her head.  "It was never your job.  It's mom and dad's job, and they can't even be here."

Steve only smiles sadly at Alex before he reaches over and ruffles her hair.  "Go get some rest.  I promised Nancy I'd help her study for her test tomorrow."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

. . .

When Alex was younger, her grandmother kept birds.  She thinks it was a way of replacing the empty spot where her grandfather once resided, to keep her hands busy until the day they too, stilled.  Both the birds and grandmother are gone now—but that's not the point.  They were doves; small and pretty and calm—all the things that Alex wasn't.  Her grandmother kept them in a small coop just outside the kitchen window.  She remembers one day, holding the doves for her grandmother as she clips their wings.  So they don't fly away is what her grandmother had told her.  She then adds, to seven-year-old Alex, Everyone gets their wings clipped at some point.

Alex feels a lump form in her throat and looks down at the small bird in her hands, it's cooing and it trusts her.  Alex takes a breath, opens her small, grubby hands and lets it go.  And Alex thinks to herself in that moment as she watches the dove fly away that she never wants her wings to be clipped.  Her grandmother sends her back into the house and has Steve hold the doves for her instead. 

The next time Alex visits, in the cover of the night, she releases the doves that sit day after day in the confines of the coop.  She watches as the doves fade into the night sky and become nothing more but distant specks on the horizon, joining the stars up above.  She still thinks about the doves from time to time.  She hopes they're okay.  Her grandmother knows that it's her that released the doves, no matter how vehemently Alex tries to deny it.  No amount of crocodile tears stops the shouting.  And maybe it's because her grandmother knew that Alex wasn't sorry.  This is the last time that Alex sees her grandmother—and the last memory that she has with her.  She dies a week later.  Alex sometimes wonders if the doves were her lifeline.

Alex's wings remain unclipped and spread as she coasts down the empty streets of Hawkins.

It's dark when Alex decides to search for Will.  She takes the opportunity to sneak out of the house when Steve leaves because she's restless and she wants to be able to do something for Will for once.  Just like the previous night, except this time, she plans on coming back.  She doesn't plan on disappearing tonight.  There's no moon above to help her find her way, the shaking beam of her flashlight is the only thing that guides her.  Alex doesn't mind the dark so much anymore, she remembers as a child watching as the darkness morphed around her and rotted figures reached out to snatch her away, but she's grown past the childlike fear of the dark—but tonight the flashlight makes her feel safer.  She knows though, that a flashlight isn't going to do anything to fend off whatever lurks in the shadows of Hawkins, but she likes to think that her anger makes her invincible.  After all, Alex Harrington doesn't lose fights.

Thunder rolls overhead and lightning arches across the sky as heavy droplets of rain begin to pour from the clouds above, but Alex peddles on.  It's too late to turn back now, and she quite enjoys the feeling of the wind against her face as she coasts along the open roads.  There was a time when Alex was docile—or at least tried to be—to appeal to her parents and the rest of Hawkins, but once she tasted a drop of freedom, she was aching for more, and suddenly her wings are spread and she's broken away from the manacles of her childhood.

It's hard to miss where the woods have been sectioned off from the rest of the town.  Two red and white police barricades stretch between the trunks of two trees.  Her breath billows out in front of her as she pulls next to a stop beside the line of bikes parked just before the barrier.  She lets out a bitter laugh.  She's not the only person sneaking through the shadows tonight. 

Alex follows the cluster of footprints and snapped twigs that the three boys have left in their wake.  She hopes that they aren't too far into the woods just yet. 

The wind buffets her face and the rain only pours harder, the beam of her flashlight barely pierces through the onslaught of falling rain, but Alex pushes on.  She's not leaving these woods until she finds Will. 

"Guys, I really think we should turn back!" Alex hears a voice call as she stumbles into a clearing.  She knows this voice of course—it belongs to Dustin Henderson.

"Seriously, Dustin?" Another voice snaps.  Lucas.  "You wanna be a baby, then go home already!"

"I'm just being realistic, Lucas!"

"No, you're just being a big sissy!"

"Did you ever think Will went missing because he ran into something bad?" Dustin asks.  "And we're going to the exact same spot where he was last seen?  And we have no weapons or anything?"

Alex takes a step closer, and can just barely make out three humanoid forms a few yards ahead of her.  She takes another step and cringes as loud snap echoes through the clearing in the woods.  She looks down at the broken twig beneath her shoes and back up at the three boys, only to be blinded by three beams of light.

"Jesus!" She exclaims, shielding her eyes.  "It's only me.  Don't cream your pants."

"What are you doing here?" Mike demands as the boys lower their flashlights.

"Oh, I just wanted to take a lovely stroll in the rain through the dark woods," Alex responds sarcastically.  "I'm looking for Will.  Obviously."

"We don't need your help," Mike retorts stubbornly.

"I don't care, Wheeler," Alex snaps.  "I'm not doing this for you.  I don't want to help you.  I'm doing this alone, and I'm doing this for Will.  I don't care about your stupid party, I just want to make sure that Will—"

"Shut up," Mike interrupts, his eyes wandering.

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously, shut up," Mike repeats.  "Did you guys hear that?"

This time, Alex hears it.  The rustling in the bushes.  She feels her heart thud in her chest; this is usually when your flight or fight instincts kick in, but Alex had only ever had one.  Fight.  It comes hand in hand with her anger, you cannot get one without the other.  But as she looks at the three boys before her, she is acutely aware that they do not have the same instincts that she does.  Despite what Alex believes—that she had been born with this anger and the fight—Kyra the Counselor says that she wasn't born that way, that the way she grew up sculpted her this way.  And that's why her experiences are unique.

The rustling sounds again, and this time they all whirl in the direction of the sound, letting startled gasps tumble from their lips as their four beams all land on a girl.  She stands before them trembling—from fear, or from cold, Alex can't tell—her head is shaved, and she wears nothing except for a thin yellow t-shirt that fits her like a dress and clings to her bony body.  She's small—smaller than Alex—and frail, Alex thinks that if she had the chance, she could snap the poor girl in half.  Alex can see the bones jutting out from under her skin, emphasized from malnourishment.  She's impossibly pale, almost as if her skin has never met the sun. 

They stare at each other for what seems to stretch on for hours, neither one of them daring to blink.  Nobody wants to tear their eyes away first.  The girl's shoulders continue to heave up and down, the only sound between them is the sound of her heavy panting.

And then finally, Alex shatters the silence.

"What.  The.  Fuck."

author's note: i......don't know how to feel about this.  but steve & alex vs the world (defo one of my favorites with them so far).