Yiiikes the chapters are getting shorter and shorter. And this chapter is kind of plain, but things are going to pick up soon I promise!

Charlie and Steve were sprawled out on the couch, their feet propped up on the coffee table and the television on in front of them playing soap operas. On the table beside their feet was two glasses of water, a bottle of advil, and their empty breakfast plates. The volume on the television was barely loud enough for them to hear due to the headaches they shared. Though Steve was sure his was worse than hers. At some point her head hand landed on his shoulder and although she smelled faintly of the alcohol they drank the night before he didn't tell her to move.

"What time is it?" she asked in between episodes, her voice quiet and slightly hoarse.

Steve squinted to make out the time on the clock on the other side of the room. "2:30."

Charlie groaned and rested her forehead against his shoulder. "Can't this day be over already? I'm sick of how sick I feel, and I'm sick of you thinking about how sick you feel."

"Sorry." He said half heartedly.

"It's okay." She said, picking her head up and slowly getting to her feet. "I'm grabbing a snack, want anything?"

"Whatever." He replied.

She turned and shuffled down in the other room and into the kitchen, holding her head with one of her hands. Though she had only been staying with him for a little more than two weeks everything about her being in the house had become incredibly routine. Since he usually woke up before her he showered while he waited for her to get up and made breakfast once she did. He spent the better part of the morning trying to get her to tell him more about her life and experiences in the lab. They usually went out for lunch and stayed in for dinner, alternating between watching tv and just talking. They seemed to never run out of things to talk about.

His parents were coming home in a few days and he had no idea what he would do with himself without her in the house. Steve's once lonely home had finally become a place where he had someone that cared about him, even if it was in her own way. Even without ever voicing her care for him Charlie had made him feel more wanted in two and a half weeks than his parents had felt in years. His mom tried and he loved her for it regardless of her hopelessness, but his father was ice cold.

Steve heard Charlie's footsteps coming back and straightened his posture. She stepped into view and he immediately noticed her tense demeanor. Her hand gripped a bag of chips much tighter than necessary and her eyebrows were knit with concern just under her bangs that were starting to grow out.

"Is that true?" she asked him, her voice sounding strained.

He could feel the confusion in his face. "Is what true?"

"That I make you feel more wanted than your parents have in years?"

Steve's gaze quickly fell down to his lap, his cheeks turning bright red with embarrassment. "You weren't supposed to hear that."

Charlie came over, placing the bag of chips on the coffee table before sitting on the couch facing him. In his peripheral vision he saw her bite down on her bottom lip while she looked down at her hands. "You never talk about your parents." She pointed out. "Just that they're out of town."

"There's not much to say." He mumbled.

"If you tell me about your parents you can ask me anything you want about the lab." She offered.

Steve forced himself to look up at her, reading her expression to see if she was pulling his chain. "Anything?"

"Anything."

He sighed and leaned his head back against the couch, taking a moment to think about how best to explain his parents. His mom was easier so he knew he'd start with her. "My mom is… lost."

"Lost?"

"It's like her body is there but her mind isn't always." He continued. "She gets this look on her face like she's somewhere else and it's hard to bring her back sometimes."

"Where is she?"

"In her youth." Steve shook his head against the back of the couch. "When she was in college she was going to school for preforming arts. She was going to do two years local and then move to Los Angeles and become a movie star. I think she could have, too. She's beautiful and charismatic and when she walks into a room she owns it. But she met my dad when she was a sophomore and he was a senior and she got pregnant with me so she dropped out. And I know that when she gets lost in her mind she's thinking about what her life would have been like if I never happened."

He felt Charlie's hand wrap around his own, small and soft compared to his. Her thumb gently grazed across his palm, a silent encouragement. Steve wished he could live the rest of his life feeling that feeling. "What about your dad?"

Steve let out a humorless laugh. "He's an asshole." He said without an ounce of remorse. "He's exactly the type of asshole a parent doesn't want their daughter to get knocked up by because you know he won't be shit for a father." Steve used the hand that wasn't holding hers to rub his forehead. "He ruined my mom's life with a kid he doesn't even care about."

"He cares about you, Steve."

He turned his head to look at her. "I know you're trying to make me feel better but be really doesn't. Which is fine, I don't care about him. It just sucks that she's not happy."

Her usual poker face was filled with sympathy. Though she looked beautiful with an animated expression he wished she wouldn't feel so bad for him. She leaned her head against the back of the couch only a few inches away from his face. Up so close he could see flecks of darker blue in her irises and a microscopic scar underneath her eyebrow.

"I'm sorry Steve." She said, her voice quiet enough to almost be drowned out by the tv that was still on.

"It's okay." He told her. "Are you sure I can ask you anything?"

"Anything."

He hummed quietly as he thought. There were a million questions he wanted to ask her and the thought of picking just one gave him a slight headache. Considering how tight lipped she usually was Steve doubted he'd have another opportunity to ask her absolutely anything so he knew he needed to choose wisely.

"Tell me about Dr. Brenner. The one Eleven needs your help finding."

Her demeanor immediately changed to show how uncomfortable she was. Her gaze dropped down to their hands sitting in her lap and she once again bit down on her lower lip. The longer he knew Charlie the less she tried to hide her emotions through her body language. And though he was glad that she was feeling more and more comfortable around him seeing how upset the question made her made him regret asking it in the first place.

"He was in charge of overseeing me and the other experiments." She told him before he got the chance to ask her if he should think of something else. "He made himself out to be a father figure to get us to trust him more. And because we didn't know what a real father figure was like we thought he was the greatest person in the whole damn building."

"What kind of stuff did he do?" Steve asked her after a moment of hesitation.

She shifted slightly in her spot on the couch. "When I did really well in an experiment he would give me a present. I remember the first time I ever manipulated someone's thoughts he bought me a sketchbook and a really big pack of markers." He watched her swallow a large lump in her throat. "I never really disobeyed him until around the time I thought about leaving. I started getting older and rebellious for the first time ever, and because I can manipulate people's thoughts I knew he was a little scared of me. Sometimes he would make me wear headphones with really loud music playing so I wouldn't be able to do it to him."

He gave her hand a light encouraging squeeze. "What happened when you disobeyed him?"

"I got put in the dark room."

"What's that?"

"It's basically a cell with no windows or lights that he would lock me in for a few days when I did something wrong." Charlie explained. "Twice a day he would have someone bring me food, but they weren't allowed to talk to me when they did. When I got older and stronger he installed a speaker to play really loud music so that when I was in there I couldn't make anyone let me out."

"Shit."

"Right before I left I heard him think that he regretted making me because I was the only one powerful enough to be a threat to him."

Steve shook his head, wondering how someone so awful could actually exist in society. How a whole building full of people could live with themselves knowing they were hurting innocent kids. "That's so fucked up." He said, mostly to himself.

Charlie shrugged her shoulders. "It is what it is." She told him. "What can I do about it, you know?"

He turned his body to face her, keeping hold of her hand. "How do you deal with it? I mean that's really heavy shit. I can't even imagine going through something like that and even being able to function every day."

She held his gaze for a few moments, her eyes unblinking as she thought of how to reply. "I don't know." She admitted. "I think… I'm usually more concerned with just surviving on the streets that I don't really have that much time to really think about it all the time."

"How did you survive?" he asked her. "For six years all by yourself in the city?"

"This is a lot more than one question." She pointed out.

"Tell me."

"I had to steal a lot." She admitted. "I don't like it but I didn't have a choice. But it's not like I could get a job or anything. There's no proof that I even exist."

Steve knew he had to ask her. He'd been avoiding the topic as much as possible for the past few days but he knew he couldn't avoid it forever. His parents flight home was in less than a week and he knew there was no way he'd be able to keep Charlie in the house and hide her from them. They weren't that stupid. Besides, Charlie had spent most of her life hiding from someone. It wasn't fair for him to expect her to do it forever. She didn't deserve to do it forever.

"Hey, um," he began. She lifted her gaze from their hands and Steve knew he had to just spit it out. It wasn't like she wouldn't know what he was thinking about. "Have you thought about what you're going to do when my parents get home? I mean, I want you to stay here, but I know that's not really realistic."

"I know." She agreed. "I think… I think I might as Hopper and Eleven if I can stay with them. And if they say no I'll just figure it out."

"Figure it out?"

"I saw an abandoned house somewhere near the woods." She told him, "I can stay there if I get really desperate."

Steve perked up slightly, trying to hide his excitement as best he could. "Does that mean you're going to stay in Hawkins?"

The corners of her lips twitched upwards into a microscopic smile. "Yeah, I think so." Charlie admitted, "I've never had this many people care about me before. I think it would be kind of a dick move to just disappear on you guys."

"It would be a total dick move."

Her smile doubled in size and, to his surprise, she closed the space between them and pressed her lips against his. Kissing Charlie was a full body and soul deep experience when he was sober and Steve planned on doing it as much as he possibly could.