( lungs constrict, air passing thin as she nearly clips a stranger in the shoulder in her hurry. the cart passes between them and panic rises — as though he'll be gone when the path clears, as though this is a false hope, a hallucination in some cruel effort to starve out whatever remaining hope she's had from before and all the memories come here careen back, intrusive and irreparably violent.

but he's still there when cart is pushed passed and they're all that more closer. he's still there, not some morphed monster wanting to lull her into complacency (as though she hadn't lost already).

she doesn't even think on the absurdity of the gesture when she flings her arms around him — there's no complicated thread of timeline to consider, yet unfamiliar to the concept. there is simply the fact that the last time anyone saw each other might have been the literal last.

it might be weird — no it's definitely fucking weird of her — but her ear is pressed into his chest just long enough to hear the rhythm of a beating heart, to feel the rough-spun linen of some stupid peasant shirt and she has to peel herself away before it gets too weird, before it's too obvious how she's barely holding herself together with stinging eyes and she has to stumble over words to regain control back. ) Yeah — yeah. Got scooped out from that stupid pond, like, a couple of hours ago?

( arms cross over her chest, brows pinch as she looks over him a little more closely — as though trying to piece together answers before she even asks: ) Did you? I mean — ( did it work? she can't ask. can't bring herself too. ) — is this real?

( dumb question. she doesn't care. can't stop herself from noticing changes that weren't there before on the face of steve harrington: no mottled bruises on the neck, still too-purple in her mind, blood too close to the surface. clothes that seem to fit less oddly than her own feel. there's a sinking feeling as she waits, posture stock-still, frozen in some liminal flight or fight. )