eggos | (no subject)

Monday, Feb 8, 2021
tw for allusions to anxiety, claustrophobia, bullying, and jealousy

It's Monday, which means she has to go to school. She almost doesn't want to. When her alarm goes off, two hours early, she lies in bed and stares up at the ceiling. It's Hopper's ceiling. She'd stayed the night here, after finding him yesterday. It'd been... strange, to meet Beverly. To see this other girl who was in Hopper's life. But she hadn't had much chance to dwell on it last night, and now it's the morning, and all Eleven wants to do is stay home with Hopper and do his lessons.

Like normal.

But school is important. It has opportunities for her. That's what they'd said at the Home, anyway.

So she eats breakfast, and she gets dressed in her own clothes, that she picked out, and she grabs the things that the Home and Stan had helped her get together. And she reassures Hopper, again, that she'll be okay.

It's less okay than she'd expected. The hallways are crowded, nearly to the point of cramped. For a moment, she feels like she can't move, and she feels her joints lock up. She breathes, slowly. She's okay. Just like she told Hopper, she's alright.

She's shown to first period, and listening to the morning announcements has her frowning up at the speaker. The voice on the other end... It could almost be Mike. But she knows it's not him, because she'd looked for him. And because of how he sounds. The voice is right, but the words he's saying, the way he's saying them, they're all wrong. It makes it difficult to concentrate on the rest of first period.

And then the rest of the day continues. It's a busy, overwhelming blur. Gym class feels easiest, because she gets to run out some of the nervous energy. She's used to running, at least.

At the end of the day, while the rest of the students pile out of the school and onto the bus, Eleven sits down on the steps. Her backpack is beside her, and her elbows are on her knees, head in her hands and fingers curled into her hair and gripping tightly.

She's not crying, but she feels like she wants to. It'd been so busy, so intense. Everything had been going on, and she's supposed to remember it all, and how do other kids do this? How?

Eventually, the cold stone of the steps seeps into her pants enough to be bothersome. She has to check in with the Home, too, so they know she went to school and that she's okay. She has Hopper, now, but there are rules, laws, that he has to follow, too. So for now, she has to check in with the Home.

She pulls her phone out as she walks, but she can't remember the number, and she can't remember how to find it again. How is anyone supposed to remember so much? With an annoyed scream that she bites down into a growl, she drops the phone onto a bench along the sidewalk and sits heavily next to it.

The phone jolts down between the slots of the bench and clatters against the concrete underneath.

[ Come one, come all! Residents of the Home, students of Darrow High, Stranger Things and Stranger Things Adjacent pups! No matter who you know or how you know El, feel free to find/feel/hear/See this overwhelmed psionic baby at any point during her day! Towards the end of the post she gets a little crankier, but she'll behave all the same. Open until this says otherwise! ]

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Eleven sniffles back the tears trying so desperately to prick at her eyes. Steve's a welcome sight, the familiarity of his voice setting her shoulders at ease, just a little. She takes her phone from him when he offers it.

"I know," she says, both to his clarification, and to his explanation. "Hi, Steve." She waves her phone weakly with one hand. "Thanks." She debates asking if he can teach her how to find the number for the Home, but she's still too frustrated to.

She looks like she might have been crying, or might be about to cry, and it tugs at Steve's heartstrings a bit. Eleven has been through so much in her short life, and now there's this. And apparently Steve officially has a bleeding heart for all of these damn kids.

"You're welcome." He sits down next to her on the bench, taking note of how she's looking at her phone, and he pulls his own out of his pocket. "These things are crazy, huh? Took me forever to get the hang of mine."

It's not a lie, not really. Sometimes he still finds himself amazed at what these cell phones can do. Eleven probably feels enough out of her depth already, and she doesn't have to add being frustrated by a tiny super computer to the mix. "Do you want my number? If you ever need anything and Hopper is at work or something, you could call me."

"Yes," she says. She reaches into her backpack for a pencil and a spiral notebook. She'll write it down, and then when she has the Home number, she'll write that down, too. She writes Steve's name at the top of the paper in careful print, then slides the notebook over to him and offers him the pencil to go with it.

Steve smiles at her eagerness and even though this isn't what he was picturing, he takes the notebook and carefully writes out his own phone number before passing it back.

"I can show you how to put it in your phone," he tells her, unlocking his phone to open his contacts so he can scroll through the names and show her. "Once you put someone in your phone, you can just tap their name and it'll call them, so you don't have to remember all the numbers."

He opens a new contact and lets her watch as he types out Eleven at the top, and then opens the camera to take a contact photo, pointing the phone at her. "Say cheese."

"The phone can remember it for me?" she asks. She isn't sure anyone's told her that before, but now that she's heard it, she wishes she'd thought of it herself.

When Steve lifts the phone, like he's showing the back of it to her, Eleven frowns with confusion. She doesn't say cheese, just looks at him like he's crazy.

"Yeah, it can remember a lot of things," Steve replies, huffing out a laugh at the face she makes. He snaps the photo anyway, and then turns it around to show her. "It's a camera, and it plays music. It does all sorts of cool shit."

He saves the picture and then holds his hand out for her phone, so he can open a new contact and put in his name and number. Then he opens the camera and holds it out to her so she can take his picture. "You just tap the circle," he says, before giving her a dorky grin and two thumbs up.

With far too much concentration on her face, she taps the circle — too hard. The phone moves as it snaps the picture, and Steve's ostensibly cute contact photo becomes a flesh-toned blur with only the vague shape of a grin and thumbs up. El makes a little face and turns it to show him.

"Bad," she says.

"Well, that doesn't capture my likeness at all," Steve teases, reaching out to tap the redo button and urge her to try again. "Try tapping it much more gently."

He smiles again, pleased to see that when she tries again, the phone doesn't move. "How's that one?"

When he leans over to look, he gives a thumbs up and nods. "Awesome. Now you can go to this list here, and add whoever you want, as long as you have their number. Then you just tap their name, and it'll call them wherever they are in the city."

Steve laughs and looks over at her. "You'll have to get a good picture of Hopper."

"I will," she says. She looks at the screen for a moment, taking in the fact that Steve's phone number is just... there, with a picture of him, and his name. "Will you show me how to do more?" she asks. He'd showed her the buttons to push, but she wants to practice, if he's willing.

"Totally! Here." Steve leans over and walks her through creating a new contact, and then reads off Hopper's number so she can enter it into her phone. He shows her a few other tricks, how to take a photo and find music, how to find things on a map, and then slips his own phone back into his pocket once they're done.

"I know this place is weird, and kind of crazy," he says after a moment, smiling over at her. "But I'm glad you're here. Hopper missed you a lot."

"He's different," she notes. "He's from before. When I'm from, he's still there, and he's... still sad." And this Hopper, this slightly different Hopper, is still sad, too, but not in the same way. It's further away, she's noticed. Beverly, and this place, have helped him.

She tries not to take that personally, and reminds herself that Beverly needs him just like El had.

She also reminds herself that Hopper says he's been here for years. Time makes sadness seem smaller, too.

"He's been here for a long time," Steve tells her, because he probably shouldn't tell her that Hopper still is sad sometimes. He thinks that Hopper will always be a little sad, after all he's been through.

"But still," he adds, leaning over a bit to gently bump his arm against Eleven's shoulder. "I know he missed you like crazy."

She nods, a small smile in place. She feels calmer, now, calm enough to explain, "I have to call the Home before I can go to Hop's." She doesn't want to, but she understands it's a rule, and it's important for Hopper that she follow this one.