eggos | (no subject)

(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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Hopper is on his way to collect her from the Home after she checks in when he sees Eleven sitting on a bench near a bus stop, her phone lying on the cement beneath her. He's in his car, the one the department gave him after he was promoted to detective, but he slows down, then pulls up alongside her, throwing on his hazards before he puts the car in park and gets out.

"Hey, kid," he says as he comes around the car. "Dropped your phone."

It's overwhelming. It has to be. Eleven is different from most of the other kids here, she has a lot more going on inside her head, plus she'd spent the first twelve years of her life in a damn lab. It's harder for her, but he's trying not to baby her, even though he just wants to let her do whatever the hell she wants. School is an important step, even if the thought of it makes him want to hurl his lunch.

She looks up at him, and she's not crying, but there's a tightness to her eyes that suggests she's not far from it. She scrubs her hands over her face and sighs.

"I know," she says. She sighs and doesn't make any effort to pick it up.

"C'mon," he says, nodding at the car. "Pick it up and we'll go get some burgers or something."

They can swing by the Home for her to check in or they'll call in a bit, once they're settled into a restaurant. The people at the Home know him. He's probably the only adult who comes around regularly who doesn't work or volunteer there, because even though Beverly's been living with him for awhile, her friends are still there. And as much as he wishes Richie could learn to keep his mouth shut sometimes, he still feels like he needs to check in on him and Stan once in awhile. They'll be fine if he takes Eleven from here.

It's Richie's own fault. He's looking down at his phone on the way out of school, texting Regan to let her know that drama club ended up ending early. Usually on those days, he stays after for hours, but thirty minutes after the last bell, Richie's headed out the front door. At least it means he'll be able to get a head start on his homework, and maybe Regan will want to hang out too.

It's because he's looking at his phone that Richie almost runs right into the girl on the steps, instead, stepping aside at the last minute and taking a tumble down the stairs.

"Shit!" he shouts, reaching for his glasses and shoving them on his face before he starts to look for his phone. That's when he notices the girl on the stairs looks like she wants to cry. Richie's seen that look before.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asks, though Richie thinks he'll be lucky if his leg isn't bleeding under his jeans.

When Hopper texted him to let him know that Eleven was in the city, Steve was happy. For Hopper, mostly. He likes Eleven, but they aren't exactly close. For all that he seems to end up involved with things peripherally involving her, they haven't spent all that much time together.

That will probably change now though, given how close he is with Hopper and Bev, and how often he's over there. He's been giving them space since she showed up, but he'll probably go over soon. Or-- maybe he'll meet up with her sooner, considering that he's just spotted her sitting on a bench.

"Eleven? Hey," Steve says as he approaches, taking his hands out of the pockets as he ducks down to pick up her phone, staying crouched on one knee as he hands it to her. "It's me, Steve." It's probably dumb to clarify, but it feels necessary here, especially considering-- oh, shit. Richie. Hopefully he's made it in time to warn her about Richie. "Hopper told me you were here."

If she were steadier, if she were prepared, then maybe she would expect this. She would be able to handle seeing his face, hearing his voice.

The only reason she knows it isn't Mike is because she's looked for him. She's searched and searched, and she hasn't found him, anywhere, and here's his face, staring at her behind large glasses, with wrong hair, and wrong clothes. He looks like Mike. He sounds like Mike. But he isn't Mike.

He's wrong.

"No," she says, frowning, perhaps a little more tersely than is really warranted.

It's not until Richie's glasses are firmly back on his face and his phone is tucked into his pocket that he actually gets a good look at the girl on the stairs. He's seen her before, at the Home, he thinks.

"Hey, you're new here, right?" he asks, because he knows how much it sucks being new to Darrow. He's lucky that he had Eddie and Bev when he showed up, but some people don't have anyone.

"When I said that this wasn't the worst school I've ever been to," Fraser said, jogging the last few feet over to her and landing in front of her with a hop. "For the sake of clarity, I should've said that I've been to some really shitty schools."

Bending down to retrieve her phone for her, he passed it over.

"Are you okay?"

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 nods, and slides to the edge of the seat so she can hold her hand open. The phone flies into it and she closes her fingers around it before she stands.

"And dessert?" she asks a little hopefully. The idea of sitting with him, a stack of waffles dressed up in whipped cream and other things, sets something warm in her belly. She's missed that in the time she's been here. The things that made Hawkins home.

She takes it from him, swallowing down the urge to throw it again. She offers him a wan smile, though, acknowledging the joke behind the remark — even if he's not actually joking, she gets the sense he's trying to make her feel better.

"It's okay," she says, then reaches up to wipe the corner of one eye. She isn't crying, yet, and she doesn't want to. "I... didn't like today," she admits.

"C'mon, kid, who do you think I am?" he asks with a smile, happy to hear that bit of hope in her voice. Since Beverly had moved in, he's gotten better at properly cooking, sort of, making sure she gets her vegetables and things like that, but he figures burgers and dessert every so often won't be the end of the world.

"Get in," he says, opening the door for her before he heads back around to the other side of the car.

She's still frowning at him, but she nods.

"Who are you? You're not Mike."

Maybe that's rude, but she doesn't care. She doesn't like that he looks so much like Mike, but he's not Mike. Not at all.

El makes sure she isn't leaving anything behind, and climbs into the car. She pulls the door shut and settles in, then buckles the safety belt.

"I can stay the night again?" she asks, still holding onto that hope from moments ago. She has a feeling the answer is no, but she wants to ask anyway. Maybe the answer will be yes.

"Hey," he says, turning to look at her before he starts the car. "You can stay every night. We're gonna get you out of the Home and where you're supposed to be. It won't be much longer and until then, I'll tell them to let you stay over as much as you want."

Every night, he hopes. The apartment won't be home forever, he has to get them into a proper house now, but he wants Eleven to know she's welcome there, no matter what.

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."

"High school's bullshit," Fraser said, even though hit hadn't really occurred to him to drop out. While he hadn't decided if he actually wanted to bother with design school, having a diploma would at least give him more options.

"We should do something. I mean, fuck school. From eight until three we're their... fucking brainwashed hostages, but now? We can do whatever we want."

"Mike?" Richie asks, and the name stirs up something familiar in his head. Something about a farm and the quarry back in Derry. That doesn't make a lot of sense though, so he pushes the thought away.

"Richie Tozier at your service, madam," he says with an overexaggerated flourish and a bow, though he doesn't dip into a Voice at the moment. At least not yet.

"Brainwashed hostages," she echoes seriously, speaking under him as he continues before echoing "Whatever we want?" She's not allowed to do whatever she wants. She never has been. She has too much power in her. It would be an unfair advantage.

"I have to check in with the Home, first," she adds. "They said it's a rule. But I don't know the number."

That earns a small smile, and she nods. She does want to live with Hopper again. She even thinks she wouldn't mind living with Beverly, if she's being honest.

"Then I want to," she says. "Every night."

"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.

Richie Tozier, who isn't Mike Wheeler, is strange. Much stranger than Mike, or Dustin, or anyone else she's met. He bows like she's only seen on TV, and he wears big glasses that make his Not Mike eyes seem much bigger. His hair is wrong, too, and the way he uses Mike's voice is wrong.

It helps her begin to separate him from Mike in her mind. All of the glaring differences that stand him apart.

"El," she answers, though her tone is still suspicious.

"You got it," he says. Hopper knows they'll fight. It's part of all this shit, being a dad, being a teenage girl, they can only be who they are and he's okay with that, because right now, he would relish every single argument, every single slammed door, and every single boy he doesn't trust with her or Beverly.

He's trying to be better, but hell, even the fights are better than having nothing at all.

"Gonna have to start looking for a house," he says as he pulls out into traffic. "I don't mind sleeping on the couch for awhile, but you need your own room."

She says her name, and suddenly something clicks for Richie. Because he's heard it before, and she's new, and now he's remembering something Stan said.

"Wait, you know Stan, right?" he asks, his tone bright.

He felt like she was missing something about his very passionate declaration, but he wasn't going to give her shit about it.

Secretly, he'd always kind of wish his mom cared more about where he was and what he was doing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd bothered to call to tell her he was going to be late.

"Here," he said, opening and closing his hand for her to give over her phone. "They programmed it in, right?"

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