(no subject)

[eggos]

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! ]

Comments

[something_incredible]

"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."

[eggos]

She looks over at him, thinking of the cabin. It'd been small, but they'd made it work.

"A big house?" she asks, thinking of Mike's house, with a basement and so many rooms.

[something_incredible]

"I dunno, kid, I'm not a millionaire," Hopper jokes. "Big enough, yeah, so you, me, and Bev can each have our own space. I know I was kinda shit at offering that before, but it's important."

He's been trying here. Trying to be better for Beverly and trying to be better in case Eleven ever arrived here, too. Now that she's here, sitting right beside him in his car, he can only hope it actually makes a difference. That it's noticeable.

"Maybe a rec room or something where you guys can have your friends over."

[eggos]

"Yes," she says, smiling again. She falls quiet, thinking about the prospect of a whole house, with her own room, and Beverly's own room, and a place like Mike's basement for her and her friends to gather.

Then she frowns.

"You call her Bev. But she said her name is Beverly. For short?" It isn't the first time she'd noticed it, but it's the first time she's had opportunity to ask about it.

[something_incredible]

"Yeah," he says, smiling over at her. "For short. Like Eleven and El."

He's quiet for a minute, driving, then he asks, "You guys are getting along okay?"

It's important to him that they can live in the same space. Neither of them has ever struck him as the sort to make someone else's life miserable on purpose. One or both of them -- Eleven in particular, he knows -- might be jealous as they adjust, but he figures that's something that will fade with time.

[eggos]

El looks away, unsure how to answer. They aren't fighting, at least, but she knows that Beverly still feels uncomfortable with her — and she feels uncomfortable with Beverly, too. But they're not fighting, anyway, and that's the important thing, she thinks.

"I think so," she says. "We... don't know each other, still.

[something_incredible]

"Yeah," he says. "It takes time."

And he had figured it would. They're good kids, though, the both of them. They've both been through a lot. At some point, hopefully, he thinks they'll be able to confide in each other in ways they can't with him. He'd be okay with that.

"You met some of her friends at the Home, right?" he asks. "Richie and Stan?" Richie's a pain in the ass, but a generally good kid, and Stan is the sort of kid Hopper had never had a hope of being himself. He's polite and sensitive and Hopper would never say it out loud, but he's definitely the one of Beverly's friends he likes the best.

[eggos]

A small smile forms as she thinks of Stan, the kindness he's shown her since they've met, but it's chased away as she realizes that Hop knows Richie, too.

"You didn't tell me," she says, frowning. "About his face."

[something_incredible]

"Didn't know what to say," he admits as he drives. "And at this point, kid, I've been around Richie a lot more than I was ever around Mike. He's his own person. I don't look at him and see Mike."

And sometimes he forgets. He's been here for a long time now, with Beverly and Richie and Eddie, those kids who've been there for Bev when she needs them most.

"He's a pain in the ass like Mike," he admits.

[eggos]

Eleven looks at him a little sharply, then can't help but grin a bit. She looks ahead, out the windshield of the car. Despite the fact that she's angry with Mike, still, fired up from Max's speech about how he'd treated her and annoyed with his lying, El finds that she misses him, a lot. She misses his silliness, and his enthusiasm, and how protective he is when anyone calls her a weirdo or tries to pick on her. He's kind.

But he did treat her like garbage.

"I dumped his ass," she says, though she sounds less pleased about it than she wants to.

[something_incredible]

"You dumped his ass?" Hopper echoes, looking over at Eleven with his eyebrows lifted. "Hell, kid, I didn't know you were dating his ass."

He guesses it makes sense. Mike had been pretty love struck over Eleven and Eleven hadn't really seen any other boys before Mike. He thinks she can do better, but that might just be the dad in him talking.

"Was he being a jerk?" he asks.

[eggos]

She thinks to Max, the way she'd angrily paced before her when El had told her everything, the way she'd nodded, so certainly, and said 'He's a piece of shit.' It'd startled her, but she'd stuck to her decision.

"Max said he treats me like garbage," she explains. "He lied. Friends don't lie." A little heated, now, she twists slightly to face Hopper. "He lied about Nana being sick! Why would he lie?"

[something_incredible]

Hopper is only vaguely aware of who Max is, remembering her from the house, the little red-haired girl with the skateboard. He likes the idea that she and Eleven had become friends. The boys were fine, but they were boys.

Boys are usually a pain in the ass.

"He lied about his... grandmother being sick?" he asks. "I... I dunno, kid. That's messed up." And something Hopper would have done back when he was a teenager to get rid of a girl. It pisses him off that Mike might have done that to his girl.

[eggos]

"Max said he's a piece of shit," she says, quieter now, but with a tone that suggests she's mad at Mike all over again. She crosses her arms, settling back in her seat and looking once more out the windshield. She's quiet for a moment, then she admits softly, "I miss him."

[something_incredible]

"Hey," Hopper says, although his mouth twitches slightly in amusement. "Language, come on."

He's quiet, too, letting Eleven work out her feelings before he speaks and he nods in response. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I miss some people from back home, too. Missed you the most."

[eggos]

She smiles over at him, a fondly stern look in her eyes, like she's telling him he doesn't have to say things like that anymore, because she's here, now. But she knows what he means. She'd only been away from him for a little while, when she'd first arrived, and she'd missed him fiercely. It feels good to know, to be reminded, that he'd missed her, too.

It takes her a long time to work up the courage to ask, but finally, she says, "Do you think... the others will come, too? Like I did?"

[something_incredible]

"Hell, I got no idea," he answers. "Steve's been here twice, but no one else except you."

And he admittedly doesn't want to let himself hope. It's harder now, with Eleven having come to Darrow, to convince himself he's meant to be alone here and the part of him still pining for Joyce wants to believe maybe he'll see her again. Here. Where they're away from all the shit of Hawkins.

But if he hopes for that and it never happens, he'll have to carry the weight of the disappointment.

[eggos]

"Twice?" she echoes, confused. "Two Steves?" She wonders what that would be like, and it calls to mind the thought she'd had when she'd first seen Hopper, here. If her Hopper, the one who was a little thicker, a little softer, and still much sadder, could be here at the same time as this Hopper — still hers, but still different.

[something_incredible]

"Not at the same time," he clarifies, pulling into the lot for the burger place he's been thinking of. "He was here, showed up like the rest of us, then he disappeared. Which happens sometimes."

Not as much to Hopper, because he keeps to himself generally, but he'd lost a partner at work and a girlfriend like that.

"Then he came back," he says. "But he didn't remember having been here before."

[eggos]

She waits dutifully until he's parked and turned the car off before unbuckling. She's still watching him, listening to his answer and frowning all the same.

"People leave and come back?" she asks. It isn't entirely out of the realm of her comprehension. Will had been in the Upside Down, and he'd come back. She had, too. She'd left, and come back. Thinking about it like that, the city suddenly sits a little less comfortably in her mind. "Is Darrow... bad?"

[something_incredible]

"It can be," Hopper answers. "But all places can be, kid. It's different here and bad stuff happens, people sometimes go just the same as they show up, but the same can be said of anywhere."

Because people die. Even the ones you think will be there forever.

"A place isn't good or bad. It's just a place. Just life."

[eggos]

She looks at him, perhaps a little like he's being stupid, and reminds, "The Upside Down is bad. Not just a place." She climbs out of the car and closes the door, but has a thoughtful frown when she steps around to walk with him. "But... bad stuff happens in Hawkins, too," she adds. "So... Darrow is just a place." She can accept that, she thinks, because if she's going to be in a place that isn't Hawkins, at least Hop is here with her.