(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! ]

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[eggos]

The paper cup is warm against her hands, and she cups it and breathes in the smell of it. It makes her shoulders lower, relaxing by degrees. She looks at her phone and sighs, but takes a sip of her hot chocolate before answering.

"It's so small," she says, as if that's her biggest gripe about it right now. Then she sighs. "There are too many numbers to remember."

[hey_dingus]

Robin laughs her understanding. "I saw the mayor use his cell phone once, back in Hawkins. I swear it was as long as my arm," she says, tapping her forearm from wrist to elbow. "Steve told me that little thing was a phone and I was convinced he was bullshi–uh. Lying to me." Her smile goes embarrassed. Eleven strikes her as not being an ordinary kid but Robin's still pretty certain she's not supposed to cuss in front of her.

"Anyway, that's one nice thing. This thing will save the numbers for you."

[eggos]

Eleven is a little surprised when Robin corrects herself. None of her friends ever did, and she wonders if this is an adult thing. But then Robin says her phone will remember the numbers for her, and she frowns.

"It will?" she asks. How come nobody had told her that?

[hey_dingus]

"Oh, yeah, it's awesome!" Robin says. She takes a seat and pulls her phone out of her pocket, opening up the home screen. "See how this little button looks like an address book? Like what we'd actually have?" Robin hits that button and brings up her list of contacts. Steve and Hopper are at the top of her list, marked by stars that indicate they're in her favorite contacts, right next to Rue. Her name is in there with a heart and Robin briefly contemplates feeling embarrassed.

[eggos]

If Eleven notices the heart, she doesn't say anything. She notices Hopper's name, and Steve's, though, and she looks at her phone screen. She taps the address book on her screen, but it brings up a blank screen with an alphabet across the top, tiny, to fit all of the letters across it. In the top corner is a plus symbol, but she frowns up at Robin.

"How do I do that?" she asks, pointing at her screen instead of her own.

[hey_dingus]

"That one there," Robin said. "It's a plus sign. So it's, like, addition or adding a new number or whatever." She's a little surprised Hopper hadn't already programmed his in but Robin suspects that he may not actually enjoy technology as much as she and Steve do.

"Pretty much whenever you see that in any of the apps. Um. Apps are...applications. It means whatever opens up when you press the button. But, yeah, whenever you see that symbol, it means adding something new."

[eggos]

Eleven stops playing with her phone to instead pay attention to what Robin is saying. She talks a lot, and it isn't a bad thing: it just means that Eleven has to pay more attention, so she hears it all.

"Apps," she echoes, before looking at the plus sign again. "Can I have your number?" she asks then, tapping the plus sign.

[hey_dingus]

Her cheeks don't quite heat up but Robin is well-acquainted with the feeling of someone watching her, trying to keep up. It makes her flash an embarrassed smile as she tries to take a deep breath. "I've been told I talk a lot," she admits. "Too much."

Robin opens her own contacts and pulls up her number to show Eleven. "Do you want to type it in or do you want me to do it?"

[eggos]

Eleven decides she wants to type it in, herself. The plus sign opens a card with different input lines down the length of it. The keyboard pops up at the bottom, and there's a blinking cursor where it says 'Name.' It takes her a moment to locate each letter of Robin's name, but she painstakingly types it in with a single finger. She lets Robin guide her through punching the number in (which involves tapping on the input line that says 'Phone.' It changes the keyboard from letters to numbers, and this takes even longer to tap out.

But eventually, she's done, and she feels a little more confident in her ability to do this in the future.

"How do I give you my number?" she asks.

[hey_dingus]

It's a teeny thing and probably anyone could have helped her but this time, it's Robin who's doing the helping. "Perfect," she says, trying to sound encouraging and not patronizing, a difficult challenge for someone whose first language is sarcasm.

"There's a couple of ways. I could copy your phone number like you just did. Or you could call my phone or send it a message," she says. "Honestly, text messaging is my favorite part."

[eggos]

"Text messaging?" Eleven echoes, frowning. "How do I do that?" She likes learning new things, especially when they'll help her in the long run. She wants to learn this, too, and maybe then she can ask Robin — or anyone else whose number she has, it seems — questions when she needs help.

[hey_dingus]

"It's another app on your phone," Robin says, hitting the home button on her own phone to show Eleven the button with the speech bubble before tapping on it. Her text messages are almost a duplicate of her main contacts, headlined by Steve, Rue, and Hopper. Maeve's name is up there too.

"It's like passing notes without all the paper. Which is totally great. I like it more than talking sometimes."