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Feb. 8th, 2021 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggosMonday, 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! ]
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! ]
no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 04:15 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2021-04-02 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-03 05:37 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2021-04-03 08:47 pm (UTC)"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?"
no subject
Date: 2021-04-04 07:50 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2021-04-05 12:24 pm (UTC)