(no subject)

[eggos]

School has started back up, and Eleven feels strange, with all of her new memories bumping into the old ones in her mind. Angela is a bruise in her thoughts, and every girl with blonde hair and bangs is her until El sees their faces or hears their voices. She's grumpy for her first week, frowning down at the floors as she walks and only speaking when spoken to directly. It isn't normal for her, but it's what she does.

She feels off balance. She feels angry. She feels afraid. She wants to find her way back to Hawkins and kill Henry for what he did to Max and her home. But she knows as well as anyone that she can't leave this place, so she has to just live with knowing that Hawkins is burning and the rest of her friends are in danger.

How have Will and Hop and Joyce managed this? Will has known the entire time. Joyce, she thinks, has too, and Hop remembered it the same way El has. How have they been able to know these things, and not try to break down Darrow's invisible barriers? How is she supposed to? She has to. She has no choice. But how is she supposed to?

She sighs, unable to focus on the homework laid out in front of her. She needs a break, and to get out of her own head. Which means no Looking, no Void, and no Hawkins. It stings to think about ignoring everything like that, but maybe just taking a break from thinking about it will help her be able to do the things she’s still supposed to be doing. She isn’t sure what else to do. So she takes a deep breath and grabs a light jacket, her phone, and her house key, pats Dustin the cat on the way out, and heads out to look for somewhere to get ice cream.

She finds a place called Cone of Truth a few blocks from her house. It definitely wasn’t in that building before; she knows that with certainty only because she’s walked by this place several times in the two years she’s been in Darrow. She stands outside, right in the middle of the sidewalk, looking up at the sign and the window, frowning with equal parts concern and curiosity when she reads ‘the ice cream chooses you!’ under the name.

Comments

[sallyfuckingride]

I raise the handful of napkins in thanks. A nearby store window serves as my mirror. Once I'm decent enough, I shake the filthy napkins from my hand into a nearby trash can.

"This is fuckin' amazing," I tell my new friend. My next interaction with the ice cream is much less painful. I actually feel... warm. Safe.

It's weird. And speaking of weird...

"What is the deal with that place?"

[eggos]

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "Usually, you tell them what you want first, and then they put it together for you," she explains. "I have never gotten ice cream this way before." She looks at the strawberry cone in her hand, thoughtful and a little sad before she looks at Ellie and smiles. "I think I will come here again."

[sallyfuckingride]

I nod. A fair answer. "Everything about this place is fuckin' weird." I declare, mouth half-full of what I assume is vanilla -- which is also fucking amazing. Then, I inspect my company.

She's quiet. Like, she doesn't say a whole lot. Her voice is also quiet. If I hadn't heard her promise to kill a man, I might not have expected it. She seems so... normal. Comfortable. Like she's safe. I guess I am, too.

"This is good shit," I agree, "but wouldn't you rather pick your own?" I don't like my choices to be made for me.

[eggos]

"There are other places that do that," she assures Ellie. "And, you can buy boxes of ice cream to keep in your home." It feels important to add that, in case she thinks she can only get ice cream from places like this. "But you can't scoop it with a spoon. You have to buy a special spoon that is very thick and strong." She'd had to fix a few spoons, learning from that mistake.

Something else occurs to her, then, and her eyes widen. "Have you had root beer?" she asks, enunciating the two words separately instead of squishing them together the way many people do. "It is delicious by itself, but I also like to have it with a scoop of ice cream inside. It is called a root beer float. It is one of my favorites." It still doesn't stand up to her and Hop's Eggo Extravaganza, but she worries Ellie can handle only so much dessert news at once.

[sallyfuckingride]

El talks weird, like maybe English isn't her first language. She also doesn't seem to know what a store is. I may have grown up trapped in military school post-pandemic but I know where people could get ice cream in the before times.

I smile quietly - almost politely. As much as I like talking about all of the sugar I will doubtlessly ingest, there's something else on my mind -- something El said before I knew her name.

"So, did you kill that guy?"

I'm not great at transitions.

[eggos]

The question is abrupt and to the point, and El blinks in surprise at how blunt it is. But she isn't offended. If anything, she thinks she understands and can appreciate why Ellie had asked at all. Sometimes, the question comes, and you have to know, even if it will make you feel stupid, or make someone else feel strange.

It does, however, make her feel a little sad. She looks away guiltily, and shakes her head.

"No. He is... out of reach."

[sallyfuckingride]

No one else I've met here speaks this casually about revenge and killing. Even Joel will couch it in euphemisms and conspicuous silence. I keep a low enough profile (I still wear long sleeves to keep people from asking questions, even though it doesn't matter here). The information I share is always vague, just about me, never Joel or the world we come from. I walk an invisible line, its milestones ever-changing. I want to relate to these people and I can't.

El, at least, gives me a place to start.

"What does that mean?" I work on it a second and take an educated guess. "He's from before." A vendetta older than her time in Darrow. Badass.

[eggos]

"He's from before," she echoes, nodding. She licks her ice cream, catching sight of her tattoo under her mess of bracelets. She remembers the day Henry had shown her his tattoo. In a flash, he'd gone from the kindly orderly who had been gently guiding her into finding her power, and become the fabled One.

He isn't just from before Darrow. He's from before she'd known what Hawkins even was.

"I Look for him," she adds. "Every day. If he ever comes to Darrow, I'll know. And then I will kill him." She says it with conviction, brow furrowing as she looks at Ellie.