(no subject)

[eggos]

There are newspapers spread out over the Will’s table, protecting the surface from the impending carnage above. There are carving tools — funny spoons with sharp, serrated edges, and little knives with different shapes on them, as well as the kitchen knives they’re allowed to use to open the pumpkins. They’d bought ones specific for carving, alongside the one Will had bought because he’d liked it, and El had bought some smaller ones to paint, as well, in case carving had ended up being something neither of them enjoyed.

All of their supplies were in easy reach, and Eleven grimaces in disgust as she uses one of the funny spoons to scoop out the innards, seeds and slimy string flopping grossly onto the newspaper beside her pumpkin.

“Do people like this part?” she asks, hoping the answer is ‘no.’

El is glad they’re doing this, even if this part is gross. It’s been a strange month — a strange few months, if she’s honest — and she wants to feel settled and normal as often as she can manage it. Being with Will like this, it helps. And she hopes it helps him, too.

Comments

[zombie_boy]

His own nose wrinkling with disgust, Will said, "I don't know. Probably someone does."

People were weird, sometimes in ways that it was better not to think about.

Slapping another wet glob of innards onto the table, Will laughed. "The carving part is more fun," he promised, his arm starting to ache from digging deeper into the pumpkin, trying to even out the insides.

[eggos]

"Okay," she says, slopping another scoop onto the newspaper. Her pumpkin is nearly emptied, at least, but she doesn't know how to clean the walls of it the way Will seems to be doing. She stretches up onto her toes to try to peer into his pumpkin.

"How far do I scrape?" she asks, lifting her eyes to his face. He still looks so tired. Her eyebrows tip up in concern, her question immediately forgotten. "You are still having weird dreams?" she asks.

[zombie_boy]

"Um, you just want to even out the sides. It's easier to cut that way," Will explained. They weren't going to do anything elaborate, so he didn't have to worry about cutting down the sides enough that the light would show through.

At El's question, Will froze, a frown creasing his brow. "Yeah. Not every night, just. Yeah."

[eggos]

El nods, frowning a little. "Is he... still trying to tell you things?" That's what Will had said: that the Mike in his dreams was trying to tell him something. She wonders, briefly, if she could go into Will's dream the way she went into her mother's mind, deep into memories that she couldn't find words for. Maybe, she thinks, she could do the same for Will, and help him make sense of what his dreams are trying to say. Maybe it will help him sleep better.

[zombie_boy]

"Yeah, I guess. It's just a feeling," Will said with a shrug. His hand slipped and he hissed as his scoop jabbed a little too deeply into the flesh of his pumpkin.

Sighing, he plopped the last bit of pumpkin goop onto the table and set the scoop aside.

"Maybe I'm just reading too much into it."

[eggos]

"We both miss him," she says, setting her own scoop down. She watches him, even though she should be looking into her pumpkin to make sure it's cleaned properly. "Maybe you are dreaming about him because you miss him." El's dreams are mostly fragments of memories, usually dark, scary things. She wouldn't mind having a dream about Mike, she thinks, even if she didn't understand it.

[zombie_boy]

"I don't think they're that kind of dream," Will said, his cheeks darkening to a splotchy pink.

"It's like... It's almost like it's not Mike. It just looks like Mike?" He winced. "Which sounds really creepy, now that I've said it out loud."

[eggos]

She frowns. "Someone is pretending to be Mike?" she echoes. He's right: that sounds very creepy. She thinks Will would know if it was something from Hawkins, if it was Henry, and she trusts he would tell her if that was the case. Still, she asks, "Is it the Mind Flayer?"

[zombie_boy]

"No. This doesn't feel like him," Will said, shaking his head. "I don't know. It doesn't feel... dangerous, exactly. More like I've forgotten something. Or that I'm not seeing something that's right in front of me."

Picking up one of the carving knives, Will said, "I'd tell you if I thought it was something we needed to worry about."

[eggos]

She nods, because she believes him. "So it is a Darrow thing," she reasons, and presses her lips into a thin line. "I hate Darrow things." That's not entirely true: Some of them are good, and she's happy that they exist, even if she doesn't always understand them. But the ones that change how her powers work, the ones that stop her from being able to help her friends or the people around her, those are the ones she hates.