Chapter Text
El’s stomach twisted inside her as the Blazer pulled up to the curb. The grounds of Hawkins High were swarming with more people than she’d ever seen together in one place in her life--and they were all her age, which was even more unprecedented. She’d seen teenagers in some of the movies Hopper had rented for them to watch over the last few years, of course… not that that helped with the anxiety. If anything, it made it worse.
“El?” Hopper asked softly from the driver’s seat. He was watching her with fatherly concern written all over his face, and El offered the best smile she could muster in return.
“It’s fine, dad,” she said. “This is just… new.”
He nodded. “Well, that’s sort of the point,” he said. “It’s going to have to happen sometime, unless you want to spend the rest of your life holed up in the cabin.” He reached across the seat and took her hand in his, grip gentle and warm. “That said, if anything happens… no, if you need me for anything at all, just call me. I’ll drop everything and come running.”
“Dad!” El protested with a laugh, but his words were helping her stomach untwist itself.
“I’m serious, missy,” Hopper said with a grin. “I promise. And you know how we feel about promises.”
“A promise is something you can’t break,” El intoned with a solemnity that was ruined by her dissolving into another peal of laughter. She leaned over and put her arms around Hopper’s neck. “I’ll be okay, dad. Don’t worry about me.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Hopper said as she pulled away from the hug. “All right. Off with you.” He offered her a small wave as she popped open the passenger side door and slid out to the ground, and then the Blazer pulled away from the curb and he was gone, driving up the road.
Alone now in the scramble of students, El was hit by a fresh wave of anxiety. It was even more disorenting being on the ground, in the middle of all of them. She looked around, trying to discern from the movements of the people around her if there was somewhere that she should be going.
So many, the other thing whispered, stirring softly in the mindspace that they shared. Small things. Soft things.
Quiet, you, El responded firmly. She spotted a doorway a distance away that a number of people seemed to be flowing into, and headed for it with a determined stride.
I do not understand why we are here, the other thing persisted as she walked. I do not understand why your father-thing had us come to this ‘skool’. What is the purpose?
The purpose is to learn, El said irritably. She reached the door and, after a moment’s hesitation to figure out how to work her way into the flow of ingoing students, walked into the school building.
Learn by hunting, the other thing said. See your prey. Study it. Learn its movements, learn its taste. Will we hunt here?
No, El snapped at it. We’re here to learn normal people things, not freaky other-dimensional monster things. Now will you just be quiet?
Pointless, the other thing said, but she felt it subside and breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to be nerve-wracking enough without it chattering its bizarre alien thoughts at her all day. Then again, there was an element of comfort to it--the other thing had been her only company outside of Hopper for those four years spent hidden in the cabin, and it was a bit relaxing to have a piece of the life she was used to that wouldn’t be taken from her.
That, by all indications, couldn’t be taken from her.
- - -
The interior of Hawkins High had been much as El had expected based on what she’d seen in the movies--sparse and functional in a way that reminded her uncomfortably of the lab, but worn and lived-in in a way that the lab would never be allowed to be, which took the edge off of the discomfort. The disorientation from the number of people around El, on the other hand, had only gotten worse as the enclosed space pressed them in closer to her. For a few breathless minutes she’d been certain that she’d gotten hopelessly lost, but fortunately a helpful teacher with a kind voice had stepped in to help and, with a glance at the schedule El had been carrying folded in her breast pocket, directed her to the classroom she needed to be in for homeroom.
Now El was sitting at a desk that she’d picked more or less at random from the ones that had been available when she walked in, fidgeting and glancing nervously around at the other students. They were grouped together in clusters, all chattering to each other about things like what their summer vacations had been like and which classes they had signed up for. Nobody was talking to her, or even sitting near her. Was it just because nobody knew her? Or did she look… weird, somehow? She’d noticed that she was dressed differently from the other girls in the school--wearing one of Hopper’s too-large old flannel shirts over a plain t-shirt and slacks. The other girls’ clothes were fancier than hers, prettier. Should she have made Hopper get prettier clothes?
Her train of thought came to a halt as movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Somebody was sitting down at the desk to her left. El turned to get a better look at her new neighbor and found herself gawking at him. The boy settling into the seat was tall , maybe even as tall as Hopper, but with nothing like Hopper’s bulk--he was long and lanky in a way that she’d only seen in movies before. Seeing it in real life was completely different.
Then his head turned and their gazes locked. Dark eyes blinked at her in surprise from beneath a fringe of dark hair, and El felt her stomach twist again. Hopper had taught her that it was rude to stare at people, and yet she’d gone and done it within minutes of getting to her first class. This boy was the first person who’d even come near her, and she’d probably already offended him--
But then he smiled at her, and she felt the fear fall away. “Hi,” he said, his voice soft and friendly.
El found herself smiling back at him. “Hi,” she said.
“I’m Mike. Mike Wheeler.” He held one hand out towards her.
Handshake. Yes. El knew this one. She grasped his hand in her own and pumped it up and down, firmly, twice. Mike’s eyebrows raised, but the smile stayed on his face so she figured that she’d done all right. “I’m--” El froze as her mind raced. Which of her names should she give to him? “Jane,” she said, coming to a decision. Then, immediately changing her mind, she added, “Or El.”
Mike laughed. “Okay. Nice to meet you, Jane-Or-El.”
El felt her face grow hot. “Jane’s my, um…” What was the term Hopper had used? “...legal name. But you can call me El. That’s what my dad--that’s what everyone calls me.” She didn’t bother to clarify that ‘my dad’ and ‘everyone’ were basically the same thing in her world.
“El,” Mike said thoughtfully, as though testing to see how the name felt in his mouth. El found herself irrationally hoping that he liked it. “Is that short for… what, Eleanor? Like, your middle name?”
“Um.” It was definitely going to be easier to let him assume that than to try and explain the truth. “Yes.”
“Cool,” Mike said, giving her another small smile. “Are you new here, then?”
El shrank into herself a little bit. “Is it that obvious?” she asked shyly.
“Oh, no--I mean--just because I haven’t seen you around before!” Mike said, suddenly getting flustered for some reason. “It’s fine--you’re fine--I mean, did you just move here, or?” He squeezed his eyes shut as though he couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of his mouth, though El couldn’t see why. It seemed like a perfectly normal question to her.
“Yeah,” she said. “I lived with my mom in Bloomington, but I came here to live with my dad in June.” She was on firmer ground now; Hopper had made her practice the story over and over until she could recite it without thinking. “I was having a hard time at my old school, and my dad hopes that being in a new environment will help.”
Mike’s expression twisted in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That sounds rough.”
“It was,” El said. “Yeah.” Memories flickered unbidden over the surface of her mind: corpses strewn on the floor, blood splashed on the walls, her hands--she pushed them away, screwing her eyes closed and taking a deep breath to recenter herself the way Hopper had taught her. Mike frowned at her, concerned, but before he could say anything, the classroom filled with the shrill tone of the bell ringing, making El jump slightly. Mike gave her one last smile, and the two of them turned to face the teacher, who had stood up at the front of the classroom.
“Greetings, students, and welcome to another exciting year of learning,” the teacher said in a completely flat tone. “My name is Mr. Burton, and it is my privilege to guide you as you unfurl your sails and set off on a voyage of discovery…”
Interesting, the other thing whispered as Mr. Burton continued to talk. Its attention was focused on Mike--El could feel it, in the way that she so often could with the other thing.
Leave it, she snapped, trying to focus on what Mr. Burton was saying.
You have not met it before? the other thing continued, undeterred. No, I did not feel any recognition. And it has not met you before. And yet… such an intriguing soft thing.
His name is Mike, said El, still struggling to focus.
Such an intriguing Mike-thing, the other thing amended. It paused for a moment, then added, It looks stringy.
“ Shut up, ” El said. It wasn’t until Mike glanced over at her in confusion that she realized that she’d muttered the words out loud. “Oh, uh… I…” she whispered, flushing. “I… um… I have a song stuck in my head…?”
To her relief, Mike smiled. “I hate that,” he whispered back, before turning his attention back to Mr. Burton.
All right, that is enough from you, El said to the other thing. I have to focus and pay attention here, so do not ruin this for me.
She felt a pulse from it, a wave of indifferent acknowledgement, and it settled back into dormancy. Sighing, she refocused herself back onto Mr. Burton, who was still talking in a monotone about the exciting opportunities that awaited them this year.
- - -
Morning classes passed in a whirl of papers, lectures, and notes for El. It wasn’t as if the concept of studying was completely foreign to her. After all, she wouldn’t have been here to begin with if Hopper hadn’t buckled down and gotten her through enough homeschooling courses to test into the school. Any hopes that the two experiences were comparable were quickly dashed, however; learning from Hopper’s patient, if insistent, one-on-one tutoring was completely different than learning when she was one of a few dozen students being talked at by the teacher, and El was starting to feel distinctly out of her depth.
At length, though, the bell rang to signal the end of her final morning class, and she found herself faced with an entirely different sort of challenge: lunchtime.
Clutching a tray, which carried a spread of food that reminded her vaguely of the microwaved dinners Hopper used to make for them before he taught himself how to cook, El surveyed the cafeteria with unease. It echoed with the vague din of countless conversations, students sitting together at tables in distinct groups that El could perceive even if she didn’t understand the logic behind them, like all of her classrooms from that morning thrown together into one large, chaotic space. She knew--from the movies, again--that at lunch you were supposed to sit and talk with your friends. The problem was, she didn’t seem to have any friends.
In fact, only one student in the entire school had bothered talking to her all morning.
Mike was sitting at a smaller table, tucked away in a corner. Somewhat selfishly, El had hoped that he would be alone too, so that they could be alone together, but that wasn’t the case: he was surrounded by a group of friends who were happily chatting and laughing with him. El faltered as she approached. She didn’t recognize any of the other people at the table--if any of them had been in her morning classes, she hadn’t noticed them. Mike, she felt sure, would accept her sitting at the table, but would they?
Before her second-guessing could lead to retreat, though, Mike caught sight of her, his expression shifting to surprise. “El, hi!” he said, making the other heads at the table swivel in her direction as well.
“Hi,” El said, trying not to show how much she was quailing under the gazes of multiple strangers. “Can I… I mean, is it okay with you if…?”
The question died in her throat, but Mike seemed to understand regardless. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, of course. You wouldn’t know anyone here, would you? Guys, c’mon.” At his instruction, the others at the table shifted their chairs around, and an empty chair was produced and slid into place next to Mike, between him and a boy with a mop of curly brown hair. El sat, timidly at first, but relaxing as Mike gave her a broad, welcoming smile. “Have you met any of the others?” he asked. She shook her head. “Okay. This is Lucas--” A black boy sitting to Mike’s other side nodded slightly at her “--and that next to him is Max.” A girl with bright red hair waved casually. “They’re dating, and it’s, like, super gross.”
“You’re real mature, Wheeler,” replied Max, raising her middle finger in what El recognized as an obscene gesture.
“He’s just jealous,” Lucas said with a sly smile. “Can’t stand the heat of our love for each other.”
“Oooh, baby,” Max cooed at him. “Put your tongue in my mouth right now .”
“Okay, okay, jesus, don’t freak her out!” Mike said as the two began to lean towards each other, tongues wagging grotesquely. He quickly redirected El’s attention to her other side. “Right, so this here is Dustin. He’s weird, but we like him anyway.”
“We’re all weird, I’m just the only one who’s proud of it.” The boy with the curly hair--Dustin--offered his hand to El, who took it and gave it two firm shakes, as she had with Mike that morning.
“...and that over on Dustin’s other side is Will,” Mike finished. Will was skinny, though in a way that made him look small and delicate in contrast to Mike’s solid lankiness. He gave El a shy smile that she could identify all too well with, and she smiled at him in return.
“So your name was El?” Max had stopped whatever it was she had been doing with Lucas, and was now looking directly at her. “Are you new here, then?”
“Uh… yeah,” said El, picking up a piece of food from her tray and fidgeting with it. “I moved here from Bloomington this summer.”
“Wow,” said Max, raising her eyebrows. “That must be quite a change for you.”
“Yeah.” El grimaced. “It’s… kinda overwhelming, to be honest.”
“Wouldn’t moving to a small town from the city be less overwhelming?” Lucas asked, frowning.
El panicked for a moment--was that true? Had she slipped up?--but before she could say anything, Max socked Lucas on the arm. “ Obviously moving to a new town and school is going to be overwhelming, Lucas,” she said.
“Ow!” Lucas protested. “Look, I’m just saying--”
Max rolled her eyes. “You’re being an idiot, is what you’re doing. Why are we dating?”
“So El,” Dustin’s voice came from her other side, and she turned her attention to him. “What kind of things do you like? What do you do for fun?”
“Um…” El tried to think of an answer that didn’t involve the other thing, or hiding in a cabin for four years. “I… like movies?”
“Oh, yeah?” Dustin leaned forward eagerly. “What kind of movies?”
“I don’t know… all kinds. My dad just rents me stuff he thinks I’ll like, and I think they’re all kind of interesting.” She needed to redirect this conversation before it slipped out that those movies had been her only glimpse of the outside world before today. “Um… do you all like to watch movies too?”
“Well, yeah, of course,” Mike said. “We like Star Wars, Marvel, all of the obvious stuff… er, you’ve seen those, right?”
El nodded. “I really like Star Wars.”
Mike grinned at her, looking weirdly… relieved, for some reason. “Yeah, they’re good, aren’t they? Mind you, I don’t know about the new ones…”
“Are you kidding?” Lucas cut in. “The new ones are great! Like the old ones are classics, can’t deny that, but the new ones take the story in a whole new direction.”
“I mean, they’re okay ,” Mike said, looking exasperated. “But--”
“Rey kicks ass,” Max put in. “Full stop, end of story.”
“I liked the new Godzilla movie,” Will said, speaking up for the first time. Everyone turned to look at him. “Did you see that one, El?”
El frowned. “I’ve seen… a few of those. Which one are you talking about?”
“The one with all the different monsters, and they’ve got that device that can kinda control them, and the young girl… she actually kinda looks like you, come to think of it. It just came out this year. Did you catch it in the theater?”
“I don’t ever see movies in theaters.” Redirect, redirect! “What, um, what do you do besides watching movies?”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. Hang out, go to the arcade sometimes… there’s not really a lot to do around here, to be honest. We fill the time however we can…” He trailed off, sheepish.
“Whoa, okay, there’s one major thing you’re not mentioning, Mike,” Dustin said. He puffed up with excitement, beaming at El. “Our heroic adventures!”
“Oh my god, Dustin,” Mike groaned.
“...adventures?” asked El.
“Yeah!” said Dustin. “You know, vanquishing villains, protecting the innocent, proving our valor in battle and seeking glory and riches!”
El stared blankly at him. What he was describing sounded like the plot of a movie or a book, but Hopper had told her that those were mostly made up, that they didn’t happen in real life. Was he wrong? Had he lied to her?
“He’s talking about Dungeons and Dragons,” Mike sighed beside her.
“Dungeons and… Dragons?” she asked.
He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s just… it’s a nerd thing.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s a role-playing game,” explained Lucas. “Fantasy.”
“Role-playing…? Fantasy…?”
“Um,” said Will. “Like… swords and sorcery.”
“Yeah,” added Dustin. “And elves, and dwarves, and orcs…”
That clicked. “Oh!” cried El. “You mean… it’s like Lord of the Rings?” Hopper had brought those movies home from the rental store once, and they’d spent an entire weekend watching them. El had adored them--Hopper had caught her more than once using a stick to reenact the big fight scenes.
“Yeah!” said Dustin. “Yeah, it’s a lot like Lord of the Rings, except it’s a game.”
“What kind of game?” El asked, looking at Mike.
“Um,” Mike began. He was smiling, but it was bashful, like he was embarrassed to talk about it. El couldn’t imagine why--anything that was like Lord of the Rings had to be amazing. “Well, it’s like… you’re telling a story, except that each person plays a role in that story, like their own character. And then you have one person, they’re the Dungeon Master, and they tell you what you’re up against, and then you roll dice and stuff to figure out what happens, and act it out. So it’s kind of like being in the story of Lord of the Rings yourself.”
El gazed at him in undisguised awe. “That sounds amazing,” she said dreamily.
“Do… do you want to play?” he asked, all but blurting the words out. “We have a regular game on Thursday nights…”
Excitement shot through El’s body at the idea, prompting a brief quizzical response from the other thing. “Oh, yes! Yes!” she squealed, bouncing slightly in her seat. Her mood slipped, though, as she noticed the looks that everyone else at the table was giving Mike.
“Really, Mike?” asked Lucas, clearly annoyed. “You’re gonna pull her into our campaign, just like that?”
“What?” Mike said. “You’re DMing, so with her that makes a party of five. That’s still manageable.”
“Manageable, yeah,” grumbled Lucas. “I’ll have to rebalance all of my encounters, but never mind that, I guess…”
“Aw, come on, Lucas,” Max said, leaning in and attaching herself to his arm. “You saw how excited she was just now, right? Mike’s right, we should give her a chance to play.”
El stared down at the table. “I mean, if it’s going to be too much trouble…”
“No!” Mike said. “No, it’s not too much trouble. Right, guys?” He looked around the table significantly.
“Right,” agreed Will, grinning at El.
“Always happy to have another addition to the party,” said Dustin.
“Well? What do you say, Lucas?” Max asked in a sweet voice, snuggling into his shoulder.
“Fine,” Lucas groaned. “Fine, I’ll figure it out. But you’re playing dirty, Mayfield.”
“Love you too,” Max replied, kissing his cheek.
With that decided, the conversation turned to other topics, but El was only half listening as she picked at her food. A soaring feeling of elation was filling her chest. She was excited to play this game they had talked about, sure, but there was something more than that, something fundamental that warmed her from the inside out.
Had she just made friends?