𝒊 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚

𝟎𝟑. 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒

Dottie sat on the couch reading her book while Hopper was making breakfast and Eleven was fast asleep in her and Dottie's room.

"Oh Jesus!" Dottie jumped as she heard her father's voice, startled. She got on her knees on the couch to look to the kitchen where Hopper stood, spatula in hand, looking down at El standing there with a sheet thrown over her.

"Ghost." El stated and Dottie stifled a laugh. 

"Yeah, I see that." Hopper mumbled.

"Halloween." El said.

"Sure is." Hopper said grabbing the pan with toast off of the stovetop and began scooping it out with a spatula and placing it on a plate at their small dining room table. Dottie turns back around to hop off the couch and take her seat at the table.

"Right now though, it's breakfast. Sit down, let's eat." Hopper said to El. Dottie began digging into her food but El continued to stand in her ghost costume.

"They wouldn't see me." Dottie assumed El was referring to her friends. She had been telling Dottie for days now that she missed them and wanted to see them. But Dottie stuck to her father's rules and reiterated that she couldn't for her own safety and their's.

"Who wouldn't see you?" Hopper asked.

"The bad men." Dottie stopped eating as she looked at her sister. The bad men were what El referred to Brenner and the other scientists and agents who wanted Eleven, for her powers, for experiments and other horrid things.

"What are you talking about?" Hopper says while joining Dottie at the table.

"Trick or treat." Dottie smiles at her sister as she listens to her try and convince Hopper to let her go. Dottie knows that El just wants to be a kid, like Dottie and their friends.

"You wanna go trick or treating?" Hopper asks El then turns to Dottie, "She wants to go trick or treating?" Dottie just shrugs while shoving another piece of toast into her mouth. She may or may not have talked to El about Halloween and how you get to be anyone for just that one night and sometimes nobody even knows who you are, under the mask. Hopper stands up,

"You know the rules." Hopper states to El.

"Yes, but-" El objects.

"Yeah, so you know the answer." Hopper begins grabbing El to take her back to her room, probably to get rid of the costume and this ridiculous idea.

"But they wouldn't see me!" El continues to argue.

"I could keep an eye on her from afar." Dottie chimes in.

"It doesn't matter." He says to El's comment. "It doesn't. matter." He says to Dottie's comment. "If you go out there, costume or no costume, it is risking everything we have done." He says to El, both hands on her arms making sure she's paying attention. He then looks down at Dottie who is still sitting at the table. "It puts her at risk." He says referring to El. "And we don't take risks. Because they're stupid and..." He looks between the girls.

"We're not stupid." Dottie and El say in unison.

"Exactly." Hopper finalized, putting the argument to rest. "Now take that off and sit down to eat. Your food is getting cold." El removes the costume, shedding it onto the floor, and takes her seat, anger written all over her face. Dottie looks between her father and El and then looks down at her food, trying to avoid the confrontation. Awkward silence filled the room. Until, Hopper spoke up,

"All right, how about this? I'll come home early and I'll get us a bunch of candy." Hopper offered to El and Dottie chimed in with her own sweetening of the deal,

"I can stay home too. We can watch a scary movie or something." But El's eyebrows furrowed at Dottie's words.

"No. Dottie should be happy. With friends." El rebuttals. Dottie stifles a laugh at El's broken language that made her seem so much younger despite the girls being the same age. "Dottie goes."