golden - eleven hopper

viii. Dead or Alive?

( Stranger Things, Season One ) 

Holly Jolly

Chapter eight: Dead or Alive?

"It's Will... It's really Will..."

Trigger warning: mentions of a dead body

Eva's ballet class had been cancelled that day. Under any normal circumstances it would have disappointed her but she knew the entire time she would've just been concerned about not being with El. Thinking about how she was doing; how she was feeling. They had picked her up from home and sat her on the back of Eva's bike, riding to Mirkwood in the hopes of finding their missing friends. She wasn't exactly sure on how this was going to work but Mike seemed to think he knew how this would work.

Walking in the woods beside Eleven was quiet. She didn't talk, as established and Eva didn't have much to say really. She had attempted awkward small talk but El didn't really know what she was talking about. English literature and volleyball was a subject bore. Eva began to quietly repeat the tongue twister her mom made up.

"He thrusts his fist against the p-p-post... he thrusts his fists against the p-p-post! Shit."

"What's that?" Eleven asked softly, staring at Eva who had been saying each of her words in time of her pace.

"What's wh-what?" Eva replied, as if El would've been asking about anything other than the poem she was repeating. Truthfully, she didn't think she was listening.

"What you're saying," Eleven explained. She never heard someone say something which didn't make literal sense before. Poetry was subjective and she came from a lab of objectivity. 

"Oh, it's this th-this thing my m-mom made up to help my s-s-stutter. . ." Eva confessed, which triggered a few thoughts, "I d-don't know why it h-helps."

"Stutter?"

"Yeah, s-so you know h-how i talk differently?" 

"Yeah,"

"It's s-supposed to help s-s-stop it," Eva finalised, smiling a little.

"Why?" Eleven's eyebrows furrowed, not sure what Eva was getting at really.

"B-B-Beacause it's not a good th-thing really..." Eva replied a little sadly. Truthfully Eva felt more stress trying to suppress her stutter on command rather than just having it in the first place, she hated having to have an hour of speech therapy in school instead of an hour in class. But she also hated the looks from people, "m-m-makes me weird."

"Weird... Like Lucas said?" Eleven asked, referring to the other night where Lucas called her a weirdo. 

"No! You're n-n-not weird, E-El," Eva quickly answered back, not wanting her to have any affect from Lucas' nasty words at her.