savingthrows | Inbox for ximilia

I'm lying down.

[ She is, actually. On her bed, head dangling off the edge, feet up against the wall Bucky and her painted bright months ago to make it look less like a sterile room. There are some splotches where they painted over the rainbows he'd put in there - not knowing the connotation wasn't a good one at all.

Now, she likes her room. ]

Everyone seems sad.

I'm not sick.

[ At least she hopes so. She's probably not sick. Hopefully... Eleven doesn't want to go to the doctors. They're nice for doctors but... she doesn't like the medbay. ]

But you're cool. I thought cool kids don't have sleepovers with... people who don't fit.

There are worse positions to be in.

[Natasha doesn't correct Eleven, or explain that she hadn't meant the question literally.

The next comment tells her everything she needs to know anyway.]

A lot of people didn't have a great time on the last mission. It'll take a while for them to get over it.

[It's 2 in the morning, or whatever equivalent the station has — the time most people try to get some shut-eye, anyway. Newt had been someone in that very same situation himself, pleasantly dreaming of home and friends he hasn't seen in years, just before the skies turned dark and his nose had began to gush blood —

Only he had woken up to no blood. No dark skies, no chittering precursor voices. But it's enough to startle him to his feet and out the door; he forgets his glasses as he goes — not for the first time — and ends up pacing the halls and chewing his thumbnail like a paranoid freak.

It's where he very nearly runs right into Eleven, and he looks at her blurry outline anxiously.]

What're you doing up right now, kid? You should be getting some sleep...!

[He says it fast and breathlessly, maybe even with exasperated irritation, like someone who is just trying to get her out of there so he can self-destruct in peace. But there's no peace to be had, and as he paces even still, he rubs his own arms and tries to settle the choking fear of a million beady black eyes on him.]

[ Eleven kicks her legs a little, contemplating Natasha's words. Decides maybe she will ask Bucky too. Find a way to cheer him up. ]

I don't understand why everyone was angry.

[ Politics escape her. Her world narrows down to 'the bad guys are dead or in prison, and we fixed everything'. Monsters are uncomplicated in her world, after all - at least from where she's standing. ]

Are you sad?

Nah. Mostly just tired.

[Which might be adult code for depressed, but ultimately Natasha does just feel tired.

She's been doing what she does for most of her life, and the last mission was in most ways not all that different.

Right down the the arguments.]

Who was angry? Someone here, or the Fables?

[ What even is mental health awareness in the 80s. ]

The people hated us. Mouthbreathers.

[ Eleven is well used to being perceived as a monster. Sometimes she perceives herself that way. But it's different when you help people and they do that. It feels worse, somehow. Bullies are easier than this. ]

Some of them do. And some of them are afraid of us. For some, we're probably a convenient target, and others... we meddled and overstayed our welcome.

[Natasha shrugs slowly. It's complicated. While she respects Eleven's intelligence, she's not entirely sure she's entirely ready to take the full weight of things.

But she also doesn't want to dumb it down.]

Who taught you that word?

[There is a part of her that wants to laugh at the mouthbreathers thing.]

...

[She proceeds to laugh, low and amused, head shaking.]

Seriously?

I'm one of the most uncool kids back home, El. I'm, like, negative numbers cool. So not very cool at all. I'm more like a target for all the cool kids to focus on when they're bored of the easy targets.

[ It's a good approach. Eleven has a tendency to check out and drop a topic when she can't follow along anymore, but at the same time she's always glad to be given a chance to understand at least. She knows all about overstaying welcomes, too. Hopper didn't like Mike staying late, after all.

She misses them both. ]

Mike. He gets bullied. I wish I could go to school, too. I could defend him.

[ A deep sigh. World weary as only a teenager can be. ]

I made a mouthbreather pee his pants, once. That was good.

[ She's nearly drowning in an oversized shirt that she clearly intended to wear to bed. But truth be told she never quite got there. She does something at night sometimes that she knows she's not supposed to do.

Eleven spies.

It's not always. It's not even every night. But sometimes, when the shadows creep in, when closing her eyes brings monsters or labcoats into her mind, she stays up instead. Ties cloth over her eyes and looks in on the people she likes. Sometimes, she just goes and sits in the sunlight room.

Tonight, she saw someone she's grown to like wake from a nightmare. It's not coincidence that Newt very nearly runs into her. But he doesn't need to know that. Instead, Eleven softly says: ]

I do what I want.

[ Because that much is true, always. And after watching him fidget and rub his own arms, Eleven eventually holds out her hand. ]

Sunlight. We can sit. You can tell me.

[Natasha smiles very slightly at that. She doesn't have a hard time seeing why that would be satisfying, and while the exact morality of retaliation and escalation might be a conversation for another day, she has no interest in making Eleven question past choices.

A bully pissing his pants seems very small stakes compared to what she is very sure Eleven is capable of doing.]

That sounds very satisfying.

[That doesn't means she can't try to help Eleven understand this situation. Maybe. It's definitely complicated.]

I'm not sure the people in this situation are bullies through. Some of them might still be mouthbreathers.

[A little humor on that last part.]

You said before you didn't understand why everyone was angry. Do you have any guesses? If you were one of them, would you be angry?

[ one morning on the station, on each orber's door, the following hand-written note (in fancy calligraphy) will be taped:

the orber can choose to attend or simply listen in to the meeting when it occurs, or they may ignore it altogether. ]

[Maybe someone else would see Eleven has a young kid who shouldn't be tasked with listening to an adult man's issues. Maybe they'd want to shield her from scary concepts and turn to adults who are more 'capable' of understanding. But Newt spent his younger years constantly warring with adults in his field, forgoing teenaged normalcy with finding a place of respect among peers who were old enough to drive and drink.

Besides, she's literally smashed apart giant brain aliens with her mind.

So he doesn't tell her to go away, go back to bed.

Frankly, he doesn't want to be alone. So he slips his blurry hand in hers. It's sweaty and shaky as he clasps back. Sitting down and trying to school the panic that is trying to overtake him sounds good, honestly.]

Okay. That's — Okay. I could use a little sunlight.

[ To her credit, Eleven thinks about that for a moment before answering. Squinting up at the ceiling in deep consideration. ]

I don't think so. We saved people. Made a lake. Helped the good guys.

[ What's not to like. ]

Should we have killed more bad guys?

[She's trying, and that's the important part, especially when there's a lot of catching up for Eleven to do.

Natasha isn't horrified, or even particularly surprised, by the answer and she keeps any disappointment off her face.

Any shortcomings on this front aren't any fault of El's.]

Have you ever had someone try to help you, but you didn't like how they did it? Maybe they tried making choices for you, even though you could make them yourself?

[Honestly, the morality of the killing can wait for later. Natasha isn't going to lose sleep over the deaths of some gulag guards.

But she does add:]

Maybe your dad, or your boyfriend.

[Someone who, presumably, Eleven would understood had her best interests at heart even if they made mistakes.]

[ She can be a confusing duality, utterly childlike one moment, and then surprisingly mature and insightful the next. And her damage means there are things she understands on a very baseline level in ways many adults sometimes struggle to give voice to.

So she's quiet as she leads Newt to the Sunlight Room, but squeezes his hand every now and then. She doesn't know about paper bags and all that. But she knows hurt, and thinking there's a monster in your head.

In the sunlight room, she leads him to a cozy spot under a tree with low hanging branches, the simulation so realistic that Eleven almost believes they're outside. She still has no concept of how it works - to her it's like Kali's powers. To see something that's not really there, and feeling like it's real. ]

Here. It's nice.

[ And then without any sort of preamble: ]

I get nightmares, too.

[ silence for a while. Then, very softly and quietly. ]

Yes.

[ And she thinks, still, then offers: ]

They were scared. Not of me. For me. Wanted to keep me safe. Didn't trust me to stay safe.

[ And then it clicks, a little bit. ]

Didn't listen to me. Just decided. That made me angry.

I think that's how the people we left behind felt. They didn't ask for us to help, not the way we did.

[That doesn't mean that they shouldn't have helped, but Natasha shrugs past that.]

And they didn't know us well enough to know that we had their best interests at heart.

[ That feels difficult to her, but makes sense. When Hopper decided, he wanted to protect Eleven, but to her it felt no different from Papa deciding to keep her locked up, too. She understands it now, and they revised the rules together. To keep Eleven safe but give her room to grow, too. ]

Do you think they would have understood. If we had explained better?

[ Eleven isn't convinced of that - after all, she remembers that she didn't listen to Hopper until they were both hurting. ]

I think there were a lot of people. Some of them probably wouldn't have understood no matter what we said, especially not after the fact.

[Natasha shrugs, accepting that. There's no changing it now.]

Maybe if they'd known us better before, it would be different, but it's done. And we're out of their hair.

[Eleven seems to understand, though. It's a good start.]

I think some of them would understand if they had more information.

[It is nice. It's a hell of a lot nicer than the place the precursors used to keep him in while he dreamt, or the room he would wake up in that felt suffocating. He sits next to her with his knees pulled up and his hands beside him, anxiously picking at the grass. There's a nervousness in the way he glances around with blurred vision, as if a rabbit who had narrowly escaped a hawk's claws and still surveys the scene for a second attempt.

So, not the most graceful he's ever looked. It'd be comical if it wasn't so sad.]

Y-yeah.

I got them a lot, before. And I couldn't remember them. Most of the time.

I'd just wake up scared, but not knowing why. Just knowing something was wrong.

( As soon as this crosses his feed: )

Hey Elle...

( Here goes, )

I saw your reply to Dr. Geiszler. I want you to know, that you shouldn't ever let anyone make you feel like you have to talk about the laboratory to be taken seriously.

[ There's a message back, but it contains a lot of silence at first, as if Eleven went to respond and then didn't quite know what to say.

Eventually, softly: ]

They think I'm just some kid.

( He waits patiently for her to find her voice, listening quietly. )

Well, they're wrong to. You might be a kid, but you're not just "some" kid, Elle. I can promise you that.

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action; sometime in the night! | cw: anxiety/panic attack-like symptoms

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