Season 1 -
DANGER BREW IN THE SMALL TOWN OF HAWKINS, INDIANA. Despite escaping from the lab that started it all, Ten is unaware of this. All she wants is to help those who have helped her. Accidentally bringing them into the danger she herself had b...
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010
THE KIDS WERE UNAWARE OF THE DANGER THEY WERE IN. In fact, they thought they were finally safe. They just needed to regroup. While the girls cleaned up in the bathroom, the boys (mainly Dustin, Mike stuck to El like glue) tried to contact Lucas on the radio. He had gone off to find the gate while Mike and Dustin found the girls, and they wanted to make sure he was okay. The gate was dangerous. Lucas was mean, but they didn't want him hurt.
Ten had cleaned up quickly. Mike had shown her how to turn on the faucet and wet a towel. Once that was done she only had to rub it on her face until all of the dirt was gone.
El...took a little while. She was reluctant to clean her face, since there was still makeup leftover from her disguise. Once that was gone, she was just Number Eleven again. After a moment she let Ten clean her face.
Once they finished, El turned to the mirror. She lifted her hand to her head.
"Nice," Ten said, trying to make El feel better.
And Ten wasn't lying. She liked El better without the wig. El hadn't looked like herself with it on, which Ten supposed was the point, but it didn't mean she had to like it. She told El that. The wig meant a lot to El, so Ten wouldn't be mean about it, even if she disliked it.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Ten's approval El was looking for. It was Mike's.
Fortunately, Mike felt the same, "Ten's right, you don't need it."
"Still pretty?" El asked.
Ten corrected, "Always pretty."
That made El smile, and Ten didn't know why. It wasn't a surprising idea. Some wig and a dress didn't make her pretty. El had always been pretty, and nice, and kind, and amazing. They just didn't have a word for it, or a way for El to express it the way she wanted.
"Yeah," Mike agreed quickly, feeling he had to add something, too. "Pretty. Really pretty."
Ten turned to Mike. She wasn't sure how she felt about him. Sometimes he was nice. Then he would treat them kindly, and make El smile. That lasted until something went wrong, then he would scream at them and blame them for everything. On one hand, Ten liked Mike. On the other, she found herself carefully pulling El away from him, unsure how long until he flipped again.
Mike didn't notice Ten's discomfort. His attention was all on El. They drifted together.
The moment was broken off by Dustin bursting through the door. They all jumped. There was radio static from the other room.
