Work Text:
He's kind to her.
In the Rainbow Room, when the other subjects whisper behind her back and pretend not to hear her when she asks to play, the orderly is kind. He's the one who teaches her to play chess; Papa leaves it to the oldest subjects to teach the youngest, but whenever Eleven approaches the board, the other players act as if she isn't there. So the orderly shows her. He lines the pieces up one by one, and he lists the names as he does so, in a soft and even voice that scratches some deep itch in Eleven's soul.
'Soothing.' She'll learn that word later.
He's soothing.
Sometimes, after playing games with Papa, Eleven's nose is bleeding. She doesn't have tissues in her room; she has nothing to wipe it on but her hospital gown or the back of her hand, and either way, it'll dry there and form a crust. Better to use your hand because you can pick at the dried blood and turn it into dust, and the other subjects will never see it — but if you use your hospital gown, it leaves a stain, and everybody knows.
(And for some reason, when Eleven has bloodstains on her gown, it's funny to them. When anyone else has bloodstains, from Two all the way down to Fifteen, nobody cares.)
She walks from the lab on her own. Her steps are uneven; her arms are shaking. A drop of blood plips to the floor between her feet, and she raises her hand to wipe her nose, and—
"Here," says a soft voice behind her.
Eleven freezes. A pale, long-fingered hand appears before her, one she recognizes. Henry's hands are delicate, like a girl's. He has a scar on his right thumb, just above the knuckle, and it always looks raw and irritated, like it won't heal right. He has a pair of freckles at the base of his index finger; she's seen this hand a million times before, manipulating the chess pieces or guiding her down the hall to Papa.
Now he holds a white square of cloth.
"For your nose," he says.
Eleven's hands stay clenched at her sides. Her shoulders quake in a suppressed shiver. She stares into Henry's eyes — pale blue, open, friendly; closed-off, unreadable, strange — and she knows it isn't polite to stare. She knows the other subjects, the orderlies, sometimes even Papa, all of them hate it when she goes silent and stares. But she can't help it. Something stubborn inside of her closes her throat and turns her tongue to lead.
And Henry doesn't care. He flexes his fingers and calls the handkerchief back into his palm like a magician doing a trick. He kneels before her. His palm finds the back of her head and scrapes against the bristles there; he holds the handkerchief gently to her bleeding nose, and with tiny careful movements, he wipes the blood away. His touch is clinical. His eyes flick from one part of her face to another, never meeting her gaze. He pretends not to notice her studying him, and he does it so naturally that Eleven can't tell if it's an act.
"There," he says. "All clean."
"How old are you?" Twelve asks one day in the Rainbow Room.
All eyes turn to the orderly. He stands in the corner, observing them all with his feet together and his hands folded primly behind his back. He seems almost like he's been expecting this question; he doesn't blink, he just tilts his head toward Twelve and answers: "I'm thirty-two."
There's a murmur of disagreement from the subjects.
"You're a kid," someone calls from the back.
"I'm an adult," says Henry, and he's half-smiling.
"No, you're not," says Ten. "You're just a big kid. He's an adult."
They look, as one, to the other orderly, the one who guards the door.
"They wouldn't let a child guard other children," Henry points out reasonably. "So I must be an adult, even if you think I don't look like one."
"No," says Seven firmly. "You're a kid. You're one of us."
And when no one is looking, a dark shadow crosses Henry's face.
The orderly is the first person who tells Eleven she's different, and doesn't mean it as an insult.
The orderly is the first person who shows Eleven how powerful she can become.
The orderly is the first to say, "This isn't right. This isn't good. You don't have to accept this."
The orderly is the first to tell her it's okay to fight.
And the orderly is the first person she kills.
Eleven becomes El.
El becomes Jane Hopper.
Jane Hopper lies in bed in California, and the only thing that's on her mind is grief, the loss of power, the pain of being separated from Mike, of not fitting in. She goes to sleep thinking of Mike's warm eyes; hearing the sound of girls' laughter at school; feeling the pulse and flow of power within her, only for it stop like it hit a brick wall before it can explode out of her hands, before it can make things right for her.
This isn't right, and she sees the girls at school surrounding her in a circle.
This isn't good, and she sees Hopper dying right before her eyes.
You don't have to accept this, and she sees Mike, two thousand miles away, out of her reach.
It's okay to fight.
And she sees blood on her hands, slick and warm; and she feels Henry's cool breath against her neck as he guides her, shows her how to push the energy inside her until it ripples out, invisible and strong. She hears his voice again, sees him standing in the corner, thin and lonely and strange, and for the first time she sees what the other subjects saw, why they refused to see him as a grown-up.
One of us. Just a kid. A boy with a tattoo on his arm and blood leaking from his nose. A child with a shaved head and a formless hospital gown hanging from his skinny frame. An experiment without a name; a prisoner in a white uniform dragged to the electrotherapy room and hooked up to the nodes against his will.
Clear blue eyes staring into her soul. That familiar soothing voice asking her to take the inhibitor chip out, not to hesitate, not to worry. Those hands — that scar — those two freckles — guiding her to grasp her power, to make things right again, to fight back.
You don't have to accept this, he told her.
Eleven flexes her hands the way he told her to. She pictures Hopper, the contempt in his eyes the last time they fought, the lack of understanding. Mike, exasperated with her, angry; Will accusing her of being a liar, refusing to see her point of view. The crunch of a roller skate against a fragile nose; the gush of blood, the thrill of winning, the righteous anger at a bully's tears. Papa and his experiments. Two and the surge of power that sent Eleven flying across the Rainbow Room, into the wall. Henry, the Upside Down dissolving his body in a gnarl of blackened, corrupted light. Henry teaching her to play chess. Henry wiping the blood from her nose for her. Henry covering for her, taking the electroshock. Henry dying for a child who was too forgiving of all the wrong people, who didn't understand.
"I don't have to accept this," Eleven whispers, and outside her house, in the dark suburban streets, the streetlights pop, one by one.