"I'm sorry my heart's too big for my own good! I just want to be a good person!"
~
Theodore Chambers moves from his home in London to Hawkins and realizes this town isn't what it seems
Or
In which the new kid in town is thrown into all sorts of insa...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter twenty; friends and... more than friends
Blood seepedthrough another gauze from the open wound on Eleven's leg. It was worse than anyone imagined it. It dug deep into her skin, causing pain with sudden movements and even walking. Teddy stayed by her side the whole time. He cleaned the blood away from her nose while Nancy frantically drove to Bradley's Big Buy for medical supplies (and to get away from the Mind Flayer). Even after Nancy threw a stone and shattered the glass panes for everyone to get inside, he managed to carry El bridal-style into inside.
Gently resting her along the floor of the medicine isle, Teddy remained beside her, holding her hand. She winced and whimpered in pain when Nancy rolled up her pantleg to see the damage. Her blood coated her leg and soaked into her sock. The sight made Teddy gag. Nancy jumped to bandage it, but Max stopped her. The girl had clear instructions: Stop the blood, clean, disinfect, then bandage. Her "skateboard" defense didn't exactly make sense to Teddy, but what did he know? He only dealt in managing bruises. From this, Nancy and Jonathan ran off to gather water and soap. Lucas dumped the contents of his backpack, including his supercomm, scattering them across the aisle. Max rolled her eyes at her boyfriend and ushered him, Will, and Mike away to gather cleaning supplies and told Teddy to stop the blood.
Max decided with it only being the three of them, that being herself and the new "lovers", she'd leave to check on the other boys. She flashed Teddy a little smirk and a thumbs up before leaving them alone.
Just Teddy and El.
Neither El nor Teddy said anything to the other. Not immediately at least. El still tried to recover from the pain, groaning even at the little movements from Teddy's hand. He wanted more than anything to take all her pain away. Teddy meticulously replaced the gauze whenever too much blood got on it. It was a constant cycle, but both adjusted to it. El slowly relaxed while Teddy worked. He didn't mind... there was so much blood though... he wasn't exactly a "fan" of blood, especially how much was coming from El's leg. While changing it, some blood accidentally wiped onto his hand. A little queasy, he frantically scrubbed it away with a fresh bandage. He took a new gauze and held it firm on the wound. He noticed the blood starting to quickly soak into the fresh pad, it made him wondering: How hard would it to be to grab a pair of gloves on this aisle?
"You... don't have to keep holding it." El told him with a gentle smile, resting her hand over his on her leg. She sensed his slight uncomfortableness. She always could. "You've done enough."
Enough? Teddy didn't believe holding some bandage was enough... far from it. He was doing his best with the situation, sure, handling it way better than he has in previous years (which El was very proud to see). It was days like this he wished he had superpowers like Eleven and could magically fix any situations that came their way. With a wave of a hand, like Doctor Strange or Scarlet Witch, everything could be perfect... but it wasn't perfect. Life wasn't perfect. They sat on the floor of a quick-mart, trying to fix a wound from a monster from another dimension. Perfect was far from the right word to use.
