Capítulo 3: 3. First Period (El, Hopper and Max)
A/N: This is witchcraft. TMI AHEAD: yesterday I spent the whole afternoon writing about El's period, and today I woke up to find mine arrived! Joy! Anyway, this is for TripleDeckerEggoExtravaganza (Coffee&Contemplation) from AO3. Hope I did it right! This is kinda long, but I'm extremely happy with this.
Prompt: El gets her first period.
Snuggled comfortably in her bed, El sighed warmly as the last minutes of sleep passed through her. She began to gain consciousness, listening to the soft howls of the wind outside her window, making the trees rustle their leaves, still heavy with snow as the first days of February creeped in.
Still holding on to her sleep, she turned inside her covers, moving to lie on her left side to try and get a few more minutes of peaceful slumber; but just as her right knee slapped against her left one, she felt a sharp pain in her lower stomach.
She inhaled sharply as her eyes snapped open and her hazy gaze inspected her room as she took her hands to her pelvis, where the pain was coming from.
She gave a whine as she moved to lie on her back, and whimpered softly as she pressed her fingertips to her skin, confirming to herself that she was indeed hurting.
She sat up in bed with a grimace and felt something warm pooling in her underwear. Panic erupted in her chest and she was afraid that she had peed herself while she was asleep. She flinched when her warm feet touched the cold floor, but still walked all the way to the bathroom, whimpering softly as every step shook her insides and made the pain throb harder.
She closed the door behind her, sat on the toilet and gasped loudly as red stained her underwear.
"I'm dying!" She cried softly to herself in alarm. While she contemplated the blood and inspected her thighs for any injuries, she began peeing, as she usually did when she first woke up every day. When she wiped herself, her eyes widened as more blood appeared on the toilet paper.
She gulped, her hands shaking as she threw the used piece of paper in the trashcan, and a heavy feeling settled itself in her stomach. Worry, her brain told her. W-o-r-r-y: to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts. Hopper had explained the word to her when it had been her word of the day a few months ago, when she was still hidden.
Hopper! She gasped mentally.
"Hop." She whimpered as she gripped her lower abdomen, supporting her forearms on her thighs. "Hopper!" She repeated.
Nothing.
She knew he was probably asleep, and that meant she would have to go out and shake the man in order for him to wake up.
Unless she woke him up differently.
She closed her eyes in concentration and she leveled her breathing, pushing, pushing, tightening her mind, until a crash was heard and then a startled cry was emitted by her adoptive father. Satisfied her plan had worked, she wiped her nose on the back of her hand, grimacing as the metal tang of blood rubbed on her upper lip.
"Eleven?" Hopper called in the living room, groaning as he presumably stood up from his warm place in the couch.
"Help! Bathroom!" She called, trying to be loud but every time she made the effort of straining her vocal cords, her stomach pushed in and that made the pain pulse again.
The heavy footsteps of her dad thumped through the hallway, and then his large silhouette was outside the door. "You okay there, kid? You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"I'm sorry," El told him quietly. "I'm not okay."
"What's the matter?" Hopper asked her with a more urgent tone.
"I'm bleeding," El whimpered. "And it hurts."
"Where?" Hopper asked, and his tone was certainly urgent and alert.
"... In my underwear."
"...Your underwear?" Hopper asked confused. It took a couple seconds for her words to make sense, but then it hit him, and he cursed softly. "Uhh... okay. Did you clean yourself yet?"
"Yes, but the blood is still coming." El whimpered as a sudden pinch erupted in her pelvis and she felt sad, as if she wanted to cry all of the sudden. Her torso leaned further down, folding herself to rest against her thighs.
"Uh, okay. Hold in there for a second okay, kid?" Hopper told her as his large form moved from behind the door.
A couple minutes were spent in silence and then his voice reached El's ears again.
"El? Here's what we're going to do, okay? You're going to take a shower; I turned the heater on so it's nice and warm, okay?"
"Uh-huh?" She asked expectantly, trying to control her shaky voice as tears started streaming down her face. Her lip quivered and she huffed to herself, not wanting to be weak.
"And then you're going to grab more toilet paper, fold it and then you're going to put it in your underwear. I'm going to leave a clean pair on the lid of the toilet, all right, kid? I'm going out for a bit—"
"No, don't leave!" Panic was fluttering in her chest again, at the thought of him leaving her like this.
"Hey, it's okay. It's okay, kid. Listen to me." Her cries were more persistent now, and she sniffled as she started to sob softly. "El? Listen to me, sweetheart. Calm down, it's okay. I'll be back real quick. I'm going to buy some things for you, and when I'm back I'll explain everything, okay?"
More sniffling.
"El?" He repeated.
"Okay." She answered shakily and quietly.
"All right, I'm going to get your underwear. Get in the shower."
His heavy feet thumped away from the bathroom and El found herself alone again.
"Okay." She whispered to herself. I can do this, she thought.
She took off her ruined underwear and threw it in the trashcan, along with more paper as she cleaned herself again, pouting when some blood got on her hand.
She stood up shakily, took off the rest of her clothes, and watched with a heavy sigh how the blood swirled around in the toilet as she flushed it. Hopper knocking on the door startled her, and she quickly closed the lid and got in the shower.
"You can come in."
She peeked from behind the blue curtain as his hand appeared, throwing her panties on the toilet lid and then his eyes met hers for the first time that morning.
"I'm leaving now, okay? I'll be right back. Everything's all right, sweetheart, okay?"
He smiled awkwardly at her when she nodded, and then he closed the door and left.
She turned the shower on, gasping when ice cold water sprayed on her face. She backed away to wait for it to warm up as the front door slammed closed outside. A few minutes later she got under the shower head and tried to ignore the drops of blood that fell from her; she watched with rapt attention how, if she squatted a little, more blood dropped down, and she understood the blood was coming from her genitals.
She put her hand there and frowned when her fingers got coated in more blood. She washed it away, coating her hands and legs with soap, and then lathering her hands with suds again, not wanting the soap to get bloody when she washed her nether regions.
After cleaning herself, she grabbed her towel from the rack and dried herself, patting her wet face with the fluffy towel for some comfort.
Later, when she redressed herself and did what Hopper told her to do with the toilet paper, she was laying down on her bed again. Her damp hair was wetting her shirt, but she liked the coolness of it, as her body was beginning to get too warm.
The front door opened again, and a few minutes later Hopper appeared in her room, carrying a plastic bag.
"Okay. Okay." He kept repeating as he shook the contents of the bag on top of her covers. El sat up, curious to see what those colorful boxes contained.
"Okay, Ellie. You ready?" Hopper asked her as he sat by her feet on the bed.
"For what?" She frowned.
He ignored her question and instead grabbed a purple box. He opened the flaps and she sat further up to peer inside of it. "This," He held up a large white plastic square. "Is a pad."
He handed it to her and she curiously inspected it as she turned it around in her hands.
"It goes on your underwear, like the paper." He explained further.
"What does it do?"
"It kind of soaks the blood; to prevent it from staining your underwear."
"Oh." She nodded, lifting her eyebrows in surprise as she imagined it. But her brows furrowed again as she took in the shape. "Does it fit?"
"Well, you have to open it. I bought two sizes, because I didn't know which one would be more fitting. Joyce said those are better because they have 'wings', whatever that means." He shook his head to show his confusion at Joyce's words. "She'll be stopping by later, to explain this much better." After her nod, he took the pad in his hands again and opened it, revealing a long stripe-like cotton pad.
"You open it like this, and there's some kind of glue or something behind it," he explained as he turned the pad and pointed to the back of it, where it was still stuck to the plastic. Hopper wasn't going to waste one, even if it was for explanation; those things were expensive. "And then you press it to your underwear. And uhhh... I guess these are the wings." Hopper pointed to a half-circular part attached to the pad.
He handed her the pad again and grabbed the box with furrowed brows as he read the instructions. "It says here that you fold those to the outer part of the underwear."
El frowned with him; she understood the instructions (she was always good with those; that's why the lab guys liked her), but was confused on how to do it.
"Alright! Go put it on." Hopper abruptly clapped, ushering her to the bathroom.
She stood up on throbbing legs, and went to the bathroom, where she spent a few minutes figuring out how to place the pad.
She emerged a few minutes later with a grimace, standing just outside the bathroom.
"Well?" Hopper asked her.
"It's tugging on my hair." She told him as she squirmed a little.
His brows furrowed in confusion as he wondered how on earth was the pad tugging on her head, and then he blushed scarlet as he understood what hair was she taking about.
"Go, um, fix it. It shouldn't do that." He told her gruffly, coughing uncomfortably.
Hours later, after he explained the woman's reproduction and why periods happened, and avoided taking about sex as much as he could, Hopper sighed in relief as they were having a late breakfast.
"Can I call Mike?" El asked as she chewed on a piece of Eggo. He figured the girl was in enough pain, so he gave in to let her eat the sweet treat. She had a near breakdown when he made her take a few painkillers, whimpering about "No pills" and only taking them after he promised it wouldn't harm her.
"What for?" He asked after he took a bite of bacon.
"I want to tell him. About my period."
He coughed in surprise, almost choking as he forced his throat to swallow.
"No!" He responded.
"Why?" She asked seriously and a bit upset by his tone.
"Remember what I told you about limits and privacy?" She nodded, and he continued. "This is one of those things. Boys are stupid. They get weird." He explained.
"Are you stupid?" She asked with a sly smile, acting innocent.
"No." He deadpanned as she giggled, and he chuckled, relieved that her gloomy mood was passing. "But I do get weird. It's just not a subject I'm really comfortable about, because I am a boy, and I don't know much about it."
She nodded in understanding as she finished her Eggo in silence. After taking a sip of her OJ, she swallowed and watched him hesitantly. "Can I call Max? She's a girl." She explained further.
After he nodded, she quickly took her plate to the sink (a habit he was proud of inflicting on her), washed it and ran to the phone. On the wall, Hopper had pasted a yellow post-it so she could write the numbers of her friends, and she quickly searched Max's phone number with her finger.
"Hello?" A woman's voice greeted her once the phone was answered.
"Good morning, can I talk to Max, please?" El asked politely, using the words Hopper taught her when talking to an adult. Except when they weren't nice; he taught her other colorful ones for those.
"Who's this?" The woman asked her.
"Jane." She told the woman, using the name Hopper told her to give every adult.
"One second, dear. MAX! JANE FROM SCHOOL IS ON THE PHONE!" The woman shouted away from the phone, and El frowned in confusion. All of her friends' parents knew she wasn't in school with them. A flashback on a conversation with Max about her family cleared a bit of the confusion away. Neglect, she remembered. N-e-g-l-e-c-t: to pay no attention or too little attention to people or things that are your responsibility.
"Hey? It's me." Max spoke on the phone.
"I got my period this morning." El informed the redhead.
"Oh... weird topic, but I guess it's a bit uncommon for you. Is this your first period?" Max asked her.
"Yes. I'm wearing a pad." El told her friend.
"Yeah, you're supposed to wear one. My mom says tampons are for big girls and I got to agree on that one. It must be so uncomfortable to have that shoved up there. Wait, who showed you how to wear the pad?" Max was doing that thing where she spoke really fast and El had a bit of trouble in getting all her words, but she was becoming familiar with the redhead, so she managed just fine.
"Hopper."
"Hopper showed you how to put on a pad?" Max didn't wait for an answer as she let out a huge bark of laughter, and El was confused for a little bit, but then she put Max's amusement and her dad's uncomfortableness together and somehow it all made sense.
El giggled on the phone with the redhead, because the situation was a little funny. All of her worries and fright were for nothing. Periods are a natural thing, Hopper had told her. She had nothing to worry about. And to think she thought she was dying! Besides, Max's laughter was infectious.
Both girls talked a few minutes more, before El got tired and she decided to end the call. She hung up and lingered there for a minute, thinking back to her conversation with Max.
"Hop?" She looked at her father. He was drinking coffee, and he swung his eyes to hers over the rim of the mug. "What's a tampon and why does it go up there?" Needless to say, the coffee sprayed everywhere when Hopper choked.
"Uhm... why don't you save that question for Joyce? I bet she'll love to answer that one."
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