He still doesn’t look at her, want so desperately for her to have been passed and long gone, so he could ignore her and move on with his day ( yes, he’s really a douchebag ), but he can tell alive from passed on. And she is very much alive.
He clears his throat, eyes finally budging to look at her own wrist, heart beating fast. He didn’t want to believe it, the fact that A, another experiment has found him, and B, that there was another experiment at all. He feels shitty for ever having left at all without being able to bring anyone with him. Unfortunately, he was kept away from everyone- he was important, could communicate with another world.
He takes in a deep breath, eyes shutting almost angrily, like he doesn’t want to be there. Because he DOESN’T. “ I-…. fuck. ” It doesn’t even cross his mind that she’s a CHILD and should watch his language. But he remembers her. He remembers when they brought her in, she was just a child, it was a little over twelve years ago, had to have been. “ Did anyone follow you here, kid ?? You still runnin’ from them ?? Because you know anyone who got out of there alive escaped, not a single one of us would have been let out those doors. ”
She doesn’t remember anyone from the lab, she was so young when they started going missing. The only memories she holds, are recent, tests, workers, the room, the isolation tank, the demogorgon.
He’s avoiding her gaze, even as she reveals who she is, and that alone worries the younger. He may bolt, she could stop him, but she doesn’t want to have to. She drags her eyes from his face to look at the tattoos on his skin. El can tell he didn’t get them there, she didn’t know people got them outside of the lab.
Brown eyes shoot back to his face whenever that word slips from his mouth again, she doesn’t understand the importance of it, there’s no context even surrounding it. “Not following.” They’re looking, though. She doesn’t even think about the fact that they may still be looking for him if he hadn’t pointed out the possibility.