A.N.: Hey guys! I need to say sorry for not posting anything lately. I recently moved to beautiful Belgium, and everything's still a little scary. That won't stop me from providing you with some Mileven-themed Halloween-stuff, though!

I borrowed the title for this story from an adorable old Nickelodeon show some of you might remember. This first chapter includes a horror story that terrified me when I was eight, so read at your own risk, haha! Bye! xx ^^

„I think we're not doing this right.", Mike mumbled, embarrassedly scratching his neck, and staring down at the baby swimming pool. It was just about three feet in size, how difficult could it really be to get that thing up?

Pretty difficult, as it turns out. They'd been standing there for about twenty minutes now, each of them taking turns with the dusty old bicycle pump, but no matter how hard they tried, the edges of the tiny swimming pool stayed flat on the floor.

„Let me try one more time.", Dustin said, kneeling down and observing the plastic for what seemed like the millionth time. Lucas groaned. „Is it really that important, guys? Can't we just forget about that game?"

„My mom says it's really fun.", Will shrugged, sitting down on the floor next to Dustin. „It's supposed to be a classical Halloween thing."

„Yeah, cheer up Lucas! We've won, like, four science fairs by now, we'll get that thing up in no time.", Dustin agreed, smiling widely, as he kept searching for the mysterious hole in the plastic.

„We should probably dunk it in water.", Will suggested. „If we fill our bathtub with water and put the pool inside, we can blow it up a little and see where the air is coming out. Like, where the bubbles are."

„Yeah, but that will take ages..."

„You okay there, El?", Mike asked, turning around and looking at her, voice going a tiny bit softer as he noticed her watching them with quiet interest. She nodded, giving him a small smile from her spot on the coach, and with a tiny smile of his own Mike turned around again before Lucas or Dustin could make some kind of teasing remark. He was just glad she didn't seem completely bored yet, given the way they were currently wasting their shared afternoon with something so annoyning and time-consuming. Also, she looked really nice today, with her light-blue skirt and all that. It made him blush a little if he thought too much about it.

Mike just wanted everything to be perfect. Like, not necessarily right now, because today definitely wasn't particularly exciting or perfect, but next Saturday would hopefully be. It was El's first Halloween, after all. The best day of the year, and she'd experience it for the first time, ever, and if this party thing they'd planned turned out to be lame, Mike knew he'd feel bad about it forever - or at least for several weeks. She hadn't had a normal childhood, after all, but she deserved one more than anything, and for someone who'd found Halloween to be one of the best things about his childhood, the stakes were pretty high. She should have this, too, Halloween. With him, and the others, and candy, and a lot of awesome, scary stuff. Mike wanted this to work out great so badly, he'd basically devoted half of every school lesson of the past week to distracted thoughts about the party they'd planned. It had to be cool.

„I could help you.", he heard her suggest, right then, and just like the others he spun back around to look at her. El's eyes were aimed at the tiny pool, her gaze contemplative.

„Um... Okay, sure!", Dustin nodded, smiling friendly at her. „What did you have in mind, El?"

She stood up, tentatively kneeling between her friends, and gently reaching out for the plastic of the tiny pool. Then, with a weird, fizzling sound and in a movement almost too quick to be true, the pool was blown up – the two rings that marked the walls of it filled with air, and standing perfectly straight between them. She closed her eyes for a moment, before pointing at a particular point close to Will's elbow. „There.", she stated, before moving her finger a few inches left, pointing at something close to Lucas' knee, „And there."

Mike eyed her confusedly, not sure what she was talking about, but a little in awe at how quickly she'd managed to get the pool up for them, with her powers. Will, however, seemed to know what she meant.

„That's where the holes are? Do you feel the air coming out there?", he asked, questioningly looking at her. El nodded, pointing at the same two spots again. She took Dustin's hand, who sat next to her, and guided his finger to one of the spots they'd been looking for on the pool surface. „Yep! That's definitely where the air is coming from.", he agreed, probably feeling it against his fingertip, and grinning a dimply grin. „Mike, could you pass me the ducktape?"

So, with El's help, that little problem was fixed quicker than it would otherwise have been. Now, all they'd have to do on Saturday was fill the baby pool up with water and drop some apples in there. And then they could play this „bobbing the apples"-game that Will had been talking about, something Mike could vaguely remember to have done a few years ago on some birthday party already, but would happily try again. You were supposed to bend over the water and try to catch some of the apples with your mouth, without using your hands. It might be fun! Or super embarrassing, but Mike was willing to give it a try.

And then they'd soon put all those garlands up in his basement – the ones with the purple bats he'd bought with his mom, and then the older ones with the pumpkins that he'd finally found again, in their attic. And then Mike would of course also figure out what to put on the walls or on the chairs or the table, because maybe they still had these fake-spider-webs from two years ago somewhere, and that would also look really scary and cool. And then they'd have to snitch pumpkins, of course, and he'd have to make sure to choose some really good knifes for that, since he didn't want that to take too long or be to hard... Man, there was still so much he wanted to get done, and only a few days left!

„Mike?", she asked, right then, and he looked up at her from his spot on the couch. Something about the way she sat there in the fort, cross-legged and with his walkie in her lap, made Mike's heart stop for half a second.

Sometimes it was still crazy to have her back, even now, almost a year later. He'd missed her all the time, and thought about her all the time, and talked to her all the time... And a part of him had been completely lost and hollow and broken, while another part of him had still felt her around.

It had hurt so much, for so many days, so many nights... And now, El was back. And she was in High School with them, and if Mike wanted to walk over there and take her in his arms right now, nothing would stop him. She'd put her arms around him, too, and he'd breathe her warmth in, and her hair would be in his face, her laughter in his ears.

It was a dizzying thought.

„Yes, El?"

„Mike, can you tell me a scary story?"

He blinked, then chuckled. „What?"

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, perhaps a little self-conscious. „Can you tell me a scary story, Mike? Hop doesn't know any."

Mike stood up and came over to her, wanting to be closer. He kneeled in front of her before crossing his legs, too, and one of them must have reached out for the other, because suddenly their hands were touching. Mike pulled their entertwined fingers on top of his right knee, loving the way their palms grazed each other. El's hands were often a little cold, for some reason, but that was good because it gave Mike an excuse to hold them in his warmer ones all the more often. It was awesome, actually.

„Why do you want to hear a horror story, El?", he grinned, when her light brown eyes were back on his face. She shrugged.

„It's Halloween.", she explained, looking expectant.

„Hm.", Mike hummed, and contemplated this. He'd already thought about everyone telling some horror stories, next Saturday, especially because both Dustin and he were pretty good with that: Telling all their favourite horror stories to the others, and making them a tiny bit scarier, year by year.

And Will always made the best expressions, looking really caught up in the story, and even Lucas gasped and seemed excited in those moments. Also, Max would be there on Saturday, so maybe they'd even hear some totally new stories this time. Most of the ones the boys knew had already been told, at some point, but maybe kids in California had a different horror story repertoire than the ones in Hawkins?

But right now, sitting here with El in his quiet, low-lit basement, while wind crashed against the windows and while heavy autumn-rain was falling outside, Mike felt like telling her something scary would be great, too. Not something super-scary, of course! God, the last thing he wanted to do was give her additional nightmares! Or to make her feel unsafe at night, when she sat all alone in her cabin, waiting for the chief to come home.

But something slightly scary? While she eyed him like this, all curious and excited, and where he could just lean over and hug her as soon as she got too scared? That seemed... perfect, didn't it?

Her very first scary story, ever.

It did sound like a nice plan.

Mike cleared his throat.

„Okay, so how scary do you mean?", he smiled, his eyes lighting up at the thought. „Scary like Gremlins or scary like Alien?"

She beamed back, her dimples showing and making Mike's insides melt. „Scary like The Shining.", she stated, grinning when she saw his eyes widen a little.

He laughed. „Okay, I'll try. But it's probably not that scary."

„That's okay, Mike.", she allowed, and they both giggled.

„Alright, er... I think I know which one to tell you...

So... It was a dark and scary night. The rain was falling loudly against the windows, and no one was on the street anymore.", Mike began, lowering his voice to make it deep and dramatic.

„Oh!", he suddenly remembered, causing El to jump a little, „Wait a second, I've got to..-"

Mike jumped up, reaching for the big flashlight that stood on one of the basement shelves, and dropped back down in front of her.

Mike quickly checked if the batteries were still working, and they actually were. He smiled, pushing the tiny button down again and aiming the cone of light right at his face, bottom-up.

„There, now it looks really scary when I talk, right?", he asked, pleased with himself for this idea. Eleven nodded, a little amusedly. Mike cleared his throat again, and jumped back into the story, voice back to a raspy, low volume.

„The rain was falling into the dark, dark night. The only person outside anymore at this hour was a taxi driver in his car, cruising around, street after street, in hopes of finding another passenger in this black, stormy city. He needed money, and he wasn't tired yet, so he kept driving around."

El was listening intently, he could tell, and something about these situations always made Mike feel proud beyond words... He loved talking to her, really. Even if it was in a weird, scary voice, while telling her a horror story. Or maybe especially then.

„The taxi driver suddenly saw a man in the darkness. A very pale, very strange looking man. His jacket was torn and his shirt was ripped, but he didn't even seem to be cold at all. His eyes were super weird and scary, and he seemed like he wanted to enter the taxi. So the taxi driver stopped and let the window down, to talk to the scary man."

El's breathing changed a little bit, like she was starting to get nervous, and Mike quickly looked up from their joined hands to meet her eyes. She nodded slightly at him, wanting him to continue, and Mike rubbed a tiny circle against her palm before talking again.

„The taxi driver asked: 'Good evening, Sir, where do you want to go, do you need a ride?'"

El's lips twitched from the funny voice Mike had used, and he felt his own curve into a smile, too.

„And the scary man replied: 'I'd like to go the graveyard, Mister. Can you drive me to the graveyard?'"

She scooted a little closer to Mike, on the basement floor. „Grave-yard?", she asked, her eyebrows turning into a frown. Maybe she'd heard that word before, but couldn't exactly place it anymore, right now... Or maybe it had just never come up, yet...

„M-hm.", Mike replied, his voice back to soft and normal. „That's where the dead people stay, you know? Where people are buried? It's normally nice there, like a garden."

El nodded, her eyes understanding and less agigated. Mike continued.

„'Of course I can drive you to the graveyard, Sir!'", said the funny-sounding Taxi-driver in Mike's story. „'Come in, sit! It's raining out there!'

So the scary man sat down, and the taxi started driving. Once they were at the graveyard, the scary man said: 'Wait for me here, please. I'll be back in about ten minutes.' And then the taxi driver waited ten minutes, and the guy actually came back.

But there was a tiny spot of something red on his shirt, like ketchup, and the taxi driver found that really, really weird, but didn't say anything about it. The scary man came back inside, and told the taxi driver to drive him to yet another graveyard, a different one this time.

While they were driving, the taxi driver constantly felt like the man was watching him from the back seat, and he was getting a really weird feeling, but he tried to ignore it. When they arrived at the second graveyard, the man wanted to step outside again, for ten minutes, and again the taxi driver waited for the scary man.

This time, though, as the man came back, almost his entire shirt was full of something red, and again that didn't make any sense to the taxi driver. He really wanted to stop driving the scary man around, but he had given him a lot of money already, so the taxi driver felt like he had to keep driving."

Mike's voice had constantly gotten quieter and raspier as his story went on, and he loved the way El was leaning forward and staring at him, her breath caught in her throat. He was really glad that she didn't find the story boring. He was almost whispering, now.

„After the third graveyard, the scary man came back to the taxi, and the taxi driver got really, really afraid. The scary man had a completely red face, there was, like, blood all over it...-"

Mike stopped quickly, his eyes suddenly wide.

„Not like, when you use your powers!", he assured El, back in his normal voice, worried that she was taking it the wrong way, „That's like, not scary! I mean, it kind of is, but only because we're worried about you, and not because you're scary! You're not, I swear!" Mike was starting to get really nervous that he might have accidentally hurt her, and only when he saw El's tiny smirk did he stop feeling like a complete wastoid again.

„Mike, it's okay. Keep going.", she pleaded, softly, and he could see that she was really curious about the end of the story. He quickly tried to focus on his mysterious, frightening voice again.

„So, the man had a very red face, and it looked like there was blood all over it. The taxi driver saw that, too, so he turned around to the scary man. And then he asked the scary man:

Are you a vampire?"

Mike's eyes found El's, staying quiet for about twenty second. He wanted to create a dramatic pause, making El really nervous, and then he said, louder than ever.

„YES!"

And it worked, El totally jumped at the unexpected noise, a big grin quickly taking over as she realised that this had been part of Mike's plan all along. She giggled, quietly, and he laughed, too, switching the flashlight off and focusing completely on her hand in his, once more.

„The end.", Mike added, smiling at her. „Did you like it?"

„Yes.", she assured him, warm brown eyes all golden in the low basement light. „Fun.", she decided, emphatically.

„Cool.", he answered, happy about that.

„But, Mike?", she asked, meeting his gaze with a questioning frown,

„Yes, El?"

She scooted a little closer to him again, looking up through dark lashes,

„What is a vampire?"

Mike paused, surprisedly, before starting to laugh again. El joined in, their noses bumping together gently as he leaned in and pressed a tiny kiss to her temple, a second later.

There was still a lot of stuff Eleven didn't know about this whole 'Halloween'-thing, Mike realised. But as long as long as she stayed close to him and smiled like that, he really couldn't wait to explain it all to her.

It would be the best day of the year, and it would be the best year of them all.

(The end. )