Hi everyone! My name is Rosie and I love to write my own stories and share them with you. I am a huge Stranger Things fan, and a massive Mileven shipper so my stories will be Stranger Things related and will be full of cute Mileven stuff - and other Stranger Things ships as well, of course. What Is Dancing? is my first story and I hope you like it.

First chapter, here we go! Got some bonding sibling stuff between Mike and Nancy...

-R

Mike turned over in his bed for the umpteenth time that night. He hadn't slept well at all. He'd had another nightmare. He'd been having nightmares a lot for a whole year now, ever since...

No, Mike told himself. Don't go upsetting yourself, that won't help. You should be excited! Christmas holidays have started and you have a huge Dungeons and Dragons campaign with your best friends...! And to help himself get off to sleep like he always did, he started planning another campaign in his head. But tonight, even that didn't work. His mind kept wondering back to the dream he'd had, that had left him sadder than any other.

It had started like all the others, with Mike sprinting as fast as he could through Hawkins, his town. Only it wasn't Hawkins, it was different. An exact replica but dark, and freezing cold. Horrible little white flakes floated through the air like snow but somehow much more menacing. Mike tried to keep his mouth shut so that he didn't swallow any of the flakes, but it proved almost impossible while running so fast. He accidentally inhaled one and choked, spitting and retching the thing out. Whatever it was, it was like acid and burned his mouth. He heard a throaty, screeching roar from behind him and scrambled up to run off again. Tendrils of disgusting slime covered everything, making twigs on the ground quite slippery. There was no colour, just a horrible sort of greyish-greenish-black. He could only guess where he was, but he had a pretty good idea. This could only surely be the Upside Down.

And then he saw it. A broken down building, slime climbing the walls like ivy. He recognised it immediately - his house. Then the dream began to change. Instead of running right past, he went in, through the back door into the basement of the Wheeler household. He knew he needed to hide, and ran straight towards the fort he'd made for Eleven that he'd never taken down. (And even in a dream, he felt a pang of sadness at the sight.)But there was already someone in there. A small, slight figure, with a shaved head. A girl wearing a muddy blue-and-green shirt - that was far too baggy on her skinny frame - over a tattered pink frilly dress with a neat little once-white-now-grey collar. She had dirty white baseball socks striped with blue and yellow at the top, and over them, filthy white Converse Chucks. Eleven."EL!" cried Mike, and his voice echoed through the small room. She looked up and a tear slid down her cheek. "Mike?""El, I'm right here!" called Mike, running over and wrapping his arms around her."Mike, where are you?" sobbed El, and Mike drew away and gazed at her. She wasn't quite in focus with his vision, like she wasn't fully there. "Mike?""El!" cried Mike, and then there was a growl and the wall burst inwards, covering the two...

And Mike had jerked awake, tears racing down his cheeks, and his breath coming in short gasps. She had been there... so close, but so far away. "El..." he whispered. His heart felt shattered into a million pieces.

Now, he lay still. Suddenly, he heard soft padding footsteps go past his bedroom door. His heart leapt in an old reflex, remembering Eleven's soft steps when she had stayed here, before he realised it was probably his mother or Nancy. He lay there for a few minutes more, until he got out of bed and looked at his clock. 4:56 am.

I can't just lie there. Mike thought, and tiptoed out of his room and down the stairs. He went into the dining room and sat in his normal chair, remembering how Dustin and Lucas and come round for dinner not long after Will went missing and Eleven had secretly moved in. Mike's mother had been sitting with her back to the door, and Eleven had walked past behind her. Mike had choked on his milk, and Karen Wheeler had turned to see what was wrong. Dustin banged his fists twice on the table and Karen had jumped and whipped back round without seeing Eleven, thank God. Dustin had apologised: "Sorry, spasm."

Mike pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes so hard spots and colours danced across his vision. He needed someone to talk to. Someone like... "Mike?"

Mike jumped violently and looked up to see his big sister Nancy standing there, looking concerned, holding a glass of strawberry milk. Mike and Nancy had become much closer in the past year after the whole Will Byers and Eleven incident, a great relief for the Wheeler parents, who were beginning to get bored of Mike and Nancy sniping at each other and swapping kicks under the table. Mike now shook his head slightly and tried for a mischievous smile. "I won't tell if you won't?"

Nancy lowered her eyebrows slightly, confused. "Mike, is everything alright? You look... like hell."

"Thanks, and everything's fine." Mike replied.

Nancy peered at Mike's face. She had noticed over the past year that he hadn't been eating and laughing as much as normal but she had assumed he was just growing up. But now she looked at his thin face, the dark shadows surrounding his eyes, the sadness making his eyes as deep as the sea. She left the dining room and bought Mike another glass of strawberry milk, which he loved, and sat down next to him. "Mike, remember what we said last year before we got out the pool? I said: 'no more secrets, okay?' and you said: 'okay.' So come on, what's wrong?"

Mike really wanted to talk to someone about his sadness. It was weighing him down, but he didn't know if he could without crying. He shook his head.

Luckily, Nancy came to his rescue. "Is it because of Eleven? It is, isn't it. Yes, I knew you liked her."

Mike couldn't help it. He looked up at her and burst into quiet tears. He had become very good at silent crying. He'd done it so often but he didn't want his mother to know or worry. "Yes, I liked her, I asked her to the Snowball, I kissed her but now she's gone and...and my nightmares are getting worse, what with the Snowball in nine days and...and..."

"Oh, Mike," said Nancy and she put her arms around him. "Have you been carrying that around for a year? But you told Dustin, Lucas and Will right?"

Mike shook his head and sniffled.

"You didn't tell anyone? Oh, no wonder you're so depressed. Emotional pain is too heavy to carry alone, it will crush you in the end. Believe me, I know."

Mike extracted himself and gazed at her. "What do you mean?" he asked her suspiciously.

Nancy blushed and covered her tracks. "Never you mind. Come on, drink your milk, and then go back to bed. I'll tell you a story if you like, like when we were kids, remember?"

Mike drank his milk and smiled. "I'd like that, Nance."

They went back up to Mike's room, and Nancy tucked him in, like he was a four-year-old again. "What story do you want tonight?"

Mike looked up at her. "Can I have a Mike The Mighty story, like in Dungeons and Dragons?"

Nancy smiled, and began her story. Nancy barely ever told anyone this, but she had a vivid imagination and was an amazing storyteller. She'd wanted to be a writer ever since she'd told three-year-old Mike her first story. As she'd become a teenager, she had grown out of the habit and Steve and Tommy and Carol had convinced her that it was 'lame'. Her best friend Barb had known, but she was gone now. Mike had followed in her footsteps with the storytelling, which explained why he was an amazing writer for Dungeons and Dragons. And now within five minutes of Mike the Mighty slaying a crazy monster (with a Venus Fly Trap for a face), Mike was fast asleep.

And that wasn't all. While telling her story, a plan to make Mike happy had began to form in her mind. She knew what she had to do, and the finer details came into focus as she lay in bed two minutes later. But she was going to need help, and for help she needed a certain three boys, and for them she needed...

Mike's old Supercomm.