Hello! This is 'Red Spots of Love' sequel. If you haven't read it I highly recommend you do before reading this one. If you don't I figure you would understand it anyway but, if you read the other, it'd make a lot more sense.

Stranger Things belongs to The Duffer Brothers and Netflix. I own nothing.

oOoOoOoOo

IF YOU COULD SEE YOURSELF THROUGH MY EYES

December 12th, 1985

It was only three days before Mike and Eleven reach their first year of dating. On December 15th, a year ago at the Snow Ball and after she arrived just by the moment The Police was playing a slow song, and after their first kiss of the night, – and a whole year of El discovering kissing Mike was her favourite hobby –; that she had become, officially, his girlfriend.

'Girlfriend', now that was her favourite word. El still remembered how nervous Mike had been when he tried to ask her, between and a question and an explanation all together which only got more confusing by the second, that she had to stop him from mumbling. She had to hold back a few giggles before looking at him, a hand on his own shaking one, and she told him that she indeed knew what a boyfriend and a girlfriend were, and that she wanted to be his. He had been so scared, so cute, so nervous and at the same time, so sure of what he wanted. She could still see on Mike those eyes but with a hint of difference as the days gone by: he became more intense, he became mature and in his deep dark eyes that she adored, she could see him more and more pleased with the question he had partially made to her, a year ago. And she had accepted it because doing otherwise was impossible to say the least. Since she discovered, on those three hundred and fifty three days they've been apart, that visiting him on the void wasn't nearly enough to calm her senses, that every time she saw a love scene on TV it brought his face to her head, that she needed him more than she could've explain back then; that what she felt for him was no longer just friendship.

Being away from them, from the boys, had been horrible and painful to the bone but at some point, Eleven couldn't quite figure out when, her feelings towards them split in two different ways. On one hand, there were Lucas and Dustin with their mischievousness, their pranks and their teasing and, on the other hand, there was Mike with something a lot deeper. On the path that she placed Mike, she found herself walking beside him with a knot on her chest that crushed her heart every time she came back from the void to the loneliness of her room, after visiting him so far away. It was something that, at the beginning, she couldn't name but she knew she wasn't feeling the same kind of care from when she spent the first few days with him, and that El begun to realize especially when she talked to Hopper. The way he asked her, every morning when he found the TV in her room and asked if she had visited Mike the night before, or when she whispered so softly the words 'He says he needs me' while playing with her fork; that El never needed to specify who 'he' was. Because she knew her father understood even without saying the name of the boy, that it was only one 'he' in her world and only one 'he' she cared that much for.

Having a name for what she was to Mike was experiencing the first signs of freedom, even in her year of isolation. It was a distinction, it meant that between her friends, between Lucas, Dustin, Will and Max, she could just be there not even holding Mike's hand and yet a giant finger would hang on top of her head pointing to her to whomever that could see them, to show the rest of the world she was a lot more than just a friend to Mike. It was another name he had given to her, it was the proof that she was a person and not a specimen to experiment with; she was Eleven, not the number but the teenage girl with one unique name that fit her. She had a name, a nickname, and a way to stand in front of everyone because she was someone's girlfriend, and that someone was only Michael Wheeler.

The Snow Ball that year would be on December 14th. It was two days ahead yet and three to have her first year anniversary of dating him, but on that night of the 12th there was another D&D campaign going to happen that Mike had been preparing since he had the measles and she found herself bouncing on her seat on Hopper's van, scared to death.

- Okay that's it, what's up with you, kid? You've been acting odd all day.

Her father was worried and from time to time he peek on Eleven from his seat, looking at both the road in front of him and her. After school she was supposed to go to the Police Station where he would take a break and take her to the ice cream shop and hang out a bit but, instead, she had only called Flo and told her that Joyce would ride her home because she had stuff to do. When Hopper got back to the cabin after his day of work, he had found his daughter nervous as in that same moment, driving her to her boyfriend's house an hour earlier than previous dates.

- Nothing just… Hurry up, please.

Eleven's request came from the bottom of her heart while she kept on reading a bunch of paper sheets, they were messy, scratched, uneven, and attached to them a music tape.

It was the D&D campaign night, out of the ordinary it was a school night but given that it was the last week of school before the holidays and they had almost no homework, Karen didn't mind having the party over in the middle of the week. Nonetheless, El wasn't even worried about the game or her character that – no matter how many times the Dungeon Master tried to help her –, lost every time. She wasn't good at the game but yet she enjoyed it because it was a group thing and she was a part of it. But El wasn't worried about the game, but because it had been over a month since her birthday when Mike gave her a song he played for her and said 'I love you' for the first time, and she hasn't say it back yet.

She still remembered that day as vividly as it just happened. It was like every second of that moment repeated itself over and over again on an infinite motion. She still remembered all those emotions blurting out of her, the tears of joy and that breath taking feeling at knowing just how strongly Mike had fallen for her. She also remembered the hug she gave him when she ran to her boyfriend as the van parked outside the cabin and crushed him against it, pressing their lips together and not caring about anyone watching, nor any measles. That was a kiss filled with appreciation, it was a kiss filled with love and it was their first kiss since they started to add a little more heat and tongue, even when Hopper said I was gross, it was a new kind of kissing and everything new with Mike was good.

But she also still remembered that a month had gone by and she still didn't say the words. That day, on her birthday, Mike had told her that he loved her again, looking at El in the eye, face to face, and even when she fought the tears welling up in her eyes and how much she wanted to say, to yell it back, he had pressed a gentle finger on her lips and told her to be quiet and listen to him. Because he told her that it was her day, that she was the one who get to hear it, that his words were only for her to listen and enjoy, and that she only needed to let herself get spoiled, even when he spoil her every day.

And he would wait as long as it takes, until she is ready.

And she was, she had been for a while now, she was that very day but also she understood that she had to surprise him. If Mike made a video and gave her music written and played by his own hands and made his confession a beautiful work of art, then Eleven should do everything in her power, supernatural or not, to surprise him just as he did. That was what she had figured, that's why the days and weeks had gone by and she hadn't say it back yet, because she wanted it to be perfect.

/

As soon as Hopper pulled over the Wheeler's, El heard him say something she didn't really listened, she only mumbled a few things that could have been 'Yeah dad, we'll talk later' and jumped out of the vehicle and run towards the house with her backpack hanging from one shoulder and tape and papers in her hands. She was desperate; she didn't know how much time she had left until the party arrived, not to mention that they might as well already be there. Nancy was the one who answered the door and after a quick hello, she told the fourteen year old that her boyfriend was still in his room and El rushed up the stairs.

When she reached Mike's bedroom door she froze up before stepping in, instead she knocked so quietly to give him privacy or wait until he allowed her entrance or, perhaps, because she needed a moment to calm herself. What if she told him what she felt and he'd get mad at her for keeping him waiting a month? What if she had waited way too long?

Eleven's state had a very simple explanation: That day at school, almost around the fifth period, she was on the bathroom at one of the cubicles when she heard a bunch of girls walking in, everyone talking a the same time as they tried to soothe one of them who was crying – or dying –given the noises she made.

"- I told him that I love him and he just stood there.-" was all that Eleven could understand from between the sobbing of the girl and her noisy friends. Apparently it was a student, probably around her age that, from what El could listen, was dating a boy and she told him that she loved him but he didn't say it back. There, right there in that moment, between all the girls talking about that boy whose name seemed to be 'prick', that El understood the girl was hurt because that Prick boy didn't say the words. Such revelation made Eleven shiver, realizing that it had been over a month since Mike said those exact same words to her on the video and to herself, and she still hadn't said them back yet.

Was she now a mean, awful person like those girls said that Prick was for not saying the words? If that girl in the bathroom was that upset because that very day she told her boyfriend that she loved him and he remained silent, how would Mike have been feeling all those days without an answer? What if – El panicked- what if she had broken Mike's heart into pieces? A cold, terrifying feeling run through her spine, bigger than any demogorgon or shadow monster, as she started to think about the consequences of her silence. Would Mike still want to be her boyfriend if she had broken his heart? Would he wanted to get back to just friends or would he just stop talking to her all together?

- El, you came earlier! Come in! – the tall 5 ft 9 in boy that was hers opened the door and greeted her with the same beautiful bright smile he gave her every day as he leaned forward and pecked her lips.

Oh, that smile… That wonderful, big, white teeth, shiny smile she loved between those full lips she just couldn't get enough from. Everything in Mike was pure perfection according to El, he was gorgeous and among his many charms, his wild curly hair was her favourite. It drove her crazy.

- I told you El, you don't have to knock…

Yes, she knew that. She had memorized every inch of his room by now.

Mike had started talking while he closed the door behind them as she stepped inside without saying a single word. She didn't know how to start. It was true that he hadn't change since her birthday and it was also true that he never gave any reason for El to believe that he was upset or hurting because she hadn't said the words yet. But it was also true that she had been melting her brain out trying to come up with a new, unique and beautiful way of tell him what she felt, just as he did; but, until that day she never thought that while she was planning, he had been dying.

- El, are you okay?

Damn it, when had she started crying?

She could tell he was worried. She knew him so well, he was kind and caring, his touch filled with tenderness, he was sweet and he was the unspoken leader of the party and also their keeper. He was always ready to make them feel better; he always cared about everyone, specially her. He was always the strong one but El felt awful by thinking that he had been shattered the whole time and no one even realized, and it was because of her.

His hands quickly started soothing Eleven as he held her from behind. His right hand caressing her shoulder and down to her elbow and up again as his left hand moved from her waist and wrapped her stomach in a hug, while he kissed the top of her head. There he was, her boyfriend, holding her quietly and keeping her safe from whatever that was troubling her mind, giving El the necessary, understanding silence she needed until she calm herself down and he'd ask what happened. Always so sweet, and she felt so selfish because she had been hurting him and there he was comforting her for a couple of minutes until she was ready to turn around and look at him.

- I'm sorry…

His warm gaze, his worried face, his soft hands cupped her cheeks using his thumbs to erase her tears, reminded Eleven even when she never forgot it, that she was the luckiest girl in the world for calling Mike her boyfriend.

- What is it, El? What happened?

The only one for her.

- Mike…- she took a deep breath, she needed to. – I'm sorry, come and sit; I need to talk to you.

Her voice was shaking and she begun to stop crying but her nerves were right on the edge ready to collide. Mike, pleasing as always, didn't wait for her to say it twice and sat on his own bed with his back against the wall and pulled her down with him, sitting El on his lap and holding her from her side.

His silence was all she needed to understand he was waiting for her to speak.

- Mike I… I came earlier because I need to show you something important. I know is late, I know I've been taking too long, I know you have been pati- patience but, but this whole time I've been trying to find a way to make this special and I never realized that the days kept on going, and then the weeks and I kept pushing you on the side looking for this to be perfect…

She begun to explain and looked at him carefully, inches away from her face and looking confused. She sighed, she wasn't explaining anything.

Eleven then moved away from his arms for a moment to grab her backpack and came back again to his warmth to look for something in it. She pulled out the walkman Jonathan and Nancy had given her on her birthday and put the music tape on it but didn't play it. Instead, she took a bunch of paper sheets she pulled off from her notebook and handed over to Mike, who took them trying to figure out what was going on and to read between sloppy handwriting and scratches all over it.

- Since my birthday party… - Eleven started talking, this time a little more relaxed and he looked at her solemnly, fully focused on his girlfriend. – Since you told me that you love me on such unique way I still feel it burned in my heart that I have been cracking my head open to try and tell you what I feel, you know? Those pages I have been writing over and over again because I couldn't come up with anything because… Because I didn't know how to even begin to explain what I felt, what I feel for you.

Her panic expression met Mike's supportive and generous one. His gaze wandered from her eyes to the pages in his hands and back to her, with a tiny smile on his lips. Then Mike lean forward to her and kissed her lips sweetly, it was an affirmative kiss to encourage El to keep talking because he was listening.

Eleven signed again, it might sound silly to the rest of the world, but every time he'd kissed her that way, always tender and reassuring, she was so sure that heaven existed. And that pushed her courage the way she needed.

- Mike…- she started talking again looking at the sheets in his hand and the walkman on hers. – There you won't find an answer. After thinking what to tell you and how to do it, looking for one special way like you did with your song, that I wanted to do something you would too remember forever but also, I wanted to let you know exactly why I feel this way about you.

Both hearts begun pounding in their chests and she couldn't look at him directly.

- While I was listening to the tapes Jonathan gave me I ran into a song. It's uhmm… - she was welling up again because she though she hadn't tried hard enough. – I couldn't come up with anything good, Mike. I'm so sorry, but uhm, I wanted you to listen to it because, even when I'm not the one singing it, this song found me to talk for me and to tell you exactly what you mean to me. Just listen, promise?

Only when she stopped talking she dare to look at him while holding back her tears and biting her lip and she saw how willing he was to do and to listen whatever she would ask or play, as he always did. El then hit play and the song begun while she was hoping he could catch her heart on it and what its lyrics said without being Eleven the one to say it. As soon as the melody begun, Mike closed his eyes like he always did when he was trying to pay attention, to relax himself and enjoy but he never would've guess what Eleven would show to him.

Somethin' in your eyes, makes me wanna lose myself,
makes me wanna lose myself, in your arms.
There's somethin' in your voice, makes my heart beat fast,
hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life.

Suddenly Mike started feeling butterflies flying in his stomach like every time he saw Eleven or every time he'd hold her hand but, this time, it was another perspective. This time he was looking at himself on a daily routine, nothing special but feeling weirdly happy about it. It was like he himself wasn't feeling it and he sensed that same feeling again growing stronger as he saw at his twelve year old self building Eleven's fort for the first time in the basement.

It was Eleven's perspective, so he could see with his own eyes somehow, everything why she was in love with him. His eyes when he saw her, his worries when he found her under the pouring rain, wet, cold, hungry and scared; how he gave her warm and dry clothes and care for the first time in her life without questions ask. How he made her feel that she belonged somewhere, how he looked at her the way no one had ever done before, not like a thing but a real human being. Like if she was one of a kind and how she wished he would keep looking at her like that for the rest of their lives.

If you knew how lonely my life has been
and how long I've been so alone.
And if you knew how I wanted someone to come along
and change my life the way you've done.

She wanted to show him the loneliness she went through in the lab and her desperation when she was pushed violently into the punishment room and was locked away in the dark. Forgotten, like an object or a beast grounded on that place when she would refuse to do something the bad men said and she got tossed away like she was garbage and no one seemed to be willing to save her. Mike felt terrible, powerless while he wanted to reach into that girl curled up in the corner of the room crying, trying to calm and warm herself inside those four freezing cold walls. Her hands were bruised from punching the door while she begged for mercy.

Eleven showed him the darkest moments of her life in the lab. Brenner hypocrite touches when he cupped her face faking he cared; her bedroom so cold and empty where she slept in, sterile, no scent, and no life on it. It was another of her cages, it was lack of colours, and it never held memories or laughter, or sunshine. And then she showed Mike her current bedroom and how different both were, she now slept in a place where Hopper told her stories, where a blanket made by friends kept her warm under many handmade Eggos. She showed him her night stand with mix-tapes she listen to every day, her closet filled with clothes, a wall with pictures on it and a special framed one where Mike and El smiled at each other next to her bed.

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me,
it feels like I'm all the way back where I come from.
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me,
it feels like I'm all the way back where I belong.

Suddenly between so many horrible memories from her past, Mike saw his friends around. He felt Joyce's warm motherly hug, Hopper ruffling his/her hair and smiled. Every one of them passed by his sides as he was floating away until meeting with himself and the end of the path and then, again, he was himself again but looking at El holding him tightly and looking at him like he was an extraordinaire treasure. He felt what she was feeling as they both embrace, burying her face in his chest, his arms wrapped around her and breathing his scent as he could feel herself thinking that he was her favourite place. That she felt safer with him than with anybody else. Then Mike knew that that was what El meant when she poke him in the chest and whispered 'you my home', after she closed the gate. He was her home, where she belongs.

Because Eleven wanted him to see that, no matter how hard she lived before she came into his life, no matter where she was born or where was supposed to grow up, her place in this world was where he was, to keep him close and never let him go.

A window breaks, down a long, dark street
and a siren wails in the night.
But I'm alright, 'cause I have you here with me
and I can almost see, through the dark there is light.

Mike again was in his basement but looking at a frequent routine they both had after school at the end of the week. He saw himself and El lying inside the fort, on the afternoon and under a blanket taking a nap. He smiled; they did that every Friday now.

Suddenly an ice cold, dark feeling spread from his back and all around him while he turn around scared to death. It felt like the demogorgon when it attacked them at the school two years ago; as the fear increased he had the sensation of fear and anger when the bad men where chasing after them that day when Eleven flipped the van in air. It was so strange, he shook his head not knowing why was he feeling that way while standing in a fantasy on his own basement, but then he suddenly felt powerless, lonely and hungry, like… Like El told him she had been when she had to wander in the forest those days before Hopper found her. At that moment he looked at both him and Eleven napping in the fort and he understood that she was having a nightmare, and he felt them because she show them how those dreams made her feel.

Mike was about to reach for her and sooth her while sleeping but before he could move he saw as he himself woke up confused and turn to see Eleven crying in her dreams. Mike moved completely towards her and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend whispering the sweetest things he could think of while being sleepy until she stopped complaining and her breathing became even, falling again asleep in the nicest kind of dreams.

Eleven wanted Mike to see that, because no mater how bad her nightmares could get, none of them went too far when she was napping with Mike, her shiny knight who could rescue her and protect her everywhere and from everyone, even from her own memories.

Well, if you knew how much this moment means to me
and how long I've waited for your touch.
And if you knew how happy you are making me
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much.

Then El took Mike to another memory, one a lot happier. She took him to that day when they both reunite after those three hundred and fifty three days away. She wanted to show him how, when she stepped inside Will's house and looked at him, everyone else faded and it was only him. Mike could see himself through her eyes, he could feel El's yearning fed by almost a year of waiting and how it all was like a dream came true for her. He had seen himself; back then, when they met again in her eyes that something had changed in El. He knew then that when they saw each other she had missed him just as much as he had missed her but now, seeing everything from Eleven's perspective, he knew he had barely understood just how irreplaceable he had become for her.

She let Mike know just how relief she felt when they saw each other again. It had been a year of living in the edge of insanity, it was a year of feeling thirsty and nothing, much less the visits in the void could ease her urges, but when they reach for each other and hugged again, she felt like she was dinking water after years of being dehydrated. El wanted him to see how she had felt when she saw him, day after day, waiting for her, calling for her, looking for her; she wanted Mike to know just how complete she was when, after closing the gate, she found him waiting in the cabin for her to be okay and she wanted, more than anything, for Mike to know how she felt when she arrived to the Snow Ball and he told her how beautiful she was.

And how long she had been waiting for that day, to go with him, like she promised.

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me,
it feels like I'm all the way the back where I come from.
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me,
it feels like I'm all the way back where I belong.

Because that was what Mike was to Eleven, because that's why she felt the way she did. Without Mike she wouldn't have the life she has. Without Mike she wouldn't have Hopper's triple-decker eggo extravaganza breakfast once a week and she wouldn't have a birthday to celebrate. If Mike would have never rescued her that night in the forest, she would have been found by the bad men and would still be a prisoner without words, without music and without soap operas. She would have never known what Joyce strawberry cake tasted like; she would have never read the books Steve bought for her. Without him, she wouldn't have three great friends sewing a blanket with eggos and drawings all over it, she would have never laugh with them during D&D campaigns and the way they fought and prank each other on Halloween.

Without Mike, Eleven would have never known what a promise meant, or a friend, or how soft and sweet his lips felt against hers. Without Mike she would have never known how three simple words could make her so happy when he'd say them at the end of a song. And Eleven definitely would have never known how happy she could be, if it wasn't for him.

/

After what it seemed like the blink of an eye or an eternity, Eleven opened her eyes and moved her hands from Mike's head and she saw the tears running through his cheeks when he opened his eyes as well an woke up, to look at her. She had never used her powers like this or with him but she wanted for him to understand how she felt and the reason why she felt that way. She had to let him know all those things in a way her limited vocabulary couldn't explain.

Mike looked at the girl sitting in his lap and wept the blood from her nostril with his hand as he felt the world no longer existed outside his bedroom door. El was looking at him like he was the most precious thing in the universe, she was looking at him the way he always looked at her and when Mike reach her face to caress her cheek and she lean to it; he become more in love than he had been. Just then both of them lean to each other and kissed fiercely, pressing their lips together as if they were trying to melt into each other senseless, moving their lips and exploring each others mouths deeply.

Because Eleven doesn't sing, Eleven doesn't play any instrument. Eleven doesn't have the skill to record a video like Mike did to tell her how he was in love with her, a video she had watched a hundred times already. But Eleven goes to his house three days before their anniversary running as fast as she can, struggling with her tears, afraid he might leave her, with a bunch of paper sheets and a music tape in one hand hoping she still was in time to tell him how she was feeling. If Mike ever thought she didn't love him, then he had never been more wrong.

Every kiss was new and that kiss was the definitive proof that her feelings was as real as the passion they held under their innocence. Now there was nothing he didn't knew and she was hoping for Mike to understand that he never needed to try anything to impress her or make her life easier, because he already did, he was the reason her life was already perfect.

- El…

- Mike…

Air was needed and they broke apart, patting, as a new world opened before them.

- Mike I… I took so long because I couldn't come up with anything special to do. That's why I brought those paper sheets so you could read how I wanted to write letters I couldn't figure out how to finish. I wrote down song's lyrics for inspiration and then I had to start all over again. I wanted to make this quick but I couldn't manage to do it and… - she bit her lip as she cried again. – That's why I was so afraid because I never realized how long it was taking me to tell you how a feel, but I wanted it to be perfect, I wanted… Not just to tell you what I feel but also why I feel this way.

And then Mike saw the big picture.

He looked at the pages in his hand while he held Eleven tighter with the other and she placed her head on his shoulder, holding him. One by one he saw each piece of paper, they were messy, they weren't a letter, they were the beginning of dozens of them. They were half-finish drawings, they had scratches and doodles, and music lyrics; and Mike couldn't believe she thought it wasn't a perfect present. Because her declaration of love was the song they listened on her walkman and the memories she revealed to him; it was her effort to try and make that imperfect moment completely perfect for both of them and Mike looked at her wanting El to know, to understand, that everything she did, how hard she tried, and how desperate she was to show him that she wanted to surprise him, it all became the best gift ever.

There was nothing else to hide; he could see her crystal clear and he couldn't stop smiling especially when she spoke again.

- I love you, Mike.

Her words surprised both of them at the same time. First Eleven for actually – and finally- saying it out loud and how she enjoyed saying those words after so long, they were as natural as breathing and she wanted to say them to Mike forever. And then he was surprised because, while he felt a big smile growing across his face for what she had just said, he also already knew how she felt for him from the moment she run to kiss him when he arrived to her house on her birthday.

- I love too, El. – he whispered. – Happy anniversary.

Both teenagers smiled at each other happily, feeling butterflies in their stomachs and running through their veins. She was no longer afraid he would leave her and he couldn't feel anything else but thankful to the entire world and all its dimensions. This time El leaned to kiss him again forgetting about the fact that the rest of the party would arrive at any moment and they might catch them. All that mattered to Mike and Eleven were the soft lips moving and touching each other's, the sound they made, the intimacy of sharing feelings confessed by songs on a never-ending confession of love.

And in that right moment, El sitting on his lap and her 'I love you' floating in the air, Mike Wheeler knew he was the luckiest boy in the world with a girlfriend so beautiful he could always call his own.

It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong.

oOoOoOoOo

Well, this was long. And I'm not only talking about the fanfic but also about how much it's been since I published 'Red Spots of Love' and how much it took me to publish this one.

I can't apologize enough to all of you. I started writing it immediately after I finished the other, and when it was done –and it was also this long – I didn't like it. At all. It was completely different from this one, it was a lot more 'child-ish', it wasn't good enough for you guys. So I got frustrated and stuck, and then I heard this song – which name by the way is 'Feels Like Home' and it's performed by Chantal Kreviazuk in her album from 1999, look it up –; and the inspiration hit me back again harder this time. I published its original version a few days back and, as you know, it took me a couple of days to translate it. English isn't my native language and I do the best I can, so if you read any mistakes, I apologize… again.

So, anyway, I am so soooooooo sorry this took so long and I hope you guys had enjoyed it very much. And I know I probably don't deserve reviews because it's been over three weeks since my previous upload but I really REALLY want to know if it filled your expectations and if you liked it. So please, pleaaase, leave a comment.

Thank you to all who keep reading my fluffy nonsense.

Oh, before I forgot, someone told me I 'may start writing their wedding', well… Let me tell you that something like that will be publish soon.

Until next time, love you all!