Hi everyone! I hope you are having a great weekend so far. The story has transitioned out of the character introductions and I really hope that you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment and critique.
Chapter One
Mike's POV
He, Will, and Dustin had driven to NYC a few days ago and were currently crashing at Nancy and Jonathan's studio flat. Both of them were kind hosts, but a studio apartment wasn't meant to have five people living in it. Will was sleeping on the coach, while Dustin and Mike jostled for space of the floor. Most mornings, Mike smashed his head on the coffee table getting up. Nancy and Jonathan's place worked for a few days, but it couldn't function for a semester.
Jonathan had asked around, but most of his friends already had crowded apartments of their own. Nancy went to Barnard, so all her friends there were girls. She always warned Mike that Barnard girls tended to either be pure sweethearts so sickly sweet you got cavities by simply saying hello or lusty vixens desperate for any hint of a man at this point. Mike figures that she's probably just exaggerating, since Nancy always complains that she should have just gone to NYU or Columbia. Still, better not to chance it. He'd heard enough horror stories from Nancy to hesitate before saying hello to a Barnard girl, let alone living with one. So, Mike and Dustin had taken to glancing though the advertisements for an acceptable apartment and going to NYU and looking for posters offering housing. Will was busy catching up with his brother. Together the two of them spent hours wandering around the city taking photos, which Will would later use as references for his newest series of paintings and sketches.
As he spreads butter on his bagel, Mike decides that today they will find an apartment. He'd had a good dream and he can vaguely remember the murmurings of an oddly accented girl. He can't recall what she looked like, but he decided years ago that dreaming of her was a good sign. When he wakes up with her name on his lips and her voice humming in his ears, he always has a nice day. The last time he remembered dreaming of her, he'd found out he'd been accepted to NYU. This dream girl is Mike's good luck charm. She's also his secret crush.
It's embarrassing, but he likes to imagine that the girl he hears in his dreams is his magnet girl with the shaven head. He barely knew her, but she was his first crush. So far, she and dream girl have been his only crushes, and he's convinced that dream girl is probably his imagination conjuring up magnet girl and making her older and more talkative. No other girl seems right. They all are eclipsed by the memories he has of that shaved head with a shadow of hair and those glimmering, wild eyes. Even now, when he thinks of her, his shoulder tingles where she leaned on him while sleeping.
He needs to stop dreaming of her and actually live his life though. Lucas has been teasing him for years about it, and he knows that Lucas is right. The real thing is better than a faded memory. But anytime he tries to force himself to like another girl, it just feels fake. He starts to compare these girls to his magnet girl, and none of them can beat her. Besides, he almost feels guilty when he does. His heart hammers, his palms sweat, and he swears he can hear her scolding him for cheating on her. Which is stupid, right? She's supposed to be just some girl who he slept beside once when he was twelve. She ought to be just some girl who listened to him ramble about Star Wars and walked through the woods, holding hands with him. God, just thinking of holding hands with her makes his heart race and his face flush.
He frantically stands up. He needs to clear his head. He's going to start college in a week and here he is dreaming about this girl he met when he was twelve. This year, he will finally give up on her. This year, he will do what Lucas said and get a girlfriend. Now, he just needs to find a flat.
Eleven's POV
She'd put up the poster two days ago and had been anxiously conjuring up imaginary roommates ever since. She practiced asking them questions about their major, their hobbies, their dreams. She wonders what they will be like. She wants to make friends, but she also needs roommates who will respect her privacy and be too preoccupied to genuinely care. If her flatmates start to ask questions, she's screwed.
Eleven's not a very good liar. She likes to blame it on the fact that she was taught English so late. She'd picked up words in the lab, but she hadn't been at a conversational English level until she was thirteen. Her English was so poor, that when she had escaped her first time, she could barely talk with the dark haired boy, and she hardly understood anything he had said. God, he must have assumed she was an idiot. She touches his watch. Maybe she is an idiot? She's been pining away for this boy who probably forgot her. She's turned down dates out of some odd sense of loyalty to a memory. Logan always shakes his head whenever she mentions the dark haired boy and Laura always mutters that a dream will always be a dream. But Eleven just doesn't feel ready to give him up yet. Besides, he still calls out to her in his dreams. That has to be a good sign, right?
Since arriving here, she started to scrummage around for things that the dark haired boy had mentioned liking. She found used Star Wars VCR tapes and a Yoda action figure at a store that sold objects that other people previously owned. Professor X's apartment has a television with a VCR player, so she watched all the Star War films those first two nights. He was right! These films are good. Back at the Professor X's school, they didn't go to the movies often and most of the teachers made sure they had a library full of books, not films.
Just as one of her blueberry eggo waffles pops out of the toaster, Eleven hears the phone ring. It's either a potential roommate or Laura. She sprints to the phone with her waffle in hand. Just as she is about to take the phone out of the cradle she starts to feel the waffle's heat and she drops it. No! She stops the fall and lets the eggo float while she answers the phone.
"Hello?" She asks
'Hi, I.. umm… I saw your poster and I wanted to know if you were still looking for roommates. My friends and I need a place to stay and your apartment sounded nice…" It's a male voice. He seems a smidge nervous, and it makes her giggle.
"You are the first that called about it actually" God, she hates her voice on the phone. It shows just how unnatural her English is. She always takes a while to form the words and they usually seem to fall flat.
"Really? But the rent is so cheap for Manhattan."
"I only put it up a few days ago, and it is a tad late. Most people probably secured housing," she starts to explain.
"Well, it seems perfect. Umm… is there some sort of interview? Do you want to meet my friends and I in person? I could try to get recommendation letters, if you want? I heard those are useful, but I am just a freshman, so I never really lived on my own before… Not technically," he speaks so quickly that Eleven struggles to understand everything. Prior to this, she thought her English had improved a lot. Maybe the others at school just spoke slowly when with her? It would make sense.
"No letter. Just come with your friends. We can talk" she interrupts him and she knows her English sounds terrible at this point. At least he's been nice and ignored it so far.
"Oh, sure. That sounds great! When can we could we arrange the interview?"
"… Anytime…" She sounds like she has no social life. Now she won't get roommates. They will think she is too lame. Wait, why is she so nervous? Eleven usually doesn't get that stressed. She even fought Magneto and Mystique separately and didn't feel nearly as worried as she does right now.
"That's great! Umm.. let me check with the others. Give me a sec…" She can hear him yelling, "Will, Dustin wake up! I found an apartment. We got an interview today. Come on, get up!" She decides to wait for him. He seems busy. "Ok, so would meeting in an hour work?" he finally asks. Eleven looks around the apartment. So far she didn't have enough stuff for it to be messy. She needed to finish breakfast and shower, but an hour seemed like ample time. Maybe she could even start re-watching Star Wars again?
"Sure, see you then…"
"Hey, I'm Mike Wheeler. My friends are Dustin Henderson and Will Byers. What's your name?"
"El… Jane"
"Eljane? I never heard that name before. Where are you from?" She hears someone muttering something in the background. "Shut up! I am just trying to be friendly" Mike seems to yell. She cannot hear him distinctly though.
"Oh, sorry. Umm.. My name is Jane, but…" She hesitates to think of an excuse for the slip up. "But my friends call me Eleven as a joke" she decides to just be truthful.
"Eleven? Is there a story behind it?" He sounds bemused.
"Um… it is a long one." Excuses, excuses…. Please, she needs something… anything.
"Ok, maybe you can explain it when we come over later? Do you like coffee or hot chocolate?" He seems so nice. He asks a lot of questions, but maybe it would be alright? She wants to live with someone this nice and interesting.
"Yes, perhaps. What is coffee?" Is it the brown liquid she sees some of the teachers drink each morning? Or maybe it is the amber one Logan likes? Eleven hears him laugh then. It makes her face heat up and her heart beats quicken.
"I'll bring you a hot chocolate then."
"Ok... Thanks" She sputters and then hangs up.
Eleven looks at the eggo hovering at eye level. She glares and it floats towards her mouth. She takes a bite. Darn, she talked long enough that it became cold. She'd never tried blueberry waffles before, and she'd been really excited about them too. Better not to waste food though, so she continues to eat absently while trying to imagine what Mike Wheeler looks like. As she prepares to shower, she finds herself paying extra attention to her clothes. For the first time in her life, she wants to look cute.
Mike's POV
The girl on the phone had the same accent as the one in his dreams and it was messing with him. He should have been professional when on the phone, but as her accent had begun to grow more noticeable while they continued to talk, he wanted to berate her with questions. Listening to her intrigued him. She seemed so mysterious and fascinating. He wanted her to be his magnet girl.
He nudged Dustin with his foot and pushed Will until they finally woke up. Dustin grumbled and glared a bit, but Mike was starting to realize that this was normal for Dustin in the morning. He glanced at his watch, it really wasn't that early though. It was already almost ten.
"Come on, I found an apartment. Get ready," he chided. Dustin turned to him with a dazed look on his face.
"So? Why do we need to rush?"
"Because we're meeting her in an hour and it takes thirty minutes just to get there. Plus, we got to stop by that café Nancy likes and grab a hot chocolate, so that will probably take another fifteen minutes. Hurry up! You can shower or you can eat, but if you keep sleeping you won't get to do either." Will blinks the sleep out of his eyes and looks at Mike pensively. Mike's stomach starts to shrink.
Anytime Will looks at him like that, it means Will is practically reading Mike's mind. Sometimes Mike wonders if Will is one of those mutants people hear about on the news. They'd only had a couple kids at his school turn out to be mutants, and he didn't know either of them very well, but none of them had seemed particularly harmful. They just seemed scared. Whether or not Will was didn't really matter. Mike feels the same way about Will potentially being a mutant as he does about Will maybe being gay: Will is his best friend and that means Mike accepts Will for Will.
Will silently gets up and glides to the bathroom. Mike hears him mutter something about eating breakfast on the subway. Dustin collects himself, finally gets out of his sleeping bag, and stumbles towards the pantry. He grabs a bagel, pops it in the toaster, and turns to Mike as he waits.
"So, cute girl?" Dustin grins good-naturedly. Mike sputters.
"How… how did you guess?"
"Man, you offered to buy her hot chocolate and you are practically pushing us out the door in your hurry to get over there. Sure, sleeping on the floor isn't fun, but you wouldn't have rushed this meeting unless you were frantic to meet her in person" Dustin explains with a grin.
"You know, I really think you would be a great psychiatrist, Dustin."
"Nah, I got my heart set on teaching. I'm determined to one day be some nerd's more handsome version of Mr. Clark. What would have happened if we didn't have someone like him during middle school? He pushed us, and he also encouraged us to be proud of being nerds. Besides, I wouldn't want to cause you to lose your job."
Mike laughed, Dustin always seemed so sure of himself and so positive. He wished he could be more like him, but Mike just always seemed to take things too seriously. Dustin's bagel popped up. He put another in the toaster for Will and started to smear his own with cream cheese. They formed a companionable silence while waiting on Will.
…
The line was even longer than usual, but they had managed to grab Jane's hot chocolate, Mike's coffee, Will's tea, and Dustin's cappuccino. Hands full of hot beverages, they sped to the nearest subway exit. Luckily it was only five minutes walk and the subway was not too crowded today. For the entire ride, Mike kept trying to envision what Jane looked like. She sounded so similar to the girl from his dreams. Maybe they were from the same country? Perhaps they are the same person? Who was he kidding? He needed to stop fueling that fantasy before it made things awkward. Jane seemed shy on the phone and she probably didn't want to forced into playing the role of mysterious magnet girl of his geeky dreams.
…
Mike usually liked to be the navigator, but they were running short on time and Will knew the streets of New York far better, so Mike begrudgingly handed him the poster. Jane had printed a map and circled her apartment on the back. She'd even included directions on how to get there from NYU. She seemed pretty meticulous. Will glanced down, smiled at Mike gratefully, and immediately started to pull them along.
The area seemed nice. Mike had to crane his neck just to see the tops of the buildings, but they all were clean shades of grey. The streets weren't littered with trash and the walls weren't painted with graffiti. He liked it. Plus, he'd already noticed a bagel shop and a grocery store, so, if the prices were decent, they wouldn't need to travel far for necessities.
Will glanced down at the poster and then quickly turned to the right. They started to wander down a paved path in a park surrounded by apartment buildings.
"Look for building 11A, guys" Will muttered as he glanced around. While Mike looks frantically from building to building, he notices Dustin walking up to a couple sitting on a bench. He talks and they all laugh together for a few minutes before Dustin returns with the middle aged couple following behind him.
"They said they wouldn't mind walking with us to building 11A. Apparently they are relatively new to the Big Apple too." He smiles, "Us newbies have to stick together."
Mike and Will stay silent while Dustin chatters away with the couple. As they are getting closer to her apartment, Mike's heart starts pounding. He passes Will Jane's hot chocolate and his coffee, since Will finished his tea and bagel ages ago and wipes the sweat off of his empty palms onto his jeans and gulps. The couple stop and point to a tall, steel grey building with a black 11A to the right of the doors. Will nudges Mike forward with a grin and Mike looks back with a sheepish smile and nods his head in thanks. Pulling the door open, the boys wander inside. Their footsteps echo across the marble floors and Mike strides towards the buzzer. He presses the buzzer for flat 12C. It rings for a few second before a husky voice answers back. There's a spark of electricity racing along Mike's spine.
"Hello, it's Mike Wheeler here. Um, I got you that hot chocolate I mentioned. May I come up?"
"What? Oh, sure."
He hears a click and he, Will, and Dustin rush to the elevator. He presses the steel button and leans back against the walls of the elevator.
"Will, could you pass me my coffee?"
"Sure, so the reason you barely drank it was so that you could chat with Jane over drinks." Will phrases it as a question, but it seems more like a statement to Mike.
"Is that lame?" Mike worries.
"No, sweet" murmurs Will, who smiles to himself and passes the coffee to Mike. Dustin just smirks and wiggles his eyebrows up and down. The elevator doors open and they walk to apartment 12C at the end of the hall. Dustin presses the doorbell, but Mike hears someone yelling, "No! Not Han… Please!"
"Are you ok?" She said Han right? Is she watching Star Wars? Oh man, if she is watching Star Wars then even if Jane isn't the girl from his dreams, he might fall for her anyway.
"Oh, um… sorry… the walls are thinner than I thought. I just got caught up in the film. I know how it goes, but it always upsets me when they freeze Han Solo. It just is awful to be trapped and unable to do anything about it, you know?" He hears her reply through the door and Mike doesn't need a mirror to picture how much his checks are flushing. His face feels like its burning. The door slowly opens and he walks in practically entranced.
He sets the drinks down on the oak table before turning to look at her. His heart stops pumping and Mike's lungs don't seem able to function. Her eyes seem to glimmer with wildfire and her coral lips are curled up in a slight, playful smile. The tips of her curly mahogany hair reach down past her shoulders. She has a waifish build and long legs. On her wrist, he spots a clunky black, plastic watch. It looks exactly like the one he gave to his magnet girl. He wants to reach out to her, to touch her, to ask if she's even real. Instead, he just stands there, rooted in place.
Perhaps realizing that Mike is completely frozen, Dustin clears his throat.
"Hey, I'm Dustin, this is Will, and he's Mike. Dustin punches Mike playfully in the arm and forces a friendly grin. The girl tears her eyes away from Mike and her grin widens.
"Hi, I'm Jane. The apartment is really big. I have three extra rooms, so the numbers seem kinda perfect." She seems to force out a laugh, but to Mike it sounds like the chiming of bells. She carries herself a tad more confidently than his magnet girl did, but the resemblance seems uncanny. While she's looking at Dustin, he pinches the crease of his elbow. Ow! Ok, so he is awake. He swears she keeps taking glances at him. Maybe he seems like a lanky freak? He needs to speak up.
"Looks pretty… the apartment. Um... Here's your hot chocolate. Nancy loves this place. She says it makes the best drinks in New York." He blabbers on mindlessly. Why is he talking about his sister like some dweeb?
"Nancy?" Her voice dips and her eyes lower to the floor. He notes that the tips of her ears have turned scarlet. It's cute.
"My sister. She's a student at Barnard College. We've been staying with her and her boyfriend, who is also Will's older brother, while looking for an apartment. It's a bit of a tight fit though, so we're hoping to move out as soon as we can." He keeps on talking nonstop. She doesn't care. He needs to stop before she thinks he is a huge nerd with no social skills.
"Oh, sister" Ok, he swears she just smiled for a second… Fine, maybe he wants her to smile and he imagined it.
'Yeah, um… so I'm a student at NYU. Well, I am not a student yet. The semester hasn't started." He laughs awkwardly. God, what is he doing? "I plan to study psychology. I want to become a psychiatrist. Will's an art student at NYU, and Dustin is an education major who plans to teach middle school science." Someone please just shut him up. He stares desperately at Will, who smiles back gleefully.
"Mike's a great student. He could help you with classes. He tutored a lot in high school" Will chimes in. She looks at Mike with a hopeful smile. His lungs stop working. His heart threatens to leave his chest. His stomach is flipping and floating around.
"Even English?" She asks hesitantly.
"Yeah, I love literature class. I was more into science when younger, but I really started to appreciate literature after my parents' divorce. It helped me to process the situation and emphasize with both parties. I'm a huge fan of Carver, personally. I appreciate the scarcity of his prose and how he masterfully captures his characters and their trauma in his short stories." Ok, he officially is a nerd and she will never want to hang out with him.
"I… I like Carver too. His rhetoric impresses me," she seems to be trying to force her mouth around the next words, "Could you help with speaking though? I… I learned English later into my childhood. Sometimes I worry that my English sounds bad" she states the words slowly and morosely. She seems to take her time when she speaks, as if the words are berries that she wants to taste. Mike wonders what her first language is instead.
"No, no… Your voice is beautiful… Oh, uh.. I mean that your English sounds nice. I can help you work on it though. Maybe you just need more practice to gain confidence?" Did offering to help her with English count as a date? He needed to thank Will afterwards.
"Yes! Yes, please." She nods enthusiastically and her eyes seem to shine even brighter.
"When could we move in?" Interrupts Dustin. Mike really hopes she says soon. Will glances at him quickly and then hides his grin.
"Today?" She asks, looking over at Mike. He feels dizzy. He's just not sure if it is due to oxygen depravation or from nodding so frantically. She smiles and he notices her long, gracefully eyelashes. He can hear Dustin trying to hold back his snickers, but Mike ignores him. He's going to move in with the girl of his dreams, his magnet girl. Now he just needed to become the man of her dreams and everything would be perfect. Wait… that was going to be tough. How could he become cool in a few hours?
