Welcome back readers!
Once again, it's been far too long since my last update, but what else is new? I was going to post this chapter earlier, but some parts of it just didn't quite sit right with me, so I took some extra time to edit (and was promptly swamped with work for another two months). As per usual, my writing time has been severely diminished, so my hopes of updating frequently are dashed once more, but we shall persevere!
I'm not usually one to ask for reviews, I write for my own enjoyment and that's enough, but I do like to get feedback about my plotlines and character development. It doesn't need to be long, but I do appreciate all the reviews that I receive.
Also, in anticipation of Season 3, I am incorporating some things from the trailers in my development (though not everything, this is still my own storyline). If there are things that seem very similar in the future, this is likely why, though I did have a lot planned that have some coincidental matchups.
Here it is, the next installment of Number Games!
"Alright, have fun you guys," Mrs. Byers says as the four kids pile out of the Blazer. "We'll pick you up from Mike's house tomorrow morning, but if anything happens, just call and we'll come get you."
"We know mom, Hopper already explained everything," Will responds with a cheeky grin.
"Twice," El adds at a whisper.
"What was that, young lady?" Hopper asks, coming around from the driver's side, fixing the girl and her boyfriend with a stern look.
"Nothing," She answers, though she still doesn't look at him.
That seems to be as much as Hopper expects, not pressing further.
"Remember, no powers while you're in public, unless someone's in danger," Hopper says instead. "That goes for both of you."
He fixes his glare on Liz, who just rolls her eyes back at him.
"You're not my dad, Chief," She retorts, crossing her arms. "I don't answer to you."
"So long as you're around my daughter, yes, you do," Hopper responds, standing firm. "So you can either follow the rules, or leave my town."
Liz rolls her eyes again, turning and starting to walk away with a flippant wave of her hand. Hopper resist the urge to grumble under his breath, it would just undermine his current image.
"Just for once, can you not get into trouble?" He finally asks, fixing the two boys with his gaze, his daughter still not looking at him.
"Yes sir," They both say at once, though neither of them seem particularly threatened by him anymore.
This time he does grumble, something about cheeky little brats, but that's something only he could hear.
"Now go have fun," Joyce tells them. "And Will, take this."
Before the three can run, Joyce tucks something into her son's hand with a wink, and then shoos them away. The three don't hesitate, scurrying to catch up with Liz as she reaches the entrance to the park gate.
"What did your mom give you?" Mike asks once they stop, breathing harder than he would care to admit after the short jog.
Will holds up a twenty dollar bill with a huge grin, and then stuffs it into his pocket before Mike can try to snatch it.
"They sell snow cones and funnel cakes at the snack stand tonight," Will informs them. "They're my favorites."
"Oh, so you're buying then?" Mike retorts with a laugh.
"In your dreams, Mighty Mike," Will shoots back, which makes Mike's face turn bright red.
"Did you just say 'Mighty Mike'?" Liz questions, glancing back at them.
"That was the name Mike gave his paladin for one of our old campaigns," Will explains, doing a poor job of holding back his laughter. "We had Will the Wise, Dustin the Dwarf, Lucas the Lucky, and Mike the Mighty."
"That's good," Liz comments, nodding a bit to herself. "I'll remember that one..."
"Great, now I'm doomed," Mike mutters.
"I'll protect you," El chimes in, squeezing his hand and moving closer so she bumps into his arm.
Mike turns a slightly darker shade of red at that, which just makes El smile. Liz pretends not to notice them, and Will just keeps laughing at his friend. It's not until they pass. The poor boy is only spared when they reach the open field of the park, with a couple little league baseball fields off on the right and the playground off to their left with the snack stand. There are dozens and dozens of picnic blankets and lawn chairs set up all over the field, with adults lounging about having claimed their spots, and children running around playing and laughing. There's police barricades at the far end of the field with tape between them to keep the general public away from the fireworks setup, and there are two fire trucks in attendance, one in the parking lot and one at the end of the street that runs past the park, which will be closed for the night.
"They brought both of the fire trucks?" Will observes sarcastically when he looks at the street. "They must be expecting a big fire."
"There's gonna be a fire?" El questions apprehensively. Nobody had mentioned an actual fire in the planning for this outing.
"No, there isn't," Mike quickly assures her. "Will's just trying to be funny. Hawkins only has two fire trucks that we know of, and they're both here tonight."
El nods, and then laughs a little at Will's joke. Will just sighs, looking off into the sea of people for their friends.
"Found them," Mike says, grabbing their attention. He starts off into the crowd, weaving around people, chairs, and blankets with expert precision. It's a necessary skill for nerds, since nobody ever thinks to get out of their way in the hallway, they just plow straight through them.
Naturally, El sticks to his side like glue, leaving Will and Liz to keep up. They almost trample over a few fingers and come very close to bowling over a group of kids sprinting across their path, but they manage to arrive safely at the Wheeler's portion of the field. The two adjacent portions belong to the Sinclair's and Mrs. Henderson respectively.
Their friends, sprawled out on Mrs. Henderson's picnic blanket, scramble to their feet at their appearance. Holly and Erica are playing with their dolls on the Wheeler's blanket while Ted 'watches' them, which must be hard while taking a nap. The other adults are chatting on the Sinclair's blanket for the time being.
"We were getting worried about you guys," Mrs. Wheeler comments, getting up to give her son an embarrassing hug. "When Nancy told me that you'd be coming with Will and Jane, I thought you'd be here before us."
"Hopper had a lot to say before we could leave," Will explains before Mike can say anything. He probably would have said the same thing, but Mrs. Wheeler can't ground Will for not respecting the police chief.
"Well, then I guess you kids are going to go do your own thing?" Mrs. Wheeler questions, getting three very enthusiastic nods from the kids in front of her.
"We need to claim the swings before they get overrun," Dustin interjects, determined to prove that he can swing the highest in the party.
"Oh, well, if you're going to the playground," Mrs. Wheeler continues. "Then you can take Holly and Erica with you."
Mike can't help the groan that comes out of him at the suggestion, getting an annoyed look from his mother.
"Do we have to?" Mike complains, as if it will do any good. "Can't they just stay and play with their toys here?"
"You can either take them with you, or no allowance this week," His mother retorts with a smile. She'd purposefully waited to give her son his allowance in case she needed adequate leverage.
Mike groans again, but a gentle squeeze from his girlfriend stops him from trying to argue about it.
"Fine, we can babysit," He grumbles.
"That's better," Mrs. Wheeler says, and then reaches down to grab her purse. She hands her son his allowance with a smile, and then sits back down.
The excitement in the party is more subdued now, but they can still make the best of this. Plus, it's really only Mike that has to babysit.
"It's about time," Erica comments, getting up and adjusting her dress. "I wanted to go the playground an hour ago."
"Well, we're going now," Mike tells her as if he enjoys babysitting. "Come on Holly, time for the playground."
He holds his hand out for his little sister, who scrambles to take it. She jumps up and down next to him, and as much as Mike wants to tell her no, he lets go of El's hand and picks Holly up.
"Thanks Mikey," She says sweetly.
El giggles at them as they start to walk, keeping close enough to Mike to keep bumping into each other even if they can't hold hands. On their walk over, they spy Troy and his band of mouthbreathers, but choose to ignore them. If he knows what's good for him, he won't cause any trouble tonight.
"So are you Mikey's girlfriend?" Holly asks as they walk.
El blushes, but still smiles at the five year old.
"I like to think so," She says. "It would be really awkward if I wasn't, since he's my boyfriend and all."
Mike can't help but smile. That's probably the most words El has ever spoken at once to someone she doesn't know really well.
"Are you guys going to get married?" Holly questions innocently, which El doesn't quite know how to respond to. Thankfully, Mike sees her smile falter a bit and leaps in to save her.
"That's a little far in the future, Holly," He says. "Let's focus on what we're doing now, like the playground!"
He says that just as they reach the playground, filled with excited children climbing and sliding over everything, with several dozen parents chaperoning as they have their own conversations.
"See ya," Erica says right away, running off to find her friends.
"Be careful!" Lucas yells after her, knowing he'll be the one getting blamed if his sister gets hurt.
"Don't worry about her, the swings are open!" Dustin exclaims, starting off at a run toward the swingsets.
When the rest of the party, walking more slowly, reaches the swings, they're still just as open as before. They do run into a problem though, there are six regular swings, and seven of them, eight with Holly.
"Can I go on the big kid swings this time?" Holly asks, giving Mike her best puppy dog eyes. Ever the nice older brother, Mike concedes, setting his sister down on one of the regular swings. Her feet come nowhere close to the ground, which probably means she should be in a child swing, but it's too late now.
"Ok, now hold on tight," He tells her, moving behind her. With a gentle shove, Holly starts to swing, not going too far either way, but it's enough for her. "Try pumping your legs with the swing, you'll go higher."
She giggles as she does what Mike says, taking a few tries to get her rhythm right, and then screams in delight when she starts to go higher than before.
"I'm doing it Mikey, I'm doing it!" She exclaims, a big grin on her face.
"You're doing great, Holly, that's perfect!" He calls back to her.
El watches this whole exchange from the next swing over, content to just sit for the moment. Liz hadn't wanted a swing, leaning on the support bar between El and Will. Seeing Mike interact with his little sister is a lot like seeing him interact with El. He has an endless supply of patience, even if he didn't really want to babysit, just like when El asks him a question he doesn't really want to answer, but does anyway because it's her.
"Waiting for your turn to have Mike push you?" Liz questions, jolting El out of her lull. "Hate to break it to you, but usually baby sister has precedence over girlfriend. You might want to try teaching yourself."
"I can wait," El replies. "I like when Mike explains things."
"Oh, don't tell him that," Liz responds. "He'll be insufferable, explaining everything. You'll get enough of that from literally every other man on the planet, don't encourage it in your boyfriend."
"It's different with Mike," El insists. "Mike is special."
Liz opens her mouth to retort, but is interrupted by a less than joyous cry from Holly as the girl flies off the seat of the swing. El sees everything in slow motion as Mike dives forward, under the swing. It's not even a conscious action to make Holly fall straight down instead of forward, right into Mike's spaghetti arms.
Everything goes back to normal once Holly is on the ground. A few concerned parents move a little closer, but there isn't any crying. Mike just sits up slowly, his little sister on his lap, a big grin on her face.
"Can we do that again?" She asks.
"No, we are not doing that again," Mike tells her, not even looking at her attempt to pout at him.
If Mike hadn't been wearing a long-sleeved shirt, he probably would have gotten quite a few cuts and splinters, but luckily he's fine.
"I don't know how you can stand wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt in the middle of the summer, but it came in handy this time," Dustin comments.
Mike grimaces at his friend, not responding to the statement as he gets up.
"Alright Holly, I think that's enough swings for now, why don't you find Erica to play with for a little while?" Mike suggests, setting his sister on her feet.
"Ok," She says, immediately turning and starting to run away
"Just don't leave the playground!" Mike shouts after her, and then sighs, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
"Don't give up yet, lover boy, your girlfriend still wants her turn," Liz informs him, sitting down on the open swing, lazily moving back and forth.
Mike's attention switches back to El, as if it had never left in the first place. Within minutes he's explained the mechanics of using the swing, somehow resisting the urge to delve into the world of physics and angular momentum.
"Just push her already," Liz finally snaps after listening to the effects of pumping your legs on momentum for the third time.
Mike turns red when he realizes he'd been over-explaining everything again. With a short cough to hide some of his embarrassment, he gives El a gentle shove, starting her back and forth.
Just like with Holly, it takes El a few passes to time pumping her legs correctly, but once she gets it, she goes higher than Mike was capable of pushing her.
"It's like flying!" She exclaims excitedly, a giant grin on her face as Mike comes around so she can see him.
"Amazing," Mike responds, much more quietly, letting his matching grin do most of the talking.
"Careful lover boy, you're getting heart eyes again," Liz points out, turning Mike a nice shade of scarlet again.
"Don't you have anything better to do than make fun of me?" Mike asks, giving her a sidelong scowl.
"Not until these fireworks start, but I'll take suggestions," Liz responds with her signature smirk. Mike just shakes his head and turns back to El, probably not even noticing the corners of his mouth turning up.
"Mikey!"
Mike's attention is immediately ripped toward the rest of the playground, at Holly and Erica running towards them. A flash of panic runs through his veins, trying to figure out what could have possible gone wrong. He doesn't see any blood, so that's a good sign.
"Mikey, we need to go potty," Holly says, running up and latching onto her brother's leg.
Mike's panic goes down immensely, breathing a massive sigh of relief. Then he seems to get an idea.
"Since you're not doing anything, could you take Holly and Erica to the ladies' room?" Mike suggests, turning to look at Liz again.
"Why, can't handle a bathroom break on your own?" Liz questions. "Or afraid they'll fall in?"
"Very funny," Mike retorts, rolling his eyes. "I'd rather not have them going to the bathroom alone when it's this busy, and I can't go in the ladies' room."
"Very astute observation, must have taken you a while to figure that one out," Liz replies, but stands up all the same. "Max, El, come on, bathroom!"
"Why, can't handle a bathroom break on your own?" Mike says, getting an icy glare from Liz.
"It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand," Liz tells him as Max and El gradually come to a stop on the swings. "Alright girls, let's go."
El and Max hurry to catch up as Liz starts toward the bathrooms with Holly and Erica. It's a little funny to watch the older girl interact with small children, mainly because she has a smile on her face that doesn't scream that she's playing a prank on you. The boys had learned to distinguish the two rather quickly.
"Do you think we'll see them alive again?" Lucas questions, coming up alongside his fellow older brother.
"I hope so, my allowance depends on it," Mike responds as they lose sight of the girls in the crowd.
"Guys, trouble at two o'clock," Dustin warns, drawing their attention to the second entrance to the playground. Troy, James, and their band of friends are coming in, shouting and shoving like a bunch of monkeys. Parents shoot them disapproving glances, but nobody says anything to them.
"Escape plan delta?" Will asks, still sitting on the swing.
"Affirmative," Mike and Lucas say at the same time.
The boys immediately make a beeline for the playground entrance they'd come in through. It's not a terribly large playground, so they don't have to go very far, but it's far enough for their plan to go wrong.
"We've been spotted!" Dustin hisses, glancing over his shoulder, seeing the group now coming toward them with a bad glint in their eyes. "Evasive maneuvers!"
That amounts to the four boys breaking into a run, attempting to reach the crowd before they get beat up. With the head start they have on the other boys, it should be no contest, even with the low physical capacity they all share.
That is, until Mike trips on a divet he couldn't see and turns his ankle. He falls with a cry of pain, trying to brace his fall and grab his ankle at the same time.
"Mike!" Will yells, running back to his friend, panic in his eyes as the other group of boys closes in on them.
"Well look what we've got here boys, frog face and fairy boy," Troy teases, his run turning into a saunter as he reaches them. "Where's your girlfriend, Wheeler? Did she dump you for fucking fairy boy?"
"Leave us alone Troy," Mike mutters through his teeth, still clutching his ankle.
"Don't you have anything better to do with your life than harass us?" Lucas demands, coming up behind his friends, Dustin beside him.
"Oh look, Midnight's standing up for the fairies," James interjects, all of his friends laughing. Lucas' hands ball into fists, but he manages to stop himself from starting a fight with a group twice their size.
"Something you want to say, Midnight?" Troy asks, a smug grin on his face.
"Eat a dick, Troy," Mike tells him before Lucas has the chance to say anything. Standing with difficulty, Mike takes a painful step toward their childhood bully.
"What did you just say to me?" Troy demands, getting directly in Mike's face.
"Spoke too soon, smells like you already did," Mike replies, not backing down. "Now why don't you go away, leave us alone, and never come back?"
If anyone else was looking, they could see Troy's anger visibly rise, his face turning a progressively darker shade of red. They could also see Troy drive his fist into Mike's face and send the boy sprawling on the ground, a gush of red pouring down from his nose.
"That's what you get when you don't watch your mouth, frog face," Troy growls, looking ready to keep going.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Will demands, already next to his downed friend, trying to figure out what to do.
"You want some too, fairy freak?!" Troy shouts, starting toward the other boy.
"Alright, that's enough."
Troy barely has time to register the words before a fist drives into his stomach, and he gets shoved to the ground. Standing above him, a cold glare in her eyes, is Liz. She turns that glare on the rest of Troy's group, and James takes an involuntary step backward.
"I'll make this clear once, and only once," She says, her eyes slowly moving over all of them. "These are my nerds. If you want to mess with them, then you go through me. Understand?"
None of the boys say anything, all fixed in place by the fury in Liz's eyes. Troy manages to slowly sit up, so Liz takes the chance to haul him to his feet by the front of his shirt. She makes him look her in the eyes, and the smell of urine starts to emanate from him.
"Understand?" She repeats shortly.
Troy manages to nod, his tongue fumbling over words until Liz unceremoniously shoves him back onto his ass.
"Good, then beat it," She orders, turning back toward Mike.
She doesn't bother to look as the boys all start to run away, Troy scrambling to his feet and sprinting to catch up. By this time, the boys have Mike sitting up, pinching his nose.
"Come on, let's get you to the bathroom," Liz says, the razor edge she'd had before softening. "You can't go back to your parents covered in blood."
Mike just groans, his nose and eyes already starting to swell up.
"What happened to your bathroom trip?" Dustin questions, supporting one side of his friend, Lucas on the other. Will runs ahead to try to get some ice from the snack stand.
"Max and El can handle it just fine," Liz answers. "I saw the monkeys going in and had a bad feeling."
"Aww, you do care about us," Dustin says, a grin breaking his face, until Liz punches him in the arm.
"Don't push your luck," She warns.
Dustin nods, not wanting to incur her wrath after what they just saw.
"Still, thanks," He continues after a few more seconds. "People don't normally stick up for us."
"Don't worry about it," Liz brushes off.
"No, seriously," Lucas interjects from the other side. "Those moves were amazing, but that wasn't the part we need to thank you for. Normally people just look the other way when Troy is pulling something with us."
"Thankth," Mike manages to groan out around the dried blood on his face.
The boys manage to maneuver their friend into the bathroom and help him get the blood off of his face. His eyes aren't totally swollen, but he has black eye kind of bruises under each one. His nose is definitely swollen, almost twice its normal size, and his upper lip has a slightly smaller swell. Thankfully the flow of blood has stopped, though when Mike sneezes, the sink looks like a murder happened in it.
With bits of paper towel stuffed in his nose just in case, they get Mike back outside, where all of their friends are waiting for them.
"Mike!" El exclaims, rushing forward.
Dustin backs off, having been supporting Mike's good side. El isn't quite sure what to do, and seems scared to touch anywhere.
"I'll be fine, El, you don't need to worry," He says, his words coming out as if he has a lisp. "I just need to sit down."
"And use this," Will says, offering Mike one of the two bags of ice he's holding.
"Why'd you get two?" Max asks, trying to keep Holly and Erica from running away.
"He turned his ankle when we were running from Troy, so we should ice it when we sit down," Will answers.
"But I want to go back to the playground!" Erica complains.
"The fireworks are gonna be starting really soon, Erica, so we should go back to our blankets and get ready for them," Lucas says, trying not to snap at his little sister in public.
He isn't wrong, the sun is starting to dip below the horizon, and it won't be more than half an hour until its dark enough for the fireworks to start shooting.
Despite Erica's insistent protests, the party goes back to the blankets, finding that Nancy and Jonathan have joined the group since the party left. Nancy is the first to notice their group approaching, and then her eyes lock onto her brother.
"Mike!" She exclaims, scrambling to her feet and drawing all the adults' attention to the battered boy.
She helps El get Mike onto the blanket, and helps her brother sit down before starting her flood of questions, their mother quickly joining them. Will puts the other bag of ice on Mike's ankle, which is already a bit swollen.
"What happened? Who did this?" Nancy starts, checking her brother over for other injuries. "Weren't you just on the playground?"
Mike groans at all the questions, taking the ice away from his face.
"Troy was being an asshole, like always," He manages to say.
"Language," Ted interjects, stirring from his nap.
"Troy? That boy from school?" Mrs. Wheeler questions.
"Yep, that's the one," Dustin answers. "We tried running away, but Mike turned his ankle on a hole."
"You should have seen him though," Lucas adds. "He was giving it right back to Troy, until he got punched at least."
"Thanks guys," Mike mutters around the ice.
"But then Liz came and just destroyed him!" Dustin continues. "There were ten of them and they were all terrified! Troy even peed himself!"
"Well, at least someone knew how to put them in their place," Ted comments under his breath, though loudly enough for people to hear.
His wife shoots him a disapproving glance, but quickly turns back to her son.
"How's your head feeling?" She asks, kneeling next to him in the remaining space that El and Nancy haven't taken. "I have some aspirin if you need it."
She doesn't quite know what else to do, he already has ice, the bleeding has stopped, and he has as much emotional support as he can possibly get. Mike, for his part, nods to the aspirin rather than speaking.
Soon enough he's taken the pain killers, and the sun is almost entirely below the horizon. With the initial Mike frenzy over with, the other adults get around to fussing over their own children. Mrs. Henderson checks her son for injuries three times before he can calm her down.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair manage to convince Erica to stop complaining about going back to the playground, promising that she can have friends over later in the week. Jonathan, thankfully, only needs a brief check-in with Will to ask if he's alright before going back to his seat.
Even Holly is determined to check her brother over before she can sit down again, putting a princess bandaid on her big brother's hand. It doesn't really help with any of his injuries, but it makes him smile.
The kids settle in to wait for the fireworks, making sure Mike stays sitting up the whole time. El checks every two minutes that Mike is doing okay, asking if he needs anything, or if there's anything she can do. To the adults it seems adorable, though Mike understands her genuine concern, somehow feeling it himself even though he isn't overly concerned with his injuries.
It's not until the fireworks start that either of them manage to focus on something else. El almost jumps out of her skin when the first one goes off, her eyes darting around crazily, trying to find a nonexistent attacker. Mike gently takes her hand, trying to give her a reassuring look through his swollen face.
"Don't worry, you're safe with me," He whispers, his voice all but inaudible past the stream of fireworks.
El still manages to hear him, the panic slowly fading from her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and then shifts closer to her boyfriend, leaning into his side and resting her head on his shoulder.
"Safe with Mike," She murmurs as the colorful flashes illuminate the sky all colors of the rainbow, in patterns and sequences that mesmerize her the longer she looks. Right here, right now, she's just like every other child.
That's a wrap on the 4 of July!
This chapter was pretty much all fluff, but I needed it to set up some stuff for the future. It brought down the tensions from the last chapter, gave us some nice older brother Mike moments, and showed Mike stand up to Troy, even if he got a broken nose out of it. This also brings us closer to the final arc of what I've been calling the pre-story, and then we really get into what this story was meant to be about.
The list stands at:
Complete- Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Spring Break, mystery surprise Parts 1, 2, & 3, summer break(start), 4th of July
In Progress- end of summer
To Do- something for the start of school
Until next time!
