"Oh man oh man oh man." Lucas dashed about the basement in a frenzy, gathering up all his things scattered about the basement while the other kids watched him sleepily from their different positions.
"What's wrong?" Will yawned and stretched his arms over his head.
"I'm LATE!" Lucas squealed, shoving his feet into his shoes.
"For what?" Elle giggled. "It's Sunday, dummy. We don't have school."
"I KNOW! I gotta go to church! Father Steve is gonna freak if I'm not there!" With that Lucas dashed up the stairs and was gone.
"Weird." Dustin shrugged before burying his face in the covers once more. Just then, Mike emerged from the shower, pink-cheeked and content. He had ended up taking a rather... 'warm' shower, instead of the planned cold one.
"Hey guys." He sat next to Elle, who immediately set her head on his chest.
"Lucas went to a thing called 'church'." Elle explained. "He was very worried."
"Oh, yeah, church. Doesn't Hopper take you?"
"Nope." Elle frowned. "Should he?"
"Well... yeah? You could go with us today? It's not quite the same as what Lucas does, since we're Baptist, not Catholic, but the main ideas are similar. Jesus and love and stuff."
"Who's Jesus?" Elle asked. She'd heard the boys use that word before, but only as a curse.
"Oh wow, the moms are gonna have a time with you." Dustin chuckled a little. Elle frowned. She didn't like the sound of that.
"You need to eat more." She informed Mike seriously. "You are too bony. I could feel you poking me when I woke up."
Dustinlet started wheezing. "Oh Elle, I don't think-"
You're absolutely right!" Mike interjected. "Let's go get some breakfast okay?"
Elle narrowed her eyes. She could tell Mike wasn't being 100% honest by the way his nose twitched. She decided to ignore it though. She was hungry.
"Hello Mrs. Wheeler." Steve smirked at the freshly pressed woman as he strode into her home.
"Hello Steve. Jonathan." She nodded at the quieter boy, who always seemed to be a bit frightened, though he had gotten more verbal since he started spending pretty much all his time with Nancy and Steve.
"Hi." Jonathan stepped inside and stood awkwardly next to Steve.
"Nancy!" Mrs. Wheeler called up the stairs to her eldest child. "Your... friends are here!"
The brunette skipped down the stairs.
"Okay. Bye mom!" She practically fled out the door, her boys in tow. Karen sighed. She worried about her little girl.
Later that night, after a long day of comics and camaraderie, the Byers and Hopper families sat together at the dinner table.
"Kids. We have some news." Hopper set his fork down and the others followed suit. Except for Elle. She kept gobbling down spaghetti.
"Joyce and I are getting married. We're going to be a... family. If you would like."
Will's eyes filled with tears and Jonathan smiled.
"That sounds great. I'm real happy for you." Will nodded in agreement. Joyce turned to Elle with a nervous expression.
"What do you think Elle, sweetie?" She asked hesitantly. The girl finally set her fork down and swallowed, before fixing the couple with an extremely serious look on her face.
"I just have one question," she stated calmly, "will I get a new dress?"
Joyce couldn't restrain her laughter. "Of course! We'll get you the prettiest dress in all of Hawkins."
Elle smiled back. "Then I guess it's okay."
Mike and Elle sat in the basement, math textbooks set in front of them. Elle couldn't concentrate on something as stupid as numbers right then, though. She had other things on her mind. Like weddings, and dresses, and- something she had nearly forgotten popped to the front of her mind.
"Mike. That wasn't your elbow." She tapped his cheek and he looked up from his book a little guiltily. Truth be told, he had been studying her more than the numbers.
"What'd you say?" He asked, setting his book down. Elle set her chin on her hand and looked at him speculatively.
"When we had the sleepover. I woke up and you were poking me. But it wasn't your elbow, or your knee, or even your chin." She prodded each body part as she named it. "What was it?"
Mike flushed immediately and decided he was very, very glad the others had decided to go to the arcade instead of studying today.
"Um, Elle, I don't know if we should, uh-"
"Mike. Friends don't lie." She reminded him.
"Um, okay. So... you remember when you got your... period?" He shifted awkwardly, flopping his hands about. Elle grabbed them to stop their movement, and he started sweating. He was so not wanting to do this.
"Yes. Blood." Mike winced at her frank statement.
"Yeah, but you remember how Nancy showed us that picture? Of your, uh, reproductive system?" Mike stared at the floor intently, wishing he never had to have this conversation.
"Yes?"
"Well, uh, so you have a, uh, a vagina-" He squeaked. He'd never actually said the word out loud before, but hey, he went through a lot of firsts with Elle, yeah? First kiss, first time jerking off to someone real(Princess Leia did NOT count, despite what Dustin said), first boner... Okay, he really needed to focus.
"So, uh girls have... those, but boys, like me and Dustin, and Lucas-" Elle placed a finger on his lips to silence his babbling.
"Mike. I know what are boys."
"Yeah, yeah, of course, of course you do." He took a deep breath. "Boys have penises, and when they get, uh aroused, they get, um, hard and that's called an erection, and that's what was poking you, because sometimes when we, uh, wake up we just have them. It's called morning wood." He finished quickly.
Elle frowned. That was a lot of information.
"Boys have pen-ice-iz?" She fumbled on the word. "What's aroused?" Mike covered his face with his hands.
"It's... it's pronounced peen-is. Can we talk about... the other part later? Please?"
"Okay?" Elle shrugged. There was just one more thing she wanted to confirm. "Your pen-ice... it is here?" And with that she grabbed Mike's crotch.
"Oh god!" Mike shot up. "Don't do that!" He shrieked at Elle, who recoiled in surprise.
"Why... why not?" Her lip trembled slightly. Mike didn't usually yell.
"It... it's really sensitive. It... hurts really easily." He covered himself self consciously. Of course, hurt wasn't really the problem here.
"And that's how you get ear-eck-shun?" Elle tilted her head to one side.
"Um. Yeah. Sorry, I... I'm going to the bathroom." Mike shuffled off quickly. Elle smirked slightly. That was not Mike's hurting face, she knew. Mike stuck his head out of the bathroom with a terrified expression.
"Whatever you do, do NOT mention this to the guys! It's private!" Elle sighed. People were so weird.