Haha wow it's been a hot minute since I updated this story. I hope you didn't forget about it! I'm sorry for not updating this so long but as some of you may know I've been working really hard on other stories.

Also a friend of mine suggested I start up a and I was wondering if anyone would be interested in that? I have a few ideas already for perks but I won't do it if no one would be interested. Let me know and enjoy this chapter :)

"You gonna tell her what happened?"

Mike looked up at Will from his bike he was picking up off the ground. The incident at home had happened three days ago and he'd been staying with the Byers ever since. Though he'd intended on going home Nancy had dropped off some clothes and other things he might need and told him it was okay for him to stay another few days. He decided to go back to his house on Sunday, which was two days away, since it seemed to be enough time for everything at home to calm down.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe. If it comes up I'll think about it."

"You know it'll come up." Will said, leaning against the porch. "She can read you like a book. She'll know something is up."

Mike had avoided having to tell Eleven anything of what happened. Though she was curious as to why he had been staying with Will so long she seemed content with unanswered questions. He was about to leave the house to meet her at the mall for a date she had been looking forward to all week. Though he was relieved he'd gotten away with not telling her thus far he knew Will had a point. Eleven knew him better than anyone. It would have been a miracle if she didn't know something was up.

"I just don't want her to worry about me." Mike said, swinging his leg over his bike and sitting on the seat. "She's got too much going on right now, she can't be distracted."

Will stood up and walked by his side as Mike started heading down the dirt driveway. "Okay, but maybe leaving her wondering will make her even more distracted and worried about you."

Mike sighed, not wanting to admit that Will had a point. He always did. "I don't know, I'll think about it." He said instead. "I'll let you know what happened when I get home, okay?"

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Will said with a smirk.

He managed a laugh before pedaling off and onto the street. The bike ride to the mall was around fifteen minutes, giving him lots of time to think. But it seemed that all Mike had done in the past week was think so he let his mind wander wherever it pleased. And, as usual, it wandered to his girlfriend. Eleven had way too much on her mind to be busy worrying about him. She was so focused on catching up with her schoolwork and Mike didn't want to put her progress in jeopardy just because he had problems at home. Eleven was well aware that he and his father didn't get along. He didn't want to worry her with the specifics of one particularly bad fight.

When the mall came into sight Mike felt a familiar sense of excitement begin to bubble up in his stomach. He set his bike on the bike rack and hurried inside and to the ice cream shop where they planned on meeting. Eleven was getting more and more freedom with every passing say. Still Mike was surprised when he spotted her sitting at a table with Hopper nowhere in sight. The overprotective father figure was usually reluctant to leave her alone in public places, even for short amounts of time. Mike figured that she must have had to do some serious convincing to be there alone.

Eleven jumped out of her chair when she spotted him and hurried over to greet him, throwing her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his lips. Mike hadn't been so glad to see her in a long time and held the kiss longer than she clearly expected him to. She grinned up at him when he finally pulled away, her cheeks flushing an adorable pink. "Miss me?"

"You have no idea." Mike agreed, keeping his arm wrapped around her waist. "Want some ice cream before we see the movie?"

Eleven nodded and they walked up to the counter. She ordered strawberry and Mike got himself a vanilla before he insisted on paying for her dessert. Though she attempted to fight him on the topic she eventually gave up and gave him a thankful kiss. They sat back down at the table she had previously been at and held hands on the surface while she told him about her day while he'd been at school.

"You're quiet today." she noted between spoonful's of ice cream, her thumb gently brushing across the back of his hand.

Mike shrugged his shoulders, attempting to be as casual as he could. "I had an uneventful day." He said. "And I like just listening to you."

She smiled at him and ate another mouthful. "How's Nancy and Holly?"

"Nancy's really busy with preparing for college and trying to find a summer job." Mike answered. "Holly wants to join the school play but she can't sing or dance so we're trying to keep her from getting her hopes up."

"How's your parents?"

Mike kept his gaze fixed on his almost finished ice cream, afraid that if he looked at her she would read something microscopic in his expression. "They're fine." He told her, unsure what else to say and afraid of saying too much.

"Just fine?"

He shrugged his shoulders again. "You know, they're my parents."

In his peripheral vision he saw something in her demeanor change. She sat up straighter and her expression hardened slightly. Mike knew he needed to do a better job at lying. "Did something happen, Mike?"

He forced himself to look at her and gave her hand a light squeeze. "It's nothing, El. Just a fight. It's really not a big deal."

He watched her eyes narrow slightly while she inspected his body language. Mike struggled not to squirm under her intense gaze. "Are you sure?" she asked, "You seem off."

"I'm okay, El. Really."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Promise?"

Had it been anyone else he would have promised without a second thought. But the concept of a promise held such importance to El that Mike felt guilty about lying before he even did it. Lying to Eleven wasn't something that came easy to him especially since one of the first things he taught her was that friends didn't lie. But it was for her own good.

"Yeah." Mike answered simply, hoping it would be good enough.

But he knew it wasn't be. A small frown formed on her lips and she pouted at him from across the table. "Friends don't lie, Mike." She reminded him, "Please tell me what happened."

Mike shook his head, his overgrown bangs falling into his eyes. "El, it's fine, really. You're just going to worry about me for nothing so I'm not going to tell you."

Eleven pulled her hand out of his grip and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "Fine." She said stubbornly. "I'm not going into the movie until you tell me what happened."

He sighed and glanced across the food court. From their spot he could just barely make out the movie times if he squinted his eyes tightly. He looked down at his watch before meeting her eyes again. "El, come on, our movie starts in a little more than five minutes. We have to buy our tickets and snacks and get our seats."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not going until you tell me."

Mike groaned and leaned back against his own seat, his leg starting to shake underneath the table. He and Eleven had yet to get into a fight since she returned to him and he was desperate to keep it that way. But was he so desperate that he was willing to tell her about what had really happened with his dad? Seeing her jaw set with determination made some of his resolve crumble.

Mike sighed and rubbed his hand across his chin. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to freak out, okay?"

Eleven immediately grinned with the satisfaction of winning and perked up. "Promise."

"Okay." He said, leaning forward again and resting his elbows on the tabletop. "We got in a fight about my grades because they weren't as good as they usually word. It got pretty bad and he… hit me."

"What?" Eleven immediately leaned forward and wrapped her hands around his. "Mike why didn't you tell me?!"

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Because I knew you would get upset and I don't want you to worry about me. You have too much to focus on to waste your time like that."

"Waste my time?" she repeated in disbelief. "Mike you're my boyfriend, I love you, nothing about you is a waste of my time." She let go of his hands to grab both of their empty cups before pushing her chair out. "You know what; forget the movie."

"What?"

Eleven tossed their cups into the garbage and came back over to him, pulling him to his feet. "We're gonna go back to my house and you're gonna tell me everything you've been keeping from me about your dad."

"El no-" he began.

She quickly cut him off by shushing him. "Mike it's my job to worry about you unnecessarily. But this? This is necessary worrying. We can watch a movie at my house but right now I just wanna be with you, okay?"

Mike wanted to protest that he was perfectly fine and that they should go to the theatre but he could see the fear she was trying to mask in her eyes. He sighed once again and grabbed her hand. "Yeah, okay." he said reluctantly, "Let's go to your house."

She walked close by his side as they made their way through the mall and outside to the bike rack. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist and her head rested against his back as he pedaled in the direction of Hopper's trailer.

He could practically feel all her unanswered questions hanging above their heads the whole twenty-minute ride. Mike was silently dreading having to go into detail about the fight, fearing appearing weak to the strongest person he knew. Though he couldn't help but feel a bit foolish for ever thinking he could hide something that was, admittedly, such a big deal from someone who knew him inside and out. All his friends knew the bare minimum details about the fight. Mike prayed telling Eleven would be easier than telling the rest of the party at the lunch table.

The ride to the trailer went by fairly quickly and soon Mike was setting his bike down on the front lawn while Eleven took her keys out of her bag and unlocked the front door. The couch was open and covered in books and papers from her studying. Almost as soon as she walked in she started collecting the books and setting them on the coffee table beside it. Once the bed was cleared off she told Mike to sit down before heading into the kitchen.

She returned less than a minute later with a freshly microwaved plate of Eggos that she set in front of him before sitting next to him on the couch. Eleven threw a blanket over both their shoulders and inched as close to him as she could so they could share it. "Okay," she said once she was settled in, "tell me what happened."

Mike shrugged, his arm moving against hers. "There's nothing to say, really." He told her, keeping his eyes fixed on the Eggos they both picked at. "We just fought about my grades."

"Well what did he say?"

He felt a small lump start to form in his throat and he attempted to swallow it down. "He just said that I need to do better." In his peripheral vision he could see Eleven's expression that told him she didn't believe that was all. "And he told me that… I was a disappointment."

Eleven wrapped her arm around his waist, keeping him close to her. It wasn't the first time they'd talked about his father. But this was the first time Eleven didn't immediately get angry and offer to stand up to him. "What else?"

"He said that he was done getting his hopes up because I always let him down." Mike crossed his legs and pulled them up towards his chest. "And I don't know what got into me but I just didn't want to hear it anymore, so I yelled back at him why he can never just give me a break. And he got this look on his face, and I knew I messed up, and then…"

Mike's voice got caught in his throat and he knew if he spoke anymore he would risk crying in front of Eleven. Not that he'd never cried in front of her before, it was just something he didn't necessarily want to do. He felt her hand go up to his back and start rubbing small, soothing circles, and Mike felt his throat start to burn. He tried and tried to keep a straight face but his father's shouts echoing in his head and Eleven's kind words in his ear were at war with each other and leaving his emotions out of whack.

In an instant the floodgates opened and Mike allowed the tears he'd been holding back since the incident to come out. Eleven immediately wrapped both her arms around him and pulled him into a tight embrace. The front he'd been putting up in front of everyone besides Will and Nancy slowly crumbled away until he was an emotional vulnerable mess. Eleven sat silently, rubbing his back and pressing kisses to the top of his head while he simply cried into her neck.

Mike had no idea how long they sat on the couch holding one another while he cried. It must have been awhile since once he started to calm down his nose felt raw and his head was pounding. When he sobs started to turn to sniffles Eleven used her powers to turn on the television and flipped through the channels until she found something they both liked. Though Mike wasn't exactly the biggest fan of talking about his home life he felt a weight lifted off his shoulder that he didn't have to hide the fight from her anymore.

"Mike?" she asked to get his attention. He picked his head up to look at her and instantly saw the sympathy written across her face. "Your dad is an idiot. You're not a disappointment. You're the most amazing thing that ever happened to me and I don't want you to ever think anything he says about you is right."

Mike blinked up at her a few times, letting her words sink in. It wasn't just what she said but how earnestly and truthfully she said them that threatened to make him cry again. "I love you El."

"I love you too, Mike."

He rested his head back on her shoulder and they sat mostly in silence watching the screen in front of them. She absently ran her fingertips through his hair, making his eyelids feel heavier and heavier by the minute. He felt himself slowly drifting off, the exhaustion from crying so hard and relief of letting out a secret only making staying awake more difficult. Try as he might to keep his eyes open he eventually gave up and allowed himself to slip into sleep.

xXx

Jim Hopper noticed a bike laying on his front lawn as soon as he pulled up to his trailer home. He didn't need three guesses to figure out who's it was. Though his first instinct was to worry about Mike and Eleven being home alone he reminded himself of everything Wheeler had been going through and decided to cut him a bit of slack. He yanked his keys out of the ignition before getting out of his truck and making his way up to the house.

He pushed the unlocked door open and his eyes immediately landed on the two teens. Hopper took a second to take in the scene; Mike asleep on Eleven's shoulder, a half finished plate of Eggo's in front of them, the television on in front of them, the blanket wrapped around them, and the faraway look on Eleven's face. She only snapped out of her deep thoughts when he closed the front door as quietly as he could to not wake the boy up.

"What's going on?" he asked as he hung his jacket on the back of one of the kitchen chairs only a few feet away.

"He got in a bad fight with his dad and was upset." Eleven said, keeping her voice low. "Really upset."

"Oh yeah?" Hopper asked, doing his best to keep as straight of a face as possible, knowing how much trouble he would be in if she found out that he knew what happened and didn't tell her. "What was the fight about?"

Eleven rolled her brown eyes. "Grades. It's so stupid."

Hopper shook his head, pretending to be shocked to hear such a bad fight was about grades. "It's a shame."

"He's been staying with Will." Eleven said, looking forward at the television. "I'm surprised Joyce didn't tell you what happened."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't seen her in a while."

Hopper watched Eleven's eyebrows pull together in the middle of her forehead. "You stopped by to see her four days ago." She corrected, looking at him once more. While he tried to think of an excuse to brush her off he saw her eyes go wide and her mouth hang open. "That was the day of the fight."

He felt his heart sink slightly, anticipating the young girls' wrath. "Listen, kid…"

Eleven gently used her powers to keep Mike suspended in the air as she crawled off the couch and got to her feet. Her expression turned cold and angry as she crossed the room to stand in front of him. With her standing and him sitting they were the same height. "You knew about this? And you never told me?!" she whisper-shouted at him, "Why the hell would you keep something like this from me?"

"Because he told me not to tell you, alright?" Hopper hissed back, keeping his voice just as low. "It wasn't my place to tell you, especially since he told me not to. I told Joyce and Will to try and convince him to tell you, I didn't think it would take so long."

Eleven threw her hands up in the air. "You could have told me something was wrong and left it at that! You could have said they got in a fight and that I should ask him about it. You shouldn't have left me totally clueless."

"I'm sorry, okay!" Hopper whisper shouted. "But the kid barely trusts me after hiding you from him. I wasn't going to go behind his back like that."

She crossed her arms across her chest. "So what are we gonna do about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well he can't just go home." Eleven said as if it was painfully obvious. "Something has to be done. This can't happen again."

Hopper sighed and rested his elbows on his knees. "Well I don't know what to do, kid. I can't arrest him. If Mike was more cooperative about it I could maybe. The most I can do is talk to his mom and make sure she knows how serious this is."

She nodded her head, "Okay, good. We'll do that. But what about tonight?"

"What about tonight?"

"Well I'm not leaving him after something like this." Eleven told him, her voice sounding just as determined as the look on her face. "So I can either spend the night at the Byer's or he can spend the night here."

"El-"

"You owe me."

Hopper sighed once more, knowing she was right. Though he didn't regret keeping the secret he couldn't deny that he did need to make it up to her now that she knew he had been keeping something so big from her. "Yeah, alright, he can stay here tonight. We can talk about what we're gonna do."

Her face immediately lit up into a large smile and she came over to give him a quick hug. "Thank you." She said, giving him a squeeze before pulling away and going back to the spot next to Mike on the couch and slowly lowering his head onto her shoulder again.

Though the idea of them having a sleepover wasn't on top of his to-do list he knew that they had way too much on their minds to do anything Hopper had to worry about. He got to his feet, shaking his head a few times. "I'm gonna take a shower and order something for dinner when I get out so at some point you gotta wake him up and ask him what he wants."

Eleven eagerly nodded her head before looking back down at her sleeping boyfriend. As Hopper headed down the hall towards the bathroom he was baffled by how whipped he was for that kid.

xXx

Mike lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling while the clock on the wall on the opposite side of the room ticked away. He doubted he would get any sleep that night and not just because he took an unexpected nap. The day played on repeat in his head over and over again. Part of him felt deflated now that he wasn't carrying the burden of the secret anymore. But the conversation he, Eleven, and Hopper had was now hanging over his head.

Hopper promised to have a talk with his mom in the morning before he brought Mike back to the Byers' and later that night he would go home. Though Mike loved his mom he doubted there was much she could or would do about his father. She had a weak backbone that didn't stand a chance against his fathers anger. All that ran through his mind as he tried to sleep was that though he appreciated his friends attempt at helping he wished they could just understand that things weren't going to change.

The sound of soft footsteps coming from down the hall interrupted his train of thought and Mike propped himself up on his elbows to see who was coming. He spotted Eleven, dressed in flannel pajamas, standing in the threshold of the living room. Her hair had finally grown out long enough for her to put it in a ponytail that rested on the nape of her neck. "Can't sleep?" he asked her.

She shook her head and came towards him, crawling into the empty space he made for her as she approached. Eleven pulled the blankets up to her chin and lay on her side to face him, their noses only a few inches apart. The only source of light was the moonlight spilling in through the window on the opposite side of the room that cast harsh shadows across her face.

"You okay?" he asked her, sensing something in her expression.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she replied, wrapping one of her arms around his waist. "I'm worried about you, Mike."

"Don't be." He told her, tucking a curl that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear.

She rolled her eyes at him. "You know I can't do anything about it. Are you sure you're going to be okay going home tomorrow night?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." He assured her, even though he was beginning to wonder the same thing.

It had been almost a full week since he'd been at his house and seen anyone in his family besides Nancy. Would things be tense when he went back? Would they be mad at him? Would another fight break out? Though Mike knew better than to voice any of his concerns to an already worried Eleven. There was no need to burden her with his possibly paranoid anxieties.

"Will you tell me if anything happens again?" she asked.

"Yeah, of course."

"No, Mike, you have to promise me." She said. "You're not doing me any favors by keeping me in the dark about stuff like this. How would you feel if my dad hit me and I didn't tell you?"

"I didn't think about it like that." He admitted quietly.

Eleven put her hands on his cheeks and kissed the tip of his nose. "I know it's hard to talk about your parents sometimes but I'm here for you, okay? I love you no matter what."

Mike wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and buried his face in her neck, the scent of her shampoo filling his nose. "I'm sorry for not telling you."

He could feel her arms wrap around his neck, her fingers gently running through his hair. "It's okay." She told him. "Just please don't do it again. You're allowed to not tell me things but when it's something like this you have to tell me what's going on."

Though Mike had been reluctant to tell her about what happened for a while he felt like a weight had bene lifted from his shoulders. Keeping secrets from Eleven wasn't something he was used to. He told her practically everything that happened in his life. She knew him inside and out. Now that he had told her about the fight with his father he was amazed that he had gone so long without telling her. He couldn't help but feel a bit foolish for thinking it was something he needed to be embarrassed about. She, along with Will, was the last person he needed to be embarrassed around when it came to revealing something so personal about himself. She never judged and never teased him.

"I'll tell you if it happens again." He told her, "I promise."

A small smile made its way onto her face. "Good." She said. Eleven ran her fingers through his dark hair, placing a kiss on his forehead. "I'm here for you, Mike. Just like you've always been here for me."

"I love you, El."

"I love you more."

He doubted that was possible.