Well, another chapter for this, way later than I originally planned. Unfortunately, I can't really help it.
OdoMango: because he wanted to :P
Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters and I write for my own pleasure and that of the readers.
"Holly's in bed." Ted said as he returned downstairs.
"Michael, sit down." Karen pointed to one of the kitchen chairs.
"Yes, mom." Mike sighed, knowing what would be coming.
"Michael, why didn't you tell us that you are already having sex with Jane?" Karen asked.
"Because... well, it would be embarrassing." Mike reasoned. "Did you walk up to your mother and told her 'Mom, I had sex for the first time last night.' after your first time?"
"That's beside the point." Karen said after a few seconds of silence. "Do you know what could happen if you have sex at that age?"
"The same thing that could happen at every age?" Mike retorted. "Mom, we take precautions!"
"Don't get snippy with me." Karen admonished him. "How did it happen?"
"I would have thought that you knew how it works." Mike said, knowing right away that it was the wrong thing to say.
"Michael!" Karen snapped. "What did I just tell you?"
"Son, I think she means when and where?" Ted jumped in.
"Well, it happened last year, after Christmas, when you two were on your romantic getaway and Holly was on her sleepover." Mike told them.
"Way to go, son." Ted smiled.
"Ted!" Karen smacked her husband on the arm. "He's fifteen!"
"Come on, honey, it happened." Ted tried to reason with her. "They can't really reverse it."
"And it's not as if we planned for it to happen." Mike continued. "We got caught up in the moment and we didn't really think about it."
"It is kinda hard for a hormonal teenager seeing a naked girl to think clearly." Ted nodded.
"You're not helping, Ted." Karen grumbled.
"Mom, what are you actually mad about?" Mike wanted to know. "That we did it? Or that I didn't tell you? Or that I didn't ask for your permission?"
"Michael!" Karen slammed her hand on the table, startling Mike and he was surprised when he saw a tear running down his mother's cheek. "I'm upset that you hid a girl here for several days, a possibly dangerous girl. I'm upset because you got into mortal danger through her not just once but three times. I'm upset because I learned only yesterday that you got SHOT because you went to Russia to free Chief Hopper!"
"Mom..." Mike regretted his questions.
"I almost lost my son." Karen cried quietly. "And now, my son has some problem in his brain that causes swelling when the girl that this is all about moves a certain distance away from him and nobody can say if that problem will ever be solved."
"Mom..." Mike tried again.
"What if one of you gets kidnapped and the people doing it take you away? Will your brains explode at some point?" Karen continued on. "What if, god forbid, one of you dies? Does that mean that the other will only survive for a few days before your brain can't handle what's happening to it?"
"We're not gonna die." Mike was aghast.
"She has a point, son." Ted jumped in, rubbing his wife's back to comfort her as Karen shed long held back tears. "Nobody knows what will happen. Accidents can occur. What if Jane, or El, has a nightmare? Given her powers that those agents have told us about, she could accidentally throw you out the window."
"Dad." Mike sighed. "What can I say? I love her and she loves me. And in all the nights we spent together, she never had a nightmare, at least none that she talked to me about. And I never even fell out of the bed much less get thrown off."
"I doubt, you can say anything today." Ted sighed. "You better go to your room or to the basement while your mother calms down. Maybe tomorrow we can have a calm and rational discussion."
"Yes, dad." Mike nodded, accepting that this would be better than trying to rationalize with his emotional mother.
He went into his room and grabbed his pajamas before heading to the showers, washing off the stress of the day, the rigors of the tests and the pain he had experienced when number six had healed the damage done to his brain by the amount of x-radiation he had gotten. As he stood under the spray of water, he closed his eyes and concentrated on what and how he felt. He felt the slightest of pressure in his head, which, as he knew now, was caused by the fact that the woman he loved was two miles away.
Just thinking of her caused him to smile. To him, she was the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on and he was already thinking that before she allowed him to see her naked and to feel her. Just her face, when she smiled at him, was angelic to him and her voice just as much. Shaking himself out of his thinking, he finished his shower and dried himself off, brushing his teeth and returning to his bedroom where he grabbed his handheld walkie-talkie and took that to the basement.
"El, are you there?" Mike spoke into the walkie.
"Mike?" her voice came out of the speaker after several seconds, followed by a quiet splashing sound.
"What are you doing?" Mike wondered.
"I'm in the bathtub." El chuckled. "Hiding from dad."
"Why?" Mike chuckled as well, trying not to think too much of her naked form in water.
"He wants to have a talk with me." El sighed. "About us and what happened between us during his absence."
"Yeah, my mom just had this talk with me, at least the first part." Mike nodded.
"The first part?"
"She burst into tears over what had happened to me, especially me getting shot." Mike told her. "So dad told me that we would continue tomorrow morning after she had hopefully calmed down."
"Don't remind me." El sighed audibly through the speaker, a splashing sound indicating that she had pulled her other hand out of the water. "When I heard one of the twins say that, I thought you had died."
"It felt like it." Mike admitted. "Like I was falling and falling without ever landing until I actually felt the ground hitting my back. And I never believed it before it happened to me but I actually saw my life flashing before my eyes. Admittedly, it didn't take long."
"And then what happened?" El asked. "Did you see a light?"
"No." Mike shook his head. "All I could see was blackness enveloping me until I felt as if someone had put a power cable against me and then I woke up and all I could do was run."
"Dad told me." El almost whispered. "They injected you with adrenaline directly into your heart."
"That was the weirdest feeling ever." Mike said. "I was hurting so bad, I could barely breath but at the same time I couldn't stop moving. I saw you and all I could think of was getting to you."
"I almost jumped into the Upside Down when you got shot." El sighed. "If the agent hadn't stopped me, you wouldn't have found your way home in time."
"Jane, stop hiding in the bathtub!" Mike could hear Hopper's muffled voice coming from the speaker. "Let's talk!"
"Ugh." El grumbled. "Mike, I gotta go. I have to clean my naked body and then have dad give me a speech until he has to go to work."
"You're so mean." Mike almost wept at the mention of the word naked.
"But you still love me anyway." she laughed and then shut off her walkie.
"Yeah, I do." Mike nodded to himself and put the walkie down.
El sighed deeply, diving under the water to wash her hair out again before stepping out and grabbing a towel. She ran her hand over the smooth skin of her legs and the area between it, having used the wet coverage of her body to shave without having to use shaving creme. She wrapped a smaller towel around her head and dried her body with a bigger one, putting on the pajamas she had set out and slipping her feet into the comfy cat slippers Mike had gotten her.
"I'm here." she told Jim when she arrived in the living room.
"Sit down." he pointed to the sofa.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked innocently as Jim began pacing.
"What do you think?" Jim looked at her. "The fact that you're sexually active at your age."
"Dad, I thought you made your peace with the fact." El argued.
"No, I made my peace with him." Jim corrected her. "I accept that he's your boyfriend, I accept that he loves you and you love him but the thought of you and him having, you know... it, makes me want to strangle him for violating my little girl."
"Dad, IT is sex. I can say it, why can't you?" El asked. "You do it too, so what's the big deal?"
"Well, not so much these days, since I... hey, this isn't about me, this is about you!" Jim realized that El had almost turned it around on him.
"We're back!" a female voice interrupted anything else Jim might have wanted to say.
"Mom!" El whooped and ran into her arms, warming Joyce's heart with that word, especially since El's real mom was still alive. "Welcome back!"
"What about me?" Will asked, carrying a box with some of his stuff.
"Welcome back too." El giggled and hugged him as well. "Need some help?"
"We have some heavy furniture that needs to get up to the second floor..." Will began.
"Hey, no taking advantage of her powers." Jim chuckled and came over, hugging Joyce. "Welcome back."
"Nice to be back." Joyce melted into his embrace. "Now, get out there and empty the truck."
"Yes, dear." Jim pursed his lips and walked off.
"Thank you!" El whispered to Joyce.
"For what?" Joyce wanted to know.
"Dad was trying to give me a talk."
"About?"
"Me and Mike." El shrugged. "How many boxes do you have?"
"A few dozen." Joyce told her. "It's mostly clothing and other small things."
"No furniture?"
"No big things, I left most of it in Chicago since Jonathan and Nancy will soon live there. Just my bed and my night tables and of course, almost everything from Will's room."
"Everything but the carpet." Will grinned. "Which one was my room?"
"There's still three free rooms upstairs." El pointed to the stairs. "I don't know if your mom and dad will share a bedroom of if she wants one for herself for now but you should have the free choice between two or three."
"Mom?" Will called out, waiting for Joyce to return with another box in her hands.
"Yes, what is it sweetie?" Joyce looked at him?
"Do you want a certain room?" Will asked. "El said, three are still empty upstairs."
"Choose one." Joyce smiled at him. "I'll be fine."
"Let me show you the free ones." El said and walked upstairs, Will right behind her.
"Which one is yours?" he wanted to know.
"The one at the end of the hall, last door on the right." El pointed to her left.
"And which one is Hopper's room?" he grinned.
"It's on the other end." she pointed to her right and laughed. "Although I didn't choose it because of that, I had no idea the master bedroom was on the other end of the hall."
"Bathroom?" Will looked around.
"One is over there, the first door to the left." El pointed to the hallway where her room was located before pointing to the other side of the hallway. "Another is on the this side of the hallway, first door to the right. And there's a master bathroom downstairs with a bathtub. The upper floor ones only have showers."
"Wow, three bathrooms?" Will looked impressed. "I wonder how many people lived here."
"Who cares, now there are living four here." El chuckled.
"Five, including Mike?" Will winked at her.
"Can't promise that he won't spend more than a few nights here." she poked out her tongue at him.
"You really think Hopper will allow that?" Will looked at her with doubt in his eyes.
"Oh, you weren't here the last few days." El realized. "Mike and I can't be separated."
"Eh... what?" Will looked confused now.
"Well, we..."
"Jane, you and Mike were in the hospital?" Joyce interrupted them as she stomped up the stairs.
"I was just about to tell Will." El nodded.
"What happened?" Joyce wanted to know. "When I asked Hop, he just grumbled something about Mike violating his little girl on doctor's orders."
"Wait, are you saying that Mike and El are now ordered to have sex?" Will's eyes went wide.
"No, not that." El shook her head. "But Mike and I are, uh, linked in some way."
"You mean when that agent did that to you so Mike could find his way back?" Will wanted to know more.
"Exactly." El nodded and led them back downstairs so she could sit down, Will still carrying his box, having forgotten about it momentarily. "Apparently, because we already had sex..."
"Hmpf." Jim commented that word with a grunt.
"... every time we're apart a certain distance, we get bad headaches that get worse the farther we're apart. And as soon as we get back together, they stop."
"It's that bad?" Joyce asked Jim.
"Jane suffered her headache and we had to cut her visit to her mother short because her nose began to bleed worse than when she used her powers." Jim nodded. "And as far as I understood it from what Karen told me, Mike collapsed at the pool after his shift. The agents did a CT scan on him while I drove Jane away and parts of his brain swelled up."
"So, if you and Mike can't be apart, why isn't he here?" Will inquired.
"The real headaches don't start until one of us crosses the town limits." El explained. "The current distance isn't enough for that, all I feel is a slight pressure."
"He's not coming here tonight." Jim put his foot down. "So don't try to get me to change my mind by saying you feel pain."
"Dad, I didn't say pain." El squinted her eyes at him, Joyce seeing Jim actually move backwards slightly. "It's a slight pressure, like this, just inside of my head, closer to the nose area."
"I see." Will nodded as El put her hand on the back of his head and pushed. "I usually feel that when I have a cold and I'm congested."
"Did you feel that before you suffered the nosebleed?" Jim asked, showing the concern he felt.
"Yes, though I had no idea what it was and since it wasn't painful, I ignored it." El nodded too.
"Fine, he can stay here tomorrow night." Jim sighed, bowing to the inevitable.
"With me in my room?" El grinned.
"If I put him into the empty room, I'm fairly certain that I'll find you together in either his or your bed anyway." "Jim tried not to make a face. "That's why... he can... sleep... with... uh... you. In your bed."
"Thanks, dad." El smiled widely and went to hug him.
"But for my sake, don't have sex." Jim begged. "Or at least, try to be very quiet, just for my peace of mind."
"We can do that." El nodded and skipped upstairs. "Will, you wanna get that box into your room or you wanna carry it around some more?"
"Right." Will remembered that he still carried the box.
"What am I going to do?" Jim flopped onto the couch, his head in his hands. "My daughter and Mike... doing it. At fifteen."
"Hop, I think you just have to accept it." Joyce chuckled and sat down beside him. "Your little girl is grown up and enjoys the perks of love. And it's not as if you could sow up her hymen again."
"Ugh, don't talk about her like that." Jim shuddered. "I guess I'll have to accept the fact."
"Oh yeah." Joyce grinned. "Now come on, you big oaf, there are some more boxes in the truck that need carrying."
"JANE!" Jim yelled, the girl appearing at the top of the stairs with Will.
"Yes, dad?"
"Come on down, if I let you spend the night with Mike, you have to get Joyce's bed and Will's heavy furniture into the house."
"Okay." she giggled and skipped down the bed.
"So, what was that about not abusing her powers?" Joyce smirked at him.
"If she wants to spend the night with her boyfriend, she has to work for it." he shrugged.
Five minutes later, Joyce's bed was floating into the house and up the stairs, El walking behind it with her arm outstretched.
"So, how's living back in Hawkins?" Jennifer asked from her spot on the blanket.
"It's much quieter, that's for sure." Will replied, not even looking up from his sunbathing.
"It's nice spending a night and not hearing a gunshot." Jonathan added, rubbing Nancy's back, who had fallen asleep with her head on his chest.
"People shot guns in your neighborhood?" El gasped, herself half perched on Mike's body, one leg between his.
"To be fair, it was only twice." Will added.
"No, three times." Jonathan corrected. "You may have slept through one time."
"When I was in Chicago, I noticed that people were kinda chaotic but never outright violent." El said. "At least towards me. Then again, Axel threatened to cut me open the first time he met me."
"He did what?" Mike gasped this time.
"Don't worry, Kali made him see spiders crawling over his arm." El chuckled. "And as soon as I pulled the train wagon a hundred feet sideways, he never dared to touch me if I didn't want it."
"By touching you mean..." Mike tried not to think too hard about it.
"Hugs." she poked out her tongue. "How come when I say touch you think inappropriately?"
"Can't help it." he shrugged.
"Don't worry, only you are allowed to touch me like that." she giggled.
"If you intend to do that right now, remember that you're not alone." Nancy mumbled from her position, not even opening her eyes.
"Yeah, we're totally going to do it right here." Mike scoffed.
"Sex on the beach?" El whispered into his ear. "Not a bad idea."
"Shhh." he grabbed her hips. "Don't make me get an erection right now."
"By the way, you never told how your talk with your mom went." El said, louder this time. "Did she say something bad about me?"
"No." Nancy replied for Mike.
"How do you know?" Mike asked her. "You weren't there for the talk."
"Mom told me later." Nancy shrugged. "She asked me what I thought about El, after asking me if I knew about her powers and I told her that I did."
"And?" El looked at her.
"Told her the truth." Nancy shrugged again. "You're a nice girl, polite, a bit blunt and you have powers."
"Yeah, your mom is very understanding." Dustin agreed. "Nice of her to not be against the fact that you two are doing it already."
"Dustin." Mike whined, a blush creeping up in his face.
"The fact that she walked in on them doing it in the basement didn't make it easier to pretend that t hey weren't." Nancy chuckled, El blushing too from the memory.
"No way, you did it in the basement?" Dustin almost shrieked. "Our holy gaming place? How could you?"
"We got... carried away." Mike told him.
"According to mom's wails to dad, you almost carried El away." Nancy laughed.
"You know, right now I think that I would gladly do another trip to Russia through the Upside Down." Mike grumbled.
"I wouldn't mind a hole in the ground opening up to swallow me whole." El agreed.
"Mike, you wanna jump from the cliff into the lake?" Lucas asked, having so far listened to the group talking.
"Nah, I'd rather be alive." Mike waved him off.
"Oh come on, if you don't jump far enough, El can save you with her powers." Lucas argued.
"The last time she pulled me up the cliff, she collapsed right after." Mike countered. "So we..."
"Um, excuse me?" another female voice interrupted them. "Can someone explain to me what this is about? El has powers? Mike went to Russia through what?"
"Oh crap!" Dustin looked shocked at his girlfriend. "I totally forgot you were here."
"Thanks a lot." Jennifer rolled her eyes at him. "So?"
"Ah, shit." Lucas agreed with Dustin.
"Yeah, El has powers." Max nodded to Jennifer.
"And you can never tell a soul, understand?" Mike pleaded to her. "It could endanger us all."
"It can't be that bad?" Jennifer looked at the group who all stared at her. "Can it?"
"Oh yes, it can." Mike nodded. "Promise us, not a word!"
"Okay, I promise." Jennifer did just that. "Can you show me?"
"Um..." El looked around to see if someone outside of them was close enough to maybe see what she was doing, seeing only a few others who were far enough away. "Sure."
"Holy shit!" Jennifer shrieked when El pointed her arm at her and her body lifted two feet off the ground before gently settling down again. "That was amazing!"
"Thanks." El chuckled and took the tissue that Mike handed her.
"Shit, what's with the nosebleed?"
"Whenever El uses her powers, her nose tends to bleed, something to do with the blood vessels in her brain being strained." Dustin tried his best to explain.
"Close enough." Mike nodded.
"Hey guys!" another voice startled them.
"Stevie!" Dustin greeted his older friend. "Robin!"
"Hey guys." Jonathan waved at them. "How are you?"
"We're good." Robin nodded, putting down her backpack and taking out a large blanket, placing it at the top left of them and completing a rectangular placement of all of their blankets.
"Holy crap." Lucas whistled through his teeth when Robin took off her clothes, revealing her two piece bikini.
"Hey!" Max commented that with a slap on his back. "Stop staring at older women."
"Older women?" Robin looked challenging at Max. "Who are you calling old?"
"I said older, not old." Max retorted, not ready to pick a fight with the other redhead.
"Ten bucks on Robin." Mike grinned from his place.
"You don't think I can take her?" Max asked accusingly.
"Anyone else, yeah." Mike winked at her. "Her, not so much."
"Pff." Max waved him off and flopped back down to get some more sun, deciding to get Lucas flustered by opening her bikini top to avoid the tan lines on her back.
"So, did you two also get your heads out of your asses?" Jonathan asked the newcomers.
"Yeah, kinda." Steve nodded.
"About time." Nancy commented. "You deserve to be happy, Steve."
"Thanks." Steve smiled at her. "So, how are you guys doing? Anything new? We haven't seen each other in almost three weeks."
"Yeah, Mike and El can't be separated." Dustin told him.
"What else is new?" Robin scoffed. "If they were any closer, they'd be Siamese twins."
"No, they literally can't be apart." Dustin elaborated. "If one stays in town and the other leaves it, they'll experience extreme headaches that only go away when they get back into close vicinity."
"What, seriously?" Robin gasped. "Let me guess, it has something to do with what..." she began but then saw Jennifer. "I mean..."
"She knows." Mike saved her. "But yes, it has something to do with what the agent did to us."
"Well, that's nice for you, isn't it?" Robin grinned. "Now you can spend the nights together on doctor's orders."
"Oh yeah, and Hopper is not happy about that." Will laughed. "I always hear him grumbling about wanting to kill Mike for violating his little girl."
"Mom doesn't dare going into the basement to do laundry anymore when El is at our house." Nancy chuckled. "Afraid of what she might walk into."
"Oh no." Mike whined again. "Can you please stop talking about this?"
"Yeah, it was embarrassing enough when she walked in just when I was... you know."
"Oh god!" Max laughed. "I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall at that moment."
"I hope you have the couch steam cleaned before we come over for gaming night again." Dustin pleaded.
"Don't be a baby." Max rolled her eyes at him this time. "You probably have slept on that couch already after they had done it on it."
"Am I the only one who finds it weird that our fifteen year old friends are talking openly about sex?" Stave asked around, his inquiry directed at Robin, Nancy and Jonathan.
"No." all three of them replied in unison.
"If that becomes common knowledge, you will become the most famous kids in our class." Jennifer told them.
"Then lets not let it become common knowledge please." El looked at her.
"Oh, and just a heads up, Stacy has declared war on you." Jennifer told her.
"Eh... what?" El was confused. "What did I do to her?"
"I think she has the hots for Mike, so she told us, the bitch squad as Max so eloquently put it, that she intends to get him into bed." Jennifer explained.
"Pah, does she even know how?" Max scoffed. "I bet she couldn't even take him and his big..."
"Max!" El shouted to make her stop talking.
"Just wanted to let you know."
"You know, I don't really know her, apart from seeing her jogging in winter with a pulled down zipper and no bra." El said but then her eyes hardened. "But I'd like to see her try."
I know, no action in this chapter. But they deserve a quieter life, I think ^^
Review please :)