Hey guys! Welcome back the fic. I hope you've all been doing well. I know this one kind of took a while, but I was suffering from some writer's block. Oddly, I'm finding it difficult to bridge the gap between the current arc and the whole "start of school" arc. This chapter takes place the day before, so next chapter is gonna be the first day for the Party (excluding El). I'm pretty excited about it, but sort of intimidated, haha. There's a lot of ideas I have, and I want to depict a proper highschool experience as well as I can. I hope you guys stick around for it! Enjoy the chapter, guys :)
Guest: ST3 was very tearful season, wasn't it? I'm glad you're enjoying the fic!
CalvinHobbesGatsby: Yeah, they should be. But life has other plans sometimes :/
Jbg: The reviews definitely make me happy, I like it when I feel like I'm writing for an audience. Most people do, probably. You'll see what I do with Will's situation regarding school. I'm still working out some things in my mind, but I have faith that the this section of the story will be good. Before long, the Byers's and El will be moving, and I'll have to cover that, which I'm REALLY looking forward to. I hope you enjoy the chapter!
HyperSushi: I think so, too. Either way, I really enjoy writing this story, so I'll continue it no matter what, it's just a matter of how often I update, I suppose. Enjoy the chapter :)
Luna0603: Thank you! Yes, I wanted to give some closure to that whole storyline which I really had left loose ever since, like, chapter 16 or something. I'm glad you enjoyed Will and El's moment. I really want to develop their sibling-type relationship with this story, because I feel like they have a lot in common. I hope season 4 does that well. I hope you like this chapter, too :D
Mike lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. There were a lot of things drifting around in his mind, and no single thought stayed long enough for him to pinpoint it. But above the rush of anxiety and feelings, one thing kept coming back to him.
The start of school. It was in less than a week at this point, and the closer it go to the first day the more he worried. Were the rest of the guys worried? Was Max worried? Pfft. Max definitely wasn't nervous. Mike vividly recalled the way she had strutted into the classroom on her first day, last year. If that had been him, he would have been shitting himself, standing up in front of a bunch of kids he didn't know as he was being introduced.
At least he would have his friends. It's not like he was going to be completely alone. He didn't actually know if Will was going to start high school with them; it seemed kind of pointless to start in Hawkins High, and then just leave to another school less than a month later. But he knew for sure that Dustin and Lucas and Max would be there.
The concept still shocked him. Their party was going to go from six members to four. Four. It would probably feel so weird to not see Will every day in school. They had been best friends since kindergarten, literally. He glanced over at the digital clock on his bedside table. It read 11:22.
It wasn't that late.
He fumbled around with his hand under his bed until it found purchase on the box-like device. After pulling out the antenna, he whispered into it quietly. "Will? Come in, Will, it's Mike."
There was silence for a couple of seconds, but then the familiar voice of his friend crackled through the speaker. "Hi, Mike. What's up?"
He rolled over on the mattress so that he was lying flat on his back. Holding the button down, he replied. "I've just… been doing some thinking."
"What about?" Will asked.
"Start of high school being in less than a week," he responded. "I'm really nervous."
The sound of Will exhaling deeply came through the speaker. "Yeah, me too," he agreed.
"Are you even starting high school in September? You're leaving like, what, early October or something, right?"
"Yeah. I think my Mom wants me to go. She doesn't want me to fall behind or anything. She's already got homeschooling El to figure out. I don't want her to be more stressed than she needs to be."
"When does she want El to start school?" Mike asked, feeling very curious about El's future with her new living arrangements.
"Mom's hoping maybe by the start of the second semester of this year. So maybe late January? I'm not sure when the first semester ends. I'll have to ask Jonathan."
Mike smiled dreamily. "I saw what she was doing with Hopper for the last, like, year and a half. She's really good at math and science and stuff. All she really has trouble with is language and stuff, but she's working on it."
"She's good at math? How?"
Mike's blood pressure rose a little a bit at the thought of El being in the lab, with that fucking bastard, Brenner. "When she was in the lab, they taught her a lot about math and stuff. And science is just math with context, so she picked up pretty quick with Hopper. She has a bunch of textbooks and stuff. I was actually pretty impressed with him."
"With Hopper?"
"Yeah," he said, and felt a pang of sadness at the mention of his name. Mike had never really stopped thinking about Hopper. He had seen first-hand how much of an effect it had on El, and how broken she had become after his death. On top of that, ever since his death, he had realized how much of an ass he had been to Hop, and he never got a chance to apologize to him.
"Are you worried about the start of school?" Mike asked, wondering if he was the only one who was so stressed about the whole thing.
"Absolutely," Will replied, which he followed with a nervous chuckle. "I'm more worried about El, to be honest. But I guess we can think about that bridge we can come to it, though."
"Yeah, that's true," Mike agreed. "At least you won't have to deal with Troy in your new school," he pointed out.
"Meh," he dismissed the comment. "I'm sure there'll be dickheads at the other school, too."
"I guess." There was quietness between them for a few seconds. "I'm gonna miss you a lot, Will," he said quietly.
"Me, too, Mike." He could hear the sadness in his voice. "At least we have Dustin's radio tower and stuff. We'll be able to talk, still," he pointed out. "And you can talk to El all you want," he added teasingly.
"Shut up," Mike ordered, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a small smile while he blushed.
"Yeah, yeah," he chuckled.
"Hey, it's getting late, man. I should get some sleep now," Will said, and Mike could hear him yawn through the Supercom.
"Yeah, me too. Good night, dude."
"Good night."
The rest of the week went by too quickly for the Party. They were able to wiggle in some time to hang out over the week, but the stress of high school was sort of distracting all of them. Last time they had hung out they had talked about it, and, not to their surprise, Max was the only one who was not worried about the start of school.
"You guys will be fine," she had assured them. "You aren't scrawny seventh-graders anymore. Just don't take any shit from anyone and stand up for yourselves."
"Easy for you to say," Lucas had said. "You didn't spend every second of middle school being a target of every single asshole within a one-hundred-meter radius."
Long story short, everybody seemed to be on edge. And of course, the situation with the Byers family moving was not helping anyone in the slightest. Joyce and Will had come to the decision that he would be attending school for the first month or so of school; mainly because of Will. He didn't want to miss any new material, and he knew that if he was in school he would be able to spend more time with his friends. They were only in their freshman year, so he knew that he would have a lot of the same classes.
Earlier in the week, the boys have even knocked on Mr. Clarke's door just to say hello and say a final thank you before the start of the new chapter of their life. Mr. Clarke had been the greatest teacher of their elementary school experience and played a pivotal role in their love for science and math and such subjects.
The fact that Nancy and Jonathan were going to be there for their senior year offered some consolation; the Party knew if they ever needed help getting to a class or understanding something that they could ask them. That had always been an advantage of being a younger sibling; there was always going to be someone who had already done what you were doing. "Paving the way," is what Mike's mom often called it. The only solid advice Mike had gotten from Nancy was to stay on top of homework, steer clear from wrong crowds, and don't do anything stupid.
"But what if Troy or some other asshole tries to start something?" Mike had questioned. "Lord knows that happened a lot in middle school."
"Exactly," Nancy had replied. "Middle school. This is the time to get a clean slate, Mike. You're a smart kid. Just use your brain, okay? You'll be fine, I promise."
Gee, thanks for the advice, he had thought. He knew that Nancy meant well, but she had never really had any real experience with being bullied the way he and his friends had, other than that time two years ago with the whole Steve and Jonathan fiasco and the movie theatre thing. But that was one isolated incident, and it was quickly solved.
Long story short, there was a lot on his mind.
It was the day before the start of school, and Mike was finding himself bored and stressed and in need of something to take his mind off tomorrow. So he did what came naturally to him.
He called the Byers house and asked to talk to El.
He put their number, which had been memorized since long ago, and listened to the agonizing ringing from the other side. A click came through and he heard the voice of Jonathan. "Hello?"
"Hi, Jonathan, it's Mike. Is El around?"
"Yeah, she is. One second," he replied. Mike heard the muffled sounds of shouting and talking over the line, and then, after a period of time that somehow felt like forever, El's voice came through the speaker of the phone.
"Mike?" God. He knew he would never get tired of hearing that voice. Even through the phone, it was like the most beautiful song to him in the whole world when she spoke.
"Hi, El," he said, almost breathlessly. "Um, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today? All the guys are busy with stuff."
That actually wasn't true. But he had been hanging out with the whole Party all week, and it was the last day before school. And right now, all he wanted was to be with El for the next few hours and hopefully get some stress out of his system. Even though he knew she probably didn't understand most of his problems, somehow, telling her about them always helped, more than it did with anyone. He guessed it was just because of their connection, but just hearing her say "it's going to be okay" always made him feel more sure of himself.
"Yeah, sure," El replied, and Mike could practically hear the smile in her voice. "Let me ask Joyce." The line was quiet for a second, and then she came back. "Yeah, you can come. When will you be here?"
"Give me ten minutes, I'll get my bike."
Less than ten minutes later, Mike was rolling up the gravel driveway of the Byers home on his bike, his heart thudding in his chest with excitement, relief, and anticipation. It had felt like years since he had seen her, even though it had really only been two days.
He knocked on the door rapidly, and before he could even bring his hand back to his side, the door opened and El threw herself out of the house and grabbed Mike and hugged him. "Ten minutes, on the dot," she laughed.
"Friends don't lie," he replied with a wide grin, reciting the long-standing Party rule. El broke away from the hug and looked into Mike's eyes, and laced her fingers together around his neck and pulled him down to plant a soft and lingering kiss on his lips. Mike tilted his head in response, letting their mouths mesh together, already getting lost in the feeling.
"We should make 'no PDA' a Party rule, too," a teasing voice called from inside the house. "Close the damn door, you're letting all the cool air out." Will stepped into view.
Mike tried not to let his cheeks flush, but he could tell from the look on his friend's face that they were. "Hey, Will," he greeted and kicked off his shoes, stepping into the house and closing the door behind him.
"What's up, Mike?" Will returned, and stepped closer to him to bump his fist against Mike's.
"Stressing about school, trying to get it off of my mind," he admitted.
"Me, too," Will agreed. He looked between the two of them and shook his head with an exasperated but amused expression on his face. "I won't get in the way here… don't be too loud in El's room, okay?"
Mike coughed. "Jesus, Will, calm down," he stuttered. "We're not… doing that yet…"
"Uh-huh," Will laughed. "Mom needs my help in the backyard with some stuff. Just call if you need anything."
"Okay," El said quickly, clearly in a hurry to get out of the living room and behind a closed door. As he was being pulled down the hall, Mike made a mental note that he didn't think he would ever fully adjust to dating his best friend's now-sister. It was just too… odd. But Will seemed to be a lot more understanding of their relationship now, and Mike knew that he had been a lot fairer to the rest of his friends recently. As long as there wasn't any tension between them, he decided that he could probably tolerate a little bit of awkwardness when El was around.
The door to El's bedroom closed behind them and then El was pushing him against the door, her hands on his chest, kissing him furiously. Mike grinned through the kiss and gently pushed her away. "Jeez, I've barely talked to you," he laughed.
El tilted her head playfully and gave him a questioning look. "Well, do you want to talk, or do you want to kiss me?"
Mike didn't answer the question with a verbal response, and instead pushed her back so that her calves connected with the side of the bed, and then they fell over on one another, laughing. "You're eager," she smirked.
"So are you," he teased and then leaned back down to meet her lips. He pressed her body in between his and the mattress and both of them exhaled deeply, getting lost in the familiarity of being so close to one another. Both of them loved every moment that they spent together, but it was times like these that made them feel especially close, and connected on a much deeper level.
El wove a hand into her boyfriend's hair and caressed it slowly and passionately; Mike's untamed and fluffy hair was one of her favorite things about him, so she usually paid extra attention to it during their heated makeout sessions.
She felt Mike's tongue stroke across her lip, and she was about to part them to grant him access, but then stopped and gently moved her head to the side. Mike leaned back. "What's wrong?"
A daring glint flashed across her eyes and Mike furrowed his brow. "Are Joyce and Will still outside?" she asked.
"Uh…" Mike peered out the bedroom window and into the yard, where he saw the pair cutting some particularly overgrown branches off the large tree in the center of the lawn. "Yeah, they are. Why, what are you thinking?"
Without hesitating, she reached down and grasped the bottom of her shirt with crossed arms, and pulled it over her head, showing off her beautiful bare stomach and shoulders, the only thing still concealed being her breasts.
"Oh," Mike uttered, barely able to get words out of his mouth. He snapped out of his trance and followed along with her, quickly discarding his shirt as well before settling back down on top of her, now able to feel the warmth of her chest and stomach touching his own skin. Their mouths met again, this time with little preamble before exchanging open-mouthed kisses with a lot of tongue involved.
After rubbing around on the sides of her stomach, Mike allowed his fingers to trail upward until they found their mark on either of El's tits, and he groaned and how good they felt in his hands. He parted from the kiss and turned his attention toward her neck, sucking it hard and stroking it with his tongue, all while making sure not to stay on one spot for too long so as to not give her any unwanted gifts.
El's mind flashed back to the night they had spent together when Mike had left hickies all over her chest, and she found herself aching to be marked again, wanting to feel his mouth wrapped around her skin, because it had felt so good last time.
"Mike… give me a… a hickey. Please" she whispered, eyes closed. "Somewhere that Joyce won't see," she added.
Mike didn't miss a beat, moving his mouth lower, down her neck and toward the spot where her collarbone met her shoulder. He looped a finger around her bra strap and was about to pull it but he hesitated. "Can I…?"
"Yes, please," she asked, almost a beg. Her face turned serious for a fraction of a second. "I told you that you don't have to be asking all the time. I'll tell you if something is wrong."
He didn't reply, he was already yanking the straps to the side, and El lifted her arms upward to allow him to pull it over her head. Once again he lowered his face until it was buried in the crook of her neck, and trailed kiss downward until he came to the spot on her lower collarbone again. It seemed as though each kiss he planted on her was calculated, because each time his lips made contact it sent chills up and down her spine in the most exquisite way. He palmed both of her tits in his hands and sucked on her skin hard and El couldn't help but cry out.
"Oh, shit," she moaned. It had been too long since she had felt that. "Mike, keep going." He hummed in response, never letting go. He flicked a thumb over her left nipple and her back arched as if he had pressed a button or something.
When he was satisfied with his work on her collarbone, he pulled away and saw that the skin was already turning a dark shade. As soon as the connection was broken, El was about to open her mouth to complain, but then she felt his warm mouth around her nipple and she grunted in surprise, but definitely didn't make a move to stop him.
He alternated between each of her breasts, sometimes trailing off and leaving his marks around the nipple as opposed to right on it, all while El keened below him. After a few moments of that, he felt her move below him and she pushed on one his shoulders, and they both rolled over so that she was the one on top now.
El was straddling his hips, and leaned down and whispered in his ear. "Do you want one?"
Was that even a question? "God, yes, El," he replied, his voice low and gruff. The corners of her mouth pulled upward into a smirk and leaned down and she nipped his earlobe gently and he closed his eyes, running his hands up and down her back. Of course, he enjoyed paying extra attention to El and giving her as much pleasure as he could, but during the times where he could just lie still and feel her like this made him wild.
El moved lower and drew a line with her tongue down the side of his neck until she got to a spot similar to where Mike had gone, and set to work, alternating between kisses and teeth and sucking. She liked to imagine that she had gotten pretty good at this sort of thing; her time alone in her room at the cabin, despite what Hopper had thought, was pretty innocent. But ever since around a month ago, they had been slowly progressing this side of things in their relationship, and she loved it.
As she continued to nurse the side of Mike's neck, she found herself automatically moving her hand lower down, dragging her fingertips along his chest, then down his stomach and toward the waistband of his pants. It was sort of instinctual, but she knew very well what she was going for.
Before Mike could even process what she was doing, she had already slid her hand under his pants and was now grasping him through his underwear. He exhaled sharply, kind of shocked at how forthcoming and confident El was being. "El, are you-"
He was cut off when she released his neck with a popping sound and put her mouth back on his, placing her other hand on his bare chest. He took that as a sign that she was okay with what was happening. Not long after, one of his hands was back on her breast, and the other was on her side, slowly moving down her side. He was about to wrap around and grab her behind when the unmistakable sound of the back door opening came from outside the room.
"Shit," El muttered and pulled away from Mike. She reached across her bed and threw on the shirt she was wearing and kicked her bra under the sheets, while Mike did the same.
As soon as he pulled his last arm through the sleeve, there was a knock on her bedroom door. "Hello? You guys in there?" It was Joyce.
"Yes, come in," El said, smoothing her hair down as she did so. The door slowly opened and Joyce poked her head through the doorway.
"Hi, Mike. Everything good, guys?" she asked.
"Hi, Joyce," Mike greeted politely.
"We're good," El answered the question.
Joyce nodded. "Okay, well I'll be in the kitchen if you guys need anything," she stated and left, closing the door behind them gently, to Mike and El's surprise. They looked at one another, dumbfounded.
"Did she… close the door?" Mike asked, a quizzical expression across his face.
"Uh, yeah," El replied quietly, equally as confused. "I didn't know she would be so…" she couldn't think of a word.
"Lenient?" Mike suggested.
"Yes," El nodded, remembering reading that word at one point in one of her books. Mike got up from the bed and opened the door quietly and peered down the hall. Sure enough, he could hear Joyce in the kitchen, clanging around dishes and cutlery. It appeared that she was going to leave them to their own devices for the afternoon. He closed the door again and turned around.
"I think moms are usually like that," Mike thought aloud. "Usually it's the father-daughter relationships that are really, um… protective." He felt nervous even saying the word 'Dad' in front of El, but there was really no other way to his thought out without using the word.
But she seemed to be doing a lot better; of course, there were sometimes dark days or nights where Mike found himself comforting her and being the shoulder for her to cry on. But in contrast to how things had been at the beginning of the summer, everything was a lot better now.
"Oh," El answered, a somber look across her face.
"I mean, moms are definitely just as protective and stuff, but it's just that… fathers are kind of infamous for not wanting any boys around their daughters."
"Why?"
Mike shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's just the way they are, I guess. Moms and sons are kind of like that, too, I think."
El nodded in understanding. Mike couldn't ignore the look on her face. "El, are you okay?"
She nodded but didn't meet his eyes. "Yes," she said softly. "I just… I still think about him sometimes."
He walked back to the bed and sat down beside her. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, taking her hand in his. In response, she leaned to the side and rested her cheek on his shoulder.
"I don't know," she said, almost a whisper. "There's nothing I can do to change it. I just really… miss him."
"I know," Mike acknowledged, pulling her closer to him. "We all miss him. He meant a lot to a lot of people." She sniffed and rub some stray tears out of her eyes.
"Just think about it this way," he said, looking into her deep, brown eyes. "He might have died, but he died the greatest way possible. He died a hero. He saved you, he saved me, he saved everyone."
This was certainly true; her dad had died a hero. A smile came across her face. "Yeah, he did," she agreed.
"Exactly," Mike said, grinning equally as much.
"That makes me feel a lot better," she told him.
Mike kissed her. "That's what I'm here for."
As if on queue, Will opened the door, except without knocking. Mike and El jumped, startled by the sudden noise. They gave him an impatient, "why-didn't-you-knock" look.
"Could you knock next time?" Mike asked. "Unless you want to see something that you're gonna call."
"Sorry," Will said. "Are you guys busy?"
They looked at one another. "No."
"You guys wanna play Monopoly or something?"
The three of them spent the whole afternoon playing an assortment of board games, and later when Jonathan came home from being out with friends, he joined the trio. Joyce cooked up some dinner, which Mike joined them for, and later in the evening, he had made his way home.
All in all, it had been a great day. It had definitely taken his mind off things in terms of the start of school, but as he was biking home, he felt the anxiety start to settle back in. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, becoming frustrated with himself for not being able to curb his stress. He forced himself to think about something else.
Of course, his thoughts drifted back to where he had been not even five hours ago, alone in El's bedroom. He smiled dreamily. His heart skipped a beat when he remembered about the little "gift" she had given him. As he was riding, he pulled the shoulder of his shirt to the side, and saw a very clear discoloration just below his collarbone, almost on his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that all he would have to do is wear a shirt to cover it.
Mike cursed under his breath when he felt himself getting hard, just by thinking about the encounter. Thankfully, as a hormonal teenager, he had his ways to hide them from others, but it was still uncomfortable and annoying. But it seemed especially prominent today, most likely because of the fact that, for the first time in a bit, El had touched it.
Sure, it was through his boxers, but nonetheless, he had felt like he was going to explode at that moment with desire. He often found that during his "quality time" with El, he had to fight the urge to do something terribly sexual, but he always resisted. He wasn't yet fully aware of how much she knew about sex and stuff, and he didn't want to do anything stupid to make her feel uncomfortable or weird.
And it wasn't like he felt completely comfortable talking about it with El. He had no doubt in his mind that she knew what it was, but talking about it? That was just… a whole different thing. It would probably be awkward and weird, even stressful. That was why he often let her take the lead with things, because he knew that there was nothing she could do or ask for that he would object to.
Even though he never wanted to pressure her into anything, he'd be lying if he said that he didn't want a little bit more from her. He felt bad for feeling that way, but he definitely wouldn't mind getting a… a handjob or something.
His face contorted. Fuck, what's wrong with me? He felt disgusted by the fact that he was even thinking about El doing that stuff, but he was, and even though he felt bad about it, he still wanted it, really badly.
When his house came into view, he shook the hormones that were clearly getting to his head loose and went inside.
El exhaled heavily and slowly, staring at the ceiling, finally coming down from the orgasmic high she had just reached.
Her mind had been plagued by the time she had had with Mike early that day, and she had never had any release, so as soon as the rest of the house had gone to bed, she was finally able to unwind. Thank God.
It had been a while since she had finished the last magazine that Max had lent her, and yet… after today, she found herself still slightly concerned. She was well aware of the fact that Mike had done a lot for her since their relationship became more sexual, but she hadn't really done anything to reciprocate. Even though she was technically aware of all the things that she could do, and how to do them in theory, she didn't know how to do it in practice.
And she didn't know where to go for advice. But then it came to her.
Max. She had probably done a whole bunch of stuff with Lucas. She could ask her, easily. It had only been yesterday when they hung out last. She kicked herself for not bringing it up with her at the time, though, because she knew she had class tomorrow. That meant it wouldn't be until later in the afternoon they could hang out.
At least she could occupy herself with work that Joyce would most likely be giving her. Feeling resolved with her decision, she closed her eyes and nodded off.
That's all for this chapter... let me know what you guys think! Next chapter will probably be around nine or ten days from now, maybe earlier. March break is next week, so I might have some extra time. Take it easy :)
