"Hey El, are you ready yet?" Mike asked through the wooden door of the bathroom. He and everyone else – Dustin, Lucas, and Will – were all waiting on El to finish putting on her costume for Halloween, 1986. Mike leaned against the wall beside the door while the other trio of friends sat around the couches of the basement; they had all gathered at Mike's house after school, having stopped only to pick up costumes at their own houses before spending the rest of the time in the basement for the past two hours waiting for the time to begin. At seven o'clock, and with the moon rising and the sun fully set, it was time for the group to hunt for treats (no one particularly wanted any tricks, given their history).
Finally, the bathroom door's lock clicked, and Mike pushed off the wall and wheeled around to face the door – and stared. El, with one hand on the door and another on the doorframe, was dressed as Princess Leia from Star Wars, or rather, more specifically The Empire Strikes Back. Clad in the white jumpsuit, El's costume was completed by her cream color vest and grey wedge boots; since El had short hair, she went without the extensive hair braid Leia had running across the top of her head in the film. To the fifteen-year-old Mike, she wore the costume very well. He gulped. Dustin snickered at Mike's reaction. El raised her eyebrows at Mike's reaction.
"Mike?" El asked, coming forward out of the bathroom after leaning over to grab the bag of school clothes she wore earlier. Mike snapped back to reality and smiled, readjusting his own jacket out of nervousness. Mike was dressed as Han from The Empire Strikes Back, and wore the familiar white shirt, blue jacket, brown pants and holster complete with replica blaster. When he first brought up the idea of dressing like Han and Leia for Halloween to El, she had readily agreed, but Mike had made the age old mistake of doing it in front of his friends; to say the least, Dustin and Lucas, especially, took the maximum enjoyment possible out of teasing their friend about his choice, though they liked the idea and thought it was cool. El just thought it was adorably cute, and immediately agreed. Thus, they were here, on Halloween night, dressed as none other than the most famous and beloved sci-fi couple to date.
"Let's go guys," Mike said, taking the lead and grabbing his cloth candy bag. "Time for some candy." The others gave a cheer, and grabbed their own bags.
Soon, they were out of the basement door, with barely a word from Mike's mom at the top of the stairs ("Stay safe and be back by ten!") before they were out on the streets to get some treats. At first it was formulaic, knocking on the doors of houses on each side of the Wheelers' house's road, but as they left that street, they wandered a bit, having done no prior planning on a route. Dustin joked with Lucas and Will as Mike and El walked slightly in front of them, holding hands in the cold night. Soon, they came to a stop at an intersection between two neighborhood streets, staring at the bright light in front of them.
"Is that a flare in the middle of the street?" Will questioned, the five of them all staring at the bright object lit burning in front of them in the middle of the intersection.
"Yeah," Lucas replied. "Yeah it is." Dustin went forward, and with a big grin, grabbed the flare.
"Hey guys, look!" Dustin smiled, waving around the flare in one hand.
"Dude!" Mike yelled. "Put it down before yo- I don't know, you hurt yourself!" Dustin waved his other hand, still clutching his candy bag, dismissively, before playfully taking a whiff of the flare – and then began violently coughing.
"Woah! You okay?" Lucas cried, rushing forward toward the still coughing Dustin, who raised a hand upwards toward Lucas to signify that he was okay. Lucas warily looked at Dustin, still trying to wheeze and cough out the last bit of whatever he had inhaled, and stepped backwards. El stared at Dustin with a mixed look of worry and amusement as Mike rolled his eyes and clasped El's hand again. Waving a hand at everyone else, Mike gestured for them to continue, with Lucas still patting Dustin's back and Will softly smiling at the pair.
After knocking on a few more doors to get back on track with the annual candy-getting fest, the group stumbled upon an odd house. There was nothing wrong with the house, per say, but the trouble (or fun, depending on how you think about it) started when the door opened.
"Trick or treat!" the five yelled in unison, holding out candy bags. The man who opened the door, a cleanly shaven thirty-something, looked at the five, before speaking.
"You all really want candy?" Dustin looked at Lucas, and then shrugged.
"I guess, yeah," Dustin said, a little confused. The others nodded in concurrence.
"Well then…" the man's voice trailed off for a few seconds, before he spoke again. "Make a human pyramid."
"A what?" Mike asked, taken aback.
"A human pyramid – you know, where people kneel on others' backs. On the lawn," the man explained. The five of them simply looked at each other with a "is-this-serious" look before Dustin, still slightly wheezy, shrugged.
"Might as well guys," Dustin said, glancing at Lucas, who also shrugged in acquiescence. There wasn't much to lose.
The five friends gathered on the man's lawn, figuring out exactly how the pyramid would work. Deciding on a Mike-Lucas-Dustin base with a Will-El upper layer, the three boys first knelt down on all fours, before nodding to Will and El, who both climbed on top the three boys. They heard a laugh from the door, and glancing up, the five saw the man, now with his wife, laughing at the human pyramid; the man's wife also had a mirthful smile on her face, and she was clutching a basket of candy.
"Alright, alright, that's all good – tis all in good fun," the man gestured, and Will and El got off, allowing Mike, Dustin, and Lucas to stand up. Brushing off any stray leaves, the five friends walked back to the front door, where the man's wife handed each a generous handful of candy, before the man and his wife retreated back into the house, waved good-bye, and closed the door. Mike turned and stared at El, Dustin, Lucas, and Will.
"What just happened?"
"I don't know, dude, but let's continue," Lucas rationalized, and so they went.
The night was getting older and less and less people were seen on the streets trick-or-treating. After finishing up a couple of more streets in between breaks ("Oh geez I really shouldn't have sniffed that flare" – Dustin), the quintet agreed to start to head back to Mike's house, before they realized a fatal issue with that plan – they were lost. None of them remembered the winding route they walked to get there, and time only moved forward; Mike had no intentions of facing his mother's wrath over this.
"Ah!" Lucas exclaimed after a few moments of contemplation, before swinging his backpack around to open it. Rummaging through it, he pulled out a flashlight and folded map of Hawkins. Looking up, he saw everyone else with the same expression on their faces, all staring at the map.
"What? I come prepared." Lucas flicked up the flashlight before unfolding and examining the map.
"Alright… Roane Street?" Lucas swung the flashlight to the street sign. Roane Street. "Got it."
"Cool," Mike said, mildly impressed by Lucas' preparedness. "Lead the way." They followed Lucas' flashlight and map, stopping briefly only to update their position on the map. Before long, they were all back on the familiar street the Wheelers' house sat; the lights of the houses on the street still shone and there were still a few children milling about for candy.
"Whew, on time," Lucas said, glancing at his watch. "With about forty-five seconds to spare." The group wasted no time speed-walking to the basement door of Mike's house and entering, feeling the welcome blast of heat wash over them after three hours of cold. Checking back in with Mike's mother upstairs ("I'm glad you all came back on time"), the three of them – Lucas and Dustin had to return home promptly, leaving only Mike, El, and Will at the Wheelers' – relaxed into the basement couch, waiting for Jonathan to come pick his younger siblings up. El, still dressed up as Leia, was nearly asleep on Mike's shoulder and Will was upstairs getting some punch and snacks.
"Hey, El, you awake?" El shifted her head slightly, nodding a bit while still leaning on Mike's shoulder. "Did you have fun?"
"Yeah," El replied, resting. "We should do this again."
"By this, do you mean the trick-or-treating, or the dressing-up-as-a-fictional-couple thing?"
El lifted her head, looking into Mike's eyes.
"Both," she said, with a small smile.
Mike cleared his throat. "Well, erm, I also wanted to say, that, ya'know, you look really pretty in this costume," Mike stuttered, before thinking about what he said a little more. "Wait! I mean, you're always pretty, it's just that you look even more, uh, I mean, you look cute in your costume…" Mike's voice trailed off near the end.
El tilted her head with a soft smile on her face, before replying.
"Thanks. For what it's worth, I think you look very handsome in your costume." Mike blushed, and two seemed to draw closer together before meeting in the middle, and the simple action developed into a deep kiss that seemed to ignite a fire in Mike's heart…
The basement door opened, and Will stepped in with a plastic cup of punch and a plate of cookies. He paused, staring at his adopted sister and one of his best friends interlocking lips. The couple, startled by the sudden sound of the door, burst apart now that Will was here, and they awkwardly smiled at each other and Will as he descended with his goodies. The three diverted their attentions to the plate of snacks, talking, laughing, eating, and enjoying each other's company until Jonathan arrived to pick the two Byers up.
As Will and El made to leave with Jonathan waiting in his car outside, Mike stopped El with a gentle touch.
"I had a lot of fun tonight. See you tomorrow?" Mike said, as Will made his way toward the car.
"Yeah, definitely," El replied, before pecking Mike on the lips for a good night, and striding off towards the car. Mike waved bye one last time as Jonathan, El, and Will waved in return and the car drove off. Standing just outside his front door, the chill was beginning to set in as the night grew darker, but for Mike, it only seemed mild as he was enveloped by the warmth of the fire ignited in his heart.
A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay... only a week late, so that's alright, right? Anyway, this is pretty late for a Halloween chapter, but I'm hoping that you all still have some Halloween spirit. And in case anyone was curious, the flare and the pyramid did happen once when I was trick-or-treating. Anyway, follow, favorite, and/or review - thanks for reading!