JANUARY 27 1985

Mike internally panicked as he sat on the edge of El's bed. He just got done with school and rode to El's cabin. Mike wanted to get the phone call over with so he kept on begging El until she finally agreed a couple of hours later.

She had the phone up to her face, the top part being on her ear and the bottom part around her mouth. The line of the phone was longer than usual, so she was able to bring it into her room.

She dialed the number Mike gave her moments before. She wasn't as good at hiding her emotions as Mike was. She looked down at Mike, scared of conversing with his mom, the woman who brought her Mikey into the world.

The ringing felt constant. It seemed like her heart paused during the silence whenever there wasn't ringing. And then it happened.

"Hello?"

El's eyes widened as she forced herself to look away from Mike because she knew his face would distract her.

"Hi," El shyly said.

There was an awkward pause and El could totally feel it.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Oh. Sorry! My name is …"

El didn't know what to say already so she directed her eyes to Mike for help.

"Just say El," Mike whispered.

El nodded her head.

"El. My name is El."

"Oh. OK. But uh, why exactly are you calling?" Mike's mom replied, starting to get impatient with the random phone call.

"I'm… Well. I'm Mike's girlfriend and he said you wanted to talk to me."

Karen's mood changed instantly. She put on more light hearted and kind voice.

"Mike's girlfriend?! Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I had no idea!" Karen had to refrain from screaming.

"Yes. I'm Mike's girlfriend," El replied nervously.

"It's so nice to meet you! … Over the phone anyway. Gosh, you have a very sweet voice… is your name El? Is that short for something?" Karen wondered after complimenting El's gentle voice.

El smiled at Mike's mom complimenting her. Then she realized what Karen was asking for and panicked again. She held the phone down to her legs as she whispered to Mike again.

"She wants to know if El's my name and if it's short for something!?"

Mike could see the panic in her eyes as she looked to him for the right answer. Mike didn't take long to think of something.

"Say that you don't like people calling you by your first name, and you like being called El, short for Eleanor, your middle name."

El nodded her head, surprised at how much sense that makes.

"It's my middle name, Eleanor. El is short for that. I don't like people calling me by my first name," El explained.

"Ahh, I knew people exactly like that. Very understandable, El. So, my name is Karen, I'm Mike's mom, obviously," Karen said as she giggled.

"Hi, Karen."

"Yeah, nice to meet you, El. So I know this all could be a bit odd, you know, me wanting to talk to you. But you're with my son and I just wanted to make sure you weren't badly influencing him. You understand?"

"I understand." El casually replied.

"So… Well, actually, now that I know that you're not some witch stealing my son's soul, I was hoping to meet you in person some time?" Karen asked in a questionable tone.

El looked to Mike for answers.

"She wants to meet me in person," El whispered.

"No, absolutely not!" Mike whispered back with authority.

During El's silence, Karen felt the need to add on to what she was saying, afraid she might of scared off El.

"I know Mike wouldn't like it, and I get that. But I just think I should have the right to meet my son's girlfriend face to face. I get it. Mike's probably there telling you no, but just think about it, El."

"O-OK," El replied as she looked back at Mike.

Karen grinned over the phone, wanting to know more about El and their relationship.

"So Mike said you don't go to his school, you live out of town?:

"...Yes…"

"So how did you two meet?" Karen asked.

El knew she couldn't tell the truth. Too many demogorgons and demodogs in that story.

She looked to Mike again and whispered.

"She wants to know how we met?!"

"No! I mean, just say it's complicated!" Mike whispered back.

El nodded her head and talked into the phone again.

"No, it's too complicated," El replied, faking a chuckle.

"I have time, sweetie."

Mike and El heard the sound of the door opening. It had to be Hopper.

El went silent and panicked on the inside while staring at Mike, forgetting what Karen had said.

Hopper would usually yell something when he got home, knowing Mike and El were most likely in her room, doing all kinds of things that he didn't want them to do. The two teens were not ready for this situation.

"HELLO!!! GUESS WHO'S HOME?!!!" Hopper yelled, somewhat joking but also a little angry at how close the two teens always were.

Unfortunately for the three of them, Karen heard Hopper's voice over the phone. She didn't pick up on who it was even though he sounded familiar. She assumed it was El's dad.

"I'm guessing that's your father?" Karen said while laughing.

She would of looked to Mike for what to say, however she felt comfortable this one time and didn't feel the need to

"Um. Yes."

"UM? I SAID GUESS WHO'S HOME?!!!" Hopper yelled again.

Mike snapped his fingers, trying to get El's attention without being loud. He was lip synching "Get off the phone" and El quickly understood what he was trying to say. She nodded her head and went back to the phone call.

"Well, my dad is calling, I have to go."

"Oh, alright. Well, it was nice meet-"

"HOPPER'S HOME!!!" Hopper yelled.

Hopper did not take being ignored by his daughter and boyfriend too well. It either meant that they were doing something inappropriate or… well, just that.

Karen heard the name drop of Hopper and became interested in who this person was.

"Wait?! Hopper? Your father is Jim Hopper?! Chief of police?!" Karen said, sounding shocked.

El had to think quickly.

"Huh?! No, no no……. my father is a different Hopper," El replied as she was unable to hide her nervous voice.

"YEP, YOUR FAVORITE CHIEF OF POLICE, JIM HOPPER, IS HOME."

"It is Jim!" Karen said.

"OKAY!!" El shouted angrily, forgetting she was still on the phone with Karen.

"I have to go. Bye."

"Oh, alright. Feel free to-"

Karen stopped talking when she heard the sound of El hanging up.

Hopper walked into her room and grinned at what he saw.

"Who are you talking to?" Hopper asked.

"Um."

El didn't want to admit it to Hopper, and although Mike had no clue what Karen said, he pretty much knew Karen heard him…

El looked at Hopper with fear in her eyes.

"We might have a problem," El's voice shook with worry.

After El explained the situation to Hopper, he sat down in his la-z-boy and contemplated what to do next in his mind. Mike and El thought he was going crazy as he remained silent for several minutes. They were too scared to interrupt whatever he was thinking.

"So you're sure she knows it was me?" Hopper blurted out as he looked at El.

"We definitely know her options are narrowed down, you know, because of the whole I'm Jim Hopper, the chief of police thing?" Mike answered back, showing his annoyance towards Hopper.

Hopper stared evilly at Mike, warning him with his eyes to be careful about what he says.

"All right. I got it," Hopper said as he looked up at the two teens with a smirk on his face.

Mike and El turned heads to one another as they wondered what Hopper had up his sleeve, if he had anything to begin with.

15 minutes later

Hopper stood at the Wheeler's front door with Mike and El standing behind him side by side.

It wasn't much of a plan as it was a power move by Hopper. He figured that if Karen already knew, he had to talk to her about it himself. And why not bring along the teenage couple as well?

Mike rode to the house using his bike and Hopper drove El there in his police vehicle. The whole ride there, Hopper kept warning El not to talk too much and let him do the talking. She was so new to human interaction. Interacting with anyone outside of Hopper, Mike, and Mike's friend group seemed like a challenge for the telekinetic teen. All her brain can do is second guess herself and be paranoid about if the person she's talking to knows who she really is.

After ringing the door twice, Karen opened it and greeted Hopper with a smile. She saw that Mike and a girl were behind him, only confusing her on if this was real life or a dream. Hopper saw her bewildered face and nodded while having a sarcastic grin.

"Yeah, it's better if we come inside and explain this," Hopper said.

Karen had been too stunned by the sight and moved to the side so Hopper and the two teenagers could come in. Dinner had just been made so Karen decided to treat her special guests well as she invited them to the dinner table. Hopper graciously accepted. Ted brought more chairs to the table to accommodate their guests.

El was sitting in the middle of Mike and Nancy while Ted and Karen were on the other side. Hopper sat between them all, being near Nancy and Karen.

Nancy was holding in her smile as she looked at El, knowing how much her brother liked her. It was too adorable for her to handle sometimes. Mike was great with animals, and he could make Holly laugh without trying. Holly called for Mike instead of Nancy whenever she was curious about something or wondering what something was. Mike was just born to have a caring, gentle soul. All of this taken into account, Nancy knew Mike would be an excellent boyfriend. And his girlfriend was El! How ironic that Mike essentially treated El like a stray dog when he found her, and now he's making out with her.

But alas, they were all at the table. The silence made everyone feel weird. Karen knew that the young girl beside Mike was El. She couldn't believe her son found a girl as pretty as El.

Mike and El ate their food and remained silent as the adults talked.

"So, yeah. I heard about the phone call you and El had," Hopper said while looking at Karen.

Karen awkwardly nodded her head while drinking a glass of water.

"Um, yeah. I had no idea, Hopper. I mean- I have so many questions-"

"I know, I know. That's why I'm here. Karen…………….. Ted……….."

Upon hearing his name, Ted turned his head to Hopper. The chicken would have to wait.

Hopper forgot that Karen and Ted had no idea that Nancy already knew about El, so he played along and looked at her with a serious face.

"Nancy….."

Nancy nodded her head, pretending this was such a shock.

"I adopted El over a year ago. After Will went missing, it reminded me of my life… with Sara."

Karen had too much emotion to let that sentence pass.

"I'm sorry, Hopp."

"I don't want a pity party. I've moved on from that. It hurts, but… the hurt is good. After Will went missing, I felt like what I used to feel like with Sara. I came out of the dark cave, and… after Will got rescued, I didn't want to go back into that cave of emptiness. So I… adopted El from the nearest orphanage."

Hopper was fighting off tears but had to sacrifice his voice breaking uncontrollably every now and then from stuffing his emotions.

"That's wonderful! Isn't that wonderful, Ted?" Karen asked as she glanced at Ted, his mouth being full with chicken.

"That's beautiful, Karen," Ted said, having a muffled voice from the food in his mouth.

Karen sighed and looked at Hopper, too emotionally attached to his story to drop it.

"I'm happy for you Hopper! Now if you don't mind me asking, was there a particular reason why you adopted El? Did anything stand out about her?" Karen wondered.

Hopper rubbed the hair on his chin, chuckling as he thought of the perfect answer.

"Besides her being the most adorable girl in the world, there is a lot of backstory to her. It's way too traumatic to get into much detail, but keeping the story short, she came from a bad place… from some bad people. They um. They treated her almost like a…"

Hopper paused when he saw El's face get upset. She didn't want to hear about her past life, before Mike, before Hopper. It was almost like she started to get PTSD flashbacks of that life.

The lab………. Small room………….. Papa's girl………….

Mike noticed she was on the verge of tears and had to put a stop to it.

"Can me and El be excused to my room until you're ready to leave? Please?" Mike asked while his eyes told Hopper that El was gonna break down.

Hopper would usually say no. But under unusual circumstances, he had to get El out of the room while he tried to dig himself out of this hole.

"OK," Karen and Hopper said at the same time.

Mike grabbed El's hand as they both stood up and ran upstairs to Mike's room.

Hopper continued the conversation once they were out of sight.

"Anyways, they treated her like… a pet, a dog…"

"Jesus!" Karen said, gasping while putting a hand over her mouth.

"Yeah. She barely knew vocabulary other than the basics, like Yes, No. She couldn't even tell time at 12 years old! Those sick fucks!" Hopper said while being unable to control his temper, knowing he lost his temper and immediately forced himself to apologize.

"I'm sorry for the outburst, it just ticks me off how they treated an innocent girl like that."

"It's fine, Hopp. We'd feel the same way if something happened to Michael."

Even Ted couldn't concentrate on his chicken at this point. El's trauma had brought him into reality for once.

"Let's not think about that, Karen," Ted said as he grabbed her hand with passion.

Hopper admired the love that Karen and Ted shared at that moment. He hoped to find a lady to hold hands with like that. Joyce came to mind, but he wanted to give her some much needed space after Bob's death. The thoughts still roamed in the back of his head…

Hopper needed to continue on with his explanation of adopting El. And he really wanted to hurry up and finish because he didn't trust Mike and El alone in his room.

"I know this all seems out of the blue, but I don't want this information getting out to anyone. I'm not ready to tell people about this. I need time. That's why I moved just out of town into a cabin. It's cheap and nobody knows about El. I need you guys to keep this a secret. Nobody needs to know about this that doesn't live in this house? We got that?" Hopper said as he eyed Ted, Karen, and Nancy.

They all nodded their heads in agreement.

"I mean it. Don't tell anyone. Not even a close friend who you think can keep a secret. I mean NO ONE. You understand?"

Karen smiled at Hopper and nodded her head again.

"Yes, Hopp, we understand. We won't tell anyone. We know how serious this is to you. Just one question."

Karen paused to sip her glass of water before continuing.

"How did Mike and El meet if she lives out of town?" Karen asked a good question.

Luckily for Hopper, he devised answers to basic questions like this on the ride there.

"This is- oh, I don't know, maybe two or three months ago. El starts rebelling against me like all teenagers do. She walks into town and meets Mike who had been riding on his bike. Next thing you know, they start becoming a thing, and she starts bringing him to the cabin. Well, then he met me and of course, things got awkward. I had to have a long talk with him," Hopper explained.

Karen's eyes widened with interest.

"Wow! Are things getting serious between them?!" Karen asked with enthusiasm, almost sounding like a fangirl.

"Unfortunately I think so. Mike is just a natural with her. He's a good kid, just a little rough around the edges."

"Believe me, that's the Wheeler way," Karen replied as her and Nancy giggled together.

As Hopper talked to Mike's family, Mike lead El into his room. She didn't cry although she wanted to. Seeing Mike's room after so long made her feel nostalgic and happy.

"This… is your room…"

"Yeah…"

"It's been so long…"

She walked to his closet, just staring it down, remembering the memories that it brought.

"The first promise," El mumbled.

"What?" Mike walked up to her, wondering what she was going on about.

El turned around and looked up to meet his eyes with a heart warming smile.

"The first time you promised to me. You made me hide in there because of your mom and I was so scared. But you made a promise to me, and that made everything all right in the end," El pecked mike on the lips and walked to his bed.

She bent over and took a huge whiff of his sheets. Mike raised a brow at how odd that looked.

"MMM. It smells just like you," El said, having a wide grin.

She walked back to Mike and put her arms around his neck and pulls him in for an emotional hug. Mike knew that this was her first home. If he showed her the spot in the basement where she used to sleep, she would freak out, and Mike knew that.

Hopper said something downstairs at the table that kept bothering Mike. He didn't know why but he felt the need to ask El about it.

"Who is Sara?" Mike asked as they broke off the hug and stared deep into each others eyes.

"Hopp's daughter," El simply replied in a sad tone.

"What happened to her? Did she die?!" Mike wondered, actually feeling sorry for Hopper.

El glanced down at the floor and sighed before answering.

El remembered that night she closed the gate. On the ride there with Hopper, she learned about Sara and how he explained that the black hole killed her.

"The black hole got her."

"Huh?!" Mike said, not knowing if he was missing something.

"Nothing," El shyly replied as she started to question what she said.

Mike saw those sad eyes. Those beautiful, sad eyes left too much of an impression on him. He leaned in and kissed her without warning. El willingly accepted the make-out challenge, tugging on the hair on the back of his head as her tongue found his. The scenario of Mike making out with El in his room was raising his testosterone levels. He grabbed her ass cheeks as he continued dominating her mouth. El broke off the kiss, panting; she needed to ask him something.

"I want to make you feel good," El said in a low pitched voice while panting.

Mike knew this wasn't the time or place for such acts. He shook his head no while giving her a look of disapproval.

"El, we've been through this-"

"I know, Mike. You don't want to treat me like a slut. You don't want us to do things that adults are supposed to do. But I need this. I need to make you feel good. Please, don't make me beg," El said in a desperate tone.

She cupped her hand around his cheek, staring up into his eyes with need, wanting to please him, wanting to show him how much she cared about him. Mike could talk all day about how they aren't supposed to do certain things, but looking down into those beautiful brown eyes, he didn't have the power to say no.

He nodded his head, gulping at the realization of what was about to happen.

"So……. What do I do? How do I make you feel good?" El asked.

Mike had heard of things like handjobs and blowjobs from Dustin a few years back. He even found a dirty VHS tape while his mom and dad were away for vacation, forcing Nancy to babysit him. Not really babysitting when she's out with her friends, leaving Mike to care for Holly. He found the tape and watched it. All of it. The things he saw on that tape scarred him forever. Never would he imagine that he could be the lucky recipient to one of these "jobs."

Mike took El's hand and put it on his crotch. He started moving her hand in a circular motion. The friction of her hand against the crotch area through his pants was making him hard.

"Just keep rubbing it like this. It'll get me hard," Mike mumbled, then moaned at the pleasure as his member hardened.

El followed his directions, not wanting to disobey him. He deserved to feel good. She licked her lips while continuing to rub the area. Mike felt it get fully hard and removed her hand from his crotch. El was disappointed at first, but she saw Mike's reaction to her doing that. His smile was everything.

"Um. I guess now, you like, can maybe like, get on your knees? If you want?" Mike asked, not trying to sound like a pig.

"On my knees?" El wondered where this was going but wasn't against it.

"Yeah. Only if you want to?"

El didn't hesitate to get on her knees, looking up at Mike with anticipation, then she stared at his crotch directly in front of her. She could see the hard on through his clothes. Mike was gonna lose it at the sight of El being on her knees, but he had to hold it in, at least for a little longer.

He unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, all while keeping eye contact with her. He dropped the pants down to his ankles. El saw the hard on trying to escape his underwear. She bit her lip, wanting to see it. It had been several months since she saw it from her visits from the void.

Mike froze with his hands on his underwear, ready to pull it down and show El his penis in all its glory.

He took a deep breath, suddenly pulling his underwear down in the blink of an eye.

El was flabbergasted at the sight. She noticed the difference between several months ago and now. It was honestly a little frightening for her. It was hard just for her. That made El tingly. Even though she only saw it in the void when it was soft, she had to admire its length and girth.

"I……. I don't remember it being this big," El honestly replied, feeling scared of his manhood.

"My height isn't the only thing that grew," Mike chuckled as he gained self-confidence from her reaction.

El analyzed it while biting her lip with lust. She didn't know why she felt so weird. It was just a penis. All boys had one. But this was Mike's penis…. And one word came to mind to describe it.

She looked at his penis while talking, almost like she was more interested in his manhood than Mike himself. El licked her lips.

"It's beautiful."

"Uhhh, thanks," Mike awkwardly replied.

"What now?" El asked as she finally returned her eyes to his.

"Now you can…. .well……. You know……. Just grab it-"

"EL, IT'S TIME TO GO!" Hopper screamed from downstairs.

Mike wanted to cry when he heard Hopper's voice, and El made things worse by standing up.

"No, please don't go," Mike begged with his underwear and pants still down to his ankles as his penis started to go soft.

"I'm sorry, Mike. Hopper can't get su-spicious. Another time?" El didn't want him to be upset, and she definitely wanted to see his penis again and make him feel good.

Mike disappointingly nodded his head. He watched as El opened his door. She looked behind her to smile at Mike.

"See you soon."

"See you soon, El…"

El closed the door and left.

Mike sighed and stared at his softening member. He shook his head, knowing how close she was to touching it. He mumbled in frustration.

"Hopper, you goddamn cockblocker."