Chapter I: Mike
(A Stranger Things AU, which combines the events of S3/S4) After two years of being surrounded by the horrors and perils of a world unknown to most, the children of Hawkins are just looking to have a normal summer. But they will soon find that things will not go as planned, and the consequences of their naivety will be dire.
He didn't like the Hawkins Community Pool and Sauna, and he never had, even as a child.
The water was always too wet, and the chlorine in it always stung his eyes. If he even dunked his head under for a moment, they would be red for the rest of the day.
His mother had had enough of his complaining about the place and told him at her Formica kitchen table on that sweltering July morning that he was taking Holly there for her swimming lesson, end of discussion.
And thus before he could protest again, he was silenced with a plateful of freshly made over easy eggs that were accompanied by a side of bacon, charred at the edges. His feast was only made less appetizing by the sound of Holly prancing around the table, skipping about, singing about how Mikey was taking her to poo-ool, and after her lesson, they were going to play Mermaids.
Fat chance, Mike wanted to say, but instead, he shut himself up by shoveling a strip of bacon into his mouth. The charred bits burned his tongue.
As one could expect on a day like the one they were having, the pool was packed. People of all shapes and sizes were spread out on plastic lounge chairs, gabbing with their neighbors about the news, small talk, and everything in between. Kids splashed about in the way-too-blue water, wearing bathing suits that were all in shades of colors comparable to the entire rainbow. The moment he and Holly stepped through the gates, she fell into a wave of giggling girls that wore sparkly, frilly suits, some of which had been lazily bedazzled by their mothers in an attempt to make their daughters stick out a little less, and fit in with the others - to Mike, it did quite the opposite.
He watched his little sister, pigtails flying about as she was herded about by a teenaged lifeguard, whose slim frame was accentuated by the tight red one-piece she wore. It wouldn't have fazed him if it wasn't for the markings on her arm. On her pale, freckled forearm were a pair of angels' wings, neatly drawn and detailed using only a BIC pen.
He felt his heart go flailing down to the pits of his stomach. A sizzling feeling started in his chest. She turned around, her glossy, thick, brown ponytail, trailing behind her. Her soft, hazel, doe-like eyes landed on him, and he felt his throat go tight. He tried his best to look away, but he couldn't. The foam soles of his cheap, dollar store flip-flops were glued to the wet cement. He was frozen in time, this one single moment, while the rest of the world seemed to speed up. She started towards him, footsteps light and airy. Her soft, pink lips turned up into a gentle smile.
His heart shot back up to his chest, and he sprung back to life. He held out his hands, unsure of what to do with them as she neared him.
"The last person I ever thought would willingly come around here is you," She remarked in a soft, lilting voice.
His hands went numb. He shoved them into the shallow pockets of his trunks that crinkled with each little movement he made. "I only came for Polly. My mom practically sprung it on me, and tried to shut me up with eggs and bacon."
She laughed her tinkly laugh. Her doe-like eyes crinkled at the corners. He noticed, at that moment, how nicely her lashes curled up. He noticed the soft edges of her jawlines and the roundness of her face. The red blush that hinted at her cheeks, and the freckles sprayed across her nose. It was all perfect.
The lanyard around her neck jingled - on the end of it was a dented, gold-painted whistle marked with a little red dot.
"Not quite yours yet, is it?" He pinched the whistle in between his index finger and thumb and held it up to the light. It glittered in a faux, yet flashy kind of way.
She shook her head. "Still in training." Her lips pulled down at the corner, just for a flicker of a second. "Heather's teaching the little kids today." There was some bitterness in her voice, but it was out of frustration, not hate. He knew it
He let the whistle drop and snaked his thin, gangly arm around her waist. He didn't even realize what he was doing. His heart jumped back up to his throat. His lips went dry.
"..You know a place we can go since our spot got busted?" He asked in a hushed whisper. She stiffened then and relaxed after a moment. She reached up a hand to her ponytail and threaded her delicate fingers through the tangles that had worked themselves into her up-do. Her brow wrinkled in thought.
The shed behind the front office reeked so strongly of chlorine, that his eyes watered. Even so, he couldn't break their embrace. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her - if he were to let her go, he was afraid she might slip away. It was a crazy thought, but he was terrified of it. Her thin, delicate fingers were in his hair, raking through it with soft tugs.
He heard her breath hitch, and she pulled away. The taste of strawberry-banana-kiwi filled his mouth. It was almost sickly sweet.
"Why'd you stop?" He muttered as he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, giving it one swipe. His pale skin was smudged pink from her lip-gloss.
"The time..I..I..Billy's gonna be looking for me." Her hands were clasped together in fear, fingers were blanched white from the pressure. Her gaze was fixed on the clock that hung above them, leering over the shelves of dead-faced CPR dummies and life vests. Its hands were poised at one and five. "He's probably gonna put me on kiddie pool duty. Crap." She hissed. She unthreaded her fingers from each other, and they curled tightly into her palms, forming fists.
"Hey." He reached out and set a hand on her shoulder. "You're gonna be fine. My mom says you're a good lifeguard when she's here." The words settled awkwardly in the space between them. Her lips turned up at the corners again, the way he liked it, and split into a beaming grin.
"..Thanks."
Suddenly, their peace was disrupted by the yanking open of the shed door. A beam of high-noon sunlight blinded them both. Standing before them was Billy Hargrove, whistle around his neck, Ray-Bans sitting on his forehead, red swim trunks just barely clinging to his hips. His curls hung about his shoulders, weighed down by the gel he combed through them each morning, no doubt. His cerulean irises blazed with hate. His piggish nose wrinkled up in disgust at the two of them.
"I've been paging you for fifteen minutes, Carter." He spat, stepping forward just a little. She shrunk back, shoulders folding in. "I shoulda known you were here, swapping spit with this loser." He scoffed. "You're the Wheeler kid, right?."
"It's Mike," Mike said. The hairs on his arms suddenly stood up on end as the two words he just said, to Billy Hargrove of all people, registered in his head. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Billy's eyes narrowed to sapphire slits. He took another step forward, grabbed her wrist with one of his thick, meaty hands, and pulled her out of the tiny shed, not caring that she stumbled. "Well, I guess if we're going on a first-name basis, Winnie here can't stay and suck face with you anymore. She's got snack bar duty waiting for her."
Winnie's brows knitted together and in one swift movement, she yanked her wrist from Billy's grasp and stormed off. As she turned away, Mike caught her eye, and she winked at him.
He suddenly became acutely aware of everything that was wrong with him. His long, wiry frame that had seemingly grown even longer and wirier in only the past few weeks or so, his knobby knees, and his bangs that had grown out so much that they shaded his eyes almost completely.
His stomach suddenly grew heavy with insecurity and longing, not for the girl with the angel wings drawn onto her forearm, but rather, for the comforting presence girl with the numbers 0-1-1 tattooed on her wrist.
That girl was walking past the community pools' thirty-foot tall fence, giggling and laughing with the red-haired spitfire who she called her best friend, a strawberry ice cream cone melting in her hand, pink droplets dripping down her wrist and into the cracks of the pavement below.