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Chapter Eleven
The Dreams of Children
"Why don't you mind your own goddamn business, Harrington!"
"Troy shut the fuck up," James said under his breath threateningly. He seemed to be trying to hide from Steve's view and had significantly shrivelled before then to the group's disappointment.
After glancing over at the guilty looking James, Steve looked directly at Troy, taking in the bruised and bloodied face after a day of healing. Steve knew what that felt like, knew what the humiliation could boil down to. If Troy Donovan, a kid almost as invincible as he was in high school got beaten up, there was a chance he pushed someone too far - just as Steve had pushed Jonathan Byers that day.
"That's just the thing, sometimes it is," Steve said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He pulled one out and lit it up with a silver lighter from his jean pocket. After taking a puff, he started again.
"Tell me, Donovan, how happy would your mother be if she found out you got yourself into another fight so soon after being beaten to the ground?"
He took in another two tokes of his cigarette when Troy simply stared at him as though he desired for God to strike him where he stood. Steve smiled.
"Dear old gullible Patty will start to see a pattern soon - maybe stop believing in your bullshit when she finds all that paraphernalia you got - that knife you showed off to Tommy a year ago and now knuckledusters," Steve points out with the cigarette in his hand. He almost laughs when he says, "You really think you're some gangbanger don't you?"
"And you're the pussy who got beat up by the fairy's brother - some of us choose not to fucking keel over when someone gets one over on us. King Steve my ass."
Steve's free hand comes to his chest, in mock pain, before taking another drag of his cigarette.
"I appreciate the effort in trying to at least puncture me, Donovan. I'm sure those fighting words will suddenly disappear when Daddy Donovan finds out that you're not in fact at some extracurricular or volunteer work you bullshit to him about."
He seethes then as he adds, "And I worry about how your behaviour will reflect on Daddy's professional ties he has with us - works not been so good as of late for him I hear. Is that why you've been acting out, so?"
Troy's face is scrunched up, nostrils flaring. He seems to make a decision from all these underlying threats Steve has gathered from his own town gossip and business relationships and fumbles with his hand, his aggression only making his new copper knuckledusters more difficult to get off.
"Oh and the reason your friend over there is nearly shitting himself in fear - yeah I see you Lockwood - is because my family owns the property his Daddy's business is running out of. Be mighty hard on you if he found out your dumbass actions put his business in jeopardy, wouldn't it?" Steve said with a smile so empty of warmth that a chill went up the aforementioned's spine. He took another drag, a long one that took its time as the exhale swirled out of him.
"But you figured that out quicker than Donovan, which I guess isn't difficult when his head has been knocked about. Are you sure you don't have a concussion?"
"Go fuck yourself, Harrington," Troy said, one of the juniors trying to aim some spit at Steve's feet.
Steve laughs genuinely as he says, "Oh stop acting like you grew up in rough homes - you're not authentic bullies. Your house has a fucking bidet Donovan and your favourite meal is fucking mac and cheese, just the way Patty makes it - out of the packet," he says as he rubs his belly.
Donovan had turned around at this point and was giving Steve the finger. Stacey looked highly insulted by this waste of time but follows her older friends as she sees Steve looking at her with a sense of familiarity that feels threatening to her.
Steve is at the end of his cigarette before he puts it out, stubbing it with his foot. He leans back against the car and looks at the boys before him.
"That Stacey, she's Carol's sister isn't she?"
Dustin nods in answer.
Steve smiles knowingly, "She's got her reasons to be running too."
Before the group can leave, El being placed strategically behind Mike again, Steve stops the group with a very adult sounding tutting.
"And just where do you dipshits think you're going? I save your sorry asses from being whooped and I don't even get a thank you?"
"Thanks, Steve, but we had it handled," Mike insisted plainly.
"No we didn't," Lucas said in disbelief at Mike's claims.
"You want to explain to me what happened on the way home? I assume that's where you're heading out at this time of night?" Steve said as he stood up fully, getting ready to unlock his car. "Unless there's another riot scheduled you need to be getting to?"
"We are going home, but we're taking Lucas' car," Dustin answered him.
"All six of you are going home in that tiny ass Cadillac?"
"Hey, it's bigger on the inside!" Lucas defended his pride and joy.
"But you're not wrong either," Will added honestly.
"Great. You coming, Mike? We can have a nice little chat. You can bring your new friend with you too," Steve said, highly suggestive of their coupling which had Mike closing his eyes in regret that Steve had ever turned up.
"I'll come too," Will said as he almost magnetically appeared by Eleven's side, as a second barrier to Steve's poking and prodding to such a 'nice little chat'.
"I'm going to drop Cassidy home before I come to yours Mike," Lucas suggested helpfully, and Mike nodded in agreement.
"Alright, you coming Henderson?" Steve looked pointedly at Dustin.
"Ahh, no, I'll give Lucas the company," Dustin said with a mild stutter.
Steve looked between Dustin and Lucas and it didn't click until his eyes fell on Cassidy, a smile filled with secrets over compassing his chill demeanour. "Oh, sure, you do that."
Dustin glared at him before Lucas called to his attention again.
"I call shotgun," Mike said with very little enthusiasm.
The car somehow doesn't smell like cigarettes but like pine trees, and so Mike figures it's not actually Steve's car, but maybe his mom's. El is smoothing the leather seat underneath her, it's brand new texture less roughened, less so than Lucas' seats must be pleasant for her to touch. Will is looking out the window next to El in the back seat, completely at a loss as to how to hold a conversation in this scenario. After all, Troy pointed out that his brother did beat up the driver once.
"What are you doing in Hawkins? Aren't you meant to be in college?" Mike uncomfortably asked. He wasn't sure if it was overstepping his boundaries, but it was early November and Nancy left back in August and Thanksgiving wouldn't be for another week or two, not that she'd waste the trip on the most boring holiday ever.
"I'm at Chicago State, studying business, but I had to come home a little earlier. My grandpa is terminally ill and he's one of the only decent members in my family, so I want to see him before he goes."
Mike is horrified that that had to be the answer.
"I - uh, Steve, I didn't know man - uh…" Mike looked down at his lap before he could fumble his words anymore. He wasn't fantastic with this sort of stuff when it was sprung on him with no prior warning.
"I'm so sorry to hear that," a softer voice emitted from behind Mike, and he looks up into the rearview mirror to see Steve taking a glance in it to look at El.
Will too seemed at odds with El's confidence to utter one of the most common sympathies given upon such news where Mike flustered. El had clearly read a lot more than either Mike or Will had anticipated from her small collection if she understood such notions.
Steve smiled bitterly in the rearview, glancing once at Mike before looking back in the rearview to address El.
"It's old age, nothing too drastic, just a part of life. But thanks," Steve responded kindly, receiving a very small and shy smile, one that was being very careful if Steve were to truly examine it. "I never actually got your name?"
Will looks at Steve suddenly at this question, and as El is about to answer, Mike interrupts.
"Her name is El, she's Will's cousin from Iceland and there's nothing else you need to know."
The fairly threatening stare that comes from Mike is interpreted very differently from what Steve sees bubbling from the boy's emotions.
"Woah there buddy, I'm not about to swoop in on your girl. Be a bit strange after I dated Nance," Steve mentions with amusement as Mike leans his head back against the headrest, feeling the burn on his porcelain freckled cheeks for the hundredth time that day.
"El isn't my girlfriend, Steve," Mike implores quietly, in hopes she won't hear it.
"Uhuh, sure pipsqueak," Steve snickers before turning up The Police again.
The ride went onward with some peace, although as time passes, Mike's leg jitter gets far more difficult to avoid, as does Will's habit to bite his fingers while under stress. But what is most distracting is the girl in the backseat of his car, simply existing.
There was something off with her, how the two boys react as if anything she says will be an explosion and the name just won't go away from his mind. The immediate denial from Mike for being connected to her on a more intimate level also forced Steve to remember how depressed he was for some time when 'The Incident' was ever brought up. Steve only saw one part of it, and for the sake of clarity, Nancy had filled him in on some big pieces of the puzzle, including a girl that the boys, in particular, Mike, had taken a liking to.
Steve recalled the date that everything went down as the 12th of November 1983. He couldn't, and wouldn't forget the date he came across his girlfriend at the time wielding a gun as Byers set up traps in a house covered in Christmas lights. The day he turned around from being a coward and walked back in when shit was just getting real for Nancy and Jonathan with an otherworldly creature that Steve could never imagine in his wildest childhood nightmares.
From the few times that he'd hung out with Dustin, after a strange run in two years before that involved him finding Mews stuck in an abandoned house, he was told that the creature had been dubbed the Demogorgon. No geekier a name could be found in Steve's opinion. Dustin had brought him some more solace that Nancy in all her grieving couldn't. But when it came to the girl, Dustin couldn't ever quite bring himself to talk about her either, just saying how powerful and special she was, how she had been mistreated and should have lived.
From the looks of this girl, she was just another Hawkins teen that was just barely a blip on Steve's radar before now - especially if the story of being Icelandic and Byer's cousin was true.
He could see some sort of connection between the girl and Will, something that couldn't be denied. But familial wouldn't have been Steve's first guess - when they looked nothing alike and seemed to have starkly different demeanours but seemed magnetic in ways that Steve couldn't comprehend.
Even stranger, when he remembered that it was no ordinary Friday.
"It's weird isn't it, that I run into your group on the 12th of November?" Steve starts carefully, glancing carefully at the three, his eyes using the mirror to see his backseat passengers, Mike out the corner of his eye. The teenage boy next to him froze at the mention and while Will looked at Steve, he quickly looked back out the window and concentrated on pretending like things weren't coming closer to the surface.
"We try not to talk about it," Mike's voice stiff and becoming quite defensive, "After what Will went through."
"Of course, that was insensitive of me Byers," Steve says genuinely apologetically, feeling the similar glare from Mike that Nancy had given Steve enough times when he was acting like a tool.
Steve almost wanted to applaud Mike. He was really trying to keep him off the scent. But as they get closer to the Wheeler house, he can't stop himself from looking at the girl in the backseat.
There is clearly great affection and admiration there, and Steve knows all about that - but there is something else that can't be defined by his lived experiences.
It's a protectiveness, that won't yield even when close to the brink of sacrifice.
And Steve was pretty sure Mike wasn't like that for all the girls.
Steve pulled up in front of the Wheeler house in the cul-de-sac and put the car in park. He turned quickly to the girl named El in the backseat of his car, and smiled politely at her, to which she returned with unease.
"It was a pleasure to meet you El," Steve said sincerely.
El swallowed away her initial judgement of him, as he practically tormented her friends with questions that were getting dangerously close to the truth for their little cohort.
"It was lovely to meet you too," El responded in kind and left the car. As Will opened the car door, Steve said, "Hey, hey, don't you boys be getting into any more trouble. I won't always be around to save the day."
Before Mike can inherently insult Steve as he would in the past, he narrowed his eyes on him and decided against it.
"Thanks for the ride, Steve."
There was no enthusiasm behind it. Any of Mike's enthusiasm had completely vanished the minute Steve started the Spanish Inquisition. It would only return when Eleven was safely in his basement with his friends as protection.
"Any time kid," Steve responded with a small knowing smile. It put Mike rightly on edge.
And just as Mike was about to walk off, Steve rolled down the window and called out to him. Mike stopped, telling Will to carry on with El (and carry on with the plan).
"Tell that curly haired dipshit to not pull his punches - he'll understand."
Mike shook his head, refusing to wrap it around whatever the dynamic between Dustin and Steve was and took off down the small slope to his house.
Steve waited before Mike and his two friends were around the corner of the house to do what he planned next. His mom's present from his dad after being caught with a stripper while entertaining some overseas business associates happened to be the very car he sat in now, which was quite well built and included a car phone that sat behind the hand brake, idly covered by a lid. It was ridiculous, but boy was it useful right now.
Steve dialled the number he remembered from his phonebook and waited as a few rings went through.
Iron Maiden is blasting obnoxiously in the apartment when Nancy gets home from grocery shopping, hauling four brown paper bags through an eight-floor walk up. She isn't pleased. There are more dishes in the sink than she thinks are in the cupboards and the phone is ringing.
"Cashmere! The phone is ringing!"
Her roommate is apparently too busy high off her ass as she rocks out to Iron Maiden - her current beaus favourite band because she couldn't be original. Nancy manages to find a clear space on the bench where she also finds a pair of red panties which she immediately throws off the bench to her disgust, plonking the groceries on top before she finally manages to reach the phone before it rings off the hook.
"Hello?" Nancy yells over the music.
"Nance, is that you?"
Nancy was quite surprised to hear the other voice over the phone. It had been two months since they last talked and he'd sounded pretty content with the way life was going.
"Steve? Hey, I wasn't expecting...oh God, what's wrong?"
"Are you listening to Iron Maiden?"
"My roommate is. She has terrible taste in men who have terrible taste in music," Nancy said with a crinkled nose at the memory of the current beau of Cashmere walking in the living room sweaty and naked, clearly after 'boinking' as Cashmere put it.
"Anyway, you didn't answer my question, is something wrong?"
"Ah, depends on the gravity of the situation?" Steve's voice crackled, "Look, I'll keep to the important part. I saw Mike tonight - broke up a potential brawl between him and that little asshole Troy Donovan."
Nancy snorted, "Yeah Mike beat him up yesterday. He's probably still pretty pissed about that lanky bag of bones getting one up on him - but he had it coming," she felt herself getting defensive. "Can't expect to talk smack about his sore spot without some sort of comeuppance."
"The girl?" Steve clarified.
"Yeah, the girl. Hey, it's nice that you broke up that fight -"
"Well Donovan had knuckledusters on, so yes, you can thank me!"
"Jesus," Nancy leaned against the bench, her body reacting in disbelief at her brother being faced with some real fucking damage, "What a fucking psycho...Okay, yes thank you for that - but there's not much I can do about that from here, and I don't think Mike will appreciate you snitching on him to me of all people Steve."
"You might care a bit more when I tell you he had a girl with him tonight."
There was a sudden pause in Nancy's functioning because it was only the day before Mike refused to intimate the possibility of a girl in his love life.
"A girl?" Nancy said in further disbelief. "Was he with the group or was it just him and a girl?"
"Two girls, and all four nerds," Steve answered simply.
Nancy rolled her eyes at the clear misinformation he was giving her to insight some sort of gossip, a typical Harrington habit he'd inherited from his mother.
"Well, there you go. One, these girls were likely friends with the boys. Two, if the boys are dating girls, it's likely going to be Lucas and Dustin. My brother is still too hung up from three years ago and Will's still going through shit."
"No, no, no," Steve refused to be shut down where he felt himself running toward something very big. "She was holding onto Mike's arm. I drove him, Byers and the girl home. Apparently, she's Byer's cousin from Iceland - you know anything about that?"
"Honestly, no, I wouldn't know about that Steve," Nancy said, as though that should be obvious.
She heard him snort derisively on his end.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asks defensively.
"You're still pretending there's nothing there with Jonathan?"
Nancy scoffed in denial, "Even if I believed that and was in a relationship with him, I don't imagine that's information that would come up in normal conversation...I mean what did she even look like? Did you get her name?"
"Yeah," Steve replied, forgetting to rib her more about Jonathan, "It was El."
Nancy almost felt the floor open up as her organs felt like they plunged through her body.
Her voice was quiet when she asked, "Could you repeat that?"
"El, her name was El."
Yep, she had definitely heard it correctly the first time. She just thought she was having an aneurysm the first time. Her head was full of cotton as she looked at the date on the calendar, remembering quite clearly why she had called Mike yesterday.
Iron Maiden was screeching in her ears and her concentration was being invaded by some sycophantic idiot that she knew she couldn't live with much longer but had to put up with until Christmas, and that was when Nancy's mind in her current predicament, an overload of information and past trauma flooding back like a tsunami, snapped.
"Hold on for a moment Steve," Nancy said, her voice thick like Honey but he knew that meant danger in the last couple of years from Nancy.
"Okay, Nance."
She placed the phone on the one space left that was clear on the counter, very much intending to come back to it. She walked around the couch to the humongous stereo sitting on a case full of tapes. She incidentally found the plug and pulled it from the socket. The power down noise almost sounded like pure relief from the tech, that had been begging for a quick and instant death.
"Hey! You can't just turn off my music!"
Nancy stood on the coffee table opposite Cashmere and pulled her by her three thousand rubber necklaces, turning them to disable her from moving too quickly, to look her straight in the eye and at her level. Nancy, despite her short stature and tiny frame, glared down Cashmere in her attempt to look like Cherie Currie as she overwhelmed their dilapidated couch, no thanks to her thrashing about. It was sudden to her roommate that maybe she shouldn't have walked all over her at the beginning of the semester.
"I'm on the fucking phone Cashmere," Nancy said dangerously slow, "So I'd appreciate some quiet and you taking your dirty groupie ass to your room before I put you there permanently. Do I make myself clear?"
Cashmere nodded and felt the relief that was her windpipe was given some release from the necklaces.
"If you don't respect basic house rules, I'm going to smash it next time."
Cashmere scampered to her room and left Nancy in some peace and quiet for the first time since she reinvented herself as a member of The Runaways while on her trust fund a month ago.
Nancy stormed over to the phone and picked up the receiver again, speaking quite forward.
"Tell me everything you know Steve."
"Your brother had eyes for her."
"Oh, shit."
"Operation Sneak Eggos Past Concessions is underway." Will couldn't help but chuckle beside him as he took his bag and found himself at the front door and Eleven simply smiled in jest, not quite getting it from her limited experiences as Lucas remarked, "Why are we sticking with that name, couldn't we go with something simpler?"
Dustin, headset on and currently occupying an easily amused Holly with a magic trick he learned at a summer camp a year ago felt the need to retort, "It's a brilliant name and you know it, Lucas." The coin suddenly disappears from his hand and Holly looks quite shocked, but is no longer frightened of the possibilities, looking around in awe to find how he hid it again.
"You know you should've called me sooner Michael," Karen Wheeler said with a hint of disappointment in her voice in the kitchen, "I was really worried about you especially when you just ran out this morning - and you refused to give me an explanation."
"I'm really sorry, I just didn't - Look when it comes to Will I act before I think. I won't do it again mom," Mike spoke sweetly.
Karen sighed and shook her head, crossing her arms. "You're just lucky it's the twelfth of November, Michael Wheeler."
"I'll count my blessings, promise," he says as he hugs her, to her surprise. She warmly accepts it though, knowing that such affection from her teenage son will be far and few between until the next emotional year rolls forward to the same date.
The doorbell rings and Dustin calls out, "I'll get it, Mrs Wheeler!"
"Thank you, Dustin!"
Will turned up at the door with an overnight bag, pretending like he hadn't been hiding next to the house for a while. "Hi Dustin, is everyone here?"
"Just waiting on Lucas," Dustin says sickly serene.
"Hi Mr Wheeler," Will greets politely only to receive a grunt of recognition in return. It's what the group is hoping for most out of Mike's barely present father.
"I need to use the phone," Will says with a bit more extra oomph than he's used to portraying.
"Kind of overselling it buddy," Dustin critiqued.
"You played Pippin once in middle school Dustin," Will retorted.
"Kitchen," Holly says taking his one free hand, bringing them back to the present and trying to be helpful, somehow forgetting that this was practically Will's second home growing up.
The kitchen is about to become crowded when Will says hello and asks Karen to use the phone, having just stopped embracing her son. "Of course sweetie. Do you need to call your mom?"
"Yeah, she'll just be getting home now and I couldn't wait any longer to get over here so I left a note but you know how it is Mrs Wheeler," Will says with an underlying tone of tension.
"No need to explain to me, Will. I'm pretty sure your mom is on speed dial by this point."
"Thanks, Mrs Wheeler."
As Will calls up his Mom, the chaos slowly begins around him as the operation truly gets risky. Holly starts tugging on Dustin, whining at him to do another trick.
"Well if you insist Miss Holly Jolly, but - ugh the lighting is terrible in here. It's going to have to be in the dining room - better yet!" Dustin says as he stumbles over the plan, "The den. I'm quite sure your Dad hasn't seen Dustin the Extravagant display his skills yet."
"I thought you were Dustin the Magnificent," Holly questioned innocently.
"Tomato, tomato kid. It only really counts in the jazz hands at the end of the gig," Dustin says with a funny voice which has her crack up into little girl giggles as she drags him to the front room where Ted was situated.
"Oh I better make sure they don't annoy your father too much," Karen says, not remotely thrilled about the prospect, whipping a tea towel over her shoulder.
As she walked out of the kitchen and headed toward the nice living room where Ted Wheeler was parked for the night, Mike hastily made his way to the back door, unlocking it.
"My Dad's zombie sensibilities will be the death of my Mom, but it will be the making of Operation Eggo."
As the lock unlatched, Lucas burst in with five bags and Eleven in tow with another.
"Go, go, go," Mike said eloquently as he rushed Eleven toward the staircase to the basement and grabbed all the bags from Lucas' grip, quickly following her down the stairs. He hid the bags under the stairs and rushed back up as he saw, with a little skip of his heart, that El was heading straight to familiar comfort of a blanket fort under his old desk.
Once he made his way back up the stairs, he comfortably parked himself in the kitchen, settling so quickly that when his Mom walked back in, she suspected nothing.
"What pizzas did you want me to order, honey?"
Mike started to write down the usuals plus the classic cheese pizza that he figured that Eleven would happily eat.
"Yeah, I'm sorry I can't make movie night Mom, but I'll be home tomorrow night."
"Well don't hold yourself to that sweetie, I know what you boys are like when you're swept up in a campaign," Joyce Byers said with good humour.
"That's a good point Mom. I'll let you know sometime tomorrow how thrilling the latest saga in Mike's campaign is before I write myself to go home and mope in my room," Will says, a sense of false cheer to add to it to convince his Mom.
"But you know if you want to come home, don't hesitate to call - Hopper is working late and if I don't pick up he will - and if you can't stand it then tell Mrs Wheeler, I'm sure she'll understand."
"Mom. I'll be fine," Will said somewhat shortly.
"Okay sweetie," Joyce says resigned. "Just remember you can come home anytime. I love you, honey."
"I love you too, Mom," Will says, but he can't stop the uncertainty in his voice. The deep feeling of her potential betrayal is almost too much. And lying to her was difficult after everything she'd been through three years ago.
What if she hadn't been involved at all? What if she would have been just as blindsided if she found out such news. And Will believed he couldn't trust her that whole time.
But Will couldn't deal with 'ifs'. The party couldn't risk everything on an 'if'.
"Enjoy the movie, okay?"
"I will, sweetie. Goodnight," Joyce said finally, bringing some relief to a struggling teenage boy.
"Goodnight Mom."
He hangs up, his heart feeling heavier than he predicted it would after talking with his Mom.
The doorbell rings soon enough again. Will is given an out.
On high alert, the party decided against actually watching the movie on the screen in the basement, not that they haven't remembered 'A Last Hope' word for word by now. They keep it on as a background though, to keep any of the people upstairs unawares to the true ongoings of Mike Wheeler's basement. The boys are circled in their respective sleeping bags, surrounding the pizza and snacks in the middle.
Their long lost returned fifth member, Eleven, dressed in her new flannel pyjamas from her shopping spree not too long ago has now added a few more things to her repertoire of experiences as she sits between Will and Lucas. She really likes cheese pizza. Mike is glad they kept that option alive despite some slightly different tastes in the group. Eleven is on her third piece, which reminds Will of how long ago the breakfast/lunch was earlier that day and feels immensely guilty about leaving her without a meal for so long.
Eleven brushed it off, "I used to eat once a day. Or at least I think it was a day."
"No way to tell the time back there?" Lucas asked curiously.
Eleven shakes her head, but it's not solemn so much as just a matter of fact. She then points to the can of Coca Cola. "What's this?"
"It's a drink, we call it soda," Dustin explains, "It consists of carbonated water, sugar and syrup."
El frowns at this explanation, not finding it very appealing until Lucas figuratively steps in. "It's lots and lots of bubbles in a drink so it feels a bit different in your mouth, but it's really sugary and sweet, so I have a feeling you'll like it."
Lucas clicks the tab open on a fresh can, a sizzling sound making her rather curious to its contents. Lucas handed it over, gesturing for her to bring it to her lips.
Eleven follows along and takes a mouthful. The four boys watch her curiously as she lets it hang around in her mouth. Her face says it all.
"Try swallowing it El," Will says, trying not to laugh at her predicament.
El shakes her head but knows it's going one way or another and it can't stay in her mouth.
Mike is stumbling to get up, about to pull Eleven to the basement bathroom to spit it out when she forces it down her throat and says, "No, I don't like that." This gets a laugh from Will and Lucas, mostly out of sheer surprise but Dustin is almost stone.
"It's coke," Dustin says in disbelief, "America's most beloved drink and you don't like it?"
Mike is settling back in before he asks, "What didn't you like about it?"
"It's attacking my mouth. I thought you said they were like bubbles," Eleven accused Lucas in jest, who can't stop laughing now at this unpredictable reaction.
"That's exactly what they are El, but millions of them probably don't feel like normal bubbles," Will explained to her.
"It's probably for the best, my dentist says it rots your teeth anyway," Lucas said with a shrug.
"Well, at least we can mark down an 'absolutely not' for coke for El in future," Mike said with an intrigued smile.
"Soda in general," El clarified with certainty before taking another bite into her cheese pizza, making Mike chuckle.
Mike gets up again but starts heading toward the stairs. "I'll get you something flat to drink instead. My Mom has a hoard of tropical juice boxes from a sale like two months ago."
He piled on the last remaining pizza slices into one box and heard some cries of disgust and protest at this action. Mike had forgotten that Lucas despises the olives anywhere near his pizza and that Will thinks pineapple is blasphemy near pepperoni.
"Oh get over it. I don't want Mom coming down to clean up after us, it's too much of a risk."
That fact alone hushed up the boys, Dustin throwing a Reese's Peanut Butter cup in Eleven's direction. "After you finish that slice, you gotta try the Peanut Butter Cup - and then we'll get you on Skittles."
"No way," Lucas disagreed, "The quintessential American snack is the Twinkie. El needs to try that first -"
"I'll have you know that that is crap Eleven," Dustin defended as she watched this brewing argument, "Everyone knows that the quintessential American snack is the chocolate chip cookie - in particular the Chips Ahoy variety or better yet, homemade."
"Wrong again - Keebler's. As for homemade, Mrs Wheelers," Lucas butted in.
"And you're all forgetting that none of this matters because come summer, El will be trying the truest American confection known to man," Will steamrolls the debate, leaning in for slightly dramatic flair "The s'more."
Lucas and Dustin groan and moan in agreement and annoyance that it hadn't crossed their mind as El asks Will, "What's a...did you call it a s'more?"
"S'more," Will pronounces slowly for her. "It's the words 'some' and 'more' squished together because you'll want some more after you've had one."
"It's the perfect combination of a melted marshmallow over a fire, with chocolate and sandwiched between two graham crackers," Lucas says, practically drooling at the thought, making Eleven salivate from the description.
"Damn when was the last time we had one of those?" Lucas asked.
"Camping, over two years ago," Dustin recalled hazily, then speaking directly to Eleven, "Camping is the only suitable time to have them because you're likely to burn off all the calories."
"When can we go camping?" an undeniable eagerness in Eleven's voice.
"When it gets warmer. You can't really go camping in Winter comfortably, not in this state anyway," Will says pointing to the two heaters down in the basement down in the basement.
"Mom! I don't need your help!"
It was spoken a lot louder than was needed, but the group caught on quickly when the door to the basement opened revealing the conversation more clearly.
"You watch your tone, Michael Wheeler! You'll break your neck carrying all that down the stairs, it won't just be your hands needing gauze!"
"Fine," Mike gritted out, "Guys! Make some space down there!"
Will helped Eleven up as she retreated to the blanket fort under the rickety old work desk. Dustin and Lucas were scrambling for an idea before Dustin came up with something.
"One second Mrs Wheeler, Lucas passed gas just a minute ago," Dustin called out.
"Shut up Dustin!"
While the denial was aimed at Dustin's lie, the unintended effect made its mark when Mike asked, "Are you still sure you want to go down there Mom?"
Eleven was comfortably situated, Will gesturing to stay very quiet. He pulled down the top blanket shortly afterwards and she was hidden from view completely when Karen insisted upon being let into her basement. She had managed to push her way in front of Mike and was now carrying a tray of cups with a plastic water jug on top.
"I highly doubt that whatever Lucas can do you can't do either Mike," she stated simply.
"Mom!"
The boys laughed, but it was far more menacing due to the hidden occupant who had Mike's fancy to the highest degree. The hysterics performed upon Mike's face and it only led to Dustin and Lucas laughing harder.
"Who knew the way to your funny bones was some vulgar humour," Mrs Wheeler shook her head, unable to fathom the minds of teenage boys. She placed the water jug on the floor and insisted they each drink a cup tonight. There was an incident during one of many of Mike's sleepovers that involved puke of which the matriarch didn't wish to relive any time soon.
There were only four cups on the tray but when Lucas looked questioningly to his friend, Mike patted the baggy sweater he was wearing where the fifth plastic cup was hidden but bulging slightly above his hip, a juice box right next to it.
"Now was that so hard Michael?"
"Thank you Mom," Mike said to her with an underlying tone of impatience.
"Alright Mike, I know when I'm not wanted," Karen said warningly. She turned back and smiled back at the boys, "I'll be putting Holly to bed in an hour so I'd appreciate it if you boys kept it down to a nice level of quiet?"
"Yes Mrs Wheeler," the chorus went around the three boys and when she was satisfied with the responses, she smacked a kiss on Mike's head, despite him being taller than her now, forcibly bending him down to meet her lips.
"Alright, I love you Mom," Mike said, practically pushing her toward the staircase.
"And don't forget to set an alarm - you've still got to serve that detention tomorrow morning."
Most of Mike's patience was gone and all of his dignity felt stripped at his mom's idea of a joke, so he didn't hold back the pure annoyance that dripped in his voice, "I know Mom, I'll be up at 7 am!"
When the kitchen light slowly disappeared, the audible click of the door closed behind her, Mike finally let his body relax. His friends were currently snickering in delight and Mike looked greatly unimpressed.
"Laugh it up jerks," his demeanour becoming significantly softer when he saw the chestnut coloured eye poking through the blanket, followed by the button nose and the soft curve of her lip. Mike realised he probably could do with the detention in only a few hours if it meant he'd cool it over all the little things that caught his attention about the party's fifth member.
"You can come out now Eleven," he kindly offered, and found her hand pushing back the blanket like a curtain.
Mike slipped out the smuggled fifth cup and a juice box for her. "Mom's right for bringing down the water. We shouldn't load you up on sugar, it's probably not good for you so soon back."
Eleven had crawled out of the fort like a languid cat when Mike started to pour himself some water, stabbing the juice box straw through the hole and handing it over. "It doesn't fizz."
The girl looked mighty appreciative of this, noting the cold and sweet fruity taste that came but was a smooth blend without the feeling that her mouth was under attack.
"Thank you," Eleven said clunkily. Etiquette was a little harder for her, but she knew it needed to be applied in someone else's home when they were offering you food. She was content to be quiet when the boys talked among themselves - mostly arguing over all the food she had to try first, allowing her some time to just gather herself properly after just under a day back.
They were all so generous with her, offering their effort and time to teach her the things that the Lab wouldn't in fear that she might grow a sense of independence from it. Mike offered his home here and she suspected he would always do so, regardless of whether his mother knew or not. The only thing she ever had that was her own home, that she made wholly hers, was a dilapidated Upside Down version of the current basement she sat in now. It was colder there, but she tried to make something with it. But that was gone now and for the better. But with all this uncertainty as to where she stood in this world, dead or alive, Eleven couldn't help but wonder if she would ever be in the position to give back to her friends the same way they had for her?
That sweet kiss upon Mike's head struck Eleven in a way that she had felt as though a keen part of her was missing, an integral part of her that always felt helpless, lost and unloved. A love only a mother or a father could provide with familial warmth, protection and upbringing.
She had supposed that she'd had a mother and a father once when Mike asked her all those years ago. That for her to exist, a combination of the two must have taken place. But that's all they were, the explanation for her creation but not the reason for her living happy. They weren't Karen Wheeler, a woman who kissed her son even when his mortification didn't endear him to her at that moment. They weren't Joyce Byers, who held her warmly and bent the world to her whim whether it wanted it or not in order to her find her little boy in a parallel universe, one in which Eleven's remorseful thoughts cackled at her in reminder that it was she who opened the gate in the first place.
Even with the dubiousness that came with Joyce's character currently, Eleven felt that Joyce wouldn't blame her for opening the gate. She'd not done it on purpose after all, and she was just a child - a child treated like a circus animal.
But from Eleven's understanding of father figures, she didn't have many outstanding examples to gage from when hearing how Mike spoke about his dad like it was almost a joke and how Will didn't say his dad's name without it sounding like a poison he needed to spit out in order to save himself from becoming the same.
No, mothers did most of the work from what Eleven witnessed.
She had a Mike, she had a kindred spirit in Will, she was surer now that she had a Lucas, and she was even blessed with a Dustin, despite some of the surprising things that came out of his mouth, and Eleven was even hopeful that having a friend who was a girl was on the cards soon.
Now all she wanted was a home and a mother, two things she felt like would be very hard to come by while on the run from some government faction that only wanted to use her until her battery ran out. It was all she could wish for.
"Do you want to take the couch tonight El? I think you might have outgrown the actual blanket fort," Mike said sheepishly.
Eleven was taken straight out of her thoughts but was glad of the distraction when it came from such a pleasant human being with a pretty face.
"Um, yes, I'd like that."
The night goes on comfortably and Eleven is taken through another volume worth of knowledge, some of it using big and very difficult science words and others that simply went into the history of movies as an institution of entertainment and how comic books are just more fun versions of traditional fiction books.
Will helps take her makeup off and she brushes through her hair before it's put into a bun to keep it from getting tangled.
They plan what they're going to do while Mike is serving detention, to which he pouts about, trying to find ways to weave in education about the Western world while they're potentially helping a fugitive escape the US government.
Eleven felt truly at peace with the fact that this might actually work when her eyes started to drift off. It's not so much later that the warmth of a blanket cocoons her, sending her into a much deeper sleep.
The rickety elevator opened on the fourth level when Jonathan walked out. Late night developing for yuppie assholes who needed things open every hour of the day for their convenience alone had given Jonathan some sort of a job to do outside of his college schedule. He only really needed the money to pay rent, food and bills, but he ended up doing double shifts so he could at least save some money.
Jonathan didn't have many new friends in New York anyway - with the exception of a couple of people in his classes who invited him to parties, but it wasn't often his scene. So he was content with the life he had. Not thrilled, but content.
While he cracked his back, caused from hunching over in the developing room, with an audible noise of pure agreement from the feeling it brought him, he hiked his bag further up on his shoulder and shook his long hair out of his face. He stopped in his tracks when he saw a small young brunette sitting outside his front door with a duffle bag next to her, head down in her knees, deep in thought or reserving any energy she may have had.
"Nancy?"
She looked up at Jonathan, her eyes wide. Her deepest fears were only slightly assuaged when she saw him, knowing she wasn't alone. It was her jittery display and her wild eyes that clued Jonathan in to think she'd had a bad New York experience. He bends down to her level.
"Jesus Nancy, are you okay?"
"Can we talk inside?" her voice strangely deep and demanding despite her agitated body, eyes boring sensationally into his own.
Jonathan nods quickly, helping her up and unlocking his apartment door.
He haphazardly drops his bag to the floor after turning the lights on and finding his way into the kitchen, Nancy not far behind.
"Do you want a glass of water or a coffee?" he offered.
"A stiff drink would be good actually," Nancy mentioned with her arms crossed over her body.
"That bad, huh?" Jonathan taking in her still paranoid disposition, although seeing she had mildly come down from a potential anxiety attack when in his presence and behind a locked door.
"Think the worst case scenario." Jonathan paused after retrieving a glass, slowly and meaningfully looking at Nancy. "Has something happened back home?"
"I can't know for sure yet, and depending on which way you answer, I'll have either been acting melodramatic or my worst fears have been realised," Nancy said with a deep breath, as Jonathan found the bottle of whiskey he only had on certain occasions like this.
"Do you have any - I don't know - distant relatives from Iceland?" Nancy started again. Jonathan frowned as he poured the drink for her.
"Pretty sure I don't, why?"
Nancy picked up the drink and took a swig, in some clear need of it as her mind swirled with endless possibilities of what was occurring back in Hawkins without her there. She took a fond look of the drink before setting it down on his kitchen counter.
"Apparently Will's got a cousin who's visiting from Iceland in Hawkins, figured you being his brother and all you'd know something about that. But it's pretty clear now that story is a lie and something else is going on."
Jonathan looks wildly confused and mildly amused. "Yeah, I'm not really following Nance."
"Her name is El, Jonathan," Nancy said as she watched him carefully.
His mind is racking around for some recollection of this name when it lands on a little girl's shaved head three years prior.
"Well, fuck," Jonathan said as he started pulling out a second glass.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you - one of us needs to be sober," Nancy admitted.
Jonathan looked at her strangely, "Why would one of us need to be sober...Nancy, we can't drive back to Indiana tonight. I'm fucking wrecked from work and you're clearly in no right mind to be driving off on a - a -"
"This isn't a whim. Steve called me. Mike was pretty smitten with the girl he saw him with, and he was extremely protective her. The whole group seemed to be actually."
"How about I call my Mom first-"
"No!" Nancy shut down the option, "There is a chance your mom is in on this and can't call you. The lines were tapped last time, remember? Steve shouldn't have even called me! Thank god he didn't say anything that was too easy to pick up on - but if we don't leave now -"
Jonathan interrupted her immediately. "We're not going tonight Nancy."
Nancy looked severely disappointed, "Then I'll go without you."
"I'm not saying we're not going," Jonathan appealed to her sense of logic which could sometimes run amok when it came to this old trauma with a deep sigh located in his chest. "I'm saying we're not going tonight."
Nancy picked up her drink and then asked, "So then what's the plan?"
Jonathan poured himself a drink, knowing it would help with getting him to sleep, which he predicted he would have little. He took a hearty drink before placing it back down on the counter, contemplating what to do next with this new information.
"5 am, we leave," he started. "Beat the traffic out of New York. It's clear you've packed already, I need to do that too. I've got some twinkies and granola bars for travel, we can stop at a gas station on the way for proper supplies. We'll do shifts."
Nancy was relieved to hear that. Her nerves had relaxed somewhat. Her only hope was that Mike and whoever else was involved would hold out until they got back to Hawkins.
Mike awoke with a gasping breath.
He was alone in the basement, no sign of his friends.
He felt the immediate anxiety spike in his heart, jumpstarting him out of his sleeping bag. He ran up the stairs to see his Mom cooking and Holly colouring in a book on the counter.
"Mike, sweetie, what were you doing down in the basement? You have a bedroom of your own last I recalled," his mom said with some concern. Holly giggled at her place on the counter.
He ignored that weird comment. "Where did the guys go?"
"Honey I think you were having a dream," his Mom intimated amused, "You're sleepover isn't until tonight."
"No - no, that's not right. I was - I swear I was just having a sleepover last night, everyone was there, Dustin, Will, Lucas and Eleven."
He clapped his hands over his mouth when he said the last name, and his mom looked around with a hand on her hip.
"Michael, that little Russian girl is gone, she couldn't have possibly been here," his mother said callously.
Mike was taken back by his mother's attitude and riled up to argue.
"She was! She came back from the Upside Down. Will got her back and we took her to the mall and I finally managed to pay off the bracelet I bought for her and I was going to give it to her for Christmas -"
"Michael! The Russian girl is dead, why are you spending money on someone who is deceased?" his mother looked highly horrified. She moved away from her cooking and picked up the phone, dialling a number very quickly.
It picked up after a solitary ring.
"Yes, this is Karen Wheeler. My son has lost his mind."
"What?!" Mike yelled, "I haven't gone insane, this is a crock of shit!"
"Mikey's brain went down the drain," his little sister began to sing, "Because a girl couldn't hold her word."
The back door burst in like an explosion when several men in hazmat suits started filling in, hundreds of them surrounding their kitchen and waiting for Mike to attack eagerly. The leader sauntered up to his mother taking her in his arms and a dip before taking off his helmet with one hand.
"You're a sick lad Michael Wheeler. We're going to make you right as rain."
"David Bowie?" Mike asked in disbelief.
Mike choked on air when he jolted awake. The frantic stream of thoughts left over from what he now realised was a bizarre dream most likely rooted in his greatest fears, led him to sit up and look through the darkened basement.
There was a quiet hum from Dustin's light snoring, Lucas tightly tucked in his sleeping bag and Will sleeping on his front, head buried in his pillow. Mike sighed, a wave of the cool that his heart desperately needed after that surreal trip.
"Mike?" a quiet whisper from the couch alerted him.
And with that, all his worries from that specific moment dispersed. Eleven was watching him from her position as she said, "Are you okay?"
Mike rubbed his eyes and replied. "Yeah, just had a really weird dream. Why are you awake?"
"I had a nightmare. I thought I wasn't really here."
Mike checked the time on his watch to see it was 3 am. They really ought to be getting back to sleep, but Mike could tell by the look on Eleven's face that that wouldn't be possible unless she had some encouragement.
Mike gestured with his hand to the couch. Eleven sat up and made room for him.
"It'll be easier to hear you without waking up the guys," Mike explained as he sat next to her. The couch was warm, her natural body heat having made it so. "Do you want to talk about it?"
To his surprise, Eleven shook her head. "Sometimes I would dream that I came back and then I would wake up back in there...this is easier."
Mike nodded solemnly. It would've been harder when her reality was, in fact, the nightmare.
"Do you want to talk about yours?"
Mike shrugged uncertainly, "It's pretty much along the same lines as yours. You never came back in my dream. And my mom had me taken away while my little sister sang a really mean song. But then Bowie was the guy taking me away. So I realised then that maybe I was dreaming."
"Who is Bowie?" Eleven asked with her eyes squinted at the strange name.
Mike looked around the basement and his eyes just barely made out the poster on the wall that had been put up about a year ago when he got it for free at the arcade. "That man right there. He's a rockstar."
Eleven smiled when she looked at the poster, barely able to make it out in the dark.
"I have a feeling that he turned up in my dream because of the poster," Mike remarked thoughtfully, "Kind of saved me from spiralling deeper into that awful dream so I should probably thank him."
Mike felt El taking his hand and she flipped it carefully to look at the knuckles, bandaged and bruised. She turned, facing him as she crossed her legs on the couch.
"Mouthbreather," El stated with a recollection.
"I was acting like a mouthbreather when that happened," Mike said sheepishly. "Fell off my bike."
It was a bad lie.
Eleven's eyes penetrated his through the dark and said, "Friends don't lie, Mike."
Mike's heart plunged into his stomach with those words uttered in the darkness. He sighed in some defeat. He turned on his spot and crossed his legs, so they were facing each other, knees practically touching it almost made Mike's heart soar back up from his stomach with a jumpstart.
"I guess you were also there in the parking lot when Troy said what he did…" Mike remembered quietly, looking down at their joined hands. "It was yesterday...technically two days ago to be more exact. He was trying to intimidate Will, trying to scare him up into a fight, but Will was better than that. Cassidy - she actually managed to defuse the situation and we all walked away but he was mouthing off to make himself look big in the cafeteria...at one point he mentioned...he mentioned you."
Mike looked at her face, wondering what her reaction would be. Was she going to be disappointed him? She'd been surrounded by enough violence in her life. It surely wouldn't be good that he showed some sort of a streak. But she was simply listening, taking in everything he had to say. It somehow made it harder for him to speak, because he couldn't see what she felt.
"What did he say about me?" El asked slowly.
Mike swallowed and said somewhat bitterly, "'At least that crazy tramp bitch of yours stayed in the ground'."
Eleven frowned. She knew 'bitch' was mean aside from its actual definition, and she certainly knew 'crazy' was considered insulting too, but 'tramp' was something she didn't come across too often. "What does 'tramp' mean?"
Mike seemed surprised by the question, before stuttering for a moment, "Um...it's a mean word for a homeless person or a beggar."
"Oh...well he's not wrong about that. I am homeless," Eleven said it like a fact. Mike seemed very adamant against such a suggestion.
"You might not have a permanent place to live, but you will always have shelter with us El," Mike said fiercely. He needed her to understand that.
She nodded with a small understanding smile. "So you hurt him because he said that?"
Mike flinched at hearing it in that context. "I, I wasn't thinking. Another part of me just switched on and I went bananas on the guy."
"You stick up for your friends," Eleven noted, "You pushed him when he said mean things about Will when everyone thought he was dead."
"And I would've been beaten up then too if you hadn't come to the rescue," Mike pointed out.
"You must've been very angry if you beat him up instead," Eleven countered.
Mike nodded in some disappointment, "Yeah. I did a fair amount of damage if you saw his face."
"And because he pointed out that I might also be dead too," Eleven said in some thought, watching Mike react to hearing her say this in some intrigue. His whole body shrunk and all he could do was nod in response.
She held his hand closer in some inspection, careful not to touch where it was sensitive as she flexes his long, thin fingers, roughened from boyhood.
Her whole body perked up and she looked into Mike's face. "Wait here, I have something."
Mike watched her with a furrow in his brow, confused as she pulls away and uncrossed her legs, quietly tiptoeing toward where her bag was stashed, having to carefully make her way over Will's sleeping form and rifling through her Upside Down bag.
Eleven had a small pile, nicely folded which meant Will had been in there before she could tell him off, but she acquiesced for this moment. El had her hands underneath the dress, socks and Mike's old flannel shirt, placing the very worn out shoes on top.
She turned around and tiptoed through the caverns of sleeping teenage boys and discarded candy wrappers and empty cans of coke and plopped back on the couch with a resounding groan noise - which didn't manage to wake up their fellow friends.
She laid out the dress in the small between them and the flannel, the socks one by one and the shoes sitting on top.
Mike knew Lucas would have a stroke when he saw the contaminated clothes so close to their vicinity but Mike didn't care at that moment. His fingers traced the dress and found some of the tears, from a long time of wear, particularly where it counted in her chest. Mike didn't think that constriction would've been comfortable in the least. The shoes were outright filthy and the socks were dirtied right where they weren't covered by the shoe's defences to muck. The flannel by far had been in the best condition, but he supposed that once she got a proper jacket to wear from Hopper's supplies, it was more of a secondary layer and not her main defence from the colder elements of the Upside Down.
"You kept these...even when you got new clothes?" his voice soft and riddled with emotion.
She nodded with a small frown, like doing anything else with them would be a capital offence. "I kept them so I could give them back to you one day. I'm sorry that they're in such bad condition."
Mike laughed quietly and shook his head, almost careful to not cry at the very sight of these clothes as the girl sat before him. His memories flooded with the comfort of a time long gone by, where he was twelve and he thought that a bunch of kids could do absolutely anything when they put their mind to it, and that being the literal case for the strange girl he'd found in Mirkwood.
He got up and went to find the place where he had hidden the two items when it was being pushed onto a donation pile a couple of years before. The navy sweater and grey sweatpants were still soft from the last time they were washed and put away, and he hopped over Lucas to get back to the couch to show Eleven.
She picked up the sweater and took a big sniff, recalling the fresh laundry scent and the softness under her fingertips. They were the first thing she wore after being drenched in the rainfall, running from Benny's shooting and Papa's men.
"I-I kept them just in case you ever came back and needed some emergency clothes. Not that you need them now, you've grown and we went shopping…"
But El is still enamoured with her own thoughts to concentrate on Mike's effected rambling.
"It's stupid, I know," Mike said finally.
Eleven looked up at him and she slowly shook her head. "No it's not, Mike."
Mike smiled shyly at hearing this. He knows he's going through the motions, knows that it's still overwhelming and unsafe, but he has a moment with just her that isn't covered in tears and his heartbeat won't hammer out of his chest comically, but her effect is still there, seeping through him and calming him now that he felt his wounds healing again.
.
.
.
Funny what a strange sense of peace will do to people, only to be left open and vulnerable for the greater forces to start their little game.
Author's Note:
I don't think a 5,000-word limit will ever cut it since I basically doubled that.
Anyway, I'm nearly at the halfway point which is always an achievement in this monster of a fic that I've created for myself.
The next chapter will have a lot more action which, reading a Stranger Things fanfic, you'd hope for, right?
It's going to be bumpy from here on out folks.
If you'd like to leave me a comment, please do - they are very much appreciated!
Fadinggx