It was all so very confusing.
Two weeks ago, Mike Wheeler's life had been much the same as it had been for the past few years. Going through the motions of a schedule day by day, hour by hour. Ensconced in habit, pattern and structure. A brain full of numbers and knowledge.
Habitual. Predictable. Easy to control.
Safe.
Mike sneered as he looked around the kitchen table at his best friends, short of breath, the entirety of his carefully cultivated comfort zone in a shambles at his feet.
"You're doing this with me, Dustin."
There wasn't anyone else to blame! That much was obvious. Dustin had planned the birthday. He'd goaded the entire party into the surprise. He'd repeatedly planted the idea into Mike's head to take El's class! And somehow (it was the only rational explanation, after all) he had made the idea fall from Mike's lips with some kind of sorcery at the most inopportune moment.
It was all Dustin's fault.
It couldn't have been anything else.
No, it couldn't have been the ease Mike had felt within El's piercing honeyed gaze. It couldn't have been the fluttering ache in his chest, silently pleading for more, as her eyes crinkled into her absolutely precious smile. It couldn't have been the stunning fearlessness that washed over him whenever her tinkling laughter drifted into his ear, a daze so strong it made him make decisions that he never in a million years would have made otherwise.
It couldn't have been any of that. Not at all.
It was clearly Dustin.
"You're doing this with me," Mike barked, his throat tight and dry. "You got me into this."
"I did not get you into this!" Dustin cried, almost laughing as he leaned against the wall of the kitchen, knocking the calendar askew. "I merely arranged a perfect birthday for you. One that just so happened to introduce you to this dream girl of yours, might I add. You were under no obligation to take my advice. I don't know if you know this, Mike, but you have sovereign choice in your life and I -"
"- You're doing this with me," Mike repeated, his voice colder than before. "If you're so keen on telling me to take her class why don't you want to take it yourself?"
Dustin huffed and rolled his eyes beneath his curly mane.
"Well, I'm not doing this alone," Mike interjected impatiently. He turned instantly to his right. "Will?"
"I would," Will said with an apologetic shrug, his eyes earnest and a little worried. "I really would. But I have a commission deadline Monday so I'll be painting all day Saturday."
"Lucas?" Mike asked, his voice hitching as his hands began to shake. "Please?"
"Oh, hell no," Lucas replied emphatically. He waved his hands in front of him and leaned back in his chair in a clear attempt to get as far away from the conversation as possible. "There's no way in hell I'm ever jumping out of a plane again. Plus, I can get a date without jumping out a plane. I'm good."
Mike sighed as his eyes narrowed back onto Dustin.
Dustin fidgeted uncomfortably under the weight of Mike's uniquely heavy gaze. "It's not like I wouldn't want to. I just… It's different when you have to jump alone without an instructor."
"No shit!" Mike bellowed. "And we're going to find out what that's like. Together."
"You should do it, Dustin!" Will said encouragingly.
"Yeah, you were the most excited about this from the start," Lucas added, his words fortifying Mike for the first time in an hour, "You basically talked every single one of us into doing it. And I, for one, am never going to forgive you for it."
"But you met that girl!" Dustin argued, his expression suddenly incredulous.
"And I thought I was going to die!" Lucas barked back, "So the whole experience is kind of a wash. Plus, I ran into her anyway. I could've met her without risking my life."
"You didn't risk your life," Dustin scoffed.
"Felt like it!"
"Back to the point!" Mike cried.
"Okay, fine! I'll do it with you."
"Thank you!"
"But you owe me," Dustin said, his voice shifting to an instant tone of negotiation.
Mike groaned, "What do you mean 'I owe you'?"
Dustin took a moment. He looked between their friends before his eyes trained back onto Mike. He took a deep breath and raised his hands slowly in a placating manner. When he spoke, it was slow and deliberate.
"Mike. If you can find it in yourself to jump out of a plane, you can learn how to drive again. It's been over three years."
The words hit Mike in the gut, hard. All color leached from his face on instinct.
But something, likely his ineffable stubbornness, took lead of his mouth before he could think.
"Fine! Deal."
"Holy shit…" Will gasped from his side.
"Is he in love with this girl or something?!" Lucas chimed, his eyes wide toward Will.
Mike didn't see any of that, however. For, as soon as the words had left his lips he shot from the table and stalked from the room, leaving his three best friends shocked in his wake.
El looked into the mirror of the training center's bathroom, long and hard. She pulled her hair up carefully and tied it into a clean ponytail. Then, without even dropping her hands, she instantly ripped the tie from her hair and shook it out. She tried to smooth it behind her ears. She tried changing the part. She tried a bun and then a braid. Finally, with a sigh, she returned it to the same clean ponytail from her first try and dropped her hands dejectedly to her sides.
It didn't matter was she looked like, she reminded herself with a cold gaze directly in the mirror. It was just like any other day. Her students were just like any other students. They were all people who would remain students, nothing more than students, until the end of time.
El looked pointedly away from her reflection as her heart sank again.
Did he have to be just as student?
She'd spent hours with him just two days before. Not a single thing had gone haywire! Her brain and body had behaved themselves perfectly well! Like an absolutely normal human being! Well, except for the fact that she had accidentally tracked him to that location, but still… Maybe she just needed to get used to him. Get to know him better. Right? Maybe, like cold water against her skin, he'd been shocking at first but would eventually become familiar to her senses. Maybe his newness was already fading off into something more comfortable.
Something less dangerous.
And maybe? Maybe it didn't even matter at all.
El sighed painfully as she felt the now familiar queasy crash within her gut.
Two weeks had passed since she'd met him… Three meetings had occurred… and one fact remained: not a single time had Mike asked to see her again.
Taking her class didn't count. Obviously.
Maybe he just wanted to be friends?
Friends…
That could work. He was interesting! Entertaining. Goofy and dorky in a way that no one else in her life was. Shockingly intelligent and playful with ideas. Easy to talk to. So adorably cute, with his thick black hair and matching dark eyes and pale sharp features that made it all stand out so…
Okay, no. They could not be friends.
"Shit," El groaned.
She leaned deeply against the sink, her stomach painfully twisting into a knot for the umpteenth time in the past 36 hours. It was a choreographed dance at this point. A unending waltz around the same unwinnable reality again and again and again.
"Ellie, what the hell! Did you fall in? I need your help to finish setting up. We only have a few minutes."
"Coming!"
El sighed and straightened herself up. She looked herself square in the eyes one last time and adjusted the collar on her fitted navy polo shirt in the mirror.
"He's a student," she scolded herself in a harsh whisper. "That's it. That's what he asked to be."
Her eyes rolled dramatically, directly at herself.
"Fine."
She opened the door to the bathroom and murmured an apology to Max and the other assistants, John and Alex, as they flurried around the space to set up for the day.
Max sidled up beside her, a glint in her eyes. She lowered her voice. "Aww, you're nervous! That's adorable."
"I'm not nervous," El sneered. She stalked quickly to the wall of folding chairs and began to set up the class table with pointed focus.
"Sure," Max teased, undeterred, as she began to lay out guidebooks in front of each seat.
"It's not like that," El said, not giving her friend the satisfaction of eye contact.
"You impress me."
"What does that mean?"
"This whole oblivious denial thing you're pulling off," Max said with a laugh. She circled her finger in the air and outlined El. "It seems like you can just create it for yourself out of thin air. It's a skill, Ellie, really. It's cute that you can lie to yourself like that."
"We just had lunch," El retorted.
"I didn't even mention him..." Max said, her face morphing into an all-knowing, and infuriating, smile.
El cringed. She kept her eyes resolutely on the stacked chairs, her cheeks suddenly burning pink.
"And you didn't just 'have lunch', by the way," Max added. "No one just 'has lunch' for three and a half hours. What the hell did you talk about for three and a half hours?"
"Physics," El said dismissively. She moved with supreme focus to the next stack of chairs.
"That's it?"
"It's a broad topic! He's an expert! H-he had a lot to say."
Max scoffed, "You listened to a guy drone on about physics for an entire afternoon."
"It was interesting!"
"I don't care if you think it's interesting!"
Max dropped the final book on the table and dug her fists into her hips, all pretense instantly gone. "The El I know wouldn't spend three and half hours talking to anyone. Except for me and your dad… or a student."
"Well, he is a student so I guess I'm still the El you know," El replied with a dark look.
Max groaned and rolled her eyes, "You know what I mean."
"Can you just cool it?" El whined, almost begging, "People are going to start showing up any minute. Just… let me handle this my way."
"El, if I let you handle this your way, this is what's going to happen. That guy is going to come in here, spend the day with you, chicken out on asking you out again, and you're going to do the same. Then he's going to disappear off of the face of this Earth forever."
"Have you ever thought that maybe that's what he wants?" El quipped, her voice suddenly jumping an octave. She pointedly looked away to straighten a chair for the third time.
"See! There's that oblivious thing you're so good at doing! It's adorable, really."
Then, Max grabbed El's arm and tugged her lightly. El looked up toward her friend in surprise, her eyes skittish.
"El," Max said slowly. "I'm going to spell this out for you. He enrolled in your class because he is a unique level of chicken shit and somehow jumping out of a plane is easier for him than asking you out."
"That doesn't make sense," El said, her nose scrunched up in annoyance. "Why would someone do that?"
"I have literally no idea. It's fucking weird, but it's clearly what's happening."
"That's not what's happening and we're done talking about this," El's expression turned cold as she wrenched her arm away from Max's grip. "We have four students today. A couple, and two single men who are friends."
"Oh!" Max laughed, her eyes wide with sudden amusement. "You're switching to the whole 'I'm your boss' thing now. Cute tactic, Hopper," Then suddenly, as though her brain had finally caught up to her snark, Max's ears seemed to perk. "Two single men who are friends, huh? Lucas?"
El gasped playfully, a bit of tension releasing from her jaw as she shook her head with a knowing smirk. "Nope. Dustin. Why…?"
"Curly hair. Big smile. Loud voice?" Max replied with an instantly dejected sigh. "Figures that Lucas would be too chicken."
"Can you blame him?"
Max shrugged, ducking her head away, "I just thought maybe he'd have changed his mind is all."
"You're a hypocrite, Mayfield!" El cried as her anxiety cracked into a smile, the tables finally turned. She poked her friend playfully in the ribs. "You talk such a big game, giving me all this shit. Now just look at you." El batted her eyelids mockingly. "Lucas?!"
"No! Stop it!" Max yelped, her face instantly flaming. "I'm – "
But at that moment the bell on the front door tinkled and El's eyes shot up, all memory of Max's hypocrisy instantly erasing from her mind. Her stomach somersaulted violently as she met a surprised set of dark eyes.
"Okay, Wheeler. You're going to go in there and what are you going to do?"
Mike grimaced and pressed his head deeper against headrest of the passenger seat. "I'm begging you, please spare me your lame Steve Harrington pep talk."
"But they work!" Dustin retorted, his energy much too peppy for their 8am Saturday morning drive. "Just humor me. Okay. So. You're going to go in there and… what are you going to do?"
Mike hid behind his hand as he muttered, "I'm going to go in there and not act like an idiot and actually ask El out."
"Good! And how are you going to do it?"
"How would I know that? I have no idea how the day is going to play out!"
"You have to have a plan!" Dustin cried, drumming against the steering wheel dramatically. Mike cringed and tightened his seatbelt in reply. "Even if you deviate from the plan, you have to have one. It keeps you honest."
"I'll… get her alone at lunch," Mike said weakly.
"Meh…"
Mike looked over at Dustin darkly, "What, is my plan not good enough for you?"
Dustin shrugged, "I mean, it's fine I guess, but this situation has gone on long enough. Maybe do something bigger. Ooh! Ask her out in the air!"
"Oh God, I am not asking her out in the air. What if she says no?"
"Oh buddy, she's not going to say no," Dustin said. "Well, or… at least I don't think she's going to say no. But… you're right, maybe she will say no… so… yeah, the air is probably too much. Fine, lunch is fine, that will work I guess."
"This is the best pep talk of my life," Mike deadpanned. "I feel so pepped. Thanks, Dustin."
"Anytime buddy. Now let's get in there, push you out of a plane, get you that date, and then teach you how to drive again."
"Jesus. One step at a time," Mike said, his voice and breath suddenly short at the reminder.
Mike closed his eyes as a instinctual rush of anxiety crested over his chest in a brand new wave.
It was undeniable and so difficult to forget.
Mike was in deep shit.
Oddly, jumping out of a plane was less horrifying than the other thing that he had somehow, stupidly, disastrously, agreed to that night. Sure, the idea of throwing himself from a plane was daunting. But the idea of putting his hands on a wheel again? So much worse.
All Mike had to do was research fatality rates to feel fully backed up on his fear. After all, the statistical fatality rate for skydiving .0061. Whereas, driving a car?! 1.12. He needn't hear anything else. His fear was simply statistical and had nothing to do with anything else.
Nothing. At. All.
Unfortunately, however, statistical facts did not seem to be enough to stop his mind from running it's well worn and exhausting paths. Facts didn't seem to stop the flashbacks and nightmares from returning the instant he'd agreed to Dustin's demand. They didn't quell the acid-like anxiety that had begun, yet again, to flow through his veins, making his hands shake and his breath short.
Mike put down the coffee he'd been trying to drink. The caffeine suddenly seemed like a supremely bad idea. He stared straight ahead and let the minutes slink along as he took a series of long deep breaths.
"It's going to be fine," Dustin said, all teasing dropping from his voice as he patted Mike on the arm and steered the car toward the arrival gate.
Mike's chest collapsed in exhaustion at Dustin's attention.
"Thanks for coming today," Mike finally said, all snark gone, meaning it entirely. "I was an ass the other day but… I'm glad you're here. I really am. This was an idiotic thing for me to get wrapped into."
"Honestly, it's no big deal. It'll be fun!" Dustin said encouragingly. "Especially since you've drilled it into my head that the most dangerous part of the day is coming to an end. Now we can get out of this metal and plastic death trap and fall through the sky in a statically safe manner!"
"I've mentioned it that many times, huh?" Mike asked with a hint of a smile.
"Oh yeah. I'll remember those facts for the rest of my life. I hope it comes up at trivia." Dustin replied with a smirk in Mike's direction. He pulled into a parking spot outside of a small single story brick building near the airfield and turned off the car. "You ready?"
"Nope."
"Cool. Lets go."
Mike dragged himself from the car, grabbing his coffee for no other reason than to give his hands something to hold onto. He followed Dustin through the doors. A bell tinkled their arrival as they entered.
" - Lucas?!"
"No! Stop it! I -"
El and Max's conversation chopped off the instant the men walked in the door. Both of them turned toward the door with wide eyed surprise. Max's cheeks flamed in an instant, obvious in the daylight streaming through the window. But to be honest, Mike didn't really notice. His eyes were somewhere else.
Every ounce of anxiety, fear, anticipation and confusion he'd felt over the last many days crashed over him like a wave. They culminated into something completely different and completely new.
This turn of events wasn't Dustin's fault at all.
One single sight of El and everything was clear.
Falling through the sky was going to be a god damned gift… as long as it was with her.
It made him feel supremely unworthy, how simply she seemed to radiate. Her soft brown hair was pulled back, exposing her neck in a delicate sweep toward her collarbone that peeked from the collar of her tailored blue work shirt. Her fingers were wrapped around the hem, toying with it in a fidgety way that once again seemed to hint to an inner life beneath the surface of her constant composure. He had a hard time taking her in, though, because there was something immobilizing about her gaze. Her glittery brown eyes were piercing, direct, and intense on him as he stood in the doorway, possessing a type of focus that made Mike almost feel like she could control him at will.
Which he would, no doubt, consent to. Gladly.
After a short moment she blinked, smiled lightly and waved. Mike couldn't be fully sure if he returned the greeting.
"G-good morning…" Max stuttered, bringing Mike's attention back to the rest of the room. Max gestured toward the table behind her. "Welcome to ground school, boys. Take a seat. El, can you please help me in the back?"
"Wha-" El yelped, visibly jumping at her friend's voice. "Oh, yes. Right."
Dustin snickered to himself and led the way as Max and El disappeared through a back doorway. Mike finally found use of his limbs again and followed.
"Were they talking about our Lucas?" Dustin asked, his voice low and gossipy as he a took seat.
"I… I don't know…"
The bell at the door tinkled once again and two more people, a couple in their thirties who were almost disgustingly attached to each other's arms, joined Dustin and Mike at the table. Dustin, always excellent in situations with strangers, broke the ice and led a boring small talk conversation for the next many minutes while Mike's eyes drifted across the room, time and time again, toward the same moving target.
El had returned.
She was flurrying around the training room, stopping to speak to the other instructors, helping them carry and lay out equipment, writing a few starting notes on the whiteboard -
"Psst, Wheeler! Stop staring, you creep," Dustin's voice suddenly appeared harsh against his ear.
Mike flinched and scowled in his friend's direction.
Dustin, though? He probably had a point.
Mike's cheeks turned hot. He quickly picked up the provided pen and opened the book to a random page, pouring his attention directly into the words on the page and away from watching her simply go about her day in such an oddly attractive way that was both cute and enticing and casual and -
"Good morning, everybody."
Mike looked up to find El taking a seat at the other end of the table. She looked around the group, finally stopping on Mike. Her eyes lingered, almost seeming to soften, before they snapped instantly away.
"Well, you all know why you're here," she said as she clapped her hands together and picked up the book in front of her. "Let's get started."
And that's how it went along. For hours.
It was intriguing, watching El Hopper, head skydiving instructor, in her element.
Much like the first day they met, there was an air of easy control about her. She seemed to really love what she did, and thus, her teaching came through as approachable and easy to understand.
Well, at least it should have been easy to understand. But Mike had to admit, it wasn't easy at all. Sure, Mike's eyes were trained on her as she spoke and demonstrated important details about the equipment and positions. However, if he had to admit it? He was certain that he was focusing on all of the wrong things.
His eyes traced the delicate length of her fingers as she wrote notes on the whiteboard. He followed her back and forth across the room as she paced, explaining something that no doubt would save his life if he'd just listen. His mind twisted in unsettling ways as she spoke about the science behind skydiving, tossing around phrases he knew so well such as terminal velocity and gravitational pull, all while demonstrating the concepts with use of her whole body. He got lost in the way that she bent back, exposing her neck as she whipped her ponytail behind her and craned, opening her chest to showcase the optimal positions for wind resistance and drag. He couldn't stop fixating on the exact hook back of her leg, adorably feminine, as she explained the precise angles that a body should shoot for as it came in for landing.
She explained everything expertly and with simple assurance, all while making it all seem fun and undaunting.
She was a great teacher.
...And it was all insanely and unbearably attractive.
Hour by hour, his anxiety about the day bled away as he got caught in her net. He almost laughed at himself for how much he thought he was going to regret this perfectly wonderful day. For, it was easy to forget as he watched her that he was going to have to actually do these things in a matter of hours.
Or... make that minutes.
"Okay," El said, taking a step back and grabbing her water bottle after either seconds or hours or days of instruction had slipped by. She unscrewed the cap and looked around the room. "Does everyone think they're ready for the first tandem?"
The nods around the room answered her back as she took a sip of her water and placed the bottle down. "Great," she chirped, her eyes scanning each face. "Remember, we're doing two tandem jumps today. Each of you require three tandem jumps prior to your first solo jump with an instructor. Dustin and Mike, you already completed your first one with us a couple of weeks back, so after today you'll be eligible to start your solo training."
Her eyes landed on Mike then, and for the first time all day, they stayed there.
"Um.." she said, swallowing.
Mike felt himself follow suit, suddenly feeling too constricted in his own skin, a heady anticipation for the upcoming afternoon overwhelming him in a way that he could never have expected. An anticipation to be close to her, to get a chance to spend some more time with her. Even if he had to jump out of a plane to do it.
Mike felt his smile bloom toward her, fear fully bled away.
El blinked fast at that. She shook her head as her eyes darted away. She took a deep breath and, when she spoke, her voice was higher than it had been all morning.
"Okay! Um... time to pair off for tandems. Dustin, um… you'll be jumping with me…"
That's when the record scratched in Mike's brain.
It hadn't even dawned on him, the potential that he might not jump with her again. To be honest, that was possibly the only reason he had agreed to this in the first place. She had made him feel insanely safe that day, and throughout the entire morning of instruction she'd made him feel insanely safe yet again. But now? With this unexpected screaming turn of events? Every ounce of anxiety that had been ebbed away roared back in like a crashing wave.
Had he done something? Was it just the luck of the draw? Was he going to survive to the end of the day?
Mike didn't even hear who he was assigned to. A flurry of bodies began to move around him. The hum in his ears filled with everyone getting ahold of gear and preparing for the physical part of the day. Mike looked up across the room to find El's eyes on him, but the second that she saw him staring back she quickly looked away and turned back toward her partner… Dustin.
"You ready for this?"
Mike turned around to find Max standing beside his chair. She was all smiles and almost sadistically gleaming eyes. She dropped his equipment onto the table.
"This'll be fun," she said as she pulled up a chair.
Shockingly, it wasn't.
Before Mike knew it, an hour had gone by, and despite shaky hands and his brain's helpless attempts to escape, and he found himself once again in the air inside of the terrifying tin can of a propeller plane, wondering what the fuck he had been thinking to get himself into this mess.
Mike was certain that his discomfort was visible. An aura of red molecules around him screaming his anxiety for all to see. His hands clutched into the foam of the seat as his knee performed an unending dance, in sync with some erratic beat that could not be heard but for inside of his own frenzied mind.
Mike watched with abject terror as the two additional instructors opened the door to the hull. The wind sprinted in, screaming at his ears and making him wince.
"You ready?!" Max yelled, her thumb jacking toward the open door. "We're first!"
Mike swallowed and nodded feebly. He stood up like a man walking to a gallows, hunched over and stumbling, too tall for the interior of the plane.
El was positioned in a seat beside the exit, directly beside where Max had him stop. He tried to ignore El's presence so that he could, for once, pay attention to the life saving information that Max was trying to communicate. She asked him step by step to demonstrate back to her what needed to be done. Mike did so, shoulders tense, wind whipping against his face, until Max nodded and clicked onto his harness in preparation to move the final two steps toward the door.
"Mike!"
Mike felt a tug on his hand, warm and inviting. He looked down to find El looking up at him, her goggles pushed up into her hair, leaving it spilling out over the top in an adorable mess. She gave him a thumbs up with her hand that wasn't touching his, along with an encouraging smile.
Mike smiled shyly and nodded, almost feeling like an idiot. Finally, he dropped her hand and stepped back, deeply grateful for the vote of confidence.
Yet, maybe it was too much of a vote of confidence.
For, at that precise second, Mike tripped directly over his own feet.
Max screamed and grabbed him hard as his body made a lurch forward, directly toward the gaping doorway into the empty sky below.
"Okay, that is NOT the way we disembark!" Max yelled, laughing to herself as she repositioned both of them sideways at the door. "This is how we disembark!"
And before Mike could even so much as take a breath, the world fell out from beneath him.
The swoop of surprise was sickening, lurching his stomach in a way that made him feel like he was about to turn himself inside out. But somehow, through sheer will or luck or whatever else he was able to muster, Mike Wheeler, a clumsy anxious mess of a human, somehow successfully completed the fall exercise for a full sixty seconds before he pulled the parachute's ripcord and buoyed with Max in the air.
"Terrible fucking attempt at entry, I mean, for real! What were you thinking?! But decent after that!" Max cried into his ear as they were floated down. "You okay?"
"I'm fine...!" Mike called back, trying to hide his grimace as he fought to catch his breath and not allow his panic to take control. "That was... that was okay?!"
"Yeah, it was okay! You did everything right," Max said. "Now we just have to glide down for a few minutes."
"Great," Mike said, sighing in relief.
"I usually like to chat while we glide down!" Max said in a sing song manner, all kind and inviting before she went into for the kill, "Which reminds me! Why haven't you asked my friend out yet?!"
Mike's stomach dropped straight to the ground as his eyes bulged from of his head.
"Wh-what?" he screamed back against the wind..
"You obviously like El! Why do you keep pussyfooting around?!" Max said, her voice cutting into his ear in a way that he could not, for the life of him, escape.
"I...uh…" Mike stuttered.
"Look, if you repeat a single word of this I'll push you from a plane without a parachute next time! That's a promise so keep this to yourself! You kissed her and then blew her off, man! Then you started showing up around her neighborhood which is... WEIRD. And now you're taking her class? That's a lot of mixed signals! You DO see that, right?"
"That… um… Yes?!"
"She likes you! I don't get why but she does! Like, a lot. Do you like her?!"
"I - "
"It's a yes or no question, dude! Just answer it!"
"YES! Yes I like her. A lot. Like a lot a lot!"
"Good! So do her a favor and unmix your signals! Or else - "
"Or else what?!"
"Or else…" Max cried, her hand suddenly at his shoulder blade pulling tight against his harness. "All I have to do is remove these four little clips back here and you're not attached to a parachute anymore."
"Jesus!"
"I'm kidding, but come on!" she whined.
"O-okay fine! God! I get it…" Mike stuttered awkwardly.
"Great! Glad we cleared that up! And lift your legs!"
"What?!"
"Look down, were here! Lift your - ! Now! MIKE! Lift! - SHIT!"
Max pulled hard above him, taking control and slipping herself beneath Mike's body to take the brunt of the landing. Mike fell back onto her with a thud as they skidded against the ground and finally came to a stop.
"You were supposed to lift your legs…" Max groaned, her voice tight from Mike's weight against her.
"Maybe I would have remembered if you hadn't been threatening me!" Mike bit back, wincing at the sharp pain of her heel in his thigh.
"I wasn't threatening you. I was simply giving you some much needed advice," Max replied with a huff as she worked him free from the restraints. "But yes, I could've given you a bit more warning. Sorry about that. We'll get it better next time."
Mike crawled to his knees and brushed helplessly at the grass stains he'd collected in the skid against the ground. His stomach was simply twisted. Half of it seemed like it was still in the sky, half of it had plummeted down to hell, unrecovered from the lurch had been their entry into the air, and yet another half (which somehow existed though that was not scientifically possible) was jumping with exuberant glee at what he had just learned.
"Max," Mike said. He reached out his hand toward her, biting back a smile. Max took his hand and let him pull her from the ground. "Thank you."
Max smiled back as she got to her feet. She shook his hand before she let it drop, her expression mischievous, "Happy to help, mouthbreather."
Then, she pointed behind him and cocked her head. Mike turned to watch El and Dustin make an effortless landing about fifty feet away.
"Well, she sure knows how to make an entrance," Max mused. "Let's walk."
El needed to breathe. She needed space to air out her chest and clear her mind and to try, somehow, to gain her wits about her.
It had been mounting all morning… Scratch that. It had been mounting for two weeks. And to try to teach for four hours like that? With that swirl absolutely ravaging like a hurricane inside of her skin?
It had been excruciating.
From the moment that Mike had walked in the door, every carefully laid plan that El had created inside of her mind had flown straight out the window. His glasses were once again gone, just like when she'd first met him. His gaze were instantly arresting, like always, in its depth. And now it had nothing to hide behind. It was incredibly difficult to decide if he looked better with or without his glasses. Both? Both.
But there'd been no time for her to dwell on that almost unfair reality.
He'd looked nervous. His fingers were clutched tight to a disposable coffee cup for dear life, his knuckles white. But he'd smiled at her and had seemed to relax just the tiniest bit at her attention. El instantly felt the now familiar heady buzz slip down her spine.
To be honest, that sensation hadn't left her in days.
Remnants had still been left over from those many hours she'd spent simply listening to him talk just a couple of days before. His voice, rich and raspy and excited, hadn't left her ear since that afternoon. It had weaved its way through her silent moments, making her smile despite herself at seemingly nothing at all as she'd gone about her days. It had even slipped its way into her sleep, stirring dreams, foggy and serene, that included him in ways that she was definitely not willing to admit.
Mike Wheeler had become inescapable.
And now? Now, he was standing directly in her path, right where she needed to work.
For all of the challenge, El had gotten through the day seemingly well. It was a solace that she could instruct ground school in her sleep, because instructing ground school while a fire raged inside of her was almost as difficult. But she'd managed. Max had jumped in here and there, supplementing when she'd stuttered with a secret knowing glance that made her blush.
Yet, as the hours had passed and her attention had waned, she found her eyes slipping more and more back to him.
He had a habit of chewing on his pen as he listened, scrawling notes in hard-to-decipher chicken scratches whenever she said something that he deemed important. His lanky body was almost too tall to comfortably sit at the table, which meant that he had adjusted into new positions whenever she'd turned around, presenting her with a whole new way to view him every single time she looked back.
More distracting than anything, though, was the burning sensation of his eyes constantly on her, never leaving. Not that they were supposed to, per say. She was the instructor. In a way, he had paid to watch her talk.
But damn if it wasn't insanely overwhelming.
So overwhelming that El was certain that she would simply jump from the plane and fly straight upward if his body was pressed against hers. The expanse of his back pushing into her chest. The scent of him blowing against her from the wind.
Yeah, that could not happen again.
So, that's how she ended up here. On flinching reflex, choosing Dustin as her partner in a moment of frenzied panic.
She'd regretted it in an instant, especially when her tongue had slipped and she'd paired Mike with Max. She could've at least paired him with John. That man was nice, calm, and not Max-like at all. She'd regretted it even more as she'd watched him prepare to jump, out of his depths in that way that was, just like last time, so oddly charming.
She did not regret grabbing his hand, or the feeling of his fingers as he back latched onto her in an instant, his expression softening as she sent him a quick vote of encouragement.
She did, however, regret that it almost made him fall out of the plane…
That was all behind her now, though.
Thank God.
Dustin had handled his jump with ease. He'd executed each exercise with precision and ease, and thus, it had been a simple and straightforward jump. As the parachute buoyed, El found herself grateful for the break. For the fresh air. For the expanse of the sky and the sight lines over the trees and fields of Indiana on a budding summer's day. It was a deeply needed release.
The day was almost over. Only one jump left.
Everything was going to be just fine.
Or so she'd thought.
"That was AWESOME!" Dustin cried as he pumped his fist in the air.
"It never gets less fun, I promise!" El said with a heady laugh as they floated down.
"You're a good instructor!"
"Thanks! I try!"
"- I don't know what Mike was talking about about you flying, though! Seemed just like a normal jump to me!"
…
…
"F-flying?"
Dustin laughed and yelled back, "Mike told me all about the trick you pulled last time! He's been trying to figure out how you did it but he can't. It's hilarious! That shit drives him crazy! I swear he's convinced you can fly."
El choked as her eyes flew wide open, her stomach plummeting to the ground minutes before the rest of her could reach.
"What do you mean he's – um – " El coughed, the wind rushing into her face in a way that she wished would simply blow her away forever as her heartbeat began to wrack like a wrecking ball against her chest, " - he's been trying to figure it out?"
"Oh, that's just Mike!" Dustin shrugged, his shoulder arching up into hers, "If he doesn't understand something he'll get obsessed trying to figure out how it works. You know, scientifically. I get it. I do it too. He hasn't been this stumped in years!"
"He… hasn't?" she asked weakly, her jaw going slack.
"Wait!" Dustin called back, gasping. He threw his hands up in the air and dramatically yelled. "You can't fly, can you?"
"NO! No!" El exclaimed, her voice spiking in a shrill and painful manner against her throat, "That's… that's crazy!"
"You did know I was joking, right?" Dustin asked with a confused laugh, "I know I look like an idiot but I do know that people can't fly."
"Oh!" El gasped quickly. She laughed, then, or attempted to fake that sounded like a laugh but only came out as a choked gasp, "Right! Yeah! HA! Um… get prepared to land! Lift your legs when I say go - "
El tried to focus on the landing. Thankfully Dustin did as he was told, since at that moment, any deviation from the norm would have been disastrous based on how thick and shocked her brain was. El performed the landing, swooping beneath Dustin and stabilizing them on the ground before her trembling hands quickly undid the latches of the harness and she freed herself as quickly as she could.
El kept her goggles on to hide her terror as she stepped away from Dustin and put her head between her legs, focusing on deep breaths.
What was happening? Did he know? How did he know? Had she been that obvious? If he knew about that he had to have caught on about -
"El? Are… are you okay?"
El snapped up to find not only Dustin, but also Mike and Max, windburnt and grass stained from their recent landing. Worried looks were on all of their faces.
"Y-yeah!" El said quickly, her lips turning up into a manic smile as she nodded profusely. "Hi! Just a little... deep breathing! Um... Max?!"
"Yeah, Hopper?"
El's eyes snapped between the three people standing at attention in front of her. Dustin, Max, and Mike.
Mike.
Mike.
It was an instant decision. A necessary action. A totally out of the ordinary plan.
"Time to… switch partners!"
"Time to switch partners?" Max repeated in surprise.
"Time to switch partners!"
El shot Max a look so dark it almost cut straight through her friend. Max's eyes widened, but she nodded in an instant.
"Yep, time to switch partners. Yep, that's what always we right now! Every time. You uh…" Max said, turning to Dustin. "You go with me this time. Mike, you're going with El."
"Great..."
El nodded and spun around. She walked as fast as she could through the grass in a beeline toward the boarding area, trying her best to leave them all behind.
She needed a moment to think.
What the hell was she going to do?
El tried to push away the terrifying thoughts as she walked, but they nonetheless forced their way into her mind as a roaring stream of internal screams. What ifs and contingency plans. Paranoid checklists of everything he could possibly already know. Self pointed anger and shame. A sickening sensation of years of cool calm collectedness possibly slipping so easily, and so stupidly, through her fingers. The voice screaming that this was all an overreaction! It was just a joke! Everything was fine! The other voice screaming that everything was NOT fine! Everything had NOT been fine in almost two weeks!
El tried to take a deep breath again. It didn't work.
"El!"
El froze, cursing as the same rogue shimmer slid down her spine at his voice once again, despite her current mental meltdown. She forced a deep breath and spun around, plastering a smile on her face.
"H-hi," she squeaked, looking at Mike head on. "How was your first jump?"
"Fine until the end," Mike said, his hair blowing in the breeze as he slowed his trot to match her steps. "Just a… hard landing."
"We'll work on that this time, then," she replied quickly. She felt the grass end and the concrete begin beneath her feet and she sighed in relief.
"Um… can you help me pack the parachute?"
El attempted to pass the moments by relying on the motions of teaching yet again. She had a hope that maybe, just like during the morning, it could work to insulate her as she desperately tried to piece together what the hell she was going to do.
The others arrived, as did the plane, just a short few moments later. El stayed quiet as the group reboarded. Finally, she entered last, and cursed internally as she found that the only seat available was the one directly next to Mike.
This was all a uniquely terrifying kind of torture.
El did not speak as the plane took off and soared to 14,000 feet. She stared straight ahead through one of the small circular window in the hull, her fingers picking aggressively at her nails without any attention at all.
"Are… are you okay?"
El's eyes shot up like a scared animal.
She was met with a look of concern from deep dark eyes so earnest, and so interested, that a tiny piece of her calmed in an instant, as though it was brushed with a wave of cool water.
"I'm… I'm fine."
Mike's lips were formed into a hesitant first word, but instead he stopped and studied her for a moment.
She swallow hard, trapped like an animal in a cage.
That was when his smile turned playful.
"Are you nervous to jump out of a plane, El?" he asked in a joking manner, his voice light and inviting. "Is that why you're all fidgety?"
"Um... " El uttered, suddenly perplexed and caught completely off guard. She giggling a bit and felt herself nod, "Yes, terrified."
"Well," he continued. He knocked his shoulder against hers, "A wise woman once told me that tandem is easy. All you have to do is trust me and I'll do the rest."
"Trust you?" she asked in surprise.
"Yeah. I'm in charge today, right? That's what this is all about? I'm supposed to be showing you how this is done?"
El paused, and her brain lit up.
"...You're right…"
That was it.
El's lungs expanded in full for the first time in thirty minutes. She finally smiled.
"You're right," she repeated with a nod, her eyes now directly on his, "Every single thing that happens on this jump will be your doing."
Mike smiled back at her, his expression simply brilliant. His eyes darted away shyly as he said, "Well. You know if it gets too scary you can just hold my hand and close your eyes. I'll get us out of it. I promise."
El bit her lip as her heart fluttered violently, her own words from the first time they'd met mirrored onto her in a way that almost made her tremble. Her fingers bunched up into her pants to stop her from taking his hand right then and there.
There was no denying it.
Mike Wheeler was absolutely precious.
"I'll keep that in mind," El finally said, her voice soft. "Thank you. I feel very safe now."
"You are way too trusting, El," Mike teased. He pushed against her again, his thigh shifting against hers, "You're trusting a guy who almost fell out of a plane an hour ago."
At that, El laughed in full and Mike looked up, his smile self deprecating, hopeful, and a little coy.
"Well, my future is in your hands now," she said with a shrug, suddenly feeling so much lighter that she could simply float. "You promised."
Mike had no idea how or why he had been dealt the winning hand of being switched to jumping with El, but he was surely not going to complain. El's hands worked against his back, checking the connection points of the harness before the final jump of the day. He could hear her breath, fast and tense, and he tried not to read into it. She'd been in charge of a full day, after all. There were probably things going on that he couldn't even begin to understand.
He was just happy that, despite whatever tension she'd been carrying, he'd been able to make her smile.
Mike's hand was latched firm to the metal bar as he looked out onto the expanse of blue and green below him. His stomach succumbed to a familiar wretching nervousness. But he couldn't help but notice that he could breathe better with El there, and a couple of jumps underneath his belt.
"Ready?" she asked, her breath hot against his ear.
Mike nodded, his head brushing against her.
"Whenever you're ready!" she called.
Mike took a deep breath, somehow found the power within himself to loosen his grip...
...and they were off.
Things spun fast the second that his feet entered freefall. His brain struggled to keeping up as he tried, step by step, to demonstrate the necessary maneuvers of the exercise. Oddly, for the first time, he found the tinies amount of fund with it. Wind seared his skin as El whooped from behind him, her hand in a thumbs up as he correctly moved through each step.
And then suddenly El yelled something he couldn't understand.
Just as Mike turned to check in with her he felt a sharp swoop rise inside of his entire body as the oddest and most exhilarating sensation overtook him. It was disorienting and it lasted for only a split second, yet it's intensity was undeniable. It was unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.
It felt like pure euphoric freedom.
It felt like gravity had no control over him at all...
"RIPCORD!"
Mike fumbled his hands against his chest, snapping back to attention to seek the release system. He pulled it hard, and with it, they had stabilized in the air.
His stomach returned to normal as they swayed in the sky.
"Good job!" El called. "You're almost a natural! You got some air that time!"
"How - "
"- How what?"
"How is that possible?!"
"How is what possible?!"
"The… The going up?!" Mike gasped, the sensation still swimming over him with immense exhilaration.
"I told you last time! It was just the wind!" El said forcefully. "You caught a good stream this time!"
"Th- that didn't happen on the last jump with Max!"
"Well! It - It doesn't happen every time!" El called, "It's not like you or I can fly or anything! It's just the wind! It was just the way you turned!"
There was something about the way she said it that made Mike laugh and groan at the same time.
"Did Dustin say something to you?!"
"Maybe!" she cried back guiltily.
"God, he's - he probably made me sound insane. I know we didn't fly. I just... I don't know what we did!"
"It's just the wind!" She repeated, "No superpowers involved."
"So, you're telling me you're not Supergirl?!" Mike called back jokingly.
"I'm not!" El called back. "Sorry to disappoint!"
"Are you sure?!" Mike cried back in an instant, head still in the clouds, clearly 100% not thinking "You seem pretty super to me!"
El gasped against his ear and instantly couldn't contain her laughter. "Did you just -?!"
"- Stop talking!" He called back, his face flaming. "That was the dumbest thing I've ever said in my life! I- I'm never speaking again."
"Aww I liked it!" she cried back with a purely delightful giggle streaming directly into his ear. Mike felt electricity surge through his body as she leaned into him dropped her head against his. His eyes slipped shut at the sensation, causing -
"Oh!" El cried suddenly, "Lift your legs!"
"What?!"
"Lift up your legs!"
"I - shit - I!"
"Higher! I need to take control!"
"I'm trying, I - !"
But instead, the ground found its way under Mike's feet instead of El's. With a surprised gasp directly into his ear, El's legs wrapped tight around Mike's waist as he landed. Her arm reached around his chest to hold tightly onto him like a piggyback ride he never could have anticipated. In a stumble of limbs, his feet dragged against the ground. The force of her body against his took him directly to the ground.
On instinct, Mike struggled to get back up on this feet, but he was not the only one. With a peal of laughter, El lost her footing and fell forward onto him, still attached.
"That was - the worst landing!" she cried as she suddenly began to laugh. Hard.
El erupted in a fit of giggles so loud and joyous that, Mike's, buried into the ground, couldn't help but laugh with her. It was stupidly glorious, the feel of her against him, her laughter growing thicker with each passing second.
"I'm so so sorry," Mike said with a chuckle.
"Are you okay?!" El yelped. Her voice grunted as her finger grappled against his back to release herself from the harness.
"I'm fine…" Mike grimaced back. "I think I only bruised my ego."
At that, El's giggles doubled in an instant. Her head dropped to the back of his shoulders as her weight momentarily disappeared. "Okay, you're free - WHA!?"
A gust of wind blew over them as she moved and, in reply, the parachute lifted and dropped directly on top of their still scrambled limbs, trapping them instantly inside of a world of blue and green.
Mike tried to get up on instinct and El yelped in reply, losing her footing once again and falling into him in a mess of limbs and apologies.
"Here let me – "
"- I think – "
"Ouch!"
"I'm sorry!"
"It's okay! Just move your – Ah!"
"Oh my God! Stop moving!"
Mike froze, the tizzy of the last few seconds finally coming to a halt at her command. It was then and only then that he took stock of their predicament.
As though they were caught in a net, El and Mike had become completely entangled in the cords of the parachute, and, as a result, in each other.
El was pinned against him, her head against his shoulder, her body pressed into his, her leg trapped in a hook around his hips. All the while, her body once again crashing with laughter against him.
"You must think I'm the worst instructor..." she groaned as she buried her face into his shoulder.
"You're a great instructor," Mike replied, his voice thick, suddenly overwhelmed, "I'm just an abysmal student."
"Nah, you were perfect until the end."
She looked up as she spoke, her face so close to his that he could feel her breath on his chin. Her eyes were a light and her goggles were delightfully askew on the top of her head.
Mike was pretty sure his heart had just taken flight once again.
This was it. This was the moment. So insane and unexpected but so wonderfully perfect.
El's laughter quelled slowly as her eyes grew dark.
"El?" Mike asked, his voice almost a whisper.
She licked her lips and whispered back, "Yes?"
"Do you - "
But before he could continue, a hand tugged hard on the parachute, breaking their tiny bubble and bathing them in sunlight.
"What the hell happened here?!" Max's voice cut through the moment like a knife.
"OH!" El jumped as she craned her neck back. "Hi!" Her body tried and failed to put space between them. "Can you untangle us? We're stuck like this."
"You can't land for shit, can you Mike?" Max said with a hint of a tease. "Dustin, help me."
"Oh, gladly," Dustin's voice cut in, making Mike groan in instant embarrassment. "I will be committing this moment to memory so that Michael here absolutely never lives this down."
"I'm so lucky to have a friend like you, Dustin," Mike called out in a groan.
His eyes dropped shut and his heart deflated like a punctured balloon, his insides burning from the unasked question on his lips.
El was freed first. She wriggled away from him limb by limb until the intimacy of her presence was gone and there nothing was left but empty air. Finally, a hand reached down and grabbed his, his legs finally free.
"Thanks," Mike said quietly as he accepted the help and pulled himself to standing. He opened his eyes to find El, smiling softly, her hand still in his.
And in an instant, without hesitation, Mike surprised himself as he instantly finished his so rudely interrupted question.
"Are you free tonight?"
El froze.
A soft 'oh' escaped on her breath.
...But it wasn't El who answered his question...
"Oh yeah, man!" Dustin called out from the ground. He was crouched two feet away, his eyes focused on the task of untangling the final lines of the parachute. "I was thinking we could go get drinks after this. You know, calm the nerves."
Mike looked back toward El in surprise, "I – I wasn't – "
"Oh can we join you?" Max chimed in suddenly, her attention also on the mess on the ground.
"That'd be awesome," Dustin said.
"You should call you friends and have them join us," Max added.
"Believe me," Dustin replied, "Lucas would much rather you invite him."
"But alas, I'm not going to," Max said. "Have them meet us at Thelma's."
"Thelma's?" Dustin asked with surprise. "That building that looks like its falling apart down the road?"
"Yes, that one, and I'll have you know that it's amazing," Max retorted. "Cheap, great food, beer, whole room of arcade games in the back."
"What!?" Dustin yelped. "That decrepit building is an arcade bar?"
"Well, kind of," Max shrugged, "Most of the machines don't work anymore but there's a few."
"Okay, sold. This'll be fun."
"You'll come, right El?" Max called out over her shoulder, not looking back.
It was only then that a stunned Mike finally found the courage to look back at El. Her eyes were closed and she was shaking her head, but the smile on her face was radiant and highly amused.
Finally, she opened her eyes again, dazzling hazel meeting his own. She kept her eyes locked on him as she called over her shoulder to Max. "Yes, I'll come. Great idea… Max."
Mike's heart soared and he couldn't help but laugh as he rolled his eyes towards their friends.
El rolled her eyes back in an adorably silent agreement.
"Oh!" El suddenly yelped.
She jumped and looked down between them.
"Sorry," she said sheepish shrug, the slightest hint of a blush gracing her cheeks, "I guess I was scared."
It was only then that Mike looked down to realize that he had been holding her hand the entire time.
I hope you enjoyed chapter 4! Let me know what you think below! Chapter 5 should a shorter wait. It's mostly written :) Happy December!