Hi everyone! It's been a while with this fic, but never fear, we're still rolling!

Mike watched as the sun sank to twilight behind the rooftops across the street. He couldn't remember the last time he'd sat like this on his childhood front step, but he was sure that his legs had been shorter at the time. As it was, they stretched out long in front of him as he waited for Will's car to appear from around the corner.

The hours after lunch had taken an unexpected turn. Holly had decided to run to the mall with her friend, leaving Mike alone for the rest of the day. He attempted to use the time wisely. There was work to be done for the introductory summer session he was about to begin teaching. Lesson plans needed finalizing. Materials needed organization. A lot to do.

His mind, though, had other ideas, and before he knew it something else was laid out in front of him, primed for study. Hawkins yearbooks. Dust riddled and brittle, the collection he'd amassed from his and Nancy's rooms covered about fifteen years of Hawkins educational rosters.

The afternoon passed unknowingly to Mike as he leafed through each one, searching for any trace of one El Hopper. Book after book, he turned up nothing. However, that wasn't too much of a surprise. El had alluded more than once to an unorthodox upbringing which had mostly bypassed the normalcy of traditional school. Yet, he had remembered she'd said she'd gone to school at some point. So, Mike kept looking. Kindergarten through Senior Year.

No El Hopper appeared. Honestly, no Hoppers appeared at all.

Mike didn't know why exactly, but it plagued him. The knowledge that El could have been there, near him? It made him ache with an odd sense of longing. It almost felt as though a hole had suddenly become apparent in his past, one where she belonged. Or maybe it was just amplified because… that was how he felt now.

Something about her just felt…so right.

When Mike had spotted El in the bakery the swoop in his stomach had been so intense that he was glad he wasn't standing. It wasn't just the fact that he was seeing her in Hawkins. It was simple surprise of seeing her at all. After so many days of feeling like absolute shit, seeing her face light up when he called out her name felt like taking a deep gulp of air after choking.

It was a feeling he had surely never felt before.

….Maybe Holly was onto something…

Mike shook his head to dislodge the thought. That was crazy. Hilariously premature. He'd hardly even known her for three weeks. Can you fa… it possible to feel like… that… after just three weeks?

It was probably for the best that this particular train of thought was interrupted. Will pulled up to the curb at that moment and Mike jumped to standing. He made for the passenger door only to stop short as he saw that the car was not empty.

"I'm sorry, hun. I can move to the back," Mrs. Byers said from the rolled down window as she reached for the door handle.

"It's fine, Mrs. Byers. I'll jump in the back."

Mrs. Byers smiled her trademark nervous smile as Mike pulled the back door open and found that the backseat, too, was partially taken.

"How you been, Mike?" Jonathan asked as he shuffled over on the seat and made space.

"Not bad, you?" Mike asked.

"Doing alright. Checking out what's changed in Hawkins. Which, surprise surprise, isn't much."

"We were just coming back from dinner," Will cut in from the driver's seat. "Thought I'd grab you before we drove past home on the way out of town."

"Yeah, of course," Mike replied easily as he clipped his seat belt and tried to adjust his long legs against the back of the passenger seat.

"So, was Mike there for this big explosion?" Jonathan asked Will.

"Yeah," Will replied. "I'm telling you, it was weird."

"Was it as crazy as Will's telling it?" Jonathan asked casually, turning back to Mike.

Mike hid the guilty look from this face, his mind flitting to what he had actually been doing when it had occurred. "I uh… I only saw the aftermath, but it was definitely bizarre. I can't really figure out how it could've happened. It doesn't make sense."

"I'm telling you," Mrs. Byers said adamantly, "It sounds exactly like what happened at home."

Mike's brow curled in surprise. "Something like that happened at your house? When?"

Jonathan and Will's sighs at Mike's question were subtle, but having known them almost as well as family, he picked up on the subtext all the same.

"Mom," Jonathan said with a subtle eye roll, "That was just bad wiring."

"You weren't there," Mrs. Byers replied with an exasperated laugh. "Mike, it was a long time ago. Must have been 12? Maybe 13 years ago? Feels like a lifetime. I think you boys were in middle school. Did the explosion burn out the light sockets? Will didn't know."

"I… I didn't look. Did the light sockets burn out at your house?"

"Yeah. Oh, it was so scary. The boys were out, I think Will was at your house, actually. I was just watching TV when it turned to static and the lights spiked to this really bright glow. Then, I hate remembering this, a couple of the bulbs just popped. I swear, I'm still paying off the electrical work I had to charge on my credit card."

"Really?" Mike asked, curiosity fully piqued. "Did you ever find out what caused it?"

"I tried," she said, "I had the electrical company come out but they just said it wouldn't happen again. Tried the cops, but he - they pushed me off, of course," she said, her voice going harsh as she seemed to experience the memory. "Anyway, the electrician who fixed it said he'd never seen anything like it. I still think it was the lab. The electrician did too."

Mike leaned forward in an instant. "Wait, the lab?"

Jonathan chuckled. "I'm sure he was just toying with you, mom."

"He was not," Mrs. Byers retorted, shaking her head as Will turned into the Byers driveway. "Plus, with all of the stories out of that place I wouldn't be surprised."

At that point, Will put the car in park and the conversation faded off in an instant. Mike waved and took the front seat as the family said their goodbyes outside of the car. Buckling his seatbelt into the passenger seat, his eyes grazed across the dark thick of trees off to the far side of the house.

The lab.

It had been years since he'd thought about the laboratory on the other side of the woodlands. They'd only ventured to that side of the woods a couple of times when they were kids, but each time they ended up there he remembered one thing: It had seemed like an impenetrable fortress. Heavy barbed wire fences concealed the oddly tall and menacing looking buildings that laid beyond. It had given him the creeps.

Will got back in the car and put the gear shift in reverse.

"So, what do you think?" Mike said, his eyes scanning the black trees once again. "Was the thing at that bar the same type of thing that happened at your mom's house?"

Will snickered and shook his head, "I honestly have no idea. You know my mom. Love her, but she always chooses the weirdest possible explanation for everything."

That was all that Will had to say on the topic. Usually, Mike would have pushed for more, his curiosity itchy and sometimes uncontrollable. Yet tonight, it only took a short moment for Mike's thoughts to return to the seemingly more important mystery on his mind.

"Guess who I ran into," Mike said. His voice pitched higher than he would have liked, absolutely betraying his attempt at a neutral tone.

Will looked over curiously, his eyebrow raised in amusement. "Who?"

"El," Mike said. He averted his eyes as he said her name, grateful for the darkness as the corners of his lips turned up.

"Your El? Here?"

"She's not my El, but yeah. At that new bakery down by the police station. Did you know that she's from here?"

"What?" Will asked in surprise. "No she's not."

"That's what she said," Mike replied adamantly. "She once told me she was homeschooled or something, so maybe she was here. I don't know. I only saw her for a minute. You don't know any Hoppers here, do you?"

Will made a thoughtful noise as he pulled onto the main highway. "Hopper definitely sounds familiar. I'm sure Mom knows someone with that name, but I'm not placing it. Maybe El was just visiting family here or something."

Mike shrugged as an odd let down washed over him, "Yeah, maybe."

Will didn't say anything else and Mike kept to himself the rest of the ride, his curiosity still poking at him like mad. It wound through his mind and stuck like glue, and he wasn't exactly proud of where it took him next. Before he knew it, he was home with his laptop open in his dark bedroom, his fingers reaching for the keyboard. "Hopper Hawkins Indiana" was typed into the search bar.

It brought up three names in the public registries; two full listings and one listing that was highly redacted. A series of police reports from the weekly register section of the Hawkins Post, all naming one Chief James Hopper, the same name as the redacted listing, populated the rest of the first page.

None of them pointed to an 'El' at all.

It was almost instantly that Mike felt a shameful sense of unease. The whole activity made him feel more like a creepy stalker than he cared to admit. El deserved better than a deep dive internet snoop. He could just ask her the next day, you know, on their date.

God, their date. It was only hours away. Mike's smile was yet again involuntary.

The hours somehow still felt too long.

Mike closed the tab where the search for her had been, and tapped his fingers absentmindedly against the keys. He needed a distraction. He needed something, anything other than her, to focus on.

That was what brought him to his next query.

He popped his fingers, set them back on the keys, and quickly began to type.

Sure, Mrs. Byers had always been a little bit out there with her ideas. She was definitely a character, but over the years he'd grown to trust her. She'd been the only person to believe his account of what had actually happened during his accident. His jarringly unhinged memory of the experience was so far from the realm of normalcy that everyone else had been worried that he'd suffered brain damage. Not Mrs. Byers, though. She had listened with calm acceptance, as though everything he told her made complete sense. She'd even been the one to encourage him to continue searching for answers if it was going to help him move past it. It was a surprise to get such a gift of acceptance from his friend's mom, of all people, but he'd been deeply grateful to her ever since. So when Mrs. Byers spoke, no matter how out there her thoughts were, Mike tended to listen.

Mike clicked search on:

Hawkins National Laboratory

The depth of the first search results were sparse. A few images of the old building appeared, along with a photo of the sign. An old news article in the Hawkins Post announced its closure, dated from about ten years back.

The facts stopped there.

The search results, however, did not. Not by a long shot. Mike rolled his eyes as he looked at the lower results, all from dubiously named websites. Posts entitled "TOP TEN UNDERRATED CONSPIRACY THEORIES", "INDIANA'S SHADY GOVERNMENT SECRET" and "THE SHADOWED CHILDREN" stared back at him.

He'd definitely heard whisperings around town throughout the years. Unsubstantiated accounts of all the weird things that had supposedly gone on there. He skimmed through tales of psychedelic mind experiments, kidnapped kids, and top secret super powered humans. The writers of these articles seemed to believe everything they wrote so deeply, despite the fact that they seemingly had no more to go on than rumor. One article even contained an anonymous interview with a so-called subject who called herself 'Eight'. It covered an array of creepy accounts, 'powers and gifts', and child abuse allegations, and a man she referredto eerily as 'Papa'.

Whatever he'd been hoping to find, it was not this. The physics of the accounts didn't even line up, at least not for what was known about the capabilities of the human body. Everything sounded much less like a government agency and much more like the setting of a superhero comic.

His attention wanted as the accounts became more and more anecdotal in nature, and his eyelids followed. He fell asleep that night with his computer screen still by his side. An old news clipping of a lab scientist and his seeming subjects stared back at him.

A fresh storm began to boom outside of his bedroom windows.

Mike looked at his watch and groaned. 6:40pm. He was running early. Very early. Embarrassingly early. The walk to El's house had taken much less time than he'd planned. He'd clearly been stuck in his own head, completely unaware of the world buzzing around him, and it seemed to have delivered him to her neighborhood much earlier than planned.

Damn his long legs. Now he had three short blocks to walk and twenty minutes to do it.

Stopping on the sidewalk, he looked to his right and made no hesitation before stepping inside the shop next to him.

"We're just closing up, do you need something easy?"

"Uh…"

Mike scanned the walls and counter and cursed himself. This split second decision to walk in suddenly seemed much more involved than he would have imagined. He'd never been in a place like this before, and had no clue how to -

"What's she like?" An older woman behind the counter gave him a kind and knowing smile as she asked.

"Um…" How could one explain El Hopper? "She's uh… really nice."

"Really…nice?" the woman repeated, her eyebrow raising in amusement.

A relenting smile crossed his lips. "She's fierce and kind of intense but she's also very sweet."

The woman nodded at that explanation, put her finger up to signal him to wait, and walked to the end of her display case. She pulled a bunch of vibrantly orange and yellow daisies from a bin and held them up in offering.

"That's perfect," Mike said with relief. The fiery blaze of the orange coloring against the softness of the petals seemed like an almost perfect fit for the girl in question.

The woman nodded and set them down on a stack of butcher paper to wrap them up."She'll love them," she said as wrapped a simple bit of twine around the paper, the bright petals peeking out. She turned and held the fresh bouquet out to him. "And a lucky lady."

"More like lucky me," Mike said quietly as he handed her his debit card. The woman chuckled and rang him up.

It did feel like lucky him. He was taking El on a date. A real date. Not one that involved falling through the air or him making an ass of himself (hopefully). An actual, honest to God, date. He was nervous, but not in the way he was used to. Honestly, he was almost vibrating with how excited he was to see her. Sure, he'd only just seen her the day before, but it was starting to feel like it had still been too long. A full night just him and her. A chance to get to know her better or at least just an excuse to simply look at her for an entire evening. To listen to her talk. To maybe kiss her again… if he was lucky.

For the first time in the whole week it felt like nothing could go wrong.

Mike waved goodbye to the woman in the flower shop, fingers wrapped firmly around the simple bouquet. The bell jingled behind him as the door closed.

He stopped almost instantly upon reaching the sidewalk.

In an instant he knew: he'd calculated his good feelings far too quickly.

Mike looked up to the sky and bit his lip hard as the colors turned dark grey before his eyes. What he'd sworn had been calm weather just a few minutes before now felt like anything but. An almost tangible shift had occurred in the air. The air was still, but it felt heavy, as though it was glass that would break at the slightest touch.

How had he missed this? Had he really been that distracted? Or had the storm rolled in unannounced? A clash of weather fronts, both placid in their own way, too much for each other until they threatened to explode.

Regardless, Mike knew one thing. He needed to move fast, because the sky was about to burst open.

Low thunder chased him as he turned onto her street, and his feet picked up pace in reply. Only two blocks to go! He could make it. No big deal. It would be fine!

Feet fast and sure, he made it the length of two houses, moving almost at a run, when -

CRACK

Mike flinched at the power of the lightning that blazed through the sky directly overhead, and instantly broke out into a run.

But it was no use, for the electricity had seemed to rip the clouds clean open.

"Shit!"

In an instant, rain lashed down upon him in a direct hit, like a bucket pouring straight over his head. Mike gasped as the water doused him head to toe. The butcher paper that wrapped the flowers went soft in his grip as he sprinted through the downpour, disintegrating in his hand where he held on. Foggy lenses hid the world through his glasses as he reached the final road, causing his shoe to smash into a deep puddle at the edge of the curb, leaving it waterlogged in a way that sent chills up his spine. Fresh thunder rolled in, making the rain pour even harder.

Finally, after a minute that felt like a water-drenched eternity, Mike spotted the vague outline of her duplex that he seemed to remember from that night a couple weeks back. Desperate for shelter, he stumbled up her walk and onto her covered front steps.

"Shit!"

Gasping for breath, he wiped the water from his brow and whipped off his glasses to peek down at himself. He felt water dripping through his toes and torrents flowing down his scalp and his back. He felt the tightness of his belt against the wet skin of his abdomen.

Truthfully, not a single inch of him was dry.

On top of that, every single flower in his grasp had lost at least a third of their petals, shriveled and sad, beaten by the storm.

They felt so very much like him.

Okay, he'd been wrong, something could go wrong. Did go wrong. Very wrong.

"Shit."

At a loss, no idea what to do, Mike dropped against the corner of the wall.

DING DONG!

"SHIT!"

Mike jumped off from the wall as the doorbell announced his presence throughout the house inside.

Lightning lashed through her sleep, making her twitch behind the blackness of her eyelids, her body groaning at the tiny assault. She fought it. For, she didn't want to leave. Everything was quiet here. Calm. The hand in hers was comforting and warm, even if for a moment she'd forgotten who or where her dream had taken her. Willing herself just the slightest bit, she regained control of her slumber and slipped back under, the visions of her dream returning before they had fully faded from her grasp. And she was glad, for his lips were back upon hers, his dark hair waving against her forehead, his fingers tightening around her own. The outside world would have heard her contented sigh. This was where she wanted to be, not out there with the storms and the questions. But here, in the soft space inside of her mind where kissing him could be easy.

Yet, another crack, much larger than the first, sounded off… and stole it away.

El's eyes lurched open to the sound of pouring rain. She lifted her head from the cushy arm of her couch, which had served as an accidental pillow that she hadn't meant to use. She wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep or how, but she wasn't surprised. She hadn't slept much the night before, given the storms, so it wasn't an unexpected conclusion.

Her mind was foggy and in disarray, just as it usually was after a mid-day nap. She grumbled to herself as she tried to right her awareness to make sense of the -

DING DONG!

El jumped in surprise, and just like the thunder outside, everything came crashing back.

Thursday.

Heart jolting to a panicked beat, she looked up to the clock on the wall and gasped.

6:50pm.

"No no no no no no no - " she moaned, bounding up from the sofa.

Grabbing at her clothes and hair, she paced, eyes bulging. Of course this was how it would go. Her head was throbbing in exhausted pain, her hair was a ratted mess, her clothes consisted of a wide necked tee that was falling from her shoulder and her favorite most comfy sweats. and Mike Wheeler was at her door, ten minutes early, being assaulted by what sounded like yet another terrible thunderstorm.

She wasn't ready.

She hadn't showered! She hadn't dressed! She hadn't even figured out how to get her story straight!

El strangled back a frustrated scream.

It hadn't just been the storms that had kept her awake throughout the night. Mike had also had a surprisingly strong effect on her lack of sleep. No matter how much she'd tried to dismiss it, his appearance inside of the cafe next to her dad's station had been an almost visceral shock to her system. An odd coincidence, to say the least. And highly inconvenient.

He was going to walk through that door looking absolutely wonderful with a head full of questions. She was going to need to match him with the utmost restraint and answers. And she was going to have to do this in her PJs…

A fresh lash of lightning bolted through the air, combined with a barked "shit!" from beyond her front door.

El took a deep breath, not ready at all, and accepted her fate. She helplessly tugged her t-shirt neck up onto her shoulder and ran to the door, flinging it open.

"Mike?!"

Well, she was already wrong about one thing. Mike was in fact not looking absolutely wonderful. To the contrary, he looked like he'd been drowned. His dark hair fell in haphazard matted curls against his forehead, his clothing three shades darker than they were meant to be on account of the water they held. His eyes were wide, nervous, and locked on her.

It was on instinct that she reached forward and tugged him inside. The gusts of wind came on harsh from the world outside as she quickly slammed the door. Mike stumbled past her into her small entryway, his breath heavy and full of apologies.

Leaning against the door, she looked up to him.

Mike looked… embarrassed. His cheeks were radiating so much pink heat that they could dry his hair. A puddle was quickly forming on the tiles at his feet.

"Flowers," he said weakly, avoiding her eyes as he offered a sad wet bouquet with slumped shoulders.

El bit her lip, the corners of her smile turning up. In his hand was an understated bouquet of daisies, beat up by the storm but only by a bit. Flecks of the wet butcher paper stuck to her hand as she accepted them.

"Thank you," she said, her eyes turning back up to him. He seemed to chance a glance at her.

Fresh thunder cracked outside, making them both jump.

"I'll uh… stay here! I'll get you - um - " El didn't finish her sentence before she darted from the entryway toward the bathroom. She quickly grabbed two fresh towels and rushed back, depositing the flowers on the kitchen table as she passed. "I don't know how much these will help, but it's a start?" She offered feebly as she rounded the corner and held out the towels.

Mike took them and muttered a thank you before he began the helpless task of drying himself off. His clothes seemed stuck to his skin, each piece dripping to the point where it needed to be wrung out in order to even begin to dry. She watched him attempt to adjust his shirt, the fabric bunching against his skin like it was glued. Finally, he seemed to give up on the clothes, instead opting to dry his face and hair. He ran the towel over his head vigorously, his hair pitch black against the light blue of the terry cloth.

It was then that she remembered where her mind had just been under the guise of sleep. She felt a blush rise to her cheeks in reply. She had more important things to worry about, but the sensations washed over her all the same and she felt an ache to return there, to his hand in her hair and his lips on hers...

Mike ran the towel across his face, his pale skin shining with dampness, his lips moving with his breath… Finally, he looked up as he dried his neck. He smiled apologetically. "I'm so sorry. This was uh… This was not how I meant to show up at your door."

She smiled back, then. For honestly, it was hard not to. Even in this moment, dripping on her floor at her doorway, he seemed so wonderfully charming. Somehow, the lightning booming outside bothered her just a bit less as she looked at him.

"Wait here, I'll be right back." El darted off once more. She shook her head to return herself fully to reality as she made her way into her bedroom and pulled open the lowest drawer. She rummaged through for anything that might potentially fit someone almost a foot taller than her. She did her best, coming back with a pair of sweats and a random oversized tee.

"Maybe you can put your clothes in my dryer for a bit?" she offered tentatively, "The sweatpants might be too short, but the shirt should fit you."

"Yeah, thanks," he agreed hurriedly, scooping the clothing from her hands and carefully kicking off his shoes on her front mat. He turned, looking at her expectantly. Suddenly, his brow furrowed and his eyes widened. "Did I… Do I have the day wrong?!" He yelped, looking her up and down with a spiraling panicked gaze. "Did I just barge in on you unexpected?! El, I am SO sorry I - "

"No!" she replied, waving her hands to quell his worry, her cheeks going red. Her arms crossed over herself on instinct, "I uh… It's the right night. I just uh…" she cringed. "I fell asleep."

"Oh," was all he said. His expression fell to something of disappointment.

El gulped, "Not because I didn't want to go! I do! I really do! I just… I didn't sleep last night and I passed out on accident - I haven't been sleeping well. I'm sorry I…" she looked down at her disheveled excuse of an outfit and shrugged helplessly.

BANG!

El winced and jumped at the booming thunder clap as Mike cursed in surprise. Fumbling, she pointed deeper into the house. "Do you want to use the bathroom? To change?"

"Oh! Oh, yeah, thanks."

Shuffling back, she gestured for him to follow.

The second he shut the bathroom door, she dashed into her room.

With a surge of shame, she grabbed her hairbrush and yanked it roughly through her hair, attempting to tame something that did not like to be controlled. After a few frustrating seconds she gave up, pulling it carefully into the cleanest ponytail she could manage. Finally, she tugged open her pants drawer and rifled through, grabbing the first pair she liked and kicking off her sweats as quickly as she could, practically jumping into her jeans.

She could only imagine what she looked like to him, ready for bed when he'd obviously put time into getting ready to see her, only to be hit with the worst of luck. She willed her headache to subside and took a look in the mirror once again, accepting this was the best she could do in two minutes.

Because Mike was in her house, putting on her clothes on the other side of the door. Their plans now tossed asunder with the storm.

What the hell was she going to do with him until the weather subsided?

"Please don't make fun of me."

El hurried to the bedroom doorway as Mike stepped out of the bathroom. His wet clothes were bundled in his hands. The shirt she'd loaned him was oversized on his trim frame. Her sweatpants hardly hit his shins. He looked at her sheepishly.

He looked… ridiculous.

Absolutely adorably ridiculous.

El couldn't help but smile. She bit back a laugh and shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry, that's all I have. I mean, it's okay. I don't look much better," she said, guestering to herself as she stepped close to him and reached for the wet clothes in his hands to put them in the dryer.

"Nonsense," Mike said, "You look gorgeous in anything."

El stopped midstep right in front of him. Her lips twitched up in surprise. "Thank you."

He looked almost surprised himself that he'd said it. The way he was looking at her was hard to ascertain, with his dark hair still wet and plastered to his temples, his skin still glistening with the slightest hint of dampness, his soft freckles apparent in this light, scattered like rain itself across his nose, he was staring down at her in the privacy of her own home, the door closed against the world, the rain hitting the windows like they were trapped alone in a bubble.

Maybe the storm wasn't so bad, after all...

El's heartbeat began to rise.

"So, Hawkins PD huh?" he asked quietly, knocking her ever so slightly out of her reverie as he pointed to the shirt she gave him. She stared at him blankly for a moment before it all clicked. She cursed herself as she realized. Of all the things she had to give him to wear she had to give him something that pointed straight to the exact conversation she wanted to avoid.

There was no way she was ready to talk about Hawkins right now. Absolutely not. No way.

So, instead of answering his question, with a rush of adrenaline, her lips found something else to do.

She must've still been a bit addled from her dream because she closed the gap between them and reached up to catch his lips. He moaned in surprise. His hands went slack on the wet clothes he was holding. They fell cold upon their feet. Yet, he kicked them away almost immediately, his hands finding her forearm as her fingers brushed the wet hair at the nape of his neck.

Kissing him was not like the dream. Her brain scrambled and her nerves spiked like fire, yet before she knew it, her feet had begun to take steps backward, and her hands had willed him to follow. She didn't feel completely sure how they ended up in her room, knees against the bed until they both fell, his arm wrapped around her waist to cradle her fall, but only part of her was complaining.

The other part of her didn't want to stop.

Falling into her pillow, she pulled herself deeper into him. He followed in kind, an eager tension in his arms bringing her tight against his body. His breath was just as warm against her lips as his hair was cold between her fingers.

Storms raged inside and out.

As she lost herself in his kiss, she willed herself to believe that it could be like the dream. That this was normal. That she didn't need to think. She willed herself to believe that she could just enjoy the glorious feeling of Mike's lips on hers, his fingers splayed against the skin on the small of her back where her shirt had ridden up somewhere along the way. But she could feel the challenge rising in her body, pushing against her skin with a dangerous pulse as Mike's lips left hers and began to crawl down her neck. Her eyes crossed and she tried to control it, yet the buzzing was growing less controllable within her, the -

CRACK!

El screamed and pulled back from Mike as a blinding strike of lightning lit up the room. She grasped at her heart, her breath coming in gusts, as she worked to calm herself down.

It hadn't been her… but it almost had been.

That was when she truly, finally, felt awake. Blinding emotion shocked through her, her breath going short and her arms pulling her legs into her chest in an instinctive crouch. Overriding her thoughts was a simple yet jarring smear of shame. It pressed against her heart and made her second guess every move she'd made in the last three weeks.

"El?"

She registered his voice only at his third repetition of her name. She didn't look up. She couldn't.

"I'm sorry," she breathed.

"No, it's okay," he shifted closer to her. "Are you okay?"

What could she say? That she was a danger? A broken uncontrollable beast? That he should get away from her as quickly as humanly possible if he valued his safety? That everything with her was awkward and embarrassing and dangerous? That she was incapable of moderating this thing within her body, and much too reckless with it whenever she got close to him?

"What is it?" His voice was softer this time. Careful. His hand fell upon her shin, his touch soft, calm, more comforting than she'd been ready for.

Tears pricked her eyes and her throat grew thick as she worked to find the words.

"El..." he whispered once more.

She sighed and finally looked up at him. There was no annoyance in his eyes, their dark depths caught by the dim light of her lamp on the other side of the room. He looked nothing but worried.

God, this was not how she had wanted to do this. Tucked into herself with fear on her own bed fifteen minutes after he arrived. She could hardly even track how they got here, the situation so ill-advised.

Fresh fear sprang from her as she worked to find her voice. Fears what he would say, of the frustration she was about to have to deal with, of the fact that he could so very likely say no and disappear in a heartbeat.

She swallowed.

"Mike?" Her lips shook against words. "I really like you."

He looked at her curiously. His voice was reassuring as he said, "I really like you too."

"I-"

Her voice caught. For, something in the way he was looking at her, warm, worried and patient, struck her in the chest. It caused a pleading rush to surge through her. With it a whole lifetime of words shot to her throat, begging for a voice. Every truth never uttered. Everything she held safe. Every piece of her she had to hide.

For a snapshot of a second she felt like she could tell him everything.

But of course… she couldn't.

El swallowed it down, the surge dying upon her lips with a stab of agony.

The rehearsed words took their place, instead.

"I just, um, maybe this is moving too fast," she pushed the next words out, "Can we… can we take this slower?"

"Oh yeah!" His hand lifted from her leg instantly as his eyes went wide, "Oh my God, did I - did I do something wrong, or -"

"No," she said, grabbing his wrist to stop him. "You didn't do anything. It's uh… me," she cringed. "I was the one who dragged you in here and now I'm asking you to stop. I'm sorry."

"No, hey no. Don't apologize. It's okay," he said, his voice so very earnest. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just –" she huffed out a heavy breath. "I'm not very experienced in this?"

She peeked her eye at him as she said it. It was the biggest truth she could give. For, she truly wasn't experienced in this. Never before had she felt like this when someone touched her, looked at her, said a single word her way.

She'd never felt like this in her entire life.

His brow seemed to relax at her words, a hint of surprise tracing his expression. "Oh," he said simply. His lips turned up in the slightest trace of a smile. "That's okay," he said with a shrug. "I can't say I'm the most experienced in any of this either."

"Oh," she heard herself say, something within her calming the slightest amount for the first time.

He seemed to let his lips go then, turning up into a real smile. "El… I -"

A fresh boom and crash of lightning lit up the entire room. El yelped, flinching toward him, her hand clamping down on his wrist as the electricity tingled through her.

"Wait, are you - are you afraid of the storm?" he asked softly.

El sighed. "Yes, I hate them. They make me feel sick."

"Really? What kind of sick?"

"Headaches."

"Do you have a headache now?"

She nodded. "Bad one."

Mike made to move then, almost in an instant. "Do you need medicine? I can go get - "

"No," she grabbed onto his arm again to stop him, "doesn't help. I just have to wait for the…" she pointed to the sky, "for this to pass."

"Oh," Mike replied tentatively.

She let go of his arm, her self consciousness growing once again. Mike was quiet for a moment. The rain pelting the window was the only sound in the room.

"Hey El?" he finally said, "Can I try something?"

She looked up, "What?"

"Just... trust me." He then began adjusting himself to the top of the bed. His hand came gently to her shoulder as he tilted her ever so slightly. "Here, turn this way."

"Okay?"

She did as he told her, shifting her body away from him as he moved to sit behind her.

"Now, just relax and tell me if it's too much."

"Okay? I – ohhh…"

El fell silent as Mike hands dropped against her neck. Her eyes slipped shut at his touch and, in an instant, a kaleidoscope of colors appeared behind her eyelids. His fingers kneaded into her neck at the base of her skull with a precision like she'd never felt.

Through his touch, everything began to slip away. Slowly, she forgot about her headache and the storm outside. She forgot her nerves and her worries. She forgot about the sheer awkwardness of the last twenty minutes. She forgot the fire in her veins…

All she could feel was Mike's hands moving with surprising awareness from spot to spot, his fingers and thumbs running pressured circles into her skin and the muscles below, sending shivers up and down her entire body.

"You're… wow, you're really good at this," she breathed, her voice low as her shoulders dropped another notch.

"This is good?" he asked softly.

"Yes. How do you know…" she let out a sigh, "y-you're just… really good at this."

His hands walked down to her shoulders, his thumbs notching under the wide neck of her shirt to trace her shoulder blades directly on her skin. "My sister Holly used to get really bad migraines," he said as he worked. "She got a concussion a few years back so I would do this to help her out. So much of headaches and migraines can be helped with blood flow, and massage is a really good way to do that."

El found herself smiling. "You sound like a good brother."

"Yeah, well the concussion was kind of my fault so don't praise me too much. I owed it to her."

"Oh… I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. She's okay now. She just wasn't wearing her seatbelt when I got in a wreck. She smacked her head and broke her wrist."

"Oh, wow," El said, turning over her shoulder in surprise. "Were you okay?"

Mike was quiet for a moment. His eyes seemed glued intently to where he continued to work on her neck. "I uh… yeah. I wasn't hurt, not exactly..."

Something in the way he said it fell oddly, and El got a strong sensation to not push the topic. "I'm glad you weren't hurt," she said as she turned back around.

Mike was quiet for a moment, his hands a little stiffer than before. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"So um… Can I ask how you're from Hawkins? It's just… it's not a big town and I figure you and I are about the same age, right?"

El scrunched her face at his question, but something in her was a little more ready to tackle it than before. "Yeah, were both 25," she said elusively.

"How do you know how old I am?" Mike asked in surprise.

El snickered, "I met you on your birthday, remember?"

"Oh right! Okay then that makes even less sense. How come none of us remember you? Did you grow up in Hawkins?"

El's throat tightened. "I uh… never went to school in Hawkins."

"But you grew up there?" he persisted, "I remember you said you were homeschooled, right?"

El bit back the curse that materialized on her lips. She remembered telling him that now, but it had completely slipped her mind. Yet, as she tried to will herself to spin a lie, her mind wouldn't exactly let her. Lying to Mike felt… wrong. So instead, she danced around it.

"Uh… I guess I grew up near Hawkins. Not in. But yeah, homeschooled."

"Like in the country?" Mike asked. His hands moved to the edges of her shoulders and, with relief, her body released another massive store of tension.

"Yeah, in the country. You could say that," she said vaguely.

"But didn't you say you went to normal school for a bit at least?"

El mouthed 'fuck…' at his question. Had she told him everything about her?!

"Um... yeah. I moved in with my Dad when I was around twelve and he eventually thought that I should go to Gas City for school. Smaller than Hawkins. Maybe easier to settle in. But -"

"But it's Gas City," Mike replied with an air of disgust.

El laughed. "Exactly. It's Gas City. That did not go well."

"Well, I wish you'd given Hawkins a try," Mike said casually, seeming to buy her story. "We could've been friends."

El smiled, something glowing in her at the thought. "Maybe we were in some alternate universe."

Mike laughed. "See! I told you there was a universe where I've known you since we were twelve. I knew it. Man, I'm missing out in this timeline."

El's smile felt warm in a way that made her grateful that he couldn't see her. In her wildest dreams she wouldn't have expected this conversation to go so easily. Yet, here they were chatting about their childhoods sitting on her bed while he rubbed her shoulders. It all seemed too easy, too good to be true. Before she knew it, he was telling little stories about his childhood in Hawkins with his friends. Their adventures. Their lack of social status. And suddenly, a topic that felt so nerve wracking began to feel easy, normal.

"What about you? What kind of friends did you have growing up?"

The question made El uncomfortable, but not in a way that made her unwilling to share. "Um… there weren't really any other kids around so most of the people I dealt with were adults. I um… had to keep to myself a lot."

Mike paused then, a hesitancy in his hands and in his voice. Something sad traced through his words. "Right, I forgot. You uh… told me that. So when you moved in with your Dad, that was better?"

El nodded, "So much better," she said. Something in her voice felt heavy. Unmasked. Mike's hands stilled upon her shoulders.

Another clap of thunder crashed through the air. El stiffened in Mike's hands, but before she knew it he was tracing softly down her shoulders, grounding her and stemming off the tension that attempted to collect in her muscles.

"I'm sorry about this," El said quietly. "I really don't handle storms well."

"No, it's okay," Mike replied kindly. "I'm just surprised that there's something that scares you. You don't seem like you'd be afraid of anything."

"Oh," El replied with a dark laugh, "That's not true at all."

"No?"

El shook her head. "I'm afraid of some things so much that I refuse to talk about them."

The words hit the air hard, and she felt Mike's hands slow once again against her shoulders. She swallowed as a trace of nervousness fluttered up inside of her, shadows of those very fears itching at the edges like they did whenever they were brought up in thought. Of the moment… The call... Of how everything, in a single instant, could be taken away…

Mike repositioned himself. His arm came around the front of her shoulders.

"You have a knot right here," he said, lightly pushing his fingers into a sore spot near her shoulder blade. His hand around her cupped her arm in a full embrace and tentatively, he steadied her to his chest. "Is this okay?"

The sensation of his arm wrapped around her teased her to relax into him.

"Yes," she said.

"Tell me if this hurts too much," he said before he pressed harder at the base of her neck where she'd been tensing her shoulder. El's whole body went slack against him as an involuntary moan escaped her lips. He held her to him yet more firmly in reply. A warm comfort washed over in that moment in her in the dim room, dizzying and serene. She found herself laying her head against his arm as he worked, the loveliness of his attention feeling thoughtful, calming, safe.

"El?"

"Yeah?"

His voice was low, hesitant, and right next to her ear. His hand continued to move against the pain point, a little more softly now.

"I uh… I just want you to know that we can move as slow as you want," he said after a moment, his voice soft and measured. "I'm fine with anything, really. Whatever you want. I just…" he paused and exhaled hard. El's heart tightened in reply. "I hope I didn't give the wrong impression."

"You didn't at all," El replied, something deep stirring in her at his words. She reached up and touched his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't handle it well. I'm sorry. I feel like I made a mess of our date."

Mike laughed then, his ribcage shaking against her shoulder in a way that made her smile, "Please, I've always wanted to wear a girl's clothes while stuck in her house during a torrential downpour. Dream come true. This is perfect."

El bit her lip in a vain attempt to stop her giggle. She shifted around to find him looking down on her in the dim lit room. His eyes fell on hers tentatively, but when they did they didn't look away.

She was struck in that moment by how easy it all was. Despite awkwardness, missteps, pumped brakes and so much confusion, he was still here, holding her gently, showing her care, respecting her wishes…

"You're very sweet," she found herself saying quietly.

Mike shrugged, "Easy to be with you, you're wonderful." And with that, Mike learned in close. He hovered for just the slightest second before dropping a soft kiss to her temple.

El's eyes slid shut and she shivered. Something big released within her with a simple breath.

For weeks she'd been on edge, hyper aware of every move Mike made in her direction, aware of the intensity within her when he neared, aware of every spark and surge that hiccupped her power like a loose wire.

But here, in the confines of her own personal space, leaned into him as he took care of her, it felt as though that tension had bled out from her straight out of her into his hands. In its place she felt a softness blooming, a simple surrender to the true feeling that had been rising in her since they'd met. And within that surrender, a sensation of warmth filled her. Yet, it was nothing like the lightning strike she was used to. Instead, it felt like a soft glow. All encompassing. Easy to hold. Heavy and light all at the same time.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked when he pulled away from kissing her face.

"Yes," she said with surprise, her eyes wide upon his, her answer meaning so much more than just a headache.

A hopeful question filtered through her then, and she slowly, sought its answer. Her heart pattered with a softly yearning rhythm as she curiously, so curiously, leaned further back into him and, with a soft breath of hesitancy, kissed him.

Warmth filled her body in a heady rush, but the safety she was beginning to feel within Mike's embrace held back it's dangerous heights with a stunning ease.

Mike kissed her back so very slowly, allowing her to lead, and with time, El did so. Pulling herself around, her hands found his face. His arms encircled her as he leaned back into the headboard, taking her with him.

She relaxed into him with an astounding relief.

A quiet smile pulled to her lips as far off thunder rumbled in the distance.

"I'm really enjoying this date…" Mike whispered against her, his lips brushing hers with a smile before he kissed her again.

El nodded, feeling more free than she could remember. "Me too."

If you had told Mike that this was how his night would turn out while he was dashing soaked through a rainstorm, he wouldn't have believed you. Yet, he was here, all the same. Curled up with this beautiful girl as rain softly pattered the windows. A movie on a laptop and heads on pillows. His hand tentatively reaching for hers, and hers reaching back. Her toes digging into his shins as the night went on, her body breathing in a slow steady pace within his increasingly full embrace.

Dinner had consisted of take out, delivered by a man who was actually dressed for the rain and was given a large tip, and continued to a movie in bed. Sure, maybe it was all a little unorthodox for a first date, but Mike wasn't sure how he got so lucky. After such a horrendous beginning, it ended up being one of the nicest and most calming nights he'd had in months. It was simple, and almost eerily natural, to hold her like this while laying around in PJs.

Something about her felt different that night. It was as though her veneer had pulled away, revealing in full a woman he'd only gotten glimpses of before. Vulnerable and impulsive, with weaknesses and self doubt. Real. Yet, far from turn him away, it drew him to her all the more. He understood somehow, and after all she's done for him it felt like a gift to be able to give a little something back, even if it was as small as a back rub to alleviate a headache.

He found himself eternally curious about how this girl could find herself inexperienced at all of this at 25 years old, given that she was, well, absolutely gorgeous and amazing, but he didn't ask. Maybe if he was lucky it would be something that came up with time. And maybe it was a result of her childhood, her elusive stories and details leading him to have a dark pit of worry in his stomach that something truly wrong had occurred to her when she was young. Which, if it had, well… it sent a shiver of anger down his spine. How anyone could do anything bad to this person was simply beyond him.

Mike might have missed the end of the movie, his mind wandering and his attention attuned to the feeling of having her pulled against him. Yet, when the screen went still it caught his attention.

El didn't react, her breath slow and steady.

"Hey El, movie's over," he said softly into her ear.

"Mmhmm" she hummed. She shifted on the pillow and rolled slightly onto her back, bringing her face into view. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted ever so slightly. Her face relaxed and serene. She had fallen asleep.

"El," Mike said hesitantly, "Wake up, I should go."

"mmmno," she breathed, her nose wrinkling in the most adorable way. She shifted ariund and buried her face into his chest. "Stay."

Mike's heart skipped at her sleep-laden murmur.

"You want me to… stay the night?" He asked in surprise.

El nodded against him, her arm coming up to wrap around his chest.

There wasn't a fiber in his body that was willing to fight against her request. He reached over her with his free arm and closed her laptop that sat on the nightstand.

Her breath moved softly against him, her chest rising and falling into his. Her hair, trying to escape her ponytail, fell upon her cheek. With a featherlight touch, he brushed it away. It was lost on him how he had gotten so lucky to be here, but he was not going to take it for granted.

The idea of moving at all seemed like a fool's errand, so he stayed put. The dim light from the desk on the other side of the room would have to stay on. As would the lights that were spilling through the doorway from all over the house.

He tried not to notice and instead pulled his focus to El. He dropped his head beside hers, happily inhaling her scent as he shut his eyes in an attempt to follow her to sleep.

Sleep never came that easy, though.

No matter how hard he tried, the lights felt like they were beaming through his eyelids. He probably laid there for twenty minutes, long after El had fallen fully asleep, trying to will his awareness of them away. But it was no use.

Finally, he made to move to turn them off, but El's arm tightened around him.

"I have to get the lights." he said quietly, but she persisted. It was odd. Her jaw was slack and her eyes were closed, but her grip upon his was firm, as though she possessed more power than made sense.

"…lights…" she murmured on a soft breath, almost incoherent.

And then, in one of the oddest things he'd ever seen in his life, her whole body twitched… and the room went to black.

Mike flinched in the fresh darkness, the lights in the entire house now out in the blink of an eye. No light was flooding through the door. No light was filling the room.

Yet, it couldn't have been a power surge… for the digital clock beside the bed still perfectly read the time.

Oops...

Thanks so much for taking a read. Just a few chapters left, and they're already hard at work. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! Check my profile where you'll find TONS more Mileven, and find me on tumblr at el-borealis or instagram at el_borealis to connect!