"Michael."
"Why is he here?" The words slip out before he can stop them, and Mike only half regrets letting them fall.
The look on his dad's face is anything but happy. Ted Wheeler's usual blank expression is nowhere in sight, instead replaced by something akin to displeasure — or, well, at least not total indifference.
Folding his arms over his chest, Mike nudges up sleeves of his hoodie with the balls of his hands. His eyes don't lift off of his father's however, and it's only when his mom starts talking that he breaks his stare.
"Michael!"
"What?" Mike snaps, turning to face his mom with a frown. His brows furrow, wrinkle, and a corner of his mouth turns up, "I'm just curious." He raises and lowers one shoulder, "He didn't even come home for Holly's talent show last week."
"Your father and I need to talk to you."
"Please don't tell me you're getting back together." Mike says, honest as he can be, and his eyes widen almost in plea, "That divorce was the best birthday present you ever gave me."
"It's not about us, Michael." Karen simply tells him, and she shoots her estranged husband a look that Mike can't read. "I think we all need to sit down and have a frank discussion about recent-"
Mike cuts her off then, shoulders suddenly stiff by the implication, "About what?"
(Stay cool. Stay calm. Calm down, Mike! It's totally Will's voice in his head.)
"About you, son." Ted says, taking a step toward Mike with his hands in his back pockets. His eyebrows raise, and Mike notices then just how lost he looks. So, obviously, he doesn't know.
But his mom totally knows, and Mike isn't surprised in the slightest. It's actually pretty amazing that they made it more than a week without the ever-watchful, ever-eavesdropping Mindful Moms sussing them out. Mike just doesn't know how long she's known, and it's that part that actually kind of scares him. What, has she just been silently monitoring him?
"Your mother says you have something important to tell me."
(Crap. Crap. Crap. Abort. Run, Mike. Dustin's voice now.)
"It's not," Mike starts, pausing to hold back a cackle. It's not so much a laugh as it is an awkward shriek, a breath. He just crinkles his nose, head shaking with a shrug, "It's not important anymore."
"Anymore?" Karen quirks a brow, and suddenly she's close enough to rest a hand on her son's shoulder. It's not comforting, and it's not reassuring. "Mike." She has that condescending tone to her voice now, and it does everything but appease him.
Karen Wheeler can be a total nightmare when she wants to be. She gets people banned from book club for not finishing their readings on time. She had the librarian fired for not filing something correctly one time. She sued a small business — and won — when she found a single peanut in her granola mix. (No one knows how it got there, but Karen Wheeler couldn't have given less of a shit.)
"Look, you clearly already know what happened so why don't you just tell him and save me the struggle?" The young man grits his teeth, and he forces down a deep breath, a gulp, "Please."
"So it's true?" His mom eyes him carefully, almost like she's studying him (again, because that's all she seems to do lately.)
"You know it's true. That's why you're cornering me."
Mike can tell she's on the brink of just calling up Joyce Byers and throttling her for 'letting this happen'... as though she isn't just as much to blame. If Joyce is to cop some of the fall for this, then so should she.
(It's like Joyce gave El a bunch of condoms and told her to go wild or anything.)
"That girl-"
Ted interrupts her, as clueless as ever, and Mike is reminded of a time when his dad still lived at home and still didn't know what was happening with anyone, ever, "What girl?"
"El."
Karen scoffs, "Jane." She shoots Ted a glance, batting her lashes as though her feminine wiles are going to get through to his last few brain cells. If that were the case, they never would've imploded and Mike wouldn't be at least partially emotionally stunted. "The police chief's daughter."
"Jim Hopper's girl." Ted voices, and Mike can tell he meant it as a question. Why should he remember the chief had a daughter at all? Why would he remember the name of one of his son's oldest, better friends? "Pretty girl?"
Karen waves a hand about before placing it on her hip, all manicured fingernails and now meaningless gold bands, "Strange girl." She says, with a flick of her hair, "Pretty strange."
"Pretty and strange." Mike mumbles, and he shuffles a few feet backward until the backs of his shoes meet the lower steps. Plopping himself down on the bottom one, he rests his elbows on his knees, carving bone into muscle, and he drops his face into his hands.
"What about this girl?" Ted's hands slip from his pockets, and just when Mike thinks he's going to cross them — all fatherly and patriarchally and authoritatively — he clasps them behind his back and bounces on his shiny, glossy, scratched-bottom work shoes. Mike can't help but smile, ducking his head with a disbelieving shake.
"Ask your son."
"Why?"
"Because it's his fault, Ted!"
Slipping his fingers past his hairline, Mike pulls on the strands, scrunching them in his fist in irritation. "Fault?" he whispers, mostly to himself, but he can feel the burn of his mother's stare above him, practically burning holes into his scalp.
"My God," Ted starts, and Mike has to look up to see his mouth move, to make sure his dad's actually saying the words Mike thinks he's hearing, "is she pregnant?"
(Ding, ding ding! We have a winner, Wheeler! That's totally Max.)
There's an awkward silence then, and Mike decides that now is probably the right time to start talking. His mom's not going to, and his dad is just looking for answers.
"Yeah." He finally says, words filling an uncomfortable pause. His elbows slide from the curve of his knees almost accidentally, and Mike rubs a hand over his jaw from the ache. "She's pregnant."
"And it's yours?"
Karen shoots the man a look, and it screams bloody murder, "Obviously it's his, Ted!" She exclaims, "Why else would you need to know?"
"I don't-" Ted holds his hands up defensively, and Mike actually, full-on has to laugh now.
As expected, it doesn't go down well. His dad just looks confused, his mom sends him her signature daggers — that are more like claws — and Mike is totally done.
"Michael."
"No." Mike shakes his head, resigned, and suddenly he's pushing up to stand. He matches his father in height, a hand wrapped around the banister as he digs into his left pocket for his car keys. "No, you know, this is just great. Let's just tell dad to come home after like, what, a fucking year so we can disappoint him?" The boy swallows, Adam's apple bobbing in silence, "Because you are."
"I'm what?"
"Disappointed." Mike explains, and he slides his middle finger through a keyring, "You can just say it. You can say you're disappointed that I gave up on my future and got a girl pregnant. But, you know, it doesn't even matter anymore." He stresses the word, eyes his mother.
"Has she-"
"No." He blinks, "She's giving it up. There's a couple. They're pretty dope, apparently, so you can, you know, calm down."
"Mike."
"So like, I'm not having a kid, and you're not going to be grandparents, and I'll probably still go to college child-free. And, okay, I messed up, and it's probably my fault because I didn't check the condom and she was just there, and I'm like, in love with her and she-"
"You're in love with this girl?" It's his dad's voice that breaks him off mid-thought, mid-sentence, and that has Mike stunned into silence. It's not his mom trying to dissuade him, or tell him that 'surely you're wrong'. No.
No, it's Ted who's surprised by his son's outburst of an admission. It's Ted who sounds almost in awe.
(You really walked right into that one, man. Definitely Lucas' voice.)
With a sigh — half in relief that he's finally spoken the words into existence, and half in annoyance at himself for having made the feeling real — Mike grinds his teeth together as his lips part, all dry and speechless. He runs his tongue along the surface, wincing at the bitter taste of his own flesh. Mike gulps, voices, "Sadly."
"Karen," the deadbeat patriarch of the Wheeler family turns to wards his wife then, and he seems to ruminate over his words for just a second before saying "It's not like she's a bimbo."
"Ted!" Karen squawks, and she's rambling, ranting on about respect and responsibilities, and how it changes nothing that Mike thinks he's in love with 'the girl' and how they're 'being stupid for thinking they can do this'.
Seeing an opportunity, and one hundred percent through with listening to the disharmony that is his mom's disapproval and his dad's ignorance, Mike tightens his grip on the set of keys in his palm. He sneaks around his mother until he's closer to the front door, the sound of the rain outside tapping against the doorstep. And he's just a couple of feet away from opening it when he utters, "Be home later."
(And then he hears El.)
(And he smiles.)
"Mrs Byers," Mike thinks they're past the point of a warm hug. She's known him since he was a toddler and yet there's something strangely unfamiliar, almost cold, about the way she greets him.
Joyce has a grasp on the front door, and she rubs the ball of her hand against the splintered wood. Looking back over her shoulder, she tilts her head, seemingly eyeing someone or something in the background.
"Are you here to see El?"
Mike nods, slow as his eyebrows rise, "Is she here?"
"She's out."
"By herself?"
"Yeah."
"Is that," he stops, thinks to add, "is that recommended?"
"She's up the duff, Mike. She's not viral. I doubt anybody's gonna catch immodesty."
"She's not immodest."
Joyce presses one elbow into the wood, rolling up the sleeve of her crooked arm with her other hand. "Well, she's not modest."
"It was one time."
"That's all it takes."
For some reason, Will's mom is being kind of hostile and Mike is at a loss as to why. She'd let him in last time he came over looking for El, so why is she being so frosty now?
"Do you know where she went?" Mike asks, and he tosses a hand through his hair, black and unruly.
Joyce frowns, and her frowns aren't as deep as Mike expects them to be given the situation she's been put in. "She's out back, I just told you."
"Oh." With a slump of his shoulders, "so I can..." he trails off, and he wags a finger towards the house as some sort of question.
The woman mutters somehow below her breath he doesn't quite catch, but she shuffles away from the door — in her slippers, Mike notes — and she pulls a cigarette from the pocket of her cardigan.
"Should you be-"
"I'm not the one knocking girls up with my foetus penis, am I?" Joyce slips the cigarette passed her lips then, and she plucks a lighter up from the table beside the door just as Mike slips through. "Watch your mouth, baby daddy."
Shit-stunned into silence, Mike just follows her through the Byers-Hopper household, hands in his pockets as he walks over cables and around chairs full of laundry.
"Jim will be home soon." Joyce tells him after a moment, pushing the backdoor open a tad. She ushers him outside, a teasing grin on his face now. "If I were you, I'd either hide in a bush or be gone by then."
"In a bush?"
"Not my step-daughter's. Please."
"Are fort fetishes a side effect of pregnancy or something?"
"Huh?" Looking up, El squints. She takes in the boy's face with a slight smile, and then she shrugs, "Oh. I don't know, maybe. I haven't gotten my handbook in the mail yet."
"So you haven't been to the library yet?"
(It's been a week, Mike.)
"I haven't really had a chance. You know, between school and vitamin popping and all that." El explains, and she brings straightens her out in front of her, admiring the sheet pulled tight above her. It's basically a pretty neat hammock hanging from the rope of two swings, and she's lying beneath it on soggy, damp grass.
(Petrichor. The smell of earth after its rained. Her favorite thing on earth, he knows.)
"Do you know what 'fort' means in French?"
"You mean aside from also meaning 'fort'?" Mike smirks, nudging her shoulder ever so softly as he plops down beside her. The girl's eyes dart toward him but she doesn't turn, doesn't move an inch. "Strong."
"Exactly." She clicks her tongue, the wide space between her eyebrows wrinkling as she gets lost in thought, "Maybe I use them for strength."
"Not to burst your bubble but I'm pretty sure that isn't how blanket forts got their name."
"I knew it was too deep to be true." She whispers, sounding annoyed. But Mike's smarter than that.
And then suddenly he says, "You look pregnanter."
She stills beside him, the hand she'd been absentmindedly raising in the air halted midway, "Are you saying I look fat?"
"No, I'm saying you look... I don't know, however people say pregnant women look."
"Like they're glowing." The brunette tells him, and she hiccups down a gasp, "Well, shitballs then. If I'm glowing that must mean that I'm like, really, freaking obviously pregnant. Actually, you know, maybe Steve will give me food next time I go to the Fair Mart."
"Steve gives free food to Dustin." Mike informs her, "You should just take it. He wouldn't sell you out."
"Steve." She rolls her eyes, "He was the first one to know."
"Really?"
El nods, and she snuggles closer so her head's resting against Mike's shoulder. He smells of pine and pool chlorine, and she totally loves it. El smirks, "I did the test in the little toilet at the Mart and I think maybe he clocked it when I peed on like a gazillion pee sticks."
"Oh."
"Steve would say I'm glowing."
"Steve creeps on high school girls and he's like twenty-three."
"Still." She turns on her side, facing him with closed eyes. "He'd say I was glowing."
"Glowing." Mike repeats the word, trying it out on his tongue. Then his heart beat slows when she flutters her lashes, looking at him with a small smile, kind of shy and almost sly.
"That's such a strange word to use."
"Glowing?"
"It's weird. Like, just say nice or something."
"Pretty?" Mike offers, and he takes a deep breath, shudders when she places her hand flat on his chest, right over his slowing, mellowed heartbeat.
"Are you still gonna think I'm pretty when I'm like, huge and everything?" El grins, cheeks puffing out as she sucks in a breath. "Even when I've got swollen ankles and back pain." Her eyes blow wide as she blinks, and Mike smiles.
"Yeah." He says, sweet and soft. He pushes himself up to rest back on his forearms, chest heavy as color tints his cheeks, "I always think you're pretty."
El glances up him after a beat, and her face scrunches up in amusement, "You think I'm pretty?"
"I think you're beautiful."
Brows raising almost to her hairline, El feels her lips parting before she can stop them and she gasps. It's not even like it's a surprise because he's told her that before but, still...
She needed that, and she needed it from him.
"Thank you." El rasps, manages, and she reaches over for his touch. El tugs on his arm, fingers wrapping around his wrist as he stretches his arm across her abdomen, thumb gently caressing the rough denim of her skirt.
Mike gaze drifts down to their feet, watching as she knocks the rubber caps of her canvas pumps against his, squeaky and off-white and muddy and her. He bites at the inside of his right cheek for a moment, teeth sharp and nervously attacking the skin there before he breathes out, "You're welcome."
"For the record," El begins, and she closes her eyes with a smirk starting on her lips, "you're pretty pretty, too."
"I am?" Mike snorts, literally, and El tightens her hold on his hand. She nods, and Mike feels her head move beside him, hair dancing along his exposed collarbone, "Okay."
"Yeah, you're totally boss." Threading her fingers through his, El opens her eyes to stare down at their hands. She purses her lips in glee, forces back a full-blown grin, "You're like, the cheese to my macaroni."
"Is that good?"
"They go hand-in-hand, Wheeler."
