Me: *gets 90 follows, 70 favorites, and 50 reviews* Don't touch me, I'm famous.

Nah, just kidding. I've seen fics with wayyy more, although these are the highest stats I've ever gotten. Thank you guys soooo much for enjoying my trash :)

"So, you're going to divide by seven," Mike said, pointing at Eleven's sloppy '7x'. He wasn't much of a tutor; he never had been, in all honesty. This was just yet another thing on his never-ending list of things he'd do for El's sake, "Both sides. Not just that one,"

"Why?"

Hardly a minute of these tutoring sessions went by without Eleven asked him why. She didn't really just accept the steps of math; she had to understand them. That wasn't a problem when Mike was showing her fairly simple things, but with algebra? With algebra, it was best not to try and understand much. 'Why' was for history. 'Why' wasn't for long, exceedingly difficult equations -except for Eleven, that is.

Mike could tell she was getting frustrated as she huffed and brushed her unruly hair out of her face.

"You know what? You're worked really hard. Let's take a little break," Mike said, even though Hopper's instructions had been clear as day: study, that's it. No funny business, and no TV.

Eleven wasted no time in shutting the textbook and sliding the notebook away from her. She bit back a frustrated groan as she tucked a curl behind her ear and it was immediately replaced by another.

"No funny business," Eleven said, quoting Hopper's rules for the evening as if they were pieces of scripture (although she didn't know what he meant by 'funny business'), "No TV,"

"It's no big deal," Mike assured her, "We can just talk,"

Eleven nodded, but the motion caused several more brown locks to fall just above her eyes. She let out an exasperated sigh and attempted to contain them again.

"Is your hair bothering you?" Mike asked, although he knew the answer, "I can try and put it up for you. You know, get it out of your face,"

He'd seen Nancy do her hair countless times. She'd been doing it by herself since she was around eight, if he remembered correctly. If an eight year could do it, then surely Mike, at almost fifteen, could manage just fine.

"Yes," Eleven said, giving a sigh of relief. She was very grateful for this boy.

"Okay. Do you have a comb, or a brush? And a hair tie," Mike said. That's what it was called, wasn't it? A hair tie. He didn't think it had some special name.

Eleven nodded her head and walked out of the room, returning a few moments later, armed with a brush and ponytail holder (that's what she insisted on calling it, anyway).

"Okay, great. Come stand over here," Mike said as he gestured to the empty space in front of him. Eleven obliged, standing with her back towards him.

Mike tried to run the brush through her hair, but it got stuck halfway down and Eleven drew in a sharp breath.

"Sorry!" Mike said, panicked, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I've never brushed anyone's hair except my own before,"

Eleven knew Mike would never hurt her on purpose, "It's okay,"

Mike continued trying to tame her head of curls with a gentler touch. It took quite a while for all the knots to be worked out, but Mike didn't mind. Eleven was standing quite close to him, and she smelled nice.

He attempted to gather her hair (which was now very, very puffy) into one spot. It wasn't exactly in the back of her head, but Mike figured it would do. He looped the elastic around it just twice in fear it would snap. Oh well, he thought, it could be worse.

"Better?"

Eleven remained silent for a moment longer, waiting for a strand of hair to fall over her face and tickle her nose, but it never did.

"Better," She replied with a nod of her head.

"Do you want to try and work on your math again?"

"Sure," Eleven said as she moved to join Mike at the table.

The two had only been sitting down for a few minutes, barely finished with the same equation, when they heard the signature knock.

"I've got it," Mike said, but Eleven had already undone the locks before he could stand.

The door creaked open to reveal Nancy. She paused in the doorway, her eyes scanning the cabin and seeing only the two teenagers at the dining table, "Is Hopper back yet? I'm supposed to take you home,"

"Not yet," Mike said, "He should be back soon,"

"Okay. We can stick around for a few minutes, then," Nancy said, sliding into a chair next to her brother, "Hey, El!"

"Hi," El greeted in return with a smile. She liked being around Nancy.

At that moment, Nancy took notice of the bird's nest that was Eleven's hair, "Your hair," She said, "It looks nice,"

"Mike did it," Eleven said, beaming with pride for the boy.

That explains it, Nancy thought, "Hey, how about I show you how to braid your hair?"

Nancy had braided El's hair once before; it was pretty.

"Okay," Eleven agreed, nodding her head.

"Come here, Mike. Turn your back towards me,"

"What? Why?" Mike said.

Nancy raised her eyebrow at him, "I can't show Eleven how to braid hair on her own head,"

Mike wanted so very badly to say hell no, but again, the list of things he would do for Eleven was never-ending. He sighed and obeyed his sister.

"Okay, El, here's what you do..." Nancy then proceeded to explain to El how to twist the strands into a braid as she used Mike as a demonstration,"Got it?"

"I think so," came Eleven's timid reply.

"Come on. Try," Nancy said, stepping away from Mike. Eleven took her place. Mike inhaled as Eleven's fingers started brushing through his hair. If his sister wasn't there watching, he'd probably turn around and kiss her.

Eleven ended up braiding his hair in seven -seven- different places. Mike didn't even take it out when Hopper showed up, braving the embarrassment for El's sake. He really was wrapped around that girl's finger.

A big thanks to KBGKBG (sorry if that's not exactly right, I'm going off of memory here) for suggesting this one. I hope I did a good enough job with it!