KGBKBG suggested this one; kudos to them!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Hopper was never fond of the snow. He didn't think he could hate the stuff any more than he already did, really. But that changed pretty quickly when a particularly rough snow storm left not only him and Eleven shut in at the cabin...but Mike Wheeler as well.
The windows didn't trap any heat whatsoever, and the ancient clunk of a heater was only working in short bursts. And there wasn't exactly a plethora of blankets, which -much to Hop's dismay- left Mike and Eleven huddled under the same one.
He couldn't say anything. After all, it was cold; they were just trying to keep warm.
"Why don't we go outside? We could build a snowman," Mike suggested after watching Hopper sit in an armchair in bitter silence for several minutes, "If we're gonna be cold, we might as well have some fun,"
"Okay," Hopper said, and the two kids leaped out from under the blanket hardly a second later, "But wear a coat! You'll freeze out there,"
"You're not coming?" El asked, pausing with only one arm in her sweater.
"Are you kidding?" Hopper said, "It's nineteen degrees. I'm taking a nap. You two go on and have fun,"
Neither of them protested, and they wasted no time in running out the door.
Eleven ignored the burning of her ears as her and Mike worked on the base of their snowman. Or rather she worked on it, because Mike was busy marveling at how pretty she looked with pink cheeks and hair peppered with snowflakes.
"What are you looking at?" Eleven asked, catching his stare.
"What?" Mike asked, his pale face very obviously blushing. He hadn't realized that he'd been staring, "Oh. Nothing,"
El accepted his answer and continued packing snow together, this time with Mike actually helping. Between the thickness of the snow and Eleven being, you know, telekinetic, they had finished making and stacking the three sections fairly quickly. Eleven turned around to fetch a few pebbles for it's face and, unable to see Mike's sly grin, fell victim to the worse form of wintry weaponry:
The snowball.
She gasped as it hit her in the back with a soft thump, the snow clinging to her sweater and making it almost unbearably cold. She turned around to see Mike, his gloves packing another one together. She gave a devious smile of her own before doing the same, launching one that hit Mike in the shoulder.
Eleven humored him for a while, letting a few of his actually hit her. But when he went to throw what was probably around the twelfth snowball, it stopped in mid-air.
The look of shear panic on Mike's face was absolutely priceless. His eyes were as wide as saucers as it turned around and hit him in the middle of his face.
"Alright, fair enough," Mike said, smiling as he brushed the cold snow off his face, "You win,"
"You put up a good fight," Eleven said, crossing over to him and kissing the tip of his frozen nose lightly.
Mike shook his head slightly and pulled El to him, soaking in her warmth against the frigid air. Of course, he still needed his vengeance.
He reached one arm over their heads and grabbed a low-hanging branch. He pulled it down and let it jerk back up, dumping the snow over the both of them. Eleven pulled away from him quickly, her clothes and hair covered in the white powder.
"Hey!" She exclaimed, shivering as it fell through the top of her coat.
"Hey, I'm covered in it too!" Mike said, throwing his hands up as if in surrender. He regretted his decision as he shivered.
"Inside?" Eleven asked, nodding her head towards the door as she wrapped her arms around herself.
The once chilly cabin felt more than pleasantly warm after being ankle deep in snow. Mike helped Eleven out of her coat and hung it up before doing the same with his own sweater. Hopper wasn't asleep, sitting in the arm chair sipping coffee instead while he raised an eyebrow at the two.
"Looks like you two had fun,"
Mike glanced out the window and realized that the spot they'd been in was completely visible from Hopper's standpoint. The cold wasn't the reason for his red cheeks after that.
El didn't realize the suggestiveness of Hopper's words, and answered with a cheerful, "Yes, sir!"
"There's hot chocolate on the stove," Hopper told them, not wanting to address the previous topic any longer, "Go warm up,"
Mike followed El into the kitchen and watched her carefully fill up two mugs (she refused to let him help). Mike wrapped his cold hands around the warm cup gratefully as he slid into a chair at the table beside Eleven. Eleven was nursing her drink and staring out the window, lost in thought.
Mike took a minute to admire her once again, watching the way her eyes were sparkling along with the sun reflecting off the snow before he nudged her, "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Snow used to be bad," Eleven said, not taking her eyes way from the window. She recalled the days she spent alone in the cold before Hopper found her, all the nights she spent huddled under that jacket that reeked of cigarette smoke and wasn't even hers with a shudder, "Thank you,"
Mike set his mug down, "For?"
"For changing that,"
Okay, I've got to explain myself right quick. I rewrote every single chapter of this (except the first one. I liked it), and I wanted to get that done before I posted another chapter. And I deleted the firework chapter because I really didn't like it; it felt too out of place. I'm really sorry that it took me so long to update, but it shouldn't happen again. I tried to sneak some extra feels in here to try and make up for it.
Anyway, thank you guys so so much for 120+ followers. You have no idea how happy that makes me. I hope you guys liked this fluffy little snow fic :)