AN:

Guys.

I don't even know what to say.

First of all, obviously, I'm so sorry - I know, it's been months without word. To be honest, I haven't really been on here in the past few months to check messages or reviews. It's not that I prioritised other projects or anything. It's just been a bit of a rough few months. As my friends all know, I hate the idea of not being a 'coper' but when life (and that pesky thing called love) gets overwhelming, I do that whole 'curl up in a dark room, put on the greatest tragic love ballads of the 1980s and don't move or speak for twelve hours' kind of thing... Except for months on end. Pa-freaking-thetic, I know, but hey. I'm back now, and life and love are distinctly better. Don't let nobody tell you that you can't fix things right up with a bit of extra effort and elbow grease! :P

I want you all to know that while it's prime assignment and exams-coming-up-and-I-want-to-get-hit-by-a-car-so-I-have-a-good-excuse-not-to-take-them time at uni right now, but I have been procrastinating by planning out future chapters that you will see go up between now and end of July. Multiple long, long chapters. You've all been so good to me in the past. Now that I'm able again, I need to be good to you. Plus, Mike and Eleven and Stranger Things in general are good for the soul.

So. This chapter.

I'll say it first: it's short af. I know. I'm sorry. But since I checked your messages this morning and got stuck into writing at least SOMETHING, my beautiful darling EvieArendelle convinced me to upload today (after offering her invaluable critiques, of course) if the rest of the chapter wasn't going to be ready for another week. So, originally, this was just the first part of a much longer chapter. But this actually works out well, since the rest of the chapter is going to make up a long enough Chapter 12 as it is.

(Sidenote: Evie, you're the light of my life and you bet your top dollar that when I come visit you in the US at Christmas, I will be so greedy with your time that your boyfriend will not see you for weeks. :P)

Anyway.

I hope that, even though it's the shortest chapter ever, you guys enjoy and that, although it doesn't really progress the plot at all beyond what Chapters 9 and 10 already established, it keeps your Mileven hearts warm for another week.

I'll see you with Chapter 12 soon.

-Inara xx

Eleven Lay Calm

His lips were warm; soft. He cradled her face, her waist, her face again.

He knew—knew that, no matter how strong she was, he could still break her so easily.

How easily they could break each other.

He watched her with heavy-lidded eyes as she stood up from the bed. He didn't move as she turned on the bedside lamp and switched off the main light at the wall by the door. Closing that, she leaned back against it. Only then did Mike stand.

He was so tall. Jane felt so small as he came closer, so soft as his fingers trailed down the length of her arms. His eyes found hers as he found the hem of her T-shirt. He wasn't so much asking permission as he was ensuring she understood his intention.

Wordlessly, she nodded.

The cotton skimmed her stomach, her breasts, her face as he lifted it over her head. She helped him, raising her arms, lowering them again only to his waist.

He exhaled slowly—cautiously—as he took her in for a moment, and Jane felt truly beautiful as he combed his fingers through her hair.

His eyes were on hers. They didn't falter as he leaned in again—slow enough to send her heart thumping wildly against the inside of her chest—and brushed his lips against hers. So gentle. So reassuring.

Then she felt his fingers skimming her side. So many years unaware of the very existence of her scars and all of a sudden, they were so at the forefront of her conscious mind that they may as well have been burning like fire.

But Mike's fingers were soothing and undeterred.

Jane wasn't a fool. She knew that her mutilation was minor in the grand scheme of things—it wasn't as if all of a sudden Mike saw a hardly recognisable thing in her place.

She had more faith in him than to fear his revulsion.

It wasn't that.

She felt both guilty and wronged at the same time. She was a victim, to be sure, and, quite bluntly, had been a child when Ford and Welling had taken their advantage. But she couldn't help also feeling stupid; weak. All her suffering in the past, all her mother's suffering—what had it been for if not to make her stronger? With these powers, wasn't she supposed to be strong? Wasn't she supposed to be the saviour rather than the saved? She'd been so weak and so trusting that she hadn't even been able to save Mike from herself—hadn't been able to save her own father.

What was her purpose if not to protect the ones she loved?

Mike's face crumpled as he traced her old wounds. She may as well have been bleeding in front of him.

Jane shook her head, taking his hand away; sliding her own into it, squeezing it.

We're okay, she was saying. We're okay now.

He squeezed back, but the doubt in his expression didn't clear. The guilt didn't abate.

With a small tug, he led her back to the bed, where he sat down again in front of her.

She let him guide her closer between his legs.

She was self-conscious, still so thin her stomach concaved and so thoroughly scarred that it was almost all she could see. But he wasn't seeing the ugliness now. Maybe he knew how crucial this moment was for her—how important it was to her that he see her, be with her, and not her scars.

His fingers were gentle as they coaxed her closer to him, then firm on her waist as he leaned in, torturously unhurried, and kissed the bare skin in front of him.

She shivered as his fingers slid behind her, bunching the fabric at the waistband of her pyjama pants. His warm breath scorched her as his tongue brushed the thin skin just beneath her breasts. Her fingers slid into his hair and she pulled his head back.

It was the most tantalising picture: his nose dragging away from her flesh, his tongue and mouth unwilling to do the same, his lower lip and teeth still dragging against her skin. He stared up at her with hungry eyes through his floppy hair and thick eyelashes.

I want you, they said, and Jane felt her stomach flutter.

She felt a lot of things.

Unfortunately, one of those things was what she could and couldn't take right now. Physically, emotionally… It was all just too much too soon.

After so many years of pain, she didn't want more of the same when it came to Mike. Before, she'd never been a perfectionist when it came to moments—she'd always been of the belief that things happened when they did for a reason, and that one should never try to put off the inevitable. Like small talk.

But apparently there was an exception for everything.

"We can't," she whispered. Her voice, although quiet, was jarring even to her own ears as it broke the longstanding silence.

For just a moment, confusion brought that caustic edge back to Mike's features, the walls surging back up, but seeing the vulnerability in her eyes, it evaporated.

He leaned away from her a fraction, still holding her.

She shook her head, taking his face in her hands. "I want to. I just…"

"I understand." He offered her a barely-there smile. She didn't need to say anything else.

Still cradling his face, Jane felt a glimmer of yearning. It wasn't hunger so much as the feeling that something was missing.

Jane couldn't remember even the basics of high school French but the one phrase that had stuck with her after all these years was, 'Tu me manques.'

Not just 'I miss you,' but, more closely, 'You are missing from me.'

It was like saying, 'You are a part of me.'

'You are like air, like water, like blood.'

'I cannot be without you.'

'I cannot be me without you.'

Mike wasn't missing from her anymore—he was right here—but she needed him to be closer still. She needed him to make her believe he was never going away again.

Mike seemed to sense the small change in the atmosphere of the room, this different need in her.

His gaze darkened a fraction, and, while he accepted her boundaries for tonight, he knew there were some things to which she wouldn't object. "What?"

Jane bit her lip for a second, feeling his fingers tighten around her hips again. "I want you to kiss me."

He stared up at her, daring her to lose herself in what she wanted. Under any other circumstances, he would've been smug. With those huge doe eyes but inner strength and self-possession, El had always looked the impossible contradiction of pure and uncorrupted and like a girl who knew, at all times, exactly what she wanted.

He'd always loved it when she asked for it.

He'd loved it even more when she simply took it.

He sat as tall as he could to bring their mouths closer, his jaw tilting up as his gaze burned into her lips. She'd already leaned in a fraction, feeling the same pull he couldn't resist—had never been able to resist.

"So, kiss me," he murmured.

It had been years since they'd been a real couple, comfortable and lazy and habitual, but it was amazing how, even then, the moment before every kiss felt electric. When the air thickened, when the space between them felt so charged with anticipation that Mike had always felt his breath catch. Every time.

It didn't need proving anymore. This woman would be the death of him. Without even trying, she'd been the beginning and the end in one staggering, rain-soaked moment. Mike knew he hadn't understood it then, at first sight of those knobbly knees and giant yellow T-shirt, but he'd felt the whole world shift.

He still felt that way, every time he looked at her.

And when she leaned into him, pressing her lips against his—tentatively at first, and then melting into him—his response was instantaneous, instinctive.

She wanted him to kiss her? He'd kiss her.

He'd kiss her everywhere—so deeply and for so long that he'd make her number of sighs match the number of tears she'd shed in the last four years.

He'd make her cry in ecstasy as many times as it took for her to forget every cry of pain.

And then he'd hold her, all night.

God, he'd waited years to hold her all night.

He'd drive the demons away.

AN:

One last thing, everyone. I know it's not 80s, or even 90s, but the song 'Surrender' by Walk the Moon is one of my favourite songs and my first time hearing it was actually what inspired this whole story. Then, there was also 'Unsteady' by X Ambassadors and 'Only You' by Yazoo (now that one was 80s!). Once I finish this story up in another ten to twelve chapters or so, I'll probably just post a playlist of all the songs I listened to a lot while writing this fic, just for anyone who's interested. Some are extremely angsty but others are good ol' classics.

And just for anyone who's wondering, I'm not going to drop the Stranger Things fandom once this story is over. I continue to be obsessed with all the characters and the whole world that the brilliant Duffer Brothers created. I probably won't write any more really long stories like this one will end up being, but definitely some shorter fics. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the lighter one-shots.

My next story will probably be all about Steve, though. I'm thinking we could all glean a few laughs from the backstory on how he and Dustin ended up living together. Obviously, I'm finishing TRWD first. But just keeping you guys in the loop. :)