Chapter Text
Hawkins, Indiana — Present Day
“Michael! Get up, let’s go!” Karen Wheeler calls up the stairs. It’s a Saturday, and Mike is completely exhausted. School is kicking him in the ass, and his parents constantly nagging him about his future is not helping.
He groans loudly, then accepts defeat and gets up.
Ten minutes later, he’s sitting in the passenger seat of his mom’s car, texting with his best friend, El.
“Are you texting El?” his mom asks as they pull out of the driveway.
Mike rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
“Tell her I say ‘hi’.” she jokes, earning another groan from Mike.
His mom is convinced that he and El are “secretly dating”—but they definitely aren’t. Sure, he may have had a tiny crush on her when they first met, but now he sees her as basically another sister. She’s been amazing, helping him with his current sexuality crisis—especially since she is the only one he has told.
He’s shaken out of his thoughts as they pull up to… El’s house?
“Why are we here?” he asks, confused.
“Jim’s fiancée and her sons are moving in today, remember? We’re going to help them, welcome them to the neighbourhood.” his mom responds, sighing as she puts the car into park.
He completely forgot. It was such a big change for El, and she had been talking about it for so long. How could he have forgotten?
Three weeks ago, El had confessed to Mike that she and her dad had to move. He was so scared, not wanting to be separated from his best friend. She had looked sad, but as he kept babbling on about how they couldn’t move, her frown began to twitch into a smile. It turned out, their new house was still in Hawkins—a street over from Mike’s, actually—and she thought it would be funny to trick him.
It wasn’t, to make that clear.
But it was then that she had told him about her soon-to-be step-mom and step-brothers, and how they were all going to be moving in together. She was nervous, understandably. She’d never met the sons before, and now all of a sudden she was going to be living with them?
So yeah, not an easy time for El.
They walk up to the door of the new house, and almost immediately after the door is opened, Mike is enveloped in a hug—like usual.
“Mike!” El squeals happily. “I’m so glad you’re here, I’m surrounded by testosterone.”
He chuckles, smiling brightly.
El also views Mike as a sister, oddly enough, because she had always wished for one. Mike didn’t mind, though. He enjoyed their “girls’ nights”, when they painted their nails and watched shitty rom-coms. Plus, he would rather be El’s “sister” most days, than have to deal with the pressure of being the only son—which he hated being. It was easy with El, they could always be themselves around each other.
“Come on.” she grabs him by the arm and starts to drag him down the stairs to the basement.
“What’s down here?”
She smirks. “Testosterone.”
They come to a stop in front of two boys holding a large box, and Mike almost trips over air when he sees the younger one.
The boy has short brown hair—hair that definitely used to be in a bowl cut—and muscles. Normally, Mike wouldn’t care about some stupid boy and his stupid muscles, but his eyes caught sight of his shirt. It’s a D&D shirt—a large dragon covering most of the material. Mike loves D&D, and he’s about to say exactly that to the boy when he starts talking.
“Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna help?” he asks, frustrated.
He turns to El, an affronted look on his face. She sighs and shrugs, then moves to help them.
What the hell?
5 Years Ago
“Can I sit here?” someone asks Mike.
He’s twelve years old, sitting by himself in the hallway of the police station, waiting for his mom.
He looks up, blushing when he sees a girl about his age looking at him. “Sure.” he answers quietly.
“I’m Jane, but everybody calls me El.” the girl—El says, holding out her hand to shake his. “I just moved here.”
He takes it cautiously, shaking it as he responds, “I’m Mike.”
“What are you doing here, Mike?” El asks.
He flushes. “I got in a fight. My mom wants to get in contact with the other kid’s parents, but the school won’t do anything since it wasn’t on school property.”
Concern crosses her face almost instantaneously. “A fight? What happened?”
He looks down, covering his face in an attempt to try to escape this conversation.
“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me, I’m sorry I asked.” she apologizes, embarrassed.
“No, it’s just—” he begins, taking a deep breath as he looks around the hallway before continuing. “This guy, Troy, has been bullying me. He calls me names, makes fun of me, all that crap. I’m used to it now, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.”
She gives him a sad look. “So what changed?”
Mike sighs. “My older sister, Nancy, was dating this guy named Steve, but they broke up a few months ago. Apparently, his friend Tommy convinced him that she was cheating on him—which she was not. He started telling people, and a rumour that she cheated spread. Everyone started calling her a—”
El grabs his hand, hoping to comfort him. And it works, a bit, but mostly makes the little butterflies in Mike’s stomach come back. He shakes his head and tries to focus on the story.
“The kids in my class heard and started calling her that too, and I couldn’t deal with it anymore. So this morning, Troy and his friends were calling me names, like usual, but when I didn’t react, he took it too far. He called Nancy a slut, and that’s when I whipped around and punched him, right in the middle of his stupid face.”
She smiles. “My dad would probably get mad at me if he heard me say this, but good for you.”
“Who’s your dad?” he asks, but before she can reply, the door beside them opens, and his mom steps out.
“Let’s go, Michael.” she says sternly, ignoring the other child sitting beside him.
Mike stands up, giving El a sad look. “Will I see you at school?” he asks, hopeful.
El smiles. “Yeah. I start in a few days.”
“Well then, welcome to Hawkins, El.”