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In the Hopper cabin, Mike and El lay in bed, sleeping, following their Friday tutoring session. As far as Hopper was concerned, these weekly sleepovers were becoming too common, seemingly every weekend, but he’s not going to try to separate them. Arguing with your telekinetic adoptive daughter is pointless when she could simply throw you to the moon, he thinks to himself.
Mike’s eyes shoot open as a large gasp fills his lungs. He looks around to grasp his surroundings, and quickly feels comforted but guilty as he sees El, staring at him, seemingly startled.
“Mike? Are you okay?”
He sighs. Damnit Wheeler, good one.
“Yeah, sorry El. Just a nightmare.”
A small frown plays at her lips. “Bad one?”
He nods his head.
“In the school. The day you vanished.” Her frown grows as he continues. “You killing the bad guys but then Brenner comes and holds you. I wanted to kill him there and then.”
She nods her head. “Me too.”
He smiles slightly. “
T
hen the Demogorgon came, but this time it got you instead. You were too tired to do anything and it got you. All I could hear were your screams and...”
He sniffles slightly as he sees the images of his nightmare, watching the Demogorgon feast on her as she reaches a hand out to him.
She leans closer, practically placing herself against him like a perfectly matching puzzle piece, before placing her hand onto his back and rubbing it. Usually it’s the other way around, he comforts her as she wakes up from a nightmare; but tonight, they’ve swapped roles, and whilst she’s unsure she can be the comforter, she’ll damn well try for Mike.
“Hey, Mike, it’s okay. You know that’s not real. I killed it, and I’m here.”
He nods his head. “Yeah, I know, but it looked real. It sounded so real. You were in so much pain, and your hand… when it dropped to the floor...”
She knows what he’s thinking, she can imagine what he’d seen and can only think of how she’d feel if she saw Mike like that.
Oh god no
. Impossible to get any closer, already grasping him tightly and rubbing his back, she resorts to the only idea coming to mind. S
he leans her head in, placing a kiss on his head, through his hair.
“I
won’t let that happen, Mike. To any of us.”
His smile grows nearly infinitely. He lets out a sigh of pleasure; just being with El is enough to cheer up even the worst of days, but when she shows affection towards him? He feels as if she’s giving him her powers and he could fly to the moon.
He leans his head against hers, as they both stare into each-others eyes, smiling so much that they think their lips might burst off their faces any second now.
They’re silent for a minute or so; Mike had nearly drifted back to sleep, but El begins speaking again.
“I worry about that, sometimes.”
He’s confused.
“Worry about what?”
“That I’ll be worn out at the time you need me most.”
He ducks his head. “That’s… what I worry about too. I know you’re a literal superhero and all but I also know it tires you if you work too hard, and that scares me. Like when Hop brought you back from closing the gate… god I was so worried about you. I was checking on you like every ten seconds.”
She smiles at the thought. The fact that she has people that really care about her is still overwhelming for her sometimes. Going from being in a place where the only thing people cared about was your performance, to meeting Mike, who cares about her as if she’s the one who makes the sun rise every morning, to Hopper, who cares about her like his own biological daughter. She sometimes worries that she might one day wake back up in the dark ‘naughty room’ of the lab, and be tortured back into their demands. The fear is quickly wiped away whenever she sees Hopper, or more so Mike.
She’s brought back to the subject at hand as Mike continues his thoughts.
“Now I worry that some day, if everything went to shit again, that you might tire yourself on one thing before something even worse comes, and then it’ll be too late. It’s not like I can fling something away from you by thinking about it...”
She bites her lip as she considers the worst possible events that could happen. She likes to believe nothing like that will ever happen again, that the world is absolutely perfect for them now, but let’s be honest, we all know that thing is still out there somewhere.
An idea comes to mind.
“Maybe I should practise.”
He furrows an eyebrow.
“What, your powers? Can those
be
trained?”
The expression mirrors onto her face.
“
Trained?
”
A small smirk forms on his lips. He loves explaining new words to El, no matter how hard it is.
“Like you said, practised. You keep practising, you get better at it. That’s training.”
She nods her head in understanding.
“I don’t know if I can
train
my powers, but… I could try.”
“Well, you could, but only if you’re okay with it. I don’t even like asking you to lift a simple feather using them.” he quickly worries that his wording might be misunderstood. “Not because they aren’t good or anything – they’re awesome and it’s really cool whenever you do anything with them; I just don’t like asking in case it reminds you of the lab or something.”
She nods her head; a smile growing on her.
He really cares about me and I love it. How did I get so lucky?
The mere thought of someone caring so much that even asking her about her powers worries them… it’s overwhelming to her.
“Thank you, Mike. I
can’t thank you enough
.”
She places another kiss to his head. He let’s out a small giggle.
She returns to the idea she’d had; another idea popping into mind producing a small smirk on her face.
“So, do you think I should practise?”
He shrugs his free shoulder slightly.
“If you wanted to, and it actually helped, I think it’d be a good idea.”
Exactly what I wanted to hear.
Her smirk grows.
“Okay, sit.”
Confusion returns to strike at Mike again, but he does as she says, sitting up.
“Like me.” she says, moving to the end of the bed, crossing her legs in front of her.
He moves to mirror his position, despite suddenly realising what she has in mind.
“You’re not going to...” Her smirk only grows as he begins to question her idea, leading Mike to think he’s correct.
“Oh god...” is all he says as he crosses his legs.
El reaches her hands out to him, and he takes them in his own.
“Ready?” she asks him, smirk never leaving her face.
“I… think so?” he’s unsure, hoping he doesn’t bring up his stomach contents once she starts.
She counts them down so that he knows when to expect it. “Three… two… one.”
Briefly after one, he feels a force lift him from the bed slightly; her following him perfectly.
“Woah!” he blurts out, wobbling a bit as if to keep his balance. He probably woke Hopper right there and then, but he couldn’t care less right now as she lets out a giggle at his reaction, making him produce a bigger-than-small laugh of his own.
S he begins rotating the two of them slowly, as if to actually practise; smiles remaining firmly planted on their faces. She lets go of him, which panics him slightly at first, as if he’d fall back to the floor if she wasn’t holding. She separates the two of them slightly before moving into a different position. She stretches out, as if laying on her stomach; her arms tucked underneath her chin as she stares at the boy she levitates.
How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve such an amazing boyfriend? Someone who cares about me so much that he’s too scared to even bring up my abilities, let alone ask me to use them. Someone who didn’t even think twice about
saving me
from the rain, and making sure I was as comfortable as he could make m
e.
He’s s
omeone who likes
m
e just for who I am; not what I can do.
I love him
so much.
He’d originally thought movement bight be risky. He definitely didn’t feel pinned into position as he’d done during her nightmare episode, but he’d worried that moving might cause her to ‘lose grip or something’ . He slowly imitates the position she’s in, laying flat, chin resting on his shoulders, staring into the eyes of the amazing girl in front of him as she ke eps them afloat mid-air.
How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve such an amazing girlfriend? Someone who cares about me so much that she calls me every day to ask how my day was. Someone who gets excited every time she sees me. Someone who doesn’t even think twice about risking herself to save me, no matter what from. Oh, did I mention she’s a freaking superhero? That doesn’t even matter though; She’s someone who likes me just for who I am; she doesn’t just pretend to do so.
I love her so much.
As if their thoughts are linked, they slowly glide towards each-other. She angles her head up slightly, and he realises what she’s doing. Ignoring the the fact his stomach is now a multi-award-winning gymnast, he too leans his head back slightly. Their lips meet, and they linger for a moment. Their kisses are by no means professional; still unskilled lip meetings at most but neither of them care. The excitement that rushes through them enough to make them raise the roof (which, now he thinks about it, is getting slightly closer to them by the second).
They break their kiss after a few seconds, returning to their original state of simply exploring the other’s eyes. Mike’s gaze diverts from her eyes for a brief second, which allows him to notice something odd about El.
“Hey, no blood!” he says, gesturing to her nose. She rubs a finger under her nose. Hey, he’s right!
The smile on her lips somehow manages to grow even further as she comes to realisation.
“I think happiness makes it easier than anger!” she states. Mike feels his cheeks hurt as his smile tries to grow at their discovery; the thought that she doesn’t need to think of bad memories to use her powers efficiently is an overwhelming one.
“That’s good, really good!” he exclaims. “Now we just need to make more happy memories like this.” She giggles as she nods her head. She brings the two of them together before wrapping him into her arms; him following suit immediately. They slowly lower to the bed, landing on their sides with the most elegant touchdown known to man. The force holding them vanishes, and the bed covers slither their way over them both without either of them moving a muscle. He lets out yet another giggle, her unable to resist copying it.
“Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” he questions her rhetorically, yet she answers anyway through her ever-growing smile.
“You? No, never.” she answers sarcastically; earning a louder-than-probably-safe laugh from him before she quickly adjusts her answer.
“Every day you absolute mouth breather.” she states through a smile, and his laughter only increases.
“I don’t know when you picked up on sarcasm, but my god is it brilliant coming from you.” he tells her. A smirk plays on her lips.
“Living with Hopper and spending so much time with you… what could you expect?”
They’re both laughing for a few seconds before a knock on the bedroom door startles them. They look towards the door to see Hopper’s zombie-like form gaze upon them.
“What’s all this laughter ab-”
He sees their heads closer than what should be possible without being Siamese twins. He feels his gut become uncomfortable at the sight of the two teens so close, and he’s pretty sure he can hear sirens whaling in the distance, but he simply rolls his eyes. He’d made them a promise that he’d trust them, give them their space as long as things don’t sound ‘inappropriate’, to which Mike cringed harder than what he thought was humanly possible. Sure he loves El, but at this age? That wasn’t even a thought he’d had until Hopper was the one to bring it up, no matter how discrete his wording was (which, let’s be honest, it absolutely wasn’t).
And Hopper knew it. He’d felt a mix of emotions as he saw Mike’s reaction to their ‘talk’. Relief, amusement, even a hint of guilt as he realised he’d been the first one to even bring up the idea.
And after all,
Mike’s a freaking saint and he wouldn’t hurt a fly,
he finds he reminds himself daily.
A small
‘don’t-panic-your-sweet-little-selves’
smile
is thrown their way as he backs up slowly.
“I won’t even ask.”