Chapter Text
"Tell me, do you let them down gently? Does it only make it harder, to let the feeling linger?"
— Hate Yourself, TV Girl
JUNE, 1985
Honestly, Mike doesn’t want to be here. He’s encouraged himself about a billion times in his head that, sure, kissing isn’t so bad. Kissing is what people do! Boys and girls date each other, and they kiss, and they certainly don’t flinch away from their girlfriends who hold their face gently and stare into their eyes for too long. Yeah.
Mike sits politely in the middle of El’s bed, legs crossed into a bowl. He cracks a small grin, narrowing his eyes, and forces himself to look like he wants more. He doesn’t remember her being this straightforward. She wants things to be like how they are on TV. Gently, Mike’s face is cupped in a soft hand, and he melts into a kiss. He leans back with a gentle smile and runs his hand through a straightened lock of mid-length hair. He hasn’t cut his hair in a few months — honestly, he resented his haircut the first time through. He always thought he looked a bit awkward. Though Karen still won’t stop straightening his hair, he’s grateful that the length is where he wants.
The summer has been endless, stretching into long, sunny days that mingle with the sweet smell of wildflowers, and cool, damp evenings, heavy with fog and clustered shadows; each day blends into the next, indiscriminate, never stopping to breathe, and Mike follows in his set path with confident strides that he never lets falter. He gawks at the pretty pink flowers that bloom in his neighbors’ yards, teeming with colorful wings in the beaming light; he bikes down the street, visits his girlfriend, goes to the mall, goes on measly pocket-coin shopping trips, and he acts like nothing’s ever been wrong in his life.
Mike tries to ground himself in the moment. His fingers curl deep into El’s bedsheets, which scrunch beneath his grip. Her lips, soft and smooth, lock with his. The seconds drag. He feels like he’s suffocating.
Finally, she backs away. Her eyes stare into him, sweet as the wildflowers that grow in the cracks on the sidewalk. Just for a moment, he feels a stab of guilt. How come he can’t seem to make himself . . . ?
“Can I turn on some music?” Mike blurts. He feels his cheeks burn, pink as the neighbors’ planted flowers, and his nerves fizzle deep in his chest. He can’t do this correctly. He can’t do this.
He feels like something’s wrong with him. Fundamentally. He swallows that feeling, which scrapes down his throat as if trying to choke him.
Mike receives a nod, to which he leans away and fumbles with his radio. His fingers shakily mash the buttons and dial the knobs, before a loud static explodes from the radio. He flinches hard. A song crackles through the speakers: Madonna’s Lucky Star, and he sinks back onto the bed to take a deep breath.
He’s so jumpy. El suppresses a laugh, biting her lip. She lowers down to face him where he lays, each hand placed firmly by his shoulders. He looks up at her with wide eyes. Her hair — shorter than his — dangles down in her face, but doesn’t hide the huge smile on her lips. In a fleeting thought, he wonders what TV show she got this idea from. Mike forces himself not to squirm.
But he’s saved by the shouting of a disgruntled old man.
“Oh, shit!” Mike practically throws El off of him. A mix of alarm and embarrassment cross her features simultaneously, before she throws a hand out towards the door and slams it in Hopper’s face.
“Hey! El, open this door!”
Upon getting a reply of hushed giggles, the chief pounds on the door, which rattles creakily as the telekinetic force slips. Mike is stiff in the middle of the bed by the time Hopper barges in, muscles tensed by pure fear. He didn’t do anything — oh, gosh, he doesn’t exactly want to get beaten to a pulp for something he didn’t do. He’s aware that Hopper’s kind of off the rails. Heck, he saw that with his own eyes.
Mike can only listen to the words that are said next, gritting his teeth.
“You are going to go,” he points at Mike. “And we are going to talk.”
Genuinely, Mike couldn’t be more glad.
“So what did he say?” Mike asks through the radio, pedaling on his bike. The air is cool and shadowy, blowing tendrils of hair into his mouth. He’s gonna be early to Starcourt — he left El’s house twenty minutes ahead of schedule.
“He said that boys and girls are different,” El explains slowly. “And that we are only allowed to kiss.”
His brows raise at the implication.
“That’s bullshit,” Mike scoffs, before realizing what he said. He quickly corrects, “That’s all we were doing!”
Truthfully, the thought of whatever Hopper thought was going on makes him feel viscerally ill. Why do adults always assume the worst? He couldn’t handle kissing; what makes them think he could handle more than that? Nausea wavers in his throat. He could hardly get through the talk in seventh grade science. Besides, Mike is fully aware that that was not El’s intention.
“Honestly, I think that he’s messed up for assuming anything different,” Mike mutters, the heat of embarrassment and anger fiery in his voice. He’s only just about to start high school; how could Hopper think such a thing? He isn’t a bad kid!
“Hop is dumb,” El says bluntly. Mike bites his lip.
“Yeah, dumb is an understatement,” he narrows his eyes, hands gripping the handlebars. Stupid, stupid. “I just . . .”
His words heighten into a frustrated groan.
Starcourt’s lights glimmer in the distance. They dance in neon blues and pinks, far too bright in comparison to Hawkins’ past. Mike sees things for what they are.
The neon lights are going to flicker out, and hot, burning flames are going to dance instead. The mall, ablaze, is nothing but a mere memory: a tragedy, to the eyes of the citizens, whose hearts will mourn for those lost in the fire — in the underbelly of an old run-down factory, ripped from their lives like they were nothing, people will explode into goo, and they will be nothing.
Mike tries to tell himself that getting worked up in trivial matters shouldn’t matter. What do Hopper’s opinions matter in comparison to a giant creature made of flesh? What do his own feelings matter? He’s just here to keep order, to keep things in line. His own emotions shouldn’t get in the way. Yeah.
“Hey, I’m almost at the mall,” Mike informs after a long silence. “Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
He can practically hear her pouting on the other line. “Okay . . . it’s just so boring here without you.”
The teen girl swooning he’s seen on TV, he can hear in her voice, is sweet and sticky on her lips. He can practically see her face in his head; heck, maybe he can — honestly, he’s not so sure after what he’s seen. Though, his nose isn’t bleeding, so he’s likely just imagining.
“Okay. Bye.”
He closes the antenna on the radio and keeps biking. He isn’t sure why she loves him so much. He’s just some kid — sure, he saved her, but she doesn’t seem to feel obligated, not like he does. Why does Mike have to feel obligated? Lucas isn’t obligated, dating Max. Nor is Dustin, dating Suzie. (He’s not supposed to be aware yet.) Will’s different. But Mike . . . he just does it because he has to, and sure he feels bad, but as long as he's upholding the future he guesses he can live with himself.
The parking lot is packed full of cars and chatty people, who he maneuvers around carefully. Music blasts from at least two cars and pounds in his ears. He swerves around a lady and almost gets hit by a car backing up.
The mall is so active all the time. Day, night, doesn’t matter. In fact, evenings like these are the most packed. He can imagine how much of a void the mall fire left in peoples’ lives. He puts his bike in the bike rack, heads inside, and waits for his friends.
Just like outside, the mall is packed. He finds an unoccupied bench to sit down on by the fountain and observes. Spectates. He watches the girls with their bouncy hair and exaggerated makeup flit around like bright butterflies. He watches the boys run off with their friends towards some store and absentmindedly thinks about how they’d probably bully him at school. Huh. Mike thinks that the power of blending in is strange — here, he dresses and plays the part and hopes that nobody recognizes him. Nobody but the people who already talk to him understand how he truly is. Sure, sometimes he gets weird looks from nosy kids who point at him in public for ‘walking funny,’ but aside from children, he’s never been picked on here.
Sweet and savory smells emanate from the food court, dancing around the air, mingled with floral perfumes and metallic hairspray. He blows a stream of air up towards a piece of his bangs. He still wears a side part — Mike likes his hair, but Ted says it makes him look like a sissy. Blah blah blah. Besides, nobody else seems to think negatively, so Mike just ignores his dad and goes on with his life.
Mike scans the crowd for his friends. Checks his watch. The people around are noisy — too noisy — and he’d love to be in a quiet theatre. Noisy. Yeah. Really noisy. Their chatter mixes with the music playing on the speakers, mingling like the scents, and oh, gosh, why does everything have to be so bright —
Somebody taps him on the shoulder. He flinches, neck whipping around before he can think straight again. He makes a noise, stammering, heart pounding in his throat.
“Hey,” he chokes out. Max gives him a weird look, flipping a braid behind her shoulder.
“You’re not exactly the early type,” she says obviously, gaze turning skeptical. She’s trying to make him talk, like always. He still sees her wrapped in those casts.
“Neither are you,” he retorts, raising his brows. “Where’s Lucas?”
Much to his distaste, Max leans on the bench behind him and messes with his hair. “Coming. Shouldn’t be late.”
“Hope not.” He says shortly, biting his lip. His gaze travels back out towards the people. He watches a boy give a girl a kiss on the cheek, then imagines Max and Lucas doing the same.
The mall goers pay nothing any mind, seemingly. Somebody almost bumps into somebody else.
“You’re quiet,” Max comments. He can hear the suspicion dripping in her voice, an unspoken question. Painfully, her hand tugs on a knot in his hair.
“Quiet?” Mike laughs. A devious grin spreads on his face. He opens his mouth and jokingly starts singing the melody to the stupid song playing — Love Is A Battlefield by Pat Benatar.
“Shut up!” Max groans, playful.
“Nope. You’re just jealous of my wonderful voice,” he grins. He opens his mouth, ready to start singing again, but something loud hits him in the ear. His neck snaps around to face the noise. That same girl who almost bumped into somebody just spilled her drink on somebody else, painting the boy’s shirt an artificial blue.
Mike just isn’t sure why his heart is still beating so hard.
He thinks really hard. Where does the girl look familiar from?
“Mike?” His friend’s voice is hushed, low. Sounds wrong coming from her.
“Yeah?”
Mike looks back up with a smile. His good leg bounces.
The worry in Max’s face melts, then creases, as if she were confused on why she had ever felt concern. “Nevermind.”
The smile falls from his face. The two sit contently in the mall, and Mike tries to drown out the noise in his own mind. He’s sure he’s never talked to the girl before, so why is something in her face so familiar?
Somebody walks by holding a newspaper. Something in Mike’s mind clicks into place.
A missing poster. She was from a missing poster. There were so many missing people after the ‘fire’ at Starcourt. He’s watching a dead girl. Flesh.
He tries not to look at her again.
The world grows louder with the arrival of the rest of the group. Mike greets Lucas and Will with friendly smiles. They have to get to the theatre pretty quickly, and of course nobody has that much money on them, so they run directly towards Scoops Ahoy.
Scoops Ahoy is an ice cream parlor. On the interior, the decorations are cheap and cheesy and very much reflect the sailor aesthetic they’re going for. A faint, joyful jingle plays on a crackling speaker — Mike rings the bell.
No reply.
He taps on the bell repeatedly.
Come on!
“Hello?” Mike calls out.
From behind the door, an irritated teen appears. Her hair is lopped off in a blunt bob and almost ombré. Mike, for the past however long, has had to pretend that he’s never met her before.
Though, the name tag on her ridiculous sailor uniform at least gives him an excuse to why he’s aware of her name. Robin. He thinks if he had to choose a person to ask about all of his weird and conflicting feelings, he’d choose her, though obviously he can’t and honestly he doesn’t want to.
“Dingus,” Robin shouts towards the back of the store where they keep the extra ice cream. “Your children are here!”
Out from the back emerges Steve, in that same dumb outfit. Mike rings on the bell.
“Tunnels,” Mike says simply.
He shoves himself through the back door, the rest of the party following suit. Mike grins at a few unsavory words from Steve about getting him fired.
The tunnels are dim and kinda creepy, with buzzing fluorescent lights shining down. They lead directly to the the theatre — no prices! Mike doesn’t have anything on him but a few quarters: like, $3.00? He’s not sure what anybody else has. He could probably get a pretzel or something, but he isn’t hungry.
The pitter-patter of footsteps fills the empty hall, a rush of whispering and giggling.
He tries to let the moment swallow him whole as if it could mend him.
Inside, the theatre isn’t much quieter than the outside. The previews haven’t started yet, so people are still yapping and chattering away. The smells of popcorn and nachos mingle in the air. He sits for a good five minutes, waiting, picking at the skin around his finger.
However, the lights fall into pitch darkness, and the screen lights up. A hushed quiet falls on the cinema.
He doesn’t pay much attention to the previews; they don’t interest him. Flashy neon lights and exaggerated voices fill the silence, harsh and ringing, causing Mike to squirm.
The actual film starts up, and Mike finds himself not paying too much attention to that either. His leg bounces restlessly.
The speakers are too loud. Just like outside. The lights on the screen are vibrant and flashy.
He stares into space. His eyes hit the back of a blurry seat.
Ears ringing.
The rats are exploding.
The image ebbs back into his mind. The blood drips onto his lip. He takes a glance at Will, whose touching his neck in that way he always does around the hivemind. Mike accidentally makes eye contact. A wave of panic echoes through him.
He stands quickly, shoving past people who groan in protest. Air. He needs air. He needs out of the theatre.
Outside, the lobby of the theatre isn’t so packed. Everybody’s inside their respective cinema for their 7:00 showing. He makes haste towards the outside and into the mall hallway to head to the water fountains. He brings his hand to wipe his nose. Then, he bends down toward the spout.
Mike splashes his face with the water, hands trembling.
He flinches hard when somebody taps him on the shoulder. He spins around. “Huh?”
“Mike?” Will hesitantly brings his hand down. When had he followed him? How long had he been there? “Are you okay?”
Mike has to stop his eyes from widening. “Yeah.”
He should be the person asking that, he thinks, eyes glued to the ground.
“Your nose was bleeding,” he says.
Mike’s nose was bleeding at the same time of the neck touching. If Mike were looking from the outside in, he’d find that suspicious. His heart hammers.
“Yeah,” he stumbles, swiping a wet piece of hair from sticking to his face. He scratches his cheek, tapping his fingers on his leg. “Probably just the air, uh, how the summertime is.”
The look he gets is skeptical.
“I’m fine,” Mike restates, voice harsher than intended.
After a moment of silence, Will speaks. “You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Fuck.
“I’m not,” Mike says, lying through his teeth. “I promise. Friends don’t lie.”
The guilt hits him immediately. Why did he say that?
Friends don’t lie, he reminds himself, but friends protect.
Mike takes a quick glance up then immediately back towards the floor. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can speak, the mall is plunged in darkness.
The dark remains for a few long and agonizing seconds. "Uh. Woah?"
The Mindflayer, or maybe the Russians?
People make oohing sounds. The flittering halts, the mall-goers gawking at the power outage. The world is a blur of hushed chatter and whispers of fear and shivering children, clinging to their parents for support, and the music has left a silence Mike thought he'd never hear again.
Then, the music is back, and the lights are back, and aside from a few glances upwards toward the ceiling, the people go on with their business like nothing happened. Just a blink.
But Mike stays still. His hands are shaking; he forces them to his sides, gripping his pant legs so hard his knuckles pale. He needs to get ahold of himself, he thinks absently, still avoiding the look on his friend's face.
"I just needed some air," Mike smiles. His hands shove themselves into his pockets. "But anyways, what was that? I hope the movie didn't get disrupted or something. I mean, I wasn't paying much attention anyway, but Lucas seemed really interested, so . . ."
He risks a glance at his friend, who seems unreceptive to his attempt at deflection. However, deflection is Mike's middle name, so he glanced away before flashing another grin. "I think I'm gonna stay out here for a little bit. Uh, you can go back inside if you want."
"No," Will says.
Like a low, simmering fire beneath his heart, guilt twinges in Mike's chest. "Okay."
He leans to take another sip at the water fountain. Wiping the water from his lips, he accidentally locks eyes. Why's he just watching him?
He leans on the metal, lower back pressing on the cold which seeps into his shirt.
So, the deflection melts away.
"Do you ever feel like something's wrong with you, but you don't know how to confront the feeling?"
The question is pointless; Mike is aware of the answer. He's very aware of the answer. The answer only makes him feel more guilty.
Mike is talking about a few things. Upon getting only a nod, he continues. "I always feel like I'm pretending. To be something I'm not. To be . . . what people want from me, I guess?"
What people need from him.
"Sometimes I feel like . . . like I'm not really being true to myself. But if I tried to . . . be myself, to really be myself, everything would just go to shit."
The shield.
Still no reply. "I'm sorry. Sorry."
"Don't be."
Mike risks another glance. This time, Will's eyes are soft. He steps closer, hand almost reaching for him, before his arm quickly snaps back down. An almost flustered look crosses his face, but he pinches his brows into concern. Mike tries not to look at him and gives him time to recover.
That's what love looks like. He wants to cry. Everybody wants more than he can give.
Sometimes, Mike lets himself feel flattered because he's good enough to love. Other times, the weight wants to crush him alive.
"Still sorry," he laughs. Sorry for everything.
Mike hardly sleeps tonight, tossing and turning for hours.
Nothing sounds more fun in concept than a surprise party.
However, he's found that actually trying to execute the plan is way more difficult than he thought. Being the strategist he is, Mike is no stranger to plans; pressed against a wall with the rest of the party in the Henderson residence, he starts to think of all the ways sneaking into somebody's house could go wrong.
Namely, pepper spray. Pots and pans. Knives.
Etcetera.
He watches his girlfriend tune into her powers, eyes closed in focus. A floorboard creaks which must mean Dustin's moving. The racket of toys fills the silent air. A monkey chatters, crashing his cymbals; a whirring car scoots across the floor, squeaky and plastic. He suppresses a giggle. Dustin's not gonna hurt anybody, surely. Not bad anyway. Or maybe he could.
As he nears their hiding spot, they sneak around to circle his rear. The toys skid to a halt, leaving El to recollect herself. Max holds out a big banner, adorned and decorated by Will who spent way too long trying to get the font to look good. Lucas prepares to blow into a party thing-a-ma-jig (what are those called?).
They all shout in unison, "Surprise!" Everybody stands, grinning. Mike watches in horror and amusement as his friend whips around, can of hairspray in hand, and sprays Lucas directly in the eyes just as the sound of the party thing-a-ma-jig shouts into the room. Fresh from summer camp, wearing his Camp Knowhere shirt, Dustin screams in dissonant harmony with Lucas, and chaos erupts. Lucas runs to the sink to rinse his eyes. Dustin apologizes profusely. Max tries to hold back her laughter, helping her boyfriend, as El paces worriedly, watched by Will. Mike's trying to cover his shocked smile with his hand, but he can't, because it shows in his widened eyes. Hey, he wasn't so far off. It was practically pepper spray.
Mike's smile falters when he feels the familiar pressure ebbing in his head. He tries to suppress it with a low, fizzling feeling, but the flicker flashes in his mind before he can control it. He stumbles, breath hitching.
THEBLOOD.
The blood.
He quickly swipes at his nose; a crimson streak stains his arm. He rubs it on his clothes hopelessly, but it only stains on his pale blue polo. He hopes nobody notices.
Nobody does.
After a while, they're trekking up a hill on a hot summer day to assemble a huge radio so Dustin can talk to his girlfriend Suzie. When Dustin told everybody, Mike acted shocked: so shocked it almost looked fake, he's sure. Because seriously? Hotter than Pheobe Kates? (Not that he ever found her hot.)
Mike isn't the most reliable to ask about pretty women. Everybody's pretty to him in a different way. He knows El's pretty, or that's what he's supposed to reaffirm all the time. He likes her eyes. But he likes Lucas' eyes, too. Will's teeth. Etcetera. He doesn't think prettiness is anything inherently romantic. Everybody is unique and deserves to be appreciated. Sometimes he writes down descriptions of his friends on paper for writing practice, and he's always scared he sounds too flowery.
Speaking of flowers, he plucks a sweet daisy from the dirt on his trek up and hands it to El. She smiles and giggles and Mike smiles because she's happy he guesses. He remembers seeing girls on the playground in elementary school playing with their flowers, picking off their petals. "He loves me, he loves me not," they would say. Mike never got the point of that game. Either they were happy or they were sad. He thought it was all superficial anyway.
The harsh sun beats down on his head, and his black hair soaks in all the rays. A headache pounds firmly in his ears.
"How much longer till we get there?" he groans, voice pitching with complaint. His feet drag under him and his leg hurts.
"Not long," Dustin snaps. Clearly, that's a lie, because he sees no end in sight.
"Are you sure?" Mike whines. "Why can't you just set it up here?"
His friend spins to face him, a crinkled look on his face. "I thought you were smart," he says. "For most efficiency, we need to set it up at a higher elevation."
Mike wipes the sweat from his brow. "I'm sorry I don't wanna trek up a hill. How many degrees is it anyways?" He frowns. He resists the urge to make a snide remark and narrow his eyes the way he always does. Who did I jump for, again?
"Seriously. I promise you, you don't have to go much farther," Dustin says with annoyance in his voice.
Unhappily, Mike continues. He takes El's hand to help him a little bit. She sticks close to him at all times nowadays; he remembers the first few weeks after she got back, how upset she was at him for actually jumping. How upset she was with herself for not saving him on time. He guesses she feels like she has to protect him.
Stupid Cerebro. Stupid sun. Stupid heat.
Strategy, strategy.
He takes a glance at his watch.
"Hey," he pipes up. "I think I need to take El home, for her curfew."
"What?" Dustin tilts his head, sounding skeptical. "But I could've sworn she's stayed out later than this before."
Mike stammers. "Yeah, she has. But you know how stupid Hopper is all the time. He made it stricter."
Skeptical eyes travel every inch of his face.
Mike taps his watch, raising his brows. He looks expectantly at Dustin and prays El doesn't say anything. She doesn't, though. Probably because she isn't opposed to time with Mike for anything. He's surprised she's not confused about the whole 'friends don't lie' thing.
"Just go, Mike," Dustin sighs.
"Thanks. Sorry! Bye!" Mike says quickly.
And at that, he takes his girlfriend's hand and sets off back down the hill. The evening sun burns into his shoulders. He looks at El, who doesn't say anything until they're out of hearing range.
"There is no curfew," she says dumbly, like she's informing him. Guilt pangs in his chest.
"Yeah," he breathes. "I just needed to get out of there."
He doesn't meet her gaze. "It was a dumb lie. But . . . but white-lies are different than full lies," he tries to justify.
"White-lie?" She tilts her head.
"White-lies," Mike explains, "are small lies that are usually used to make things better. Like, if somebody looks bad in a shirt and they ask you how they look, you say good because you don't wanna upset them."
"Oh," her face crumples.
"But I don't white-lie to you! I don't tell them hardly ever!" He stammers. "Believe me, when I say you look good, I mean you look good. Okay?"
Hesitantly, El nods. "Okay."
He leans to give her a peck on the cheek, and she smiles.
"How much longer?" Mike jokes.
Back at the house, Mike sits on her bed again. When he walked in, Hopper shot a glare at him so hard he almost stumbled.
Music plays on the radio. Everything is like usual for now.
Though, he thinks he remembers what's supposed to happen. He has no idea how he's supposed to react. He flips through a page in a magazine, looking for words he thinks El doesn't know already.
Hm.
Mike points his finger at a paragraph. "Kerfuffle," he says. "What do you think it means in context? 'The dogs' played together, causing a kerfuffle.'"
A look of perplexion crosses El's face. She thinks really hard, before shrugging in defeat.
Mike smiles easily. "Kerfuffle is like . . . chaos. I think you already know what chaos means. Chaos or like, commotion I guess," he explains kindly. "Maybe the sentence about dogs wasn't the best example. Have you ever been around a dog?"
She shakes her head.
"The Byers used to have a dog. His name was Chester. He really liked me and he was like, really nice. He wagged his tail for me, but not for Dustin or Lucas when they'd come to visit," Mike says in exposition. He flips the page. "How about cats?"
She only nods simply. He wonders when she saw a cat. "What happened to Chester?"
"Nobody actually knows. He just kinda disappeared," Mike frowns. "Ran away. Maybe somebody else has him now. I like to think he's alive."
He puffs his cheeks, sifting through the paragraphs on the page. He keeps talking as he reads. "I've never had a pet. My mom says they're nasty and a waste of money, but I've always really wanted a dog. They make all kinds of dogs — breeds, mix-breeds . . . some are small and some are really big."
Quietly, El listens, seeming infatuated with anything he could possibly say.
"Here," Mike points at another word. "Integrate. 'They found a way to integrate the idea into their company logo.' Guesses?"
She shakes her head. Mike wonders how the English teachers do this so much. Maybe he should be an English teacher.
"To integrate something is to . . . to include something. To use something in a plan." He closes the magazine, before absently flipping the pages. "Is that enough?"
"Yes. Can . . . can we integrate this into every day?" she asks.
Mike smiles. "Yeah, sure." He crosses his legs. He doesn't like wearing shorts because of the scar from the accident, but he'd rather not burn up. He also thinks his legs are too long for him.
"Anyway, what do you wanna do?" he asks with a glance to the side. "We could watch TV, but I don't wanna bother Hopper."
Sweetly, El scoots towards him. She takes his hand and looks at it. "Don't know, but why? He is nice."
Mike grits his teeth almost comedically. "Uh . . . I think he's mad at me," he says honestly. That glare was terrifying. He doesn't wanna see real crazy at all.
Though, he's sure he has to.
"Why?"
"Because . . . because, I guess . . ." He hesitates. "To be honest, no clue."
Silence envelopes the room for a few minutes. Only the radio fills the quiet.
Almost cosmically, Hopper barges in. Mike immediately stiffens. El's hand squeezes his to try and calm him, but he doesn't.
"We need to talk," the man says. He turns off the radio and stares down at Mike, then glances backwards as if he were hesitating. Mike puts on his best puppy eyes.
After another moment of silence, Hopper speaks. "It's your grandma."
Mike furrows his brows. Nana's fine. "What?"
With a hand signal, Hopper makes Mike follow him out of the room. He trails behind bitterly. "What's wrong with Nana? I spoke to her yesterday."
He gets no reply. Hopper storms around in a way that makes Mike nervous. The pounding stomp reminds him of when Ted gets angry; he never screams or hits anybody, but he walks around with this buzzing anger that makes Mike's heart beat fast. Ted always gets angry because the house isn't clean enough or dinner isn't fast enough, but he never actually pitches in or tries to help at all.
"Did she fall down the stairs again?"
"No."
"Does she have cancer?"
"No."
"Did she die?"
"No."
"Then what's wrong with Nana?" Mike's voice pitches. He gets in the passenger seat of the car and closes the door softly. Hopper, however, slams his and stares at him with wide, furious eyes.
Mike then remembers how the Nana thing was originally a big lie.
"Nothing! There's nothing wrong with Nana!" Hopper booms. His voice reverberates in Mike's ears. He tries not to cover them. "But there's something seriously wrong with this . . . thing . . . between you and El."
Mike's mouth opens and shuts. He wants to be angry. Snarky. He wants to snarl something mean. But he doesn't.
"Oh," he murmurs. His voice crumbles under the pressure, and his eyes go round and watery. The chief almost falters. His eyes fill with malice again.
"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Hopper snaps. His hand grips the steering wheel like he'd rather it be Mike's throat. "And last night really sold it for me."
"It wasn't that," Mike looks down. "It really wasn't."
"Wasn't what?" Hopper feigns idiocy fakely. "Oh, you know exactly what it was!" His voice raises into a garbled shout. Mike recoils into his seat fearfully, sniffling. Please don't let him beat his ass.
"It wasn't!" Mike's voice raises into a wail. Fury blazes in the chief's eyes. "We were just— kissing, and she wanted to look at me. She doesn't know what that is!"
"Don't raise your voice at me, kid," Hopper grumbles, voice suddenly quiet. "No matter what you want to say happened, you're spending too much time here. You need to go home."
"Okay," Mike says, voice wavering. "Take me."
The car revs up and sputters.
"Besides . . ." He snots. He'll tell him the innocent truth. "That stuff grosses me out anyways."
A sharp glance from the chief shuts him up.
Mike walks into a quiet house in tears. The long, hateful speech replays in his head. He strolls past a dad who doesn't pretend to care, and he slams the basement door closed.