Chapter Text
“This is the dumbest idea you’ve had yet,” Mike says with a slight sneer as they walk up the street.
Now eighth graders, trick or treating is for kids and Dustin says that apparently means they need to start doing pranks instead.
Mike would rather just chill in his basement and watch horror movies, but the Party voted and the choice was “egg that douchebag Troy’s house.”
“Don’t be a limp dick, Wheels,” Max says, skateboarding beside them. They’ve dressed for the adventure, all in black carrying bags of egg cartons and toilet paper.
Max is their latest addition, but she’s pretty cool. She’s dating Lucas, and she makes him really happy, which is the most important thing. Plus, she knows the best ways to steal alcohol from parents without getting caught and knows how to drive.
Mike turns to Will. “I still can’t believe you voted for this.”
Will shrugs, “He called me ‘faggot’ too many times. It might be fun to get payback.”
“If he doesn’t beat the shit out of us first,” Dustin points out.
“This bullshit was your idea!” Mike points out indignantly.
“And you listened,” Dustin says. “That’s on you.”
Before Mike could bicker back, Lucas whistles sharply, drawing their attention. “Babe, what’s the address again?”
Max looks at her hand where she had scrawled the answer on her hand. “515 Sycamore Street.”
“We’re getting there,” Dustin says, looking around like a spy on a mission. “That’s 493 right there.”
“Is it dark enough?” Will asks a bit anxiously. “And I have my curfew-”
“You’ll make curfew,” Lucas reassures him absently.
“You’ll be okay,” Mike says, nudging him with his elbow. “I’ll make sure you get home safe.”
Will grins and they start getting sneakier as they approach the house.
“515” Lucas confirms with his binoculars, which are wholly unnecessary. “I don’t see any lights on. Well, one upstairs, but it’s faint.”
“It’s probably to ward people off from trick or treating, but not enough to invite robbers,” Dustin says. They all stare at him. “That’s what people do.”
“We probably only have five minutes to inflict damage before we get caught,” Lucas rolls up his sleeves.
“If we get separated, let’s meet at my house,” Dustin says. “It’s pretty close. Plus, my mom will have three musketeers-”
“Those are the worst-”
“I am not having this argument again,” Dustin snaps. “Let’s get started, I want the eggs.” He grabs a carton.
“Me too,” Max says.
“I’ll get the trees,” Will grabs two fistfulls of toilet paper with a wicked grin.
“I got the house.” Lucas says, smirking in the darkness.
“I got the toilet paper in the back,” Mike says definitively. “Break.”
For two minutes, Halloween mischief is fully appreciated. Eggs crack, toilet paper flies, and they bite their lips to keep from laughing.
Mike runs back around the small house to join his friends. “We should bail before anyone catches-”
“One last one,” Max says, grabbing the roll to throw it, and it smacks into the window with a THUMP.
“Fuck!” They all dive to hide out of sight in the darkness. They wait a moment, but then the lights turns on, moving down closer to the door.
“Shit, dammit, run!” Dustin shouts, scrambling to his feet. Mike grabs Will’s arm and they all split up. “My house!”
“Fucking run,” Lucas snaps, and then they’re out of sight as Mike and Will run behind the house to cut through the woods.
Right when the door slams open, Mike whips around to look but, as he does, he trips on a tree root and falls, twisting his ankle.
“Shit,” He hisses, rolling onto his back. God dammit that hurts.
“Mike!” Will stops running, skidding just a couple dozen feet away from him.
“Go! Go to Dustin’s! I’ll be fine!” Mike seethes out, waving his friend away. Troy’s always harder on Will than the rest of them, anyway. Maybe he won’t even kill Mike.
That’s a dumb fantasy.
Well. He lived a good life.
Mike hears the crunch of leaves as someone approaches, and he scrunches his eyes shut to brace for the impending pain.
Instead, nothing happens.
Slowly, Mike opens one eye to see a girl with short hair looking at him thoughtfully. She’s kneeling beside him with her head cocked. She’s around his age, a few inches shorter than him, and her eyes are bright in the light of the house. She’s wearing a flannel that’s too large for her and pajama pants.
What kind of costume is that?
“You’re not Troy?” Mike says.
The girl says nothing. Just stares at him with her dark brown eyes.
“Are you his girlfriend? Please tell him not to beat me up.” He’s not too proud to beg.
“I’m not Troy. Or his girlfriend,” At the idea of that, she makes a face. “I’m Eleven. This is my house.”
“You live here?” Mike clarifies. Then it hits him. Eleven. The Chief of Police, Jim Hopper, just adopted a girl named Eleven. He had seen her around Hawkins Middle, but hadn’t really talked to her.
Wait, if she lives here…
“This is the Chief of Police’s house?” He realizes with a pain that rivals his swelling ankle. “God, oh my God, I swear, we had no idea this was your house, we were trying to prank Troy-” He scrambles to get up, but winces as he puts pressure on his now-bad leg.
“Are you okay?” She asks, eyebrows furrowing.
“I fell, but-” He tries to twist it, and nearly yelps at the pain.
“Come on, we have ice inside,” Eleven says. “Can you walk?”
“You’re going to help me?” Mike asks, dumbfounded. “But I egged your house.”
The girl shrugs. “You were trying to prank Troy.”
“But I egged your house.”
She stared at him with such a piercing look that he’s taken aback. “Do you… not want ice?”
Mike swallows and looks down at his ankle. Is it already purple? Is it swelling?
“Can I please?”
Inside Hopper’s house, Mike knows he shouldn’t look around, shouldn’t snoop, as he limps through the hallways. But as Eleven leads him to the kitchen, he can’t help but see how bare everything is. The walls are empty, with no photos of them. There’s one photograph, but it’s of a sunset. The more he looks around, the more he sees lots of unopened boxes.
“We just moved here,” She says like she’s reading his mind as they reach the kitchen. “But it’s nice.”
“It is,” He’s quick to say. “And I’m sorry about your exterior- I mean the walls. My friends and I will clean it tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” She says with a soft smile as she goes on her tiptoes to reach into the freezer. It’s so tall. From his sparse meetings with the Sheriff (mostly general school visits), he knows the guy is like over six feet so it makes sense his fridge is a tall one.
She pulls out a freezer pack and hands it to him.
“Thanks for getting me ice,” Mike says. He tries to bend down to reach his feet, but Eleven shakes her head.
“You should sit down,” She says, gesturing to the sofa. “And raise the foot.”
“Raise it? Like levitation?” Mike tries to clarify, a bit out of it with how surreal this whole thing is. That’s not the word he wants to use, but he can’t think of the right one.
Again, she looks at him like he’s a nerd she doesn’t understand. “I don’t know what that is. But you should keep it high. That’s what Chief told me.”
Mike swallows at the mention of the police officer. Chief Hopper is gonna come home, and Mike is going to get arrested and he’s going to get expelled and no Northwestern for him. His life is ruined.
“Levitation,” He starts explaining as he hobbles over to the sofa. The screen is on silent, but he can see that it’s one of the soap operas his mom watches. “Is when you can make something float with your mind.”
Eleven smiles a bit, “Sounds fun.”
He waits for her to sit down first, so he takes the far side. Even though it hurts, he lifts his leg to prop it on the coffee table so it can ‘levitate.’
This is such a surreal experience, sitting in the Chief of Police’s house with his adopted daughter after egging her house but trying to get a bully’s. What the hell?
“Why don’t you like Troy?” She asks as they sit in the glow of the television screen.
Mike clears his throat, adjusting the pack at his ankle. “He bullies me and my friends. He’s just a mouth-breathing tool.”
“A tool? Like a hammer?”
“It’s another word for di- I mean, just a really mean person,” He corrects himself after nearly saying ‘dick’ to her. “He calls Will a ‘fag,’ and me a ‘frog.’” He shakes his head. “He has mean names for everybody.”
“He calls me Cancer Girl,” She says this matter of factly. So he studies her, and he tries to see if it hurts her feelings. Her eyes are focused on the TV screen, but then she looks over at him. “Because of my hair.”
“Yeah, your head was shaved last year right?” He remembers when she first walked into his English class last year. Right before, Mr. Sherman made sure to tell them all that Eleven Hopper was the new, adoptive daughter of the Chief so “everyone better be nice to her.” And then this girl with a shaved head and nervous eyes walked in. It didn’t go well. And the class branded her a weirdo.
A sick feeling clutched his stomach. Not that he was ever close to popular, but he and his friends could have made an effort to say hi. Maybe he’s as bad as Troy.
She nods, looking back away from him. “Papa- the man I lived before I lived with Chief- made me shave it. To be clean.”
“Do you like it shaved?” He looks at her hair now, the slightly wild curls around her head, almost like a soft lion’s mane.
“No,” She says. “I want it to be long, so I can make it big.” With her fingers, she gestures around her head, like fireworks. “Like hers.”
Eleven points to the girl on the silent screen, a woman with puffy hair in big curls by her face and chest. “That’s Leona. She’s the ‘mistress’ of the Baron Von Kielzing, but she’s also dating Mark Lovell. She also dated Rod Winchester last year, but he left her for The Red Woman.”
“That’s a lot of people to keep track of,” Mike says with a laugh. “I don’t think I could remember all those names, much less date them all at once.”
Eleven smiles, and then says, “Your name is Michael. Right?”
“No, well, I mean, yes.” She looks confused because, obviously, he’s a stammering idiot. So he tries to explain, “But no one calls me that really. They call me Mike.”
“‘Mike’?”
“Yeah, like a nickname. Mike, short for Michael. Do you have a nickname?”
Eleven shakes her head, then says, “Well. Chief calls me Kid. But nothing short for Eleven.”
“What about El?” Mike spitballs the idea.
“El,” Eleven says, like she’s testing it out. She nods. “El. I like it.”
“Cool. You can be El,” He says.
She smiles.
“I’m sorry I trashed your house, El.”
“It’s okay,” She says. “I would have liked it if you picked Troy’s instead…” Mike snorts. “But I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You didn’t scare me-” He starts to say, but the look she gives him makes him smile and acquiesce. “Alright, you did. But I’ll make sure we clean it up. Promise.”
“How’s your ankle?” She asks, looking down at his foot.
“A bit sore, but I’ll be okay,” He says. The ice is doing its job, but he knows he’ll have to go to the doctor’s. Shit, what is he gonna tell his parents?
They sit in silence, staring at the equally quiet television. And it hits him, that she knew his name. Well, he knew hers, but she was a big deal when she first came to Hawkins. He’s a nobody.
Before he can really ponder on it, she asks, “What’s a promise?”
“It’s an agreement,” He says, not really occurring to him that it’s odd she doesn’t know the word. “It’s one you can’t break.”
She nods, and curls her feet up under herself. “Promise,” She repeats under her breath.
“So what’s this show about? People cheating on each other?”
El smiles knowingly and says, “Yes. I watch it because they use fun words.”
“‘Fun words’?” Mike feels like their entire conversation is them just repeating each other, but he wants so badly to understand her. But he doesn’t know why. “Like swear words?”
She shakes her head, “Those aren’t fun. Here.” She walks over to the TV and turns up the volume.
There’s a couple on screen, fighting. One is an older woman with a younger man, the man with a mullet and the woman with Farrah Fawcett hair.
“But you’re so young!” The woman cries out as the boy embraces her. She holds a hand to her chest. “People are going to be aghast!”
Beside him, he can hear El softly go, “‘People are going to be aghast.” She turns to him. “What does ‘aghast’ mean?”
Mike racks his brain for an answer. “It means shocked, in like a bad way. Like, the people on the show are gonna be shocked that she’d date someone so young.”
El nods thoughtfully, and they keep watching the soap. She’ll repeat phrases under her breath. Every once in a while, she’ll ask him for the definition of a word and he’ll do his best to explain.
After two episodes, the door slams open. “Eleven, are you okay?” A voice shouts. “What the hell happened to the house?”
Mike freezes, and turns to El in a panic. She looks at him, and gets up off the couch.
“I’m okay,” She calls out. “I know it’s against the rules, but I have someone over.”
It’s silent for a moment, and then the Chief just says, “What?”
He’s going to die. And the Chief is going to make sure he’s never found.
“People got the house,” El says as the Chief walks into the room. He suddenly seems so much taller. “I think it’s a prank?” She turns to Mike. “Prank, right?”
Mike nods, keeping his eyes on the man with the gun.
“You okay?” Hopper asks El, touching her face gently to study her. “I’m sorry I’m home late, lots of Halloween mischief.”
She nods. Mike watches as Hopper nods her head for her, and he can see her smile.
“This is Mike,” She says when the Chief’s hands fall. “He tried to help. But he fell, and hurt his ankle.” Mike blinks owlishly in shock. Is she lying for him?
“Mike, huh?” Hopper says and steps closer to Mike.
He swallows. “Mike Wheeler. Sir.”
Hopper nods, “You’re Ted’s kid.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is your ankle okay?” Hopper says, walking over to the table.
“It’s a bit swollen,” Mike says slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But I’ll be okay.”
“Mind if I look at it?” Hopper asks. Mike shakes his head. He crouches down and looks at the ankle, taking the ice off of it. “A bit purple, but it doesn’t look broken. Good job keeping it elevated.” Elevated, that was the word he wanted to use, not levitated.
“I remembered,” El says.
“Good job, kid.”
“El,” She says, looking at Mike. He wonders if his cheeks are red from the all the attention. “Can you call me El?”
Hopper looks at them both, but mostly her. “Yeah, sure. El.” Just like her, he tests the words out. “I should drive you home, Wheeler. Your parents are probably worried sick.”
“I was supposed to be at a sleepover,” He says honestly. “But then-” He looks down at his ankle.
“Yeah,” Hopper runs a hand over his face. “It’s gonna be a bitch to clean.”
A stab of regret plunges into Mike’s chest.
“Swear jar,” El says. Hopper snorts a little.
“I’ll owe you one, El.” He turns back to Mike. “C’mon, kid, I’ll drive you to your friend’s house. You know the way?”
Mike nods. The Chief helps him up to stand. He’s able to put a bit more pressure on his ankle, but he still will need to rest it more.
“Can I come?” El asks.
Hopper stares at them both again, but he nods. “Sure.”
Mike and El share a smile.
The next day, first thing, Mike gets his entire Party to go to 515 Sycamore Street (apparently, Troy’s house was 551.) They all have trash bags and buckets temporarily filled with sponges and soap. After explaining that the family is very nice, they are all more than willing to help out.
Hopper and El are already outside by the time they get there. El stands by the first floor windows, scrubbing, while the Chief stands on the lawn at the top of the ladder, batting toilet paper out of the tree.
“Mike,” El greets the instant she sees him. She steps out of the dirt up to him. She’s smiling, and a weird, happy knot twists in his stomach. “Why are you here?”
“I promised I’d come, didn’t I?” He says with a smile. “Guys, this is El. El, this is Dustin, Lucas, Max and Will.” He points to each of his friends. “We’re here to help.”
Hopper whistles, and they all look up at him. “Nice seeing you again, Wheeler. See the ankle is better.”
Mike nods. “Just a twist!” He calls up.
“And I see you brought reinforcements.” Hopper studies them all. “Are you sure you all want to help?”
The entire Party nods. “Yes, Sir!” Dustin says like a military private. Lucas smacks his shoulder.
“We can take the back,” Lucas says, grabbing Max’s wrist to lead her.
“We can clean up the toilet paper,” Dustin says. “C’mon, Byers.”
“Nice meeting you, El,” Will says as Dustin drags him away to stand by the Chief’s ladder.
Mike turns to El. “Want help with the windows?”
She nods. “Yes. Hate for people to be aghast at our house.”
Mike smiles. Maybe he got the right house after all.