Work Text:
Frosty was the one that, in hindsight, he could concede was probably not a good idea.
He had been too enthusiastic. It was the first Christmas after Hopper’s year of exile - meant to make sure that El was no longer being hunted, the Wheelers were no longer being monitored, that Hopper was no longer being followed - and Mike Wheeler, nearly giddy from the high of having lunch with El every day, and being able to hang out after school and work on homework together, and make plans for the weekends, was a one-man army to make sure that El was never made to feel like she had missed out ever again.
If Mike was an army, then Dustin was his general. During their study hall they would meet and brainstorm, trying to remember every precious childhood memory, anything that could recapture that spirit for El. They discussed everything from popcorn garland for the Christmas tree to waiting up for Santa on Christmas Eve, surprising each other with Christmas traditions that the other hadn’t known about and reminiscing about fun times that had involved the party.
“Caroling?” Dustin asked, and Mike made a face.
“Do you want to sing? I don’t want to sing.” Mike thought about it. El liked music, and it was easier to engage her in a new experience if it involved music, but she hated being cold. “Maybe we can go to the park when they do the candlelight service if it’s not freezing out. There’s always a choir there, she’ll like that.”
“Build a snowman?”
Mike made a face. He wasn’t sure how long she’d tolerate that. “If it even snows during Christmas break… sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s not always enough to even make a snowman. Besides, that’s not really Christmas, that’s something you do when you get a snow day from school.”
“It can be both,” Dustin argued. “Snowmen are part of traditional Christmas decorations.”
“Yeah but I don’t want to rely on the weather doing us any favors. I want El to have the best Christmas ever. She’s got 14 years of shitty ones to make up for.” Mike doodled in the margin of his notebook. “Plus she keeps saying she doesn’t want school to go on break, because she likes it, and I keep trying to tell her that Christmas break is, like, the answer to our prayers, not a punishment.”
“We still have so much to teach her,” Dustin intoned dryly, reaching into his backpack. “Which reminds me - I remembered the TV Guide.”
“Yes!” Mike practically lunged across the table to snatch it out of Dustin’s hand.
“Be careful with that!” Dustin protested. “My mom will kill me if anything happens to it.”
“Tell me about it. I think my dad wants his in his coffin with him.” Mike rolled his eyes as he remembered the reason he’d needed Dustin’s copy in the first place. He flipped through the pages, eyes scanning. “I’m just hoping none of them are on Wednesdays, Wednesdays she stays late for English tutoring and Hopper always takes her to the diner afterwards.”
He glanced up from the TV Guide to find that Dustin was staring at him, with a weird, unreadable look on his face.
“What?” he asked irritably. That had been happening more and more often - it used to be only when El was around, that he could look at any one of his friends and see them watching with that strange, muted expression. Lately it had been happening when he was alone too, usually when he was talking about El.
“Nothing,” Dustin said quickly. He looked down at his Snack-Pack, and then a teasing grin wormed across his face. “Do you have a Christmas present for her yet?”
“None of your business,” Mike snapped.
“So that’s a no,” Dustin countered. “I was just asking, geez. You know, I can ask Steve for help if you need it.”
“I really don’t want to know what kind of presents Steve Harrington used to buy for my sister,” Mike said stiffly. His eyes caught a listing. “Look, Frosty the Snowman is on next week. Holly loves that one. If I say she can watch with me and El that’ll make my mom happy.”
And his mom had been happy. Despite the fact that it was right after dinner she’d made them a giant bowl of popcorn, and hot chocolate - actual hot chocolate heated up and melted on the stove, not the instant kind, because Mike had impressed upon her how important this was to him even if Karen Wheeler still hadn’t gotten a straight answer on how El had somehow missed 14 years of Christmases.
All three of them had sat on the floor, huddled under a crocheted blanket, Holly cradling the massive bowl of popcorn.
“Santa is bringing me a Barbie sleeping bag,” she told El, licking oil off her fingers and sticking them right back into the bowl. “Mom took me to the mall yesterday and I got to tell him and he said I’d been good this year, so that means he’s going to bring me one.”
El glanced at Mike over her head. He gave her an encouraging smile. They’d talked about Santa - with no way to explain why he’d skipped over her for ten years in Hawkins lab, Mike had been forced to explain that it was a myth, thus depriving her of some of the Christmas magic he’d been trying to recreate, but he’d also told her that Holly very much believed he was real, and that it was important not to spoil it for her.
It was obviously hard for her to reconcile “Friends don’t lie” with “Friends let their friend’s little sister continue believing in the myth of Santa” but El was making a good show of it, nodding attentively and letting Holly chatter mindlessly.
Nevertheless, it was a relief when Holly realized that El had never seen Frosty before, and thus transitioned from talking about everything Santa was going to bring her (which consisted of pretty much every toy advertised during the commercials) to explaining the plot of Frosty to El, even as they were watching it.
“Holly,” Mike finally interrupted. “Let her watch. If she has any questions, she’ll ask you, right El?”
El quickly nodded. Her hair had grown longer in the last year, having only been trimmed a couple times by Joyce, and now the curls that had formed went past her shoulders. She favored pretty bows and headbands to keep her face clear. Tonight, paired with her jeans and a plain gray sweatshirt, she was wearing a pink bow with white polka dots, and Mike had been resisting the urge to yank on it the entire evening.
She wouldn’t be mad at him if he did it though. He could already picture the look she’d shoot him - chagrined and exasperated, but not angry - and then when she tried to fix it he could help her.
He was contemplating the best way to accomplish this - was there any possible way to get rid of Holly without her crying? - when Santa arrived to the greenhouse, and discovered that Frosty had melted into a puddle.
El gasped. Holly patted her hand - “He’ll come back just watch -”
But it was too late. El had burst into tears at the sight of young cartoon Karen crying over the puddle that was formerly Frosty. Mike practically upended the bowl of popcorn reaching for her. “El, it’s okay, it’s okay! Holly’s right, he comes back!”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gesturing to the TV. She was sobbing as Frosty the Snowman played cheerfully over a montage that Mike realized was ultimately a eulogy for Frosty. To his dawning horror, Holly’s lower lip began to tremble too.
“Holly,” Mike said desperately. “You know it’s fine. It turns out fine. Frosty goes to the North Pole with Santa, remember? They see him every year.”
“He’s not the same!” El cried. “And they only get to see him once a year!”
“Is everything okay in there?” his mother called from the doorway.
Their backs were to her; Mike pulled El closer, letting her press her face into his neck, and snapped in a way that only people who did not want to explain why everything was not fine could accomplish: “Everything is fine!”
“Is Holly crying?” his mom asked, stepping into the room. Holly jumped up, tripping over the blanket to go cry on her mother’s hip. “What on earth did you say to her Michael?”
“Nothing!” Mike shouted. “El’s never seen it before. She didn’t know Frosty melted. Holly did, so she has no reason to be crying.”
“Michael what have I told you about upsetting your sister?”
“I didn’t upset her!” Mike responded hotly. “Frosty did! Can you just give me a minute with El please?”
“We will talk about this later Michael,” Karen promised, but then she did, blessedly, retreat - mostly, Mike knew, to tend to Holly. He didn’t really care if it got him a minute alone with El.
“I’m really sorry,” Mike told El. He lunged for the box of tissues on the side table, offering them to her. “I never thought it was sad. When I was a kid I was just so happy he made it to the North Pole, ya know?”
“I’m sorry,” El said softly, her cheeks coloring. She wouldn’t make eye contact with him.
“No, no! Please don’t,” Mike insisted. It made total sense to him that someone like El - someone who had fought tooth and nail to come back to her friends and family - would find Frosty so upsetting. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about it. I should have known.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, pillowing her head on his shoulder. “At least,” he finally said, “it’s only on once a year.”
He was rewarded with her soft laugh, and that, Mike decided, was a victory, considering how the evening had turned out.
(Of course, that was before Hopper picked her up and saw she’d been crying.)
***
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer went better - but that was only because Frosty the Snowman had set the bar so impossibly low.
The evening before it aired, Nancy had finished her finals and come home from Bloomington. The house was tense - she’d really only come home to see Jonathan Byers, who was home from New York for Christmas, and Mike wondered if his parents could tell. She’d stayed for dinner, and to Mike’s eternal frustration, had slipped from the house before he could corner her alone.
He stayed up to talk to her; it was after midnight when she got back to the house, tiptoeing even though he was sure that his parents were awake too.
Sticking his hand in the door just before it clicked shut, he managed to slip in behind her.
“Jesus Christ, what did you and Jonathan do?!” he asked, taking in her rumpled appearance. Her belt was missing, the top three buttons of her blouse were undone, and somehow even her newly acquired rebellious pixie haircut was sticking up in all directions.
She gave him a crooked smile. “Nothing you want to hear about. Or that I’d want to tell you about.”
They had a brief stand off, sizing each other up. They never talked when she was at school - Bloomington was a long distance phone call, and neither one of them was a letter writer. Mike finally shrugged at her. “I’m glad you came home.”
Her mouth twisted. “I wanted to see you and Holly and my friends,” she conceded, sitting on the edge of her bed.
“And Jonathan,” Mike couldn’t resist prompting.
Instead of rebuking him though, Nancy smiled. “And Jonathan.”
“So speaking of…” he leaned back against the door, trying and failing to appear nonchalant. “Since you’re home anyway, I thought maybe you could help me with something?”
Nancy looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Then her eyes narrowed, and her forehead wrinkled in thought.
“You don’t have a Christmas gift for El,” she decided, and Mike’s mouth dropped open.
“How the fuck could you know that?” he demanded, and Nancy gave him a condescending smirk that used to infuriate his prepubescent self.
“Mike.” Her tone was lilting, and patronizing. “You do whatever the hell you want. I’ve heard stories. The only reason you’d ask for my help is if it’s about El because she’s pretty much the only person whose opinion you care about.”
“That’s not true!” he argued, genuinely surprised at her words - he had friends; he cared what Lucas and Dustin and Will all thought.
“Mike,” she said flatly. “You DM the majority of your games just because you like to plan whatever you want for your little campaigns.”
“Okay, so, if you knew anything about being a good DM you would know that you have exactly no control over the story,” Mike said, completely distracted from the point as his mind raced to formulate a list of examples that would prove her wrong.
She got up from the bed, shaking her head at him. “It doesn’t matter. It’s fine, I’ll help you find a gift for El. She deserves a nice gift from her boyfriend.
“Yes, she does. Thank you.” He felt relieved. He’d already been worried when Dustin had asked the previous week, and hadn’t made any headway even though he’d wracked his brains trying to come up with something perfect. “She’s coming over tomorrow, maybe you can talk to her?”
She took him by the elbow and reached for the doorknob. Despite his height, she could still manhandle him as if they were little kids. “Tomorrow, yes. But now,” she said, putting him back out in the hallway, “I want you to get out of my room.”
Then she shut the door in his face.
Rudolph started off better than Frosty - Mike had played the song for her, and warned her, “It’s a good show, but they’re kind of mean to him. But it turns out okay, because they end up loving him. But don’t get upset when they’re mean to him, okay?”
And she hadn’t - he’d looked over during the scene with Clarisse and the flying lessons and while she certainly didn’t look happy, with her eyebrows drawn low and laser focused intensity on the television, she didn’t appear upset like she had when Frosty had melted.
His hand crept into hers, and while she didn’t spare him a glance he saw her face relax a little.
He had really thought about Rudolph, describing it to her as they strung tinsil on Hopper’s tree (it was pointless to help decorate his own - his mom would just rearrange all the ornaments and fix it the way she liked it anyway) and he felt pretty confident with this one. It was a classic; she would like Yukon Cornelius, and most importantly, nobody melted or otherwise died.
Where he had miscalculated had been the Island of the Misfit Toys.
Even Holly got quiet as the toys sang about how they were broken and didn’t fit in, how they’d miss all the fun with the boys and girls because they weren’t wanted. Mike realized that El’s hand had gotten uncomfortably tight.
His heart sank as he saw the look on her face - she was wearing what he called her Bambi face (and there was another movie he could never show her), with a blank expression and big doe eyes. She pulled it when she was trying to lie (often unsuccessfully) or otherwise didn’t want undue attention.
The tears streaming down her cheeks kind of ruined the effect, however.
“El,” he said in a low tone, giving her hand a little jiggle. She turned to look at him, gave him a pained frown, and he felt a stab in his heart. “It turns out okay. They all get to good homes. I promise, I wouldn’t show you something -”
Something that glorified people who were ostracized for being different. He knew she constantly felt pressure at school, already singled out for being the weird girl who was homeschooled until high school, and then to be behind in English on top of that. Sometimes he thought that it was mostly in her imagination - but he’d already had two detentions this year for punching people who’d called her weird.
“I just - I promise,” he finished lamely. He reached for the box of tissues again.
Strike two Wheeler, he thought. He heard it in Hopper’s voice.
***
At least she got through Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. El couldn’t make it the whole way through the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
The weekend before the entire group had descended upon the Sinclair’s - a rare event, but the Sinclair’s were the only ones with a fireplace, and Mike had wanted to show El the joy of sitting in front of a roaring fire and making s’mores.
They probably could have asked Jonathan to help them set up a fire pit at the Byers’, but the fact was that El hated being cold, and had already spent enough time huddling in front of crappy little camp fires. While Mike thought El (and her sweet tooth) would love gooey s’mores, he didn’t think she’d like the part where she had to sit outside in the cold and make them.
Instead Mr. Sinclair built them a fire - and much like Karen Wheeler, never got a good explanation for how El had missed out on s’mores her entire life - and the six of them crammed around, marshmallows speared on pokers (with reluctant promises to share with Erika, even if she wasn’t allowed in the room to bug them.)
“It feels like lying,” El was saying to the group, and Mike, exasperated, threw his hands up.
“She’s five. It would be so mean to tell her Santa isn’t real.”
“Not to mention your mom would kill you,” Dustin added.
“I mean, I didn’t lie to Erika when she asked me,” Lucas said, taking a melted marshmallow from Max and smushing it onto a graham cracker. “But I didn’t go out of my way to tell her the truth either.”
“And your mom still almost killed you,” Dustin reminded him. “Am I the only one who remembers you being grounded that entire Christmas break?”
“Holly’s cute though,” Max said. She had a hand under her s’more, trying to prevent the melted chocolate from dripping onto the blankets underneath them. “Erika is… not.”
“I think you mean,” Lucas supplied, “that she’s a goblin that they replaced my real sister with.”
El snorted, and choked on her bite. Spraying crumbs everywhere, she laughed and coughed while Mike patted her on the back and Dustin scrambled to save her marshmallow from the fire.
“Look, Nancy didn’t spoil it for me when she learned the truth. It’s not fair to do that to Holly.” El shot him a look, and he quickly added, “I know party rules, but Holly isn’t in the party.”
“Jonathan told me,” Will piped up with a shrug.
Nobody laughed at that. Mike shifted uncomfortably. Will wasn’t referring to a funny story. He remembered when this had happened.
“Why?” El finally asked, surely unable to imagine gentle Jonathan, who loved Will more than anybody else on earth, ever being cruel to him, even in the name of sibling rivalry.
Will shrugged again. “It was right after my dad left. He was really mad a lot of the time. He got a detention right before Christmas break and when I told him Santa would put him on the naughty list he told me Santa wasn’t even real. Mom told me he was lying because he was mad about being on the naughty list, but I knew he was telling the truth.”
Max, to the surprise of no one, was quiet. If her and Billy had ever talked about Santa, or Christmas, it would have been in the interest of putting her down, or making her miserable, and they all knew it.
Silence fell. Lucas leaned into Max’s shoulder, and she leaned back against him. They would have held hands, Mike suspected, if they didn’t need both of them to deal with the messy snacks.
Then, without even trying, his eyes tracked El’s hands - she brought her right hand to her lips, scraping chocolate off the pad of her thumb. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
When she noticed him watching, she gave him a sunny grin. There was a streak of marshmallow at the corner of her mouth.
The others started to fade away. He wanted to reach out and touch her. It seemed like it was just the two of them in the room - and then Max dropped her poker, cursing as she smeared melted marshmallow against the blanket.
Lucas scrambled to help her - “Don’t touch it, it’s hot!” - but Will and Dustin, Mike saw, were both watching him with that same curious expression that Dustin had worn the other day at lunch.
“What is it?” Mike asked them. El hadn’t seem to notice their scrutiny. She was holding her hands delicately away from her body, sticky fingers searching for one of the napkins that were strewn about.
“Nothing,” Dustin demurred yet again. Will just shrugged. Mike got the sense that they were telling the truth. They didn’t seem to have words for whatever was capturing their attention.
“Hey,” El said, tugging on his sleeve. Her fingers stuck to the material, leaving tacky fingerprints behind. “Hopper says you can come over Thursday. To watch Charlie Brown.”
More like Hopper had insisted that they watch Charlie Brown at his place because he’d noticed that El had come home crying twice already.
A smirk crossed Dustin’s face, and Mike shot him a warning glare. Mike had told him about their previous attempts at watching Christmas specials, but had pointed out that if they tried to make fun of him then El would surely think they were making fun of her for crying.
It wouldn’t matter if they tried to explain that they weren’t laughing at her. El had noticed that the boys and Max didn’t express their emotions the same way she did - cooped up in Hawkins lab the only way to express anything she was feeling strongly was to explode. Now she worried about it, no matter how much Mike and Will (the only person she confided in as much as Mike) had tried to reassure her.
He understood, and could help her cope with distress - but he was completely taken aback by her anger at the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
It had started out so promising too. He’d told her how Charlie Brown had always been his favorite, and unsurprisingly, she had loved the music, even trying to impersonate the kids dancing and making both of them laugh until they couldn’t breathe. Upbeat, peppy music helped her feel at ease, and Mike had suspected that the jazzy soundtrack to Charlie Brown would appeal to her.
And then Charlie Brown had brought his little Christmas tree back to his friends, and the montage of Charlie Brown’s friends berating him - telling him he was stupid, saying he had picked a bad tree, calling him hopeless - stopped the evening on a dime.
Suddenly the television turned off with an electronic squeal. Mike blinked at the still glowing screen, initially thinking that there had been some kind of power failure - but no, all the other lights were still on, even the lights on the little Christmas tree in the corner.
Then he saw the look on El’s face - jaw set, eyes blazing - and knew that she had turned the television off. She hadn’t even bothered reaching for the remote. She looked like she was ready to go ten rounds with the demogorgon.
“Uh…” His mouth was open. He absolutely did not want her rage turned on him. He wasn’t even sure what had triggered it.
She swung her head to look at him. “They are so mean to him!”
“Well - I -” Mike licked his lips. He didn’t think now was the time to explain the basic nature of Peanuts and Charlie Brown’s relationship with his friends. “I know I’ve said this every time, but if you would just turn it back on -”
“Those. Aren’t. Friends.” El said sternly. She didn’t look like she was going to cry; she looked like she was going to punch him. She stood up and glared at him, hands on her hips. “You don’t treat your friends that way.”
Mike, searching for a way to de-escalate the situation, went for a joke. “I mean, Dustin sometimes, when he’s being an asshole.”
She stamped her foot impatiently. “You don’t treat me that way.”
“You’re not an asshole.” Mike said flatly. “And also you’re not just my friend, you’re my girlfriend.”
It worked. She deflated, flashing him that quick, elated grin that was involuntary every time one of them reminded the other that they were dating (dating like actual normal teenagers holy shit) but it didn’t completely replace the cross look on her face. “Charlie Brown isn’t an asshole.”
“No, he’s not,” he agreed with her. At least she wasn’t crying this time.
He held up his arm, and gestured to the empty seat next to him on the couch. She consented to sit down next to him.
Mike slung an arm around her shoulders.
“Mouthbreathers,” she muttered.
It was such an unexpected thing to hear out of her. He started in surprise, and then began to laugh. Before he had learned the simple pleasure of a well placed asshole or fucker, mouthbreather had been one of his favorite insults. He’d forgotten that he’d taught El that one.
“All right,” he conceded. “We don’t have to finish Charlie Brown Christmas.”
***
The one she liked the best ended up being the one he’d had no plans of showing her.
It was just a couple days before Christmas, and she was visiting the Wheelers so they could exchange presents - he had relatives coming in from out of town, and she and Hopper would be joining the Byers for dinner on Christmas Eve, so there was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to see each other for several days.
They were in the basement, because El had just given Mike his gift - a large binder for him to keep their Dungeons and Dragons characters and campaigns organized. Previously they had been scattered through notebooks and scrawled on loose pages, mixed in with his science and English notes as ideas came to him in class, and El had wanted to give him a safe space to keep everything together.
She had teamed up with Will to make it - he had done the drawing and delicate lettering on the outside cover and if Mike weren’t already in love with the gift the fact that she had included Will had made his heart feel full to bursting. The holidays were always hard for the Byers, and she had known that Will would need something to work on, to be distracted.
He had all of his game books piled on the table - trying already to flip through them, looking for notes to shove into the binder. The two of them had even thought to put in tabbed separators, which were decorated, but not labelled - leaving it to him to decide how to organize the thing.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see El admiring herself in the mirror, wearing one of his gifts to her. Despite Nancy’s attempts to lead him towards jewlery, which he thought was too flashy or too expensive, he’d ended up finding on his own something that he knew she’d love even though other people might find it a bit silly - a pair of hot pink, heart shaped sunglasses.
She caught him looking at her.
“They look good on you,” he said, clearing his throat. Her cheeks blushed as pink as the glasses, but she was smiling. “Like you could be in a magazine.”
He was sure she’d be pleased with his other gift, as soon as she could listen to it - the little cassette, a mixtape that he’d slaved over, was resting in the inside pocket of her coat upstairs. He wondered if she would realize that he’d put every song they’d danced to at the Snowball on it, if they weren’t all burned in her memory the same way they were in his.
She came over to stand next to him, resting her hand on the table next to his. He took it without hesitation. “This is perfect, El, just perfect. Thank you so much.”
“Thank Will too. He let me give it to you but it’s from him too,” she said, very seriously, like Mike could ever forget Will.
“No, of course, I’ll…” he trailed off as she lifted their entwined hands and wriggled into the safe circle of his arms. Her chin tilted up; she still had the sunglasses over her eyes, and Mike could see himself in the reflection.
I’m gonna kiss you, he thought, but right as he was leaning down the door at the top of the cellar steps banged open and Holly shouted, “Mike! The Grinch is starting!”
“Not now Holly!” he barked over El’s head, but she was already twisting away from him.
“What’s the Grinch?” He reached out and with one fingertip pushed the sunglasses up onto her head, letting him see her dark, serious eyes again.
“Eh,” he shoulders slumped. “It’s another one of those dumb shows. We don’t have to watch it.”
“Mom says come and watch!” Holly shouted again, too lazy to come down the steps. “It’s the Grinch, Mike!”
El was already heading up towards her. “I’ll watch with you,” she was telling Holly, and Mike rounded the bottom of the steps just in time to see her disappear into the first floor, holding Holly’s hand.
By the time he reached the living room, ten steps behind them, Holly had already deposited El on the couch and crawled up next to her. With a sigh, Mike grabbed the granny-square blanket off the back of the recliner and threw it over their legs.
“Can I see your glasses?” Holly asked, big eyes looking up at the pink sunglasses on El’s head.
“Hell no,” Mike answered for her. “You’ll break them, and they’re El’s Christmas gift. You gonna let her come over and play with all your toys Christmas morning?”
He thought for sure Holly would shout for their mother, but instead she frowned at him and stuck her tongue out. He stuck his out back at her, crossing his eyes so she’d giggle instead of cry.
“Look El,” she said, patting the older girl’s leg. “That’s the Grinch.”
The girls made themselves comfortable. El was watching the television with the same childlike intensity as Holly. Mike, however, was braced for the worst - everything else they’d watched had triggered some sort of emotional response in El that he hadn’t been able to predict, and this evening had gone so well until this point. He hated the thought that she might go home crying again, and that he wouldn’t see her for several days as they each celebrated the holiday…
So he was tense, barely able to crack a smile as Holly bellowed her way through You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch, though El had certainly laughed as she had emphasized Stink! Stank! Stunk! and pointed towards Mike. The nature of sibling relationships was something he’d tried to explain to El, and they’d come far if, instead of worrying that Holly was upsetting Mike, she could just laugh along with his sister.
Holly was settling down by the time the Grinch was sledding into Whoville, head resting on the arm of the couch and her little feet pillowed on El’s thigh. El had taken his hand, and was resting her head on his shoulder, and so he missed it when she started crying.
His chest felt hollow. Mike couldn’t for the life of him think of what could be so upsetting. “What’s the matter?” he murmured, leaning so close their noses were almost touching.
El always found a way to surprise him. Instead of sounding distressed, or angry, she patted her chest with the hand that wasn’t holding his. “His heart grew,” she said simply. “They’re friends now.”
His face must have still looked mystified, because she shrugged. “It’s happy,” she tried to explain. “He was alone,but they’re all friends now, even though he tried to steal Christmas.”
Mike mouthed for words. “You didn’t like the other shows!”
“The other shows weren’t happy.” El sniffed, shaking her head like she was trying to get a bad taste out of her mouth. Then she looked at him, her face softened, and she leaned up to kiss him -
“Mike?” It was Nancy interrupting them this time, and Mike was not shy about his irritation as he heaved a huge sigh. “Hopper called, he’s on his way from the station to pick up El.”
He helped her stand up from the couch, but as they reached the doorway, Nancy blocked them, standing in the kitchen. “You liked the Grinch, El?”
El nodded, still holding onto Mike’s hand.
“That’s good,” Nancy said, utterly sincere. “Mike was really excited to celebrate some Christmas traditions with you.”
Alarms started blaring in Mike’s mind. There was something off about Nancy’s tone, and she was still standing in the doorway…
“Of course, he almost missed one of the most important ones, didn’t you Mike?” she asked with with a cheerful grin, the cat having cornered the mouse, and pointed up.
There, hanging above their heads, was a perfect sprig of mistletoe.
“Merry Christmas!” Nancy trilled, and left them, El with a confused look on her face, and Mike feeling an intense cross between frustrated (how dare Nancy set them up) and excited (he’d been looking for an excuse to kiss her anyway).
“What is it?” El asked, reaching up to touch her fingertip to the mistletoe.
Mike squeezed her hand, redirecting his attention to her. “It’s called mistletoe. It’s - if you’re under it with - with your boyfriend, you’re supposed to -”
He was surprised when she cut off his explanation by wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him firmly for as long as was probably safe knowing that his family could walk in any moment.
When she pulled away, he gaped at her.
“Max already told me about mistletoe,” she said with a little smile. Then, “Oh, I hear Hopper.”
She was almost at the door before he found a response. “How did Max tell you about mistletoe?!”