Chapter Text
If I had a car, none of this would have happened, Mike thought to himself for the thousandth time.
He stared down at the cast that covered his leg from ankle to thigh and sighed, trying to dig his fingers underneath and reach the itch that was driving him fucking nuts . The stupid thing had only been on for an hour and it was already driving him crazy.
“—will be pay for this , do you understand me?!”
His mother’s voice was shrill outside of the hospital room and even though it wasn’t aimed at him, he winced anyways. The dumbass who had hit him had tried to take off afterwards but was caught pretty quickly, it’s not like Hawkins was big enough to hide. Karen Wheeler wasn’t going to let him get away with it, her mama bear instincts in full effect as she screamed at the police officer outside of the hospital room.
It was his doctor’s voice that broke him from eavesdropping, making him look up at the smiling older man.
“We’re going to keep you for the next two days, just in case that concussion acts up, how does that sound?” The doctor smiled, his eyes way too cheerful. “Don’t want your mother thinking we aren’t trying our hardest.”
Mike snorted but said nothing, sighing and giving up on scratching the itch, instead looking out the window. It was summer and he was supposed to be outside, mowing lawns and working at RadioShack, saving up his money for the car he had been hoping to buy.
The one he didn’t quite have enough for, the one that would have kept this from happening if he’d been driving it instead of riding his old bike. But he hadn’t and now he was stuck at the hospital for the next two days instead of mowing Ms. Gillespie’s front lawn for five bucks every week. It fucking sucked.
His mother came in, still looking angry, but the second she saw her son laying in the bed in the hospital gown with his casted leg sticking out in front of him, she burst into tears. Mike groaned.
Not this again.
“Mom, come on, it’s not that bad,” he always felt uneasy when she cried. “I can’t even feel it. And I’m only seventeen, it’s not like my bones are too fragile to heal or whatever. I get it off in a month.”
“That asshole didn’t even stop!” She wiped at her eyes. “I can’t believe he could hit a child and just… leave you there!”
“I mean, I don’t really look like a kid,” he reasoned, just wanting her to stop crying.
He was right, he didn’t really look seventeen, but closer to twenty. His legs were so long that they almost dangled off the end of the bed and his 6’3 frame made it easy for him to mistaken as a full-blown adult. His face was still boyish, but he had a strong jawline and cheekbones, the effect ruined by the childish smattering of freckles and the mop of dark hair that fell into his eyes in a shaggy bowlcut. There were more than a few girls at his high school that thought he was cute, but his nerd status kept him at the bottom of the social pyramid and he had no clue that the occasional stare wasn’t because the was weird, but because he was cute.
He couldn’t talk to girls anyways, so maybe it was for the best.
“Mike!”
He looked up just in time to see an X-Men t-shirt coming towards him and then two sweaty arms surrounded him and gave him a rib-crushing bearhug. Another hand gripped his shoulder and between the two Mike spotted Will behind them, giving his friend a grin.
“Boys! Take it easy on him!” Karen commanded. “He’s still bruised!”
The grip slackened and then pulled back and Dustin and Lucas smiled excitedly down at their friend as Will came up and shoved his way through. Despite the rather dreary circumstances, they all looked happy. Or maybe just relieved that he was alive and not just a smear on the asphalt. Either way, they had come to visit. Of course.
“Dude!” Dustin poked the cast. “This is crazy!”
“A little,” Mike agreed, figuring it wasn’t exactly usual.
“Does it hurt?” Will asked, eyes concerned.
“Um, not right now, they numbed it up for the surgery and also I’m on a painkiller so I feel pretty good.”
“What kind of painkillers?” Lucas perked up. “Is it something good?”
“Um—”
“ Okay, boys, why don’t you all sit down and take turns,” Karen quickly interjected. “And easy on the questions about narcotics.”
The three boys did, sitting in the chairs and letting Mike tell the story, how he’d been crossing Maple and the car had come out of nowhere and hit him straight on, snapping his leg. He didn’t really remember being hit, but he remembered flying and feeling something crack and then staring up at the sky as an old woman in a robe bent over him and asked if he was okay.
Then the air had come back into his lungs and he’d sat up, looking down at his leg. Or rather, looked sideways at his leg, since it was bent, right above the knee. Where it was definitely not supposed to bend.
He had passed out after that and woken up in the hospital with his mother hysterically trying to get the doctors to tell her what had happened. It was a fracture to his femur that required lots of rest to heal, and a minor concussion that they were monitoring. Overall it wasn’t that bad, but he’d need some physical therapy to get his leg back to normal and was told he would have to take it easy for several months. There was a chance of cramping and pain but if he managed to regain the strength in his leg it would be less likely.
“So when do you get out?”
Mike looked over at Will. “Day after tomorrow. I have a concussion so they want me to stay but honestly I feel fine…”
“Aw, man, do we have to cancel the campaign this weekend?” Dustin whined.
Lucas smacked him on the shoulder with a frown, like he couldn’t believe it was even a question. How was their Dungeon Master supposed to narrate a campaign in this state?
“Of course, dumbass, Mike needs to rest and heal and stuff, he won’t have time for that!”
“Well, I mean, maybe—” Mike started.
“He broke his leg, Lucas, not his head! Why can’t he DM?”
“Why are you always so selfish? Give him a break, he got hit by a car!”
“Too bad you didn’t get hit by a car, maybe it would have scrambled your brain into something that actually works.”
“I’m gonna kick your—”
The two started to try and wrestle each other out of their seats and Will gave Mike a tired look that said “You better not leave me alone with these idiots for too long”. There was a sudden pang of pain and Mike winced, looking down at his leg. The numbing was starting to wear off and there was a dull ache that made him want to grit his teeth. His mother noticed.
“Alright, boys, I’m glad you all came but I think Mike needs to rest now,” she told them, her voice full of the usual ‘I’m not asking, I’m telling tone’ she used when their sleepovers got too rowdy. “Why don’t you come visit him when he’s at home? We could set him up in the living room with that game you have—”
“My Atari?” Dustin piped up.
“Yes, that. It’ll be great. But for now, you all should head home.”
They slowly got up, going over to Mike and giving him loving slaps on the shoulder and ruffling his hair which he hated but was powerless to stop. There was a chorus of goodbyes as they shuffled out of the room and Mike grinned after his friends. He had been friends with them forever and even though they could have pitied him and made him feel worse, they’d successfully lifted his spirits instead.
The feeling didn’t last.
His pain meds helped to keep the pain at bay, but they also made him restless and he woke up several times that night, hardly able to roll over due to the cast. It was embarrassing that he had to call a nurse to help him pee, but after almost falling trying to use the crutches, he gave in and let them help.
The morning sun was just starting to light up the room and he felt totally confined. His mom had brought him pajamas so he didn’t have to wear the gown, but even the comfort of his favorite pair of Yoda pajama pants weren’t enough to help him sleep. But they wouldn’t let him leave his room and he knew it, glancing several times at a wheelchair that had been left just outside of the door.
Like it was waiting for him.
It was a stupid idea and he knew it but he was desperate enough not to care, lunging towards the wall and managing to totter over. He grunted, leaning heavily against the beige wallpaper and trying to keep his weight on his good leg. The hallway was quiet, the early morning keeping the bustling families at bay. He leaned against the wall for a solid minute, panting at the effort, before easing himself out the door, eyes focused on the wheelchair. By some miracle it had been placed facing him and after estimating the distance and angles—it was all just geometry, afterall—he moved.
If anyone had been around to see it, they would have applauded, he was sure, twirling with the grace of a prima ballerina and falling directly into the wheelchair. It scooted back a few inches from the force of his landing, but overall it was a damn good maneuver and he wondered why PE couldn’t be more calculating and less running.
“Yes!” he shouted, pumping his fist.
There was a scuffle and someone from across the hall stuck their head out, frowning at him.
“Shhh,” she grumped.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
It took him longer to adjust the wheelchair, putting up one of the stirrups to support his cast, but after fidgeting for a few minutes he got it set up.
“Fuck yes,” he mumbled to himself as he started pushing the wheels and moving down the hallway. “Finally.”
He didn’t really know where he was going, but it just felt good to get out of the room and, surprisingly enough, most of the nurses didn’t really give him a second look. Either they didn’t know he was supposed to be on bedrest or didn’t care, and he grinned as he flew down the hallways.
They soon opened up and he reached the center of the hospital, a sort of courtyard looking thing with a fountain in the middle and a few trees around the edge. The ceiling was glass panels that let in the sun, the pale morning light filling the space with a soft ambience. One one side was the cafeteria and on the other the gift shop, the whole space feeling almost like a mall.
But it was the fountain that caught his eye. Or rather, who was sitting on the edge of it.
It was a girl, one he’d never seen at school or around town before, with wavy blonde hair, her face half-hidden behind the copy of The Hobbit she was holding. She was wearing a blush pink dress and white tube socks, the combination a bit off-putting, her skin pale in the soft morning light as she sat cross-legged. He swallowed.
The book lowered and her eyes caught his, the brown depths warm, and he felt his mouth gape open slightly, staring at her, his heart suddenly racing. His wheelchair was still moving, towards her, and he frantically tried to think of something to say, something about The Hobbit that would be funny and cool.
Crash!
The next thing he saw was the floor as he catapulted from his wheelchair and landed flat on his stomach, arms spread out. The courtyard area was sunken into the floor by two steps but he’d been too distracted to notice and lay on his face, trying to catch his breath and wondering if he’d just suffered another concussion.
“Jesus, are you okay?!”
There was a soft hand on his shoulder and he rolled over onto his back, wincing as his cast thunked against the floor. Suddenly his leg was throbbing and he realized that falling face first probably hadn’t helped his fracture. But what was even worse was the fact that the cute girl sitting on the fountain had seen the whole thing and was now staring down at him, her brown eyes huge with alarm.
Oh, they’re hazel, he thought intelligently. That’s pretty.
“Do I need to get a doctor or—”
“No!” he coughed. “No, can you just… I’m not supposed to be out of my room. I’ll get in trouble.”
“Oh,” she hesitated, but then continued to help him, trying to get him to sit upright.
He felt stupid, glancing at the overturned wheelchair, one of the wheels still spinning as it stuck up into the air. There was no way he was getting back into that thing without help but there was no way he could ask a stranger—
“Here, let me help,” she told him, reaching down.
She was oddly strong for her size, balancing him on her shoulder as she wrapped his arm around her waist to keep him steady. Mike felt his entire face heat up, trying to focus on shuffling his feet towards the wheelchair instead of the fact that the very cute girl who he had just seen reading one of his favorite books ever was suddenly wrapping her arms around him. And wrapping his arms around her. She smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and baby powder, clean but warm, and he inhaled sharply, trying to memorize the scent.
“Th-Thanks,” he managed to stutter out.
“Don’t thank me yet, I could still drop you.”
He could feel her knees starting to give out and she barely made it to the step that around the inside of the courtyard before they both collapsed. It was better than the floor and he sat back with a relieved grunt, reaching down to check that he hadn’t cracked his cast during the crash. It seemed fine other than the dull ache from within and he winced again. The mystery girl was righting his wheelchair and putting it back up on the ledge, so it wasn’t obvious he had crashed. She turned back and then set back next to him, looking him over.
“You sure you don’t want me to get some nurses or something?” she asked, noticing his apparent pain.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not that bad. Just a little achy.”
“Did you break it?”
“Fracture to my femur. It’s a clean break so it shouldn’t take too long to heal but supposedly I’m going to atrophy like a motherfucker,” he sighed then cheered up. “Oh well, I can get out of PE when school starts again. No more coming in last and then collapsing on the floor.”
There was a giggle from beside him and he looked over, pleasantly surprised to see his mysterious savior laughing, eyes lit up with mirth. He grinned at her reaction, gesturing down to his leg.
“I mean, I’m not exactly beefy, I don’t know how my leg is supposed to get even skinnier? I’m gonna snap it in half again the second I get this cast off…” he sighed mournfully. “It’s like I’ll have glass bones, what am I gonna do? You’ll be able to snap me like a pencil.”
The giggle turned into full-on laughter and Mike felt something inside of him glowing happily as she covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the cackle. As much as he was enjoying her reaction to his bad jokes, he realized he hadn’t introduced himself and quickly stuck out his hand.
“I’m Mike, by the way. Thanks for not laughing at my total wipeout.”
She shook his hand, smiling slyly. “Oh, I was laughing. You just couldn’t hear it while you were lying on the floor.” Her hand felt cold in his. “I’m Eleven.”
“Eleven?” He quirked a brow.
“It’s a nickname, but it sounds way cooler than Jane Hopper so…” she shrugged. “It’s my lucky number because my life got a lot better when I was eleven, so I used to write it on everything. My notebooks, my shoes, even my skin.” Pulling up her sleeve she showed him a tiny 011 drawn on her wrist. “It didn’t take long for people to start calling me that instead. I kind of like it better honestly.”
“Why is it your lucky number?’ he asked, totally intrigued.
“Um… well, good things happened to me when I was eleven. And, I mean, anyone can be number one, but you put two of them together… and it’s just… simple,” she shrugged again, looking down at the number on her wrist. “But odd. I don’t know. I just like it.”
“Oh. Okay, cool.”
He glanced at her from the side of his eye, taking in her appearance now that he was up close, noticing that her dress seem slightly rumpled, how she pulled the sleeve back down over her wrist when she noticed him looking. He glanced away quickly, realizing he was being rude.
“So, um, why are you here?” he asked, figuring it was a fair question.
There was a pause and she stared down at her hands, avoiding his gaze. Maybe not a good question to ask afterall.
“I’m here with my dad. You guys have a specialist so we came to see if he could help,” she said vaguely.
“Really? We have a specialist in fucking Hawkins? Specialist for what?”
“Um, like, brain stuff… it’s kind of complicated,” she shifted away, clearly uncomfortable with talking about it. “His name is Dr. Brenner or something, but we just got in yesterday and haven’t met him yet.”
“Oh.”
Mike dropped it, not wanting to push her when she obviously didn’t want to talk about it. He figured whatever was wrong with her dad had to be serious if they had come to see a brain specialist, but maybe it was a sore subject? He glanced across the courtyard of the fountain, where her book was still laying.
“Do you like The Hobbit?”
“I just started it on the drive,” she confessed. “But it’s really good so far.”
“How far are you in?”
“Um, Bilbo just caught up with dwarves and they’re making camp for the night. There’s some sort of red light?”
Mike grinned, knowing exactly where she was at.
“Shoot, it’s about to get super good. You need to keep reading!”
“Well, I mean, I stopped so I could help the poor idiot who toppled his wheelchair,” she smirked, eyes laughing. “But I could have kept reading if you preferred laying facedown on the floor.”
“Okay, that’s fair,” he conceded, grinning again. “I appreciate you interrupting your reading to save my stupid ass. But you really should finish that chapter because it’s amazing.”
Eleven stared at him for a second, looking thoughtful, then nodded and got up, grabbing her book from the fountain and then plopping back next to him. Opening it up, she found her place and started reading it, tilting the book so he could read over her shoulder. He bit back a grin, unsure of why he suddenly felt like doing cartwheels. He literally couldn’t even if he wanted to.
Who is this girl? he wondered. She’s like the coolest person I’ve ever met.
They sat there for the next twenty or so minutes as the sun slowly got brighter, the courtyard filling with warm sunshine as people started to bustle into the area, heading for the cafeteria. Mike didn’t notice, too lost in the story. Eleven was a fast reader and he appreciated not having to wait forever for her to turn the page. She laughed at the trolls and their bickering, like he knew she would, and he couldn’t keep from stealing glances at her face, liking the way it lit up every time she smiled.
“Michael Edward Wheeler!”
The voice was like the crack of a whip and he would have jumped a foot in the air if the cast hadn’t been weighing him down, whirling around to look behind him. His mother was flying towards the courtyard, brow furrowed in anger, nostrils flaring, holding a tupperware dish and suddenly he was very afraid.
“M-Mom,” he gulped. “Hey.”
“What are you doing out of your room?!” It was a thunder, echoing around the space. “You are in so much trouble, young man!”
“I’m sorry,” he said weakly.
His mom was towering over him, steam practically coming out of her ears, and he offered her a tentative smile. Part of him knew she was only mad because she was worried about him but she was still awfully terrifying when she was angry.
“What are you doing down there?!” she barked.
“Um, I just wanted to get out of the room for a while,” he tried to be calm, hoping she would do the same. “There was a wheelchair and I couldn’t sleep anyways…”
“So you just left?! Without telling anyone?!”
“Yeah…?” he winced.
“That is is irresponsible, you could have injured yourself or—”
She ranted for a bit and he glanced over at Eleven, who looked confused but entertained by the whole situation. Her book was closed and she stood up as his mother started to wind down her rant.
“—the doctor might make you stay longer! Is that what you want?”
“Well…” he knew better than to glance at Eleven and make it obvious, but some part of him was suddenly okay with a few extra days in the hospital.
“Don’t you move a muscle, I’m getting the nurses and the doctor and you are heading straight back to your room, do you hear me?!”
She set the tupperware dish down next to him and turned around in a whirl of styled hair and skirts, vanishing down the hall. He glanced down at the dish, smelling the distinctive heavenly scent of breakfast food, popping it open and smiling at the contents. There was a pile of fluffy, golden scrambled eggs, four strips of bacon, hashbrowns, and two Eggos on top.
“Oh my god, she does love me,” he said out loud.
“Are you sure? She almost tore your head off.”
He startled at the voice, his appetite making him forget about the girl still sitting next to him, who was giving him quite the look. Grinning, he held out the dish.
“You haven’t had her breakfast, here,” he offered her one of the Eggos and a strip of bacon. “Try it. You’ll see what I mean.”
“I’m good…” she tried to protest, despite the glint of interest in her eyes.
“No, come on, please? Trust me,” he pleaded, eyes begging. “It’s like the best food in the universe.”
She assessed him for a moment, then nodded, taking the food from him and biting into it thoughtfully. Her eyes widened and she shoved the waffle into her mouth and smiled happily, chewing like she’d never been more content in her life.
“Okay,” she said through a mouth full of food. “I get it.”
He took another bite and for a second they just smiled at each other as they ate, blissfully munching on the delicious breakfast. They split it evenly, Mike figured it was a fair thank you for her having literally picked him up off the floor, even if they had to share the fork. His mother still hadn’t returned by the time they were finished.
Swallowing the last bite, Mike glanced at the mysterious girl again, deciding to take a risk.
“So, El, um, I was wondering—”
“What’d you call me?” she furrowed her brow and he swallowed.
“Oh, shit, sorry, that’s kind of—um… like El? Short for Eleven?” He tried to play it off, pointing at himself. “See, my name is Mike, short for Michael.”
“Obviously,” she snorted.
There was tense moment where Mike was sure he’d blown it and she would ask him to never talk to her again. But then she smirked, eyes softening, and nodded.
“I’m fine with it. Sometimes my dad calls me Elle-belle. Which is better than Janie, actually.” She didn’t seem bothered, babbling a bit. “So in all aspects El is an improvement and I don’t really mind it. Do you mind it, Michael Edward Wheeler?”
The playful grin was back and his heart skipped, his mouth going dry. Was she… flirting with him? Was it possible? He’d never had a girl flirt with him before… was he imagining the gleam in her eyes, the way she was tilting her head?
“U-Uh, n-nuh,” he grunted stupidly, then swallowed, quickly adding, “I mean, I don’t mind. You can call me whatever you want. I literally don’t care.”
“Whatever I want, huh?” She was grinning and he frowned.
“Well, okay, maybe not—”
“Wheelie boy, you’re funny when you’re embarrassed.”
“Wha—Wheelie boy?” he sputtered. “What’s that even—”
“Your last name is Wheeler and you wiped out in a wheelchair.”
He opened his mouth to protest but suddenly there was an entire legion of nurses and doctors next to them, flooding the courtyard and trying to check his vitals. El disappeared behind the crowd and he tried to push them away but they were insistent, muttering to each other and prodding him. His mother appeared and then two of the nurses were helping haul him back into the wheelchair as she talked to the doctor, who didn’t share her immense concern.
“—seems fine, the excursion was probably good for him. Sunlight and laughter,” the doctor, whose nametag read “Sam Owens” smiled cheerfully, “and it seems he was getting a bit of both. Don’t worry, Mrs. Wheeler, if he was feeling worse he wouldn’t have made it this far. It’s a good sign for a teenage boy to want to wander.”
The legion scattered back to where they belonged and then it was just Karen Wheeler berating the nurse on the duty for letting her son out of his sight. El was sitting at the fountain again, her nose back in her book, but she looked back up over the faded paperback, eyes smiling. His mother noticed, sniffing slightly at the strange girl and glancing between the two.
“I see you made a friend?” she asked, though it was a statement and not a question.
“Um, yeah, she helped me get out of the wheelchair.” Not a total lie. “Her name’s El, we were talking about the Hobbit.”
“Well, if she’d like to visit she’s more than welcome,” Karen raised her voice enough to be heard. “But if she catches you outside of your room again, it would be smarter for her to take you back .”
“Oh come on, Mom, she didn’t know—” She totally did. “Don’t blame her, I was the stupid one.”
“Michael, don’t try to—”
“Thanks for breakfast, Mom,” he interrupted, wanting to change the subject. “It was really good and I kind of ate it already. You’re the best.”
She blinked in surprise as she began rolling him away from the courtyard, smiling fondly at her only son. He really did appreciate her, even when she was overbearing, and he had a feeling sharing his food with El had opened up something between them. He hoped.
His mother started talking about what the doctor had told her and Mike snuck a look over his shoulder just as they started to roll out of sight. El was watching them go, her book in her lap. As their eyes met she smiled a small smile and waved. He quickly waved back just as they vanished into the hallway, one word filling his mind as he smiled at nothing, feeling his heart dancing in his chest.
Wow.