Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eleven sees his face illuminated in the rain as she runs through the night, leaving a diner full of dead bodies in her wake. She sees something in his eyes that makes her trust him, feels it like a bone-deep instinct.

Eleven sees him return every night to the fort in the basement, calling for her and waiting for her. And every day she remains hidden she sees him fading away.

Eleven sees home in his eyes when she steps through the door, fresh from the fight and back from the dead. She sees tears and joy and relief — and she knows it’s all mirrored in her own eyes as they fall into each other’s arms.

Eleven sees Mike biking through the woods and walking up the front porch steps every day to visit her, sometimes crunching through the leaves, sometimes shaking snow out of his fluffy hair, sometimes carrying flowers he picked for her along the way.

She holds Hop to his promise to let her venture beyond their woods soon, but for now he comes to her and it’s enough.

Eleven sees the world differently without her powers — she sees herself differently too.

She feels helpless and vulnerable in a way she hasn’t before. Monsters and demons she can handle. But being adrift in the world without being able to sense the emotions of the people around her, without being able to protect herself, without Hopper and her dearest friends to anchor her — it’s a new kind of crisis.

Sometimes she really does want to disappear.

Eleven sees his eyes, bright with tears, and falls into his arms, an oasis of safety in the desert. She isn’t really even sure he’s not a mirage until she hears his voice. “It’s me. I’m here.”

Eleven sees her home on fire, sees her meadow decaying, and feels the crushing failure squeezing the very air out of her lungs.

She was powerful again, but not powerful enough.

She was back in the battle, but not soon enough.

The grief and shame chokes her, that she could save her friend, but not enough.

And all of that despair might have been enough to knock her down in that moment.

But she turns then and sees her friends standing behind her, sees the fierce determination in Mike’s eyes, and remembers that she’s not fighting for her home — they’re fighting for their home.

Nancy’s seen a lot of surprising things in the past few years, and she counts among them the first time she sees her brother fall in love.

Maybe most of the time she thinks he’s a bit of a brat, but she can’t deny that he loves his friends and would do anything for them. It still catches her off guard though, seeing how attentive and protective he is with El.

There’s a light in his eyes that she’s never seen before, and she sees that light vanish when El does.

She’s like a lightning strike in her brother’s life; suddenly there and suddenly gone, and he’s never the same afterwards.

The night she comes back after a year in hiding, El saves all their lives, but no one’s more than Mike’s.

If Nancy hadn’t been so thoroughly wrapped up in her grief and revenge, she might have seen sooner than he was suffering all year long.

Maybe he was hiding it too well for anyone to notice though. Maybe they had all been fooled by his moodiness and stormy presence. Just Mike being Mike, and a broken heart gets written off.

He’s like a whole new person when El is back in their world. Nancy watches in amusement as he flutters nervously around the house the day of the Snow Ball, squirming at their mother’s attempt to fuss with his hair and photograph him on the stairs, while also fidgeting with his tie in the mirror and obviously worrying whether he looks okay. It is incredible to behold, and she has to imagine the same thing is happening miles away in the cabin in the woods.

Hopper has kept El under lock and key the last month, successfully fending off most (but not all) of Mike’s attempts to visit her.

He calls her every night again, and Nancy hears them talk for hours sometimes, but tonight he’ll get to see her again.

She doesn’t see when El arrives, she doesn’t see them find each other. But at the end of the evening, just before Hopper comes to retrieve her, Nancy sees them wrapped up in each other, swaying together beneath the twinkling lights, blissfully unaware of the world around them.

It’s so simple, so pure, this love they share, and her heart aches watching them.

Dustin sees Mike’s face when they find her in the woods, sees his kindness when he makes El a home in the basement, sees his patience and protectiveness for a perfect stranger—heavy emphasis on strange.

And more than that, he sees something he won’t have words to describe for another few years, but cannot deny: that Mike seems to innately understand El in a way none of the rest of them do, can somehow decode her cryptic communication as though they’ve known each other for years.

It doesn’t make sense to him then, but it will in the years to come. The connection between them is so curious and cosmic, so easy and instinctual. It transcends the ordinary, and it transforms all of their lives.

He thinks fondly, sometimes, of those innocent days when he and Mike playfully argued over whose girlfriend was the coolest.

And there was a part of him, wasn’t there, that recognized the toll it was taking on his friend to be separated from her, to have their party fractured and floundering.

They could tease each other about their shitty grades, but Mike had always been one of his smartest friends, and when was the last time he’d gotten less than a B+ in any subject?

They had found new community in the Hellfire Club, but when in their entire friendship had Mike so willingly accepted not being the leader?

And so he clocks the pride in Mike’s voice when he reminds him that his girlfriend has saved the world twice, and Dustin knows that world-saving powers or not, Mike would give anything to have El by his side right now.

He knows it won’t ever stop being true: they can face anything if they face it together.

He didn’t understand it at first, back when El had materialized out of nowhere into their lives, like a side quest their party couldn’t afford to pursue. And he couldn’t admit it at the time, but he was jealous that a stranger could divert his best friend’s attention so easily; that he could welcome someone new into their party so readily.

He won’t understand that impulse to until he meets Max the next year, that gravitational pull to someone you never expected to meet, and now can’t imagine your life without.

So he’ll tease Mike, half playful and half jealous, that he loves El and wants to marry her, and won’t realize at the time that he was right on the money. El’s not just a new friend, and it’s not just a crush.

It’s feelings so strong that it makes him stupid. One day he will look back in amusement at the memory of his oldest and often smartest friend spinning out over his first serious fight with El, scrambling to fix the mess he made.

It’s astounding, honestly, how Mike can plan an intricate multi-phase campaign, and conceive of strategic plans to combat supernatural horrors, but lying to El goes against all his instincts with her, and he’s flailing.

Together, the ranger and the paladin restore the peace, and Lucas is relieved to see them smiling shyly at each other again, back in their bubble. He concludes that either Mike is the most charming person in all of Hawkins (doubtful), or El is just as smitten with him as he is with her.

Somehow Lucas is the least surprised person in the cabin when Mike spontaneously confesses his love for El in a burst of anger and protectiveness.

Lucas barely tries to conceal his delight. Mike loves El and now everyone knows! (Except El, apparently.)

He’s honestly not really worried about them. Nothing about their relationship has ever been conventional, and even broken up they still work together in perfect synchronicity as though nothing has changed.

They’re all so young, but still he feels something steady and enduring when he watches them together.

He wants for them what he wants for everyone: a life beyond the madness and constant crisis.

It’s hard to imagine what such a life might look like, but he thinks they’re both determined enough to create it through willpower alone.

Whatever the future holds, he’s grateful for the party, and he’s rooting for those lovebirds.

Hopper sees on his front porch an obnoxious kid grown into a determined young man, and now they stand eye to eye. These days he has a begrudging respect for Mike Wheeler, the boy who has won his daughter’s heart, fought by her side, and is perhaps the only one worthy of her.

The stakes are higher than ever now, and it’s taking every skill and connection he has to keep El safe, but he’s resigned himself to the fact that nothing he can do will keep Mike and El apart. He won’t do that to her again anyway.

Because he sees the light in El’s eyes when Mike comes around for her, and he can’t deny her seeing the person she loves most.

Hopper remembers, sometimes, the look in Mike’s eyes when he learned that he’d been hiding El all along. The fire and betrayal. Can still hear his screaming turn to crying, his fury turn back to heartbreak. Can feel the phantom pummel of his fists, and remembers gathering the kid into his arms, wondering if it was the first time anyone had comforted him in the year after he lost her. Wondering if anyone had even bothered to give him a hug.

He had only been trying to protect everyone, her most of all, but he saw the toll it took on them.

He devises protocols for them all to follow, strict rules to keep El hidden and secure. He grills Mike more than most, but even he knows that he’s being harder on the boy than he needs to.

Mike has been protecting her since the day he met her. Hopper knows he would lay his own life down before he would let anything happen to El.

Despite the dire circumstances they find themselves in, some days the only time he sees his daughter smile is when Mike comes around. He has a way of reaching her when she’s at her lowest, when the enormity of what they need to do gets to her.

There’s a lightness in them both when they are together. Their soft voices and sweet laughter filter through the cabin, and in those moments they are just teenagers blissfully absorbed in each other.

In those moments they aren’t the improbable saviors of the world. They’re just kids in love.

Robin gets an eyeful — and it is startling, if not terribly surprising for two healthy teenagers in an intense and loving relationship — but thinks later on that it’s less about what she saw than what she heard.

She shouldn’t be witnessing any of this private moment, obviously, but no one else was supposed to be at the radio station hideout today, especially Hawkins’ most wanted and her boyfriend!

What she sees is El enthusiastically pressed against Mike on the couch in the basement, her hands tangled in his messy hair, his hands at her waist beneath her sweatshirt, holding her close.

Robin stands stunned in the doorway, a precarious stack of cassette tapes in her arms.

She hears Mike say “I missed you” and realizes she’s never before heard his voice sound so vulnerable. This is Mike Wheeler completely disarmed.

This is who he is beneath all the scheming and planning; who he is when his anxious analytical brain is offline; ferocious only on the surface, at heart he’s just a boy craving connection and security in the arms of the girl he loves.

“I missed you too,” El echoes between eager kisses. “Someday—”

“Someday we’ll be together forever,” he finishes, and she sighs dreamily in response.

It’s when Mike moves his hands from her waist to her thighs that Robin ruins the moment, yelping “whoa!” and dropping every single tape at once.

The teenagers whirl around in alarm and she dives for the cassettes. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! You guys are so so cute. Although are you even allowed to be here right now?”

Their matching indignant expressions tell her they are both currently capable of throwing her through a wall. What a power couple!

Robin bursts into nervous laughter as she backs out of the room. “Carry on, kids! Or, be safe! Sorry!”

What more is there to say about Mike that she hasn’t shouted to his face?

For all his faults, though, Max has seen from the start that Mike is not normal about El.

She sees his reverence for her memory before she came back.

She sees his transformation when she returns, and in that moment it seems there are two strangers in this house.

Who is this boy who is suddenly sweet and soft and absolutely awestruck?

She sees them chase each other around all summer long like lovesick puppies, and it is adorable and romantic, no matter what the others say.

She might have once thought that Mike’s overprotective instinct towards El is a bit much — because really, what harm is there in a day at the mall? — but she sees something deeper in the thick of the fight.

Max sees him go toe to toe with all of his friends to stand up for El — and a small part of her thinks, that must be nice, to have someone always ready to defend you.

As El is strangled before their eyes, she sees Mike rush forward to strike Billy with a pipe — and her heart contracts because he surely knows that even un-flayed Billy could snap him like a twig.

Max sees him hold El close as she screams, terror in his eyes and surely in his heart, and he never lets her go.

Their love is unrelenting and resilient; and it might make him stupid, but it makes them both brave.

None of them know what to say when it’s all over; when the lights above them shatter and shower them with sparks; when El thrashes violently and then wakes up gasping and reaching for Mike; when they’re staggering together to the van to head east. To what’s left of home.

The van is silent as he drives. For hours, it seems, he stares out at the road, and it’s a kind of meditation, keeping his mind blissfully blank.

He hasn’t missed this, the gnawing terror of government conspiracy and supernatural disaster and imminent peril. Sure, it had been devastating being ripped away from their home and their loved ones. Adjusting to a new place, to being a family, to the thousands of miles between him and Nancy. The quiet grief of El and his mom at the loss of Hopper.

He knew it hadn’t been easy on any of them. But the reprieve from danger lurking behind every tree, from the ground beneath their feet, well. It had been nice, for a while.

He glances back in the rearview mirror from time to time, and what he sees is like a Renaissance painting. El is turned towards the windows, tears falling silently, and Mike is fully oriented towards her. His hand is on hers, fingers laced together, his eyes cast downward in a solemn vigil as the miles pass.

Mike doesn’t speak, but the steadfast emotion emanating from him is unmistakable, Jonathan realizes. He’s seen it before.

He saw it when Mike threw himself out of the van and ran across the desert towards her.

He saw it when Mike chased down the street outside the police station and then tracked El across the western United States, like he was magnetized towards her.

He saw it when Mike pressed his forehead to hers outside their old house the day they left Hawkins forever, tears openly running down his face.

He saw it each time Mike folded himself around her after narrowly escaping horrific death in the jaws of a monster.

And he saw it every day in between.

Devotion. No other word for it.

A love that endures distance and demogorgons and different dimensions - never diminishing, only deepening.

It’s stunning to witness, truly. He looks away as he sees Mike’s hand lift to brush the tears from her face, and El lean into his touch.

They’ve got nothing but hell ahead of them, he knows. At least they have each other.

Mike sees her illuminated in the beam of his flashlight, and knows illogically that she is the reason they were meant to be out in the slashing rain.

Mike sees her shy smile and forgets everything else around him.

Mike sees her scream and rage, hands outstretched, sees her vaporize a monster and disappear in a cloud of black ash.

He sees her in his dreams, and in the corner of his eye, and nowhere else, for 353 days.

Mike sees her step through the door and feels his heart restart. He walks towards her in a daze and collapses into her arms.

Mike sees his world expand when he’s with her, he wants to share everything he loves and everything he learns with her.

He wants to go on adventures, and to movies; wants to play her his favorite songs and teach her about his favorite comic books.

He knows what his friends say, that he’s shrinking his whole life to revolve around her.

But his heart feels bigger and fuller every minute he spends with her, they just don’t understand.

Mike sees what a fool he’s been, letting his fear of losing her and insecurity get the best of him.

Sometimes he feels doomed to repeat his mistakes over and over until he finally learns, but he’ll keep fighting his demons every time until he gets to her.

Mike sees his party in danger and his mind gets to work. Scheming, planning, strategizing.

And all at once it’s like he’s right back in his basement all those years ago, walking the line between masterminding the campaign and rushing in as paladin.

It’s easier that way, to analyze, to look down at the board instead of up at the horrors. It’s easier until the danger crystallizes and he throws his very mortal self into the fray, those moments when suddenly his heart is bigger than his fear.

Mike sees the deck stacked against them, but some stubborn part of him keeps pushing forward.

Haven’t they walked right up to the end of the world before and somehow persisted?

Surely logic dictates that their luck will run out one of these days, that they can only defy the odds for so long.

But that’s the secret Mike keeps even from himself: he is only analytical on the surface. The rest of him is relentlessly hopeful.

He has no superpowers to speak of, just invincible faith and unshakable love, but Mike looks at El and he sees the future.