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Mike missed her so much. His superhero.
The gape inside him was like that rift. His whole childhood had revolved around El.
His friends were all off at college, living their lives, and he was just here. Still in Hawkins, still reliving all these moments that filled him with shame. Those stupid months where he refused to say his real feelings.
He rolled over onto his side. Clutching the sweats from when they were just kids, that he now slept with nightly. Remembering El’s tiny frame in them.
So much lost time. That he spent being immature, proud, whatever.
What he wouldn’t give to have just some of that time back.
There was one memory that Mike only let himself visit once a day. But every day, without fail, he relived this memory. It was the last thing he let himself remember before he fell asleep every night. His nightly ritual of turning on the radio static. Just incase… but his head was filled with music, with that song he’d chosen for the explosion playing on repeat.
Purple Rain, Purple Rain…
Nothing existed but him and El. Complete blackness. Her hands around him. Him grasping her like a lifeline. The salt of their mingled tears in their mouths as they shared their final kiss. She was so real. She was there.
Every night, he stays in that memory, until his tears roll into his mouth and he tastes that kiss again one last time.
And every night, just hours later, he wakes up, the ghost of her name on his lips, and he sees her fade away again, until she was gone with the rest of the Upside Down. Like she’d never even been there in the first place.
–
The streets of Hawkins are nothing like they’ve been for the last six years. The town had pockets of brightness before, sure, but there was always that lingering fear, of what’s next around the corner? Are they really safe?
He has his CD around his neck. He feels just like Max was, those long sad first few months of Freshman Year. But his playlist is all the songs that meant something to him and El. And when he’s really feeling masochistic, he sits himself across from the memorial, and puts that goddammed prince song on again.
“I only want to see you dancing in the purple rain…”
He closes his eyes, feeling the sun against his neck, and puts his head in his hands. The sobs wrack through him, and its like he’s not out in public. Not really. He’s in the void again, although this time, he is all alone.
Until he feels a hand on his shoulder.
“It seems like you chose that first path, huh, kid?”
–
Mike was drunk. He was only nineteen, and he and Hop had been matching drinks. The man was thirty years his senior and at least twice his size.
“I’m torn between never forgiving her and never forgiving myself for not stopping her. Goddamn, I should have killed every soldier in that place and went to get her. To stop her. I should have done something.”
He was slurring his words.
Hop looked down, let out a deep sigh.
“Mike, no one could have stopped her. No one. You hear me?”
Mike smiled sadly at Hopper. “D’you know what the worst part is?”
“What’s that”, hop said sadly.
“I still - deep down, I know she’s. She must be gone. But I don’t know. There’s some little part of me that thinks she’s going to find her way back to us, you know? She did it once before. I told myself this stupid story that she escaped. And I know it’s a fantasy. But, well-”
Hopper smiled sadly. “Stranger things have happened?”
Mike nodded, his lips tugging a smile.
“Listen, Mike. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind either. But hope… hope is a funny thing. A little bit can keep you going. Keep you moving.
But too much of it can poison you. Keep you stuck in one place. Bolt you down.
I have to believe…” he wiped his eyes, and looked at Mike. “I have to believe that if El is still here, somewhere, she’ll find a way to let us know. But we can’t let ourself succumb to the poison of hope. You understand me?”
-
So that’s what Mike was doing today. His drink with Hop had been a week ago, and he was holding onto his words.
A little hope. Just a little.
No more daily dwelling in the memories. No more combing through everything for signs.
But not fully giving up, either.
He naively thought that if he just stayed in one place, where El knew she could find him, it would make it easy for her to come back to him.
But Eleven was a superhero. She could find him anywhere in the world.
If she wanted to.
If she still was.
His mom and Holly accompanied him to the station, where his Greyhound was headed to Indianapolis. Ready to catch a flight out of this place.
He’d never left the country before. California was as far as he’d ventured. The memory twinged in his heart.
It was the start of a new adventure. One where he started to really live. Just a little hope. That was all he needed.
He boarded up his suitcase in the bus, and put on his CD player. It was a long ride, and he should let himself rest.
A little hope.
He closed his eyes, smiling softly to himself, humming the opening notes of the Prince song.
Entering the void. And seeing El’s shining face smiling back at him.
Dancing in the purple rain.