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whoreforbuckley · 2 years

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instant family - part four | evan buckley

paring: oc x evan buckley

summary of part: Eddie comes back to the 118 three months after getting shot. Maeve realizes her feelings toward Buck. She finds out that she’s here to stay at the 118, so she goes out with the 118 for drinks the next night.

rating of part: PG

warnings: mentions of Eddie’s shooting, cheating (Buck would never but for this universe, just once)

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taglist: @benedicttcumberbabe @shiftingwh0r3 @sageellsworth05 @mrsbuckley @cevans-winchester @loglady2

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Maeve is up in the loft cooking with Bobby. They decided to treat the 118 to a large dinner before their shift actually begins. They have a 24-hour shift ahead of them.

Buck shows up first, Chimney and Hen right behind him. The three of them change before making their way up the stairs. “Smells good, Cap,” Buck states, sitting at the dining room table. “Hey, Maeve.”

“Hi, Buck,” Maeve says, feeling her face heating up as she feels Buck’s eyes on her as she cuts some carrots. “We’re making you guys dinner before our shift begins.”

Hen asks, “Whatcha making?”

Bobby replies with, “Maeve’s making chicken soup and I’m making garlic bread to go with it.”

Maeve smiles and says, “I make a mean chicken soup.”

Buck gets up and steals a carrot slice and before Maeve can object, Buck asks, “Is there anything you can’t do?”

Maeve rolls her eyes. “No more carrots for you, Mister Buckley.”

He laughs and steals one more before heading down the stairs. Maeve’s eyes follow him before Hen says, “Maeve, no.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Maeve exclaims.

Hen smiles and shakes her head before reading a medical book on the couch. Chimney sits beside her and reads a book on babies. Maeve and Bobby go back to cooking the meal for everyone.

A voice comes from downstairs a few moments later. “Alright, where is everyone? I come back and no one is here.”

Maeve, Bobby, Hen, and Chimney all look over to see Eddie with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Buck comes running out of nowhere to his best friend. “Welcome back, buddy,” Buck says. “We’ve missed you.”

“Come on up, Eddie,” Bobby says. “Maeve and I are just making dinner. I also have an announcement when dinner’s done in about ten minutes.”

Eddie smiles up at Bobby. “Let me go get changed and I’ll be up,” Eddie states. He walks off, probably to the locker room. Buck goes with him.

“You know,” Maeve begins. “If I didn’t know that Buck was in a relationship then I would’ve thought that he was in a relationship with Eddie. They’re always attached at the hip, and Christopher is always talking about Buck.”

Chimney laughs, “Everyone thinks that at first, trust me.”

Maeve laughs and helps Hen set the table for dinner while the soup is simmering in the pot it’s in on the stove. Bobby puts the garlic bread he made in a bread basket, setting it on the table.

Buck and Eddie come up the stairs. Maeve looks over at the guys, seeing Eddie in his LAFD uniform for the first time. “Woah, look at you,” Maeve says. “I’ve never seen you in your uniform before. You look good in it.”

“Stop flirting, Maeve,” Buck says. Maeve rolls her eyes and stirs the soup.

As soon as it’s ready, everyone sits at the table. Bobby sits at the head of the table, Hen sitting across from him. Maeve and Eddie sit beside each other while Chimney and Buck sit beside each other. Everyone serves themselves, humming as they eat the soup and the garlic bread.

While everyone eats, Bobby says, “I’d like everyone to welcome Eddie back to the 118, and I’d like everyone to officially welcome Maeve to the 118.”

Maeve almost chokes on her bite of garlic bread when she hears Bobby say those words. “You, I-” she stammers. “I’m staying?”

Bobby nods. “I talked to the fire chief about letting Maeve stay and become a permanent member of the 118. He agreed and he signed off on her permanent placement. You’re staying, Maeve.”

She smiles and everyone congratulates her. “Okay, this calls for a celebration,” Maeve states. “When we get off duty tomorrow night, we’re going out and all drinks are on me.”

“Hell yeah,” Buck says. “Hell fucking yeah.” Maeve looks across the table at Buck, who she finds has a huge smile on his face. She smiles at him as the bell rings.

***

It’s about midnight when they get back from that call that they went to right after dinner. It’ was a large fire with a lot of medical emergencies so it took a while. Maeve’s exhausted so she finds herself in the bunk room. She’s laying on the bottom bunk with the light off in the room.

Her eyes are closed when she hears the bunk room door open. Maeve turns her head and looks over at the door. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Buck says when he sees her on the bunk. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“It’s fine, Buck,” Maeve says, voice hoarse from running into a burning building without her mask on. “I’m not gonna bite you in your sleep.”

Buck laughs lightly and says, “That was dumb, by the way. You running into the building with no mask on. You could’ve died.”

Maeve shrugs and turns her back to the door again. “It almost sounds like you care, Buck,” she yawns.

“Yeah, well, I do,” Buck admits. “I’ve told you before.”

She doesn’t say anything else as she hears Buck crawl onto one of the bunks.

Maeve definitely had feelings for Buck. It’s been a month, and Buck treated her badly when she first arrived at the 118, but they’ve reconciled. The two of them work so well together during calls. Maeve definitely cares for Buck a lot more than she should, especially when he’s in a relationship with someone he really likes. She hates herself for falling for a guy with a girlfriend.

Then her phone begins to buzz next to her head, pulling her out of her thoughts. She checks it, seeing that it’s Nylah calling her. Worried, Maeve’s quick to answer the phone. “Nylah, what’s wrong?” Maeve asks, talking quietly and sitting up.

“Harper had a nightmare and she wants to talk to you,” Nylah says. “I can do something else if now is a bad time.”

“No, put her on,” Maeve says, leaving the room and walking into the locker room area. She keeps her eyes on the doorway.

Her daughter whines on the other line, “Mommy, when are you coming home?”

Maeve’s heart breaks at the sound of Harper’s scared voice. “Not tonight, my love,” she says. “I won’t see you again until tomorrow night. I’m sorry, Harp.”

Harper cries, “I want you, mommy. Please come home.” Maeve pouts and sighs.

She could ask Bobby to leave. She only lives about ten minutes away and she can have someone text her if there’s a call so she can go to the call.

“I’ll see what I can do, my love,” Maeve says. “But I can’t promise anything. Can you put Nylah back on the phone?”

There’s a moment of silence before Nylah asks, “Do you need me to do something?”

“No,” Maeve says, heading out of the locker room. “I’ll see if I can come home for a few minutes. I just need to get permission from my captain to leave. Be there in about fifteen minutes.”

Nylah hangs up the phone and Maeve approaches Bobby, who’s reading a book on the couch in the loft. “Hey, Bobby,” Maeve quietly says. “I need to go home for a few minutes.”

Bobby looks up at Maeve. “Everything okay?” he asks.

Maeve bites her lip, hesitating to tell Bobby why she needs to go home.

Now that she’s a permanent member of the 118, she might as well start telling everyone about Harper.

“My daughter,” Maeve explains. “She had a nightmare. She was crying to me on the phone. When she has a nightmare, they are usually about me because I’ve gotten hurt on the job before. I just need to go and assure her that I’m okay.”

Bobby looks almost shocked when Maeve says that she has a daughter. “Go, and don’t worry about making it to the next call. Go comfort your daughter.”

Maeve nods. “Thank you, Cap. Please, um, don’t mention to anyone that I have a daughter yet. I’m not ready to tell them,” Maeve says. Bobby nods, agreeing to keep Harper a secret, before Maeve runs downstairs. She gets in her car and drives ten minutes from the station to her house.

After walking inside, she walks straight to her daughter’s room. Maeve finds Harper in her bedroom, curled in a ball at Nylah’s side. Her cheeks are wet with tears.

Harper sees her mother and gets up, running over to Maeve. Maeve crouches down and envelopes her daughter in her arms. “I’m right here, my love,” Maeve mumbles into Harper’s messy hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I had a really bad dream, mommy,” Harper cries. “You and daddy both left me. I was alone and scared.”

Maeve’s heart breaks again in her chest. “Hey, look at me,” Maeve says, pulling back from the hug. “I’m not leaving you like daddy did any time soon. I’m going to be here to tuck you into bed as much as I can. I’m going to be here to take you to Christopher’s house for sleepovers or to play Mariokart. I’ll be here to take you to school every morning. I’m not going anywhere.”

Harper’s eyes fill with tears again as she nods. “I love you, mommy,” she says to Maeve.

“I love you more, Harps,” Maeve states, pulling Harper into another hug.

After a few more moments of this, Maeve tucks Harper back into bed. She reads Harper a story until she falls asleep.

Maeve sneaks out of Harper’s bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She rubs the back of her neck and yawns. Nylah, who now sits down in the living room, asks, “Everything okay, Miss Grier?”

“Yeah,” Maeve sighs. “Just got back from a rough call a little bit ago and I was going to nap then you called and said Harper needed me.”

Nylah watches Maeve gather her things before saying, “I wouldn’t have called if I had known that-”

Maeve waves her hand. “It’s fine,” she says. “Harper comes before any job. End of story. Thank you for calling me. If she wakes up, just call me again and I’ll sing her to sleep over FaceTime or something, okay?” Nylah nods and Maeve heads back to work.

***

End of shift takes forever to get to the 118. It’s six, but everyone agreed to meet for drinks at nine at the Royal Nightclub. It’s just going to be a 118 affair, no significant others this time. Maeve enjoyed meeting everyone’s wife or girlfriend, but she wants it to just be them this time around.

Maeve goes home, has dinner with Harper, reads Harper to sleep, then heads out to go meet everyone for drinks. She told Nylah she’d be back by midnight.

It takes Maeve forty minutes again to get from her house to West Hollywood. She finds Buck and Chimney in the line to get in.

“Wow, look at you,” Chimney says. “You look very nice tonight, Maeve.”

She smiles. “Thank you, Chimney,” Maeve practically giggles. “This is nothing though.” She just threw on a black mini-dress, a pair of black heels, and put her hair in a tight ponytail on top of her head. Nothing too spectacular.

“Oh shush, Maeve,” Buck tells her. “You look stunning.”

Maeve’s cheeks turn red and she’s grateful that it’s dark outside right now and the lights from the sign aren’t bright enough to show that she’s flustered.

Hen, Eddie, and Bobby show up a few moments before Chimney, Buck, and Maeve head inside. The six of them sit at a high top table, with Hen and Eddie bringing two other chairs over.

Eddie looks over at Maeve and asks, “How’s it feel to be permanent member of the 118?”

“Really nice,” Maeve admits. “I’m usually sent station to station as a temporary addition if someone is injured. I’m glad to be a member of a station for once. You all have been super nice to me, except for Buck when I first got to the 118.”

Buck rolls his eyes and Hen says, “It’s nice to have another woman at the 118 in our little group.”

Maeve smiles and Bobby says, “I’m going to go and get us some drinks. Who wants what?”

Everyone tells Bobby their drink orders, and Eddie goes with him to carry the drinks. Hen and Chimney go and use the bathrooms before the real fun starts. Maeve and Buck are left alone.

“I’m really glad you’re staying, Maeve,” Buck tells her. “You’re actually a great addition to the team. You’re insanely smart and you work quickly.”

She smiles across the table at Buck. “You don’t need to kiss ass anymore, Buckley,” Maeve tells him. “I’ve already forgiven you for acting the way you did when I first got to the 118. I understand why you acted the way you did. You don’t need to apologize or kiss my ass anymore.”

Buck lets out a breathy laugh, saying, “Well, I like to overkill sometimes. You’ll come to learn that part of me.”

Maeve rests her head in her hands with her elbows on the table, looking at Buck. “No way,” she says, sarcasm laced in her voice. “Tell me more about how you overkill it on apologizes.”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” Buck says. Maeve laughs and everyone comes back.

The 118 have the best time together while they’re out. A lot of laughs and drinks. Maeve drinks more than she probably should but she can always catch an Uber home.

She eventually finds herself with Buck on the dance floor, dancing to abcedfu by Gayle. Maeve has let herself get loose, and stay loose this time. No walking out this time, not on Buck. Hen and Bobby have gone home, but Chimney and Eddie sit at their table. They’re out of Maeve and Buck’s eyesight because of how many people are on the dance floor.

The song goes from abcedfu to You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. Of course it does.

Drunk Maeve screams the lyrics, and Buck watches. He’s clearly amused as Maeve shakes her hips to the beat of the song and yells the lyrics.

“This song seems to be hitting you hard,” Buck yells over the music.

Maeve looks over at Buck and yells back, “Because it is.”

Buck laughs and takes a step closer to Maeve. She stares up at Buck as he walks closer to her.

Oh, I remember you driving to my house In the middle of the night I'm the one who makes you laugh When you know you're 'bout to cry I know your favorite songs And you tell me about your dreams Think I know where you belong Think I know it's with me

One night, earlier in the week, Buck did end up at Maeve’s house. Luckily, it was while Harper was sleeping. He seemed upset after he got into a fight with his girlfriend. He didn’t seem happy, so Maeve helped him feel better with some online Among Us.

Both Maeve and Buck make eye contact with each other. Maeve’s very conscious at the fact that Buck is standing very close to her. Her chest practically touches Buck. Even with heels on, she’s six inches shorter than Buck.

Maeve feels Buck’s hands slide around her waist, pulling her closer to him. Maeve instinctively wraps her arms around his neck. She’s softly singing the words now. Her forehead touches Buck’s and they’re suddenly breathing the same air.

Can't you see That I'm the one Who understands you? Been here all along So, why can't you see You belong with me

As soon as those words pass Maeve’s lips, Buck is pulling her flush against his body. A voice in Maeve’s head tells her to back away from Buck, before he does anything stupid.

But she can’t pull herself to pull back. It feels right but it’s so wrong.

Buck’s lips ghost over Maeve’s, and an audible gasp comes from Maeve. He waits to see if she pulls away from him, but she doesn’t.

Their second kiss is more intense than the first. Maeve’s lips move against Buck’s in sync, like they have shared thousands of kisses before this one. Buck’s hands press into the small of Maeve’s back, and Maeve’s hands have moved so they’re cupping his cheeks.

Maeve’s heart is racing, beating probably a thousand times a minute. She’s enjoying this much more than she should be. Buck has a girlfriend. He has a girlfriend.

That thought draws Maeve back to reality. She pulls back from the kiss, looking up into Buck’s blue eyes. “Buck,” she starts, but Buck shakes his head.

“Don’t say anything,” Buck pleads. “Please. Let’s enjoy this for a few moments.”

Maeve pouts a bit. “You have a girlfriend,” she tells him. “A very nice one at that. I’ve met her and had drinks with her.”

Buck’s eyes close and he sighs. “I know,” he says. “I just, I need to talk to Taylor.”

At the mention of her name, Buck’s phone begins to buzz in his pocket. Maeve feels it against her leg. Buck pulls it out and sees who it is. Maeve can see that Taylor is calling him. Buck gives Maeve an apologetic look before he walks off, leaving Maeve alone with her thoughts.

She just kissed Buck. She should’ve pulled back, but she didn’t.

Honestly, Maeve doesn’t know if she’ll pull back if there’s a chance to kiss Buck again. She doesn’t want to pull back. Maeve likes to kiss Buck and be that close to Buck.

Maeve promises herself that next time, she’s going to pull away.

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anoriathdunadan · 3 years

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Where the Stars are F***ing Strange

Pairing: Aragorn-Estel-Strider / OC Rating: Explicit Genre: Modern OC in Middle-earth, reader insert, gender neutral reader, 25th Gray Companion, copious references to The Princess Bride (because why not?) Warnings: so much swearing, canon levels of xenophobia and violence, character death, feral chickens Summary: Plucked like a fish out of water, you try to make the best out of a bad situation in Bree. Then, one day, this Hozier-looking dude showed up at The Pony

Chapter 12: Teach a Fish to Man

In which our fish and a friend go for a walk.

“There once was a Ranger named Strider, whose title proclaimed him a fighter. ‘Take me at my word though I haven’t a sword I’ll protect you,’ he said ‘from that spider.’”

“C’mon!” you say when your limerick fails to get a reaction from Estel. He just keeps on sweeping at the leaf litter on the forest floor with the toe of his boot.

You would have thought the incongruity of a ‘big scary Ranger’ promising to exert himself against a teeny tiny little spider would have gotten at least an amused huff, if not a full out laugh.

Yeah, you’ve let Estel lead you out north of the Great East Road into Chetwood. You’re not exactly sure how far you are from Bree proper. It’s definitely further than you usually go, what with the rascals and rogues and highwaymen you might meet on the way, or, you know, accidentally bring with you. It might have something to do with how little work you’ve had at Barliman’s, what with all the rain lately. You’ve been out a few hours and it’s coming on noon. You can tell by how loudly your stomach is wondering if it can eat some of the food you’ve been foraging.

“’Tis a lazy effort,” Estel says, dropping into a crouch and plucking at something on the ground, “to match ‘d’ and ‘t’ in your rhyme.”

You snort. Well, fuck you, too, William Longshanks Shakespeare.

Operation C.U.E. may be struggling a bit to meet its daily quota today. In fact, today’s objective is more Poke Estel Out of His Shell P.E.O.O.H.S, which is not nearly as much fun as Unshell Estel, U.E., despite it being a lot easier to say and inadvertently rhyming, to boot. Taciturn and grim is saying it nicely. Sullen and uncommunicative is more like it. You can’t exactly ask him what’s wrong and expect anything other than “none of your business,” so attempt to tease and distract Estel it is.

You roll your eyes and return to cutting mushrooms off a truly massive fallen oak whose trunk comes up to your chest. Luckily you are behind him with the tree between you, and so he goes on.

“In truth.” Estel stands and looks about his feet. “You would need to declare what manner of spider was involved, or, at the least, its size, else the humor of your final line is lost. I have fought spiders the size of your house, though, should the tales be true, they are much diminished in size and cunning from what they once were.”

Good god. You freeze in the act of dropping the mushrooms into your soft basket. That’s just. Too much. Too much all at once. You don’t even know what to think of that. Spiders. Houses. He’s fought against them. And those are the small ones? Oh my god.

They’ve got to be someplace far far off, or you’d have heard of them before this. Right? Right?

God you hope so.

“I did not lose my sword until much later. It took more than the use of my own wits and the weapons I had at hand to free myself from them. I had help, and was glad of it.”

Oh. Yeah. How did he get his sword back, anyway?

You are on the cusp of asking, when he says, “’Tis an improvement o’er your last attempt, aye, but should you wish to offend me, you must do so with greater wit than you have shown thus far.”

And with that you drop everything you had been puzzling over.

Oh, so that’s how it is, is it?

“Fine!” you declare, settling the long handles of your basket back over your head and shoulder and picking up your walking stick where you had leaned it against the tree trunk. “Let’s see you do better, big boy. What you got?”

“I have shoots of ground elder.” He holds up something small and leafy. He’s still peering about his feet and very deliberately not paying any attention to you. He takes a step or two and brushes at the ground with his foot. “You may find them in areas such as this even in the depths of winter. Come!” he says, gesturing you closer. “I shall show you.”

Yeah, yeah. You take a running leap up to the top of the log and, catching your balance, tuck your hickory staff beneath your arm and trip down its length closer to him before you plop to sitting where you can see him better. You thrust your knife into the trunk of the tree and, laying your staff across your thighs, kick your feet over the empty space between your seat and the ground.

“If you think you can do better, c’mon, let’s hear it,” you say and he huffs, dropping back to a crouch and brushing away wet leaves to expose more of the ground elder and a dark ivy.

He plucks several shoots from the soil and points at larger growth nearby. Those are his broad shoulders and yes that is his nicely muscled back and yep they are both turned very firmly away from you. “’Tis the same plant, there, but when grown to such a size as those you may eat them, but they do not taste so good as when young.”

“C’mon, Estel,” you call to his back, leaning over in an attempt to catch a look at his face. “I know you love poetry.”

He stands, peering closely at the floor of the clearing as he holds a small green plant with serrated leaves out in your general direction. “When the leaves are yet curled one tother as this is, is when they taste at their best.”

“No need to be shy. Spit a verse.”

“Hala,” he says and drops his chin to his chest, his voice all kinds of resolutely calm.

“Seriously, it’s just you and me here,” you say. “I’ll get you started. ‘There once was a person named Fish -’“

“Hala!” he cries and gestures at you where you sit with the ground elder leaves, “I am attempting to teach you that which may keep you alive should you have naught else to eat.”

You nod your head. “Yes, that you have and I am very grateful, but-”

“I cannot see how that is so,” he mutters and now he’s back down on one knee, turning over leaves with the tip of his finger and plucking at the green shoots he uncovers.

“I have been listening.”

“You have not,” he scoffs. “You have been prattling.”

“I’m not prattling. I’m having fun to pass the time in between your very impressive survivalist lessons. There’s a difference,” you say, though you really hope he won’t press you on that because you’re really not sure what it is. Maybe you can bullshit your way through it.

“And for it shall not recall a single thing I have shown you or said,” he says, his voice sharpening. “Were you always thus? Or has the months of solitude curdled your wits?”

“Hey!” you protest. Fucking cheap shot.

He launches to his feet, his hand full of greens. Oops. He’s not just irritated, he’s full out angry. He might be crushing the shoots he just plucked from the ground in his fist a little too hard and you might have pushed him a little too far.

“Do you wish to know what I learned of you, Hala, when I asked the folk of Bree what they knew of you?” he asks, pinning you with a very sharp glare.

Great. Just what you wanted to hear. “Sure, Professor Estel,” you say, “you’re on an educational roll, enlighten me. What exactly did they tell you that I haven’t heard every single day since I first got here?”

“That in the depth of winter, you were so reduced as to be found combing through the middens of your neighbors and the slop buckets at The Pony,” he fairly yells at you. “You were well on your path to weighing no more than a child come the spring had not you a friend in Bob to make work for you and Barliman’s cook to force food upon you.”

Oh. They told him that.

Well. Fuck.

“Look, Estel -“

“Say what you will of me.” He stabs his finger at your knee. “Recite your poetry mocking what little I am able to do in the face of perils of which you have no great understanding, but, Hala, I beg of you, give me the respect of accepting what help I can offer in gift for what you have done for me.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

He’s not angry, he’s afraid and hurt. And you are the cause of both of those things.

“I’m sorry, Estel,” you say, but he’s already turned away, striding back to his open pack at the foot of a tree at the edge of this little glade. “I make light of things that I shouldn’t. I know that. It doesn’t mean I don’t take them seriously. It’s just, sometimes, you know, they’re just too big and too heavy to have to live with them all the fucking time. I really do appreciate your help. I mean, honestly I’m in a much better position now than I was last year. I don’t think I could joke about it if I wasn’t. And you’ve been a big reason for that.”

He thrusts the handful of greens in his pack, his movements sharp.

“Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. If I can recite everything you’ve taught me in the past twenty-four hours to your satisfaction you have to come up with a limerick of your own,” you say and his nicely muscled back heaves in a sigh.

With that, he slaps the flap on his pack closed and comes to face you. His hands on his hips, he’s got that spark of challenge in his eye that you were working for in the first place.

He clears his throat. “Very well then, I accept. Let us hear it.”

“All right, all right,” you say, and draw in air through your nose, settling your shoulders and feeling the words before they come out of your mouth. Using your staff like a drum major’s baton to point in the appropriate directions, you begin.

“Grey oyster mushrooms are available in the depth of winter, as are wood bluets which are found in leaf litter that is undisturbed, so look under brambles when close in to Bree but they can be found anywhere off trail outside of that. The ground ivy that we found half a click north by northwest of the northern Bree gate can be eaten or made into a tea. Burdock root found at the foot of a grove of elms a little under one click southeast of our current position tastes like a combination of carrot and potato. The newer growth is more tender, so dig deep. Don’t just yank on the plant cuz you’ll be left with the woodier older growth. You’ve got plans to dig out a root cellar beneath my shed where the opening will be sheltered from the weather. Common sorrel is found in the grasslands east of Bree’s hedgerow and is about the only thing around here that doesn’t taste like carrot. Pay attention to the points on the leaves so as to not mistake it for dock, which is not a big deal given that dock is edible, just not tasty. Be more careful not to mistake it for a lily imported to the North from the ‘western hills of Harad in the days of old’ which is not edible, though that comes up in the spring not winter. Look for two leaves growing together and about the stem and you will know it for the pines that most often grow about the crown of Bree-hill, not yew, as pine when crushed makes a healthy tea, but yew most decidedly does not. We are currently just over two clicks northwest of the northern gate. Ground elder shoots as seen below your feet are found beneath leaf litter and come in clusters of three with serrated edges.

“I’ll gladly gather some of that chervil over there for our lunch as you asked, but only if you eat it first. I’m sure it will taste like carrots like everything else around here does, only to then result in your very painful and sudden death because it is, in fact, hemlock and not chervil, and I really gotta wonder how far you were going to let that particular little test of my skills go. Luthien is the daughter of Thingol and Melian of Doriath, by which the blood of the Ainur entered into the peoples of Middle earth. Thingol is a dick who sent his daughter’s lover off to die chasing after some mythical jewel and then stuffed said daughter in a tower made of a tree. He paid for it and seemed to have learned his lesson, which didn’t really help anybody in the end. Luthien Rapunzled her way out of captivity and together she and Beren changed the course of history by producing about every leader of half of the cultures of Middle-earth, who then go on to ignore and refuse to name women in their histories and politics with the exception of a few stand-outs, and even though the idea of it is very appealing to you, you’ve never really kissed anyone.”

It is really really hard not to smirk down at him from your perch, but you are certainly doing your best. Okay, yeah, who are you fooling? You are literally grinning broadly down at him. He kinda looks like he’s either fighting against a smile or is sucking on something sour. God, you wish you could take a picture about now.

“How am I doing?”

He nods.

“Thingol is not a dick,” he says before he turns away and goes to his pack.

Sad to say, but Estel has learned from prior conversations what that means. His vocabulary of foul language is making great progress under your tutelage.

You roll your eyes and let your weight drag you off the tree trunk and land on your feet in a soft pile of rotting leaves and ground cover in a hail of bark.

“Well if he’s not,” you say, “he certainly does a good impression of one.”

“Elu Thingol,” he says with a certain emphasis on the dignity of the name, “was the king of a great people put under siege by one of the most oppressive powers in all the ages of the world. For many thousands of years he kept them safe until he himself perished.”

“You mean Melian, Queen of Doriath kept them safe. Her husband was a control freak. Locked their people inside the beltway and their daughter in a tree. Awesome dude. You owe me a poem.”

He mutters something you can’t catch as he fastens the flap to his pack and picks it up.

“What was that?” you ask, cupping your hand behind your ear.

“Aye! Very well!” he exclaims. He drops his pack back to the ground and turns to give you a slight bow, his arms spread wide.

“There once was a Fish who did hinder the scavenge of food and of tinder. Then came the cold bite of frost and of night. Then perished poor Fish in the winter.”

Okay, yeah.

That’s way better than any of yours.

“Did you just make that up on the spot?” you ask, leaning on your staff and smiling, because, yes, that is awesome, and a delighted grin flashes across his face, which he quickly turns away to hide.

“I’m impressed,” you say as he picks up his pack and peers into the sun shimmering overhead through the canopy of leaves. “You’ve been quite modest after all. Big, bad, mysterious Strider has some skills.”

“And you, Hala, seem to have retained more than I hoped, despite your embellishments,” he says. He slings his pack over his shoulder and onto his back and pauses, flashing you a look. “Let us see what you make of setting traps ere we break for our noon meal.”

Fucker. He doesn’t fool you. Nope, not with that crinkling about his eyes and that twitch of the corner of his lip. He’s got a tell. Yes he does. It’s the left cheek. That’s the side that gives him away. Honestly, he’s probably not trying all that hard to hide it.

And with that, he strides off, moving swiftly through a gap in the underbrush. You settle your basket more firmly between your shoulder blades, watching where he places his feet. He moves really quietly when he chooses to, but doesn’t seem to put much thought into it. It’s not like he is constantly watching where he’s putting his feet. You really don’t know how he’s doing it.

‘Lazy effort’ my ass. ‘Hinder, tinder, winter.’ Fucker just rhymed ‘d’ and ’t’ himself.

“Do not forget your knife!” comes his call as you follow behind him.

Huh?

Oh, shit! You left it stuck in the trunk of the fallen tree you were sitting on.

You take a few running steps and sling yourself to the top of the tree trunk to retrieve it. It comes loose after a couple tugs and you drop back down to the soft loam of shredded leaves and bark.

“Come, Hala!” Estel calls. “Keep up!”

#LOTR #fanfiction #aragorn #aragorn/oc #aragorn/reader #reader insert #gender neutral reader #Where the Stars are F***ing Strange

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artemisrae · 6 years

Text

Stranger Things - The Monkey in the Wrench

Title: The Monkey in the Wrench

Rating: T

Fandom: Stranger Things

Characters: Mike/Eleven, Ted and Karen Wheeler, Hopper, OCs

Word Count: 10,125

Summary:

Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench. The pain in the ass. -Die Hard

Mike ends up in the hospital, El has to face her insecurities, and they turn the corner with Mike's parents. Takes places after For Laughs, For Luck, For the Unknown.

Note: This is a sequel to my first fic For Laughs, For Luck, For the Unknown. It's pretty helpful to have read it before reading first, but if you're determined to continue without doing so what you need to know is that Mike and El got married right out of high school, Ted and Karen objected, and they're living in Terre Haute so Mike can go to school. They have a cat named Garfield who hates everyone except El.

AO3 Mirror

The first indication that something was wrong came when Mike wasn’t hungry for dinner. She’d had a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering the entire afternoon, and had splurged on pork ribs just because he liked them, so her first instinct when he refused was to be a little hurt rather than concerned.

“Not hungry?” she asked, because she had known Michael Wheeler for eight years at this point and she had never known him to lack an appetite. ”Do you want me to make the rigatoni?”

He paled noticeably at the sight of the blue box in her hand. “If you’re going to eat it,” he said, “but I don’t think I can stomach it.”

“Do you want me to make something else?” El went to the cabinet, and started mentally sorting through their kitchen. The pot of spaghetti sauce was supposed to last them the next week but - “I can heat up soup if you don’t feel good.”

“No, that’s okay. Honestly, I have an essay I need to finish and then I’m going to go to bed early.” Mike shook his head and stood up. “You should still eat though,” he added as he retrieved his backpack from the living room.

It didn’t feel right to sit there and eat without him, so she turned the radio on and carefully packed up the sauce so she could wash the pot. Bad Moon Rising came on as she worked, and El mindlessly muttered the lyrics along with John Fogerty.

As she propped up the pot to drip dry she realized Mike had been quiet. When she peered into the living room, she saw he had fallen asleep on the loveseat. His textbook was laying on the floor.

She frowned as she looked at him - she was used to Mike sprawling out, taking up all of the loveseat or the bed. He’d never really grown into his limbs, with his long legs and gangly arms, and he was often careless with how he threw them around. Tonight, however, he’d curled up on his side, hugging a pillow. He was sleeping the way she normally slept.

It was barely 8 in the evening. She bit her thumbnail, unsure if she should disturb him or not, and finally walked over and shook his shoulder gently. If he didn’t go to bed, he’d be in an even worse mood after he woke up. The loveseat was fine for the occasional nap, but really sleeping on it could be crippling.

“Mike,” she called softly. He grumbled and turned his head away from her, into the arm of the loveseat. “Mike, you should go to bed. It’s not good to sleep there.”

With a groan he swung his legs around, sitting up - and turned green. The change in his pallor was so noticeable that she was taken aback.

“Mike?” she asked, voice quivering.

“Give me a minute,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I sat up too fast. My stomach hurts.”

She held her breath - ten, twenty seconds - and then Mike exhaled slowly and stood up. Immediately he winced and pressed a hand to his side, and El instinctively stepped forward to help.

“Roy had the flu last weekend,” Mike said breathlessly. “I think I caught it.”

“Go to bed then,” El urged, trying to help guide him from the living room. “You’re not going to class tomorrow.”

“I have a test,” he protested sleepily, but when she pushed him into the bed, he curled up the same way he’d been on the loveseat.

“Take your jeans off,” she ordered, and though he moved to do so all he managed was to unbutton them before his hands went limp. El yanked them off, standing at his feet, and by the time she tossed them at the laundry basket in the corner he appeared to be sound asleep. He hadn’t stirred once.

She stood and watched him, resisting the urge to reach out and brush his hair, or hold his hand, or cup his cheek, or otherwise try and ground herself with physical contact. He needed to sleep, and she couldn’t risk waking him up.

Instead she went back to the kitchen, idly noticing that Jackson Browne was now playing quietly on the radio. She and Hopper had both caught the flu the winter she’d turned 16, and she wasn’t entirely ignorant of what they were in for if Mike really had caught it. There was chicken broth in the freezer that he could drink, and while she only had coffee in the kitchen she could borrow loose leaf tea from Anna, their downstairs neighbor.

El padded into the closet-sized bathroom, still taking stock. They had plenty of toilet paper, but not much in the medicine cabinet besides aspirin - it was too expensive to keep medicine like Nyquil or Pepto just in case, but depending on how Mike felt tomorrow she could make a trip out and get exactly what he needed. Better to do that sooner rather than later. She would never forget her and Hopper trading the sickness back and forth while they tried to take care of one another.

Once she felt more confident that she would be able to nurse Mike through the next several days - and he would be able to return the favor, if he passed it to her - she sat on the loveseat and read for an hour, trying to calm her jangling nerves. She only managed a couple pages, unable to lose herself in the story, before hefting Garfield into her arms and going into the bedroom.

Mike, she noticed, was still laying in the same position. She was used to him rolling around, and it wasn’t unusual to find one of his arms under her pillow or one of his feet dangling off the bed. He looked unnatural, curled up on his side and sleeping soundly. He wasn’t even snoring.

She laid down next to him. Garfield immediately jumped up onto the bed and started turning circles between her feet, kneading into the covers. By the time she felt his purr rumbling against her leg, she was already drifting off.

She woke up in the middle of a dream about that winter she and Hopper had caught the flu, cramped in the cabin together. She had been cooped up in the bathroom, laying on the mildewed bathmat and listening as he pounded on the door, calling her name.

Then her eyes blinked open, and she realized that it wasn't Hopper calling her, it was Mike, and the reason he sounded so far away was because his voice was soft and weak. Instantly alert, she rolled up onto her knees and reached for him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his right side.

"What's wrong?" El asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. She could feel heat coming off of him - he'd developed a fever over the couple hours they'd been sleeping.

"Everything's fine," Mike began, which was the worst possible way he could have started his sentence because he'd woken her in the middle of the night, and there was nothing fine about the tone of his voice or his stiff posture. "But I'm pretty sure I need to see a doctor, so I need you to get the phone and call Maurice and ask him to drive us to the emergency room."

She vaulted out of the bed, racing into the kitchen. "You said everything's fine!"

"Okay," Mike conceded. "Everything is going to be fine. Look, just - call Maurice, he has a car."

Despite the late hour, Maurice was still up playing a video game. It took both of them to help Mike hobble down the steps into Maurice's little Neon. They loaded him into the front seat, and as soon as El shut the door she kicked herself - she wished they had thought to put him in the backseat, so she could sit next to him, but there was no way she could move him now. He was in so much pain he was humming under his breath when he exhaled, and she didn't think he was even aware of it.

El had seen him sick and miserable before, and she'd seen him injured and limping before, but she'd never seen him like this, incapacitated, and it was hard to keep a handle on her growing panic even knowing that they were on the way to get him help.

The hospital did nothing to assuage her anxiety either - they had to convince the nurses in triage that Mike wasn't some drunk college kid, and even then they weren't truly concerned until they took his vitals and found that his temperature was almost 102 degrees.

Then everything became a blur - strangers were coming in and out of the room, tests were being run, and everyone was now too serious. El was starting to understand that something was really wrong when they started using words she didn't understand (appendicitis, sepsis) in conjunction with words that she did understand (surgery, emergent, consent) and definitely did not like.

She was barely holding it together when they were preparing to take him away. As they were unlocking his bed, Mike reached out and snagged her hand. "Everything's going to be fine. Go find a phone and call Hopper."

She blurted out the first thought from her panicked mind. "I don't have any quarters."

"Call collect," Mike instructed, and instantly she felt stupid. She knew that, but before she could try and explain herself Mike kissed her hand and said, "I know he'll come out, but I'll probably see you before he even gets here. That's how quick this is going to be, okay?"

Then they wheeled him out of the room, and El felt her focus narrow. It was the only way she could keep on her feet when all she wanted was to collapse and cry. One of the nurses directed her to a pay phone, and in a weird way she felt like she had years ago when she was walking into the saltwater tank at the Hawkins lab. It was like she had been handed a weight before anyone had actually checked to see if she could bear it, like she was walking towards something scary and unknown.

She wasn't that same little girl, she told herself firmly, and Mike had told her to call Hopper. Hopper would come out; no matter that it was well after midnight on a weekday, Hopper would always come for her.

Her hands were shaking by the time she approached the pool of phones lining the hallway. She picked up a receiver, and dialed the operator, and as soon as she heard the voice on the end her mind gave up.

It was just like the tank, with the panel closed, isolating her inside. She was alone in a hospital on the other side of Indiana from Hopper, and they were cutting Mike open and it was all so scary and fast that even though she had seen the Upside Down, faced literal demons from another plane of existence, this was one of the most terrifying moments of her life.

The phone buzzed in her ear as the operator dialed Hopper, and El disintegrated.

***

The phone was on the third or fourth ring before Hopper heard it, and on the fifth or sixth ring before he actually reached the receiver. Still half asleep, his brain wasn't coordinating with his hand and he knocked the receiver onto the ground before he actually got the phone up and to his ear.

"Hopper." He assumed it was someone from the station, a midnight robbery or car accident, but what he heard was something much worse than that.

"Sir, I have a collect call for you from -" the operator's voice cut to the phone line, giving whoever was calling him a chance to identify themselves, and Hopper's heart dropped as he all he heard was hiccupping sobs.

"Yes, damnit, I accept the charge, put her through, put her through!" he snarled, before the operator could even ask. "El, kid, are you there?"

She responded in the affirmative by descending into a fresh chorus of gasping cries.

"Hey, kid, hey." Geez, had he really been sleeping just five minutes ago? He didn't think he'd ever felt so alert in his life. "Hey, I can help but I need you to breathe and tell me what's going on. Can you do that, kid?"

He really should stop calling her kid. He'd been trying to remind himself for over a year now, but to hear her like this, devastated and crying, it was hard not to revert.

Her reply was choked off - he heard her cough, and gag, then take in a couple unsteady, shuddering breaths.

“Okay hon,” he coached, falling into old instincts. “Breathe in, two, three. Exhale, two, three. Breathe in. Come on El, get a little control. I can help.”

“M-Mike!” she wailed, and Hopper’s heart stuttered.

“Is he okay?”

“No!”

His throat closed around the words, but he forced them out. “Is he alive?”

“Yes!”

He physically felt the relief pouring into his chest like molten lead. Alive. Alive, he could work with. “Was there some kind of accident?”

“No. Sick.”

“Sick?”

Her voice was still tinny and warbling. “We’re in the hospital. They’re cutting him open. Appendicitis.”

If he was relieved before, he wanted to laugh now. Appendicitis. Shit luck, but normal shit luck, and not supernatural shit luck like he had been afraid of for her. “Okay, sit tight. I’m on my way out.”

It wasn’t even a cognizant decision for him to make. El needed him, even if he couldn’t do anything but support her, and he was going. Flo was going to kill him, but he could call her once a decent hour rolled around. She’d probably be shocked to hear from him before 8 am.

He threw some clothes in a bag, grabbed the (unopened) bottle of Wild Turkey from the kitchen counter (leaving the opened one behind) and had his keys in hand before he remembered that he might also need fresh underwear.

Cursing, he slammed back into the house, and on his way back to the bedroom passed the white phone hanging innocuously on the wall. A stray thought broke through the static of his mind, and he backpedaled.

Looked at the phone.

Considered his options.

“Fuck! Fine!” he cursed. Dropping the bag, he stomped back into the bedroom, where he found exactly one clean pair of underwear - he could run to the laundromat with all of their laundry so El wouldn’t have to leave Mike, that would help her - and when he got back to the phone he heaved a huge sigh and dialed the Wheelers.

Unlike him, neither Ted nor Karen made it to the phone before the answering machine picked up. He resisted the urge to swear on tape. “It’s Hopper. Look, El called and Mike’s in the hospital over in Terre Haute. They’re taking his appendix out. I’m heading over now. Um. You know the address, I think.”

Then he hung up the phone, got into the truck, and hit the highway with the siren blaring.

***

Hopper beat the Wheelers to Terre Haute by almost two full hours. Which was good - El needed every minute to shore up her courage as she berated him for calling them.

“He didn’t ask for them,” she insisted, and overhead, as she paced, the fluorescent lights buzzed loudly as she passed under them. She took a deep breath, trying to center herself. She hadn’t accidentally broken something in years, and didn't want to start again by bursting lightbulbs in the hospital.

“I know El, but you have to understand -”

“I understand,” she enunciated, “that he did not ask for them.”

“He didn’t ask for them because your husband is a stubborn little shit,” Hopper said, teeth grinding. “Which makes you two perfectly suited for one another.”

She held her ground, crossing her arms and glaring.

“El, look.” He took her elbow, guiding her to the uncomfortable couch in the family waiting room. They were currently the only people there. “Do you remember what I told you last Christmas?”

She sighed. He was referring to the talk they’d had after Mike’s spectacular blow up with his mother the previous Christmas Eve. They had spent the night at Hopper’s - Mike mostly in a rage that hadn’t settled until well and truly into Christmas morning, which meant that he had snoozed through the quiet breakfast she and Hopper had shared.

“Why do they hate me?” she’d asked him, and Hopper had rolled his eyes.

“They don’t hate you,” Hopper assured her. “You just gotta understand what kind of people the Wheelers are. When Mike found you, it totally changed his life. And to him, that’s a good thing, but to the Wheelers… parents have visions for their children. The Wheelers had a picture of how Mike’s life would go, and they’re not good at changing it.”

“You weren’t happy either,” El had argued. “And you never tried to stop us.”

“Yeah well I don’t have the same perspective as the Wheelers, okay? I lost my first girl, and I spent way too much time not having you to risk it ever happening again.” He’d cleared his throat, sipped his coffee, and then added, “They thought Mike was going to be like Nancy - you remember what happened when Nancy went to college?”

There had been a time when it had seemed distinctly possible that Nancy might follow Jonathan Byers to New York City. She’d applied to NYU and gotten accepted and everything - then the Wheelers had hit the roof, and told her they weren’t paying for out of state tuition.

“She’s in Bloomington,” El had supplied. Indiana University was where Nancy had ended up, just like her parents had wanted.

“Right,” Hopper had confirmed. “She’s in Bloomington, and Karen and Ted thought that if they told Mike they weren’t going to support him, he’d change his mind and back out at the last minute. He wouldn’t do that to you though, and I think they just need time to readjust their vision for Mike’s future.”

“You said to give them time,” El repeated, conveniently skipping over his reassurance that they didn’t hate her. Hopper nodded.

“They love Mike too,” he said simply. “And maybe this is the kick in the ass they need.”

She made an unhappy noise in response. Hopper tightened his hold on her hand. “I told you to give them time, but I didn’t tell you to take any disrespect from them. They’re coming onto your territory, remember that. If they act inappropriately we’ll both deal with them. Not to mention what Mike will do whenever he comes off the painkillers.”

Belatedly, she realized that tears were starting to well up in her eyes. Hopper rubbed her back while she scrubbed at her face. “I just want him to be okay.”

“He will be,” Hopper replied. “And you will too.”

Despite Hopper’s pep talk, her heart was racing when Karen Wheeler burst into the waiting room and asked, voice shrill, “How is he? Have you heard?”

“Surgery’s done,” El answered as Hopper stood up to shake hands with Ted. “Still sleeping.”

Immediately she rebuked herself - the more stressed she felt, the more she tended to revert to one or two word sentences, something that frustrated Hopper and Mike even if they understood why. The Wheelers surely didn’t understand or even care.

It was just over an hour after their arrival - an hour filled with terse chatting about what had happened, how Mike had thought he’d had the flu, how El had gotten Mike to the hospital without a car, how the message Hopper had left on the answering machine didn’t have the hospital’s address so they’d had to go to their apartment and get directions from their neighbor - when an exhausted looking nurse poked her head into the room and called “Wheeler!”

She seemed nonplussed at having the complete attention of all four of the room’s occupants. “He’s coming around. We’re arranging to transfer him to a room, but until then one of you can come back and keep him company.”

El and Karen both stood.

Hopper’s eyebrows went up.

“I’m his mother,” Karen told El, not quite scolding her but definitely a little offended that El had the nerve to try and supersede her.

“I’m his wife,” El responded, wishing desperately that her voice hadn’t wavered.

“He’s asking for El,” the nurse interrupted their brief standoff. “Rather emphatically actually.”

El turned away with a shaky exhale, grateful the nurse had saved her from having to point out that Mike didn’t even know they were there, hadn’t even asked for them.

She was so happy to see Mike propped up and holding a plastic cup with ice chips that she thought her heart might burst. His eyes were glazed over, but when they landed on her he broke into a smile so bright it was as if he hadn’t seen her for three years instead of three hours.

“Oh thank god you’re here,” he said, still sounding breathless.

She leaned over and kissed him, ignoring the horrid morning breath. “How do you feel?”

“I think a demodog got me,” he said, very serious. She reached for his hand, holding it to her heart. “Thought you were upside down again.”

She shook her head, lips clamped together. She really didn't want to cry again, but she was so relieved, and to be reminded of the last time she was this happy to see him - "No. No, I'm not going anywhere. I waited."

"I called for you," his eyes were impossibly big.

"I heard," she reassured him, gently reaching out and placing the little cup of ice back on the table before he could drop it. "I waited."

"You won't leave again right?" he asked, all earnest little boy, and any tension left over from her interaction with Mike's parents left as her heart melted.

"No," she promised, sitting so close to the hospital bed that her knees leaned painfully into the railings. "I won't."

And she didn't - they had to wait until they found an empty bed for him, but by the time they had wheeled him into the little (but private) room and parked his bed next to the window, El had entirely forgotten about the presence of the Wheelers in the hospital waiting room.

Which meant all of those feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty came crashing back as his parents and Hopper were led into the room by an escort. Instinctively, she tried to withdraw, pulling back from Mike, but his grip held firm.

He shot her a confused look, and thus didn't notice his mother immediately. Karen folded Mike into her arms, pushing his hair away from his head, and cooed, "Michael, honey, how are you feeling?"

El had to forcefully pull her hand out of his, and it would take months for her to forget the flash of hurt that crossed his face before he realized who was now talking to him.

"He's still -" El started to say, wanting to warn them that he was, in the words of the nurses, doped up. She knew he wasn't in his right mind because the last time he’d seen his mother the previous summer things had been tense but polite - and when he realized she was the one hugging him his face blossomed into an impossibly huge smile.

“Hi Mom,” he said, his hands coming up to pat at the arms wrapped around him. “Hi, I didn’t think I’d see you.”

“Oh Michael,” she sounded close to tears. “Of course we came out. We wouldn’t just let you sit here in the hospital by yourself.”

"Mom," Mike leaned away, trying to escape her arms. "Mom, I'm not alone. El's here."

"Yes, of course, honey," Karen's tone wasn't patronizing, but it was obvious even to El that she hadn't thought about her words at all. She had merely been trying to assure Mike, and it took her a moment to realize that Mike had disengaged.

His cloudy eyes wandered back to El, and his hands moved restlessly, like wanted to reach for her. "Did you see my wife?"

El flashed him a tense smile, but Mike’s eyes lit up. "Did you see her?" he repeated, more urgently to his mother.

"Yes, of course, Honey." She gave El a wan smile.

"I didn't think you'd seen her," Mike insisted. El realized with something akin to horror that he was getting emotional, and his voice was choking up. "We have a whole apartment and everything and you've never seen it."

El looked up at Hopper, unsure what to do. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen Mike cry. Mike could get angry in the blink of an eye - she'd seen him pick fights, she'd seen him finish fights, and she'd seen him make things harder for himself (and sometimes her) because of it. The only time his emotions drove him to tears was when it involved his relief for others - her and Will usually.

Things with his parents had been tense since they'd gotten married and moved across the state. They had fought, and even with his father providing them with a monthly stipend that his mother still didn't know about their visit home the previous summer had been cordial, but awkward.

If El had been asked yesterday how Mike would handle an unexpected appearance from his parents, she would have predicted him to throw a fit, to be cold and cautious about what he said to them.

"They got him on the good stuff," Hopper said from her elbow. He was leaning against the window sill next to her, arms crossed, unimpressed. She shot him a disapproving glare, and he cleared his throat and sipped from a Styrofoam cup that she hoped was only coffee.

"We'll stay as long as you need," Karen was promising Mike, but Mike wasn't even looking at her.

He was looking at El, and his face was so open and honest that he looked like a little kid again. His eyes were still bright and swimming with tears. "You're so pretty," he muttered, his lips drawn into a pout. "I can't believe you married me."

She gave him a wavering smile but didn’t reach out. Karen still had her arms around her son’s shoulders, now sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, and El couldn’t shake the feeling of intrusion, that she was underfoot in a family moment.

Despite the fact that Mike never stopped looking at her, for her, talking to her, she never quite shook that feeling of being a child who had to sit still and be quiet. He didn’t get breakfast but they did deliver a lunch to him; she had to clench her fists as Karen fussed over the items on the tray. The chicken soup seemed to meet her approval, but she questioned if Mike should be eating something as complex as dry toast. El bit her lip as she considered whether or not she would have ever thought to consider it in the name of Mike’s health the way his mother did.

Mike was good at humoring his mom - he did seem genuinely happy to see her, even as the fog of surgery lifted and he became more lucid. As he became more coherent, however, he also got more tired, and by early afternoon he was drowsing off.

When he dozed off and spilled the cup of water he’d been holding, Hopper stood and took El by the elbow. “Come on kid,” he said, leading her away from the bed.

He was guiding her towards the door, and El locked her knees, trying to stop him. Hopper didn’t miss a beat. “You two are coming too,” he ordered Mike’s parents, and while Ted stood obediently and gathered his coat and newspaper, Karen balked at the order. “We’ll be back for dinner. But we’re all going back to the apartment to freshen up and get something to eat. El’s been up all night and I’m hungry.”

Ted and Karen followed Mike and Hopper back home. As they rode in the car El stared down at her feet and realized she wasn’t even wearing real shoes; she’d spent the night in the hospital wearing Mike’s moccasin slippers.

They lasted a whole fifteen minutes on the road before Hopper asked, “You hanging in there?”

She swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

He glanced over at her and sighed. “I can tell something’s gotten in your head, but I can’t tell if it’s his parents or seeing Mike like that.”

She shrugged. The true answer was somewhere in the middle. “I just want him to be okay. And I want to take care of him.”

“You two have been taking care of each other for years,” Hopper said firmly. “It’s how you ended up out here in the first place.”

“I guess.” It was hard to think of it that way. She leaned her head against the car window and watched the buildings blur. She didn’t think she slept, but it was still Hopper’s voice that jolted her back to awareness once they reached their little apartment building. He pulled into the space designated to her and Mike even though they didn’t have a car and left the Wheelers to street parking.

She fumbled with the keys to the building, painfully aware that this would be the first time that Mike's parents got any real insight into their life in Terre Haute. As soon as she got the door open, the front door to the apartment below theirs flew open.

"Ella! Ella!" It was their downstairs neighbor Anna, and she looked close to tears. "How is Mike? What happened?"

She wrapped her bony arms around El, and to her mortification El felt her throat close up. Anna and Marco had adopted El and Mike as their own within a month of moving in; Anna had single handedly improved their diets by teaching El about cooking, and Marco expressed affection by finding items for their sparsely furnished apartment. They seemed to have an inside line on every store owner in Terre Haute, whether it be the butcher or the locksmith.

"He's okay," she managed to choke out. "They took out his appendix."

"Oh poor Mike," Anna pulled out of the hug and held her at arm's length, studying her face. "Poor Ella."

Hopper cleared his throat, reminding her that he and the Wheelers were waiting. Anna looked above El's head, and her face lit up. "Jimmy!” In her thick Italian accent it came out as Jee-mee. “Jimmy you’re here!”

Hopper gave her a grim, but affectionate, smile. "Hi Mrs. Christiano."

"I'm so glad you came for Ella!" Anna reached up, hands gesturing for Hopper to bend down, then cupped Hopper's face and planted a kiss firmly on his cheek. "Go rest, I'm baking lasagna now. I'll make the fried dough you like too."

Hopper smiled, and thanked her - and then saw that Anna's attention had been drawn to the Wheelers, who were watching curiously as Anna fussed over El and Hopper.

"Did you find the hospital?" she asked pleasantly enough, and El suddenly remembered Karen telling them earlier in the morning that a neighbor had given them directions to the hospital because Hopper hadn't.

"Yes," Karen said warmly. "Thank you so much for your help."

"Um," El looked between the two, "Anna, these are Mike's parents. Did you know who they were?"

"No, no." Karen and Ted both received polite handshakes. "I guessed, but I've never met them before. They've never visited before, yes?"

"Not yet," El confirmed.

"We're just here to have lunch before we go back to the hospital, " Hopper said, one hand at the small of El's back to push her up the steps. "We'll catch up before I leave though."

"Tell Mike I'll pray for him!" Anna called up the stairs behind them.

Hopper thanked her while El unlocked the apartment. The place had been their home for just over a year at this point, and El loved it fiercely. It was small - just big enough for their loveseat and a little TV, and a card table if they had guests. Over the summer Marco had helped them upgrade their mini-fridge into a standing fridge and freezer - a process which had left both Marco and Mike with sore backs and during which Mike had learned how to curse in Italian while Marco had been treated to the most innovative swearing in English.

Beyond the kitchen was the tiny balcony where El liked to sit and read in the sun. When they'd moved in last year it had been bare, save for two plastic patio chairs. Last summer Anna had introduced El to gardening, and now there was a pot sized planter with a tomato plant in a cage - no longer flowering, since it was the end of the season, but still green, and El was proud of it. The bell pepper hadn't done nearly as well, but their herb garden was still going strong, and El planned to move it into the apartment and nurse it through the winter.

Their bathroom was the size of a closet, the bedroom so small that they couldn't open a dresser drawer without hitting the bed, but it was their home, and they had turned it into their home together, and El hated the feeling of anxiety creeping up on her as she imagined the Wheelers combing through it and judging whether or not it was good enough for their son.

Garfield was lounging on the back of the loveseat. He couldn’t be bothered to sit up when El came in the door, but as soon as he saw the people with her his ears laid down and he hissed.

She didn’t try to introduce the cat or even give them a tour; she left that to Hopper and instead went to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and pulled out two of the containers of sauce from the day before. She put the pot on the stove, intent on heating up lunch for everyone. The frozen sauce clunked loudly as she dropped it into the bottom of the pot.

She felt more than heard Hopper come up behind her. “El,” he said gently, but she shook her head.

“Do you think rigatoni is okay?” she asked instead, taking the box of pasta from the pantry. “I don’t have spaghetti.”

“Kid,” he tried again, but El just pointed into the pot.

“Will you eat the pork ribs? I don’t think they’ll stay good long enough for Mike.” From the living room she heard the high pitched wailing growl that was Garfield warning the Wheelers away from his personal space. Someone should warn them that I’m the only one that cat likes, she thought, but couldn’t say out loud. She hoped neither of them tried to pet him.

“Yes, but -” he winced as she pulled out their smaller pot and started filling it with water. “Will you just listen to me?”

This came out as a near shout as she wheeled around, bumped directly into his chest, and dropped the pot of water onto the floor. El stared down at the pot on the ground, the spreading puddle of water, and their now-wet socks.

“El, you need to get some sleep before we go back to the hospital,” Hopper said, grabbing a dish towel from the oven handle and dropping to one knee to try and mop up the puddle.

“Everything okay?” Karen asked, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. El could feel the heat in her own face as she nodded and picked up the pot, rinsing it off and starting to refill it again.

“El was just going to lay down while I heat up some pasta for us,” Hopper said, taking the pot out of El’s hand and depositing it on the stove. “Rigatoni okay?”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Karen stepped towards the stove uncertainly. “I can watch this while you..”

“Thanks,” Hopper said gruffly, leading El out of the kitchen and towards the tiny bedroom.

“I’m not a baby,” El muttered, wriggling away from him.

“Who called you a baby?” Hopper asked distantly.

“Babies need naps,” El grumbled, and Hopper snorted a laugh.

“At least an hour,” he ordered, pointing towards the unmade bed. “I’d prefer two, but we’re not going back to that hospital until you get some sleep.”

They had a brief stand off - thirty seconds at most - before El conceded. She pulled off her wet socks, tossing them across the room. The second she laid down, smelled the familiar scent on the sheets, the exhaustion she’d been holding at bay washed over her like a wave. She’d been holding it back through sheer force of will.

She entered that hazy half awareness state before sleep almost immediately; faintly she heard a hiss as Garfield padded into the bedroom and found Hopper, and then the familiar weight as he jumped up onto the bed and parked himself between her knees. He was a poor substitute for Mike, but El was grateful for him all the same.

***

Getting El home and into the bedroom to sleep was his first accomplishment. Hopper knew no one else who could ignore physical discomfort without complaint the way El could - so she must have been feeling very poorly to have laid down and fallen asleep with that little bit of fight.

His second accomplishment had been to shoo Karen Wheeler out of the kitchen long enough for him to heat up sauce and make a pot of coffee.

Coffee didn’t really go with rigatoni and red sauce, but he needed something to mask the taste of the Wild Turkey that he’d poured into the cup, mentally preparing himself for the forced interaction he was about to endure with the Wheelers.

If he’d ever doubted just how much he loved that kid, the next two hours of his life cemented it, permanently.

“El made this?” Karen asked, a slightly disbelieving tone to her voice.

Hopper, by El’s request, didn’t smoke in their apartment, but he was considering bending that rule since neither she nor Mike were there to scold him. “Yeah. The lady downstairs, Anna? She showed her how to make pretty much everything her and Mike eat now. They emigrated from Palermo, so it’s all very… garlicky, but it’s better than what me and Joyce taught her.”

“This is really impressive,” Karen muttered, more to herself than as a response.

“You should taste her bread,” Hopper said. That had been her project this summer while Mike had been working - learning how to work the dough, let it rest, how to plait - and the results had been impressive. He didn’t think he’d seen her once without a streak of flour on her face or in her hair. “Of course, Anna doesn’t know how to cook for less than a dozen people, so El freezes a lot of what she makes and Mike takes it to school.”

“Economical,” Ted observed. He was sitting back on the loveseat, legs crossed. His newspaper was folded across his knees.

“Yeah, Mike discontinued his meal plan this year because he doesn’t get food on campus anymore,” Hopper said, and noted that both Karen and Ted looked surprised to hear this. Surprised because El could actually cook? Or surprised that their son had learned to manage their budget like an adult? Hopper couldn’t be sure.

They lapsed into silence. Hopper lusted after a cigarette.

Finally Karen carefully placed her bowl on the edge of the TV stand. Hopper idly thought that he should look for a coffee table for the kids.

“It’s nicer than I expected,” Karen admitted. “The apartment.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” Hopper said, “but I keep a clean house.”

“Mike never was the sort to complain about chores either,” Karen said, tapping a finger against her lips and looking around. “It’s a little dingy though.”

“It’s within their budget,” Hopper said simply, and sipped his coffee, trusting them to read between the lines.

“If they put some art on the walls it might brighten the place up,” she mused.

“What?” Ted asked, raising an eyebrow. “Risk losing the security deposit just to brighten the place up?”

“Ah they’re not moving any time soon,” Hopper dismissed. “You couldn’t pry El away from the Christianos. And Mike walks to campus. I bet they finish out his degree in this place.”

They lapsed into silence again. Hopper collected the dishes, intensely grateful for the opportunity to escape the room so he could go wash up. He resisted the urge for a cigarette, but allowed himself another cup of coffee - with only half the allotment of Wild Turkey that he’d poured into the previous cup. He still had to drive them back to the hospital after all.

When he went back into the living room, holding his fresh cup, Ted sighed and scratched at his chin. “I could use a drink.”

“There’s more coffee in there,” Hopper said automatically, gesturing with the cup.

“Not that kind of drink,” Ted said wryly. Hopper blinked as he took in his meaning. Never pegged Ted Wheeler for an alcohol drinker, but in the interest of fairness, if Hopper had been asked what Ted Wheeler drank to decompress he probably would have guessed milk.

Karen smacked his shoulder. “They’re only twenty! There shouldn’t be anything in the house!”

“Actually,” Hopper cleared his throat. “How do you feel about bourbon, Ted? I might have thrown a bottle in my overnight bag.”

Ted’s eyes dropped to the coffee mug. “Yes,” he said firmly, and after years of being involved with the Wheeler family, Hopper finally found something in common with one of them.

El slept for just under two hours, and was still half asleep when she wandered into the living room, curls frizzy. She rubbed her eyes. “Can we go back to the hospital?”

“Yeah kid.” He gestured to the kitchen. “But you haven’t eaten anything. Eat some pasta while we finish our coffee.”

He glanced at Ted. Ted toasted him with the coffee mug.

***

A nurse was coming out of the room when they arrived. She was holding tubes of blood, and carefully attaching stickers to them as she walked.

“Oh, hello!” she said brightly. “You have good timing. He’s just woken up.”

El fought the urge to elbow her out of the way. The nurse showed them the lab tubes, and her stomach roiled as she thought about Mike’s blood being in them. “These are just testing for infection. If they come back clear he should be able to recover at home.”

Home. She flashed back to being twelve and in a cabin with Hopper. Promise?

Then the nurse moved out of her way, and she got to see Mike again. He was laying back, the bed semi-reclined. When the door opened he tried to lean forward to see who it was, and El rushed to him as he winced and fell back again.

“Are you hurting?” she asked, reaching for hi hand. “I can call for the nurse.”

“No,” Mike said, sounding breathless. “Just moved too fast. I have all these staples in my stomach now.”

She wanted to see them, and almost asked, but then saw Mike’s mother in her peripheral. Reluctantly, she started to slide off of the side of the bed, let his mother step closer, but unlike this morning when El started to pull away, Mike wouldn’t let her go.

He shot her a questioning look, but she just shrugged and looked down at their entwined hands.

She depended on Mike to guide her during their interactions with his parents. She supported him completely, and had already felt like her very presence had caused so many of their issues. The thought that one of her actions might stress their relationship further - and that Mike might start to resent her in turn - caused her a physical ache in her chest.

“They said you might come home tomorrow,” she told him, leaning back so she was sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, still holding hands.

“God I hope so,” Mike huffed. “I feel like shit but if I’m going to feel like shit I’d rather do it at home.”

“Maybe Garfield will sit with you,” she suggested. “He always sits with me when I’m sick.”

“The only way Garfield would sit with me is if he tried to smother me,” Mike shot back, his mouth twisting in disbelief at her suggestion, but it was affectionate. “I kind of miss him though.”

“Really?” Their cat hated everyone but her, and especially hated Mike.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to see what dead animals he left in my shoes.” It was so good to talk to him with the medication worn off. He sounded like his normal self again - a little pained, sure, but not confused and talking like they were 13 again, like he’d been that morning.

He looked up and addressed their parents. “How long are you all staying?”

“I’ll probably head out this evening or tomorrow,” Hopper said. “El’s got a handle on the situation.” She looked at him sharply. She hadn’t felt in control of the situation since Mike had told her he didn’t want dinner.

“We’ll make sure you get set up at home,” Karen said, looking at Ted. “But we’ve left Holly with the Sinclairs, and we can’t leave her there all weekend. At least she was in school today but tomorrow she’ll just be in their hair.”

Mike nodded, and then stiffened. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” El answered.

“Don’t you work tonight?” he asked, eyebrows creasing.

“Are you still doped up?” It was inconceivable that she would leave him in the hospital to go read at the counter at Moonlight Parlour. “I called Claire while we were at home. She said to take all the time I needed.”

“You’re working, El? Where are you working?” It was the first time Karen Wheeler had asked her a direct question about her own life since before her and Mike had gotten married.

Mike answered over her, rolling his eyes. “She’s working for Claire the Loon.”

El twisted and whopped him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “I told you to stop calling her that!”

His face was wounded with a mock pout. “But I’m injured!”

“Roy is the only one who thinks that’s funny,” she said sternly. Claire owned the shop where she worked, and she adored El. She read palms, and liked to make glowing predictions about Mike and El and their bright future, and constantly passed El trinkets and tchotchkes that she decided belonged with her. The job was easy, the pay was minimum wage but under the table, and most importantly - it got El out of the apartment and interacting with the rest of the natural world.

Mike rolled his eyes. “You can’t deny she’s a little weird.”

“You’ve punched people who say the same thing about me,” El pointed out, and that, she was glad to see, seemed to strike him. Mike colored a little, and, satisfied, El turned back to the parents. “It’s a little shop. She’s really nice.”

For a moment everyone was quiet. El wasn't sure why she was surprised. Hopper knew about her job already, and Mike's dad never had anything to say, but his mom looked... surprised, like she was thinking something but didn't want to say it out loud.

They stayed until visiting hours were over - and even then, a nurse had to kick them out of the room. The parents all stepped out, but El lingered so that she could kiss Mike goodbye.

"Love you," he said roughly, pushing a curl behind her ear. "Hate that you're going home alone."

"'M not alone,” she pointed out, rather reasonably she thought. "I have Hopper and your parents."

He leveled her with a look, and she grimaced in acknowledgment. Even though he was spending the night alone in the hospital, she would feel much more lonely in the presence of his parents without his company.

"Come home tomorrow,” she ordered gently, and reluctantly let go of his hand to join their parents in the hall.

It was during the long walk out to the parking garage that the idea started to form - Mike might not have said as much yet, but she could tell that this entire ordeal had shaken him up. Even being discharged he still had several days of rest before he could move around again, get the staples removed, and it would be several weeks before he was allowed to lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar.

Not to mention her own nerves, which felt raw and exposed. Hard enough to deal with Mike and his health, but the addition of his parents and the constant sense of judgment - she desperately craved a safe place to hide and process how she was feeling.

By the time they got out to Hopper's truck she had a plan, and could picture it perfectly.

"Need your help,” she said to Hopper, who, to his credit, agreed without asking any details. He was good at that - she had gotten better at asking for things she needed or even just wanted, but there had a been times when she'd endured just because she wasn't used to getting things she wanted, or needed. For her to ask so frankly - no wonder she hadn’t needed to persuade him.

The Wheelers rented a hotel room, and promised to return to the apartment so they could all go to the hospital together the next morning, which was fine - it meant she and Hopper could start their work uninterrupted that evening.

She had him up until midnight, when she deliberately dozed off on the loveseat to save them an argument over who was going to sleep on the mattress - between the two of them, her back would tolerate it much better than his would.

What she hadn’t thought about was Ted and Karen’s reactions when they arrived to the apartment the next morning and found that the living room had been replaced with a makeshift blanket fort - complete with dragging their mattress into the living room, in front of the television.

“Um,” Karen stopped in the doorway. Ted, who hadn’t seen yet, bumped into her from behind, but all she did was take a staggering step forward with a confused look on her face.

El pulled aside one sheet and gestured for them to come all the way in. Ted was carrying several paper bags, and shouldered past her to carry them into the kitchen while Karen looked around in wonder.

“For Mike,” El explained. “The bedroom is too boring. He can watch TV this way.”

At her most instinctual, El remembered the blanket fort in the Wheeler’s basement as a safe, warm place, more than anywhere else in the world. Mike would be closer to her while she cooked, wouldn’t be bored in the bedroom, and honestly, it would make them both feel better to have this space to recover in.

“You know,” Karen reached out and ran a hand down a sheet, pulling aside the drape to let a little sunshine in. “This is a good idea. When Michael was little he’d always go sleep in that fort in the basement when he was sick. He’s going to love this.”

What El wanted to say was, I know.

What El wanted to say was, Part of the reason he loved that fort was because of me.

What El wanted to say was, That fort was the first place I ever felt like I was home.

What El said was, “Thank you, I think he will like it.”

“Come with me,” Karen said, taking her by the arm and leading her into the kitchen. El was surprised to find that the bags Ted had hauled into the house were groceries.

“We bought the basics so you wouldn’t have to leave. And also,” Karen reached into her purse and pulled out a slip of paper. “Last night I wrote down my recipe for meatloaf. It doesn’t feed a dozen people, but Michael always liked it. I thought maybe you’d want to try something different?”

It might as well have been a solid gold block, wreathed in halo with a chorus of angels behind it. El immediately recognized it for what it truly was - more than an olive branch, this was a stamp of approval from Karen Wheeler. Mike must have felt the same way when he got his acceptance letter from Indiana State. Her hands were practically trembling when she took it from Karen and skimmed over it. Karen used different abbreviations than Anna did, but El knew she could make this, easily.

“I’ll make it this weekend,” she promised, heartfelt, not making eye contact.

In another time or place, or if they were different people, they might have hugged then. Instead Karen put out a hand, squeezed El’s shoulder supportively, and then excused herself.

***

He’d seen Karen duck out of the kitchen, still holding her little purse against her hip, but hadn’t realized she’d been in there with El - until he walked into the kitchen and found her looking at a piece of paper like it was a winning lottery ticket.

She looked up at him, nearly in tears. “She wants me to make meatloaf?”

“Who, Mrs. Wheeler?” Hopper jammed a thumb over his shoulder. “You can make meatloaf. You’d probably make great meatloaf.”

“No,” El exhaled, and gestured around the kitchen. “She bought groceries. She wants me to make her meatloaf.”

Hopper considered that. “It’s her recipe? I’ve had her meatloaf, it’s pretty good.”

“They don’t hate me,” El said, grinning shakily and looking back down at the paper again.

Jesus Christ, was she still holding on to that? Hopper thought he’d talked her out of that notion last Christmas. The Wheelers had never hated El - they just hadn’t thought that the pair would continue their relationship outside of high school, and especially didn’t think it was a good idea to get married.

The Wheelers had tried to call Mike’s bluff, and Hopper hadn’t realized how personally El had taken it. He wondered if Mike knew.

For a moment, Hopper was so angry he wanted to punch the wall. He couldn’t even name exactly who he was angry at - himself, for not realizing how insecure El felt? Mike, for not talking her out of these crazy thoughts? Karen, for not putting aside her pride? Or even Ted, who could send the kids money but couldn’t make himself try and talk to his wife?

Then he exhaled, and as quickly as it had come on he felt the anger rush out again. He had tried to talk to El; it wasn’t his fault that she hadn’t believed him. Mike probably didn’t know she felt this way, or had addressed it just as Hopper had. And Karen and Ted were parents who were still trying to decide what level of parenting was best for their child - even though Mike wasn’t a child anymore, and really just needed their support.

It was all perfectly understandable, but not fair to El, who hadn’t been raised in any sort of home, and still struggled to understand complicated family dynamics, and in moments of uncertainty divided the world into Good and Bad, Friends and Enemies, Reward and Punishment.

His arm snaked out, pulling her against him. “No one hates you kid,” he said roughly into her hair. “I told you that.”

El wriggled away from him, that watery, gratified smile still on her face. “You told me that,” she agreed, but it was clear that now she actually believed him. All these years, and the kid still found ways to break his heart. He had thought it was supposed to get easier as they get older.

“Listen.” He put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her eyes up to his. “I’m going to get you to the hospital, and I’m going to say goodbye to Mike, and then I’m going to let the Wheelers get you two home and settled alright?”

For a moment, it didn’t seem like it was all right - her eyes widened, expression pulling into her he’s really gonna make me eat the peas face. “But, what if..” her voice was teary, and he rushed to reassure her.

“You got this kid. You absolutely got this.” He gestured to the living room. “You’re the one who knew what he needed to feel better. You’re the one who got him to the hospital. You can take care of him - you don’t need us.”

She bit her lip, clearly torn between - what? Believing him or not?

“Look.” He reached out and tapped the paper in her hands. “I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Wheelers are leaving right after they get you two settled, because they know you can handle it.”

“They don’t hate me,” El muttered again, biting her thumb nail and looking down at the recipe as if she still didn’t believe it was there.

“More than that, kid.” Hopper squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “They trust you.”

***

Mike loved the blanket fort.

He was exhausted by the time she and Ted hauled him up the steps - it still hurt to stand up straight, even with the prescription sent home from the hospital - and the awed look on his face when he saw the living room almost made El fall in love with him all over again. It was too much like that thirteen year old boy who had spent a year calling for her on his walkie-talkie.

The Wheelers had one more surprise before they left: Ted had rented a VCR, knowing that Michael would be essentially trapped in the apartment while he recovered. It only reinforced the feeling of being a teenager again - how many nights had been spent in the Wheeler’s basement, safely ensconced within the blankets, watching grainy moves on their old television?

They got Mike settled, reclined on the mattress, pillows under his knees to keep pressure off his abdomen, and after helping them hook up the VCR and making sure he was as comfortable as they could possibly make him, the Wheelers left, and for the first time in two days, Mike and El were alone together.

El laid down on the mattress next to him, on her belly and so close that they were pressed hip to hip. All of the stress of the last couple days had suddenly made her feel bone tired. She pressed her face into a pillow, turned slightly so she could watch him out of the corner of her eye as he flipped through the VHS tapes that his father had picked to entertain them for the next week.

“He did pretty good,” Mike commented, showing her the cases. “He must have remembered the Ghostbusters costumes, because he got that and the second one and… National Lampoon’s Vacation? Pretty sure he just asked the clerk what movies the kids are into these days. Coulda been worse, he could have gotten Ghost Dad or Look Who’s Talking I guess...”

He drifted off, and El’s eyes started to close when he exclaimed, “Die Hard! El, we gotta watch this! I can’t believe he remembered!”

El groaned. She remembered that summer too well - the party collectively must have gone to the Hawk no less than six times to see that movie. She’d gone twice - once to actually watch, and once to try and make out with Mike in the back. It was one of the few movies he’d actually been distracted from kissing her to watch.

“You can watch it,” she told him, “while I make meatloaf for dinner.”

“Meatloaf?” He sounded surprised, which made sense. She had never made it before, and hadn’t told him about his mother’s gesture yet. “I haven’t had meatloaf in forever, that sounds amazing.”

“Good.” She’d make dinner after a nap. She deserved a nap.

Right as she was about to doze off though, Mike asked in a quiet, unsure tone, “Did I cry in front of Hopper?”

She lifted her head and - she couldn’t help it, she had every intention of saving his dignity and lying, but lying did not come naturally to her, and instead she pulled what Mike called her Bambi face, which was a dead giveaway. “No?”

He looked at her face, clearly reading the truth in it, and heaved a huge sigh. “That’s what I thought.”

#artemisrae attempts a plot #shrugging emoji #stranger things #mike wheeler/eleven #mike wheeler #jane hopper #family dynamics are complicated but im trying #my work

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