Hello again!

Welcome back to another exciting one-shot, this time requested by disneyprincess315! It took me longer than expected to get around to writing it, but tis the way of the world. There will be a second installment of this prompt coming later, though I cannot say when.

Prompt: El catches the flu, so Mike takes care of her

"Stay a little longer?" El pleads, getting Mike's attention back as he packs his backpack to go home.

"You know I can't," Mike replies, though he still gets up and moves closer to her. "Hopper will actually strangle me if I ask to stay."

"He won't hurt you," El promises, still trying her best puppy dog look. "I'll protect you, promise."

Mike smiles, and then kisses El's forehead.

"I know you will," He says, smiling at his girlfriend. "But if we still want to go to the movies tomorrow, I have to go home tonight."

El pouts, but relents. They've been planning to go see Back to the Future together since it came out a month ago, and Hopper had finally agreed to let them go without supervision.

"Ok," She murmurs, leaning her head against Mike's chest. "But be back early."

"Nine o'clock, on the dot," Mike swears, hugging El close and resting his chin on top of her head. It lets him feel the shiver than runs through her, and he pulls back to look at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just cold," She says, a little twinkle in her eye.

"Well, I think I can help with that," Mike responds, leaning down to meet her.

Their lips come together, a warm feeling spreading through them both. No matter how many months pass, neither one will ever get over finally being able to be this close to each other.

They fly apart when Hopper clears his throat, Mike turning beet red, and El sporting a light blush, though she just seems annoyed at the interruption.

"It's after ten," He points out, looking at the clock on the radio, which reads ten fifteen. If looks could kill, Mike would be six feet under.

"We were just saying goodbye," Mike tries to cover, quite unsuccessfully. "About to head out the door."

"Uh huh," Hopper responds, looking at the books and papers still laid out on the table from their tutoring session. "Don't make me reconsider tomorrow."

He leaves that threat hanging as he heads back to his office/bedroom. Mike quickly stuffs the rest of his things into his backpack, giving El a nice warm hug before he steals a last kiss. She watches from the doorway as Mike starts walking his bike back down the path, lifting it over the tripwire.

El shivers again once he's out of sight, closing and bolting the door. Once she's wearing pajamas she wraps herself in every blanket she can find before drifting off to sleep.

XxX

Mike is true to his word, climbing the steps of the cabin as the last few seconds tick down to nine o'clock. He times his special knock, the more code for 'El', exactly as the time changes.

He's not met by the traditional door flying open tackle hug that he's grown used to. For thirty seconds absolutely nothing happens, and Mike starts to go through worst case scenarios. What if the bad men had come back after he left last night? What if there was another Demogorgon attack?

When the door finally does open, it's Hopper standing there, looking less than pleased by Mike's presence.

"It's not gonna work out today, kid," He says. "El's got the flu, so she's under quarantine until further notice."

Mike breaths a half sigh of relief at the news. Sick with the flu is better than captured by bad men or abducted by the Demogorgon. Still, he promised that they would spend the day together.

"I can take care of her," Mike offers, trying to sound casual. "I mean, you must have a lot of work to do, being the Chief of Police and all. If you'd rather not miss the whole day, I can take care of El."

Hopper fixes him with a look, and Mike tries not to fidget too much under the gaze. It seems very likely that Hopper might just shoot him and rid himself of the headache once and for all.

Then he sighs and steps aside for Mike to come in.

"If I didn't know there was a mountain of paperwork I have to do you'd be on your way home," He tells the teen. "She's got the whole nine yards, fever is 102, so make sure you keep washing your hands. And no funny business in my cabin."

"Yes sir," Mike agrees, hearing a phlegmy cough from El's room.

"There's some cans of soup in the cupboard, and the washcloths are under the bathroom sink if her fever starts rising," Hopper continues. "Make sure she eats something, real food not eggos, and drinks plenty of water. There's aspirin on the counter if she starts complaining, but don't go overboard."

Mike nods, making careful note of each thing in case needs them.

"I'll be home by six, but if anything happens, use the radio," Hopper concludes, still fixing Mike with his gaze as he gestures to the device in question. "The phone is for emergencies only, so unless there are agents or demodogs at the door, I better not be getting a call."

"Understood," Mike agrees, hearing another cough from El's room.

Hopper gives the boy one least glare before he leaves, and Mike puts the locks back in place when they don't click back on their own.

"El?" Mike calls, knocking on her doorway.

"Mike?" She calls back, her voice hoarse, punctuated by another round of coughs.

"It's me," He says, stepping into the room and seeing the dozens of tissues scattered around. "Hopper's letting me take care of you today."

Mike takes immediate notice of how different El looks right now, even wearing her usual set of pink flannel pajamas with white polka dots that had been Nancy's at some point. Her eyes are hazy and distant, and her cheeks are flushed pink. Her hair, straightening out now that its getting longer, is a knotty mess around her head. Hopper had left a pot next to her, probably for if she throws up, and not one, but two space heaters to keep the room incredibly warm.

"How are you feeling?" He asks, moving closer to the bed.

"Not good," She responds. "Throat hurts, eyes itch, nose is running."

"Is there anything you want?" Mike questions, unsure of what to do despite his decision to play nurse today. "Water? Or Hopper said there's some soup."

"No food," She tells her boyfriend definitively, shaking her head. "Already threw up, twice."

"You need to get your strength up, El," Mike insists, daring to take one of her hands in his. "You'll feel better if you eat something."

El is quiet for a little while, staring at her blankets, and then turns her clouded gaze to Mike.

"Eggos?" She asks hopefully.

"I don't know, Hopper said not to-"

"Please?" El insists, pouting at her boyfriend.

Mike is powerless to resist, giving her hand a squeeze before moving to the kitchen. He can hear the coughs continuing as he puts two of the frozen waffles in the toaster, knowing he should be giving her soup instead. Mike's brain works overtime to remember what his mother usually does when one of them has the flu, but all he can really make sense of is a lot of soup, jello, and applesauce.

With a glance at El's door, closed halfway to keep the heat inside, Mike takes a pot and a can of soup out of the cupboard. It takes a few extra minutes to prepare, the eggos popping up just as the soup starts to heat up.

When he walks back in, he has a glass of water and bowl of soup.

"Mike," El complains, seeing the bowl. "Eggos."

"I'll make you as many eggos as you want, but first you need to eat real food," Mike tells her, pulling her desk chair over with his foot. "You don't want to waste eggos if you can't keep them down, do you?"

El pouts, but shakes her head.

"Now open," He says, taking a spoonful of soup and blowing on it for her to cool it. "It's chicken noodle, it's good."

Too tired to raise her arms and do it herself, El accepts her boyfriend feeding her. While she won't say it out loud, the soup does taste really good, and it makes her tummy feel warm. Once the bowl is finished, much faster than El had anticipated, she actually does feel better.

Mike wipes her mouth with a tissue for her, and then holds the glass of water out to her. She takes a few sips, but with food now in her stomach, it's getting harder and harder to stay awake. If not for the fact that she can only breathe through her mouth, and her throat is killing her, she'd already have passed out.

"Thanks Mike," She murmurs, starting to drift off.

Mike smiles, and chances giving her a kiss on the forehead. It's burning when his lips touch it, but El is asleep before he can say anything. He takes another few seconds just to observe before getting a cool washcloth to lay on her forehead.

El stays asleep for several hours, Mike alternating between sitting at her bedside and wandering the cabin. Every so often he replaces the cloth to keep it cool.

It's not until he's putting together a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch that anything else starts to happen. It starts as a faint rattle of glass and ceramic, which Mike disregards as the cabin settling, until all the things on the bookshelf by the door shoot off the shelves at once. The few fragile ones shatter on the ground, startling Mike so much that he almost drops his sandwich.

Next the television turns on by itself, except this time, Mike hears the massive sneeze coming from El's room. With a look around at all the many breakable and sharp objects in the kitchen, Mike quickly sets the tiny latches on the cupboards, just in time for the next sneeze, several cups shattering behind the little wooden doors. He almost loses his sandwich when it flies off the counter, just barely catching the plate by diving before it shatters on the floor.

"El!" He calls, moving back toward her room, though he keeps a wary eye on the many loose objects around the cabin. "Are you okay?"

The only response he gets is another massive sneeze, and a lamp to almost brain him on its way to the wall. He rushes back into the bedroom, covering his head with his arms when she sneezes again, hearing several things break outside.

El has a thin trickle of blood coming from her nose, and a few little rivulets from her nose. Fresh tear tracks run down her cheeks, and she gives Mike a pained look when she notices him. A mess of bloody tissues sits in front of her, all trying to keep her from sneezing another time.

Mike hastily grabs another box of tissues from El's desk, taking a bunch out for her.

"Here, just try to blow your nose before you need to sneeze again," He tells her, holding the tissue wad out to her. She tries to take it, but her fingers just feel tired and numb, so he holds it to her nose. "Blow, just get it out."

El does as asked, forcefully expelling as much blood and mucus from her nose as she can manage. Mike balls it up and tosses it in the trash before repeating the process, until El can't manage any more. She goes to take another breath so she can blow harder, but then she starts coughing, and then the coughing turns to hacking, until she finally cuts off abruptly.

"Are you o-?"

Mike's question goes unfinished when El grabs the pot Hopper had left for her, heaving the contents of her stomach out into it. At a loss for what to do, Mike just stands there in shock, until he remembers the few teen movies he and El had watched together. He carefully moves her hair out of the way for her, holding it behind her head. Even without touching her skin, he can feel the heat radiating off of her, even more than before.

El heaves and heaves until there's nothing left to give, until she's empty of food, of water, and even of feeling. With nothing left to keep her going, she lets out a sad, tired sigh.

"Are you alright, El?" Mike asks, a little awkwardly seeing what just happened. "Do you want me to help you to the bathroom, if it's gonna happen again?"

"I'm fine," She murmurs, swaying a little, side to side. "Need more sleep."

"Before you do, just take some of this," Mike tells her, holding the glass of water to her lips. "You don't need to drink it, but it'll help get the taste out of your mouth."

El gingerly takes a few sips, swishing them around before spitting them into the pot. She manages to drink a few, the water helping to soothe her throat a bit. Mike wipes her face with some tissues, and then El collapses back into her bed, under her mountain of blankets, asleep before her head hits the pillow.

Mike lets out a pent up breath, fully unprepared for what had just happened. He throws out the tissues, and then takes the pot to dump down the toilet, rinsing it out a few times to get rid of everything. It's not the most pleasant task he's ever done, but he manages to keep a hold on his stomach while doing it.

Once he returns the pot to El's bedside, he takes stock of the cabin. There's a lot of broken glass and ceramic all over the floor, as well as a plethora of other things that had survived their telekinetic flight. With another light sigh, he takes the broom from the kitchen, starting to sweep everything into piles. It takes several more hours to get everything back to how it was that morning, his sandwich completely forgotten on the counter. Every so often he goes to change the cloth on El's forehead, wiping around her neck to try to cool it down a little.

During one such time, El stirs, looking around with bleary eyes.

"Mike?" She murmurs, managing to reach out and hold his wrist.

"Are you feeling any better?" He responds immediately, moving closer and setting the old cloth down by the pot. "Do you need anything?"

"Need...tell you..." She says quietly, still not fully conscious.

"What is it?" Mike asks, kneeling down so they're closer to face-to-face.

El tugs on his wrist, pulling him closer, and he obliges.

"I love you," She whispers, a happy smile on her lips. Then her grip goes slack as she falls back asleep, leaving Mike doing his best tomato impression mere inches from her face.

"I love you too..." He murmurs quietly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "And someday I'll be able to tell you when you're awake."

It's only another hour or two before Hopper gets home, performing the secret knock. Mike goes to unlock the door himself, one of the deadbolts jamming for a few seconds when he tries to slide it. Hopper doesn't say hello, grunting as he comes in the door and hangs up his hat.

"How's she doing?" He asks.

"She asleep, has been for most of the day," Mike reports. "I got her to eat a little soup earlier, but she threw it up later after..."

He trails off, not quite knowing how to describe what had happened.

"Let me guess, she started sneezing?" Hopper says with a sigh. "Everything that wasn't tied down started flying around?"

"Uh, yeah, something like that," Mike tells him. "I did my best to clean up, but there might still be a few chips I missed, so watch your step."

"I'm surprised the lamps survived this time," Hopper observes, taking stock of what's left in his cabin.

"This time?" Mike questions. "This has happened before?"

"El got a cold a few months after I took her in," Hopper explains. "Every time she sneezed, things started flying. Seems like it's harder to control her powers when she's sick."

Mike nods, glad that he hadn't gotten brained by a flying glass. He'd be a pretty crummy caretaker if he got killed on his first day.

"Yeah, according to Doc Owens, it happens when she gets sick, or if she lets her emotions get away from her, kind of like a fight or flight instinct," Hopper continues when Mike looks away from him. "If she ever has kids she'll probably break every window in the hospital."

Mike's chokes on his breath, starting to cough uncontrollably, his face turning bright red. Hopper lets himself smirk at Mike's reaction, but quickly schools his features back to a neutral glare. He has to have some fun, especially if he's going to have to live with Mike always being around.

"I think it's time you head home," Hopper says once Mike can breathe again. "You can come back tomorrow if you really want, but I have the day off already."

"Nine?" Mike asks hopefully.

"Ten, at the absolute earliest," Hopper tells him, not in the mood for an argument. "If she's feeling better, I might let you stay."

Mike decides not to push his luck.

"Can I say goodbye at least?" Mike requests, and Hopper sighs.

"Fine, but make it quick," The surly chief responds, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and going back out onto the porch to light it.

Mike doesn't waste any of his precious time waiting for Hopper to leave, or even to close the door. When he goes into El's room, once again hit by the heat, El is starting to stir again. Her eyes are clearer than before, but she still has the flush of a fever on her cheeks.

"Hopper's home, so it looks like I have to leave," Mike says softly, getting her attention. "I'll try to come back tomorrow though, and I'll bring some games to play if you're feeling better."

"Mike," El says, very matter of factly, reaching out to take his hand in her. "I need your help."

"Anything," Mike promises immediately. "What do you need?"

"I really need to pee," She tells him seriously. "But the blankets are too heavy."

Mike struggles to process the request, having expected something much...bigger than that. Then his eyes go wide when he realizes he hasn't responded, and promptly starts peeling back the layers of blankets covering his girlfriend.

"That's a lot of blankets," Mike comments, finally freeing her from the last one.

"I was cold," El says simply, slowly standing up on wobbly legs. She pulls Mike into a hug, still radiating heat off of herself. "Thanks for taking care of me today."

"Any time," He replies almost reflexively. "There's nothing else I'd rather do, if it means we're together."

El smiles at him, and then gives him a kiss on the cheek. Mike helps her out of her room, and then she stops him.

"Goodnight Mike," She murmurs. "See you tomorrow."

She turns slowly and wobbles toward the bathroom, one hand against the wall for support. Once the door closes behind her, Mike finally remembers that he needs to leave. He grabs his backpack, almost nothing in it since they were planning to go to the movies.

On his way out, he passes Hopper on the porch, smoking his evening cigarette.

"Make sure you take a good shower when you get home," The man says as Mike goes past him. "Can't be El's nurse if you get sick too."

Mike's face lights up like a traffic light, mumbling a hasty goodnight before setting off down the path with his bicycle. Once he's out of sight in the darkness, Hopper allows himself a nice chuckle, flicking cigarette ash to the ground.

"This can work," He says to himself, imagining all the ways he can mess with Mike and still maintain his threatening image. "This can definitely work."

He tosses his cigarette down and grinds it out underfoot, going back inside to check on his daughter, closing the door behind him and shifting all the locks into place.

"Maybe I should look into some houses for sale in town," He muses, forcing the last deadbolt into place. "Downside, Mike is closer. Upside, so is everywhere I can buy alcohol."

When he hears a door open behind him, he turns, seeing his daughter wobbling from the bathroom back to her room.

"Feeling any better now?" He asks, remembering how she'd been when she woke him up at six in the morning.

She nods, pausing in her doorway.

"You let Mike stay," She states. "No supervision. Why?"

Hopper sighs, she caught on quick, just like always. He's already got a craving for another cigarette.

"A little test of faith," He answers honestly. "And your boyfriend did ok."

El smiles, knowing exactly what Hopper said, but didn't say.

I hope you enjoyed!

I know El was unconscious for most of the story, but I think it served its purpose quite well. Hopper gave Mike a test, and he passed with flying colors! AND Hopper's going the route of sarcastic/threatening dad instead of just threatening!

And, since I can't stop thinking about it, Season 3 was AMAZING! No spoilers here, but I was on the edge of my seat! I do have some complaints about certain things, but overall review is 11/10, so go watch it if you haven't yet!

If you have a prompt you want me to write, leave it in a review or send me a PM, I'm keeping a running list.

Until next time!