Stories From Summer; Stranger Tales From The Summer of '85

20. Stargazing

20. Stargazing

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The fourth of July had been and gone for almost two weeks now, and the summer was slowly (although more quickly) was coming to an end, and Mike had yet to take El to see the stars.

It took days and hours of begging from both Mike and El (the latter seems to have noticed a running theme that if she ever wanted to do anything with her friends - she had to beg for Hopper to allow her outside), but Hopper finally allowed her to go stargazing with her boyfriend.

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It was 9.30pm when Mike arrived after Hopper went to the Wheeler's to pick him up (and allowed to stay over for the night, because Karen didn't want Mike coming home so late at night).

Hopper rapped on the door (one, three, two) and the locks were very quickly unlocked. The chief pushed open the door, and out came tumbling El, who threw herself into Mike's arms.

Mike really did like this way of greeting and nuzzled his face into her hair, smelling the locks and rubbing one of his hands up and down her back as his other works its way into the curls on her head.

"Hello, you," he smiles, releasing her for a short length to look at her face - something that he now does often whenever he sees her.

All El did in reply, was stand up on her tiptoes, and pressed her lips to his nose, with her eyes twinkling like the night sky underneath her eyelids.

"Ok, now, break it up," Hopper said, reaching for the scruff of Mike's top, and slightly pulling him away from El.

El looked over her shoulder at him, and gave him a look that said 'you shouldn't have kept us apart for so long then'.

"Stay where I will be able to see you, and where you can hear me when I call for you to come back in," Hopper stated, adjusting El's jacket over her shoulders, looking more like a stereotypical dad looking after his daughter than a tough chief of police.

"Yes, sir," Mike nodded, as El lifted her head to tilt it to see him, "yes, dad," it was only recently that El had gotten the courage to call him 'dad', not wanting to feel like she was replacing Sara.

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Mike was pointing away, chatting to no end (even though El has no idea what Mike is talking about - she likes listening to his voice, even when he's talking about Dungeons and Dragons or a new game at the arcade, she does listen, it just sometimes doesn't make sense).

"See there's one of the star signs, that one is Aries - that is Will's star sign - which is one of the eleven signs of the zodiac," Mike started, before El's head lifted off his shoulder, which made him stop talking.

"What is the zodiac?" She asked and Mike let the cogs in his brain think.

Mike was trying to think what Mr Clarke had told them about space - and to be honest, it wasn't much. "I think it's to do with the stars as well as the sun, moon and the planets. I don't really know, though," Mike shrugged, not much coming to his head about the zodiac/star signs.

El nodded, accepting that Mike might not have been taught a lot about what he called the zodiac. "Is there any others, apart from A-ri-es?" She asked, as she pronounced the star sign right - the first time.

Mike smiled down at her, proud that she pronounced it correctly. "Yeah, there's Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces,"

El blinked a couple of times, absorbing the information like a sponge, she nods understanding the information that has been given to her. 

"So depending on someone's birthday, depends on which star sign they have," Mike explains, neither noticing that Hopper is now stood on the porch looking at the teens.

"So which one is yours, star sign?" El asks, her curly hair fluttering in the light breeze as she stares up at her boyfriend's face.

Before Mike can answer, Hopper smacks his hands on the wooden railing. "Come on, time to come in," Hopper calls, walking back across the porch and back into the cabin.