
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13652778.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Stranger_Things_(TV_2016)
  Relationship:
      Eleven/Mike_Wheeler, Eleven_&_Maxine_"Max"_Mayfield, Maxine_"Max"
      Mayfield/Lucas_Sinclair, Eleven_&_Jim_"Chief"_Hopper, Will_Byers_&_Eleven
      &_Dustin_Henderson_&_Maxine_"Max"_Mayfield_&_Lucas_Sinclair_&_Mike
      Wheeler, Jonathan_Byers/Nancy_Wheeler, Steve_Harrington_&_Dustin
      Henderson, Joyce_Byers/Jim_"Chief"_Hopper, Steve_Harrington_&_Jim_"Chief"
      Hopper
  Character:
      Eleven_(Stranger_Things), Mike_Wheeler, Maxine_"Max"_Mayfield, Lucas
      Sinclair, Will_Byers, Dustin_Henderson, Jim_"Chief"_Hopper, Joyce_Byers,
      Jonathan_Byers, Nancy_Wheeler, Steve_Harrington, Phil_Callahan, Callahan_
      (Stranger_Things), Karen_Wheeler, Holly_Wheeler
  Additional Tags:
      Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced_Child_Abuse, Implied/Referenced_Domestic
      Violence, Cutting, Hospitalization, Panic_Attacks, Post-Traumatic_Stress
      Disorder_-_PTSD, References_to_Depression, Anxiety_Attacks, Anxiety,
      Night_Terrors, Nightmares, Step-siblings, Step-parents, Implied/
      Referenced_Underage_Sex, Underage_Kissing, Partial_Nudity, Nudity, Aged-
      Up_Character(s)
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-02-12 Words: 3613
****** To See You Alive ******
by stupidityisdangerous
Summary
     "It’s been three and a half years. 1,277 days. 106 months. And yet
     she still isn’t free."
     Five years after El's psychical escape from Dr. Brenner and the
     horrors of Hawkins Lab, she is still haunted by the terrors her past.
     One morning, in a nightmare-ridden haze, she decides to rid her body
     of her past once and for all, nearly bleeding out and killing herself
     in the process.
     or
     The unbearable pain Mike feels when he finds his girlfriend and first
     love unconscious and bleeding on her bathroom floor is incomparable
     to the pain it took her to do this to herself in the first place. But
     he'll try to help her heal nonetheless.
Notes
     Special thanks to Mary (midnightdaemons on Tumblr) for pre-reading,
     supporting me, and being a babe as always. Make sure to check out her
     latest story, Aquamarine, if you're into Byeler and looking for a
     fluffy one-shot to swoon over.
     Also, specials thanks to Harley (backstagepast on Tumblr) for
     teaching me about queerbaiting, and reassuring me that close female
     friendship is normal, despite what the media likes to say. She’s not
     in this fandom, but she knows more about El and Max’s relationship
     than I do, and I write it on a normal basis.
     The title for this story was inspired by the lyrics of Flatsound’s
     “To See You Alive,” a dark and haunting folk song about self-harm,
     depression, suicide, and the pain of mental illness in relationships.
     I have been listening to it over and over since I discovered it a few
     days ago, and highly recommend it as the soundtrack to this one shot.
See the end of the work for more notes
It’s been three and a half years. 1,277 days. 106 months. And yet she still
isn’t free.
Not with a family, not with a birth certificate, not with report cards and
school projects and class rosters with her name on them.
Not with Mike, only a twenty-minute drive away, and reachable within minutes
through the telephone Hopper had put into her bedroom for her fifteenth
birthday.
Because Brenner is still here. He is still in her dreams, telling her how
wounded and useless she is under his control, giving her illnesses that pills
and therapy visits and hours and hours of conversations on her  trauma  cannot
fix. He is with her when she walks from class to class; when she kisses Mike in
their special spot, by the bike rack, hidden behind the trunk of a big, sturdy,
oak tree that provides shade from the Indiana heat; when they lie, naked and
vulnerable beside each other under the navy blue protection of his Star Wars
sheets; when she arrives home in the wee hours of the morning; when Hopper
gives her a goodbye kiss before driving himself and Joyce to work in his tan
police van.
He is always there, taunting her, reducing her to just a number, marking her
body with her slave name.
Once upon a time, she knew nothing else. 
And now, she wants to never know it again.
The house is empty. Everyone is at work, Hopper bending over a dull case file
in the warmth of his office, Joyce scanning unimportant everyday items from
behind the counter of Melvald’s, Will soaking bags of cheap, yellow popcorn
with artificial butter.
She’s locked herself in the bathroom. She’s leaning over the porcelain white of
their bathroom counter, and she’s stripped down to nothing but her lacy white
panties and her small, nude t-shirt bra.
Her face is streaked with tears, and her hair is dirty and matted, unwashed and
neglected but tangled from her head thrashing across her bed as the nightmares
came and went.
In her right hand is the razor of Hopper’s stainless steel safety razor.
On her left wrist, is the one thing she wants to rid herself of.
She bites her lip, and yelps, as the sharp blade rips through her flesh like
scissors on printer paper, and blood leaks down her hand and drops into the
sink.
In her bedroom across the hall, her turquoise and hot pink telephone rings a
shrill, obnoxious, ring, and Mike Wheeler goes to voicemail, again.
He’s been calling nonstop, since she kicked him out of her bed this morning,
upset after a nightmare.
“You have a wound, Eleven, a terrible wound.”
She jams the razor in again and screams through gritted teeth as the cut
becomes deeper and the gash further separates the boxy black numbers.
Her shaking hands drop the razor into the blood-splattered sink, and she falls
to the floor, clutching her arm and sobbing deeply as she hears Mike’s message
from across the hall.
“El? It’s Mike again. I’m worried about you. Please call me back. Just...talk
to me. I’ll try my best to understand.”  He sucks in a deep breath and chokes
on his own sobs.  “If you don’t call back in five minutes, I’m coming over.”
The blood is gushing faster than the water of the stream feeding into the
quarry, and she lets out a pathetic whine as the anxiety hits and she realizes
that maybe she’s gone too deep.
The clean white rug beneath her feet is stained, and she lies on it in a sad
heap, breathing heavily while the red splotches become more and more.
The bleeding won’t stop.
The light in the bathroom seems too bright, and she begins to see spots.
===============================================================================
In the Wheelers’ family car, Mike is driving as fast as he possibly can.
He zips through the streets of Hawkins, passing stop signs and traffic lights
without pause, not caring about the law or the speed limit, only caring about
El, and what she may have done to herself after the nightmare drove her away
from him.
Her nightmares have been so bad lately.
He’s three blocks away from the Hoppers'/Byers' modest three-bedroom in uptown
Hawkins when he sees the police lights in his rearview mirror and he curses to
himself as they yell at him through open windows to pull over.
It’s Steve and Callahan, swerving to keep up with him.
As though on autopilot, he pulls over, and rolls down his window, his heart
beating at impossible speeds inside his chest and his hands shaking on the
steering wheel.
Inside the cop car, Officer Steve Harrington himself puts his hand on
Callahan’s chest. “Holy shit, is that the Wheeler car?”
He approaches the open window and has barely opened his mouth, when Mike,
nearing hysterical, starts yelling at him.
“Call Hop!” He says. “Tell him he needs to come  right now !” His eyes are red
and puffy, his face almost as vibrant, and Steve is taken aback as he stares
into the face of a boy he knows so well, gone mad with worry. “El is in danger!
She might be dying as we speak—“
Callahan, hearing the urgent screams of the seventeen-year-old boy he
recognizes as Hopper’s girl’s boyfriend, takes to his police radio without
hesitation.
“ Chief ! We’re on the corner of North Hampton and Beverly Drive! Steve’s
pulled over the speeder, and it appears Wheeler’s the driver. He’s hysterical.
I suggest you get down here  ASAP . Over."
===============================================================================
 
When Hopper arrives, the ambulance is already there. 
Mike is sitting on the porch, covered and shaking in a shock blanket while
Steve sits beside him and Callahan waits nervously, the butt of a cigarette in
between his lips.
Paramedics are carrying El from the house on a stretcher, and he sees
immediately the large, sterile white bandage wrapped around her left arm, right
where her 011 tattoo is. An oxygen mask covers her unconscious face, and a
sheet covers her almost nude body.
Within seconds, he is swarmed by paramedics and questions are being thrown in
his face.
He is lead into the ambulance, along with a flustered Wheeler who looks like he
might pass out himself, and the ride is the longest of his life.
Halfway through, Mike has a panic attack, and Hopper watches as if in a dream
while an oxygen mask is placed over his face as well and a paramedic guides him
through breathing.
“Breathe with me. In...out...in...”
===============================================================================
The hospital room is cold and white. She’s wearing a hospital gown, her nipples
erect and visible through the thin, patterned fabric, and her veins an eery
purple underneath her pale, sickly skin.
A large bandage covers her left arm from the wrist to the forearm and is
wrapped tightly to protect the stitches over her 011 tattoo from herself. A
drain is placed under the bandage, and a heart monitor shows her pulse on the
machine beside her. 
She gained back her consciousness in the ambulance, shortly after Wheeler’s
panic attack hit, and now she sits, half-lidded eyes exhausted and body drained
as he sits beside her in the hospital bed, clutching her small right hand in
his large ones. 
Hopper watches from a chair by the doorway, Will standing behind him, still as
a statue, as Joyce strokes El's curls back from her forehead.
None of them are very fond of hospitals, although they don’t have a choice. 
The doctors think it’s a self-harm episode, that she cut herself with a razor
and then passed out in a vasovagal episode from the shock after she realized
how much she was bleeding.
“You’re okay now,” Joyce says quietly. “You’re safe. We’re all here. Nothing
can hurt you.” She’s been repeating this over and over like a mantra, and El
shakes under her soothing hands, still in shock. 
“Dad,” she croaks hoarsely, and Hopper is at her side in seconds, holding her
outstretched good hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, kid,” he says, “it’s not your fault. I—“
A soft knock on the door brings the family’s attention to the doctor standing
in the doorway, and Will strays away from the door, grabbing ahold of his
mother. 
“Pardon me,” the doctor says. “I’m Dr. Deetz. I’m here to do a psychiatric
evaluation of the patient”—he checks the name on his clipboard—“Jane Hopper. My
apologies, but the family is going to need to temporarily exit the room.”
El opens her mouth in protest, and Joyce leans forward, cupping the girl’s
young face in her hands. “It’ll only take a minute. I promise. We’ll be right
outside the door.”
Reluctantly, Mike removes himself from the hospital bed and places a kiss on
her forehead. Hopper ruffles her hair, and Will gives her a hug. 
“Just outside the door, kid. No need to worry.”
===============================================================================
The night is dark and cold. Footsteps of the nurses, checking on her every
fifteen minutes, and the ticking of the clock outside her room create a
haunting melody that plays over and over in a loop throughout her night long
stay.
There’ll be no psych ward stay. No doctors with her every night.
Just an emergency therapy visit tomorrow, and an altercation on her medication.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, night terrors, insomnia, depression, anxiety.
Brenner‘s hold on her is only tighter.
She wishes she had never done it. She wishes she was in bed with Mike again,
sleeping off a night of lovemaking and night terrors, awakening terrified but
being comforted by him in the light coming through her bedroom window.
She wishes she’d let him stay.
===============================================================================
The drive home to Hawkins from Roanne County Hospital is long and silent.
Hopper came to get her alone. He’s taking the week off from work to watch her.
The blazing, summer heat makes the thin fabric of her horizontally striped tank
top stick to her chest and the hot leather seat burns the backs of her thighs
under her loose, short jean shorts.
Hopper brought her the outfit this morning, along with her toothbrush, comb,
and Caboodles filled with makeup, and watched while she got ready in the
hospital room.
She wishes he’d brought her something long-sleeved, as the heat isn’t enough to
make her not want to cover the fresh bandage on her arm. El seems to be doing a
lot of wishing lately.
===============================================================================
 
Max’s gentle fingers sting as they trace the developing scar where El's
stitches were until yesterday. It's thick but short and horizontal, the tattoo
beneath it barely visible, and the skin is still pink and sensitive as it
heals.
“Shit.”
She sits on El’s bed, her long, wavy, ginger hair pulled back in a long simple
braid, and her face, arms, and legs splattered with freckles from the past
month spent outside in the sun. The bright red marks of a sunburn cover her
cheeks, and a fresh, deep purple bruise swells under her bloodshot right eye. A
loose, oversized Jane’s Addiction t-shirt hangs over the waist of her high
waisted denim shorts, and a tattoo choker style bracelet is around her ankle,
above her bare feet and her electric blue painted toenails.
El is topless, the deep navy blue Columbia University sweatshirt she stole from
Mike stripped and lain aside to allow Max to see what she’s done to herself.
The heat is so much, she didn’t even bother to wear a top underneath the
pullover hoodie, and she is completely vulnerable. Nothing but her loose,
leisurely sports bra and her naked forearm. 
Max pulls her close, the coolness of her t-shirt pressing against the drying
sweat on El’s bare chest, and rests her bruised face on the other girl’s
shoulder. 
There is nothing peculiar about this situation. Three years of daily undressed
locker conversations have made nudity nothing out of the ordinary for the two
girls, and Max has all too often shown El the marks on her body, left behind
from late night fights with her stepfather and failed coping mechanisms that
only made her feel worse.
Feeling safe for the first time in days, El buries her face deeper into Max’s
hair, inhaling the calming scent of her vanilla shampoo.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Max says, rubbing the small of her back.
"Me too." Remembering the other girl's condition, El pulls away to look into
Max’s bright, blue eyes and runs a thumb over her cheek. “What happened?”
She hasn’t gotten a good look until now, but Max’s right eye is completely
bloodshot, the white of her eye replaced by a red that sends a shiver down El's
spine, and the purple bruise is raised, her undereye and cheek swelling
greatly.
“Neil came home and dinner wasn’t ready,” she smiles to herself sadly. “Mom and
I were dancing instead of cooking.” There’s no point in making excuses, it’s
impossible to lie to El, she always sees right through.
El’s eyebrows raise in concern. “Is your mom okay?”
Max looks at her hands, fiddling her thumbs. “I guess.” She looks out El’s
bedroom window at the end of her bed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” El takes Max’s hands in hers, tracing her palms in circles with her
thumbs. Looking down into her lap, she realizes just how fuzzy the stubble on
her legs has gotten. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she giggles, and
Max looks at her, confused. "You know I'm not allowed to use a knife now?" Max
just continues to look at her, bemused, although the edges of a smile begin to
form on her lips just the same from the other girl's suddenly erratic energy.
El continues, "The doctors told Chief I'm not allowed around anything I can
hurt myself with." She brushes her leg against the bare skin of Max's arm, and
the ginger recoils. 
El giggles louder at her reaction. "I can't shave my legs, or use perfume, or
nail polish, or anything. They tried to tell Hopper I shouldn't be allowed to
have shoelaces in my sneakers, and he told them that was ridiculous. When I
came back from the hospital, Joyce had gone through the  whole house  and even
my bras with longer straps have all of a sudden gone missing." El is nearly
cackling now, and Max has begun to laugh with her.
For a minute, they just laugh, their hysterical cackles filling the air like
bird calls in early spring, and when a concerned Hopper opens the door to check
on them and sees El topless and Max snorting with laughter, he just stares for
a moment in shock, only making the girls laugh harder.  Maybe a week in the
house was too much time alone.
"Why don't you two go see a movie or something?" He asks, averting his eyes in
discomfort from El's scarred arm and black Calvin Klein sports bra.
Max, now red with embarrassment herself, answers while El pulls her sweatshirt
back over her head. "Sure, I'd love that." She turns to El, who is struggling
to regain seriousness. "Do you have any money? All I have is two dollars."
Hopper sighs, rubbing his forehead as El continues to snicker to herself. "I'll
pay."
The girls cheer in overenthusiastic excitement, and when he drops them off in
front of the Hawk ten minutes later, El and Max are still exchanging humorous
glances.
===============================================================================
 
After the movie— Bull Durham , a movie Max had been dying to see but which none
of the boys in the party had any interest in—the girls ride to the Palace and
meet up with the boys.
They blow the last three dollars leftover from Hopper’s generous funding to
play  Dragon’s Lair  and by the end of the afternoon, Max has once again beat
her high score and remained number one on the top players’ list.
“Fuck yeah!”  Dustin practically screams, earning a glare from the newest acne
ridden teen to replace Keith, and a high five from MADMAX herself.
Will is grinning so wide El thinks she can see every tooth in his mouth, and
Mike claps Max loudly on the back as Lucas pumps his fists.
Afterwards, they head to the Wheelers, feasting on ice cream Mike finds in the
freezer—much to the annoyance of Nancy, who’s visiting from college in New York
City for summer break—and play an especially intense game of  D&D  before
seven-year-old Holly appears at the top of the stairs, yelling down, “Mom says
dinner’s almost ready!”
“I better get going,” Max says, waving the party goodbye. Unlike Billy, a car
wasn’t in the cards for her sixteenth birthday, and at seventeen, Max still
rides a skateboard or the bus everywhere she goes. She gives El one last hug,
and whispers in her ear, “stay safe, okay?”
Before El can say okay back, the other girl is already bounding up the stairs,
her long red braid whipping behind her. 
“I should get going, too,” Lucas says, and El sniggers as she notices his eyes
taking in Max’s ass.
“Me, too,” Dustin says, grabbing Mike’s wrist to check his calculator watch.
“Steve will be getting me soon.” He bounds up the stairs behind Lucas, and
Mike, El, and Will burst out laughing as they hear Dustin exclaim from the
second floor, " Ew!  At least wait until we get outside first before you guys
start eating each other’s faces!” It's a good five minutes before any of the
remaining members of the party are able to remain calm, the subject of Max and
Lucas's PDA too obvious and the past week of stress making them eager for a
good laugh.
Will turns towards his best friend and stepsister, his face still burning and
his side tight from laughing so hard, and realizes that they need some alone
time together. Even though Jonathan is just upstairs with Nancy, and Will knows
they can depart home anytime they like, he makes a lame excuse to leave before
practically sprinting up the stairs. “I need to...um...ask Jonathan about...
something .”
Once alone, El scoots her chair at the game table closer to Mike, and his arms
tighten around her instinctively. He rests his chin on her head of curls, and
she snuggles into his chest.
For a moment, they just sit in a comfortable silence, enjoying each other's
company without doctors, parents, or friends around to watch them. She knows
it's only been a week, but it feels like decades, and her heart aches with the
pain of missing him, even though he's right beside her. She wishes she could
stay here, frozen in this moment, enjoying the safety of this place.
She turns around and kisses him deeply, and he can feel his body responding
immediately.  A week is a  long time  for a teenaged boy .
She's been through a lot recently,  he scolds himself,  just think of your
grandma naked.
No such luck, as within seconds a hand is there, and it's definitely not that
of his Nana. 
He stifles a groan and El grins, loving the control she has over him. She can
already feel his large hands slipping up his sweatshirt, clutching her small,
perky—
"Michael!" Karen Wheeler calls down the stairs, and El and Mike separate in
seconds, knocking down a chair as Mike jumps out of his seat. "Is everything
alright down there?"
They can hear Karen's footsteps as she comes down the stairs and they come into
her line of vision, and Mike's thinking is rapid now, 
nakedgrandmanakedgrandma.
"Dinner's ready," Karen says, eyeing the chair on the floor with annoyance.
"Say goodbye to Jane."
"Bye, Mike," El says, standing up on the tippy toes of her black and white
Converse and giving him a peck on the cheek. Behind his back, she squeezes his
ass and Mike swears he might have a heart attack right then and there, in front
of his mother.
El turns to Karen sweetly before leaving. "Bye, Mrs. Wheeler."
The ride home, she is so spaced out she barely hears the Clash blaring from
Jonathan's car speakers.
===============================================================================
 
She's in her room, braiding her wild curls for the night when she hears the
quiet tap on her bedroom window. She smiles, striding over in her silky floral
robe and pushing open the screen.
Mike steps awkwardly into her room, his tall lanky body barely fitting through
the small opening. He grins, leaning in for a kiss and she puts a finger to his
lips, pulling him towards her bed. She checks the small digital alarm clock on
her nightstand before pushing him slowly onto the bed, straddling his thin
hips.
"You just missed Hopper," she teases, pushing down his hands as he attempts to
touch her.
His eyes travel towards her closed bedroom door anxiously, and she rolls her
eyes. “Relax. Joyce doesn’t come and check on me until nine-thirty. That gives
us plenty of time.”
She’s missed his body, but she missed him more. And seeing the way he looks at
her, she knows that he missed her too.
===============================================================================
Afterwards, they lie beside each other in her bed. The light of the summer
evening outside her window falls across her naked side and warms her delicate
skin, highlighting the pink marks of his hurried kisses.
He strokes her hair with his long thin fingers, feeling the softness of her
braid and the peach fuzz at the nape of her neck.
“It’s such a beautiful sight,” he says, and a tear slides sideways down his
lightly freckled face, dripping over his long pale nose and onto the soft pink
of her sheets.
“What?” She asks, barely a whisper.
“To see you alive.”
 
End Notes
     Writing smut was something I never wanted nor intended to
     do—especially with the sensitive topic and the age of the characters
     in this story—so if you were looking forward to that, I’m sorry. And
     if you were absolutely praying it would not happen, I hope I was as
     vague as I hoped to be.
     The idea for this story is not exactly an original one, as fics
     dealing with El’s “011” tattoo have been published over and over
     again since the series first premiered, and have dealt with her
     covering, tattooing, and self-harming over it, but of the few I have
     read, I’m pretty sure mine is the darkest, so yeah, sorry about that.
     Roanne County—according to the Stranger Things wiki and the show
     itself—is the county Hawkins is in. North Hampton and Beverly Drive,
     however, are completely made-up Hawkins streets, as I'm much too
     tired to pay that much attention to detail. Beverly Drive is named
     after Beverly Marsh from Stephen King's IT though, as I couldn't
     resist.
     Psychiatric evaluation is required by the U.S. to be given to any
     patient entered into the emergency room or hospital due to any sort
     of self-destructive behavior, and despite popular belief, in modern
     society, it is actually very hard to get admitted into a psychiatric
     ward or any sort of mental health institution without proper
     reasoning.
     A vasovagal episode is a sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure
     leading to fainting and is usually caused in reaction to an extremely
     stressful trigger.
     A Caboodles is a popular cosmetics bag popular in the late 80s and
     first released in 1987. The vintage "Teen" model of the product is
     shaped somewhat like an elementary school pencil box and has fold-out
     compartments like that of a fishing tackle box. Ulta, Urban
     Outfitters, Amazon, Target, and Walmart all still sell them, and
     Olympic Gold Medalist Simone Biles is their current spokesperson.
     Considering El's interest in makeup towards the end of Season 2 and
     Hopper's tendency to spoil her, I figured she would have one.
     Jane's Addiction is an American rock band from Los Angeles that
     formed in 1985. They released their first studio album Nothing's
     Shocking in 1988 and their name along with songs "Had A Dad" and
     "Ted, Just Admit It..." made me think they'd be a good fit for this
     story and what I assume would be Max's music tastes.
     Calvin Klein is a world-famous American fashion designer born in
     1942, best known for his underclothes, especially his classic black
     sports bra, which is possibly the most unsupportive but comfortable
     bra in the world.
     Bull Durham is a romantic comedy sports movie released in June 1988.
     It follows the story of veteran baseball player "Crash" Davis (Kevin
     Costner) and baseball groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) as Crash
     attempts to prepare rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh (Tim
     Robbins) for the major leagues. I know nothing about baseball and
     haven't seen this movie, but it seemed right up Max and El's ally,
     and I doubt any of the boys would be interested in a sports rom-com.
     Classic Winona Ryder movies Beetlejuice and Heathers were also
     released in 1988, but I doubt any of the party would be into anything
     especially violent or creepy after all the horrifying shit they've
     seen irl, so Dr. Deetz is named after Winona's character Lydia Deetz
     in Beetlejuice as a subtle nod to her.
     I apologize for any grammatical or plot errors in the publication of
     this story, I was very tired when I finished and posted it, but I did
     the best I could.
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