electric // mike wheeler

DRAINED

-

Everyone was now at the school, Going desperate ways to do their jobs. Joyce was with Tee and El in a science room - getting El ready for the bath.

Tee was messing around and looking around the room filled with cool gadgets as Joyce made El a blindfold with science goggles wrapped in duct tape. She looked though a magnifying glass at Joyce and El. It made her giggle, they looked funny.

"This will keep it dark for you." Joyce told Eleven as Tee sighed and put the magnifying glass down. She was scared it wasn't gonna work and she was gonna let everyone down. "Just like in your bathtub."

Tee turned away from the two as she tried to keep calm - she was nervous and scared and worried that it was all going to go wrong.

"You're Both very brave girls," Joyce says to them, Tee doesn't turn around as she looks over at a diagram of a cell, "You know that, right? Everything you're both doing for my boy... for Will... for my family. Thank you."

Tee finally sat down on top of one of the tables, looking over at Joyce and Eleven - Eleven looked scared of what was to come, and Tee was glad Joyce was there to offer comfort Tee couldn't provide.

"Listen," Joyce whispered, taking El's hands, "I am gonna be there with you the whole time. And if it ever gets too scary in that place, you just let me know, okay?"

The sight made tea both sad yet content - After all of this, El had Joyce, who clearly cared for the girl a lot. Tee didn't feel that way - she didn't have a figure like that. No Joyce, Hopper scared her.

She turned away from the two, to look out of the window to the dark world outside, a sigh leaving her lips as she tried to calm herself down, because at the end of the day that's the only person she can rely on.

"Yes," El whispers, Joyce let's put a ghost of a smile.

"Ready?" She asks El, who takes a moment, but finally replies back with a quiet, "ready."

Joyce looks over to Tee, who was sitting on the table looking out the window distantly and stands up, walking towards her.

"You ready, Tee?" Joyce asks her softly, putting a hand on the small girls shoulder. Tee barely nods not moving her eyes away from where she was looking. Joyce patted her back before looking back at el.

"Then let's go," Joyce smiled.

-

Mike stood staring at Tee as she fiddled with the radio, getting it right so it would work when El was in the bath. El was getting ready to get in the bath, as Tee put it down. She sighed looking at it until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked to see it was Mike, sadly smiling at her.

She barely smiled back as she took the hand on her shoulder into her own to get a small amount of comfort.

"Are you ready?" Hopper asked El as she held the goggles in her hand. Tee stepped away from Mike, who looked at her confused as she stepped a couple feet away from everyone. Hopper looked over at Tee, "you ready, kid?" He asks her, earning a nod.

"Voltages Jump at high amounts," Dustin explains to Mike who was still confused over Tee moving away from him as El put the goggles on, "she's gonna electrocute anyone within five feet of her."