Uptown Girl (An Elmax AU)

Max Mayfield and the No Good, Terrible, Very Gross Step-Brother

The sun had long since gone down since El and I arrived at her cabin. We had talked about our day and shared a quick dinner, and now had been hanging out in her bedroom to start our sleepover. Like El, this was the first time I had ever had a sleepover. I had never been invited to hang out with many other girls in California, and after moving out here and joining Lucas, Will, Mike, and Dustin's weird party thing I didn't go to many of their sleepovers either. Mainly because Mike Wheeler was a little bitch about everything and I was not going to spend a night sleeping in the absolute armpit that is his basement. So far the sleepover at El's had been fun, mostly because she no longer seemed to hate me.

I was singing along to a song that played over the radio, while El sat on the bed flipping through some magazines I had brought over from my house.

"You must be an angel, I can see it in your eyes!" I sang along, "Full of wonder and surprise!" I paused to go sit with El as she looked through the magazine, "Oh, you found Ralph Macchio."

"Macchio?"

"Yeah, he's the karate kid. Hi-yah!" I demonstrated a karate move I had seen on TV as she laughed, "He's so hot, right? I bet he's an amazing kisser, too. Hey, uh, is Mike a good kisser?"

"I don't know. He's my first boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend." I corrected her as she looked down dejectedly in her lap, "Hey, don't worry about it, okay? He'll come crawling back to you in no time, begging for forgiveness. I guarantee you, him and Lucas are, like, totally wallowing in self-pity and misery right now. They're like, 'Oh, I hope they take us back!'" I laughed along with El, she seemed to enjoy the mocking of our exes. "God, what I wouldn't give to see their stupid faces."

El seemed to look down in thought for a moment.

"What is it?" I continued.

She just smirked at me before getting off the bed and flipping the radio station to static, which helped me catch on to her plans.

This was going to be awesome!

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"Is this really gonna work?" I asked El as she wrapped a blindfold around her head.

She nodded.

"Holy shit, this is insane!"

"Max."

"Yeah, quiet. I'm sorry."

She paused for a moment before she spoke again, "I see them."

"What are they doing?"

"Eating." She paused again. "They say we are 'species'."

"What?"

"'Emotion not logic.'"

"What?!" How did I date- and be friends with- such assholes?! Such goddamn fucking dickheads! It's crazy. They're crazy!

Moments later, El pulled off the blindfold as a little bit of blood dripped from her nose. Then she just started laughing, like, falling on the floor laughing.

"What? What happened?" I asked as I began to laugh with her, despite not understanding why. Her laugh was just that infectious. It was melodious.

We stopped to listen to the sounds of a car pulling up outside; who could be arriving at this hour? Hopper was supposed to be with Ms. Byers tonight, according to El.

"It's probably just Hop," El told me as she and I lay on the floor to read some more of the magazines I brought.

"Hey!" I heard Hopper's voice call out. "Hey! When I say three inches, three-"