Mileven One Shots

Time is Up (1991)

@ cassmxocheer requested many weeks ago for me to write about El encountering a bad experience with another guy, and that request somehow turned into this! DISCLAIMER: this mentions themes of unwanted advancements/very mild sexual harassment. If things of this nature unsettle you, please read with caution. Overall though, this is just another typical fluffy one shot from me. Enjoy!

***********

There was a uniquely divine component that comprised Eleven and Mike's relationship. Throughout their many years spent together as a couple, everyone warned them that their honeymoon phase was bound to expire. Yet, that didn't seem to be the case for them.

Ever since they were teens, displaying affection had been a key factor of their relationship. Stealing small pecks from one another's chapped lips during party meetings had been something that they had to learn to master in adolescence. And they were still unable to break contact, even now at the ripe age of twenty one. It was almost as though their bones were magnetically pulled into the other's touch. Whether it be their tangled legs at night or the way their hands roamed freely, they simply could not get enough of the feel of each other's smooth skin.

Ultimately it was Mike that had always been the one that craved to touch and be touched by her most. He swore that the warmth that her body fed to his fingertips was what kept him alive. The sensation of feeling El physically with him was a gift he would never take for granted.

However, as of recent, he had noticed her pulling away. Their skin to skin contact was decreasing and worry was beginning to blossom in his belly. Just the evening prior, when Mike had tried holding her from behind, El abruptly got up and moved to the shower. He hadn't thought of it much until earlier this morning when she notably jumped away from the palm he had set on her waist. And after having spent the afternoon alone while she attended classes, he allowed his mind to fearfully overthink profound fictions.

Did he do something that made her uncomfortable? Was their so called honeymoon phase plummeting it's way out of her heart?
Had her love for him been lost?

Mike had been so captivated by his own sickening concern that he failed to hear her quietly enter the flat. She silently sat beside him on the couch in nonchalant fashion and began pulling out homework from her bag. She was in the midst of setting out which assignment she planned to tackle first when Mike's body finally came alive. He leaned towards her slowly, and as he did so, he noticed her shoulders tense. With fresh fear coating his tongue, he rapidly questioned, "what did I do?"

El set her paperwork down onto the coffee table and shifted her frame towards him. He watched in awe as her eyebrows furrowed adorably as she slowly responded, "I don't know — what did you do today?"

He rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as he disclaimed, "I just thought about how you feel so far away recently."

He analyzed the way she gulped and before she could even speak, he added in a quick manner, "you won't let me touch you. Every time I come even three inches from laying a hand on you, you flinch. So I can't help but wonder if there's something I did," he paused, watching the way her mouth opened and closed before he stuttered onward, "i-is this your way of hinting that you don't want this anymore? That you don't want m-me anymore?"

El watched her beloved boyfriend's dark eyes begin to drown in an emotional glassy haze. She bit back the repressed events she had been bottling up for the past few days and scooted closer to him. She slowly raised her hand forward and allowed her cool fingers to grace his warm cheek. She mindlessly created a small connected pattern between Mike's many freckles before she confessed with a sigh, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I made you feel like I don't want you," she paused, bringing herself closer to him as she laid a kiss on his jawline, "I love you, and I always will. There's just something that I've been trying to think of a way to talk to you about, but I don't know how."