strangerThings oneshots

As Though There Were No Tomorrow

As Though There Were No Tomorrow

Shuggins

Everyone has those memories of something they’ve done in the past that just makes them cringe out of contempt for the person they used to be. For Eleven that memory was when she first met Max Mayfield, she was cold and barely acknowledged her existence, pretending Max wasn’t even there for the most part. Because she had already signed Max off as a girl that was trying to replace her in the party during El’s absence. She also viewed her as competition for Mike’s affection, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Another memory that would make El cringe in embarrassment was when she made these thoughts known to Mike one day, a couple weeks after El had closed the gate to the upside down. El tried to explain that the reason she didn’t like Max was because she saw her “flirting” with Mike back when El snuck into Hawkins Middle. Where she then yanked the skateboard out from under Max in a childish fit of jealousy.

Mike tried to keep a straight face, his lips curling into a twitching smirk that was very clearly trying to contain laughter. Eventually he couldn’t handle it and he ended up bursting into a fit of hysteric giggling while El’s face turned from pink to tomato red.

After Mike managed to compose himself enough to form complete sentences, he explained that at first, he didn’t really like Max at all either, but for the same petty reason El had. That she was a “threat” that was somehow going to replace El in the group just because she happened to be a girl. And how that interaction between him and Max in the gym was mostly Max pestering Mike and confronting him about his shitty behavior.

Mike seemed to turn red a bit too thinking back at how immature and honestly a bit sexist he was about it. Max clearly was going through some shit already and the last thing she needed was this snobbish nerd trying to push her out when she was just trying to make friends. At the end of it all Mike basically just asked El to cool it and give Max a chance.

After that talk things between El and Max thawed little by little. El realized that the only reason they weren’t friends was because El had put a wall between them before they even really knew each other, and Max seemed more than fine with letting El keep that wall up, due to the fact that Max was more than a little intimidated by the psychic girl, although she’d never admit it. But now they would actually talk to each other when Hopper begrudgingly allowed the party to come over to visit El in the cabin, and they even started hanging out without the rest of the party once El managed to beg Hopper enough to let her out of the cabin now that they were only 3 months out from the beginning of the ‘85 school year.

Usually Max and El would hang out by the quarry and talk about one of the few things they had in common. Their boyfriends, mostly them trading stories and giving the other relationship advice. These conversations over their shared statuses seemed to quickly thaw what little tension was still between them, and they became close.
El wouldn’t say she was closer to Max than she was anyone else in the party, especially not Mike, but things just...felt different between them, a certain comfort and ease that she never felt when she was alone with Mike. El couldn’t really figure out why she felt this way towards Max of all people, but she didn’t really pay it much mind. A lot of things confused El and for now she was content to throw these feelings into the large pile of things that she didn’t wholly understand about life outside the lab.

That was how they ended up here, with Max staying the night at the cabin. Hopper made it clear that Max was the only one of El’s friends allowed to have sleepovers, for obvious reasons. These became semi-frequent and Hopper would always let Max stay the night if El asked. Hopper was well aware of Max’s living situation after Steve filled him in on the incident with Billy that happened during the night when El closed the gate. So, Hopper thought it was the least he could do to get Max out of that house, if only for a night. But Hopper had to stay late at work that evening, so it would just be Max and El alone in the cabin for the night.