Regular People [Elmax]

Chapter 5 - Welcome to Starcourt

[Song of the Chapter: Material Girl by Madonna]

The bus pulled up outside of the mall, Max lightly pushed El.

"Come on, we're here!"

El got up and joined the line of people exiting the bus with Max following just behind. She went down the steps and slowly walked forward, looking at the giant building in front of her. There was a massive sign above the doors that read 'Starcourt Mall'.

"So? What do you think?", Max noticed that Eleven looked uncomfortable and maybe even scared, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Too many people. Against the rules", said El looking at Max like a deer caught in headlights.

"Seriously?", Max was excited to show her new friend how to have fun, "you have superpowers! What's the worst that could happen?"

El smiled slightly at Max and nodded. Max had this amazing ability to make her feel safe even when she felt uneasy. She grabbed her hand and intertwined their fingers, it just felt like the right thing to do and immediately made her feel more confident. Max turned away from El and smiled slightly at this, she was clearly doing a bad job at repressing those thoughts. So that El couldn't see, she ran in front of her and led her to the centre of the mall, they stopped and El couldn't help but look around in awe, she was so in shock at what she was seeing her hand slowly slipped out of Max's. Max was smiling from ear to ear seeing El experience these new amazing things.

"So, what shall we do first?", she looked at El whose mouth was agape and laughed, "you've never been shopping before, have you?", she asked rhetorically. She knew the answer was no but El shook her head anyway.

"Well then I guess we're just going to have to try everything!", she smiled even wider with glee.

El slowly cracked an amazed smile as she continued to spin around, looking at as much as she could from their centre point on the bottom floor. There were people on stairs that were moving, people walking around on a second floor and the roof was the highest roof she'd ever seen, some parts were made of glass so she could easily see the blue sky above them.

"Ooo, come on", Max grabbed her hand once again and dragged her to a place called 'The Gap'. Eleven still couldn't wrap her head around everything that she was seeing, she trusted Max to guide her as she continued to stare at all the new things around her.

Inside 'The Gap' El saw so many shirts, pants, hats and shoes in a multitude of different colors. She started working her way around all the rails touching pretty much everything, it was all so pretty. Max was just following her around, smiling at the fact she was so happy. Eventually, El stopped and stared at a blue top on a mannequin.

"Do you like that?", Max asked still smiling.

"How do I know what I like?"

"You just try things on until you find something that feels like you", El was still looking at the shirt but Max couldn't take her eyes off her. Something about the way her eyes lit up when she looked at all these new things, how her mouth had stayed slightly open with awe since they entered the mall, just the way she saw the world that Max took for granted made her heart feel weak. She'd been through so much hell in her life and yet, in some ways, she was still so innocent.

"Like me?"

"Yeah", Max quickly bit her lip when she turned to look at her, "not Hopper, not Mike, you.", Max grabbed one of the shirts El was looking at, "come on, I'll help you pick out some stuff".

They went around the shop, grabbing all sorts of clothes of different colors and styles. Eleven had never been so excited in her life. She was having a lot of fun with Max, more fun than she'd had in a while. Max wasn't scared to take risks, usually, she'd be scared by the number of people and Mike would never let her go somewhere like this, she knew it was against the rules but Max made it feel right.