Regular People [Elmax]

Chapter 9 - The Other Species

[Song of the Chapter: Scotty Doesn't Know by Maddie Ross]

Eleven and Max were dancing around her room, hand in hand, being utterly ridiculous but having the best time. They were laughing at each other's erratic dance moves and sometimes just jumping around for the hell of it. At one point, El tripped over her own feet but Max swiftly caught her in the style of a trust fall.

"Gottcha", she laughed as El looked up at her.

She leaned down to kiss her but lost her balance, dropped El and fell on top of her. They both burst out laughing. Max turned herself around so she was facing El, who was laying down and still laughing while Max was sat on top of her.

"You're heavy", El laughed.

Max faked being offended and jokingly slapped her arm.

"Don't be a bitch Eleven", Max laughed back.

"Fine", replied El and she dragged Max down for a kiss.

"I didn't take you for the confident type", Max murmured between breaths.

El broke apart the kiss and looked up at her, their faces still extremely close together.

"I wasn't. You taught me. I feel safe with you", El smiled and went to pull her down for another kiss but Max put her hands on her chest to stop her. Something about what she had said bothered her.

"You didn't feel safe with Mike?", Max was concerned by the fact that El might not have felt safe with Mike and that, if she didn't, she didn't try to help her sooner.

"I thought I did but you make me feel safer. Better. I felt like just Mike's girlfriend. Now I feel like me and your girlfriend"

Max was shocked by the use of the word girlfriend, it felt wrong but she didn't know why. She liked El, she wanted a relationship with her so why was she struggling with the word that represented all that?

"He's a shit head", Max tried to brush past the whole girlfriend thing.

"A mouth breather", El added.

There was a pause between them.

"Will you help me with something?", El finally asked.

"Of course, anything"

El went to get up, Max got off her so she could. She opened the top drawer of her nightstand and pulled out the pieces of paper and photographs that she put in there earlier. She sat down next to Max on the floor and spread out the paper for her to see. There were about ten different drawings all containing Mike in some way; Mike's name in a heart, El and Mike holding hands, Mike's name turned into a garden-type image. It was a lot. The framed photo was of Mike from last year in his Ghost Busters costume. While Max was looking over them all, El took down the poster over her bed too and put it on the floor with the rest.

"I want to get rid of it all. Not happy memories anymore"

"This is...a lot", Max wasn't quite sure how to react.

El went red, "he was the only person I really knew. Will, Lucas and Dustin are friends too but I don't know them. Mike was the only one who never turned on me, Mike was the only one who never gave up on me, Mike was the only one I ever talked to besides Hop. Now I know, he didn't want me to know the others. He took advantage, he tried to turn me against my own dad, and .9o83333ew2;p.it almost worked", she was subconsciously playing with the blue hair tie on her wrist, "I don't like him anymore. I don't want to think about him. I just want to think about you and me".

It all made sense. It was pretty much everything Max theorized and more. Mike was the only one she trusted at first because Will was stuck in the Upside Down, Lucas thought she was a traitor and Dustin bought into that too at one point. Mike never questioned her, Mike gave her a place to stay. So of course she'd only trust Mike at first. But then Mike got jealous, he didn't want her to fully trust anyone else in the party so he could keep her all to himself.