Chapter Text
Put your head on my shoulder
Hold me in your arms, baby
Squeeze me oh-so-tight
Show me that you love me too
It’s half past ten and his friends are clearing out; Dustin lunges for the last bag of chips (which is probably stale by now), Lucas and Max bicker while Will tries to stop it from turning into an all-out argument. It’s so familiar, so normal.
But it’s also like ten times better, because El’s here.
It’s the first time she’s ever been to his house—like, as an actual invited guest. She’s not a secret. He doesn’t have to shove his pockets with leftovers just to make sure she’s fed and worry about the best way to keep her safe.
El is putting her things in her backpack. She’d been working on an English assignment while they played. He still feels bad about continuing the campaign without her in it, even if she’d said it was okay.
“Did you finish?”
She glances up, looking a little less stressed than she had when she’d first come running down the steps to his basement. “Sort of,” she says. “I still need to proofread, but that won’t take long.”
He nods, biting his lip. El returns her pencils to their case and snaps the button closed. It makes him jump, for whatever reason. “You wanna go to Benny’s tomorrow? Get a bite?”
“I can’t,” she stands, throwing her bag over her shoulder. “I have to study for that history test.”
There’s a bitter edge to her tone that Mike isn’t exactly familiar with, and so he moves a little closer, acting on almost pure instinct itself and gently brushes the strap of her book bag off her shoulder. It falls to the floor with a thud. She lets it. Eyes on him, and only him. There’s a magnetic intensity hovering in the space around them. It strengthens when they’re like this, but it never really goes away.
“Hey,” he says, because here she is, all brown eyes and flushed cheeks and hands on his waist; gone is the stressed out mask of the average high school student. “You’ll be okay.”
El swallows. “I thought school was going to be fun,” she tells him. “And it is. Sometimes. I just... I miss learning. I feel like all we do is repeat the same stuff over and over.” She sighs. “I miss being able to do this stuff in my pajamas.”
Mike grins. He thinks back to all those times when they’d studied in the cabin; her in one of those sweaters he and Nancy had passed down, worn while she hunched over a notebook with a furrowed brow.
“I miss you,” is what she says next, and it makes his heart skip a beat when her arm curls around his neck and she comes closer. “I’m always studying. It sucks.”
“Yeah,” he can’t focus on anything but her lips. What sucks? “It does suck.”
El rolls her eyes, and that’s all it takes. He pulls her in and kisses her; slow and first, how it always starts, lips just brushing and then colliding and then moving; a steady, reliant escalation that never fails to absolutely kill him.
Her fingers rake through his hair, oh shit. The smallest sigh escapes him when they break apart for a brief second, before going back at it again. She smiles through it at first.
Mike presses little kisses to her jawline, and she starts to laugh. It always makes her laugh, and he loves that. He loves the way she has to stand on her tip toes to do this. He loves that her hand is sort of under his shirt right now, her fingers cold against the skin of his hip. They move away quickly, though. None of this ever lasts too long—they always wake up, remember they’re only fifteen, maybe they shouldn’t go this fast. Maybe he shouldn’t be trying to give her the smallest hickey known to man, right on her collarbone (no one would see).
“What were you saying?”
El blinks, face breaking out into a grin. Her lip gloss is practically gone. Mike swipes a sleeve over his mouth just to be safe. Last time he forgot had been embarrassing. “I don’t remember.”
“Something about...” another kiss to her neck, because why not, who’s here, who cares? “Missing me?”
She nods eagerly, tapping his shoulder with the palm of her hand, meaning he should probably stop. “Yeah, that. I miss you.”
“Uh huh,” Seriously. (Last one) Mike. (One more). “So go to Benny’s with me, I’ll do your homework.”
“Mike.”
“What? It’s not like you need to know that stuff.” Last one I swear to god.
“I do to pass the class,” she reminds him, but her irritation melts away every time he kisses her neck. He can feel that happening. How cool.
Mike finally rips himself back, going against every force of nature and whatever the hell else. “I have notes,” he tells her. “You can study them. You can do that every time if you need, so you don’t have to make them.”
She looks like he just gave her the moon.
Mike: 1
Mr. Wallace: 0
Suck my ass, World History.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” he says, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Seriously anything. Seriously I’ll do every assignment you have for the whole year, for the three after that. Seriously I’ll buy you a coke tomorrow—“ a kiss, a laugh, “I’ll like, marry you. Have your babies.”
El snorts. “You can’t have my babies.”
Mike raises a brow. “Anything for you.”
She grabs his face and makes him look at her, exasperated and all ruffled up and red and perfect. Wow. “That would mean a lot to me. Thank you.”
He nods, serious. “Anything for you,” he repeats, firmer this time.
She looks down at her shoes—when had she started standing on his? “I still have to do that math packet though,” she mutters. “I forgot.”
Her head slumps against his chest. Mike lets his fingers tangle through her hair, relishing in the softness of it; curly, longer, a little frizzy from a long day and the nervous habit of flipping it she’d developed. “I’m sorry,” he says, genuinely meaning it.
“It’s okay,” she plays with the tag on his shirt. “I just wish I could spend more time alone with you. Five minutes before class isn’t enough.”
He knows what she means. God, does he. Being without El is almost like having a constant craving, and it’s so rarely fulfilled these days. He’s found himself aggressively counting down the days until summer vacation. He can’t wait for days spent lying on the couch doing nothing, with her. It’s gonna be great.
He takes her hands, though. “We can do fun stuff now,” he says.
She gives him a challenging look. “Like what?”
“Like... dancing,” he laces their fingers together, his right hand and her left, and then goes for her waist again with the other. “Dancing is super fun.”
“Yeah, if you know how,” she puts her other hand on his shoulder anyway. “I still suck at it.”
“Do not. You’re great at literally everything. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
“I can’t give birth to tomatoes.”
A beat, and then they burst into laughter. “What?”
“Well, it’s true,” she grins. They’re swaying, lightly. A thought seems to occur to her. With a twitch of her head, the radio in the corner is switched on. Some soft song from the ‘50s plays. Mike thinks it might be Paul Anka.
Mike rests his forehead in the crook of her neck, and she does the same to him. They curl into each other, pieces that fit and always will.
Put your lips next to mine, dear
Won't you kiss me once, baby?
Just a kiss goodnight, maybe
You and I will fall in love (you and I will fall in love)