Chapter Text
Lucas picked at his sandwich. “It's happening again”
“Let me guess.” Max taps her chin, as if in deep thought. “Is it… Jennifer Hayes?”
“No way, Max, it was her last time. I bet it's that girl from our chemistry class; she was staring at Will for like ten minutes last period, and the second Mrs. Fink said that we needed partners for our projects, she swooped in and grabbed him before even Mike could do anything about it.”
“Wanna bet? Loser pays the other five bucks”
“You're so on”
The party turned to look at Will talking to Jennifer Hayes.
“Pay up, nerd,” Max said as Dustin reluctantly grabbed his wallet and handed her a five-dollar bill.
“What are you guys talking about?” Mike said as he sat down across from El and began taking out his lunch.
Max took a sip of her water. “Will's new girlfriend”
Mike choked on his sandwich. “his what!?”
“She's just messing with you, dude. See?” Lucas pointed at Will, who was still talking to Jennifer.
“Will seems to have acquired many admirers since he came back to Hawkins,” Dustin explained.
“It was like this in Lenora too; there was this one girl who was always staring at him. She was very pretty.” El stated.
Mike just kept staring at Jennifer, who was getting too close to Will in his opinion. “I should go over there”
“And do what, Mike? Will is allowed to talk to girls; he doesn't need your permission,” Max said.
Mike went red. “I-I never said that he was! I just think he looks uncomfortable and would rather be with his friends, Maxine”
Max kicked him under the table. “Well, he doesn't look that way to me, right, Jane?”
El turned to look at Will again and shrugged. “He looks fine”
“See, Mike? If his sister says he's fine, then he's fine.” She said, wrapping her arm around El in the process.
“Yeah, but he's my best friend”
“So?”
“So!? Besides, I don't like her vibe. She seems off to me.”
El gave him a sideways look. “Will told me that she is very sweet.”
“Will talked about her before!?”
Max glared at him. “Didn't you guys say that she was crying at Will's funeral?”
“Yeah, but she barely even knew him! And besides-”
“What's going on?” Will says, sitting down next to Mike.
“Mike's being a little bi-” “What did Jennifer want?” Mike asked, cutting Max off.
Will looked at them. “She just asked for help with her painting for Art class”
“I'm sure she did,” Mike murmured. He was in their art class; Jennifer's painting was almost as good as Will's. She didn't need help with anything.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing”
Will looked at him for a few seconds before deciding to move on. “So are we still going to your place for movie night?”
Mike instantly lit up at the reminder of the party's traditional movie night. It was something that they had managed to hold on to even when they were going on crawls. They only got better after Max woke up and El was able to join, not that Mike would ever admit to that first part.
“Yeah, of course”
“Cool”
“Cool”
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“C’mon, El! We don't want to be late,” Will said, standing in front of the door of the new Byers-Hoppers residence.
Everyone had gotten a ton of hush money from the government, and Joyce and Hopper decided to finally tie the knot and buy a house together. They already felt like a family anyway; why not make it official? Will loved being a room away from El again; they had gotten really close in California. Plus it had the added perk of being only a ten-minute drive away from Mike's house.
“You're really in that much of a rush to see your booooooooyfriend?” El teases as she walks up to him.
He goes red, “He's not my boyfriend! I never should have told you that I liked him”
El checked her reflection in the hallway mirror “I know you do not mean that”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What took you so long? Getting ready to see a special someone?”
Her face flushed. “I should never have told you that”
“Told me what? That you're in loooooove with a certain red-haired girl?”
El just walked out of the house before using her powers to slam the door in his face.
“Hop said we aren't allowed to use powers in the house!” That was something else that had changed; everyone thought that Will would lose his powers once they destroyed the upside down, but it looked like they were here to stay. He wasn't as comfortable using them as El was, but he was working on it.
“He also said that he doesn't want Mike in the house, and we both know how thats going!”
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“What took you two so long?” Max asked from the back seat of Steve's car. It had become a party tradition for him to carpool them to Mike's house. Normally, Dustin claimed the passenger seat, but he was already at Mike's house for their Chemistry project, so it was left empty.
Mike had thrown a fit when Lindsey Smith had partnered up with Will before he had the chance. But he somehow convinced himself that if they did better than her, Will would want to be his partner next time.
The logic didn't make much sense, especially because Will didn't technically choose to be with her. But Dustin was just happy that Mike found a good motivator.
“Nothing!” El and Will said in unison.
“Y'know it's creepy when you guys do that,” Steve said as Will and El got in.
“Do what?” they both asked.
“Now you're just doing it on purpose”
“Steve's just jealous that you guys have powers and he doesn't,” Max whispered to El, causing a light blush to appear on her cheeks.
El looked at the empty passenger seat; she turned to Max. “You did not want to sit in the front?”
This time it was Max who went red; she looked around for a moment before meeting El's eyes. “I wanted to sit with you.”
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Mike was getting the popcorn ready when he heard a knock on the door.
“Finally,” he said to himself. It felt like he had barely seen Will all day, which was weird considering they shared four classes.
It was like every time they started a conversation, some random girl just appeared out of nowhere with the sole purpose to piss off Mike by trying to talk to Will.
Mike answered, and his smile dropped when he saw that it was Max standing there.
“Where's Will?”
“Jeez, no ‘Hi, Max, how's your day been?”
He just stared at her.
She pointed to Steve's car behind her. “He's helping Jane find her sunglasses; she dropped them”
“Isn't that usually your job?”
Max turned red; it's true that El losing something in the car was a party tradition, and it's also true that Max is always the one who insists on helping her find them.
“I heard her telling Will that she wanted to sit on the bean bag chair this time, so I decided to snag it for her before one of you nerds claimed it.” On that note, Max pushed her way inside and ran to the basement, no doubt going to save that spot.
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“Why didn't she help me look this time?” El asked as she and Will approached the house. “Out of all the 23 times that I've ‘lost’ something in Steve's car, this is the first time that she didn't stay.”
“I'm sure it's fine, El; don't worry about it”
“Whatever, let's just go inside so that you can see your booooooyfriend”
Will shoved her, “Shut up! Someone could hear you!”
“Well then I guess they would know about your BO-”
Will put his hand on her mouth to prevent her from finishing the sentence before quickly pulling it away.
“Did you just lick my hand!?”
El just smirked before running towards the house. “Last one to the basement is a rotten tomato!”
Will quickly started to chase after her. “That's not even how the saying goes!”
They entered the house to find Mike waiting. As soon as he saw Will, it was like a switch was flipped, and a smile found its way onto his face.
“Hey Will! What took you so long?”
“I would've gotten inside faster if someone hadn't lost her bracelet,” Will said, turning to look at El.
Mike looked at them, confused. “Max said that you lost your sunglasses.”
El's eyes went wide. “I did! I lost both my sunglasses and my bracelet. But Will helped me find them.”
Her eyes sparkled as if she just remembered something, and she quickly ran downstairs.
“Shit!” Will pushed past Mike and ran after her, leaving Mike standing there confused (and maybe a little hurt).
“Why would El even need sunglasses? We're watching a movie indoors at night.” Mike thought to himself before deciding to just let it go as he made his way downstairs.
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When they had all gathered in the basement, it was time to pick a movie. This process could range from five minutes to an hour; everyone had their own opinion.
They had finally narrowed down the choices between ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.
Mike, Dustin, and surprisingly El wanted to watch Empire, but Max, Will, and Lucas wanted to watch Nightmare on Elm Street.
The party was split right down the middle, and neither side was gonna back down any time soon.
“Why would we even want to watch a scary movie!? I think our lives have been scary enough.”
“Thats why the movie wouldn't be that scary, Dustin!” Lucas yelled.
“And we've already seen Empire like a dozen times!”
“Yeah, cause its a good movie, Maxine!” Mike said.
Will called Max and Lucas over to where he was standing so they could discuss their strategy, and to prevent a fight from breaking out.
“Okay, all we need is one more person, and we can watch our movie,” Max whispered.
“Well, Dustin is out; he gets super stubborn about stuff like this,” Lucas responded, glancing over at the others.
Will followed his eyes. “But El is super obsessed with Leia; she wants us to dress up as the Skywalker twins for Halloween this year.”
“I guess that only leaves one person,” Max says as they all turn to stare at Mike, holding the VHS tapes and talking to El and Dustin.