Geek on Fleek. PG-13, romance/fluff, modern-day AU, Mike/Eleven.
"You are never going to find someone if you just sit there and wait for Mr. Right to come in through the door, Jane. Sometimes you have to take the initiative, you know? Put yourself out there. Grab the bull by the horns."
Note: This is a modern-day AU, and thus completely unrelated to any of my previous stories in the Quiet Moments series. Just wanted to make sure that's clear so there's no confusion. Also, El's powers, as well as any Upside Down elements, do not exist in this story.
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As she waited outside the Student Union building on campus, El checked the time on her phone, then chided herself for doing so. There were still a few more minutes left to go until five o'clock, and she shouldn't be acting like there weren't.
Mike wasn't late, she'd just arrived early. And even if he did arrive a little late, it wasn't the end of the world; the movie didn't start for a while, so there was no rush. She didn't mind if he wasn't there at exactly five; he probably had a good reason. Maybe something came up on the way. Sometimes trains were late. Did he even have to take the train to get there? Was he close to campus? It struck her just then that he'd been to her apartment, but she didn't even know which part of the city he lived in.
Okay, she had to stop obsessing about this. It wasn't about Mike or the time. She was just nervous. And excited, too. Mostly excited, but she was nervous as well. She didn't go on dates often for many reasons, but she was really looking forward to this one. She wanted to see if the way she felt just talking with Mike a couple of days ago was a one-time fluke, or if that chemistry was something that could grow into something deeper. She liked that feeling, so she hoped it was the latter.
She took a deep breath as she looked out at the people walking by. She had hoped the campus would be a little emptier than usual given that it was the first Saturday of Spring Break, but it seemed many other students thought as she and Max had, waiting until Sunday to get out of the city.
At least Mike had stayed in town this weekend, too. She smiled to herself, hoping that her eyes would catch his dark hair as he approached. He was tall, so it probably wouldn't be hard to pick him out in a crowd.
She was looking to her right when a pained exclamation to her left snapped her out of her thoughts. "Son of a bitch!" she heard, turning straight away to see two guys who looked around her age standing nearby. One of them, curly-haired and wearing a red, white, and blue mesh cap, was bent forward, examining his left foot like it hurt and glaring at the ground beneath it.
The other man, taller and broad-shouldered, was looking at him with thinly-disguised exasperation. "Seriously, Dustin?" he muttered, shaking his head as if in disbelief. The curly-haired guy didn't pay him any attention, focused as he was on his foot.
"Are you okay?" El asked, approaching them carefully. They were close enough that she only needed to take a couple of steps to stand beside them.
The taller one looked down at her and sighed. "He's fine, he just somehow managed to trip on nothing but air."
"I'm telling you, the floor is uneven right here, Lucas—" the curly-haired guy protested immediately, but he straightened up and put his full weight on both feet, so El assumed his left ankle didn't really hurt all that much after all. "Anyway, yeah, I'm okay. Thanks," he said, giving her a grateful smile. His gaze then turned inquisitive. "Are you El?"
El blinked, not expecting that question. "Yes," she confirmed with a curious frown. "How do you—"
Before she could finish the question, the curly-haired guy turned to his friend and playfully pushed his shoulder. "Look at that! She's actually real," he said with an amused grin, which caused his friend to roll his eyes.
"Dude, shut up," the taller one hissed through clenched teeth, but of course El could hear it without a problem. Regardless, he turned back to look at her. "Don't mind him. I'm Lucas, and this is Dustin." He signaled to his friend as he spoke, and his friend in turn smiled at her again. "We're roommates of Mike's," Lucas added.
"Oh," she said as it dawned on her that they were probably here on behalf of Mike. "Is everything okay? Is Mike all right?" she asked, now concerned. She'd been worried before that he might be late, but it had never really occurred to her that he wouldn't come at all. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind.
"Oh yeah, he's fine," the curly-haired guy— Dustin— was quick to reassure her. "But Will, our other roommate, isn't doing so hot right now," he added with something of a grimace. "He had a bit of a bicycle accident a little while ago. Mike went with him to the hospital."
"Oh no!" El exclaimed, relieved that Mike was all right, but now worried that his friend might be in danger. That would suck. "Is he going to be okay?"
"Yeah, no worries. They think he might've broken his leg, but he should be fine otherwise," Dustin assured her. "Since we were nearby anyway, Mike asked us to stop by and let you know that he won't be able to make it to your date."
"I understand," El said with a nod. It made perfect sense that Mike had to be there for his friend— she'd do the same for Max in a heartbeat.
"But," Dustin intervened once more before the disappointment could fully creep up on her, "if you give us your phone number, we'll pass it on to Mike so he can call you and maybe reschedule?" he offered sincerely, and his smile was contagious because El felt the corners of her mouth start crinkling up.
"That would be great, thank you," she responded, grateful that he'd brought it up. It had completely slipped her mind that she didn't even have Mike's phone number to begin with, and she never did give him hers on Thursday. If Dustin hadn't mentioned it, she might've gone home without any way to contact Mike ever again. That would've been terrible. "Do you have a piece of paper, maybe...?"
"Ah, actually, I think— gimme a sec—" Dustin's hands dove into the front pocket of his Carnegie Museum of Natural History hoodie and after a second of searching he pulled out the first thing he could find, which turned out to be a 3 Musketeers bar. "Oops," he muttered. "Can you hold this for a minute, please—" He handed the chocolate bar to Lucas almost absentmindedly before diving into his pocket again.
Under Lucas and El's dumbfounded looks, Dustin continued pulling stuff out of his hoodie's pocket in such volume that El wondered internally if it might be bigger on the inside, like Mary Poppins' bag.
A silver figurine, or more like a game piece, of a snake-like creature with two heads. A worn paperback edition of a book with a bearded old man on the cover. Three little packets of salt, the kind you'd find at a table in a restaurant. A little plush toy in the shape of a mouse that looked like it was made for cats to play with. A set of keys on a Millennium Falcon keychain.
Until, finally, he pulled out a small pad of post-it notes and a retractable pen, which he clicked into its usable position as he handed both to her. "Here," he said before he turned to Lucas, who was glaring at him as he held up his pile of random knickknacks, to grab his stuff back. "Thank you very much," he said, stretching out the first syllable in a whimsical way.
"I don't even know why I'm friends with you," Lucas muttered as El wrote her number down on the topmost post-it note. He relaxed once he was no longer bogged down by Dustin's things, though. "Is that it?" he asked her as she clicked the pen closed, and she nodded her head, handing both paper and pen back to Lucas because Dustin was too busy rearranging everything back into his pocket.
"Right," Dustin said once he was done (the salt packets went in last because they occupied less space). He gave El another warm smile and added, "So. We have to head to the hospital now, but—"
"Oh, come on now," Lucas interrupted suddenly in a harsh tone, snapping El's attention away from whatever it was Dustin had been about to say. "You know, if you don't want to go out with Mike, all you had to do was say that. You don't need to give him a fake number."
"Lucas, don't be a jerk..." Dustin warned in a careful but practiced tone, like warning his friend not to be mean was something he did on a regular basis.
She was caught off-guard by Lucas's accusation. "I'm... sorry...?" she asked, confused as to why he would get that impression. Of course she wanted to go on a date with Mike; that's why she was at the Union. Lucas knew that. They'd approached her. "Why would you think that? That's my real number."
"Seriously? You think I'm buying that?" Lucas scoffed, lifting up the pad of post-it notes so that both she and Dustin could see the number scribbled on it. "These are the first seven digits of the gas constant."
Dustin grabbed the pad of post-its from Lucas's hand and his lips drew into the brightest grin he'd given her so far. "Hey! The area code is the ideal gas volume, too. That is just mental!" It was hard for El to follow, but thankfully, he seemed more amused than offended, unlike Lucas.
She felt herself flinch under Lucas's glare. "Guys, I have no idea what you're talking about," she hurried to explain. Sure, she had faint memories of studying ideal gases at high school level, but remembering the actual numbers was a task beyond her expertise. "I swear, that's my real phone number. You can call it right now and check, if you don't believe me."
"That's not necessary," Dustin intervened before Lucas could respond. "We believe you. Lucas is just being a shithead."
Lucas glared at him again. "Oh, I'm being a shithead?" he threw back, indignant. "You thought Mike had made her up!"
"Well, what was I supposed to think?" Dustin retorted, a little defensive. "He comes in and tells us his date was a disaster, but then he met his date's roommate and she was really pretty and smart and they totally hit it off?" He shook his head. "You gotta admit that's a little bit unrealistic."
Their bickering went on for a minute longer, but El wasn't really paying attention. Her mind was focusing on a smaller detail Dustin had just let slip. "Mike said I was pretty?" she asked, unable to hold back a giddy smile.
The twosome turned toward her again. "Uh, yeah, he's pretty much been talking about you nonstop for the last two days," Lucas said. "It's really annoying, actually," he added, except he didn't sound like he was all that annoyed— not anymore, at least.
"It's really funny," Dustin added, chuckling throughout the sentence. "He's completely besotted."
El was sure she was blushing, and the smile on her face felt like it wouldn't go away in days. Lucas was staring at her, too, which made her feel a bit self-conscious given that he'd already accused her of lying, but even that couldn't tamp down the bubbly feeling in her chest.
Lucas must've noticed, because he sighed. "Look, maybe I shouldn't have jumped on you like that. It was a weird coincidence, I guess, but you just seem like you're way out of his league, and I don't want him to get hurt," he admitted begrudgingly.
El frowned, again feeling defensive— but not just for herself, this time; also for Mike. "That's an awful thing to say about your friend. And you don't even know me, anyway," she retorted, instinctively crossing her arms as she glared, like she did whenever she caught her dad sneaking out of the house to smoke. "I'm not out of his league. There's no game here. I actually really like him."
"Yes, girl!" Dustin said with that bright, toothy grin of his, extending the first word for emphasis. "I like you. Anyone who can put Lucas in his place when he's being an ass will fit right in with us," he declared, putting up a hand for her to high-five.
Before she could do so, however, Lucas rolled his eyes and shoved Dustin playfully. "Shut up," he muttered, but when he turned to El, it was obvious he was holding back laughter. "Okay, you're right. I'm sorry," he conceded with a nod of his head, pointedly ignoring Dustin's theatrical gasp at his apology. "You seem like a cool girl. We'll give Mike your weird-ass phone number."
"Thank you," she replied, dropping her sharp stare to give him a satisfied nod.
"Just don't freak out if he calls you like two seconds after we hand this over to him," Dustin added, waving the little pad of post-its in front of him.
El smiled. She knew he was hinting that seeming overeager was a bad thing when it came to dating— she'd heard Max complaining about it often, when one of her dating-site guys kept haranguing her about a second date she didn't want— but that was a dating convention she had never quite understood. In her opinion, Mike wanting to talk to her was hardly a terrible thing. She liked talking to him. The timing of it didn't really matter. "I don't mind," she let Dustin know, the smile making its way back. "I hope he does."
Dustin's eyebrows lifted so high on his forehead that they disappeared under the corkscrew curls of his fringe. "Wow," he interjected, like he couldn't believe those words could come out of a girl's mouth. "Okay, where are you from, and by any chance do you happen to have a sister—"
"Idiot," Lucas once again muttered under his breath as El laughed. She liked Dustin; he seemed like someone she'd love to be friends with. Lucas she still wasn't sure of, but now that he had backed off, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was friends with Mike and Dustin, after all, and they were nice, so surely he couldn't be too bad. "We have to get going," he reminded his curly-haired roommate.
Dustin nodded. "Yeah, we need to get to the hospital before it gets too dark." He turned to El and pointed at her with finger guns. "Hey, it was nice to meet you! I hope things work out between you and Mike."
"It was nice to meet you, too," she responded in kind, giving him a sincere smile. "I hope your friend is okay." Lucas looked for a moment like he wanted to say something, too, but after shifting awkwardly for a second, he just nodded his head as a farewell. She returned the gesture.
The two of them started making their way down the sidewalk and as they disappeared from sight, El sighed. She could still make it to the movie, but she didn't really want to go by herself. And much like Mike's two roommates, she didn't really want to be walking around town on her own after dark, so she decided to head back home, instead. Maybe she could watch Jurassic World with Mike some other day.
She took the train back to her apartment, unable to help feeling a little crestfallen; she'd really been looking forward to this date. There was something about him that was just so open, so welcoming, that she wanted to get to know more about him. Everything about him.
Even in his absence she'd learned something important about him: he was there for his friends when they needed him, no matter what else was going on in his life, and they cared about him just as strongly in return. She liked that. It only made him an even better person in her eyes than she already thought he was.
It only made her want to know more about who he was. What made him tick. She was curious by nature— and she was often curious about people, which was one of the reasons why she'd chosen psychology as her major— but Mike had managed to capture that curiosity over the course of a single conversation. That was rare.
She walked up the steps of her apartment building and pulled out the keys to her front door, and as she walked into the apartment and took off her shoes, it was hard not to feel like this was a huge missed opportunity.
She had only been home for about five minutes when she got a call.
Since she was supposed to be on a date, Max had gone out with a couple of her classmates, so El had the apartment to herself until her roommate came back later in the evening, and she didn't have to run back to her room for privacy when she picked up her phone. The call was coming from an unknown number— it could only be one person, really— and El felt that giddy feeling from earlier come back in full force as she let herself drop on the couch and put the phone to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hi. El?" It was indeed Mike's voice on the other end of the line, and immediately she couldn't help but smile. "It's Mike. Mike Wheeler. Although, uh, I guess I never actually told you my last name, so it's not like it matters..." he finished in a quiet mumble.
El laughed. "I know who you are, Mike," she assured him, already charmed all over again.
"Right," he replied with what sounded like a nervous chuckle, and El could just imagine him shaking his head wherever he was. "Um, I just wanted to say I'm really sorry I couldn't make it today," he launched straight to the point of his call. "One of my roommates had an accident and I had to get him to the hospital—"
"I know, Dustin and Lucas told me," El confirmed. She wondered if he was calling her from the hospital, or if they'd gone home already. "Is your friend going to be all right? I hope it's nothing bad..."
"Ah, no, he's going to be fine," he let her know. "He'll have to get around on crutches for a few weeks, but he should heal just fine." He laughed lightly. "It was going to happen eventually, anyway. We keep telling him not to take that shortcut through the park because it gets muddy when it rains, but apparently there are a bunch of guys who play soccer there every Saturday and Will can't resist the view," he finished, a fondness for his friend coloring his tone.
"Me and my obsession with Chris Pratt understand that feeling very well," she replied, also chuckling. "Are you still at the hospital? It's late," she asked him. It was an entirely familiar line of thought to her; while growing up, it happened often that her dad had to work late and had to leave her home alone. It had bothered her initially, but she had grown to understand that his work was important, even though she never stopped worrying.
It was different with Mike because they barely knew each other, but the concern poured out of her mouth almost unbidden nonetheless. Thankfully, he didn't seem to think it was weird. "Yeah, but Lucas and Dustin are with Will now so I snuck out for a bit so I could call you," he responded easily.
He paused for a second and she heard a shuffle, like he'd been walking before but had stopped now. "By the way, please ignore any ridiculousness Dustin and Lucas might've brought up when they talked to you," he added hurriedly. "They mean well, but we've known each other for so long that sometimes they forget other people don't get their teasing..."
She couldn't help a giggle— he sounded so worried his friends might've said or done something embarrassing. "No, it's okay," she was quick to put his worries to rest. "I liked them. Dustin is really funny, and Lucas... well, you've had to deal with Max already, so I think we're even."
Mike wasn't buying it. "He gave you a hard time, didn't he?" He groaned. "Ugh, I'm going to kill him..."
"Don't, it's okay," she reiterated, wanting to make sure she didn't create any issues between him and his friend. She felt like she and Lucas had already come to a truce, anyway. "Really, I think it's sweet that they care about you so much. They're good friends."
"I guess," Mike muttered with such reluctance that it made El laugh again; she could just picture him rolling his eyes on the other side of the line. "I just—" There was another pause, and more shuffling sounds— was he pacing, maybe?— before he spoke again. "It really sucks that this happened, though. I was, um... I was really looking forward to seeing you again," he admitted, a little bashfully.
She leaned back against the armrest of the couch, doing her best to ignore the swooping sensation in her stomach as she heard him say that. "Me too," she replied in a soft tone, wishing they were talking face to face instead of through the phone.
"Cool," he intoned, almost in a relieved sigh. "So, I was thinking maybe we could do something together, erm, some other time, then," he suggested, hopeful. "We can catch the movie on streaming, if you still want to see it. Or we could do something else, too, if you prefer," he added quickly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. "There's always something to do in the city. I could ask around."
"I'd like that," El responded sincerely. She rearranged a sofa pillow under her back, as her position wasn't as comfortable as she had originally thought it would be. "But it would have to wait a while," she clarified. "I'm going home tomorrow, and I won't be back in town until right before classes start back up again."
"Yeah," he said, taking in this information. "Yes, that makes sense, of course. I was actually going to stay here during break— pick up a few extra shifts at work, maybe— but now that Will broke his leg, he's going to need help getting around back home, so I think I'm going back with the guys anyway."
She smiled, wondering if he realized the little details he sometimes let slip, which gave her some slight insight into his life. He probably didn't, but she was the daughter of a cop and she'd just grown up paying attention to those sorts of things. "You and your roommates are all from the same town?" she asked, curious.
"Ah, yes," he replied, sounding like he did, indeed, only just realize he'd let that slip. "We've all been friends since grade school, so we all grew up together, know each other's families very well and stuff," he explained. "They were all going back for the break from the get-go, but I don't know... I don't much feel like going back home just for one week," he added, sounding resigned. "I guess now I have to."
"Don't want to deal with your family?" she asked, genuinely interested. El adored her dad and worried about him all the time, so every chance she got to go back home and spend time with him, she would take. It was a little unfathomable to her that other people might want to stay away from their families, but of course she understood that sometimes people's relationships with their parents and siblings weren't ideal. Maybe not terrible, but not perfect, either. Just because she lucked out with her dad didn't mean that everybody else did. Max, for example, had a lot of problems with her own family, and El always tried to be there for her and make her feel better when it all got to her.
"Maybe a little," he admitted, somewhat reluctantly. "Middle child issues and all of that, right?" he added. El giggled, wondering if that meant they had an inside joke of their own now. "In all seriousness, though, my family's not that bad. I'm only dreading it because my older sister isn't going to be there— she's already finished college and is living in New York, so she doesn't get a break. It just kind of sucks that I won't have her there as a buffer, I guess," he concluded, sounding a little more like he was talking to himself than to her.
"But, really," he continued, "it's more that I know I'll be bored out of my mind. My hometown is really small and everybody knows everything about everyone. And sure, the guys will be there so we'll hang out like we do here, but there's nothing to do in that town that we haven't already done a billion times while growing up."
"I know the feeling," El retorted, remembering the lonelier parts of her childhood in the outskirts of her own little suburb, except she never had friends or siblings like Mike's to make it more bearable. Just her and her dad against the world.
"Yeah?" he said, almost like he was surprised she could relate. "Well..." He paused again. "Actually... I was thinking maybe I could..." He cleared his throat. "Would it be okay if I called you? During the week, I mean. Just to chat."
El chuckled. "I thought people didn't talk on the phone anymore. It's all texting these days," she teased him.
"True, but sometimes old school is better," he retorted in a similar tone. She bit back a grin. "Besides, talking is more... involved, I think. Maybe it could help make the time pass faster. God knows I'll need something fun to look forward to while I'm at home."
"Quite the hipster, Mr. Wheeler," she returned, and for some reason he seemed to find that really funny. His laughter made her heart skip a beat. "I'd like that," she went back to his earlier question once his mirth started to die down. "I'd like it if you called me. I like hearing your voice."
That last part made it past her lips without her meaning to say it, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt cheeks flush. "Oh my God, I can't believe I just said that," she said, covering her face with one in mortification, even though he couldn't see her.
He laughed. "No, it's okay, I... I feel the same way. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked," he assured her, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "I'm... really glad it's not just me," he added softly.
"It's not just you," she confirmed, sitting up and wrapping an arm around her knees with a sigh. She almost wished she didn't have to go back home for the week; she wanted to see him sooner than that.
"Awesome," he said, sounding happy about that. "So, um, I gotta get back to Will and the others," he let her know. "I'll... I'll talk to you later, then?"
"Yeah," she replied, basking in the effervescent feeling inside her. Even if they hadn't been able to go on their movie date, she was pretty sure now that this connection between them wasn't a fluke. At least, she really hoped it wasn't. "Bye, Mike."
"Bye, El," he returned, and then there was a pause on the other end of the line, like he wasn't quite sure whether he should hang up or not. Eventually, though, he did end the call, and El pulled the phone away from her ear with a giggle. She grabbed the nearest couch pillow and hugged it to her chest.
That's how Max found her when she got back from her outing some ten minutes later, but this time El didn't even mind the teasing because she was in such high spirits. She couldn't wait until she got a chance to talk to Mike again.
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Notes: This one turned out longer than I expected it to, so rejoice: you get at least one more chapter! Just don't expect much in the way of plot— we all know this entire enterprise is just an excuse for me to write cutesy Mike/El scenes because I can. LOL. xD
Once again, there are so many references to the show here that I can't possibly list them all (the contents of Dustin's pocket, for one, were fun to write), but apart from that: The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is a real museum in Pittsburgh. Mary Poppins is the main character in a series of children's books by P.L. Travers, as well as a 1964 Disney movie featuring Julie Andrews as the title character. The gas constant (R) is 8.314460 J/K*mol, while the ideal gas volume at standard temperature and pressure (STP) is 22.4 L; 224 also happens to be the phone area code for several northern suburbs of Chicago.
PS: Last week's episode of my vlog was about the latest tidbits we've learned about Stranger Things season 3, so maybe check it out if you'd like? I don't know?