Mike put the ring on El's finger before caressing her hand with his thumbs, feeling the soft skin mixed with his dry hands.
Mike watched the skin move rhythmically with the movement of his thumb, smiling down towards it, too flushed to make eye contact with the beautiful girl in front of him.
He enjoyed the look of the ring on her finger, knowing that it marked her his.
"Mike?" His name came out like a whisper of wind, making his ears perk up to the glorious sound.
"It's a promise ring El," Mike grinned, playing with the pinkish jewelry, feeling where it indented the word 'promise.'
"It's temporary until I get you a wedding ring when we're older. It just means I'm yours and you are mine," Mike explained with a red face, his eye lashes fluttering.
El giggled as she wrote the planning for their wedding in pretty pink ink, in a journal she's had for years.
She bit the end of the pen as she examined what she wrote down. She noticed she didn't write how the cake is supposed to be half vanilla half chocolate.
She shook her head and laughed at the memory of her and Mike arguing over which flavor the cake would be. They decided half and half, since they wanted their partner to be happy.
Seeing each other happy is more important than some dumb cake anyways.
El played with the promise ring Mike just gave to her, smiling so wide she swore she never smiled that big before.
"I'm yours..." El said pointing to herself, "and you're mine..." El brought her finger to point at Mike. She giggled and blushed knowing she got to call Mike her own.
Mike sighed dreamily at the girl, she was being too adorable to handle.
El twirled in her wedding dress and giggled. It wasn't fancy at all, it looked more like a casual white dress, but El loved it, and Mike loves it that way too.
She let her hair fall from her ponytail, lathering her curls with hairspray and gel to keep it in place.
She walked into the other room and looked out the window. It was everything she and Mike wanted. The cake, the decorations, even the silverware.
It's perfect.
She couldn't wait for Mike to see her, and made sure to fix every last speck of make up.
It was a perfect day, she needed to look perfect.
"Mike?" El said, pricking at Mike's shirt as they lay down in El's bed, doing nothing in particular.
"Yeah?" Mike questioned, still staring up at the ceiling, his arm around El to keep her close.
"What does our future look like?" El asked, a grin on her face as she kept moving her hands along his shirt.
"Well..." Mike started, turning over so he could face El, "You would be in it, I can't imagine a future without you," Mike smiled, poking her nose which made El giggle.
"And... we'd have a house- or probably a townhouse, somewhere out of Hawkins but not too far away," Mike started to twirl El's hair and El leaned her head against his palm with pink cheeks and an adorable smile.
"Kids," El said, staring at Mike's dark pools.
"What?" Mike couldn't believe his ears.
"Kids, I want our own child," El grinned, "two of them."
Mike chuckled and wrapped his arm around her waist, bringing her closer to his body.
Mike stares at her with an amused look on his face, "yeah? And what would they look like?"
El thought for a moment before reaching her hands out to touch Mike's cheeks, "freckles," El smiled, the soft grazing of her fingertips making Mike insane.
"Black hair," El giggled as she ruffled Mike's hair, he looked funny.
"The first child would be a girl, she would wear pretty pink dresses," El continued, "the second would be a boy. I want him to look exactly like you."
Mike snorted, "Even my nose?"
El giggled, "Even your nose." She stated proudly.
"I feel bad for the kid then!" Mike laughed, but in all honesty, he was glad El could see him in her future too.
El checked herself in the mirror, putting on some earrings before really looking at herself.
She looked pretty.
El smiled to herself, she knew Mike would like it too. She even put on some nice clothes underneath.
She thought it was stupid that it was "bad luck to see the groom before the wedding," because she could hardly contain herself from seeing him. She bet he looked so handsome right now, probably standing there adorably.
"What else?" El asked, cuddling into his chest.
"About our future?" Mike questioned.
El nodded.
"We'd both have well paying jobs and we'd come home to a kiss and play with our children. We would probably name our little girl Sarah, I feel like that fits. And for the boy we'd probably name him Ben, short for Benny. We'd share a room and sleep in the same bed so I can wake up to your beautiful face every morning. We'd have eggos for breakfast and I'll probably be the one doing the cooking. We'd teach our kids sports and how to swim, just like how I'm teaching you now," Mike exclaimed, before his eyebrows flew up to his scalp realizing what he had said. He's obviously berm thinking about this a lot.
He looked down to El sniffling into his chest, and his heart stopped.
"No no no, jeez I'm sorry El I didn't mean to-"
"Mike."
"Y-yeah?"
"Me too."
"Me too... what?"
"That's the life I want with you."
El took a deep breath and walked outside, her friends giving her thumbs up and Dustin eating the cake.
She closed her eyes and everything seemed to fade out before she opened them again, breathing heavily of both anxiety and excitement.
And there he was, he was smiling at her with twinkling eyes, seen clearly with the dark atmosphere.
She smiled down at the promise ring one more time before latching both of her hands with Mike's.
"You look beautiful angel," Mike whispered closely to her ear, and she looked down and blushed.
"And you look adorably handsome," El smiled, ruffling his black hair before fixing the strands right after.
Their rings bumped as they held hands, signifying how close their promise was.
El gulped, she could feel the tears starting to prick her eyes, and she shook her head.
El knew this would be hard, but she thought she could make it through.
That was, until she started sobbing.
"M-Mike," the whisper was broken, burying her face into his chest.
"Sh sh shhh, it's okay El, it's okay," Mike pet her hair as he gave a gentle kiss to her forehead.
"Don't cry," Mike continued to mumble comforting words in her ear, but nothing seemed to help the hiccups in her voice. It utterly destroyed him.
"It's not okay! Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn't we have a normal wedding, with our family and friends cheering us on," El continued to cry, but now she was making eye contact with Mike.
"Why couldn't you actually be here?"
"El..." Mike sighed, his own tears starting to fall down his freckled cheeks, "I'm so sorry." He held her close, burying his head in her curls. He couldn't smell them, like he always did. He couldn't do that anymore. He could barley feel them, her hair feeling like a cloud.
Mike smiled down at her, running his hands through her chestnut hair, as El cuddled against him smiling.
They're laughing, smiling as El feels safe with his touch.
El doesn't feel the same. His touch is no longer the touch that sent sparks. Instead, it was dry, desperate.
Mike smiled as El twirled around in her 2nd Snowball dress.
"I got you!" Mike growled jokingly, as he lifted El up into the air. El could barley breathe, she was laughing so much.
"Put me down! Mike!" El giggled, trying to untangle herself from his arms.
"Never!" Mike fired, planting sloppy kisses all over El's face, as El tries to move away, challenging him in this game they were playing.
Mike's kisses felt like air on El's forehead, instead of lips, it felt like she was outside on a breezy day.
"El... you're tiring yourself out. You have to go back," Mike worried, tilting her chin up to make contact.
Her eyes lacked the warmth they once had.
"When we get older, I'll wake up to these beautiful eyes everyday," Mike grinned, staring at her before placing a long, soft kiss on her lips, letting it linger there.
Mike rolled on top of her, smiling as he took in her face.
El reached her hands up to touch his cheeks, mesmerized on how she got so lucky.
"I'll wake up to these beautiful dots of yours," El giggled, poking his freckles. Her giggle was contagious and he laughed too, but once they started, they couldn't stop.
"I'm not going back without you," El cried, gripping his suit tightly.
"You know that's not possible," Mike sighed, running his thumb over her cheek.
"Maybe I should just kill my self. Then I'll be with you."
Mike felt like his world stopped when she said that. "
El, no. You still have so much to live for. You will be with your friends, your family, everyone would be devastated. I want you to be happy, El, you have to move on. And if you can't live for yourself..." Mike touched his forehead with hers.
"Then live for me."
El didn't have a response, she just continued to hiccup her sobs.
"It doesn't matter what I do if your not in it," El said so softly he barley heard it.
She noticed Mike was starting to turn into dust, and her heart started to beat rapidly.
"No no, not yet Mike please!" El gasped, trying to make it stop.
He said "I love you," before he was gone.
El choked on her cries, screaming and running around in the black area.
"Mike?" She screeched, "Mike!"
She fell to her knees, feeling empty. Her heart had no purpose anymore.
"I need you..." she whispered before she got back to the real world.
She tugged her blindfold off and proceeded to kick and destroy almost everything in the room.
She fell into the corner, hiding her face into her knees as she cried.
"You promise you will be in my future Mike?" El asked, playing with the promise ring.
"Promise," he smiled.