V. INSTANT CRUSH

I didn't want to be the one to forget
I thought of everything I'd never regret
Let's run with it because it's all we can take

Warmth was enveloping her.

Half asleep, El would only feel contentment if it weren´t for the fact that her arm was growing uncomfortably numb. She tried moving to her other side but found herself encased by a pair of long, strong arms. As she slowly regained consciousness, El could feel hot breath fanning her forehead and the top of her head.

Something tugged at the back of her mind, like she was supposed to do something but failed to remember it. Confusion was beginning to win out against her tiredness and, reluctantly, El opened her eyes.

She tried reaching out for her phone on the bedside table but it seemed to be miles away from her. Unreachable.

It was an impossible task to try and keep her lids open.

But it's Sunday, she thought hazily, there's nothing due Sunday.

It was still dark and she was very tired so, without thinking it at all, El let herself be pulled back into a deep sleep by the comfortable warmth around her.

Problems could wait until tomorrow, she figured.

It was the first time in a long time she didn't dream about feeling small in her big childhood home or about her mother's soulless eyes haunting her from a distance.

It was the first time in a long time in which she didn't dream at all.

-...-...-

One thing I'd never see, the same way around
I don't believe it and it slips from the ground
I want to take you to that place near the rush
But no one gives us any time anymore

His arms felt cold.

Blinking, Mike slowly opened his eyes and realized he was alone in his bed (a normal enough occurrence that, for some reason, felt alien to him this morning). Nevertheless, the place next to him were El was last night still felt mildly warm.

Despite the blinds not being fully open, enough morning light still seeped in, allowing him to take in every detail of his room. Rubbing his eyes, he moved his head and, from the corner of his eye, saw something move.

Not something, rather someone.

Someone who hadn't noticed him regaining consciousness. Someone who was moving in a controlled, measured pace obviously trying to be as quiet as possible.

Mike's stomach sank a little at the realization of what El intended to do.

Was she embarrassed because of what had happened last night?

I don't want her to leave, was the clearest and most predominant thought amongst all of the jumbled confusion in Mike's head.

"Don't you want to have some breakfast?" Mike asked in a loud whisper.

Amidst trying to dress herself and taken by surprise, El almost jumped back in shock and let out a small shriek, hugging her sparkly dress to her still naked chest.

"What the hell!" she elicited a hushed exclamation, once she overcame her initial shock.

She turned to look at Mike with a frown.

"I didn't know you were up yet," she said almost accusingly.

Mike smiled shyly as he tried sitting up.

"I didn't know you were in such a hurry," he offered.

She blushed a little.

"I'm not," El answered nonchalantly as she busied herself by putting on her bra, "it's just… this is the way this works".

Mike threw his comforter aside and put on his underwear. It felt uncomfortable to be lying around while the girl he had held to sleep last night prepared to leave without a goodbye. He didn't know how "this" usually worked for her but as sure as hell this is not the way he wanted it to work for him.

"Well, I don't know how this works," Mike said looking at her in the eyes and gesturing around awkwardly, "but it would just be completely inhuman of me to deny you Sunday breakfast", he finished seriously.

El let out a soft laugh in response and looked at him as if she couldn't believe what she was watching.

"Is Sunday breakfast a big thing around here?" she asked arching an eyebrow.

"Isn't it everywhere?" he asked with an overexaggerated incredulous expression.

She rolled her eyes at him comically.

"So... do you want me to bring it here for you or would you like to have breakfast in the kitchen?"

-...-...-

And we will never be alone again
'Cause it doesn't happen everyday
Kinda counted on you being a friend
Kinda given up on giving away
Now I thought about what I wanna say
But I never really know where to go
So I chained myself to a friend
'Cause there's nowhere else I could go

"Here you go," Mike said with a boyish smile as he handed her a plate.

El placed it on the counter where she was currently perched. It smelled delicious.

Her mouth watered at the sight of the delicious waffles piled before her.

"Eggos!" she exclaimed happily, "these were my favorite as a kid".

Mike noticed that this was the first time El had mentioned anything personal about herself or about her childhood.

"Told you Sunday breakfast was worth staying," he said.

He grabbed a plate of his own and sat across from her on the counter, unable to stop a smile from stretching across his face as he watched El pour a very generous amount of maple syrup on her waffles.

"So how did it become a thing for you?" she asked pulling Mike into a reminiscence of lazy mornings in Hawkins and his mother's delicious cooking.

He told her how his older sister, Nancy, used to tease him about his weird fondness for adding maple syrup to his scrambled eggs and about the one time he stole all the Eggos from the kitchen and shared them with his friends at school.

El laughed at his silly anecdotes. Alike other times in which they talked, she found it surprisingly easy to picture the images he evoked with his words.

As she took her final bite of waffle, El couldn't help but wish she had cozy childhood memories of her own, childhood memories that involved her family in a daily routine, childhood memories that she couldn't shy away from.

A grimace made its way across her face, which she noticed far too late.

Mike, who glanced up at her nervously in between bites, instantly noticed.

"Everything okay?" he asked, "I'm sorry I know I tend to talk a lot, really, my friends say I tend to babble and-"

She could never have those sorts of memories, because her childhood was gone and her family consisted on Max now.

"-it's okay," El interjected a bit more roughly than she'd intended, "I just remembered I do have to get going".

Mike swallowed the piece of Eggo he was currently chewing, his throat bobbing as he took in her sudden change in demeanor.

"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry, maybe I kept you here too long".

"No worries," she answered, growing soft at the fact that he seemed so clearly uncomfortable on her behalf, "I can wash the dishes if you're done".

"You don't have to," Mike said quickly, "I mean, if you really need to get going it's no problem at all".

"Don't be silly", El said, taking his empty plate for him.

Once she was done quickly scrubbing and rinsing the dishes, El dried her hands and turned to face him.

"Um, could I use the bathroom before I go?" she asked and he nodded.

Once inside the bathroom, El looked at her reflection on the mirror.

Crazy, knotted hair. Blushed cheeks, smudged mascara and eyeliner, yesterday's crumpled dress, sweaty skin. Ugh.

She really did look like the very depiction of "walk of shame".

Sighing, El splashed cold water on her face and tried to rid herself of all the remnants of her ruined makeup. Once that was done, she unsuccessfully attempted to fix her brown curls into a hairstyle that screamed something other than "bedhead".

Glaring at her reflection and realizing this was the best she could do, El walked out of the bathroom and glanced around the living room.

As expected, Mike was still there, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck and pretending not to look at her.

"Have you seen my purse and stuff?" she asked harshly.

"Uh-," he began.

"Michael! What'ya doing up so early?" a gleeful male voice asked from the hall and Mike's head comically snapped to the other side of the room.

A short, sturdy boy came into the living room only wearing his shorts.

A few seconds later, he seemed to notice El's presence in the room and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Who are you?" he asked, looking at her curiously and then turning to look at Mike with a huge grin as it dawned in on him.

"Nobody!" Mike said loudly and then, quickly realizing his mistake, glanced over at El with an utterly horrified expression, a furious blush spreading all over the pale skin of his neck and face.

"No!" he exclaimed as if he wanted to take back the last few seconds, "I mean, Dustin leave!"

The robust boy raised his hands in mock surrender, all the while looking as if he was doing a bug effort not to burst into laughter.

"Okay, sorry to interrupt," he said, "I'll go… wash my face".

He finally left the living room and disappeared behind one of the doors in the hall.

"I'm so sorry for that," Mike said, glancing at El with embarrassment, his blush still coloring his face.

El lifted her eyebrow and smirked at him.

"No problem," she said with a nonchalant shrug, "I just need to find my stuff and nobody will soon be out of your hair".

She quickly located her purse thrown near the couch she remembered sitting on yesterday.

"Done," El said as she picked it up and made her way to the door.

Mike followed closely behind her, still looking quite mortified.

"El, I really did have a great time with you and I hope that, maybe, if you want of course, we could-"

He looked so genuinely taken aback and his tone was so hopeful and his face was so devoid of anything false.

No.

She couldn't bear to look at him anymore, to look at the freckles on his face (those very same freckles she had kissed) or to look at his dark eyes (those very same eyes she had watched cloud with ecstasy).

No.

She just couldn't bear to hear his voice anymore, to hear the way he was so careful with his words, to listen to the hope in his tone.

No.

She just couldn't bear to hear him finish the sentence.

"No," she said firmly, "listen, I had an okay time and it was fine".

Internally, she winced at her choice of words.

This is what you have to do, so do it already.

Mike blinked down at her.

"It was okay for yesterday, it doesn't mean I want it to continue or that I want to do it again," she finished almost on autopilot, as if her mouth moved of its own accord.

It was a miracle she hadn't even flinched at the coldness of her own words and managed to maintain a poker face.

"Okay," Mike repeated slowly.

"Goodbye Mike," El said, trying to maintain her blank expression and turning around to walk out the door.

She heard him say goodbye to her as she walked towards the elevator.

Once the metallic doors had closed, however, she finally allowed the façade she had been putting up to crumble just the tiniest bit.

"Thanks for the nice breakfast," El whispered, hoping she had had the chance to say it to him sometime before everything went to hell.

Or rather, before she had damned it all.

Her lower lip trembled and she captured it between her teeth in an attempt to stop it, biting down on it painfully.

She didn't even notice she was bleeding until she smelled and tasted the metallic tang of blood.

-…-…-

It didn't matter what they wanted to see
You thought he saw someone that looked just like me
I saw my memory that just never dies
We worked too long and hard to give it no time

Mike unnecessarily slammed the door to his room and winced at the sound it made, unaware of the force he had pushed it with.

He heard noises on the other rooms of the apartment and realized that he had probably woken up a couple of people. He couldn't care less.

In the privacy of his room, without bothering to fix the crumpled sheets on his bed, he dived into it face first. Letting the feelings of shame and sadness wash over him all at once. In this moment, the only thing he truly wanted was to sink into the mess that were his bed and life and never resurface again.

But everything smelled like her. His bedsheets and his covers and his bedspread and the pillow she'd slept on. Mike threw everything to the floor, until he was left lying faceup on the naked mattress of his bedroom. He forcefully closed his eyes and allowed himself to delve into the feelings of inadequacy and rejection, like he had done all the times something similar had happened.

A bitter taste invaded his mouth.

Why all the times he got his hopes up had to end in such devastating disappointment? He was ready now to embrace the truth that he'd been avoiding before: that maybe he was the problem.

"Mike?" he heard someone ask from the other side of the door, a couple of loud knocks followed.

He must have fallen asleep he groggily thought, as his eyes opened up and adjusted to the mild darkness in his room.

Mike walked to his door, rubbing his eyes and opened it to find a grinning Dustin standing there.

"Our Saturday 'Left for dead' campaign will begin soon".

"Just give me five minutes, I'll wash my face and go," Mike said.

"You do that buddy, you look like shit," Dustin commented happily, "please don't tell me that you've somehow drained all of your energy last night", he added with a knowing look and stressing the word 'drained'.

Mike noticed that his friend was looking past him and into the room, appraising the mess in his room with curiosity and plain amusement.

"Nothing happened last night," Mike bit back bitterly, almost aggressively, "and nothing happened this morning".

Dustin looked at his friend with confusion.

"Bu-"

"Don't mention it again," Mike said with a serious expression, "to anyone".

"What's taking so long?" Lucas complained loudly from the living room.

"Alright, I haven't and I won't," Dustin answered before heading back to the living room where the others were.

"Thanks," Mike sighed as he made his way to the bathroom.

-…-…-

He sees right through me, it's so easy with lies
Cracks in the road that I would try and disguise
He runs the scissors at the seam in the wall
He cannot break it down or else he would fall
One thousand lonely stars
Hiding in the cold
Take it, oh I don't wanna sing anymore

Max had known better than to ask her what was up once she saw the dark cloud hanging over her best friend as she crossed the door to their shared apartment.

After taking a long, hot shower El felt a tiny bit less like a shitty person. Every time her mind bombarded her with guilt or with memories of last night or about him, she would counteract it by telling herself that she'd done what she had to do.

Over and over. Over and over.

Only stupid people fall in love. Only stupid people choose to care about someone so much it makes them weak. I will never get myself in a situation like that. Never. I prefer to die. I rather die than turn out like my mother.

Over and over. Over and over, until she could take a deep breath without some part of her body shaking with guilt.

El dressed robotically in her most comfortable pair of loose pants and a ratty t-shirt before she finally felt strong enough to pull her act together and finally get out of her room.

"Where were you last night?" Max asked with an accusing frown as soon as she saw El entering the living room, "you didn't even text me when you left," the redhead added accusingly.

"I know, I'm sorry," El said, "it just fled my mind and I didn't expect to be away for so long".

"I was worried sick," Max emphasized standing up and walking so she was standing in front of her friend, "I looked everywhere for you, I ruined everyone's time by being so fucking worried".

El sighed with discouragement.

"It won't happen again, I promise," she said, "I don't even know what else to say".

"Maybe start by explaining what the fuck happened yesterday?"

El flinched at everything.

It was too much, she didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to dwell on it more than she already had to and more than she already knew she was going to.

Only stupid people fall in love. Only stupid people choose to care about someone so much it makes them weak. I will never get myself in a situation like that. Never. I prefer to die. I rather die than turn out like my mother.

Over and over. Over and over.

Max seemed to sense that El was on the verge of an anxiety attack and steered her towards the big couch on the living room, where she sat next to her.

"Ok, we don't have to talk about it now," the redhead said, "but don't think I will forget about this".

A few minutes passed in silence as El tried to recompose herself.

"I know how hard those days are for you," Max began quietly, "but we both know it's much harder when you close off and do stupid stuff".

She could feel her friend's piercing blue eyes trained on her.

"You change nothing by getting in danger or by hurting yourself," Max continued firmly, "or by closing me off".

"There's nothing to worry about Maxie," El assured her friend, "not anymore".

Max only nodded, relief coloring her expression.

And just like that they continued on as if yesterday had never happened.

A/N: As I said, I know where this story is going and will definitely get there, I'm so excited for it! As always reviews, favs and follows give me much needed motivation to continue :)