"It's a miracle you haven't lost the thing with the amount of crap you eat." Max pops another piece of churro in her mouth, lips audibly smacking together.
"Wow, well that's," El frowns, "uncalled for." Her head drops onto the back of the wooden seat then, arms hanging freely by her sides as she stares up at the ceiling of the Starcourt mall.
"Don't you have to start eating mushed up food or something real soon? My mom said something about maybe investing in a blender."
"That's- No." El shakes her head before pushing back falling curls. She stuffs loose strands back into her low ponytail, pulling it tight. "I don't think so, at least. I think that's just babies and old people."
"So I'm not gonna have to, like, feed your sloppy peas at lunch then, am I? 'Cause that really wouldn't be a good look for me."
"Wouldn't be too cute for me either, t.b.h."
The redhead snorts, and she pushes up on her feet until her own chair is moving, the old wood creaking as its dragged closer to the table. "Too bad for you. Teen pregnancy isn't cute."
"Mike thinks I'm cute." El reasons, quietly. She shrugs, nonchalant, "Mike thinks I'm-"
"Beautiful, I know." With a roll of her eyes, Max nudges her friends in the arm, pulling her from her daze, "You've already told me, like a gazillion times." She raises her brows knowingly when El finally looks at her, "And, besides, you're totally forgetting that Wheeler would find you cute even if you grew like a second head, or started coughing up pube balls."
Still leaning back, El picks up her juice box from the sticky lunch table. Soda was out of the question, apparently. She slurps at the orange juice through the white and red straw, shooting Max a quick sideways glance.
"Why do you hate him so much?"
"I don't hate him," Max shrugs, and El isn't sure if she buys it or not. "I just think he's really stuck-up... and entitled. And when I first got here, he was a total dick to me. He wouldn't even let me join AV Club."
"Hold on," El holds up a finger, interest suddenly piqued, "You wanted to be an audio-visual nerd?"
"That was before I realized how lame it was." Max glares at the brunette, nose slightly crinkling as her gaze drifts down to El's tummy.
There's a small, fair, totally-could-pass-as-a-food-baby bump there now. Nobody would know she was five months along if it wasn't for that invisible 'cautionary tale' tramp stamp she's got plastered on her forehead.
"And, anyway, you don't get to call them nerds anymore, you know. Not when you and Pencil Dick are, like, playing house or whatever."
"Girls!"
Joyce's voice rings out through the food court then, and she's by the side of their table before either of the girls even has a chance to turn around. She drops two shopping bags down onto the free seat beside El, and she sits herself down next to Max. "You'll never guess what I bought."
She'd left the teens in the food court about an hour before, saying she had errands to run and things to 'get started on'. El wasn't sure what she'd meant, and quite frankly her hunger outweighed her curiosity.
"A basket to send the baby down the river in?"
"I hope it's not condoms, Joyce." Max tilts her head, smoothing a finger across her chin thoughtfully, "El here has something she needs to tell you."
Kicking her friend in the shin and sitting herself into a more upright position, El presses her elbows into the table, bunched-up sleeves of her plaid shirt digging into her skin. "Please don't tell me it's something for the fetus."
"No, no," Joyce waves a hand about, eyes rolling as her cheeks tint pink, "Just look."
Curiously, El reaches into the first bag without looking at the store name written across the front in big bold letters. Her hand wraps around something soft, almost stretchy. "Did you buy me clothes?" She pulls the item from the bag then, holding it up for the others to see. Max pulls a face, Joyce just nods.
"Better." The woman pulls the sheet of material from El's fingertips, the slat of cloth held up almost proudly. "I'm gonna maternity-proof clothes you already have."
"Cute!" The redhead squeals, half-in mockery and half-in excitement, "El, look, now you can totally shoplift Eggos in your jeans!"
(Godamnit.)
"Can you not yell that, maybe?" El squeaks, and she leans across the table to plaster a hand across her stepmom's mouth. "I still have, like, a shred of dignity left."
Max scoffs at that, smirking, "Yeah, no, I think there's only like one person in the whole town who doesn't already know you're gestating," she tells her friend, a brow quirked in thought, "but they're like a hundred years old so..."
"Can we please go before the last centennial in Hawkins finds out I'm carrying?"
"Carrying?" Max picks up their squashed juice boxes from the table and she jams them onto her food tray, "You make it sound like you're packing."
"Packing?"
"Like a gun?" the blue-eyed girl explains, "like packing heat."
"I am packing." El says, deadpan, "I'm packing the pounds on."
"You look fine, sweetie." Joyce interrupts, shopping bags dragged up her arms right up to her shoulders. She stuffs her hands inside her jacket pockets, pulling on the green parka with a sigh and warning look in Max's direction, "Don't."
"I never said anything!" Max raises her free hand in defense, her left holding a tray practically full of ketchup packets and coated in icing sugar — there's some still around Max's mouth from where she'd jammed a churro in and forgotten to lick away the remnants.
Once Joyce has walked away, a swing in her hips and her hair tucked neatly behind her ears, Max softly grabs El's elbow, wrapping her fingers around the girl's shirt casually as she whispers, "You're packing Wheeler's heat."
"Shut up!"
"Hey, how's Mommy Two Point Nought doing, by the way?" Max nods her head toward Joyce who's already miles head of them, seemingly on a mission, "Lucas said that Mike said she blew up at him a few weeks ago."
El just rolls her eyes, "She didn't blow up. She's just... on edge." Brows furrowing, she adds, "Wouldn't you be?"
"If I married a fine ass police officer and his daughter came home knocked up by the local nerd?" The redhead stifles a laugh, slowly nodding after a beat, lips pursing. She folds her arms across her chest then, taking long strides and licking her lips. She tosses her hair over her shoulder, "Either that or she's going through the ch-"
"Jane?"
It's not Joyce that's calling out to her, but rather a voice El isn't as familiar with. Granted, she's met the woman a handful of times now, and every exchange she's had with the woman is pleasant. But there's something needy about her, something off about her husband.
Max throws an arm around El's shoulders then, tilting her head in curiosity, "Is this the dead egg lady?"
Ignoring her friend's comment, the brunette girl simply walks over to the woman; a heavy looking box is now resting at her feet (that a short-haired woman has quite literally just dropped there), her purse is placed on top of it, and three little paper bags are dangling from her fingertips.
"Hey," El greets her, raising a hand to scratch the back of her neck. She pulls on the baby hairs there, sticking out past her untidy up-do. "I didn't know you shopped here."
(If she had, she would've stopped coming to the mall. Running into the fancy lady who's adopting your oops baby when you've just scoffed down three powdered churros and a plate of mayo-covered french fries isn't exactly high on El's bucket list.)
"Oh," Terry Ives-Brenner, with her tan skin and platinum blonde hair, glances down at the box by her feet, and she seems to smile, "I was just running some errands."
It only takes a quick two-second glance at the box to know there's a car seat inside, fit for a newborn once its assembled. It's beige, plain, gender-neutral and expensive-looking.
She's known the sex of the baby for a couple of weeks now, but she's not allowed to say anything because the Brenners want to be surprised. They believe in fate, apparently. El thinks it's some kind of funnily cruel irony — they believe in destiny, but fate willed it so they couldn't bare children of their own. They're relying on a seventeen-year-old high schooler with an average GPA and a messed-up sense of self to gift them their miracle baby. It's actually kind of hilarious; one couple's bundle of joy is another's gaffe.
"How are you feeling?"
It's only then that El realizes she never reacted to Terry, to her answer. So, looking up and stretching her arms out behind her head with a slow, fake yawn, she blinks. "Good. Mostly." One hand lowers to her stomach then, just when the growing bump curves around her hipbones, "I think I'm gonna give birth to the second coming of Rocky."
Terry's eyes seem to light up at that, and the girl can see her fingers twitching, just aching to reach out and- "Is she- I mean, is it-" she shakes her head, catching her blunder. El just shrugs, smiling, feigning passivity.
"Do you wanna feel?" The desire to feel it kick was written clear as day on the Brenner lady's face, so El just reaches out and grasps her free hand. She curls her fingers around the older woman's wrist to draw her closer, shuffling forward as her palm settles itself on her belly. The heel of Terry's hand is pressing, just lightly, against her bellybutton, and El has to bite her lip to hold back a gulp.
(This is... odd.)
"Should be any second now." El tells her, looking up to watch as the taller woman's expression changes. Her eyes are a soft hazel color, kind even, and El thinks that maybe the baby will be passable as hers if it comes out bearing its mother's eyes. She knows some adopted kids end up in families where their parents don't look anything like them, but if Terry's eyes are the same as El's, and the baby looks more like her than it does Mike, then maybe everything will be fine for the Brenners - they won't ever have to explain anything.
"Ah," there's a soft fluttering against her tummy then, from the inside outward, almost like butterflies but stronger. The damn kid's a boxer, that's for sure. Terry's eyes just widen as El readjusts her hand, heightening the sensation and making the woman gasp, "Can you feel it?"
With a nod, the mother-to-be simply continues staring at El's stomach, and she drops the bags in her other hand to crouch down in front of the girl. Behind her, El can feel the burn of Max's gaze, and she knows just what she's thinking.
(It's fine, really. She's cool with it. Terry Ives-Brenner is gonna be a boss ass mom.)
"Thank you," Terry breathes out, gazing up at El as though she's heaven-sent or something, "for this. For everything." Both hands are splayed out across El's abdomen now, touching and longing for another kick. The brunette simply shrugs, and she gnaws at the inside of her bottom lip with a weak smile.
(This she can do. While it's funny when the baby kicks her in the gut as she's doing homework, almost like it's agreement with her hatred of the subject, she knows this isn't for her. She can deal with that; make peace with the fact that once he's out, and he's crying, and he's a tiny, little, human thing, that he won't be hers. She can handle the goodbye, she thinks.)
(It's the aftermath that's going to hurt.)
