GIRL'S NIGHT IN
✧･ﾟ: * Nora was ecstatic to hear Max suggest a sleepover. The three girls, spending all night in El's room, listening to music, reading magazines. . . using El's powers. Nora couldn't think of a better pastime.
At the moment, Max is jumping around El's room, lip syncing into a hairbrush while Nora and El flip through pages and pages of magazines of cute boys and cute clothes. . . safe to say Nora is a bit more interested in the clothes.
"Oh," Max laughs a little as she watches El stare at a page in a magazine. Nora looks over too but is disappointed to just see some guy. "You found Ralph Macchio."
"Macchio?" El repeats.
"Yeah, he's the Karate Kid?" Max seems surprised El doesn't know. "Hai-yah!" She makes a chopping motion with her hands and the girls laugh. Max notices Nora's disinterest in the photo and pretends to whisper to El, "Nora has bad taste in guys, so she doesn't like him."
Nora throws a pillow at Max, "shut up! You're the one who was dating Lucas Sinclair of all people."
"Yeah, yeah. . . Why don't you have a boyfriend if you're some kind of boy whisperer?"
A wave of panic comes over Nora but she pushes it down with a laugh, "boys are overrated. I bet they aren't even good kissers."
"You won't know until you try," Max teases. Nora attempts to laugh it off and is easily relieved when Max turns to El suddenly. "Hey, is Mike a good kisser?"
"I don't know," El looks down slightly. "He's my first boyfriend."
"Ex-boyfriend," Nora corrects.
"You seem way too happy that they've broken up," Max shoots Nora a mock suspicious glare.
"Yeah, now I can have El all to myself," Nora throws her arms around the brunette who hugs her back laughing.
"No, no, no," Max wraps her arms around El's middle. "She's mine."
El's laughs get quieter slowly and Max and Nora look at her with concern. "C'mon," Nora tries cheering her up about the break-up. "Don't worry about it. He'll come crawling back to you in no time, begging for forgiveness."
"I guarantee you, him and Lucas are, like, totally wallowing in self-pity and misery right now," Max adds.
"Yeah, like, crying, 'oh, I hope they take us back!'" Nora imitates, everyone laughing at the impression. "I'd give anything to see their stupid faces," she sighs.
"I know how we can," El smirks a little at the two girls, now interested. "You have to be quiet though."
Nora and Max nod hurriedly as El gets off her bed and reaches for a black blindfold on her dresser. They watch as she changes the radio to a dead channel, static airing through the room. El then sits on the carpet, legs crossed, the bandana covering her eyes.
Max and Nora sit on the edge of the bed, leaning forward. "Is this really gonna work?" Max asks excited. El just nods in response. "Holy shit, this is insane-"
"Max," El interrupts.
"Yeah, quiet, sorry," Max calms down, but Nora starts bouncing her leg up and down. Is this safe? Yeah, it has to be. Otherwise she wouldn't do it. Obviously. Max puts a hand on Nora's knee to make her relax, and it'd work if Nora's stomach hadn't exploded with butterflies.
Before Nora could spiral again, El speaks up, "I see them."
Nora and Max lean forward even more. "What are they doing?"
"Eating."
"No surprise there," Max rolls her eyes.
"They say we are species," El speaks up again. "Emotion, not logic."
"Who said that?" Max frowns while Nora scrunches her nose.
"Mike," El stays focused and Nora and Max scoff in unison.
After a few minutes El tore the blindfold off her face, eyes wide. "What is it?" Nora falls forward, putting a hand on El's shoulder.
"What happened?" Max goes closer too.
Instead of answering, El just lets out a loud laugh, falling to the ground. Max and Nora just look in confusion before submitting to the laughs too. All the girls stay falling over each other on the floor, ribs hurting from laughing so much.
They hear a car pull up and their laughs immediately slow.
El turns the radio off and wipes the blood from her nose, Max grabs three magazines and straightens the bed, and Nora falls on the ground, stomach first, flipping open all the magazines to random pages for the other girls who fall next to her just as Hopper pushes the door open.
"Hey!"
Oh, he is so drunk.
"Do you knock?!" Max is the first to respond to his surprised face seeing the three girls. "Jeez."
"Yeah, jeez," El imitates Max and Nora has to hold back a smile.
"I'm sorry. . . I, uh, thought that-"
"Mike's not here," Nora interrupts.
"Just us," Max nods.
"Max and Nora wanted a sleepover," El looks to a still surprised Hopper. "Is that. . . okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah," Hopper slurs. "Your parents know about it?"
Max nods and Nora smiles politely, "yeah, they do."
"Uh, yeah. . . it's cool. Yeah," Hopper awkwardly stands. "That's- that's really cool."
The three girls stare at him as he just stands there, clearly unsure of what to do. Finally, Max speaks up to fill the awkward silence, "Did you need something?"
"Uh, no. No. Uh, I'll. . . leave," he messes with the doorknob. "I'll just let you- I'll leave you. . ." As soon as the door shut the girls broke out into quiet giggles.
Max composes herself first and claps her hands together. "Alright, what should we do next?"
—
✧･ﾟ: * Nora did not think the answer to that question would be spying.
"Holy shit, I can't believe we're doing this," Max grins, jumping a little on the bed.
The trio is sitting around a game board with sticky notes of people's names in Hawkins. The game is to spin the bottle and then have El stalk whoever it lands on.
Just basic, teenage girl, sleepover stuff.
"Ready?" Nora asks, definitely not ready.
"Ready," El nods.
El spins the bottle and the girls watch it spin for a few seconds before it stops.
"Mr. Wheeler," they all read out simultaneously.
"Ew," Nora frowns. It might be just her, but she doesn't find excitement in watching Mike's dad look at the TV all day.
"Boring," Max agrees.
"Yeah, boring," El nods. Nora grins at the two girls getting along. Hell yeah.
"Spin again," Max hurries.
El puts her hand on the bottle and pauses. "Against the rules?"
"We make our own rules," Max flashes a smile.
El smiles back and then spins the bottle. The girls watch with more interest as it lands on another name.
"Billy," they all read out.
"Ugh, not the asshole," Nora leans back a little.
Max ignores her and gets up off the bed, looking at El's excited face. "Okay, look, I should warn you. If he's with a girl or doing something gross, just get out of there, right away, before you're scarred for life."
Max goes to grab the radio and blindfold and hands it to El.
"Max-" El starts.
"No, I'm just saying. I'm serious," Max continues. "He's really gross."
"Max!" El scolds, trying to show she needs quiet for it to work.
"El's a big girl, Max," Nora laughs. "She can handle it."
"You're the one who's going to have to explain everything to her when she asks," Max puts her hands up in surrender.
Nora just turns the channel on on the radio and helps El tie the blindfold. After a few moments, El's nose starts to bleed and she announces, "I found him."
"What's he doing?" Max questions.
"I don't know," El looks deep in thought. "He's. . . on the floor. . . talking to someone."
"Who?" Nora leans forward.
El suddenly starts breathing heavier and heavier. Nora and Max lean forward at the same time, both reaching for El to calm her. The brunette rips the blindfold off her eyes and her chest rises and falls heavily while the other two try comforting her.
"What's wrong? What happened in there?" Nora rubs her arms up and down.
"What is it?" Max also tries. "Are you okay?"
El breathes for a few more moments and Max and Nora wait patiently. "He saw me."
Nora and Max share a look before turning back to El, Nora speaking up, "What do you mean? How?"
"I don't know," El frowns. "There were screams. The girl was screaming. He was hurting her."
"That's really not that unusual with Billy," Max shoots Nora a look and Nora makes a disgusted face at understanding. "He wasn't hurting her, in fact, she probably felt really good."
"Max," Nora whines slightly, not in the mood to hear about Billy's sexcapades.
Max just gives her a "I-told-you-so" look and continues, "I'm sure she's fine. Same with Billy. I'm sure he didn't actually see you."
"But he did," El presses. "He looked right at me. He knew I was there."
"We can check it out tomorrow and see what Billy's up to if you really want," Max assures. "But, I promise you, he didn't see you, and those screams weren't what you think were."
—
✧･ﾟ: * Nora can't sleep.
She is sandwiched between El on right and Max on her left on El's twin sized bed, sweating at their body heat. She is also still in her clothes from the day, and she can't move without worrying about waking up the whole house.
"Can't sleep either?" She hears Max's quiet voice from beside, turning on her side.
Nora turns her head to face Max, vaguely making out her facial features and hair. "Was it obvious?" Nora sighs, hoping El wouldn't wake up.
"Yeah. I dunno if you know, but you suck at keeping secrets."
"Yeah, yeah," Nora rolls her eyes in the dark.
"What's wrong?" Max seems genuinely concerned.
Nora frowns at the dark. I have the biggest crush on my best friend and as much as I tell myself we can't be together, it doesn't change the fact I want to kiss her every time I see her.
"I don't know," Nora states instead. "What about you? How come you're awake?"
Max pauses, as if in thought. "I don't know."
The redhead throws an arm around Nora's waist, tangles her left leg with Nora's, and places her head on her shoulder. Nora puts her left arm behind Max's head and moves closer to her.
Are we cuddling?
Despite all the sleepovers the girls have had, they'd never cuddled before. Neither thought they were at that point in the their friendship yet, y'know?
Nora thought if she cuddled with Max, then she'd surely fall in love.
Nora was right.
a/n:
<cuddles3