Author's Note I:

This is shamelessly peppered with 2000s references and doesn't really have a time frame, it just takes place sometime around The OC/the 2000s seasons of ER/and Gossip Girl. You can do with that what you will. The slightest spoilers for ER and The O.C ships incoming, but really it's only names.

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It's early summer, and all Mike can think about is El lying next to him on a tattered blanket, charting constellations as a Dashboard Confessional song plays on his portable CD player. She smells faintly of watermelon freeze pops, faded sunblock, and bug spray, and it's all he can do not to kiss her. But he doesn't, he can't. The thought of it not working out and their friendship being ruined is more than he can bear. They've been friends for so long, she's been in his life longer than anyone else except for maybe Lucas. But he's also loved her for just as long as they've been friends, maybe a day less. She's chatting about something.

A rerun of ER and Abby and Luka, or Ray and Neela. Or maybe it's the OC and she's talking about Summer and Seth. Max and El's obsessions over couples in TV shows are a revolving and evolving door, and he can never keep up with it. Besides, her head has fallen on his shoulder and her hair is tickling his neck. He exhales and he knows she wants him to say something, to let her know she has his undivided attention.

"Sure," he answers. "Ray and Neela…"

She giggles and smacks him lightly. "You weren't paying attention at all, were you?"

"Yes, I was!" Mike defends himself and he can hear her smirking.

"No you weren't!" she insists. "What's it this time? Another D&D campaign? The new Final Destination movie coming out?"

"It's not coming out until winter," Mike answers.

El laughs again and sits up, crossing her legs and looking down at him. He can just make her face out in the pale half-moon light. "Oh really?" she asks, her smirk turning into a smile.

Mike shakes her head and sits up too. "What were you saying?" he asks.

"I was just wondering what song reminds you of Ray and Neela," El replies, bursting into laughter at the look on his face.

"See I told you that I was listening!" Mike says.

"You were hardly listening to me," El replies, shoving him gently. "Just because you heard Ray and Neela doesn't mean anything."

Mike grabs her hands impulsively and holds onto them tightly, he thinks he can feel her pulse skitter across his fingertips but her face doesn't betray her feelings as he holds her gaze. He's holding his breath, he blows it out.

"What are you thinking about?" El asks, toying with the frayed ends of her friendship bracelet. "If you're not thinking about horror movies or D&D games. Is it a girl?"

"Pfff… no," Mike answers.

Only you. Always you… he thinks to himself.

"Oh."

Finally, Mike can read her expression; she looks suspicious but doesn't press the issue any further. She doesn't ask him if he's being honest with her, or if it's Jennifer Hayes or any other of the popular girls at school. She takes his word for it.

She pulls her hands away and shoves them in the front pocket over her overall shorts, looking at him carefully. "You'd tell me if you were… right? If you were thinking about other girls, I mean…"

"Sure," Mike half-lied. "If I ever start thinking about girls, I'll tell you about it."

"Pinky swear?" El asks, sticking out her finger for him to take.

Mike wants to know why she cares so much, he almost dares to hope it's because she likes him too, but he doesn't ask. Instead, he wraps his pinky with hers and shakes it firmly. "Pinky swear," he promises.

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Mike tosses and turns before pushing his covers off, giving up on sleep for the time being, he swings his legs over the side of the bed. He puts on some music and logs onto AIM, hoping one of his friends is awake so he can talk to them about why he can't seem to fall asleep. The only person awake, as his personal bad luck would have it, is El. He's about to click off and maybe work on some homework or catch up on his reading when he gets an alert that he has a new message from El.

He sighs and thinks about ignoring her but he opens it against his better judgment and reads.

Can't sleep? She asks.

He types out a one-word reply. No.

Me either… she says a few seconds later.

Mike can picture her, sitting at her desk in front of her dinosaur of a computer, with her legs tucked up under her oversized t-shirt (the Hellfire one she stole from him), her knees pressed to her chest, a Corrine Bailey Rae song playing from her stereo, her short hair in pigtails, her fingers tapping on the keyboard as she waits for him to say something.

She sends another message. Is everything okay?

Everything's just…

He presses send and thinks about a good adjective to use. Of something Ray or Seth or Ryan or any other character from her favorite show would say and just types 'fine' when he comes up empty.

Fine… everything's just fine…

What about you? He asks.

He remembers their conversation from a couple of weeks ago when they were stargazing. Are you thinking about a boy?

He asks it as a joke but he's dreading the answer, his heart pounding so hard he thinks he can hear it in his ears as he waits for her to answer him. He's dreading the answer even though he can't really come up with one guy she would like outside of television.

No… I'm not thinking about a boy

But you'd tell me if you were, right?

Mike smirks and sends, well you said it first

He can picture her, rolling her eyes at her computer screen - at him - while he waits for her to send a reply.

Sure if I ever start thinking about boys, I'll tell you about it she says

Pinky promise?

Mike knows he's giving her a hard time but since he's begun, he can't stop. He waits for her, thinking that maybe she's gone to bed because it takes her a while to reply.

I'm rolling my eyes right now

I know…

But you still pinky promise… right?

Yeah, yeah… I pinky promise

The conversation drifts into something else. Music, books, and television reruns. The sort of thing they always talk about when they're together, or on instant messaging. He plays the Corrine Bailey song that he imagines she'd be listening to (could it be that I'm sufferin because I'll never give in, won't say I'm falling in love) and wonders what it would be like to tell her how he feels about her on an ordinary Wednesday night, over AIM.

.

Mike strums his guitar and doesn't take his eyes off El as he sings a few words from a Flaming Lips song, it feels like a secret meaning just for her but he doesn't know if she understands. "Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?" he sings. "Do you realize we're floating in space? Do you realize that happiness makes you cry…"

She steals glances at him as he sings and gives him a half-sort of smile that he can't quite read as he switches to another song and she turns her attention back to Max.

"I want to hurry home to you, put on a slow dumb show for you, and crack you up…"

He wonders if she gets the not so subtle message that he's trying to send her or if she's too wrapped up in whatever Max is telling her to pay attention to what he's singing. He doesn't know how else to communicate it to her, even though he hasn't really tried that hard with his words before now.

"Walk me home," El says later on that night as the party wraps up and he's putting his guitar away.

"Sure," Mike agrees as he snaps the guitar case shut, his heart pounding harder in his chest.

Their friends oooh and ahhh. Dustin makes kissy faces at them even though it's nothing new. More often than not, he'd walk her home. She had gotten the idea in her head after reading "A Walk To Remember" and it was something they still did even though they could both drive because El liked how there weren't any distractions when they walked tomorrow.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Max tells El, giving her a kiss on the cheek and a weird look that Mike wishes he knew how to decipher.

"See you tomorrow!" Dustin says in a high-pitched voice to Mike as he exaggeratedly kisses both his cheeks.

Everyone clears out fairly quickly after that, still giggling and throwing glances at Mike and El as they leave them alone.

Mike runs his hand through his hair, making it even messier than before.

Ted opens one eye and looks at the teenagers standing in the entryway. "Everyone gone son?" he asks, taking a sip of his flat Sierra Nevada.

"Just," Mike replies. "I'm going to walk El home. I'll be back soon. Don't wait up!" even though he knows he will anyway, kind of.

"Maybe you should take the car," Ted suggests, flipping through channels. "I don't think Jim will want you walking El home this late."

Mike looks at El and shrugs before going to get the keys to the station wagon and they both bid Ted goodbye before slipping out into the late August night. It's getting cooler and Mike's skin prickles a little. El rubs her arms and smiles at Mike.

"Alone at last," she jokes as they walk to the car together and he opens the door for her.

"Sorry about not being able to walk you home," Mike says as he gets in and starts the engine, Delilah is playing on the radio, talking in low tones about school starting again and taking the time to enjoy the last moments of summer.

"It's okay," El replies, fiddling with the volume dial as she debates whether or not she should turn up the song that's playing, her hand drops to her side, deciding against it and then going for it, the car filling with the sounds of Wherever You Will Go.

They sit in comfortable silence mostly and Mike realizes it's a perfect moment to tell her how he feels but he's already used up all his courage for the night on singing to her and clearly, she didn't get it. Not that he should have expected her to… he didn't, not really.

But…

But…

He sighs audibly and she looks at him.

"Is everything okay?" she asks.

"Just thinking," Mike replies. "We're going to be seniors soon. It's our last full school year with all of us together. The chances of us all going to the same college are pretty non-existent."

El's face falls. "Oh…"

Mike reaches out and takes her hand. "Don't worry, we'll make this the best year ever," he promises, the last of his resolve to say anything fading completely with her sudden realization everything was changing.

He wasn't going to tell her anyway.

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El yawns and tosses her pencil aside before stretching out her shoulders. "Let's go get some ice cream," she suggests as she pulls her hair out and rubs a bump out of her hair.

They'd been working on a project for the better part of the evening. The pizza that Karen had ordered for them was in the middle of the table, long forgotten as they worked on their debate. Mike neatly stacks their loose notebook paper.

"Alright," he agrees, ready for a break anyway. He's lost track of how long they've been working but he knows it's been a while.

El pulls an oversized sweater over her head and rakes her fingers through her chin-length curls, before tossing it up again. "Dairy Queen?" she asks hopefully.

"My treat," Mike answers, steering her towards the basement stairs.

He tells his mom where they're going and grabs the keys to the station wagon. They make the short drive to the Dairy Queen and sit in the car, eating butterscotch-dipped cones with the windows open, even though it's October and the weather's cold. El's teeth are chattering and there's a Cary Brothers song playing.

"This song reminds me of Ray and Neela," Mike says out of the blue, suddenly recalling their conversation from June and El elbows him sharply while she laughs.

"That's because it was on the show in a scene with them," she points out. "That is not how the song game goes at all."

Mike smirks and then presses the button to roll up the windows. "You're cold," he replies when she gives him a look.

"I'm okay," she answers.

"Well, I'm cold then," Mike tells her.

"Okay," El says.

Mike watches her, her feet on the dashboard, while she hums along with Cary Brothers, and carefully eats her ice cream. He thinks he loves her even more now than he did that night in June under the stars and he wonders what it would be like to say it aloud. But his tongue is heavy with butterscotch and the words get caught in his throat because it's gone unsaid for such a long time now. He realizes he probably hasn't even ever told her that he loves her as a friend.

But he can't.

He wonders if this is easier for him in another life, in another decade, or if he's always doomed for failure.

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Suddenly, it's December, and Steve and Nancy come home from college and announce they're engaged. Engaged and getting married soon.

Like New Year's Eve soon.

After the initial shock wears off and Nancy assures everyone she is not pregnant, the house is a flutter of activity in preparation for the quickly impending nuptials

El offers to help him run errands for the wedding but she mostly keeps him company, while she switches between Christmas songs and the CD that he mixed for her as one of her gifts with songs that try and convey his deepest and most secret feelings to her.

'Looking into your eyes, I come alive and I get totally carried away' plays while makes the more tedious parts of wedding planning, less so with her enthused chatter about everything from the flowers Nancy's picked to what she's going to wear.

"Do you want to get married?" Mike asks out of the blue one day while they're waiting for caramel frappuccinos at Starbucks the day before Nancy and Steve are going to get married.

"Are you proposing?" El teases, tugging on her newly pierced ears.

Mike's mouth gapes wordlessly. "W-what?" he stutters. "No… I just want to know if you want to get married one day."

El shrugs, still smirking. "I would like to get married… if the right person asks me," she answers.

For the first time since Mike started to wonder how she felt about him, he thinks he can read her expression. He wants to ask her what she would do if he asked her, it's kind of what the look on her face is telling him. But part of him still doesn't want to be wrong, so he doesn't ask her… not yet.

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The wedding is finally over, and it's just him and El at the country club because they volunteered to clean up a little bit so there wasn't so much work to do.

El is standing near the CD player, flipping through CDs, her shoes are off, and there's a hole in her black tights, and she looks lovely on the verge of a New Year. Mike's even more taken with her than he was the day before if that's even possible.

She puts something on and presses play, she walks to the dance floor and looks at Mike, holding out her hands for him, beckoning him to join her. He loosens his tie, walking towards her with a lump in his throat.

El puts his hands on her waist, her hands on his shoulders and they sway to the music together.

"I wish you would tell me what you're thinking," she says.

"I tell you what I'm thinking all the time," Mike half-fibs, sighing a little bit and avoiding her eyes. "Okay, so maybe not all the time."

El takes her hands off his shoulders, directs his gaze to her's, her sigh mirrors his own. "Well, if you're not going to say it… I might as well say it first because I did pinky promise."

"Oh?" Mike asks, considering for a second that maybe she was thinking about someone else.

But no, she wouldn't be looking at him that way, she wouldn't be standing this close, or touching him this way if there were someone else.

"I've been thinking about a boy. More specifically, I've been thinking about you for a long time," El tells him, before kissing him.

"I've been thinking about you a long time too," Mike finally admits when they stop for a second. "I tried to tell you with the songs… with the mixed tape. You couldn't tell?"

"I hoped," El replies. "You don't know how much I hoped that you loved me, but I didn't want to assume."

"I'm sorry I didn't say it sooner," Mike answers, wishing he could go back in time and tell her when he first perceived that he loved her even though he wasn't sure how she felt about him.

"It's okay," El assures him. "You can say it now though."

Mike smiles at her, a soft sort of smile and pushes her hair back from her face. "I love you El," he tells her.

Her smile is bright enough to light up the whole night as she looks up at him, her face glowing in the dim white light of Christmas lights. "I love you too," she replies.

They dance on.

End

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Author's Note II:

This took me well over a year to write. It started out as a half-conceptialized idea with Mike and El lying out on the grass, watching stars and I would rewrite that one scene over and over again until the idea finally caught on. I hope you enjoyed this little AU and that you'll tell me what you thought about if you did!