It was the night of the Snowball and all the boys were in Mike's basement, having a sleepover. It was the first sleepover they'd had since they all slept at Will's house the night that El closed the gate. But that didn't really count as it both wasn't intended and was under very very different circumstances. This was much nicer than that. It was also the first time in a long time it was just the boys. Lately, Max was ALWAYS there. Not that Mike minded her as much as he did before. But still, it was unfair that Max could hang out with them everyday and El only saw all of them once a week. At least Hopper had let Mike come to the cabin every other day after school. The official pretense was that Mike could bring El his homework so she could work on catching up, but El had assured Mike that Hopper was only saying that and really liked seeing the both of them so happy.

That was certainly good news, as nothing and no one was going to stop Mike from seeing El, and he had a feeling that that was very much mutual. So, for now at least, it was okay that El wasn't here. Anyways, explaining her presence to his mother probably would have been quite a challenge. It was cool for it to be just the original party once in awhile anyways. A pillow hit Mike in the face. Okay, so maybe not.

Mike picked up the pillow and threw it back at Dustin, but Lucas walked in front of him at an inopportune moment. Needless to say, it turned into a full-blown pillow fight within mere seconds. For those few precious minutes, it was as if they had entered a time portal to three years ago. Before crazy inter-dimensional monsters, and losing people they loved. Before any of them had ever really had any cares. All that mattered was hitting someone with pillow. Well, until Dustin almost broke something, and then they all stopped. They did not, however, stop laughing. They were all in fancy dress clothes, having a pillow fight. It WAS pretty funny. And it was nice to laugh. Mike had done so little of it in the past year. Eventually though, they all calmed down and ended up in a pile on the ground, recovering.

"Start getting ready for bed, boys!" Karen called down the steps.

There was a chorus of groans and they all stood up. Mike headed upstairs, covertly grabbing his walkie talkie. He then raced up the stairs and into his bedroom, and sitting on the bed, made his nightly call to El. Even though she wasn't missing anymore, the routine was too hard to break and so they had mutually agreed to keep it up. At first, Mike had felt awkward about it, but El assured him that she loved listening him talk to her about his day. He wasn't quite as starkly honest as he was before now that he knew for she was listening, but he tried to be.

"Hey, El. Today was a good day. A great day, actually. I know I already said it, but you looked beautiful. You always look beautiful. When I saw you walk in that door, I knew that tonight was probably going to be one of the best days of my life. And it really was. I'm so so glad you could come after all, and that I let the guys convince me to go. I wasn't going to, you know. I went last year, with the guys. You probably remember me telling you about it, how I sat alone, hoping you would come. Well, this year I knew you were alive, but I never thought in a million years that Hopper would let you go. I guess some part of me understood. I understand that Hopper wants to keep you safe. I do, too. It's just hard sometimes, I guess. But at least I know for sure you're safe, and that you're listening. And the guys are happy you're here too. If not only because they were sick of me missing you. Speaking of them, they're waiting downstairs, so I should probably go. I'll see you soon, though. Goodnight, El," he finished. He then quickly got up and took off his suit, changing into a pair of pajamas instead.

He had to stop to talk to his mom quickly, and assured her they wouldn't stay up too late. Then, he rushed into the basement, joining his friends once more. They were all on the couch already. When he came down the stairs, they all turned to look at him.

"What took you so long?" Dustin asked.

"I had to talk to my mom," Mike fibbed.

Lucas gave him a disbelieving look, "sure."

"No really," Mike said, only blushing slightly thinking about his call to El.

"Yeah, no Mike. Even if you did talk to your mom, that was a shockingly long time to change into pajamas and have ONE conversation," Dustin reasoned.

"I'll bet you walkie talkied El. I'll bet you do it every night, now that she's back," Lucas teased.

Mike blushed, but didn't bother correcting Lucas. If only he knew…

"Guys, leave Mike alone. And it's not like your any better," Will teased Lucas, "after all, Max kissed you."

"SHE DID?!" Dustin asked, "HOW DID I MISS THIS?!"

Lucas groaned and buried his face in his hands, "yeah."

"How was it?" Will asked.

"Really nice," Lucas said, clearly embarrassed.

"You couldn't even make the first move!" Dustin started a hysterical laughing fit.

Lucas buried his face further into his hands, "at least I asked her to dance with me! That's better than Will!"

"But you didn't even really ask Max to dance," Mike pointed out, "you just sort of stammered and stood there awkwardly. She did all of the actual taking the lead on that end too."

"Well!" Lucas started, "I had my first kiss before you did! Before any of you did!"

There was a moment of silence. During this moment, Mike decided to tell his friend he was wrong.

"Actually, no."

There was another moment of silence, but a more shocked silence this time around.

"I kissed El tonight," he began.

Lucas cut him off, "well then we tie."

"No!" Dustin interjected, "Mike actually did the initiating of the kiss. He wins. Wait, you did, right?"

Mike nodded, "an I had asked her to the snowball and I asked her to dance."

"Mike definitely wins," Dustin said.

"No!" Lucas objected, "we have no idea WHEN Mike kissed El tonight. It very well could have been after Max kissed me."

Mike sighed, "it doesn't matter anyways Lucas."

"HAH! I told you so," Lucas bragged to Dustin, "we tie!"

"Actually, no," Mike repeated himself, "because I kissed her last year too."

Insert more stunned silence.

"No way! No way!" Dustin was the first to speak, "and you just, what? Conveniently forgot to mention that ALL YEAR LONG?"

"I didn't think it was that big of a deal," Mike protested.

"Uh, you didn't think it was that big of a deal?! Two of our party had their first kiss and we weren't informed?!" Dustin asked, incredulous.

"Um, well. I was going to tell you, but I thought I'd never hear the end of it," Mike admitted.

"Well that was an oversight. You're never going to hear the end of it either way," Will pointed out.

Mike sighed, "and also, you know, a part of me wanted that memory to myself. The only other person who knew was Nancy."

"Nancy?! Nancy knew but not us?!" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, I told her when she- nevermind, it doesn't matter. You know now," he offered.

"Okay. We need details. When did this happen?" Dustin asked.

"When you were raiding the pudding stash," Mike explained, figuring he might as well tell them everything. Dustin wouldn't let it go otherwise.

"Well, I for one am surprised," Dustin said, "you had way more guts than I gave you credit for. How'd it happen?"

Mike didn't answer, pretending to be busy setting up his sleeping bag. However, when he looked up again, they were all staring expectantly. He sighed. This was exactly the reason he hadn't wanted to tell them.

"When you two went to get the pudding," he explained.

"Really?" Dustin asked.

"Um, yeah."

"Wow. And then like she just disappeared right afterward," Lucas said.

"Yeah." Mike said shortly, turning back to his sleeping bag and climbing inside, turning away. He didn't like thinking about that.

The guys seemed to take the hint, because they all began getting into their sleeping bags, too. There was a moment of silence, not necessarily awkward, but prevalent. Someone, probably Will, turned off the light. There was some fidgeting, and sounds of them trying to get comfortable. Mike sighed.

"That was when I asked her to the snowball, too," he said to the darkness of the room.

No one said anything, but he knew they were listening.

"And I told her that she could stay with me if she wanted, and promise Nancy would be like her sister."

"That's even worse than being your cousin, Mike," Dustin teased.

Mike groaned, "Mr. Clarke saw me kiss her."

"What really?!" Dustin sat up and turned on the light, "this is a story I must hear."

Mike sat up too, happy to share this tragic story with his friends, "Yeah. He came over and confronted me about it too, when El went to the bathroom."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that she wasn't actually my cousin or from Sweden. I made up some story about how she was hiding from her abusive father and we were just covering our tracks by calling her my cousin."

"Did he believe you?"

"Yeah, I mean, I told him a lot of details to make it believable. I even told him he could go talk to Nancy to verify it."

"And he did?"

"Yeah."

"And she said the same story?"

"Yeah."

"That's lucky."

Mike laughed, "I told her about it beforehand."

"Oh."

"Yeah, but like she's way more trustworthy according to teachers," Mike sighed, "so I figured having her as backup was a good plan."

"Well, hopefully you didn't weird out Mr. Clarke too much. That would've sucked," Will sympathized.

Dustin and Lucas nodded.

"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure he believed us in the first place. The story had a lot of loopholes," Mike laughed.

"No kidding," Lucas agreed.

There as a moment of silence.

"Man, that was really crazy," Dustin breathed, reminiscing.

There were murmurs of agreement, before they all began settling back down for bed, content. Someone flipped off the light switch once more.

Mike snuggled into his sleeping bag, trying to get comfy. Then, he closed eyes and drifted off. Soon enough, he was back at the snowball, dancing the night away with El. They were both smiling and laughing, having a great time. There was no where else he'd rather be.

Somewhere, deep in the woods, a young girl with curly hair was there too, swaying to the music, as enraptured by the boy across from her as he was with her. They both had a future of good natured teasing from all their friends, as well as a little bit of good-hearted competition. They tended to win.

A/N: Hopefully you liked it! That's the end of this one, but I'm in the midst of a new multi-chapter fic right now, and eventually I'll get around to updating Confessions: Sleepover Style, so watch for that