"the only thing I'll ever ask of you, you gotta promise not to stop when I say when."
It’s in that moment that Gareth knows with terrifying certainty that El has him. He doesn’t say it though, can’t say it, but he feels it in every inch of his being, in the dull ache on his jaw, in the way every cell in his miserable body is screaming to pull her closer.
“El,” he whispers, voice breaking. “Please.”
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honestly writing fanfic about a rarepair is so funny because you’re basically just screaming into a void and if you’re lucky, a person or two will be like oh word??
🎉 there’s an anniversary coming up in the losty universe…
🎂 it’s been almost exactly two years since i posted a chapter of with a little help from my friends titled “do we break another rule”. the next day (gosh, i used to write so fast) “do we break another rule, part two” was posted. and that, my friends, was the official beginning of greatmage!
(we called them ‘eleverson’ back then but ‘greatmage’ is a much better ship name lol)
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Ooh for your gare/el prompts, if you feel so inclined to do a library meet-cute 👀📚
The library is pleasantly quiet save for the rustle of pages and the occasional, hushed whisper that carries far in the silence. El likes the quiet; she enjoys the peace. Even though it’s only her second day at Hawkins High School, she knows that the library is quickly becoming her favorite spot to have a moment to herself. She could share her moments, too, but Mike never really wants to hang out in the library: he prefers loaning out any books he needs instead of spending his time at the library. The thought makes El oddly sad, though it’s nothing to be sad over really. Mike has been busy ever since she moved back to Hawkins, so El likes to think that she’s somewhat used to it by now – there’s a lot going on, after all. It’s the start of their sophomore year (that was a new word for El), and a lot of things are different now.
Eleven is not sure what things exactly, but she knows it’s true. Mike tells her that constantly, and Mike wouldn’t lie to her.
Nevertheless, it has been weird trying to settle into the life of a high school student. It’s so different, though El revels in the normalcy. She gets to be a teenager. She gets to be a girl.
Sunken in her own thoughts, El reaches upward for a book that’s perched on the top shelf, her fingertips stretching as far as they can go. It’s painfully close and yet terribly far, just out of reach despite her standing on her tiptoes.
Suddenly, she senses a presence behind her, and a long arm stretches over her shoulder. The hand is clad with various silver rings, and it retrieves the book she’s struggling to grasp; the movement feels almost dismissive, and it’s accompanied by a frustrated huff that seems to carry within itself an air of annoyance that’s foreign to Eleven.
She turns her head slightly, glancing up at the person behind her. She recognizes him as Gareth, the guy who sits at the very far end of the Hellfire lunch table, an air of self-importance around him when he eats his lunch, never acknowledging El’s presence even though she has sat at the lunch table two days in a row. Mike told her that he’s the new leader of the club, and he’s rarely in a good mood these days.
Gareth’s eyes meet hers, a hint of irritation evident in his gaze. It makes El nervous. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s so close that his chest is almost pressing into her back. That definitely makes her nervous.
El turns around so that she’s facing Gareth, putting a bit of distance between them.
“Here,” the older guy says, his voice sharp as he almost shoves the book in her hands.
El frowns, her brows furrowing. “I did not ask for your help.”
Gareth shrugs, nonchalantly indifferent to her annoyed tone. “Well, you were sort of in my way.”
“You could have just asked me to move,” El answers without hesitation, crossing her arms over the book.
His eyes flicker with a brief glint of surprise at the bluntness of her words. El thinks she might have imagined it, but she thinks she almost catches a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
And then, like he’s not really in the mood to argue: “Touché, El.”
El’s eyes widen at the sound of her name. Gareth has given no sign that he has even registered her existence, much less that she has been sitting at his lunch table the past few days. “You know my name?”
Gareth snorts out a laugh, and his eyes glitter a little. It’s nice. It’s different from what El has seen from him before. She likes it. He looks almost... Nice.
“Are you kidding?” He asks, running his hands through his curls. His fingers brush past a cigarette that’s tucked behind his ear, and the sight makes Eleven’s brows furrow. Why would it be there? But then Gareth continues: “We spent all of last year giving Mike a hard time for having an imaginary girlfriend in California. The kid almost broke my fucking nose for not believing him.”
“Really?”
Gareth grins, his hand now picking out a book for himself. “More or less. And besides,” he says, giving her a sideways glance, ”you’ve been sitting at our table for two days now. It’s hard not to notice.”
His words make El feel happy, a warmth spreads in her chest. Someone noticed. Gareth noticed, even if all the younger guys describe him to be mean and scary. El considers his words for half a beat, nodding. “It’s nice that I am not invisible.”
Gareth throws her another curious glance but doesn’t bother answering. His hands are going through a book with quick ease, like he’s looking for something he already knows will be there. Silence falls between them, but El doesn’t feel uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to go yet.
Her brown eyes wander, landing once more on the cigarette behind Gareth’s ear. Curiosity burns her tongue. “Why do you keep that there?”
The boy’s fingers adjust the cigarette just then. He shrugs. “Convenience, I guess,” he answers, slightly confused by the conversation. “It’s a habit.”
A beat.
“You’re kind of nosy, aren’t you?” Gareth asks, his gaze sharpening with playful glint once again. It almost feels like he’s challenging her.
El blinks, caught off guard by the directness of his question. Is he being mean? “Nosy?”
Gareth leans in slightly, his voice low. “Yes, nosy. Or maybe just curious. I can’t decide which is more accurate.”
Heat. It spreads across El’s cheeks, staining her skin with pink. She tilts her head in a thoughtful manner. “Curiosity is not bad, right?”
Gareth’s grin widens just a fraction once again. “True, but it did get the cat in trouble, didn’t it?”
El raises he brows, her curiosity piqued even more. “Are you saying I’m in trouble?”
“I don’t know. Trouble can be pretty fun, don’t you think, Hopper?”
For a reason she doesn’t quite understand, El feels her cheeks heating up a deeper red. She fidgets with the book in her hands, nervous. “I have never really been in trouble that was... Fun.” But then her mind drifts to fleeting memories of her and Max sneaking out or copious stolen kisses with Mike, away from the prying eyes of her father.
Oh. Is that the type of trouble Gareth likes? El frowns, suddenly feeling shy.
Gareth leans against the bookshelf, his shoulder pressing into the books. His expression is thoughtful for a moment, like he’s considering his words hard. “Maybe you just need different type of trouble, then,” he says, his tone gentle but his eyes still twinkling, “Finding it is half the fun.”
El feels her heart racing when she meets Gareth’s gaze. She’s having fun. She likes talking to Gareth, and he’s not mean and scary at all. But he does make her nervous, but not in a bad way.
The sound of the bell ringing snaps her out of the moment, and it seems to have the same effect on Gareth. He leans back, away from El, his smile falling ever so slightly.
“Well, I gotta go. Can’t flunk physics again,” he says with a lazy drawl, pushing himself off the bookshelf with casual confidence. For a moment he stands there, like he’s replaying their former conversation. And then—
“Later, Hopper.” Gareth turns on his heels, walking towards the double doors that lead into the main hallway of their school. El can see his fingers picking the cigarette from behind his ear, nonchalantly sliding it between his lips, making it obvious that he’s most definitely not heading to any class.
A small smile tugs at El’s lips as she observes him.
This is the original pivotal Greatmage scene, from “do we break another rule, part two” in With a Little Help From My Friends, written two years ago.
I remixed it the following summer for Next Time I Fall, but this is where it all began.
(approx 1.2k words)
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
El seems to have other plans, though. As soon as they get to her house after school, she drops her backpack on the floor and announces to Joyce, “I broke up with Mike today and I think we should go see Corroded Coffin again tonight.”
“Oh, honey, are you okay?” Joyce asks immediately, at the same time as Max is blurting out in confusion, “Corroded Coffin?”
“Yes,” El says decisively, “to both of you.”
“Um, okay,” Joyce agrees after a moment of silence. “Sure. I can take you girls to the show tonight. It’s at the same place as last week, right?” El nods, and Joyce pulls her into a hug. “Okay, sweetie, I’ll call Hop and let him know.”
“What the hell?” Max whispers as soon as they’re down the hall, out of earshot of Joyce. “I figured we were gonna have girls night with movies and chocolate chip cookies.” She’ll do whatever El wants, of course, but some context would be nice at least.
But El just shrugs. “I want to see my boys,” she says simply, and spends the rest of the afternoon quietly weaving four new friendship bracelets while they watch tv. Max steels herself to be patient. El will have to give her all the details eventually. Then they can get down to the important post-breakup ritual of trash talking the ex, which she is looking forward to with perhaps a bit more glee than she ought to.
Joyce insists on fixing dinner for Hop and Will before they leave, so by the time they get to the club it’s only about a minute to showtime and they have to fight through the crowd to get a table. Joyce brings them cokes from the bar, along with a beer for herself, and they settle in to watch. Metal still isn’t Max’s favorite music, but El’s face lights up as soon as the boys start playing and she bobs her head enthusiastically with the beat. She looks happier than she has all day. Max tries to imagine what stupid things about the healing magic of metal Eddie might say, and giggles quietly to herself. Okay, she’ll admit that this is more fun than staying home watching Ghostbusters again.
To her surprise, as soon as the show is over, El grabs both her and Joyce by the hand and drags them backstage. Max goes along without argument, figuring maybe El wants to talk to Eddie and it’ll be much easier in the little backstage area where it’s quiet. She knocks on the doorframe, and a huge grin spreads across Eddie’s face as soon as he looks up and spots them. He greets them with an enthusiastic shout of “Hey, guys!” which is quickly echoed by Grant and Jeff, but not Gareth. The only thing he says, almost breathes really, with something like wonder in his voice, is “Janie.”
Max looks up sharply. The expression in his blue eyes as he gazes at El can only be described as longing. She turns to El, who is smiling widely at him with eyes sparkling and cheeks bright pink, and a few puzzle pieces click abruptly into place in her mind.
Now this— this is interesting.
Max bumps fists with Jeff and Grant and accepts a sweaty hug from Eddie with pretend reluctance, teasing him about being stinky, but she doesn’t take her eyes off El. And El doesn’t even notice, because she doesn’t take her eyes off Gareth. Very, very interesting.
“El,” Max says mischievously, “didn’t you make the guys new bracelets?”
“Oh, good.” Eddie holds out his bare wrist. “Mine just unraveled the other day. Feels like I didn’t play as well tonight without it.” He winks cheekily at El, but Max isn’t sure she even notices. She makes quick work of tying the bracelets for Eddie, Grant, and Jeff, and now that Max knows what to look for it’s so obvious that she saved Gareth’s for last so they could talk. When the hell did this happen? For a fleeting moment Max wonders just how many other little clues she might’ve missed over the last few months. The other boys have wandered off and Eddie is engrossed in a conversation with Joyce, so Max happily and quite shamelessly indulges her curiosity and turns her attention to eavesdropping on El and Gareth.
“I broke up with Mike today,” El says softly as she ties the new bracelet on, right next to a faded one that looks like it had frayed apart and been glued back together. “I wanted to come and tell you.” Her hand lingers at his wrist.
He’s looking at her in the same sappy way Eddie looks at Chrissy, but to his credit the first thing he says is, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I am fine.” Somehow their fingers have tangled together. “I think I should have done it a long time ago.”
“I could’ve told you that.” They giggle, and Max has to bite her lips to hold back a laugh of her own. She could’ve told El that, too, a hundred times over.
“I was wondering.” El suddenly sounds nervous. “What happens now. If something… if something might happen. With you. And me.” Her brown eyes gaze steadily into his blue ones. “Is that bad?”
A myriad of expressions flit across Gareth’s face, and he swallows hard. “Oh, Janie,” he whispers. “No, it’s not bad. I was hoping something might happen with us someday.” His thumb strokes gently across the back of her hand. “But it’s too soon.”
“Too soon?” El sounds disappointed. Max can’t believe she’s been keeping this a secret; she is so demanding every last little detail from El later tonight.
“You’ve been with him for ages, and you guys just broke up today,” Gareth gently explains. “You should take some time for yourself and just enjoy being single. Keep finding out things you like, without having to worry about what he thinks. Or what I think, or anyone else. Have some fun, be a little selfish, y’know?” His smile is pure adoration. “I bet you’ve never been selfish before in your whole life.”
“I am not sure what it means,” she admits, and he laughs, but kindly, and El laughs too, confident she isn’t being laughed at. “Well now’s your chance to find out,” he tells her, and Max decides she already likes Gareth a thousand times more than she ever liked Mike. The magic of metal, indeed.
“Gareth?” El says so quietly that Max has to discreetly lean closer to hear her. “When will it not be too soon anymore?”
He actually has a very lovely smile. “I don’t know. Maybe… maybe we can talk about this again when I’m home for Christmas break? Does that sound okay?”
She shakes her head no. “Too long,” she states, and he laughs, squeezing her hand tightly in his before finally letting go.
“It’s important, Janie,” he says softly. “Take some time just for you. Okay?”
“Okay.” El reaches up to touch the skull and crossbones necklace he always wears. “Can I have this? Until Christmas?” she says unexpectedly.
“God,” he sighs, “I ought to say no, but…” He pulls the necklace up over his head and almost tenderly lowers it over hers. “Until Christmas,” he agrees, and Max idly wonders if either of them will be able to wait that long.
