Unconventional Chapter 1, a stranger things, 2016 fanfic

You're such a lurker. El Hopper heard her friend Max's voice in her head as she scrolled through pictures on her favorite forum, . She never posted her own, or hadn't so far. She was wary of what people might think of her collection. It was mostly toys and masks, or helmets in the case of Star Wars. There were some serious collectors on there.

Feeling bold, El decided she would test the waters by posting just one picture. She realized that she had never created a profile and would have to do that before she could post anything or comment so she took some time to think of a good name, finally landing on Elderaan, smiling to herself at her clever play on the planet's name. She posted a picture of a Darth Vader helmet, thinking she'd be lucky if maybe two or three people commented on it.

About twenty minutes later she got a notification that there was a comment on her post. She clicked on the link to read it.

A McQuarrie Vader?! That is awesome, dude! Where did you get it?

Someone with the screen name "Nerfherder" was asking. She recognized his moniker. He was a moderator on the forum. She liked to look at his collection pictures. She replied to the comment.

Thanks! I've had it for a while. But I'm not a dude, I'm a lady. ;-) She thought the emoticon would let him know that she wasn't offended by his honest mistake.

A few minutes later she received a private message from him on the Rebelscum site.

Hey, I'm so sorry I thought you were a guy! It was a real wastoid thing of me to assume a girl would never have such cool pieces. My name is Mike.

His apology for something so trivial coming to her so quickly made her chuckle. She wrote him back.

Don't worry about it! It's really not a big deal. And my name is El. I like to look at your pictures.

She had hit the send button before she realized how that last line might be taken the wrong way. Before she could delete the message, he had written her back. So much for him not seeing that, El thought.

You like to look at my pictures? Heh, I'm just kidding with you. I know you didn't mean it that way. Great name. Elderaan. That's brilliant! I get it now. At first I thought you just couldn't spell, but I also thought you were a guy so I was wrong all around. You should post more so I can look at your stuff. I'm going to shut up now before I say anything else that can be considered innuendo. I don't know what's come over me.

El was surprised by his comment. She hadn't taken anything he said as innuendo but clearly he was thinking it or he wouldn't have mentioned it. She wondered what he looked like. She didn't even know how old he was. For all she knew he could be sixty or sixteen. At twenty-five years old she did not have the desire to play games with weird people. And he had no idea about her either, so maybe she was analyzing it too much, like she always did. She took a chance and wrote him back once more.

I might post more depending on what kind of feedback I get on this first post. Are you on Instagram? I have a lot of Star Wars pics on there if you wanted to see. I'm ElHopper011.

She figured she could always block him if it turned out that he was a creepy stalker. She also thought it was a way that she could see what he looked like. Surely there were a couple of pictures of him on there, if he had an Instagram account. Another message popped up in her inbox.

I'm going to add you then. I'm ThePaladin. I'll let you know what I think of your pics. Aaannd, I did it again. I'm sorry.

El laughed out loud that time. She was eager to see what this guy looked like. She was enjoying the interaction and she hoped she was talking to someone her age. Usually her roommate Max was the only person she really talked to and she had to work a lot. El didn't care much for her own coworkers so she was usually down the rabbit hole of the Internet. That's how she had stumbled onto the Rebelscum forum.

She checked her phone and saw that she was now being followed by ThePaladin on Instagram so she checked his page. There were pictures of a lot of people so she wasn't sure which one might be him. His profile picture was a stormtrooper helmet so that didn't help her. She studied the images. One person who showed up a lot was a tall guy with floppy black hair that even though it was untamed looked good on him. He was pale with dark eyes and in a few of the closer shots she could see that he had freckles. She hoped she was looking at Mike. She thought she'd casually ask so she sent him a message via Instagram.

I'm looking at your pictures. There are a lot of group shots so I'm not sure which one is you.

She thought that sounded innocent, only someone seeking information. She didn't know why looking at what she hoped would turn out to be him made her palms feel sweaty.

It wasn't long before she received a message. As she'd hoped, the lanky boy with the dark hair was Mike. El felt her heart rate increase. He looked to be about her age and it felt like a weight she hadn't even realized she was carrying was lifted from her shoulders. She wondered if he was doing the same and looking at the pictures on her page. She didn't want to seem too interested, having heard from Max so many times how she needed to play a little hard to get. She really wanted to talk more to him though. She wondered what his voice sounded like. She waited ten minutes before sending him another message.

Who is your favorite Star Wars character and which is your favorite movie?

He wrote back quickly.

Clearly Empire is the best movie and Han Solo is my favorite character. What about you? And if you say any of the prequels besides Rogue One or Solo this conversation is over, haha. And which are you, the brunette with the pretty eyes or the redhead? I'm looking at your page...

El could feel her cheeks warming as she read his comment about her pretty eyes. She scrolled through her own page on her phone to see what he might be seeing if he was looking at her pictures right then. She didn't think there was anything too embarrassing. She replied to him.

Leia is the most badass of them all, in my opinion. You are correct about Empire being the best movie. I hated the prequels so we can continue talking. :-) And I'm not the redhead. That's my roommate.

El anxiously waited for him to message her back. She wanted to know more about him. She soon got another message.

I think you're really pretty. I'm just sayin'. Are you going to the Star Wars convention in Indianapolis? It's in June. It's not that far from where I live so I'll definitely be there.

El had never been to a Star Wars convention. She had seen pictures online and had read about them. It seemed like it would be fun, lots of people dressed in character, meeting actors who played her favorite characters, she wished she could go too. Since it was only January she could try to save up but it was still doubtful.

I live too far away I think. I'm not sure how I could afford it. I'm in Maine. I could probably get a ticket but I'm not sure if I could afford the hotel and actually getting there. I'd have to fly.

Just thinking about how fun it would be to go, El was crunching the numbers in her mind. Since she was already online she opened a new window and looked for airfare prices. Maybe if she could buy an airplane ticket this far out it would be cheaper. And it was to Indianapolis, not a huge vacation destination. It looked to her like she could probably buy a round trip ticket from Bangor to Indianapolis for less than $300. While she was looking at rates she got another message from Mike.

This may seem out of the blue and very weird so it's definitely fine if you don't want to do it, but if you could get there you could share a room with me. My dad travels a lot and can use his travel points for a room at the hotel where the con is being held. There will be two beds. But I completely understand if you wouldn't want to do that. I'm a stranger, after all. It would just be cool if you could come.

His suggestion was both touching and a tad alarming. She had never even spoken to him for real. El couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to go to the convention though. She was tired of only going to work and then going home. She needed some excitement in her life. Mike was also cute and she felt a strange connection to him already. She thought she'd really like to meet him in person.

You'd do that for me? I looked at prices and I do have enough money to get airfare to Indianapolis but if I buy that I'll have to really save up so I'd have money for an admission ticket and anything else I wanted to buy. I might want to eat at some point. Maybe we should exchange phone numbers and get to know one another before we share a hotel room? Just a thought.

El included her phone number in her message. If they could just call each other it would be easier than private messages. And she wanted to hear what he sounded like. She got one more message from him.

You're right. Are you busy now? I could call you.

She didn't know why she felt so nervous. She cringed when she read her reply after she hit send.

I'll be waiting.

El facepalmed.

Her phone rang. She didn't recognize the number but she answered it anyway, knowing Mike had planned to call her. They had only been talking for a few minutes when El decided that she definitely liked the way his voice sounded. He sounded nice, soft but with an edge of sarcasm.

"Your collection is terrific. You have so many helmets! I'm jealous." Mike said. El could tell he was smiling.

"I've been collecting them for a few years. I guess if I ever need money I could sell one. Maybe I should think about doing that before the convention. I could never pull off a costume in one anyway. I'm a little short for a stormtrooper." El heard Mike laugh. "What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing. What do you do in Maine?" Mike asked, changing the subject.

"I work in the registrar's office at the University of Maine. It's a job. I'm hoping to move to the library if they ever have any openings that aren't filled by students. The head librarian won't retire for a few years though. They know I want it. I pester them all the time. What do you do?" El had wondered what Mike did for a living.

"I'm an anesthesiologist assistant. I'm not a doctor but it pays well and I didn't have to go to school for as many years as to be an anesthesiologist. It's interesting work. When I'm not working I'm either online or I'm hanging out with my friends Will, Lucas, and Dustin. I've known them since we were kids. Now that we're out of school we don't see each other as often but I guess that's what the Internet is for these days, right? We try to get together a couple of times a month."

As El was talking to Mike her roommate came home from work. El swivelled in her chair to see Max holding two bags from Target and a lamp.

"I got you something, El." Max said, not noticing that El was on the phone.

"Hey, Mike? My roommate just got home and I should help her with her bags. Can I call you back later tonight?" El asked, hoping he would say yes.

"Sure, El. I'll be right here. Do whatever you need to do. I don't work tomorrow so I'll be up late. We're in the same time zone."

"Okay, I'll call you then. Bye, Mike." El couldn't keep herself from smiling as she hung up the phone. After she added Mike's number to her contacts, she turned to Max. "What did you get me?"

Max held the lamp out to her. El was confused. Max rolled her eyes and explained.

"You can put things in it. I'm tired of all of your figures collecting dust and I thought, if you were okay with it, that we could put them in the base of the lamp. If you hate how it looks then we can take them out. I just think they'd be safer in here and since they're all opened anyway they would take up less space."

El looked at the lamp. Max had even bought a lampshade. It wouldn't hurt to try.

"Let's see how it looks then." El decided.

Most of her figures had been passed down from her father's collection from when he was a kid. El had found them while in the attic at his house one day and he had let her keep them. She and Max carefully placed the action figures inside the lamp, making sure to keep her favorite ones on the outside so she could always see them. El was impressed at how much she liked how it looked.

"Okay, this is pretty cool. Thanks, Max. You're often right." El smiled at her friend.

"You mean I'm always right." El playfully shoved her. "Who were you talking to when I got home? You never talk to people on the phone. You're always on the computer." Max asked El, who had been smiling since she walked through the door.

"His name is Mike and he likes Star Wars as much as I do. We met earlier when I posted a picture of my Ralph McQuarrie Darth Vader helmet. We've been messaging each other all day so we finally exchanged phone numbers to make it easier. He's our age and lives in Indiana. I started following him on Instagram. He's really cute too." El could feel her smile growing as she talked about him.

"You just met him today? Moving a little quick, are we?" Max's left eyebrow raised.

"I know it seems fast but we're just talking. Except..."

"What does that mean?" Max had her hands on her hips.

"There's a Star Wars convention in Indianapolis in June and Mike said I could share a room with him for free if I could make it to the con. I know how crazy that sounds when I say it out loud."

Max was quiet, clearly thinking. "Maybe it does sound crazy but you're an adult. Is he nice? Do you get any weird feelings about him? June is still five months away. You have time to get to know him and decide. I'm going to say I'm not against it. You have to live a little, El."

"He is nice. I'm going to call him back later tonight. I don't get weird feelings about him in a bad way. When I heard his voice I felt kind of tingly. And I feel like I've known him forever. He's just really easy to talk to. That's what's weird."

"Sometimes things happen when you least expect, El." Max smiled at her genuinely.

Mike couldn't believe the way his day had gone. With two days off work in a row he had slept late and then surfed the Internet for a while. When he checked Rebelscum and saw the McQuarrie Vader helmet he had thought it was one of the coolest pieces he'd seen. He had to comment on it immediately.

A McQuarrie Vader?! That is awesome, dude! Where did you get it?

When what he had assumed was a guy wrote back and told him she was in fact a lady he had felt like a heel so he sent her a private message to apologize. Then she wrote him back.

Don't worry about it! It's really not a big deal. And my name is El. I like to look at your pictures.

He knew she didn't mean it the way it sounded but he couldn't help thinking immediately of what she might look like.

He knew he shouldn't but he couldn't help flirting with her just a little bit. Then she told him her Instagram screen name and he immediately looked her up. He wasn't sure which of the two girls most pictured was her. They were both pretty but he couldn't stop looking at one of them more. She had wavy brown hair that hung to her shoulders, the kind of hair that would be curlier if it was shorter. In some of the pictures she was making silly faces and he thought she was adorable in every one. Her big hazel eyes shone bright and her smile was contagious, as Mike realized he was smiling along with the images he was seeing. He wanted to ask her which one she was. He hoped she was the girl he couldn't stop staring at. When she asked him his favorite character and movie he saw his chance.

He hoped she'd say she was the brunette but he also hoped she would share his taste in the films. When she wrote back she eased his fears and he literally heard himself say thank the Maker!

He had to tell her how pretty she was, so he did. She had seen his pictures by then and if she didn't want to continue their conversation she could have stopped it at any time. But she kept it going so he did the same. He liked talking to her. He wondered what she sounded like. He wanted to hang out with her. So he told her about the Star Wars convention. Maybe he could meet her there. He had gone back to scrolling through her Instagram posts after she confirmed which of the girls was her. He wanted to talk to her.

Mike was disappointed but then remembered that there were a lot of guys and girls who shared rooms as friends at cons and it wasn't weird at all, at least not in the world of conventions. It saved money and since a lot of the same collectors and fans attended the cons some of them became like family to each other. It was a tight-knit bunch. So he told her.

When she didn't seem put off at the idea he was hopeful and when she gave him her phone number so they could actually talk to one another he was ecstatic. He wanted to call her immediately. He read her message back to him after he'd asked if he could call her.

I'll be waiting.

He almost choked on the water he was drinking. He pulled himself together and called her. When she answered her phone Mike had to remind himself to speak. Her voice sounded so sweet, melodic, not too high nor too low. When she had said I'm a little short for a stormtrooper, Mike had fallen in love a little bit with her. She was pretty, funny, and nerdy. He tried not to think about how sexy she probably was as well. He had offered her the room out of kindness but he'd be kidding himself if he didn't think he was also wanting to spend some time with her alone. But that was months away and she could still say no or she could decide she didn't like him or, and he didn't want to think about it, he could decide he didn't like her. As of now though, she seemed fun to talk to and they had some common interests and he had nothing but hope for what the future might bring.

He had just gotten out of the shower and was putting on his pajamas when he heard the text tone on his phone. It was from El. He opened it. She had sent a picture of a lamp that was filled with vintage Star Wars figures. He thought it looked awesome. The text said she would call him in a minute. His anticipation built.

She called not long after, asking him what he was doing.

"I just got out of the shower. I'm not going to sleep for a while though." He replied.

El pictured him getting out of the shower. Stop it, El. You don't even know him.

"The shower, huh? Did I catch you at a bad time? Are you wearing clothes?" What the actual fuck, El?

He laughed. "I am wearing clothes. Should I not be?" Mike, don't be that guy.

She laughed nervously. She was feeling something she hadn't felt before. She liked flirting with him and she liked when he did it back even more.

"Do you think it would really be okay to let me share a room with you? I've been thinking about it and I'd really like to go but if you have friends or someone else you want to share with I wouldn't want you to give the extra bed to me." She tried to get her mind off of what he might look like in his pajamas. Oddly enough, thinking about a hotel room didn't do it.

"I wouldn't have offered if I was planning on someone else staying there. I was going to get two beds in case anyone wanted to hang out with me in there. I know a lot of other convention goers. Sometimes we'll order pizza. But it would be just us sleeping in there. You'd have your own bed." Mike was imagining what she slept in. He needed to stop that. "That lamp you sent me a pic of is really cool! Are those all your figures?"

"They were my dad's when he was a kid. He let me have them when I got so into Star Wars collecting. It was my roommate Max's idea to put them in the lamp. She was tired of them collecting dust. They actually do look neat in there and they take up less space."

"I think it looks awesome. So is Max the redhead in your Instagram pics?"

"She is. She's a good friend. We went to college together and now we share an apartment because it's expensive to have our own and I kind of like having someone around to talk to occasionally." El explained.

"So you don't have a boyfriend?" Mike asked, trying to sound casual.

"No, I don't date a lot. I'm weird."

"I find that hard to believe. I've seen your pictures. You're definitely pretty. You're beautiful. I'm just being objective. Just bein' honest."

El felt herself blush again. She tried to stop smiling before she spoke. "What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?"

"I was seeing this girl for a while but we really didn't have a lot in common. I wanted to be interested in what she liked but I couldn't make myself care. I realized she wasn't what I wanted. She wasn't right for me. So I ended it. She still calls me occasionally and it's always weird. Like, weird in a bad way, not weird like you think you are." He laughed.

"Do you think it's weird that I feel like I've known you my whole life? Am I being weird right now?" El asked him, her voice sounding thoughtful.

"Is it weird that I feel like that too? I'm glad you posted that picture today and that we started talking. It's just easy to talk to you, you know? I feel kind of like I could tell you anything. I don't know. Maybe I'm projecting." Mike shook his head.

El wanted to say other things. She was pretty sure that she was starting to really like him now that she had spent the evening talking to him. They had laughed about things and she could tell that he was really listening when she told him about how her mother had died when she was a kid. He had sounded so sincere. She glanced at her clock and saw that it was past midnight. Talking to Mike had made the previous three hours seem like thirty minutes.

"Wow, it's late. If you need to go to bed just let me know. I don't mean to keep you up. The time slipped away." El said softly.

Mike liked hearing her soft tone. "It slipped away from me too. I feel like we've only been talking for a few minutes." Mike said.

"Your voice seems different now, more quiet." El pointed out. "I'm not complaining, just noticing."

"I'm in bed and I'm lying down. Maybe that's it." Or maybe it's talking to you late at night while I'm lying in bed.

El let herself picture him lying in bed. He noticed the pause in the conversation.

"El, are you still there?" Mike asked quietly, thinking maybe she'd fallen asleep.

"I'm here. I distracted myself thinking about something." She was grinning again.

Mike could tell that she had been smiling when she spoke. "What were you thinking about?" He almost whispered, sounding husky.

His change in tone made El want to take the conversation in another direction but it was their first day being friends. She couldn't start it on the wrong foot, as much as she might like to let him say things to her that made her feel that tingly feeling again, only on purpose instead of accidentally. She didn't think it would be a good idea. Not just yet.

She giggled a little. "Mike, I think I should probably get some sleep. I shouldn't keep you up all night." Her voice was soft and sweet.

"You aren't keeping me up. But I'll let you go to bed. I liked talking to you tonight, El."

She loved it when he said her name.

"Will you call me tomorrow? I'll be around all day." El asked him.

"I'll definitely call you. Text me when you're up. Cool?"

"Cool." El was still reluctant to hang up the phone even though she had been the one to suggest she go to bed.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow then. Night, El."

"Night, Mike."

As she lay in bed she replayed the day's events. She was certain that she wanted to talk to Mike again, all the time maybe. He made her feel excited and nervous and made her feel butterflies and it was all very thrilling. And she had only spoken to him for a few hours. She fell asleep imagining what it would be like to see him for real. What did he smell like? What did it feel like to hug him? What about other things she could only think about and not say aloud even to herself?

Mike was doing the same thing from his place in his bed. He had loved the way she sounded when she laughed and he wondered what it would be like to hold her, or to kiss her. He knew it was far too soon to be thinking things like that but he couldn't stop himself. He finally fell asleep, eagerly anticipating calling her again the next day.

A/N: I know there is no Star Wars convention in Indianapolis but Mask-Fest is held there every year and that's what I based this on. I just Milevenized it to make it something worth remembering. Thanks for reading. I'll try to have another chapter before too long. Hope it's enjoyable.