Chapter Text
Running was easier than talking, and both Max and Jane knew this very well.
“You good back there?”
“Yes, I'm fine”
Jane rested her chin on Max's shoulder, and suddenly the world spinned faster.
This was alright. Sweet summer breeze against their cheeks, sun heating up the dry asphalt, the silence of a resting neighborhood that was too tired to care, distant echoes of screaming children. They were once children like those who now would cheerfully play in the park. Almost five years ago, when Max arrived and everything was new and everyone was rude except for those weird kids who played dungeons and dragons. Lucas was the first one to talk, and then the rest followed. In Max's eyes, Lucas always seemed like a natural leader. He and his smart words and smart looks. There was a time where she almost loved him too much, just to realize there was not a “too much" for them. They all felt too much, too strong, too real. The whole group was just a blend of pure emotions and dysfunctional words. Running was easier than talking, but so was kissing and laughing. They were never too good talkers, but it was a known fact they were all great lovers. So in the end Max just accepted how much she loved him and how much she loved everyone else too. That group was special, for it didn't care to show their love, and Max was filled with love and passion. She just needed someone to share it with.
“Where are we going?” Jane talked, after seeing how Max skipped the mall where teens usually went to stare at time and steal memories.
“To Hopper's”
“I thought we were gonna hang out” a tone of slight desperation escaped her words, and Max almost worried about it.
“I thought” she doubted for three seconds exactly “I thought we could go to the lake. It's too hot to be out”
“Oh, okay. So we're going to pick a bathing suit?”
“Yeah”
Max could hear Jane smile. Her muscles contracting and her hair touching the soft skin and tissue, her lips pressing against each other and a slight fraction of air coming out of her nose. She knew her too well to be acceptable.
“There's not necessity for that tho" Jane said.
“What? Why?” a rush of blood and Max was again feeling her most deepest thoughts “are you gonna bathe on your-”
“I'm wearing one already” calm and then suffocation. Jane held tighter into her.
“Oh, right" she needed a cigarette.
There was a point in the way where two people mounted on a skateboard under the 11am sun was too warm to handle, so they just went with walking. The lake was five minutes away now. Three summers before they would always go to the lake. Freshman year had finally finished, and dreams of a bright future were taking shape inside their heads.
Mike leaded the group, Jane sitting with him on the bike. Behind was Will, followed by Lucas and Dustin. A few meters back, where she couldn't be heard, Max rode her rusty bike, tiredly. Noise surrounded them. Birds chirping and the soft waving of leaves against air, even the light could be heard inside that soundless day.
“So I thought we could take turns” said Dustin, following the conversation they had a few minutes back about camping or a road trip or some activity that didn't involve parents “I would be first, cause of course y'all would fall asleep immediately”
“El and I could be second” Mike answered.
“No way” Jane's voice sounded fiery, filled with emotion. It always did that. Max would know “I'd be sleeping. There's no chance I'm staying awake for nothing”
“Now that's a thing you and Max have in common” Lucas laughed. To the sound of her name, Max raised her head. They weren't looking back. Her name was just a thing to say, they weren't actually calling. But she did saw Jane tilting her head a little, smiling a little, breathing a little. Her heart pounded to the rhythm of a cloudless sky and a lazy wind that rustled carelessly through the trees, and in that right moment she knew everything changed.
The lake was there, empty and shining.
“Well” Jane started “I don't know about you, but I'm gonna bathe right away”
“Oh, yeah, I was too” the sentence ended in some strange sigh, where the 'too’ was barely a sound, not a word. Jane took off her shirt, and beneath it was the softest chest adorned with a bikini top and some moles here and there. Jane's curls wiggled with the wind, and Max felt everything within her starting to move. Since when was this a good idea? In the next second, Jane was already inside the water splashing around.
“Come on Max!” she shouted, with that fiery tone she had. At least that's how Max heard it. Two blinks and she was there too.
The water was cold, but not too much, just enough to cease the warmth accumulated inside their skins. Jane was smiling so much at this point it almost seemed normal. It's not like she didn't usually smile, but this kind of smile had something in it. Some sort of trueness, some sort of love. It made Max's heart dance like a bell. Magic.
Jane splashed around, laughing. She loved water, and she loved summer. She loved heat, not having to go to school, being able to sleep until lunch time and thinking about her friends and only that. Max knew this because Mike knew this, and because she had observed Jane enough to know it. At first she thought it was wrong. To observe a girl, to know her so well without even really knowing her, to have such desires, the ones that involved skin and lips and sighs and sights. The kind of dreams where touch and words were the same thing and reality distorted into smiles and kisses in the neck. How could that be wrong? Why would it be wrong? Wasn’t love supposed to be the best thing, the merriest? And then again, was that really love? As far as she was concerned, a girl could not love that way, it was just not possible. At the end of the day, the only thing clear was that awful yet blissful feeling Jane made Max feel. That heart wrenching feeling, where your guts crushed down and your brain turned to juice; where her feet forgot to walk and her lips burned with desire and misery; where everything was blurry and tears would die in her cheeks.
And yet there she was. Smiling, so splendid and distant. A deep thought invaded Max, a thought she had for a long time now. A wrong thought, but also a sweet thought. She looked at Jane, who was looking at a flower she picked before.
“Jane”
Jane looked up. Her eyes glowing, her skin wet, small curls of hair around her face.
“What?”
Max breathed. Was it actually happening? No, if she didn’t move, then no. But if she did move, if she did walk those three steps through the mud, if she looked at Jane and called for her, then everything would change, again and again.
“I…”
No words. No words? There was nothing inside her mind right now, only a buzz that kept on getting louder.
Jane was the one to walk the three steps. She got closer, and the noise disappeared. Then she got closer and closer, and things looked too much like Max’s daydreams. Their eyes met, fixed on each other, until they closed.
No noise.
They weren’t in the water anymore. Not in the lake, not in Hawkins, not on Earth. Jane’s lips pressed softly against Max’s, almost dancing. For some seconds, they separated, which gave them enough time to look at each other and to know exactly what they felt. Jane smiled, and for the first time Max smiled back, in a new way that didn’t hid sorrow nor bitterness nor sadness. She smiled back having tasted Jane’s lips, which were fruity and sweet. She smiled back, not really thinking about anything at all.
“You have witchcraft in your lips” Max said in a whisper, holding Jane by the waist and taking her as close as possible.
They kissed again.
The boiler inside of Max exploded, but now it felt nice.