Chapter Text
Max approaches the football field with a diminishing spring in her step.
It’s not that she’s nervous— no. She just doesn’t have any idea what to say. To anyone, most of the time. Except Lucas. She can always fuck with Lucas.
Max had never been great at making friends and or keeping acquaintances. The best friends she’s ever made were the three or four she’d managed to reel in during her eighth-grade year when she was new to Hawkins, and boys thought her sun-kissed skin was pretty. Dustin and Lucas were first, the two fighting for her unfortunately— as realized later— very very lesbian hand. Lucas stole a kiss at their winter semi-formal the very same year. Dustin thought he’d won until she came out to both of them through teary fingers the following summer. They all grew closer after that somehow.
She’d met Jane in 8th grade the day after winter break.
And Mike. And Will. She’d met them all.
"This is Mike, and his girlfriend, Jane, and Will Byers..."
Mike was skinny, about her height with a stunning full head of black hair comparable to a mushroom, and had a scowl on his face that could compete with her own. It only seemed to diminish when the tiny girl with short brown hair and huge dark eyes (darker than dark, almost nothing), whose hand he was holding, would tug on his arm and plant a wet kiss on his cheek. It was disgusting then because they were shy , but only a little afraid. It’s even more so now that they aren’t either.
Max had been holding hands with Lucas, her heart tugging on her throat telling her strongly that she was pretending, that she was a fraud. That was before she’d learned to listen.
It was amazing to think she’d even kept him at all.
Will was the smallest of them all, Max remembers because she’d heard a lot about Will Byers. And how he always looked like he’d been run over by a truck. He stood on flat feet, back hunched and fingertips ghosting Mike’s side. Max thought it was weird that he tagged along with Hawkins Middle’s own married couple, but there was something about the way he would sigh at Mike sometimes and stand a little straighter when Mike would glance at him with worried eyes. Max ignored it. For a few years.
Will was still small for a guy, standing at a threatening 5’6 even at the ripe old age of 17.
On days like today, when the sun is shining low, almost touching the horizon, Max will often find him hunched over on the bleachers, blending stick in hand pretending to not know marching band practice is going on on the east end of the field. Pretending he isn’t sketching 30 different angles of Mike Wheeler.
“How’s it going, Byers?”
Will slams his sketchbook shut with graphite stained fingers, straightening his back with a nervous smile. “Um hey— hi Max.”
Max sits a step down from him, boots coming to rest underneath her knees as she leans back and looks up. “Anything new in Will’s world?”
“Not—“ He twists his body around to face her, face lighting up at the realization that just beyond her head was the view he’d wanted anyway. If she’d done that on purpose, no one would know. Will certainly wouldn’t ask. “Really, no. You?”
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, my friend,” Max leans in close, urging Will to do the same with the wave of her hand. “I’m on a mission.”
“What kind of mission,” Will looks suddenly intrigued and pulls his sketchbook tighter to his chest, hoping to lean even closer.
Max covers her mouth with one hand, “A gay mission. And I need your help.”
“I’m in,” Will immediately whispers, sending them both into small fits of knowing laughter.
It’d be insane to anyone but them, but they have a bond no one at Hawkins High School can really relate to. They weren’t the closest of friends but they were out to each other and for Max that was enough. It’s one thing to be gay around people that aren’t, but a totally different (and amazing) thing to be gay around other gay people in a town that’ll all but kill you for both. Will Byers was a blessing.
Max looks around at that, noticing that marching band was done for the day and everyone was starting to disperse, which meant cheer would soon be done too. It sent Max into a panic when she saw Mike jogging over to where she now sat with Will to her left. She waves a hand of dismissal in Will’s general direction, but he’s already sitting up, eagerness seeping from lips drawn up in a tight smile.
Before Mike can even make it to the fence surrounding the track he’s intercepted by Jane, who slams into his side and attacks his lips in a fever Max would only dream of committing to a dripping ice cream cone.
She scoffs at the same time Will hums a disapproving note.
“Any cool ones today, Will?” Mike’s hair against the sun forms a kind of halo around his head. Max can almost see the cartoon hearts floating out of Will’s ears. She feigns a gag.
“Just some dumb drawings of the trees and stuff, as usual,” Will lies through his teeth. Max seems to be the only one with bullshit goggles because Jane perks up with his mention of landscapes.
“I’m sure they’re beautiful, Will. You should show us tonight when we’re out of here. It’ll be late, around 10 as usual.” Jane leans against Mike’s shoulder, their staggering heights shocking to the eye.
Max can’t look away from them until Mike’s hand is on Jane’s hip and she has to.
“It’s so nice to see you as well, Maxine! Feels like it’s been a million years.” Jane’s voice jumps, full of surprise, but it’s still genuine. Her eyes find Max’s when she lifts her head and she smiles. “Are you coming to the game tonight?”
Her teeth are full of lavender sprigs—
“I’m not really a football person,” Max shakes her head, not breaking eye contact. That is until Jane smiles again and for some reason, she feels she has to. Again. Max tries to tell herself it isn’t because Jane is pretty . Home by eight with soft pink cheeks pretty. Never.
Will stares on at their interaction with a confused expression. Glancing back and forth awkwardly from Max to Jane to Mike, and back again. Mike opens his mouth to intervene before Jane cuts him off.
“Then come to Deena’s after and bring Lucas, we have enough room.” Jane’s eyes widen like she’d just had a revelation, and Max remembers her mission at the sight. Her mind clicks into gear in the same heartbeat, already visualizing a skateboard friendly path to the diner. “Will is definitely going, right Will?”
Will’s tennis-match-like concentration breaks and he stumbles over his words, coughing up an affirmative noise. Mike does the same with his eyebrows drawn together.
“It’s not a big game or anything so like,” Mike scratches at his neck, in a trying-to-figure-out-how-to-be-passive-aggressive-without-actually-expressing-it kind of way. In a Mike way. It doesn’t work. “You don’t have to come if you can’t. I’ll let Lucas know—
“I’ll come,” Max agrees quickly. She’s confident now that if this was her way into Jane’s circle, with the invitation from the girl herself, this couldn’t possibly get any easier. “On one condition,”
They all raise eyebrows, Jane’s looking exceedingly sculpted, the dark blue barrette holding bob-length wisps of hair from her face almost mimics the shape.
“I get to sit next to Jane.”
Max swears the shine of Jane’s lip gloss could blind a pilot when her mouth drops open just a bit, and a soft giggle falls out.
Will smiles. Mike doesn’t. His sneakers scratch the dirt in an impulse to walk and Max can tell, so she lets them turn to leave, limbs and torsos tangled haphazardly, borderline protectively together.
“10 sharp, Maxine!” Jane calls back with a wave, pom-pom strapped to her wrist shaking as she does so. Max swallows a wad of spit.
“What the hell was that,” Will finally asks when they’re gone, stunned by the scene that had just unfolded in front of them both.
“My gay mission,” Max exhales, pulling the cigarette she’d forgotten she had stored behind her ear from its hidden home, and sticking it between her lips.