Chapter Text
"I hate this game."
Will tightened his grip on his wrist as he pulled his legs closer towards himself, hugging them to his body and resting his chin on his knees. He tried to take in a deep breath but it stuck in his throat and he hugged his legs even tighter in an attempt to push the air out, resulting in a quiet strangled cough.
Breathe, Will. It’s not real. You’re okay. Don’t be baby. Calm down.
This inner mantra never worked, but he tried it every time without fail. He pressed his back harder into the tree behind him, almost painfully, in an attempt to focus on something other than the fear. This forest, its trees and hills, he knew too well. And hiding in this forest was something he was all too skilled at, the act of which was the current reason he was fighting off a panic attack.
Will had hidden in these woods a lot. The most recent time, it was cold and dark, and the air hurt to breathe. He felt permanently damp and chilled to the bone, unable to warm up if he tried. Today, he also felt permanently damp, but from heat instead of cold.
Oh.
It was too hot to be the Upside Down, and now that he looked around, too bright too. Okay, this is good. Will managed to take in a breath and release it, his shoulders relaxing slightly at the motion. He tried to focus on other things that drew him to the present; the heat of the sun, a bird that flew by, the hard bark of the tree against his back. Will took in another deep breath and focused on releasing the air out his mouth, dropping his forehead to his knees as he breathed in and out, in and out.
The snap of a nearby branch made Will almost jump out of his skin.
“Sorry,” said a voice straining with effort to speak softly. “It’s just me, Will.”
Will peered up to see a curtain of red hair leaning over him. “Oh, hey Max,” he said, trying to steady his shaking voice and hands.
“Are you okay?” Max asked, still leaning over him, her normally piercing blue eyes soft with concern.
Will dusted his hands off on his shorts and rose to stand at her level. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just, you know,” he swallowed roughly, eyes roaming around them, unfocused, “these woods.”
Max’s eyebrows knit together with concern. “Bad memories?” she asked, before immediately wincing. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I just mean…” She gestured around them awkwardly. “I meant, um…”
Will placed his hand on her arm, stopping her. “It’s okay, Max. Yeah, bad memories.” He tried to smile at her encouragingly. “I’m glad you found me.”
She returned his smile, grateful. “Come on. If we don’t hide quick, Dustin will be finding us next.”
They started walking, silently, Max in the lead. She walked quickly and confidently, Will right behind, finally able to keep in stride with most of his friends now that he had a recent growth spurt. In fact, Will was now tall enough to see the top of her head if he lifted his chin high enough. Max was marching forward with purpose – if she was shaken at all by finding Will in the state he was, she didn’t show it, much to his relief.
If Will had learned anything about Max in the past few months it was that beyond her cool skater girl exterior, she was surprisingly kind and compassionate, but never coddling. It was a welcome break from his mom, brother, and the rest of the Party who meant well and tried their best, but at times made him feel babied nonetheless. He wasn’t sure why her compassion seemed to hit the right mark; perhaps she saw in him the same wounded strength that he recognized in her. Maybe that’s why El found it so easy to be friends with her, too.
Max’s confident strides turned hesitant for a moment and then slowed to a stop. Will nearly walked into her right arm, which she threw out from her side in silent warning. Her head jerked back towards him and she smashed the fingers from her other hand over her mouth in a silent, “shhhh.”
Will froze in place, his eyes scanning the trees around them to see if the jig was up. Max was doing the same, her arm still out and pressed against Will’s chest. Suddenly, Will sucked in his breath as he caught a glimpse of someone behind the tree directly in front of them. Will nudged Max’s arm, gesturing at the tree, and she sucked in a gasp, too, remaining still as stone as a slender hand braced itself around the tree. They heard low murmuring and then a soft giggle that they both recognized immediately.
Will’s shoulders relaxed. “Mike and El,” he whispered.
Max dropped her arms back to her sides and rolled her eyes. "Better go the other way. Don't want to see anything we can't unsee." With that, she turned on her heel in the opposite direction, moving away from the giggling at the same quick pace as before. Only once they were a few yards away did she slow down enough that Will could walk beside her.
"Are they always going to be like that?" Max asked, tossing a glance over her shoulder, her hair whipping over her shoulder at the motion.
Her tone surprised him. Normally Max was the one telling the guys to lay off of El and Mike for their couple-y antics, but at this moment she sounded nearly as testy as Dustin was earlier when Lucas ate the last strawberry poptart.
"Like a gooey pile of googly eyes who are all over each other? Yeah. Yeah, I think so." Will smiled slightly. "I think it's kind of cute."
"Seriously?” Max’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. “Yuck."
Will paused, thoughtful. "It is a little much sometimes, yeah. But I'm just really glad they're happy. After last year..." Will swallowed, trailing off. "Mike was really sad before, like I've never seen him. And he just, he deserves to be happy. This happy."
Max didn’t reply, her eyes glued to the grass below them. Will glanced over at her and could tell something was upsetting her. Her shoulders had slumped slightly and she was close to tripping on her feet, the way she was dragging them. He was just opening his mouth to ask what was wrong when he heard someone call his name, freezing him to the spot. Just as a quickly there was a crash, and more yelling.
“Dustin!” Max hissed, starting to run.
Will was hot on her heels as they darted through the trees, weaving deeper and deeper into the forest. His feet seemed to direct him on autopilot, and at last he saw their destination in the distance. “This way,” he called, grabbing her by the wrist and diving headfirst into the felt blanket doors of Castle Byers. They crashed in a heap on the ground, panting from their sprint. They listened for Dustin’s voice but the only sound other than their own breathing was the call of a crow flying overhead.
“I think…I think we’re safe,” Max said, sighing a breath of relief. She looked around, taking in her surroundings. “I don’t think we’ll be safe here for long. Too obvious.”
“I think we’ll be okay here for a while.” Will scooted over to the pile of blankets that formed a makeshift bed in the corner of the fort. Wiping at sweat on his brow, he sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. “By the sounds of it, Dustin ate it back there. I hope he’s okay.”
Max smirked and plopped herself down beside Will on the blankets. “Yeah, knowing Dustin he’s probably milking that for all its worth. I love the guy, but he’s pretty dramatic.”
Will smiled despite himself. “Yeah, Dustin can lay it on thick. But he’s also the life of the party. Sometimes I wish I could be more like that.” He picked at a scab on his knee absentmindedly. “Dustin seems to always have a good time even if something’s bothering him. He can make things feel normal, even when they’re weird, you know?”
Max bent forward to retie her loose shoelace. “Yeah. He’s good at that. Must be nice.”
Will tried to read Max’s expression, but her hair was hiding her face. He felt jealous for a moment of her long, red hair – it made her stand out but also was like a wall of protection she hung around her when she wanted to, like she was doing now.
“Max?” Will said, nudging her shoulder with his own. “Is everything okay?”
Max shook her hair even further over her face. “I’m fine. Just…overheated.”
“Okay,” Will said, smoothing his hands on his shorts, before pushing the hair off his face. “Its okay if you’re not, too.”
There was a beat of silence where Will thought he said the wrong thing, but then Max exhaled a massive sigh. The puff of air blew her hair off her face, and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m that obvious, huh?”
“Well…you’re not Dustin,” Will shrugged in reply, not wanting to push her further. She hadn’t pushed him to spill when she found him earlier, so it didn’t feel fair for him not to show her the same courtesy. If she wanted to talk, she could, but he wouldn’t force her to – even though he was eager to listen and help.
She fiddled with the yellow scrunchie on her wrist. “Its just that, I don’t know, its stupid, but like, seeing Mike and El today just made me mad. And then you said what you said, and I felt bad.”
Will felt his stomach drop. “I didn’t mean to-”
“No, its okay, Will. I should feel bad. I do.” She looked him in the eye then, and he could see hers were wet with tears. “Its not like Mike and El have had it easy then, or even now. Its just that…I understand now how they must feel. I’m just…I’m so tired of hiding.”
“What do you mean?” Will’s brows furrowed, confused.
“Like, Mike and El had to hide for a long time, I know. But now? Now they can hold hands, and be a couple, and kiss, and he’s at her house all the time. But its not that easy for everyone. Its not that easy for me and Lucas, because…” Max’s face was flushed with anger and embarrassment. “Because Billy, and now Neil.”
“Neil. Like, your dad?”
“My stepdad.” Max ran a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face. “He’s an asshole. He thinks he knows everything and can control everyone. But he can’t.” She set her jaw determinedly, eyes blazing intensely. “I won’t let him control me. Ever.”
It was as though Max’s fierce stare scared the sunlight away. The fort was much darker than before, the air tense and heavy with humidity. Will squirmed a bit, unsure of whether he should ask Max what she meant or if she would say more. She didn’t speak, though; but the darker atmosphere made Castle Byers feel like a more intimate space for this kind of conversation and gave Will a boost of courage he needed to speak.
“Does Neil not like Lucas?” he asked quietly.
Max rolled her eyes and huffed another sigh. “Neil doesn’t like anybody. I don’t know what my mom was thinking when she married him.” She bit her lip, considering her next words. “He doesn’t like anyone, but…he really doesn’t like Lucas. Or his family. Or any of his ‘kind of people,’” she said, making air quotes with her fingers, cheeks reddening in anger.
“Oh.” Will’s eyes widened in understanding. The Sinclair’s were a welcomed, well-respected family in Hawkins, but there were a few idiots who had no qualms about using racist terms to talk about them or other people of colour in town. The people who spoke like that weren’t held in high regard in most social circles, but still, it happened. Lucas didn’t really talk about it (just like Will didn’t talk about the specific names he got called), but he knew it bothered him.
“Yeah.” Max fiddled with a stray thread on one of the blankets. “I tried to make sure he didn’t know about me and Lucas, because I knew I’d get in deep shit if he found out. But he did. And he was so angry. And he said such horrible things…I had told Lucas not to come to the house…” she trailed off, voice wavering.
Will scratched at a mosquito bite on his neck, feeling awkward, not knowing what to say. Lucas had told him before that he’d only been to Max’s house a few times, and had never even gone inside. Will and the rest of the party had never been to her place at all. He was so used to everyone being at his place, like they had been earlier today, that he hadn’t considered how lonely it would to never have his friends in that part of his life.
Will knew what it was like to not feel safe in your own house, but when it was filled with his friends, with the people he loved, he felt safer. He felt happier, and lighter. His heart felt heavy in his chest when he thought how Max hadn’t experienced that since moving to Hawkins.
“What happened?” he asked.
Max stared at her hands, never once looking up. “Neil saw Lucas and I hugging before he left for camp. Hugging! He lost his mind. I told Lucas to get out of there, fast. When I got inside, he yelled at me. Grounded me, smashed my supercom,” she hugged her knees even tighter. “Then he told me, ‘I should do something about this, but I won’t. I don’t have to.’” She trembled a bit, her nails digging into her wrist. “He said that bad things happen to guys like Lucas when they go out with girls like me. He said that soon enough, someone would see us together and ‘put Lucas in his place.’”
Will’s heart was pounding in his chest, horrified at what she was saying. He thought Max’s family didn’t like Lucas, but he hadn’t considered that Lucas could be in danger because of them.
“He said more. I just can’t even say it.” Tears ran down her cheeks now, but she ignored them. “Since then its all I can think about when Lucas and I are out together. What if someone bad sees us? What if someone hurts him, just because he’s with me?”
Will scrambled to wrap his arm around her, pulling her towards his side, and she collapsed into him, resting her head on his shoulder. She was still crying – he could feel the tears on his t-shirt. His mind was racing. He wished he knew what to say, how to help, how to reassure her that it would be okay. But the thing was, he didn’t know that it would be okay.
“Does Lucas know about this?” It broke his heart to see Max so upset. He knew Lucas would be devastated.
Max shook her head, her sniffles quieting. “He knows Neil caught us and he knows I’m being weird. He can tell something’s wrong, I just…”she shrugged against Will’s shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
Will kept his arm around her, trying to ignore how sweaty it was to be so close together. His eyes roamed around the room, stopping on the picture of the party last Halloween. He stared at Lucas in the photo – smiling, happy, safe, like he should be. Like they all deserved to be. He blinked tears from his own eyes and bit his lip, trying to get his own emotions under control.
“I’m sorry your stepdad’s an asshole. I…I know a little bit what its like to have a shitty dad.”
Max’s sat up, looking at Will with concern and gave his knee a gentle squeeze. “It sucks,” she said simply, smearing a hand over her tear-stained cheeks.
“Yeah, it sucks. I didn’t have this place then,” he said, gesturing around the fort, “but if I did, I would’ve hidden out here all the time. Just to get away from the yelling.”
“I need one of these,” Max said, stretching her legs out and leaning back on her hands. “Castle Mayfield doesn’t have the same ring to it, though.”
Will smiled. “I don’t know. I like it.” He uncurled his own legs up to sit the same way she was. “But if you like Castle Byers better, you’re always welcome here. Totally. All friends welcome.”
“Thanks, Will,” Max smiled for the first time in a long time, and Will felt like a weight slipped from his shoulders at the sight.
A clap of thunder made them both jump. Will peeked at the sky through a crack in the wooden wall in time to see a flash of light against the grey clouds. “The sky’s dark,” he said, “I think it’s gonna rain.”
Max blinked a stray raindrop out of her eyelashes. “I think its raining already, genius,” she teased. The odd drop got to them, but the patchy roof of Castle Byers offered at least a bit of protection. It felt nice, and Max took the opportunity to lift her face to the rain, letting it cool her flushed cheeks and wash away her salty tears.
“Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for telling me what you told me. I’m…I’m really sorry your stepdad is making things so hard.”
“Yeah, well, just be glad you don’t have one. You’re better off,” the steely gleam had returned to Max’s eyes, her mouth set in a thin line.
Will licked a stray raindrop from the corner of his lip. “I’ve never even thought of having a stepdad before, you know? My mom, Jonathan and I – we’re a good team, the three of us.” Like a flash of lighting, Bob’s face came to his mind, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. “I guess not all stepdads are bad. They can’t all be.”
Max closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rain again. “I guess.”
Will hadn’t really let his mind entertain the idea of his mom getting remarried, especially not since last fall. He hoped if his mom ever did get married, it would be to someone kind. Someone who accepted her quirks instead of fighting against them. It wasn’t likely to ever happen – who would be willing to step into his family, as burdened as they were? Who would possibly be able to handle all the issues and possible dangers that seemed to be tethered to them, no matter how hard they tried to escape them? An idea came to his mind that made him smile.
“I hope if my mom ever gets married, she marries someone better than my dad. Someone like…someone like Hopper.”
Max’s eyes flew open, her jaw dropping nearly to her knees. “What? Your mom and Hopper?”
Will laughed. “What? What’s wrong with Hopper?”
"You don't think Hopper is kind of…scary?" Max exclaimed, thinking of the commanding way the Chief carried himself, or the gruff tone he used to accuse her and El of getting into “shenanigans” whenever they were together (El said he was only teasing, but Max wasn’t always sure).
"Scary? No way! He's kind. He’s…he’s like a big teddy bear," Will said.
"Yeah, maybe with you.” Max huffed, punching Will lightly in the shoulder. “That's because he looks at you like you're made of rainbows and good intentions."
That made Will smile. "Maybe I am."
Max shook her head, her eyes shining with amusement. They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment before Will spoke again.
"You and Lucas deserve to be happy too, you know. You could be like them - like Mike and El."
Max looked at Will sadly, but her voice was hopeful. "Really? You think so?"
Will nodded in earnest. "Yeah, I do."
"I don’t know. You don't think people will judge us? That Lucas could...that he could get hurt?"
Will thought of his friend Lucas – stubborn, protective, incredibly brave; loyal to a fault. "I think Lucas can handle it. He's handled more than you know.” He bumped her sneaker with his own. “You can talk to him about this kind of stuff. His girlfriend told me he's really easy to talk to."
Max blushed, a small smile on her lips. “Thanks, Will.”
"And like I said, you’re always welcome to come here to talk or hang out whenever you want. By yourself, or with me, or with Lucas." Will had always been thankful for the safety of Castle Byers, and he wanted to pay it forward, especially to his friends. “It can be a safe space where you don’t have to hide.”
Max didn’t reply but threw herself at Will, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Just as quickly, she leaped to her feet, reaching out her hand to help him up, too. “Come on. Dustin has probably given up now that its storming. We should get back to the clearing before they get worried about us.”
Will took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. As they stepped out of the fort and into the woods, he felt better than he had when the game started. The rain was cold, but he wasn’t afraid anymore.
“Hopper and your mom,” Max muttered under her breath, shaking her head. “There’s no way I’m not telling El about this.”