Work Text:
Not long ago, Max strolled down the hallways of Hawkins High with empty eyes. She could find no meaning in her surroundings, in the mundane dramas that consumed her peers. Apathy was her armour, and it suited her well.
So she insisted to herself, with Kate Bush crooning in her headphones, keeping her in a space just outside reality. A different realm, she began to think, when Lucas called her a ghost. It stung to imagine herself as a gauzy presence, barely there. It was enough to make her snap, when Lucas urged her to find something to care about.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Max had demanded of him, though she knew exactly what he meant.
She had withdrawn from the world in an attempt to protect herself from its barbs. She did not appreciate his attempts at coaxing her back outside her safe and miserable shell.
Max is worried by how well Lucas can read her. She is made skinless under his gaze. He’s always so close to her, and she wants to pull him closer and push him away in the same instant.
Until Lucas, she lived mostly unseen. It’s disorienting to have somebody care about her as much as he does. Scary. But Max wants to be brave.
When it’s all over, when Vecna is swallowed by the red that tried and failed to claim her, Max goes back to Lucas. She ushers him back into her heart and risks the chance of being known, of getting hurt.
As she feels today.
Max is in dutiful attendance at what seems like Lucas’s thousandth basketball game. Anybody who isn’t aware of Max’s attachment to Lucas might assume she is an avid basketball fan, for her persistent presence in the front row of every game. It’s not basketball that Max cares about, even remotely. But the games are slightly more entertaining than she expected; she loves to watch Lucas in his element, outplaying everyone with a smug look on his face. She takes a lot of pleasure in cheering him on and heckling the rival team.
The rest of the Party attends as well, but Max is always the first to arrive. She wants to reserve good seats, and she wants to minimise time spent in the trailer she shares with her mother. Part of her is hopeful she might sneak in a private moment with her boyfriend – she likes to kiss him good luck before the big game – but it rarely happens.
Today, Lucas has found a spare moment before the game starts. He isn’t devoting it to Max, though he knows she’s there. When Max first entered the gym, he had waved at her and offered her a radiant smile. It was not unlike the jovial look he now offers the cheerleader waving her pom poms in his face.
Lucas stands on the corner of the court, chatting with a pretty girl in a cheerleading uniform. She is full of energy, bouncing on her heels so that her ponytail sways around her. The way she giggles is flirty, but not exactly insincere. She emanates warmth.
She seems like a nice girl. A cruel personification of everything Max is not. Cheerful, not cynical. Pretty, not tomboyish. By teenage standards, she’s hot in the same way that Lucas is hot. They look good together, with their friendly smiles, their matching uniforms, the electric streaks of green and orange.
The feelings that surge inside Max are dark and gritty. It wouldn’t be enough to call it anger, nor insecurity. It’s more monstrous than that. Every awful thought Max has ever had about herself twists with ugly cheer, vindicated to be proven right.
Max knows that these thoughts are ludicrous. She laughs out loud, trying to shake off her worry. She wrenches her gaze away from Lucas and the cheerleader and runs a hand over her hair. She likes to think that she’s more predictable than this – seeing her boyfriend interacting with another girl and immediately feeling insecure. Apparently not.
Jealousy isn’t a feeling that Max has experienced often - at least, not with a romantic connotation. She knows what it is to envy people with happy homes and money, but not not what it is to resent someone for being prettier than her, a better match for Lucas. The jealousy is distorting her ability to reason.
Max decides she needs a break from the gym and the attention it brings to the disparity between the moody skater girl and the star of the show.
She slips outside, trying to go unnoticed. She barely touches the handle of the girls’ bathroom door before she hears Lucas calling her name.
The way that he scampers down the hallway is completely removed from his grace on the basketball court. Max frowns at him as he bounds over to her, bemused by his floundering arms, his squeaking sneakers.
“Hey, Max! Wait up!” Lucas shouts. “Where are you going?”
“Uh, the bathroom?” Max says, arching an eyebrow. “Is that okay with you?”
He skids to a stop on the other side of the door, a bashful look overcoming his face. “Um, yeah… Of course…”
Max makes her smile wide and sarcastic. She tries to duck behind the door, but Lucas reaches for her before she can hide. The brush of his hand on hers is unreasonably nice, especially when she feels angry at him.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asks. “It’s just – you stormed out, and now you seem mad.”
“We’ve got ourselves a regular Sherlock Holmes over here,” Max grumbles.
“Max,” he sighs, ever patient. It’s more than she deserves, and it only sharpens her annoyance.
“I’m always mad,” Max points out.
“That’s not true!”
“It is,” she insists.
“Not like this, you’re not.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re sad,” Lucas says, sounding helpless. “Like it’s real.”
Max has no idea how to answer that. It intimidates her, how earnest and free Lucas is about his feelings. How much of himself he has given her, how much he has asked of her in return.
“This is stupid,” Max huffs, after a moment. “I need to use the bathroom, that’s all. I’ll be back in two seconds. You still need to warm up, right?”
“This is more important,” Lucas declares. “You’re more important.”
“Lucas, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous, I’m being honest! Come on. I told you, you can talk to me. I’m here and I’m listening.”
“Well, I’m not talking,” Max retorts.
“Max,” Lucas says her name gently. She sighs and meets his eyes, feeling her anger deflate, her defences wearing down.
“It really is stupid,” she sighs.
“I doubt that.”
“No, seriously. It’s beyond stupid. It’s not worth talking about.”
“If it’s upsetting you, we have to talk about it,” Lucas says. “That’s what couples do, they talk about their problems.”
“Stop it,” Max says fiercely. “We’re not some dumb couple, okay?”
Lucas frowns, looking so troubled that Max feels her chest tighten with regret.
“What are you talking about?” Lucas asks, sounding worried.
“We’re not like other couples,” Max tries to explain. “We don’t get jealous. We don’t get into fights over petty bullshit. We’re not playing at perfect. This is real. Right?”
“Right,” Lucas agrees at once. There’s something thoughtful in his expression, something that shifts quickly - too quickly - into understanding.
“Max… were you jealous? Of Vanessa?”
Max glares and folds her arms over her chest. “No.”
“Oh my god,” Lucas says, breaking out in a grin. “You were!”
Overcome by anger, Max smacks his bicep. He only laughs, unperturbed. Growing up has done him well; she can’t push him around the way she once could.
“Shut up, Lucas! This isn’t funny.”
“It’s kinda funny,” Lucas says. “I mean, I’m dating the coolest, prettiest girl in Hawkins, and she’s jealous because I talked to some random girl for two whole minutes?!”
For some reason, this praise makes Max wilt. She stares at him, dumbfounded, before she elbows away from him, walking back down the hall. She doesn’t get far before Lucas is in front of her again, looking at her with clear confusion.
“I’m sorry I talked to her,” Lucas says. “I didn’t want to make it a big deal, you know? It’s not like I could just ignore her.”
“I don’t care if you talk to other girls,” Max says. “Really, I don’t. It’s just – I don’t know. You’re popular now, you’re one of the cool kids. And I’m not.”
“Max,” Lucas says, softly. “Didn’t you just say that we aren’t one of those couples that care about superficial shit? It doesn’t matter to me if you’re not popular.”
“I know!” Max exclaims. “That’s why it’s stupid.”
“I don’t even think it’s true,” Lucas goes on. “Just because I’m on the team now, it doesn’t mean I’m a different person. You still call me a dork all the time.”
“Because you are a dork,” Max says.
“Exactly! I’m a dork. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but he doesn’t falter under her scrutiny. His face remains open, his hands outstretched between them. He wants her to take them, she knows. She realises that she wants to take them, too.
So she does. She links their fingers, and his thumb smooths along her knuckles.
“Yeah, you’re a dork, but you’re as perfect as a teenage boy could be,” Max mumbles. “I see how the girls in school stare at you. Sometimes, I think you should be with one of them – someone pretty and nice, who cares about things like basketball, who isn’t constantly mean to you. Someone like Vanessa.”
The confession comes out in a rush. Max is terribly embarrassed to make herself so vulnerable. Lucas doesn’t help matters when he scoffs at her.
“That’s crazy!” Lucas says, his voice loud and his tone soft. “You’re the only girl I want to be with.”
“But I’m not - ” Max puts on an exaggerated smile and mimes swishing pom poms, mimicking the bubbly enthusiasm of the cheerleaders.
Lucas laughs. “No, you’re not. But I don’t want you to be.”
The fear in Max is slowly fading. “Really?”
“Really,” he says. “Anybody can be nice, or follow Stacey’s crowd. But you’re just you, and that’s so much better. I like that you’re so smart and funny and cynical. I wouldn’t change anything about you.”
Max feels weak. She’s at a loss for how to respond, uncertain of what a person should do when given such blatant love. She stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him soundly.
Lucas makes a muffled noise against her lips, but he recovers quickly. One of his hands delves into her crimson hair, while the other is firm around her waist, grounding her.
This is real, she tells herself, cupping his cheek. This is mine.
Less than a minute passes before interruption comes – predictably, in the form of Mike Wheeler, who remains the bane of Max’s existence, even if he is one of her favourite friends. He comes around the corner, holding El’s hand.
“Okay, then!” Mike exclaims, startled.
Max raises her middle finger at Mike without separating from Lucas.
“Sh, Mike,” Dustin says. “Max is securing another win for the Tigers.”
Max falls back onto her heels to glare at Dustin. “What?!”
“You’re getting him amped up for the big game!” Dustin answers, grinning. “You’re taking one for the team, doing the whole of Hawkins a huge favour.”
“Don’t be gross, Dustin,” Max sighs.
They fall in step with the Party, walking back to their gym. Mike and Dustin keep teasing Max and Lucas, but Max finds it easy to tune them out when Lucas gives her a warm smile and squeezes her hand.
The coach appears in the doorway, a frenzied look about him as he beckons Lucas to rejoin the team. Lucas doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry; he strolls inside the gym without letting go of Max’s hand. He pecks her once more, in full view of everyone, before he sends her towards the bleachers.
It shouldn’t be a big deal. It wouldn’t be, if they were as affectionate as Mike and El, or if Max were less disastrous with feelings. But she makes her embarrassment clear with the red flush in her cheeks.
Concerned, El brushes her fingers over Max’s face.
“You’re hot,” she observes. “Are you sick?”
“Lovesick, maybe,” Mike snorts.
“I swear to god, Mike, if you don’t shut the hell up for once in your life…”
The anger Mike spurs in Max is helpful in restoring her composure. Her hot cheeks begin to cool and she gets into the swing of cheering on Lucas, helping Will to hoist his homemade Go Tigers! sign up high in the air.
By the time Max is throwing popcorn at the opposing team’s mascot, she feels mostly back to her normal self, less like a lovelorn idiot.
Then Lucas shoots his first basket, from the three pointer line, and the ball goes swishing through the net. The smoothest boyfriend ever, Lucas swivels around and blows Max a kiss. Everybody in the crowd follows the direction of his outstretched hand, so there’s no question of who his sweetheart is.
Max has never been more mortified in her life.
“I’m going to dump him again,” she tells her friends.
Even though Max is rolling her eyes so hard she can’t see properly, she raises her hand and pretends to catch the kiss.