Chapter Text
"Guys, I think there's something wrong with Max," Lucas hisses across the aisle to Dustin and Mike. First period life science is a ton of fun most days, but Mr. Crabtree is out of town, and their substitute is at the front, paging through a catalog while a film plays.
"Really? How can you tell?" Dustin asks, glancing back at Max's desk. She's facing front, eyes on the tv, but her head’s slumped to one side, resting on her cupped hand. Between that and her expression, Lucas can tell she's not really there.
"Maybe she should go to the nurses office,” Mike says.
"She could do that, but who's gonna pick her up and take her home?” Lucas replies with another covert glance back at Max.
“What about her mom?”
“She works two jobs now, remember. Max isn’t gonna make her take off work,” Lucas counters Dustin. They all fall quiet, wondering what to do.
Dustin pretends to watch the film, thinking hard, until the bell rings and the class pours out into the hall. Good, they can talk more freely out there. Dustin has to walk more quickly to catch up with Lucas and Mike, who are still talking about the Max situation as they head toward their lockers. Max has disappeared in the crowd.
“Well maybe we could call ahead, ask someone else to come take care of her?” Lucas suggests, doing the combination on his locker and shoving his life science book inside.
“Wheeler, your mom?” Dustin suggests, perking up at the idea. Mike’s mom is super nice and he’s fairly sure she’d be okay with taking care of Max.
“Nah, she's out of town,” Mike sighs, slamming his own locker closed.
“My mom’s working,” Lucas says, huffing in frustration.
“And so is mine,” Dustin says.
“So who does that leave?” Mike asks, looking between Lucas and Dustin, his eyebrows raised.
Lucas cuts part of Algebra to make the call, and twenty minutes later he’s taking Max down to the main office after lying and telling her he’s got to look in the lost and found for his basketball shorts before lunch.
“What d’you need me here for, Lucas,” Max grumbles at his side, but she follows him anyway, giving him a sideways look when he rushes to hold the door open for her.
Lucas says hi to the secretaries before letting the ball drop.
“Is nurse Macklin around? I brought Max in, she’s not feeling so good.” Lucas explains, watching as Max’s expression abruptly turns stormy.
“Asshole,” she growls, so low only Lucas can hear, as the secretaries make concerned noises, one bustling off to knock on the school nurses’ door, which is a few steps to the left.
“We have this all planned out,” Lucas whispers close to her ear, quickly before he’s out of time. “Steve's on his way right now to take care of you, and I’ll see if I can come over after school. Things are gonna be alright, just trust me,” he pleads, hoping Max still doesn’t want to kill him for this. Ever since that summer and everything with Billy, things with Max have been different. Harder. And he knows how much she hates to let on she needs help, hates to feel like a burden on anyone, but she’s not a burden.
“Max, come in sweetie,” nurse Macklin is coming toward them now, “I hear you’re not feeling well?”
“Not really,” Max says quietly, following the school nurse, and shooting Lucas a look he doesn’t fully understand before turning back around. Like she’s been caught out at something.
“Mr. Harrington what a surprise,” the school nurse greets warmly, leaving Max’s side to usher Steve inside the tiny room adjacent to the main office.
“Hi nurse Macklin, good to see you again. My mom says hello,” Steve says, his Adidas’s making squeaking noises against the linoleum.
“Tell her hello for me, honey,” nurse Macklin says, taking Steve’s hand and giving it a motherly pat.
“As you can see,” she continues, turning to Max, “Max here isn’t feeling so well, but I don’t think it's anything serious. An early start to the weekend and a few days on the couch and she should be just fine, I think,” nurse Macklin reassures, giving Max a kind look as she adjusts the overly large glasses on her face. Steve nods at her, already coming over and bending down to grab Max’s backpack and jacket from where they’re resting at the foot of her chair.
“Ready to go, zoomer?” he asks.
She wakes, face pressed into the cool, soft cotton of a pillowcase and the much rougher gray tweed of Steve’s couch cushions. Snuffling, she feels her head pounding against the inside of her skull annoyingly.
“Hey Max, you awake yet?” Steve says. She flops onto her other side to see him setting a glass of water on the glass coffee table directly in front of her. A second later, a bottle of something bright purple and suspiciously medicine-like joins the glass.
“Mmm,” Max grumbles. The late afternoon sunlight coming in through the glass patio door seems to be shining directly into her eyes.
“Feeling not so good, huh?” Steve asks, taking a seat on the coffee table itself. He reaches one big hand out, resting it on her knee as she sits up straighter against the couch cushions, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
While she’s been napping Steve’s found her a more comfortable pillow than the scratchy throw pillow she remembers burying her face in when she first got here, and he’s covered her in a sheet rather than a too-warm blanket. The sheet is pale blue and smells like him, but not in a gross “boy” way, Max thinks, just…familiar, like her favorite fuzzy blanket on her bed at home.
“Dustin and Lucas have already called the walkie about a thousand times asking how you are,” Steve is saying, fussing with the edge of the sheet that’s gotten tangled around her feet and making sure every inch of her is covered. “Like I can’t be trusted to look after one sick kid–who’s the adult here, seriously? I told him and the others I had everything covered and that you’d call later if you felt like it.”
“Thanks Steve,” Max says, the corners of her mouth turning up in a brief grin.
“No problem-o,” Steve replies shaking his head, “someone’s gotta tell those little shits when to back off occasionally, honestly.”
Max agrees, but this time she can't argue with the results. Sleeping on the couch in Steve's families' living room is way more comfortable than the hard wooden desks at school.
“Now don’t hate me for this, but I think you should take some medicine for your fever and your headache," he says, looking more seriously at her.
“Steve,” Max whines in response.
“Nu uh, don’t Steve me. You’ll feel better, trust me.” Steve pops the cap off the bottle of Dimetapp and squints at the label before pouring a medium sized amount into the cap. Max grimaces, reluctantly taking the cap from him.
“Ugh, do I really?” she questions.
"Just take it. The quicker you take it the sooner you can have some of the soup I made.”
“Wait, you made soup?” Max raises both eyebrows skeptically. Steve meets her challenging gaze, arms crossed in front of him for one long moment before he cracks.
“Okay, no, I did not make soup. Lucas wouldn’t shut up until I let him bike down to the diner and bring you back a quart of chicken noodle.”
Max chuckles, failing to stop the blush that rises in response to Lucas doing something so…Lucas-like, yet again.
“Quit stalling and take your medicine,” Steve interrupts, shaking her knee slightly. Max would roll her eyes at him, except for the headache. Dramatically, she steels herself before knocking back the capful of medicine, which tastes like the worst grape flavored candy she’s ever had.
“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” she groans, sticking out her tongue like she could get rid of the lingering taste that way.
“Relax, it's over with for now,” Steve replies, handing her the water to hopefully wash away the awful grape flavor. Max takes long drinks, and it helps some. Steve takes the empty glass from her when she’s finished drinking, and she settles back into the couch, tired again.
Outside the patio door, the sun is beginning to set. Like he’s been able to read her mind, when Steve returns to the living room with a steaming mug of soup for her the first thing he says is, “I tried calling your mom, but there was no answer at your place. She still working at the EZ Mart just outside of town?”
Already relieved that Steve thought of calling her mom to tell her where she was, Max answers.
“No, she quit working there a few weeks ago. She’s working at the Starlight Motel now, at night.”
“Should I give her a call or you want to? You can chill here as long as you want, my parents won’t be back until next week, so it’ll just be me and you.”
Max sighs in relief, no part of her wants to head back to the trailer all by herself tonight. “Can I stay tonight anyway? I’ll call my mom soon and let her know.” If she’s even realized I didn’t come home after school yet, she adds privately. Steve smiles, nods.
“Of course, I’ll even let you pick the movie we watch tonight, you know, since you're sick and all.”
Max slowly eats the soup courtesy of Lucas, and some of those little oyster crackers that are secretly her favorite thing to eat when she’s home sick, and which Steve coincidentally has a new package of, and a cup of orange juice after that. Steve joins her after clearing away the dishes and handing her the phone to call her mom. She explains what happened, but says Lucas’ mom is taking care of her, not Steve, and her mom sounds reassured.
Steve comes back into the living room a few minutes after Max hangs up, one arm full of a thick soft-looking comforter, the other holding the walkie-talkie Dustin gave him what feels like ages ago.
“Yes, she ate the soup Lucas, over,” he barks into it even as he’s setting down the comforter at Max’s feet and spreading it over her. For an instant, Max has the strangest feeling she’s being taken care of by one of those stereotypical moms on tv.
“He wants to know how you’re feeling,” Steve says. She must have missed Lucas’ static-filled reply.
“Better,” Max admits, and she does. Her belly is full of warm soup and crackers and Steve’s about to put on E.T. and she’s going to spend the night.
“She’s feeling better, over and out,” Steve says into the walkie before setting it down on the coffee table. He turns to the tv to put the tape into the VCR and stretches out across from her in the brown lay-z-boy with a contented sigh. Max lays under Steve’s warm comforter, and looks over at him as the opening credits begin to play.
“Steve?” she ventures. He looks over at her, moving to sit up.
“Need anything else Max?”
“No, just…I’m glad you were the one to come get me from school today,” she explains, hoping he understands her full meaning. Steve shrugs and nods his head like no big deal.
“Course, Max. I’ll always be here for you, you know that.”