Work Text:
Max shoves her keys into her pocket as she comes through the employee door, holding it open for Lucas behind her. In a minute she’ll put them in a little dish in her studio meant for such things, so they don’t stab her in the leg eight hundred times over her shift, but for now her jeans will have to do. She cut it a little close today, not used to having someone tag along to her morning routine and all the tiny delays they’d introduce. Max loves Lucas, but a radio channel does not need to be chosen before starting the car. She’s got ten minutes to say a round of good mornings, prep her studio, and pour herself a cup of coffee.
Katelyn is working reception today. Max says a vague hello, and leaves it at that. There’s a thin range of people Max wants to be friends with, and Katelyn doesn’t make the cut. Not when she can open Studio 3 to Will rearranging his sketching paper. He’s the only one who came to Chicago with them, and them finding the same place to work wasn’t so much luck as sheer determination. The less new coworkers Will has to explain himself to, the better.
“Still want dotwork?” Will asks, looking half at and half through Lucas.
“A photorealistic logo is a bit on the nose, don’t you think? What if I get traded?”
“They’d be stupid to lose you, baby,” Max replies quickly. She’s never going to fully care about basketball as sport-based entertainment. Team sports just aren’t her thing. But she can certainly care about her husband’s career. Lucas was over the moon when the Schaumburg Seaturtles signed him, and if they ever trade him Max is going to burn someone’s house down.
“Hope they think so too. But yeah, something a little more generic will hurt a little less if it becomes a bad memory.”
Max scoffs. “Will’s not going to make you something generic. It’s going to be gorgeous.”
Not one iota of Max is worried about leaving Lucas in Will’s hands. For one thing, Lucas shouldn’t be in hers. It was a lesson Gareth harped on; don’t tattoo girlfriends or boyfriends, in case it goes wrong. For another, his portfolio is stunning. It has to be, to make up for his practically unemployable people skills.
Will is not known for his bedside manner. To be fair, neither is Max. Friendly will never be an adjective associated with either of them. But Max can at least fake small talk. Come up with enough petty bullshit to fill up some of the hours of silence. Max is no Juniper, who can keep up conversation for the entire length of her shift, day after day. She’s also not Will, who keeps his headphones on twenty four seven and mostly doesn’t acknowledge strangers. He’s the only person she knows with a specific line on his budget for batteries. Which isn’t to say she and Lucas don’t get it. The last battle against Henry and his Flayed was pretty fucking traumatizing. Some people cope by marrying people they’ll never be attracted to, because they can’t stand to be in separate rooms. Some by moving the fuck away, to a big city with an actual downtown. And some by always keeping a weapon in hand. At least a Walkman is street legal, unlike a flame thrower.
“I had some ideas about the mandala,” Will says. He’s not making eye contact, but his tone is warm. It’s a good day for him, then.
“‘Kay, I gotta go,” Max interrupts, jerking her head towards the door.
“The next time we see each other I’ll be beautiful,” Lucas jokes, gravitating towards her despite the future of his skin being laid out behind him. Max is instantly in his orbit. She loves him so fucking much. She kind of gets Steve and Robin, honestly. She can’t imagine spending a day without Lucas. There’s a reason she married him. Not Steve and Robin’s fault the law doesn’t offer an official best friend commitment ceremony.
“So that’s different from any other day how?” It’s flat toned, as Max’s voice is meant to sound. Mike Wheeler has resting bitch face, Grant is constantly shrieking vows, and Max has a tone. It’s fine, her friends know what she means. Sarcasm is the sincerest form of affection.
Lucas takes a few steps towards her, the moon to her Earth, the sun to her Earth. There’s no power imbalance, they’re both spinning in orbit around each other. How could there be? Max has seen too many examples of people trying to control each other, love or lust or interest turning sickening, to ever allow herself to fall in love with someone self centered. He slings his arms around her low, and she leans up to kiss him. Just another lesson Hawkins carved into them; any moment could be the last. Don’t let things go unsaid, love go unproven.
Only when it feels like enough -it’ll never feel like enough, it’s Lucas- does Max wrench herself away and head to her studio. It’s Saturday, so like half the studio, she’s scheduled for walk-ins today. It always takes a little more out of her. you never know when a potential client is about to have a really stupid idea you have to edit without upsetting them enough that they walk out. Still, better her than Will.
Max’s first impression of the man Katelyn directs in is immediately favourable. There are red flags you begin to pick up, working in the industry. How to tell a whiner from a perpetually unsatisfied customer from a guy who thinks an appointment is a date. This guy is early twenties, tall and thick, a mane of gingery brown curls haloing out from a baseball cap. Max has had problems with sports guys in the past -she’s going to have to be careful, as a WAG in the Seaturtles stadium- aggressive motherfuckers who like to scare people beneath them. She’s never been bullied into giving a tattoo, and she never will be. But that’s not going to be a problem for this guy, because his baseball cap has a cartoon triceratops and bold letters exclaiming RAWR. It actually goes quite well with the maroon t-shirt advertising Kingston’s 1991 Berry Festival. He looks like a goof, and Max knows he’s not going to be a masculine problem, and so adjusts her tone accordingly.
“Morning. I’m Max. You have a chance to look through the portfolios in the lobby?” The answer should be yes. If not, the client would be an idiot. But it wouldn’t be the first time Max has dealt with an idiot. Or someone claiming to be spontaneous enough to not care who brands them with permanent art, which, see category one.
“Of course I have. This is my third time in here, actually, researching.”
“Really,” Max replies. Hesitant first timers aren’t always terrible clients, but she’ll have to feel it out. Maybe send him home with a sketch and an appointment for next week that he can have the time to talk himself out of, or not.
“If it exists, it can be researched. The world would be a better place if people took the time to figure things out. The best memorial piece possible is certainly on that list. Oh, and sorry, duh. I’m Dustin, your tattooee for the day.”
There’s a lot in that response that intrigues Max. For one, she has to commend the values. Escaping from Hawkins to Chicago at least bumped them up a class of ignorance, but everywhere you look there are people who don’t give a shit. For another, if he’s done as he’s claimed, spent some time flipping through every page of every album in the lobby, Dustin knows Max does almost exclusively New School. Usually clients looking for memorial want Juniper, for her photorealism. It’s surprising, to be chosen. And then there’s the worry about managing expectations, as this tattoo virgin thinks he wants a piece big or complex enough to take her whole day.
“Hey, Dustin. Memorial… What did you have in mind?”
As it turns out, Dustin’s uncle gifted him Yurtle the turtle when he was a baby, a crib and a terrarium in the same room. He’s been everywhere with him for the last twenty one years, through moves and into college, but now he’s gone, taken by pneumonia too soon. The best way to honor him is obviously a brightly coloured tattoo of Yurtle and dice in a riveted polyhedral cage with a banner saying ‘build into the future’. Max can tell from the moment he hops onto the second stool at her drawing desk that he’s a storyteller. She’ll just have to strap in, and glue on her professional smile as she kisses a quiet day goodbye. Because he’s right, the piece is going to take a while.
He wraps up a genuinely funny story about Yurtle and a U-Haul truck and seems to remember conversation is a two way street. “So, where are you from? Always been in Chicago?”
“My husband and I are both from Indiana. A tiny, but very notorious town. We both got out when we could.” When El finally killed Henry, with Kali and Osmund’s help. Lucas felt bad, leaving Erica in high school, but it’s not like she was alone. Tina knew by the fifth occurrence, the post hibernation shit, and like many of the duos in the wider Party, Tina and Erica are totally ride-or-die. Plus Steve and Robin are still there, with their Main Street candy shop. If Erica needed help before Lucas and Max could get back, she could do a lot worse than Steve and Robin and Tina.
“Oh yeah? Notorious for what?” He asks obliviously, like it hasn’t occurred to him Max might not want to talk about the details. He’s either bad at reading a room, or purposefully stimulating.
Well, it’s on her too. She could have lied. Said any number of states. Hell, she could have made up an international lie. Instead Max gave him a part of a truth, and she’s not going to back off now.
“Uh, a toxic sludge leak, a cultist serial killer, and multiple mass casualty earthquakes.” There had to be some way to cover up the droves of dead Flayed, just like there had to be some way to explain Barb, just like there needed to be a way to push the blame of the psychotic religious mob away and justify Eddie’s eternal reputation. Max has never felt as relieved as she did zooming past the Leaving Hawkins sign for the last time.
“Wait, do you mean Hawkins?” Dustin can’t roll onto his side to make real eye contact, not without ruining her line work, but he can twist his head where it’s half buried in the padding to goggle at her.
“So you’ve heard of it,” Max says. They’ve been all over the news, ever since Nancy’s first push to get justice for the Hollands, to soothe her burning psyche. You never know who thinks they have an opinion on Indiana’s Three Mile Island, or the Munson cult.
“Me and my mom almost moved there in fourth grade. It was all I heard in high school, how lucky we were to have gone to Ann Arbor instead.”
“You were.”
“I mean, I could have lived through an earthquake, but I play D&D, so I don’t think it would have turned out well.”
“Really wouldn’t have,” Max answers. “Carver’s actual cult nearly crucified Hellfire.”
“Yeah, he always seemed like a shit stirring idiot, in the interviews. It’s a fucking tabletop game, you absolute twatwaffle.”
Max can appreciate that level of vehemence. Not enough people have it, in her book. Conviction is important. None of them would have made it out alive if they only half-cared.
“I don’t actually play, but my friends do. My husband does. And yeah, his shit was some of the worst of it.” As was learning how to decapitate and torch Flayed neighbours riding demodogs on horseback, but she can’t exactly say that part, can she.
“It’s mind boggling, how dense some people can be. Sorry you had to go through that, on top of everything else.”
“Yeah. Just consider yourself lucky you weren’t.” Max is really glad she didn’t have to murder Dustin after Henry liquified his organs and raped his mind. The hard mercy of 87 really fucked with all of them.
Usually Max looks forward to the moment when the client falls into the zone and the need for chit chat ceases. With Dustin it never comes. The zone, or her yearning for it. He’s an intense man, and interesting. Some of the shit he says over the hours Max agrees with but pretends not to, just to see what he’ll do. It’s funny, seeing him splutter. Even the frantic overexplaining to get her on his side never feels patronizing. He’s just a guy who wants the whole world to understand everything. Kind of like the Wheeler siblings, honestly. After the brutal first hand experience of ignorance, intelligence will never be a character flaw.
He’s smart, and compassionate if obnoxious, and determined, and a goof. Clearly loyal to the friends he mentions. Single, due to the inflexibility of long distance relationships, which Max is sure is Suzie’s loss. What Max doesn’t know is if what she wants is even an option for him. It doesn’t really make sense to her, but some people are exclusively, deeply heterosexual.
There’s no way to be subtle about this. Or maybe there is, maybe Steve or Lucas could finesse an opening that their conversational opponent would never see coming. But Max isn’t beloved by the masses, no social butterfly perfect to gather fans or repeat customers, and subtle isn’t in her wheelhouse. The best she can do is patiently wait for Dustin to finish his treatise on lab decoration at university, rather than interrupt him.
“Do you like men? Like, have you ever?” She keeps the needle off his skin, in case he twitches in disgust. Five hours into the tattoo he’ll look almost complete if he storms off, furious about the slight to his character. Some other artist in some other shop can finish him up, because no one at Wet Wings Tattoo Parlour will complete the work once Max outs him as a homophobe.
“Uh, duh?” Dustin answers. If there’s any tone in his voice it’s contempt of the idea of being straight, not homophobic revulsion or casual heterosexual denial. “I believe bisexuality would be the base standard if American culture wasn’t so puritanical. Everyone finds each gender at least a little bit attractive.”
Max can think of exceptions, of course. Robin only loves women, despite the reputation her lavender marriage has given her. There’s no way Hopper’s ever been an iota into other men. And according to Erica, she and Tina tried to make out because it would be more convenient, but Tina wasn’t super into it, liking boys better, and Erica wasn’t into it because she isn’t really attracted to anyone. There’s an orientation for that, too. But for the most part, Max agrees.
“What’s your type?”
“Just men? Or anyone? I guess it doesn’t matter, it’s basically the same. Tall, dark hair, glasses are a plus. Either physically or verbally capable of moving mountains, getting shit done. Suzie never would have gotten a tattoo, Mormons don’t like that shit, but I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t into them. Piercings are cool too.”
“Lucas doesn’t have any piercings, but he’s actually here getting his second tattoo right now.”
“Your husband? You want to know if I think your husband is hot? I mean, show me a picture or take me to his studio, and I’ll let you know. I’m banking on probably, though. Couldn’t snag a woman like you, if he was substandard.”
“I want to know if you want to go home with me and my husband,” Max corrects.
“To play a grand ole’ game of pinochle?” Dustin jokes, nerves fluttering in his voice.
“We bring people home, sometimes. Cool guys. Cool women. Cool people,” Max summarizes. “You seem cool.”
“As a proudly raging nerd, I think this might be the first time I’ve ever been called cool. Is this what the cool people have been doing all along? Are the frat boys and sorority girls having threesomes all the time?” Dustin asks, incredulous.
“You tell me. You think there’s a lot of guys in your school’s biggest frat who are willing to admit they want to get nailed by another guy, not just fail to please two girls at once?”
Dustin huffs a loud enough laugh that Katelyn probably hears it at the front desk. It maybe shouldn’t be attractive, but after growing up in a dozen different shades of misery, capacity for joy is almost as important a quality as intelligence.
“Taking that as a no. Yeah, there were cool people in Hawkins, and none of them ended up in our bed.” Most of them ended up dismembered goo, actually.
“Well now the curiosity is killing me. Not that I’m too shallow to have a sight unseen threesome, but what’s he look like? And are you sure you should offer him up without him knowing me, at all?”
“He’ll be into you,” Max replies bluntly. She’s not concerned. “And what’s worse, waiting the approximately forty five minutes until I can wrap you up and we can go home together, or taking a quick break now to go say hi, and then coming back to finish? You’ll be hard the whole last forty five if we do it that way, Lucas is a hell of a lot to look at.”
“Well Christ, now that you’ve said it like that… I am a bad person to tempt. There’s not a lot of things I won’t do when my curiosity is piqued.”
Yeah, thank fuck this little genius idiot wasn’t in Hawkins. He would have gotten himself killed in days.
Max wipes off the excess ink of her latest lines, and slaps the back of his thigh so he knows to stand up. There’s something so endearing about the way Dustin grabs his dinosaur cap to shove onto his explosion of hair, like he wants to put his best sartorial foot forward, despite being shirtless and slightly bloody.
It doesn’t surprise Max that Lucas is reclined on Will’s tattooing chair, bicep already wrapped. His intended piece was smaller than what Max has been working on, though detailed. It wouldn’t be professional of him to crash in Max’s studio, and he’d never be the kind of man to fuck with his spouse’s career. So many of the WAGs are stay at home moms, classic diamond-ringed trophies. Lucas knows better. Even in a few years, when they’re millionaires, Max will be following her passions and pushing ink into people’s skin in a parlour in a mildly sketchy area of Chicago. She has no doubt that Lucas made the rounds, chatting with Katelyn and saying hi to anyone else scheduled today, if they weren’t busy, but of course he came back to Will. Party above all else, even the more extreme members.
“Hey, Zoomer. Hey…?” Lucas trails off, glancing from her to him. Unlike Will, who’s already spun around to face the wall to avoid making contact, there’s already a speculative look in his eyes. There are only so many reasons Max would be bringing a guy to him, and all of them require Lucas connecting with him, in one way or another.
“Dustin. Nice to meet you. Wish I could see the new art, but I’m sure it’s something gorgeous. Been having a good day with it?”
As far as congenial flirting goes, it’s pretty solid. Lucas gets hit on a lot, carrying his college team before he got scooped up meant a lot of interest. Dustin comes off kinder than those celebrity fuckers. The full smile doesn’t hurt. Like Max, Lucas is attracted to resilient happiness.
Lucas smiles back. “I’ve had Will’s art in my trapper keeper since I was seven. It’s cool to finally get it on my skin. And I know you’ve been in good hands, with Max.”
Dustin turns his back to show off the piece. Max is especially happy with the oranges and reds she got into the rivets and bolts of what Dustin says is an icosahedron. They make the teal and lime of Yurtle more visually stimulating. “Most of the dice aren’t coloured in yet, but the concept is clear. I’d say if I knew how smoothly it was going to go I would have come here as soon as I turned legal, but then her portfolio wouldn’t have been here to sell me. It’s a good thing I waited. Which isn’t to say I’m one and done. I am absolutely treating myself when I graduate. I’m already thinking neon yellow robot.”
Dustin’s taking engineering at the U of C. Max will have to practice her robot designs. She absolutely wants to be Dustin’s artist when the time comes.
“Almost went to MIT, but U of C has more Nobel Prize winners. More minds to tap. Don’t want to get stuck in one mindset, you know?”
Lucas nods. “That’s really cool, man. I was on the education track, but I got signed, so I dunno when I’ll finish the program. When or if I blow a knee, I guess.”
“Hopefully that’s not for a long time. Medical technology isn’t my core interest, but there’s come really fascinating things out there, should it come to it.”
Max isn’t going to jinx anything by prolonging this part of the conversation. Lucas deserves to play in stadiums, broadcast on television while people like Jesse Carver get fat and rot in retail. “I was thinking Dustin could lecture us about the tech he does love over dinner?”
“Yeah, so about that,” Dustin butts in. “Aesthetically, I like the idea, obviously. You’re both stunning, obviously the kind of couple who deserve each other. But just for my emotional peace of mind, can you confirm you’re chill with this?”
How could Dustin know he was hitting the right buttons? None of what he’s said sounds like anything more than a ramble. But Lucas has a thing for communication and negotiation. It comes easy to him, and it makes it easier for him to trust other people who see it as important. Dustin couldn’t have found a better key for the lock that is Lucas.
“Max and I? We’re never going to not have each other. We’ve been through a world of things together.” Literally, a world. The Upside Down did its best to corrupt Hawkins, invade fully and turn everything to cold goo and vines. Max lived every minute of that with Lucas by her side. Even in her coma, Lucas was as near as he could be. “But there are things you’re supposed to give up when you’re married. Fun things. And Max and I have been through too much hell to deny fun things just because they’re graded inappropriate by society.”
“So that’s what this is? Just a fun thing, after years spent trapped in a war zone?”
Lucas claps Dustin’s shoulder with his tattooed left arm, dismissive to the sting of pulled skin because it’s nothing like the aches and pains of ‘87. “I mean, yes? But fun is important. People try to trivialize it, but being too serious breaks people. We’re just honest about needing it.”
“I’m sure that was an enjoyable conversation, the first time around,” Dustin jokes.
“Our Party, our friend group, has a thing about honesty. The policy’s been tested a few times, but ultimately hiding things is never beneficial. Max and I, we know how to hear each other. We all do. Otherwise we wouldn’t be picking someone up in front of an old friend. Dirty secrets are too exhausting to be okay.”
When not talking leads to a sociopath nearly sacrificing you, yeah, honesty becomes paramount. Max doesn’t like owing Mike shit, but even she has to admit it was a sensible rule. Good foresight, from an eight year old.
“So this is a one and done, an enrichment event like an ice cream sundae bar or going to the arcade?”
Max rolls her eyes. “It says so much about you, that those are the most fun things you can think of. How am I so attracted to nerds?”
“So far, it has been, mostly. We’ve kept a few friendships, and there’s this one swinger couple we like. But we’re kind of weird, in the long term. A hot couple, but most people who are thinking with their junk don’t end up liking the PTSD and screaming nightmares. It’d be up to you as much as us, really.”
“So what do you say?” To the sex, and to the friendship, Max doesn’t clarify. She likes Dustin, and she doesn’t like a lot of people. But Lucas is right. Everyone in the Party is terribly damaged, some more visibly than others, and most civilians can’t handle that. Maybe they’d be more understood in a crowd of veterans, but like any of them trust the government, when an entire division spent millions trying to first build super soldiers, then exterminate them.
Dustin thinks about it solemnly for a second before grinning. “I say you probably shouldn’t fuck me in missionary. It’s my first tattoo, but something tells me I’m not going to be back-sleeping for a while.”
Max laughs, delighted that this is actually going how she wants. That so rarely happens, even these days, away from the curse of Hawkins. “Who says you’re bottoming?”
“We’ll rock paper scissors for it,” Lucas counteroffers.
“Go finish the tattoo before you forget about it,” Will chimes in, fingers pushing shape into one of the sand filled balloons he carries to prevent more self harming fidgeting. “You can dirty talk about positions in the car.”
“Will the Wise has spoken,” Max says. “Come on, Dustin, let’s go get those greens filled in.”
“And then we’ll decide who gets filled in, huh?” Dustin jokes.
“Oh my god, man. That’s so bad. Is that even a pun, or just a crime?” Lucas retorts, voice tinkling with humor. That kind of joy is exactly why Max does this. This is going to end well, she’s sure of it.