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Mike Wheeler’s basement was dark and the air felt slightly damp. Max stared silently at the ceiling. She kind of had to go to the bathroom.
But the thing was, doing that would require extricating herself from where she lay on the ground in between El and Lucas, and no matter how well she knew Mike’s basement, she didn’t know it well enough to get around blind when there were pillows, blankets, and sleeping teenagers strewn around the ground.
Also she had no idea where her crutches were.
It was fine. She’d just wait until morning–wait, what time was it? She tried to wiggle her arm free of El’s tight grasp to see her watch, but gave up when El let out a soft sleepy breath against her neck. The Party had bought her a braille watch a few weeks ago—she didn’t even want to think about how much it must have cost. (She had really great friends, she sometimes thought. She’d never tell them that. She knew that they knew.)
Max let her eyes slip shut again, turned her head slightly to the side where Lucas’s curls were tickling at her ear. The warm daze of almost-sleep soaked over her body, covering her up like a second blanket.
“Is anyone awake?”
Great. Never mind then, her tranquility had been quickly shattered by Mike’s annoying freaking voice. Scowl on her face, she formed her hand that was tucked into El’s side into a middle finger, even though it was too dark for it to be seen. She didn’t answer Mike.
His voice sounded slightly shaky, and she wasn’t really in the mood to deal with whatever a Wheeler crisis would constitute. Especially since she highly doubted that she was the target audience for Mike’s question.
“Okay,” he mumbled, and his voice was frail and quiet in the cool air of the basement. The only response his words received were soft and sleep-slowed breaths.
After a few more seconds where he didn’t say anything, Max relaxed into her pillow again.
“I’m gay.”
“Dude, what?”
And Mike let out a yelp, fearful and honestly kind of pathetic. He sounded like he was imitating a little dog, and usually Max would make fun of him for that, but right now she was a little preoccupied with what he’d just said.
“Why didn’t–why didn’t you say you were awake?” His voice was high and cracking with whispered frenzy. She could practically hear the way that his hands would be twitching and fidgeting, probably pulling at his shirt collar right now.
“Why did you say you were gay?” Her voice was slightly hysterical. What was going on?
He let out a high pitched noise, “Max—”
Then there was the noise of someone moving, that sleepy hum of waking up echoing through the room. Both of them immediately dropped silent and still.
“Whuh?” Dustin said blearily, voice still half-asleep by the sound of it. Neither of them dared to even breathe.
Max let out her breath. “Go back to sleep,” she ordered in a whispered hiss.
“Mm.. ‘kay.”
They gave it another minute.
“Max,” Mike said again, and oh shit his voice was shaky and weak, the word cracking midway through and he sniffled—how the hell was she supposed to deal with him crying? Like, she wasn’t good with anybody crying, let alone Mike Wheeler, and now she was the only one who could do anything about it? While she was lying on the floor in between two sleeping people? Maybe she should just pretend to be asleep again.
But… goddamnit, she just felt bad for him.
“Yeah?”
“Please, Max, you can’t—you can’t tell anyone, please.” And his voice shook pathetically, and she hadn’t been planning on outing him but if she had this would be making her reconsider. His breath hissed in wetly as he presumably buried his face in his hands, going by the sad muffled noise he made.
“I won’t,” she said awkwardly.
There was a silence of maybe thirty seconds.
Max had to go to the bathroom.
And Mike had broken into quiet, near-silent sobs only noticeable by the sudden sharp intakes of his breath. She just laid there on her back and listened. Should she… get up and try to hug him or something? She didn’t really want to, mean as it might seem.
“So,” she said, trying to think of something, anything to break the silence. “Um, Will then?”
He let out a choked gasp—shit, okay, bad plan bad plan she shouldn’t have said that! “How…” Mike said, before crying harder.
Oh God this was awful. Because like, look. She didn’t care if Mike was gay—and now that she was thinking about it, it wasn’t even that surprising. Like, maybe she should have figured it out earlier.
“I like girls,” she blurted frantically, trying to stop him from fucking crying.
And—it worked, surprisingly enough, the boy being stunned into silence. She could hear his gaping, mouth opening and closing with slight clicking noises.
“You— what?” And she shushed him frantically as his voice slipped up an octave.
“Jesus, Mike, they’re all sleeping! Shut up!”
He didn’t acknowledge that, lowering his voice to a hiss. “What do you mean you like girls? You—what about Lucas?”
She scowled, pressing a little closer to her boyfriend. El followed even in sleep, their three bodies melding together in their warmth. “First of all: you dated El, remember?” And thank fuck she’d finally dumped him for good this time. Especially if he was gay.
“Yeah, but–”
“And second,” she continued, plowing on, “there’s this thing called liking both, dumbass!”
He went quiet. “...there is?”
Max scowled. Sure, nobody had ever really told her there was, but, well, she liked both, so she knew it had to be real. She’d done enough thinking to know that she definitely wasn’t confused or in denial. (That was actually what she’d spent a good amount of her Vecna coma doing. When her friends asked her if she’d been conscious, she’d responded with ‘not really,’ because, well, it was less embarrassing than the truth. Which was that she’d had an extended half-gay crisis.)
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
She hesitated. “...do you..?”
“No,” he answered immediately, vehement in a way that pushed his whisper into a hiss.
Max almost laughed. God, she couldn’t wait until he came out so she could make fun of him in front of all their friends, because this was comedy gold. “Okay, jeez.”
Mike took a breath and let it out. “So… you like girls?” And even though she couldn’t see him, she just knew that he was staring pointedly at where El was pressed into her side, could hear the teasing tone to his voice. Her face flushed flame-red, heat licking up her cheeks.
“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”
In the dark, Mike snickered, the sound snorting and stupid in the empty darkness of the basement.
“Okay, well, you’re one to talk, Mr ‘Will, are you okay? Oh, Will, do you want to make a dnd campaign? Will, I have your favourite candies–”
“Stop.” Mike said, and she grinned, satisfied at the way his face had to be just as flushed as her own.
“Night, dickhead.” She said cheerfully, voice pitching a bit too loud. El turned in her sleep, one of her arms splaying over Max’s stomach—she smiled slightly at the warmth of it.
“Night, asshole.” He replied, voice completely void of tears now.
With her newly-freed arm, she ran her fingers over the bumps of her watch. 5:37.
Two hours until she could get up and go to the bathroom.