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Dustin and Mike and Steve and Hopper and the rest of them filter out of the dingy rec room as Max eyes the water dripping from a fault line in the ceiling. When the droplets fall they hit the table situated in the middle of the room, right beside the flashlight and slinky held in Steve’s hands moments ago. The footfalls grind on her ears as everyone leaves in their own time, Nancy giving her a squeeze on the shoulder as she passes by. She doesn’t speak. Her cheeks are spotted with what looks like plaster, and some of it flakes off like dandruff when her lips stretch to form a strained smile.
Max returns it. Or, she tries to.
Inhaling, she shuts her eyes, once the sound of Murray and Mr Clarke’s bickering has faded enough to warrant it. The pounding in her head is only worsening the longer she keeps them open, lights brighter than the winter sun, low in the sky. The itching under her skin, stretched tight across her bones, has no hope of subsiding. The room is too cold in this stupid nightgown, the slit in the back, while concealed as well as Lucas could manage, still the perfect ground for a chill to colonise. She suppresses it as well as she can, because moving any part of her body hurts more than needed, but she doesn’t manage it that well.
Lucas opens his mouth. Even with her eyes closed, Max can understand the language of the small breath he takes before he speaks. “There’re warmer clothes in the basement,” he says. “For emergencies.”
His voice is soft. It has been for as long as she’s known him, really, aside from those God-awful voice cracks that plagued him in middle school. Even so, she can tell that he’s taking extra care with it now, his tone gentle and his volume low, and she could cry at the sound of it and it alone.
Max nods. She opens her eyes. She smiles in that twisted way. “Hospital-chic isn’t doing it for you?”
He huffs out a laugh– and Max can tell that it’s genuine– but his eyes are, beneath the optimism, still sad. Her throat tightens and there’s a rush behind her eyes as he levels her with that stare. There’s a dissonance, not just within him, but between them, as Max tries to joke and Lucas tries to let her, but something is desperately wrong and Max, for the life of her, can’t make it better. She wants to try to– God, how she wants to try– but the words won’t come and if she opens her mouth she knows the tears she’s holding back will inevitably fall.
Lucas smiles at her easily. Naturally. It’s impossible for Max to fathom that in the past eighteen months the muscles in his face responsible for executing the action haven’t atrophied like those in her mirrored body. His eyebrows still raise the slightest bit as his eyes almost shut with the lift of his lips, teeth visible, as he eyes her with something she can’t name. “I’ll grab you something.”
Lucas stands slowly, still smiling softly, like it’s a secret just for them. “Give me a sec,” he says softly, and for a moment, Max has the urge to follow him. The reflexes that have carried her thus far are almost enough to convince her that she can stand and follow Lucas, walking side-by-side as he shows her the stupid secret Batcave staircase that he probably helped build, giddy like a kid on Christmas, and laughing at how dorky it all is. Their shoulders would brush as they walked down the stairs, Lucas colliding into her with a level of familiarity she yearns for now, and if her feet were unsteady she’d reach and he would be there, sure where she isn’t.
She’s walking until Lucas turns around the corner of the cluttered, makeshift rec room and Max is still there, stuck in a lonely scene eerily similar to the past year and a half of her life, arms shivering with the draught trickling through the building, staring aimlessly at the wall where Lucas was a moment ago, and her brain and body have made a mistake in this game of telephone. She exhales. She doesn’t scream, even though that’s the only thing she wants to do. Her skin is taught and the pain in her back is excruciating as her posture withers. The buzz of the radio equipment doesn't help matters. Everything– the dying light outside, the clock in the corner ticking, the hum of the refrigerator, the shuffle of footsteps beneath her– is magnified. She exhales again.
There’s a coffee machine in the corner, half-hidden under stacks of papers, with over a dozen coffee mugs strewn around it, some dangerously close to teetering off of the countertop. They never used to drink coffee. Beside the mugs, countless records are scattered over every surface, from bands that Max has heard of, but albums she didn’t know existed. There’s a newspaper on the floor dated October 30th, 1987, and she remembers the image of Dustin’s hair, so much longer than she had ever seen it, and Lucas–
“Hey,” he says, treading the line in front of him, not conversational, but a caution that he’s there. He has a pile of clothes under his arm. Max spots at least three pairs of pants folded in the mess of fabric. He spots her eyeing it and smiles sheepishly. “It’s cold in here,” he offers as an explanation, and while Max wants to laugh she also wants to burst into tears.
Lucas stares.
He takes a step forward, and another, until he’s in front of her. “There’s a bedroom down the hall. Or, y’know, a room with a pull-out. ‘Bedroom’ is generous.”
Max nods.
Lucas rounds behind her, wedging the clothes under his arm, and using his foot to ease off of the brake.
He’s careful. Heartbreakingly so. He avoids the cracks in the linoleum and the trash that’s collected along the skirting boards, taking the corners wide to avoid jolting her, and Max wants to apologise for something she can’t name, and when they come to the door of the room-that-is-not-a-Bedroom he doesn’t even think to shove the clothes into her lap like he would once have done without thinking, instead setting them on the floor, propping open the door, and wheeling her in, before retrieving them and setting them aside.
Max stares at the pile before her eyes travel around the box room. File cabinets line the walls, less dusty than she would have expected, cluing her in on just how often the bed is needed, and the sheets look fresh, although threadbare. The majority of personal items– a dried-out mascara, a flashlight covered in flecks of paint, a pair of sunglasses, dirtied socks, charred t-shirts– are too eclectic to allow for her to deduce who exactly they belong to, but they blanket the room with a personality she hadn’t been expecting. Lucas smiles sheepishly and shoves the clutter off of the comforter, pushing an empty chip bag and a few painted D and D figurines onto the floor. She bites back a giggle at the familiarity of it, thinking of Thursday afternoons after school where she’d ridicule him for the state of his room and he’d make some snide comment about her attitude and she’d say We’re done, and they’d both storm off and in spite of herself she’d go home and cry into her pillow, and the next week they’d be dating again, and Max wonders when Lucas went from being the most confusing part of her life to the most certain.
She doesn’t let herself laugh, though.
Instead, her eyes follow Lucas.
His gaze is trained on the pile of clothes, now situated on top of a file cabinet, teetering dangerously. He looks confused– or, more so, at a loss for what to do. He crosses his arms. He shrinks in on himself, almost imperceptibly. HIs eyes flit, for the briefest of seconds, to the general direction of her chair, before his neck snaps back like it isn’t allowed to venture there. There’s a battle waging. His brows furrow. He inhales, much deeper than necessary.
Selfishly, she takes a moment to appreciate the sight. To breathe him in, and memorise the notes of this second in time. There’s an instinct of self-preservation that plays a part, knowing that this is enough to keep her safe, and this alone. Not Lucas himself– even if that may be true– but this feeling of familiarity and intimacy that she would bottle if she had the use of her hands and the skill to do so.
Slowly, like time itself has gone into half-speed, Lucas turns his head, eyes coming to meet hers, searching. For what, Max only has the slightest inkling.
Lucas doesn't ask, and Max doesn't answer. He would leave if she opened her mouth to even suggest it– she knows that unshakably– but she doesn’t want him to. Doesn’t want anything less, actually. And Lucas doesn’t look like he wants to step away, either.
It’s almost silent, save for the whistle of the wind through the rickety windows. Max shivers as the draught hits her at the wrong angle, perpendicular to the bed. Lucas walks from behind her to in front of her, staring down, opening his mouth. He’s nervous. Max can’t decipher why.
She nods.
He hasn’t said anything, but she nods decisively. Lucas blinks, before he closes his mouth, and slowly bends with his knees, arms sliding under her armpits. Max’s face is braced in his shoulder, close enough to hear the thrum of his heart, and Lucas only gets closer, inching until his forearms are secured under her arms. His breath ghosts the side of her neck, warm, and Max closes her eyes before the illusion shatters, and she remembers why they’re like this.
Lucas stands with immeasurable patience, righting himself, before he pivots imperceptibly slowly on his feet. The comforter on the bed moves, and Max figures it’s brushed the backs of her knees. They both exhale in tandem, and Lucas begins the task of lowering her down, arms secure under her. It’s an age with her face in the crook of his neck, and then she’s sitting down, back against the wall. There’s something missing when he pulls his hands away.
There’s a hesitancy to everything he does. He pauses before he reaches for the window, tugging it closed, even though it’s already latched, before he pushes up the sleeves of his crewneck, before he looks at her. It’s going to take them forever, at this rate, and Max doesn’t want the world to end while she’s in a hospital gown.
She doesn’t want the world to end while Lucas feels a million miles away.
It comes out as a whisper.
“I’m here,” she says, and the cloud in front of his eyes clears the slightest bit. “I’m not going to fall apart if you touch me.”
She doesn’t say it meanly, or like she’s blaming him for something. She tries to mirror the softness that permeates Lucas like it’s his birthright, and hopes she succeeds. His hesitancy isn't insulting, because she understands looking at someone and being in denial that despite it all, they’re still standing in front of you. The only difference is that Max felt that way eighteen months ago, when he felt like the only person that still cared, even when she hated him for it.
He swallows. “I–”
She waits.
They have nothing but time.
“I don’t know what I did to not die today.”
There’s a kneejerk reaction that threatens to overwhelm her senses, about how Lucas deserves to live because he’s Lucas, and he’s goodness incarnate, and that’s enough for a thousand lifetimes and more. But Max swallows and lets him process what he’s trying to say.
Lucas is careful, when it comes to things like this. He takes his time when saying things that matter.
Max gives him all the time he needs.
He hardens his jaw. “I don’t know what you did to deserve this,” he whispers, unearthing some secret that Max hates to know he has carried. “And– And I don’t know what I did to see you on the other side of it. And I don’t know why we never got our time. Not– Not as a couple. But– But our time, to just be kids. All of us. And–”
Max hates herself. Not for what he’s saying, because she doesn’t have the time to, or the want to, but because her body has betrayed her and she can’t even move her hand to hold his.
“And I hate that I did this to you,” he breathes at last. A final confession that grates on Max’s ears.
Her brows furrow. Her kneejerk reaction is not so tamable, this time. “You’re being stupid.”
He takes a step back. “I’m not,” he says, and it’s devoid of anger, infested with hatred, but the kind that’s self-inflicted and self-destructive. “If I never told you about this, all about this shitstorm– Max, I–”
“Stop,” she breathes. “Please,” she adds, because the pain inside of her isn’t just physical anymore. “Please come here.”
Lucas hesitates.
“Please,” she says, almost inaudible.
And slowly, Lucas deflates. He stares at her, as if asking for permission for a second time, and when she nods, making sure not to make her lose her balance, a labour of love and patience, Lucas crawls onto the bed. He sits farther away than she would like, because, ideally, he’d be close enough to fuse their skin together, but Max can see the small scars on his face and the storm behind his eyes. Their thighs are pressed together, the sight settling something in her, even if she can’t feel the warmth of his skin through the thick fabric of his pants or the numbness in her limbs.
Max stares at him. “The world is ending,” she begins. With anyone else, it might not be the thing to inspire calm, but, well, Lucas isn’t anyone else.
She leans her cheek against the wall. A tear runs off of his chin, and her hand itches to brush it away. “And Vecna– The only way we’re going to stop him is by knowing him. And I’ve had enough time to learn everything about him, Lucas.”
He opens his mouth to interject, but Max shakes her head by the slightest fraction. “I never wanted to–”
There’s a long list of regrets that come to mind. She could spend the next year listing them.
“I never wanted to be stuck there, but–”
But I can help kill him. I can help destroy him, and make sure that he never touches another kid ever again. And that’s enough payback for the past year and a half.
None of that sits right within her. The thought of those words tumbling from between her lips makes her nauseous, because, while not untrue, it isn’t revenge that’s propelling her forward despite the odds. In something that might seem ironic when compared to how she felt when she was last conscious, it’s love.
For herself, firstly. For her friends. For a Hawkins that’s whole.
“But I don’t want the rest of my life to be about the worst part of it,” is what she settles on, and, unknown to himself, something slots into place on Lucas’s face. “And I don’t want the rest of yours to be focused on blaming yourself for giving into the peer pressure of a thirteen year old girl you had a crush on.”
Lucas considers her for a moment. His lips upturn to a smile when hers do.
“You’re so lame.”
She rolls her eyes. “Should’ve left me for the demodogs, Stalker.”
And he laughs. There’s something sad in it, but he laughs all the same. He tilts his head back against the wall. Max doesn't mind him not looking at her. Not if it makes things easier for him.
They’re trying to fit back together again but the edges have warped with time and distance and strain. Max can understand that. It doesn’t mean she thinks things need to change. She hasn’t known herself without Lucas, these past few years. It was dying in his arms and then resurrecting in them, held gently with a vice-grip, a dichotomy inhabited. She doesn’t want to know a life without Lucas Sinclair as the foundation of it.
The knowledge isn’t new. Her acknowledgement of it isn’t a surprise; it’s more like unearthing something that’s always been there, hidden under rubble and dust of what once was.
She knows Lucas. She knows the shape of his legs when he pounces up to dunk a basketball and she knows that he always sneezes in threes and she knows that he held her hand even when the bones were broken beyond repair. And she knows that he’s relentless, and determined, and an unstoppable force compounded into her best friend.
And she knows that, no matter how the next few hours turn out, she’s the luckiest person alive to have known him.
Lucas blinks at the ceiling.
He crawls off of the bed carefully. He avoids the dips in the mattress which would destabilise her. His hands drift to grab a pair of boxers and a pair of leggings from the pile, cotton and softened with use, before his eyes meet hers again, searching for an answer to a question he doesn't even have to ask. Max nods, regardless, even if it only acts as a reassurance.
Lucas kneels at the foot of the bed. The blue blanket her feet had once been under had been lost in the transfer from chair to bed, and goosebumps pepper the sides of her calves and the expanse of her thighs. He starts slowly, pulling the right leg of the boxers over her right foot, and then her left, before carefully sliding them up her lower legs, stopping at her knees. It would most definitely be easier lying down, but Lucas persists, and the compactness of the pullout is more of a help than a hindrance, allowing him to secure the boxers around her knees while he uses his arms to lift her off of the bed slightly.
“Lucas–”
Vickie would be able to help. Or Mrs Byers.
Lucas’s eyes meet hers.
She shakes her head.
They manage the boxers, Lucas’s fingers the faintest sensation as they brush against the stubble coating her legs. It’s not efficient by any means, but they manage, mainly by utilising a lot of shimmying while Max balances on the edge of the bed. His fingers flit around her waistline, brushing against the skin, ghosting over scrapes and scars that have almost entirely faded with time. The tan line that was once a permanent fixture from both summer shorts and swimsuits has long-since died, leaving ghostly paleness in its wake. He adjusts the lower hem of the boxers against the top of her thigh, the softest touch that is foreign in the most horrifying way.
The leggings are next, bunching the right leg before he carefully pulls it over her foot, leaving it around her ankle while he tries the left, the fabric a foreign body. They fit well enough, but Max bristles as they slide up her leg, the fuzziness around the feeling uncomfortable. Lucas, without a word, changes his pace, slowing, and, instead of sliding the leggings up, begins to bunch the fabric as he goes, lessening the feeling. After that it’s a pair of maroon sweats that smell like aftershave and detergent. Maybe, in another life, it would be something of note that she’s wearing his boxers, and his sweats, embroidered with the Hawkin’s Tiger’s pawprint on the waistline, but here and now it’s only a reminder that her body is something corporeal again. Something tangible, and real, that not even she can quite believe.
Lucas is devoted. The lump in her throat grows unrestrained as she stares down at him, knees growing dusty the longer he kneels in front of her, and she is unable to do anything more than observe. Her back aches with the heaviness of supporting herself, and while that brings a host of existential thoughts to the forefront of her mind, considering they may not survive the next twenty-four hours, she allows herself to indulge in blissful ignorance.
The layers should be stifling, but they aren’t. Maybe it’s a culmination of a body that has only ever been able to acclimate to Californian weather and the chill that keeps wrecking her, but they act as a barrier against the cold that feels all-consuming. Lucas has already readied a pile of shirts– a black cotton undershirt, threadbare and well-loved, slightly too big for her, along with a navy button-up, and a charcoal zip-up– and, as soon as he’s adjusted the waistband of the sweats, Lucas’s hands drift behind her head to untie the closure of the hospital gown.
There’s no false modesty in it. Yeah, the furthest she and Lucas ever got in their juvenile makeouts was a hand skirting under the hem of a shirt, but neither of them care enough; or, more specifically, they both care too much for this to be a defining moment. Max doesn’t bristle, or lower her eyes, and Lucas doesn’t make an ill-humoured comment or start comically looking away like he might have, had they had another teenage experience. Instead, he catches the gown as the tie comes apart, and slowly manoeuvres her out of it, pulling the gown off from her front. Max, shirtless, as a chill hits her back, resists the urge to shiver, or say something. She’s not awkward, per-se, but she holds her breath, unsure of what comes next.
But she was right, thirty minutes ago, when she imagined Lucas steady where she falters. There’s no hesitancy, or awkward looks. Lucas is attentive to the task in front of him, pulling the undershirt from the pile and laying it on her lap before he works her arms through the sleeves. Carefully, he pulls the collar wide– there’s the popping of stitches, which almost makes Max want to laugh, but he’s too preoccupied to notice– and pulls it over her head easily. The fact the shirt is probably two sizes too big helps monumentally. His fingers ghost over her sides, pulling the shirt down, pulling her braids from underneath the collar. He touches her with a gentleness that makes that pit in her stomach grow. The collared shirt is much easier, but he still has to pull her forward to manoeuvre it behind her back. He leans her against his chest when she winces at the effort of sitting upright without comment. He does up all ten of the buttons on the shirt without complaint. He adjusts the wrinkling of the undershirt without her having to ask.
She thinks she should say something, but the words don’t come.
He only falters with the zip-up. “You’re not too warm, right?”
The sound of his voice shatters the silence in the storage closet. Max shakes her head, careful not to give herself whiplash. “I’m freezing.”
Lucas smiles. It baffles her. She hasn’t said anything worth smiling about. He pulls the zip-up around her back, before fitting her arms into the sleeves. He swallows, considering. “Will’s always cold. It started when he– when he came back.”
Max nods. The puzzle-piece slots into place.
“There’s blankets,” Lucas says, some frantic energy working its way into his voice. He’s slow when he pulls himself off of the bed, but as soon as he’s up, that franticness manifests in him running to the other side of the room, rustling through cabinets. His eyes grow wider with every cupboard that proves fruitless. “I think there’s a space heater downstairs, too. I’ll run and grab it.”
“I think the three layers will be enough,” Max responds, admittedly laughing at him.
Lucas turns, his own self-depricating smile growing slightly. “If you’re sure,” he says, joking, but genuine. She nods again.
There’s the briefest moment where Max can tell he forgets. The tense hallway conversations, the veritable suicide note she wrote, signed with Love, Max at the end, the blood from her eyes collecting in his palms and mingling with his tears, the Kate Bush tape that had worn out before he bought another: all of that weight is gone in that split-second, when Lucas laughs and eyes her with that familiar mix of mischief and fondness as she sits and inhales his aftershave.
She wants to pause time. Press pause on the cassette player, and listen to the silence. Bask in it. She’d memorise the creases around his eyes and the piece of paper sticking out from his pocket and the mud caked on the toes of his shoes and the unkemptness of his hair and the stain that’s slowly made itself known over the centre of his chest–
“Are you bleeding?”
Lucas’s smile grows more performative. He’s trying to make a joke of things, Max supposes, but that only makes her more frustrated. “What?” he asks, looking down, gaze searching around the expanse of his crewneck, blatantly ignoring the copper stain that’s spreading from underneath his shirt. “Oh, that,” he half-laughs. “Just a scratch.”
“If that’s a scratch, the whole coma thing was a nap.”
Lucas raises his eyebrows, shrugging. “Glad to see you well rested, then.”
Max wants to throttle him. “You’re an idiot.”
Lucas blanks. “It’s fine, Max. Mrs. Byers stopped the bleeding. I’ll ask Vickie to stitch it later.”
“You think you need stitches?”
Lucas throws his head back at her ire. “That is exactly the opposite of what I was going for,” he groans, rolling his eyes at her tone.
Max tries to sit up straighter. “Come on. We’re going to see Vickie now.”
“I am one-hundred percent absolutely fine, Max.”
“Shut up,” she barks.
Lucas inhales deeply, before making his way over to her, and carefully bending, preparing to lift her back into the chair. “Lucas,” she says, voice tinged with panic, and, in an act that doesn’t surprise her, he immediately stops, standing up straight. “Get someone else to lift me.”
His brow furrows. “Why?”
It isn’t accusatory. He’d do whatever she’d ask. She knows that with a certainty she hasn’t experienced before.
“Because you have a gaping chest wound, dumbass.”
“It is not gaping,” he responds. “I would take my shirt off to show you, but we’re taking things slow.”
Max rolls her eyes for what feels like the fiftieth time today. Her temper is straining, not just with Lucas’s complete nonchalance at the fact that he’s bleeding, or his stupid, stupid jokes, but also with her own inability to force him to do anything about it. It would be so easy to stand and force him to sit, wrenching the godforsaken crewneck off of him, and make him sit still as Vickie patched him up. Max may not know her well, but according to Lucas she’s one of the nurses that would braid Max’s hair and change her sheets and turn her on her side every so often, and hopefully would be able to handle stemming the blood pouring from right over Lucas’s heart.
It would be so easy, but Max has rolled a Nat-1 on Luck for the past decade. “Shut up,” she says again, voice straining with frustration. “Go get Vickie. I’m serious.”
“Max–”
“Stop being an idiot!” she yells. “According to Robin you ran through a hospital, chased by demogorgans, carrying 120 pounds of fucking dead weight– that was bad enough. But now you’re bleeding, Lucas. If I wasn’t so useless I’d force your dumb ass onto this bed.”
Lucas’s face changes. It loses the mirth in it. Max thinks, for the barest of moments, that he’s angry at her– her controlling nature, her micromanaging, her audacity to try and order him around when he saved her life today. His mouth opens and Max prepares for whatever he says next. It won’t be unkind, she knows that much, but he’s always been great at saying the last thing she wants to hear.
He breathes in. “You’re not useless.”
Max blinks. Hard enough to make her see stars behind her eyelids. “That’s what you took from that?”
He shakes his head. He disregards the fact that she’s angling for a fight here. He knows when she’s avoiding the topic at hand– a special talent that has already caused enough arguments. “You’re not useless, Max.”
She rolls her eyes. “Go get Vickie.”
He shakes his head, brows furrowing the longer she pulls them away from this thread of conversation. “Max– Max, please tell me you don’t think that.”
She laughs. It’s absolutely ill-timed, but it wrenches itself from her chest unwittingly. “Be serious,” she says, but it’s hollow and choked. She’s always been bad at grasping the concept that she can’t have her cake and eat it too. It’s not like she wants Lucas to agree, but she can hardly deny the truth in front of them. Her vision is fucked, black dots floating in front of Lucas’s face, and all of the edges which would have once been clear-cut now fuzzy, like they’ve been hastily run over with an eraser. Her legs are immobile, but there are still phantom pains ricocheting from toes to thigh. The same goes for her arms, her hands, her fingers, her chest. Her body is now an amalgamation of broken pieces stuck together, long-forgetting the concepts of walking or skating or using the fucking bathroom without someone there to hold her over the toilet.
For the second time today, Max watches as Lucas’s eyes grow shiny. At first, she’s sure it’s her eyes playing tricks on her, but as soon as a tear travels from eye to cheek to jawline, it’s impossible to kid herself. They run off of his chin and travel down his neck with surety, a path well worn, and Max finds all of the breath in her lungs has left her. “Lucas–”
“You’re not useless,” he says again. Max wants to touch him with a hunger that is reserved for the starving.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, voice hushed, not because it isn’t true, but because here she goes again, making her own self-hatred Lucas’s problem.
He internalises it more than either of them would like to admit.
His whole body is shaking. “You–”
“Don’t talk,” Max says, not an instruction, but a reminder. She understands. She understands the entirety of it. She understands that this is her fault, and she understands that Lucas will never let her admit that.
Lucas sits down on the bed. Her mind rockets back to when they were fourteen and Lucas would hurt himself trying to skateboard, and would never let her see him cry. It’s one thing she’s glad has changed. But he’s eyeing her with that hesitancy again, like he’s afraid to touch her and realise that she’s not there at all, and it makes the nausea flare in her stomach, the fire of tears burning behind her eyes. Great job, Max, the thinks. You’ve waited eighteen months to see his face and you’ve made him cry. They don’t have the luxury of time. In a few hours, he’ll venture into the Upside Down, a soldier with his battalion, and Max will be left behind, praying to every God that he comes back to her.
In a few hours, one, or both of them, could be dead. Or worse.
Carefully– oh so carefully, like he’s traversing a minefield– Lucas settles beside her. She blinks harshly. Pushes the thought from her mind. Focuses on the present. She focuses on Lucas, thigh pressed beside hers as he stares straight ahead, blinking quickly, biting down on his lip to stop it from quivering. She focuses on the ghost of his breath in the frigid box room. She focuses on her body, her corporeal, tangible body, and how much of a miracle it is. She focuses on Lucas and pushes past the horror colouring her thoughts.
Max lets her head fall onto him. Twists her neck so her forehead is laying against his shoulder. In another life, she’d wipe away his tears, but this is enough.
She won’t lie to him, but she won’t try to convince him, either. He’s too good for that. And Max doesn’t want him walking off to war with a stupid fight hanging over his head.
Lucas, after an age, lets his breathing quieten. His hand drifts down from his thigh to catch Max’s, situated on her lap. He takes it, and while Max can barely feel the pressure of his hand over hers, the sensation hidden under static, she knows he’s there. He squeezes it, and breathes in. He lets go, and breathes out.
There’s a silence that Max thinks she should fill, but the words are lost to her. She can’t say everything will turn out fine, because she can’t look at him and lie. But she nudges into his shoulder, screws her eyes shut, and breathes him in, and hopes beyond hope that this is enough.
Lucas inhales. “I lied,” he says, and Max looks up at him. “It absolutely is gaping.”
And Max laughs. And she loves him. And she hopes.