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The sunlight reflected through the window pane in the kitchen illuminating the only salvageable spot in the house. Little specks of dust fly toward the breakfast table, adorned with a basket of tangerines– neither of them like the fruit. But Lucas insists that it reminds him of Max. This is the spot they wake up to every morning, he’d like to go in there, and be reminded of how his love for her is etched into every corner of their home– the ornate birds made of clay on every shelf, the china they’ve never used, waterlogged walls with some stains shaped like hearts and stars.
Lucas is an early riser. He schedules his day down to the last second. Max pretends to complain about it. She’ll whine for a good five minutes when he sits up on the bed at six a.m. on the dot. She makes grabby hands, pulling him down by his arm and snuggling to his side till he gives in. Lucas may be a stickler for his schedules, but Max is also one for hers which involves the extra few minutes with Lucas in the morning, the extra few minutes at the coffee table– him sun-kissed, tangerine-rotting. But mostly, the few extra long, long minutes when they sometimes reach home from work at the same time and bump into each other on the elevator. His eyebrows will rise comically, and then comes the lovey, Lucas-y smile, that she kisses right off his face.
So when Lucas proposes in their little nook in the kitchen at seven in the morning, she wants to swoon, and laugh, and cry, and rage. How dare this wonderful soul make her look forward to waking up early. It really ruins her reputation of being angsty and mayfield-y. But first, she says yes, and he lifts her off the floor, spins her around, and kisses her.
(The kiss made her more dizzy.)
“So you really broke your crazy military-esque schedule to get down on one knee?” she asks, once the ring around her finger feels familiar.
He pauses. And then looks up at her. “It was already in it. Like, from a few months ago.”
She laughs then. “You’re joking.”
Max pretends it’s completely normal for someone to structure their day months in advance. But Lucas is not like other people and they come from chaos. Maybe this is his way of still being in control.
Lucas shows her the little notebook he carries everywhere.
[7:06AM] Tell your forever someone that you want her to be your forever someone.
[7:32AM] Eat breakfast.
“I can’t believe I’m a wine cooler kind of guy now,” Steve says, picking up a bottle from the fridge. Max looks at him fondly, sitting on top of the countertop— needing a break from whatever is going on outside the kitchen.
Instead of joining the others, Steve props himself up on the counter, handing her a glass. They sit in this silence, soaking in the noise. From the little gap that’s visible from where they are, she sees Lucas laughing at something Mike says. Dustin joins in on their shenanigans, reciting a story of his own. His hands animate every word he says, though she can’t hear it, it’s funny just to watch.
Steve scoffs. “He should be knocked down a peg or two,” he says, as Dustin takes over the room.
Max just smiles and shakes her head, “It’s nice to see him be himself, you know?”
Steve looks at her in disbelief, like it’s foreign to hear her not join in on the trash talk. And he’s right on the money, but today is different. It’s refreshing to see all her friends together again. To be reminded of the love that sustains.
“Shouldn’t you be there instead?” She asks, signalling for him to join the party. Steve is never one to not go wild. This is his element.
“I see those fools all the time,” he says. Which is true— unlike Lucas and Max who moved across the country, the others still orbit around each other. “I didn’t fly all the way here to be with them in a different time zone. I’m here for you, dumbass.”
“Aren’t you a softy,” Max quips, poking his nose a little. He flew all the way here to walk Max down the aisle. Steve Harrington is the closest thing to a father figure she has. The second Lucas proposed, she got on the line with Steve. She and Lucas heard a bunch of sniffles and snot on the other end but Steve vehemently denies the allegations.
A few months later, here they are. Having a joint bachelor/ette party after their friends insisted. Lucas said it didn’t matter since they were practically already married for years without a license, but Max looked forward to getting together with their friends the night before The Big Day.
“You know,” Steve says, “Lucas never asked for my blessing.”
Max snorts, “You know you’re not really my dad, right?”
Just then, Lucas walks into the kitchen with his eyebrow raised, a playful smile on his face. “What’s going on here?” He asks, giving Max a quick kiss on the lips.
“Steve is mad that you didn’t ask him for his blessing,” she sells him out. Steve looks annoyed, picking at the frayed ends of his jeans.
Lucas just laughs. He lifts Max from the counter and takes her place. “That’s my bad,” he says, hand on heart.
“Do I have your blessing to marry the love of my life, your fake-daughter, Max?”
Steve mulls over it for a second. “Nope,” he says, enunciating every syllable. Max grins as Lucas looks genuinely upset. His eyes widened, “Steve, come on.”
Steve doesn’t let it slide. He stands firm on his verdict. “You’re not good enough for her,” he says. While Max knows it’s absolutely not true, laughter bubbles up when Lucas is baffled to say the least.
Steve gets up and heads to the living room as Lucas trails behind him. “You know it’s just a formality right?! I’m still going to marry her.”
Steve pays no mind to the whining boy, adding oil to fire, he says, “without her fake-ol’ man’s blessing. We’ll see how it goes.”
Max is content. Truly, weirdly, happy. Maybe it has something to do with her house being filled with her favourite people on earth. Maybe it has something to do with getting to officially call Lucas her husband in a couple of hours.
She takes a seat next to Will who’s been quiet the entire evening. But his face softens once he sees her. It makes Max’s heart leap. Out of everyone, she’d missed Will the most. Even Mike called her pretty often. She understands, though. They’re both not typically the ones to reach out first.
“Missed you,” she says. He rests his head on top of hers.
“Excited for tomorrow?” He asks, cheekily.
Max smiles. “I’m happy we get to do the normal things for once. I’m always a little scared that I’m dreaming. That one day I'll wake up and I'm back in— you know.”
Will nods in understanding. He takes her hand and squeezes it. “I get you, Max. More than anyone. But everything is over now, you get to be you. Not a fighter, not someone who survived. Just a woman in love who’s about to marry the hottest man alive.”
Max laughs at that as tears prick in her eyes. “And I get to have sex the way God intended,” she jokes.
It's the life they've built for themselves over the years. This is a testament to something tangible they’ve shaped through crooked edges, chipped, rusted and all. Even in this small town on the west coast, at jobs where people don’t know their names, and neighbours who spend their days fighting, Hawkins comes back to haunt them. But that’s only in fleeting moments.
(Now though, there is love, there is a party in the living room, and mini quiches. Isn’t that a miracle?)
Their actual wedding isn’t a typical one. Nothing in their life has ever been so, but Max and Lucas love it. Steve walks her down the aisle, crying in the process. The light makeup she puts on him streaks down with tears and she revels at the sight. She finally has something that’s incriminating him.
But against all odds, Steve’s faux-mascara cheeks isn’t the most beautiful sight of the day. It’s the look in Lucas’ eyes as she walked towards him. Bouquet in hand, wearing a stuffy white gown, and a veil that made her want to sneeze. But all of that was worth this moment, when she stood next to him. He immediately took her hand and squeezed it three times. I love you.
In his vows, he called Max his “dream girl,” and that made her want to pathetically drop down on the floor and cry.
Mike, who got ordained on a shady website, officiated the wedding.
(She was disproportionately happy when he offered to do this for them.)
Mike asked Lucas: Are you sure? When Lucas said his ‘I do,’ and gracefully took the punch Max delivered to his chest. She rolled her eyes as the guests laughed and Jonathan captured the exact moment on camera.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur, which should be another way to say it was chaotic. Their friends smushed in for pictures. The core party also cried towards the end, though they swore such a thing didn’t happen. In the end, it’s just Max and Lucas. Like the way it’s always been.
Max spent the majority of her life just waiting for things to be over. She waited for her hairline fracture to heal, she waited for Billy and Neil to go, she waited for inter-dimensional monsters to perish, she waited to be out of the coma, and she sometimes waited for when Lucas would realise he can do better and leave.
(He won’t.)
But that’s not who she is anymore. She doesn’t anticipate loss. She holds grief in her arms instead, tending to it. And she wishes the days would never end. She wishes she could replay every moment of her life involving Lucas and her friends. That their Big Day never ended. They’d stay newlyweds for the next forty years.
If it were up to Max, time wouldn't be linear. It would pause whenever Lucas comes into the kitchen, hungry for her.