Archive of Our Own

Max figures it’s because of the squinting. Ever since she opened her eyes and saw only darkness she keeps squinting. It doesn’t help. Doesn’t make shapes randomly appear from blank nothingness. She knows this, she’s not dumb. Her eyes keep trying anyway. Like they know she could see if only they tried hard enough. They’ve called her out on it a few times already but she just can’t seem to stop no matter how dumb she knows it is. El’s the nicest about it. In the cruelest way possible. She doesn’t call Max dumb for it like Mike does. Doesn’t launch into a rant telling her how broken her brain is now like Dustin does. No, El is much crueler than that. El calls it cute.

Max never knows what to say when El calls her cute.

So she just awkwardly starts a whole new conversation as if El never said that to her. El, thankfully, plays along. So does everyone else. Of course, with them they don’t say that weird shit when she’s squinting uselessly. No, they say it when she’s not. They say it when they think she’s asleep. They must. Otherwise her friends have gone completely insane. Actually, now that she thinks about it, this may be because of the coma. The doctors said she could ‘hear their voice but not their words’ or some dumb thing. It could be that everyone just got used to using Max’s sleeping body as a thing to talk to. She thinks she likes the squinting explanation better. Probably because she doesn’t like to think about the coma and how life went on without her actually here.

“-nd he’s just so, so,” Will lets out a heavy sigh of longing, “perfect. Y’know?”

No, Max does not know. Max has never known what’s so special about Mike Wheeler. Even when they first met he was a pissy boy who wasn’t as great as his friends thought he was. She’s self aware enough to know that part of this is her jealousy talking. Mike had everything wonderful in life handed to him on a silver platter. A group of friends that would die for him. Siblings that love him enough to fight monsters for him. A girlfriend who sees something special in that gangly lankiness of his. It pisses her off that he’s able to take any of it for granted. Sometimes she just wants to take his face and rub it in all the wonderful things he has so that he can see them.

“And his hands are so warm and big,” Will keeps singing Mike’s praises relentlessly. It’s exhausting. It was exhausting ten minutes ago when Will started. By now Max wishes she was asleep like Will clearly assumes she is. At least then she wouldn’t have to listen to this ‘ode to Mike Wheeler’s sexiness’.

She does admire Will though. For his bravery in saying this. Out loud and in public. She could never, ever, do that. She can barely admit it to herself in the fragile sanctity of her own mind. A mind that no longer feels half as secure as it used to, which for the record was not very, after Vecna played ‘Max’s greatest hits - nightmare version’ with her.

Max flinches at the memory of El looking at her like she’s something disgusting and pushes it away because it never really happened. Her body jostles slightly on the thin mattress of the hospital bed.

“Max?” Will’s voice is soft with concern. With care that she’s not sure she deserves.

“H-hey Will,” Max smiles crookedly in his direction. “Mind getting me some water?” It’s weird, even now, especially now, to ask for help. To allow them to help.

“Yes, of course,” Will’s acceptance is immediate. He pauses only a breath before he continues with exactly why she’s been asking them to help. “I’m so grateful you asked me, Max. It makes me feel useful. I like being useful to you instead of just uselessly standing here. Thank you.”

Max can feel herself flush at the soft gratitude in Will’s voice. These weirdo’s seemed determined to praise her for everything. She’s not built for this level of complimenting.

“Here you go,” Will says in a more neutral voice. The plastic of the cup nudges her good hand and she hardly trembles as she takes the weight of it.

“Thanks,” she mutters and ignores how he coos at her for it. She takes a small sip though she’s tempted to take a larger one when he mutters about being careful not to drink too much. “Tell me about your new paints.”

He does. Voice waxing between high giddy excitement and slower, more thoughtful details. Her friends, who refuse to let her have a day to herself, may have all become chatter boxes but she’s learned the secret to dealing with it. If she gives them a topic to talk about she can at least prevent herself from hearing the distressing topics. Most of the time.

God, she wishes she could look them in the eye so they’d know she’s still awake.

“His pants are so tight. Who wears pants that tight?! Who allowed Will to wear pants that tight!?” Mike’s voice is high with distress almost to the point of panicked yelling.

There’s only so much of this Max can take. As amusing as his sheer panic about finding Will hot is, she likes Wheeler better when he’s ranting about how pretty El is. Luckily she’s got, like, five super thin pillows. And her arm’s so much stronger now. Mike squeaks like a dog toy when her pillow hits him as close to the sound of his voice as she could get it. “Wheeler, don’t just stand there staring at Will’s ass. Entertain me.”

“I-I-I,” he splutters uselessly. “I may have been staring at Will’s ass but you’re blind, you asshole. You shouldn’t be the one calling me out on it. No, wait, I don’t want anyone even noticing me looking at, at, at a boy’s ass. At Will’s ass. Oh god, I can’t stop thinking about Will’s ass, please do-“

“Oh shut up Mike,” Max cuts off his angry pleading panic. “I’m not going to say anything.” Not even to Will who is equally talkative about Mike. No one deserves to be forced into saying something by other people. Max gets it. “Now come here and tell me how El’s training is going. Oh, and give me my pillow back.”

“Thank god,” the relief in Mike’s voice is uncomfortable. He didn’t really think she was that sucky of a friend, did he? That she would share something so private? “You may be a bitch but damn if you’re not a cool bitch.” Max grins. Sure, he’s not as great as Will thinks he is but Mike Wheeler’s not so bad himself.

“Do your lips taste like strawberries? They look like they taste like strawberries.” Hopper’s voice is thoughtful and half distracted. A quiet musing on the other side of the room. Max would be able to tune it out if not for Joyce’s response.

“Your mustache is growing back and it tickles every time you kiss me.” There’s a giddiness in Joyce’s voice that is definitely not something Max wants to hear.

“Okay you two,” Max interjects into the quiet murmurs, “I know the saying is ‘get a room’ but, please, not my room.”

“Max!” Joyce gasps, flustered and aghast as though she didn’t spend the last who knows how long (certainly not Max, it’s so hard to tell time now) flirting with her boyfriend right in front of Max.

Max groans and throws her arm over her face theatrically. “Joyce,” she mimics the aghast tone. “You’re adults. If you want to go make out with your boyfriend you can. Just don’t make me lie here watching two old people flirt.”

“We’re not old,” Hopper protests indignantly, “beside you can’t watch anything.”

“He’s not- We’re not-“ Joyce stutters over him.

“We’re not?” Hopper sounds hurt.

“Well, we kinda are, but that’s not something you should be concerned about young lady.” Joyce continues smoothly over Hopper.

“We are!” He cheers proudly. God, boys are stupid even when they’re old. Max is so glad she’s not dating Lucas any more.

“I’m blind, not deaf,” Max rolls her eyes. Well, she tries to roll her eyes. Certainly she conveys it in her tone judging by Hopper and Joyce’s disgruntled ‘teenagers’. “It would take someone’s whose both to not realize how much you two want to-“

“Max!” Joyce cuts her off with a shocked yell.

“You’re far too young to know about that,” Hopper growls. “Whose kneecaps need rearranging for telling you about it.” His voice drops even more. “They better just have told you.”

Max drops her hiding elbow to her mouth. She can’t let them see how happy it makes her that Hopper’s so protective. That anyone cares so much about her. “Look,” and damn Max can’t hide the smile in her voice, “it’s cool if you want to make out with each other. I guess. But no kid wants to know that about their parents so go flirt somewhere else. The nurse will come get you when the doctor’s ready.”

“Oh, kid.” Hopper’s never sounded so soft before. Not directed at her. Sometimes he’s like that with El but never when he knew Max was awake and aware.

“Darling,” Joyce sounds even softer and Max represses the desire to squirm away from the palpable feeling of motherly love. “I wish I could-“ her voice cuts off with tight longing.

“You deserve parents who-“ Hopper speaks over her.

“Okay!” Max blurts out to cut off Hopper’s gruff voice. She didn’t mean to say that. To, to imply that she thinks about them like parents. They’re not her parents. They won’t ever be and she’s fine with that. She is. Because there’s no other option but to be fine with it. Besides, she hardly knows what having parents who take care of her would be like. She’s not made for people who care more about her than themselves. She doesn’t deser- no. No. She promised herself that she’s not going to let him win. Not any more. She’s alive and she deserves, damnit! “I’m a delight, I know, now get out of my room and let the nurse know where to find you. I’m going to do my exercises and it feels weird when people watch me do them.”

Max isn’t lying. Having people stand there making comments about how proud they are that she keeps trying to get better is so weird. Saying how brave they think her for continuing when so much of her life and her body has been taken from her. And the worst, the best, offender is El. Who has been so distressingly open about telling Max how pretty she looks when she’s dishevelled from exercising. So, yeah, it feels weird when people watch her do her exercises because she doesn’t know how to deal with such genuine love and care. Also El finding her pretty. She can’t function when El says she’s pretty.

“Alright, we’ll give you some privacy,” Joyce says reluctantly, “but we aren’t going to go ‘make out’.”

“We’re totally going to make out,” Hopper counters and Max laughs. “We’ll be back when your doctor comes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not going anywhere.” She giggles when they groan at her bad joke. Her legs are still strapped up with bulky casts. The doctors are hopeful that Max will be able to walk again (eventually). She’s healing remarkably well. The kind of remarkably well that leads to a friend of Dr. Owens being her primary doctor. Which is the only reason her arms are now free of their casts and she can do muscle building exercises. In the meantime she needs to have her legs as still as possible so that her bones heal straight so she’s bed bound for the foreseeable future.

Max tries hard not to think about what comes after.

“Steve, has your snarkiest child always been this good at reading people?” Robin asks. Her fast staccato words slow down to a more legible pace. God, Robin’s so weird and Max low key adores her.

“Uggghhh,” Steve keeps making that droning, not-thinking noise he started after Max asked him how long he’s been crushing on Eddie.

“Because I feel like I’ve been missing out. This entire time you had someone who could help me figure out why people do the weird shi- opps, stuff they do and you never told me. Shame on you.” Robin continues. At least she keeps it English this time.

“-ggghhh,” Steve continues.

“It is kind of incredible that she clocked you so quickly though,” Robin says half-distractedly. It’s really not though? Not with the way Steve was mentioning Eddie’s lips. Maybe Robin didn’t hear him with the way she was talking over him. Why she chose now to conjugate Russian verbs Max has no clue about but, again, Robin’s so weird like that. “Want to talk about it?”

“I- wh- n-no,” Steve finally stops making that droning noise. He’s got to have amazing lung capacity to hold it for so long. She can totally see why he was first in the lake now. Too bad about the ‘being a stupid boy’ thing though. “I do not want to talk about it. How do you even, no, you know what. Nevermind. Let’s just talk about baseball or something.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about baseball,” Max grumbles. She’s willing to let him completely sidetrack the conversation he started if he wants to. Although, for the record, it’s not her fault she repeated something he said right to her face.

“I know it involves hitting balls,” Robin says brightly. Max can feel her amusement and affection towards Steve. That’s the kind of relationship she wants with Lucas. “With bats.”

Max nods. “And that you’re pretty good at hitting things with bats.” He was really good at it. “I think the only time I swung a baseball bat outside of gym class was-“ her throat closes up but she’s being more open now, damnit, “was at Billy that one time he knocked you out.”

“Oh, hey, kiddo you don’t have to talk about this if you-“ Steve’s pity presses down on her shoulders. His words mingle confusingly with Robin’s more frantic, “Steve, your child is upset and you need to-“.

“I want to.” Max protests. “I want to talk about it. I don’t want to keep it all inside where some, some asshole can use it against me.”

“Yeah,” Steve swallows sorrow and Max can picture Steve seeing her After in complete clarity. She almost feels his sadness/failure/fear/protection/love/loss/grief seeping up her spine. He's always been good at projecting his emotions. Admittedly his emotions were mostly 'I can't believe I love you assholes, how is this my life?' but he had range when he needed it. Range he'd made brutal use of when Max had woken up enough she could remember she was Max again. She still hasn't recovered from how genuine and loving his plea that she never do this again was. “Yeah, alright.”

“Does she want us to say something?” Robin wonders. Her voice conveying a tension that's part perpetual anxiety of a brain running too fast and part her relentless desire to not fuck up 'her kids'. Meeting Nancy had opened Max's eyes to the possibility a girl could be strong. Robin had opened Max's eyes to the possibility that a girl could be friends with a boy to the point of psuedo-adopting half a dozen shell shocked preteens without wanting to kiss him. “We should say something.”

“What should we say?” Steve asks and are they seriously talking to each other right in front of her? “I don’t know how to be sympathetic.”

“Don’t look at me,” Robin protests, “I don’t know either. I suck at emotional heart to hearts. You know that. Besides, she’s your kid.”

“She’s your kid too. Don’t even try to pretend she’s not.” Steve says pointedly.

“Damn right she is.” Robin says proudly.

“Why do you always make me do the motherly moments?” Steve whines.

“You’re so good at it,” Robin encourages. "Besides, I totally let you do dad moments too."

"You threatened me with a wrench when I tried to show Will how to fix Nancy's car." Steve grumbles. Still salty about it even after nearly a month.

"Because you're horrible with cars." Robin scoffs and Max is pretty sure she's rolling her eyes. "Will knows more car maintenance than you. I only had to correct him twice. I let you teach Lucas how to shoot his ball better."

"Yeah, because he was obviously about to cry considering he came right from the hospital." Steve defends and Max doesn't recall hearing about this at all. It must have happened when she was still in a coma. "That was clearly just you making me do the soothing mom thing."

"And now we need you to do it again. Our oldest is about to brave openly talking about her trauma. What kind of parents would we be if we let Max do this alone?" Robin says sharply.

"Awful parents." Steve agrees with determination filling his voice. "And we aren't awful parents."

“You guys do know you’re not my parents, right?” Max finally interjects and derails their panicked conversation. She bites back the sorrow that Steve and Robin are more interested in being her parents than the people who gave birth to her. “You don’t need to, like, hold my hand or anything.”

“Oh,” says Steve softly, “but-“

“We want to.” Robin finishes for them.

“You’re not alone Max,” Steve continues. Max chuckles dryly. She knows. She doesn’t think she’s been left alone for longer than half an hour since she woke up. As much as she complains about it she wouldn’t actually change that if she could. “Not ever again.”

“Stop being so sappy,” she says through the tears in her voice. “Distract me. Tell me what baseball’s really like.” Robin giggles as Steve does. The both of them making comments about how silly the game is much to his reluctant laughter.

Dustin would be easier than this. Max has a love-hate relationship with her nerdiest friend right now. She’s not sure if he’s actually aware of this. He acts like he has no clue but he also spends hours rambling stats and biology facts at her that paint a really bleak picture of her future. She’d hate him for that if he wasn’t also the one to be most unrelentingly optimistic about Max’s ability to buck the odds. That’s what she loves him for, the blend of brutal honesty and determined hope. Dealing with Dustin right now would be so much easier than dealing with Lucas.

She likes Lucas more. Unfair, maybe, to like some friends better for no more reason than ‘just because’. Even before Vecna she could admit it though. Lucas is her favourite of the boys. Always has been. He’s the first one that treated her like a person and she’ll always love him for that. But liking Lucas more doesn’t make this any less awkward.

He must think she’s asleep. That’s her only saving grace right now. She knows he’d never say this directly to her so he must assume she’s asleep. He doesn’t expect her to say anything. She wouldn’t know what to say if he did.

“-and I keep thinking if I’d just showed you better, if I could just prove how much I loved you then you wouldn’t be here.” His soft voice murmurs. “Because if you knew then you wouldn’t have felt so alone and he wouldn’t have been able to get his claws in you. So I guess… I guess what I’m saying is that this is my fault, really. I failed you. Not just as a boyfriend but also as a friend.”

She doesn’t know what to say because she’s already said everything she can think of. The first time she heard him saying it she told him it wasn’t his fault. That she didn’t, couldn’t, blame him. It was her choice and she accepted the risk, always. Later she told him he was an excellent boyfriend and an amazing friend. Frustratingly he always agrees. Until the next time he did this. She hated this pattern and hated even more where it led.

“But I can do better. I will do better. We’ll go on that movie date and I’ll hold your hand and it’ll be like before but better.” It was never supposed to be a date. At least, not one she'd be alive to have. “I’ll prove that nothing else matters as much as loving you.” She hates that thought because the truth is loving Lucas has never been that important to her. Her stomach cringes at the idea of mattering that much to him. “You’re my world, Max, and I’ll make sure you know it. I promise.”

It’s not a promise she wants. What she wants is for him to promise he’ll be her friend. That he’ll be happy without her so that there’s no obligation for her to be the one to make him happy. So that they can just be two friends who enjoy spending time together instead of a boy and girl who are expected to do and care more than Max can. They weren’t a great couple. Max can see that now. They rock as best friends but the moment those unspoken expectations around dating pop up everything falls apart. She starts acting like a bitch because she doesn’t know how to tell him he’s always been way more into her than she is into him. He starts swinging between overly clingy and overly distant as her inability to let him close leaves him feeling hurt and confused. Which makes her poke at him harder to get him to stop clinging to her.

The worst part is that this is her fault. She’s known for longer than she had words to explain that he’ll never be the man she loves. That no man will ever be the man she loves. All she’d wanted was a friend she could be normal with and she hadn’t known any other way to get that then them dating. Not until it was too late and they’d fallen into this pattern of hurting and being hurt. She thinks it would be easy if he loved her a little less. If she could pretend he just doesn’t care.

“Max?” His voice shifts, heavy with present concern instead of past promises.

“H-hey,” she stutters out through a too tight throat.

“Are you okay?” He sounds exactly like the friend she missed. “Do you hurt? Can I help?”

She is. He can. Or she can admit that thing she’s been hiding beside the hateful, fearful place in her heart and he can use it to hurt her more than she’s ever been hurt by him. Courage would be so much easier to have if the very real possibility of being broken wasn’t so damaging.

“Please, Max, let me help. Let me in.” He sounds so desperate with the desire to be a part of her life.

She feels like she’s teetering on a precipice she can’t see. On one side is a return to normal, to burying her true self down where no one else can see and hoping that makes them happy. On the other is truth. Full of sharp drops, jagged edges, and the only way to be truly happy. She’s been a coward for so long that she almost takes the easier option by rote. ‘I’m fine’ so real she can almost hear it before she even says it.

His hands are warm and calloused from basketball when he brushes his thumbs over her cheeks. When he cleans the tears from her face. “Whatever it is,” he says fiercely, “I promise I’ll be here for you.”

“I’m gay,” she believes him and picks the truth no matter how dumb it is. Her heart is in her stomach and she feels like she’s skydiving blind with an unrelenting ground she can’t see fast approaching. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You deserve someone who loves you like that and I can’t. I can’t. I tried, I promise I tried. So hard.” She’s shivering for breath between sobbing gasps. “I was such a shitty girlfriend to you. I’m sorry.”

She thinks she’d just keep apologizing if he hadn’t pulled her into a strong hug. His heart beat solidly where her ear pressed tight to his chest. He smelled like Lucas in the same way she’d heard others talk about the smell of home. She stops trying to talk and clings to his sweater with both hands while she sobs into him.

“Oh Max,” his voice is too soft for his chest to rumble with it. “You don’t have to be sorry. Not for this. I’m the one who should be sorry. So caught up in my own daydreams I missed the reality right in front of me.”

She squirms an arm free so she can slap against his shoulder with it. “Don’t you dare use this to beat yourself up. That’s my job.”

He chuckles wetly. “Okay, okay. How about we both stop beating ourselves up over this? You’re my best friend,” he swallows heavily, “you always will be. I promise.”

She burrows into his comforting hug. “You forgive me?” The question is more tentative than she means it to be. She's been trying so hard to believe in the love and care her friends have for her but this- her mind can't believe even (or maybe especially) Lucas could still love her after learning this.

“For being gay?” She can hear his raised eyebrow. “Max, that’s not something that needs to be forgiven.”

Her shoulders relax. He doesn’t hate her. She’d known she’d been afraid of it but not how much until he wasn’t. “What about being a shitty girlfriend?” Her voice is more steady and lighter this time.

He hums. “Don’t push your luck.” She giggles. “Seriously, though, you weren’t that bad.”

“I kind of was,” she protests. “I’d make you buy me stuff after I got mad and broke up with you.”

“One,” he rebuts quickly, “you never made me do that. I chose to. Two, yeah, but you also had good reasons for breaking up with me even if I didn’t always know it at the time. And that’s before I knew you don’t like guys.” They sit in comfortable silence for a moment. “Wait, you weren’t just breaking up with me because I wanted to make out too much, were you?”

Max hesitates for a moment. “Okay, just to be clear, I always had a good reason to break up.” She bites her lip debating if she wants to say the rest. The part Vecna had taunted her with. “But there was one time where what you did mattered less than what you wanted.”

“What does that mean?” He wonders.

“Meaning I didn’t really care about the thing I was using as a reason to break up.” She explains.

“Ow,” he murmurs.

“Sorry,” she grimaces. “As soon as I realized that I was really doing it to get distance I decided that was it. That we weren’t getting back together.”

“But-“ he cuts himself off for a moment. “The movie date?” He sounds lost.

“I thought I was going to die. Maybe not that night but eventually he’d get me.” Max explains. “There’s a reason I didn’t ask for the letters back, Lucas.” She tries to be as gentle as she can. He makes a little gaspy noise and she knows he’s crying quietly. “And I figured if I did, well, I wanted to give you something. Some proof that you deserved to feel loved.”

He sobs and hidden in it is her name. A desperate appeal, a fear of loss. She hadn’t admitted it at the time. How certain she was that her death was imminent. A matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’. She thinks he knew at the time but they were both focused on pretending for each other that everything was going to be fine. “Max, you matter so much to me. I wouldn’t have been able to feel I deserved anything including feeling loved without you here. I’m so thankful you fought anyway.”

Max squirms uncomfortably at his praise and genuine care for her. Dustin would have been so much less awkward.

“Sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner, stalker.” She says to redirect his praise. “I did try.”

He chuckles wetly. “Yeah? How did you try?” Lucas sounds curious. Eager to put aside the heavier conversation about how certain she was that she’d been walking to her death when she faced Vecna. Something flickers at the edge of her awareness and for a moment Max swears she hears El’s footsteps. She must not, though, or Lucas would say something. Her friends are pretty good about that now. They understand how scary it is to be in a dark room not knowing who’s there and have adapted quickly to her need to be informed.

“I asked El if Mike was a good kisser,” she says without thinking. The regret is instant. She might be willing to admit that she doesn’t think of guys ‘like that’ but she’s absolutely not ready to admit to her crush on talk about how she feels about El. Even if, to herself alone, she can admit how frequently she thinks of El. Which is much more than she's ever thought of any guy in any way.

“What?!” Lucas says incredulously. “Why the hell do you care how well Mike kisses?”

Max giggles. She doesn’t but also she really, truly does. It’s not about Mike as a person but Mike as the person El wants to kiss. The way Lucas has focused in on the Mike part is hilariously ironic. “I kind of thought, well, if everyone feels like kissing is just, I dunno,” Max shrugs her shoulders as she thinks of a gentle way to phrase it, “bland. I guess. Then that would mean there’s nothing wrong with me. That it was normal to not really care.”

“You never cared about kissing me?” He sounds hurt. “Fuck, I didn’t mean that. Of course you didn’t. Why would you.” He sighs. “How do I take that back?”

Max rolls her eyes. “I’m going to let you redo that, stalker.”

“Thanks Max, you’re lovely.” He says happily and she grimaces. “Yeah, okay,” his tone is softer. “Did you feel like you had to kiss me even if you didn’t want to?”

“No,” she sighs, “not the way you mean. It’s not like I was saying no or anything. I did consent.” She wants to make sure he understands that. “It just, well, it didn’t really feel like anything.”

“What do you mean?” He asks curiously.

“It was like wet hand holding without the comfort that hand holding brings.” She explains. “I enjoyed cuddling with you. I love our hugs and I feel, I dunno, safer I guess when we hold hands. It just never really felt like love does in books or movies. I thought maybe they were lying to me. That maybe if everyone felt this way I’d still be normal, y’know.”

“So you asked El if Mike was a good kisser?” He sounds slightly offended at the idea. She giggles.

“I didn’t exactly have many other girls I could ask.” She shoves his shoulder. “Plus I figured boys just like it more so asking any of the guys wouldn’t have made sense.”

“Okay, fair.” He agrees. “So how did you figure out not liking kissing boys was about the boys and not the kissing?”

She’s so grateful he’s her best friend. That he understands how much she wants, needs, to talk about this without her having to ask. “I started having dreams,” she murmurs. Her face feels hot and she can only imagine how red she is right now. Curse her fair skin.

“Dreams?” He teases, sounding scandalized. “Madmax, did you have sex dreams?”

“Okay, no,” she swats at him, “it’s not like that.”

He giggles as he fends off her swats. “How would not sex dreams lead you to realizing you want to kiss girls?”

Max cocks her head, focusing all her attention on hearing. That was a gasp. She definitely heard a gasp.

“What are you doing?” Lucas asks.

“Did you hear that?” Max says. She tilts her head back and forth in an attempt to listen better. “I thought I heard someone.”

She can hear him shift as he looks around too. “No, there’s no one here.” He says firmly. “Don’t think I’m letting you sneak out of talking about this.”

Max huffs. Damn stubborn Lucas. “It wasn’t a sex dream.” She repeats firmly. “It was just,” she trails off at the memory of it. The dream sense of a brick wall against her back. The larger girl blocking her in and tuning out the rest of reality. Narrowing the world down to just the two of them. “I dreamt I kissed someone.”

“Someone?” Despite the curiosity in his tone she’s not answering that.

“Or, rather, that someone kissed me.” Those gentle fingers tilting her face up as pink lips approach hers.

“Who’s someone?” Lucas repeats and she continues to ignore him.

“It, god Lucas, it felt so different.” Fireworks went off in her belly and lightning shot through her lips. “Like everything the books and movies promise. It felt right. I didn’t know kissing could feel like that.”

“Maybe,” Lucas sounds hesitant. Hopeful. “Maybe it was just a dream.” Max hates it. That he could sound hopeful that she just made up this part of her she’s struggling so hard to accept.

“When I woke up I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her.” Memories and fantasies alike had plagued her. The first dream had happened the night El moved away. As if it wasn’t until she lost the reality of El that her mind could admit what it really wanted. “What it was like to touch her, to be touched by her. I didn’t want it to stop.”

“I know the feeling,” he says contemplatively. “How could I not? It’s how I feel about you.”

Max wasn’t touching that either. “Then we had that fight, our last fight, and I had a moment of realization. Kissing you had never felt like that because it was never going to. Thinking about kissing her already felt like that even if I knew she’d never kiss me. The pieces fell into place and I knew.”

“Seriously Max, who is she?” Lucas asked with a blend of solid curiosity and misty jealousy. Max refuses to even hear that question she’s purposefully not answering. It doesn’t stop the smell of El from invading her senses. “That’s when you knew you wanted to kiss girls, huh?”

“That’s when I knew I only wanted to kiss girls. That no boy, even you, could,” Max shrugs, “do it for me.”

Lucas makes a soft hum of contemplation. “I guess,” he says slowly, “it’s not so different.”

“Not so different from what?” Max asks.

“Not so different from how I knew I wanted to kiss girls.” He answers. “Like, I always knew they were pretty but that didn’t really matter until one day, it Did.”

“Yeah,” Max nods, “she was always pretty but after that it was the kind of pretty that made my chest hurt and my stomach drop but in a nice way.”

“Like a movie that becomes a play,” he agrees. “Both are art but one’s art where it matters that you get to step into and become part of it.”

“Exactly,” she agrees. Then she grins. “Touchable art.”

“Jerk,” he shoves her shoulder. “My metaphor was more nuanced than that.”

“Lucas,” Max shakes her head sadly at her best friend, “movies aren’t art.”

“They are too!” He defends with a high pitched offence. They talk about movies and their worthiness to be considered art until Erica comes to get him. By then the smell of El has faded from Max’s nose like the fantasy it was all along.

Max figures there’s a schedule. Some monthly calendar somewhere with everyone neatly penned in for different shifts. It’s the only explanation she has for how everybody does such a good job at visiting her. Will leaves ten minutes before Dustin arrives. The next day Mike sticks around long enough to greet Erica. Hopper and Joyce are almost always there when her doctor talks to her. The odd time neither can be, Steve and Robin are. El and Lucas take turns being there during her physical therapy.

As much as it kills Max to have El there she’s aware her performance is the best with El there. She’s mostly aware because her physical therapist, Micheal, has pointed it out seven times. She’d teased both him and Mike incessantly about their names until he started calling her out in response. Personally, Max thinks holding out until the seventh time was a display of perseverance greater than her bicep curl max reps.

Which does always improve when El’s in the room. She’s pretty sure El helps out when she thinks she can get away with it. The worst part is it works. The more Max thinks she can do the more she does. Actually, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that El sits there calmly stating compliments the entire time.

“You look very pretty when you work so hard,” El says completely shamelessly. Like that was just a thing people were allowed to say. The weight in Max’s hand falters slightly before she steadies it. Her biceps flex harder at the effort. “Oh wow, I like the way your muscles flex.”

“Kill. Me. Now.” Max grunts out. El makes an intrigued noise in the back of her throat.

“I enjoy when your voice gets like this. It makes my belly feel warm.” El says confidently at a casual speaking volume. Max flushes redder than she already was. How could she not when her best friend and secret crush just implied she found her voice sexy. Thankfully El rebukes her gently before she can wander down that train of thought. “You should not say words like that, Max.”

“I. Am. Allowed.” Max grits her will and breathes. “To phrase it. How I want. During this.” The deeper breaths let her keep moving the weights in steady reps. “We agreed.”

“Technically, your agreement was with me not her,” Micheal says factually. She scowls at him. “Yes, that’s right. Max promised to put her all in if I let her freely speak about her complaints. Her many, many complaints.”

El giggles. The weight in Max’s hand wavers as she’s torn between being stunned and delighted at the sound or jealous at Micheal (another Mike! Why must her life be plagued with Mike’s?) being the one to draw the sound out. She scowls harder at Micheal. “My,” she huffs, “valid complaints.”

“If you’d stop talking you’d have more breath and less complaints,” Micheal points out unhelpfully.

“Aw, but I like it when you talk like this,” El pouts. “Oh, but I don’t like seeing you struggle for no reason. Maybe you should stop talking?”

“No.” Max grunts. “I do. What. I want.” And what she wants is to talk. For no particular reason. Certainly not because El ‘enjoys’ her voice when she’s soaked in sweat and barely verbal. Just.. cause. Reasons. She’ll think of them when she’s not trembling from her neck to her waist from working out.

“You always do,” Micheal says with dry fondness. “If you can talk you can do more reps.”

“That’s my Max,” El says softly.

Max is pretty sure this is torture. She should probably stop signing up for it. She’s not going to, of course, but she probably should. She does five more reps. Twice. It’s a new personal best. It’s three more than she’d been capable of last session.

“Statistically 17.8% of people with incomplete spinal injuries fully recover,” Dustin mumbles. “But 80% of them can regain mobility. I was reading an article that said stroke patients can take three to six months to recover enough to walk. So I’m pretty sure that means you’ll be able to walk again. Mostly sure.”

Max is pretty sure none of those people had their limbs broken by a psychic. Now that she’s thinking about it some of them might have. El’s hurt people before. A shiver trails down Max’s spine. It’s not the same. She can’t imagine El taking anything but a semi-feral joy of survival from the pain she’s caused people. Vecna’s enjoyment was in her suffering, not his success. She’d know. She felt it as clearly as he had due to the bond between them. It was, disgustingly, almost sexual in nature. He was a monster in a way El never could be.

“Plus, your spine is fine.” Dustin says encouragingly before his voice drops with concern. “Actually, that might not be a good thing. Your bones were shattered. They had to do seven surgeries to make sure no fragments were detached. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. One I’m pretty sure El helped them solve. I saw it. I don’t- how could anyone survive that? How could anyone heal from that? No. No, I can’t- I have to believe you’re going to walk again. I Have to. I can’t give up when you haven’t.”

Max gives up, on average, three times a day. It’s significantly improved from the thirty times an hour it was when she first woke up. She blames her friends. Including Dustin.

“You keep trying. Even after you break down. Even when it looks hopeless. You keep trying. You lived. God, Max, I’m so thankful you lived. That you keep waking up every morning and trying. You have no idea how proud I am of you for it. You might say you have to but I know. I know you don’t. You choose to. That’s why, no matter what the statistics say, I believe in you. Fuck math. You’ll walk again because you’re you.”

The first time she heard this she didn’t believe it. All her fears, all her doubts, dismissed their words. Dustin and all her friends, her family, kept saying it. Kept sounding so sure, so proud, so insistent. Somewhere along the way she started believing them. She doesn’t regret it. Won’t regret trusting that they see more clearly than she does.

“And if you don’t, if you never walk again, you’ll still be Max. We’ll be your legs. We won’t leave you behind. I won’t let us. Not that anyone would want to. We love you Max. You’re one of my best friends and I love you so much for it. You’ll always have a place in my life.”

God, Dustin always turns so sappy. Max isn’t sure what’s worse. His scientific facts or his absolute faith and love. Initially it was his absolute faith and love but the more she accepts it the more reassuring it starts to feel.

“Maybe El could help you walk again? If your bones never heal I mean. She’s strong enough to lift up a person. No, this is ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it.” Dustin continues. This is a new direction for him. Normally he’d circle back to the self-soothing comfort of science.

“Do you think El has the strength and control to hold me up but still let me choose the direction I walk in?” Max asks, curious. She knows El’s been practicing with her powers but other than the boys’ occasional awe filled rants no one’s really told her what that looks like.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Dustin comments out of nowhere. “Maybe. Does that matter?”

“Duh,” Max says. “I’m not going to let her walk me around like a puppet if I don’t get to control where I go.”

“You’d let her walk you around?!?” He sounds incredulous and Max is so confused. He’s the one that suggested it and it was a great idea.

“Yeah,” Max drawls out the word to convey just how dumb he’s being. “Why not?”

“Why not? Why not! Max!” Dustin’s nearly shouting. His voice is tense with layers of emotions she can’t discern. At times like these she wishes she could still see so she could judge his emotions based on his face. “Maybe because the last telekinetic that held you up like a puppet snapped all your limbs, gouged out your sight, and killed you! Maybe that’s why not!”

Okay, Max can kind of see where he’s coming from now. Kind of. If she squints at it from an obscure angle. Some angle that correlates one of the most caring and gentle people she knows with a monster that peeled off its human flesh. Like how Hawkins and the upside down are ‘kind of’ the same.

“I trust El.” Max says. It comes out solid. Unshakeable. Just like her trust in El is. Simple and profound all at once.

“Should you?” Dustin whispers. Like a hidden thought he’s not sure he even wants to say to himself. A doubt he dare not face.

Unacceptable.

Max won’t stand for it. Won’t let his fears poison the version of El that lives in his mind. If she’s learned anything from living after she should have died it’s this: they (she) need to be able to trust each other. They can’t do it alone. Life’s too cold and too hard to face by themselves. For Dustin and El both she won’t let this stand.

“I trust El,” Max says firmly, “because I know her. We know her. She is capable of causing great harm. That’s never been in doubt. It’s how we know she’s so trustworthy. She has the power and has only ever used it to protect us. Because that’s who she is. That’s who she chooses to be. Someone who is gentle. Don’t you dare compare her to him. Don’t you dare.”

“I-“ Dustin stammers, “I didn’t mean to.” She believes him. He sounds small, young, when he talks next. “Do you really believe that about her? She hurt you once. Choose to hurt you with her power because she was jealous. Did she even apologize for it?”

“She’s human,” Max growls. “Stop putting her on some god damn perfect pedestal. Let her be a normal human girl with normal human emotions. People get jealous. They act petty. You hurt me too when you realized I wasn’t going to date you. I forgave you even though you never apologized for it because I know that’s not who you choose to be. Just like I forgive her for knocking me off my board and giving me the cold shoulder when we met.”

Dustin is silent for a moment. “You’re right,” he agrees. “I should have apologized for that. I did treat you poorly. I’m sorry.”

Max nods to accept his apology. She’s already forgiven him and she doesn’t need it but if he feels the need to give it she’ll accept it.

“I do keep putting El on a pedestal.” He continues. “I don’t mean it but she’s just- she’s larger than life. She changed my life. Just by existing she showed me that a world I only dreamt of existed. I keep thinking about her like a superhero but she’s not living in a comic book.”

“You should tell her that,” Max says, “not me. She deserves to hear that she’s allowed to be human. To fail and still be loved.”

“I- do you get how weird this is?” Dustin mumbles and Max furrows her eyebrows at him quizzically. Why does he keep saying that? “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He agrees.

Max smiles. That was all she wanted. Her friends to trust each other as deeply as they should. Far deeper than she’d trusted them.

“Seriously though, do you think she could help me walk? Not that I’m going to stop trying to do it myself! But. It would be nice to know I’m guaranteed to get to walk again one way or another.” She can already feel a weight lifting off her future at the mere idea of it.

“El might need a bit of practice first,” Dustin says. “We could come up with a training plan for her. If she’s willing to try.”

Max grins. “I’ll ask her next time I see her.”

“Alright, something is definitely up with this.” Dustin says for the third time referencing something being odd out of nowhere. She wonders what he’s looking at that doesn’t make sense and why he doesn’t just tell her about it. “I, uh, have to do some research. Will you be okay alone if I head out now?”

Max rolls her eyes. It’s pretty much the only thing they’re good for now. “Yeah Dustin. I’ll be okay if you leave me alone for all of, what, an hour? Go do your thing. I’ll do some exercises or something.”

“Awesome,” Max can hear his smile in his voice. “Don’t worry Max,” he sounds a little worried now, “we’ll figure this out.” That’s not a great way to prevent her from worrying. He leaves before she gets a chance to say it.

El visits frequently. Max doesn’t know if Lucas or El is her most common visitor. It’s hard to tell when she pays more attention to El visiting than Lucas. Throws her count off. It does mean that when she hears El’s familiar steps Max smiles. She missed El (even though El was here yesterday).

“Max,” El announces her presence softly from the doorway as she always does. She sounds affectionate and pleased. Like the mere fact that Max was here made her day better.

“Hey El,” Max grins at her. She keeps her eyes open and facing where El is. Most of her friends she doesn’t do this with. Not that they’re mean about it. The closest they’ve been to casually cruel was telling her how awesome her ‘creepy’ eyes looked. El’s different.

“I love it when you look at me,” El murmurs quietly as she walks into the room. “You make me feel seen. Make me feel trusted letting me see you so vulnerable.”

Max flushes and distracts them both by pretending she’s heard nothing. “Weren’t you just here yesterday?”

“Yes,” El confirms. “I missed you. I want to come see you every day but Hopper won’t let me.”

“I’d let you come visit me every day,” Max can’t keep the smile from her face.

“It makes my belly flutter when you say that,” El says. “Do you want some water?”

“Yeah,” Max agrees. She’s thirsty. And not thinking about how much her own belly flutters when El says things like that.

“Should I go get some ice?” El wonders and Max can hear her by the water pitcher.

“Please don’t,” Max answers. She does like her water cold but El just got here.

El giggles. “Do you know?” She says it teasingly. Max furrows her brows and tilts her head. El hums. “You look so pretty today.”

Max clears her throat, fingers compulsively rising to comb at her messy hair. “You, uh, you too. I mean, you look pretty today too.”

El laughs. A low, throaty sound that makes Max's chest tingle. “You can’t even see me.” She says it shyly. Anyone else and Max would take it as a dig about her sight. With El it feels different (everything does). Her shyness feels more like longing without letting herself believe. Max wonders if El wants her to see El as pretty.

“I don’t have to,” Max grumbles, “I know you’re pretty without seeing you. You’re always pretty.”

“Max,” El says her name so warmly, so affectionately, it makes Max squirm. “I wish you could see me.” Well.. there’s a way. If Max is brave enough to risk it. “Here’s the cup.”

Max holds out her hand like the coward she is and lets El put the cup of half full water in it instead of her face. Her arm hardly shakes as she lifts it up to her mouth. She’s not that brave. How would she ever recover from using her sense of touch to see El’s face? She can’t. It was easier to face Vecna. At least she can recover from being brave against him. Touching El so intimately… some things are unrecoverable.

“I’m so proud of your tenacity,” El says admiringly. Max opens her mouth to drink a sip. “I want to know what your mouth tastes like.”

Max chokes. Drowns. Water dribbles down her chin from her dropped jaw.

“Are you okay?” El asks concerned. “Can you breathe?” Max glares at El for being so genuinely concerned about her ability to breathe after trying to murder her.

“El,” Max wheezes, “you can’t just say that while I’m drinking!”

“What did I say?” El wonders curiously. Max stares at her. How could El not know what she said? Is she just so used to saying shit that completely wrecks Max she doesn’t even recognize when she does. Max’s mouth opens and closes as she seeks words. “Do you want a towel?”

“Nah,” Max wipes the water off her face with her sleeve.

“Aw,” El pouts, “you look pretty when you’re wet.”

“Things like that!” Max points at El. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Things like what?” El wonders. “How pretty you are?”

“Yes!” Max says louder than she meant to in her frustration at El’s obtuseness. “Complimenting my tenacity is fine, well, it was super embarrassing at first but everybody does it so it’s whatever. But the other thing is just,” Max grunts with the words she can’t find. “It’s too much!” Max whines.

“Tenacity?” El asks with that monotone lilt that conveys her desire to know what it means.

“My ability to keep going,” Max explains in the patient way she only really has with El. Maybe because El has always asked what something means instead of just assuming like Dustin and Lucas.

“I really adore how well you understand me, Max.” El says. Max can tell. Her voice is full of warm adoration. Max squirms. She covers her red face with her hand and closes her eyes for strength.

“I adore you too,” Max admits.

“Adore?” El says with a monotone lilt.

Max sighs. “Why do I feel like we’re having two separate conversations?” She asks rhetorically. “It means to love and deeply respect someone.”

“Thank you Max,” El says happily. “I do adore you.”

“Yeah, you said that already,” Max grumbles.

“I also adore the way your shirt pulls up and shows off that strip of your belly.” El continues with the same perky tone.

Max yelps and slaps her hand down to cover her skin. “El!”

El giggles. “You sound cute when you’re flustered like this.”

“I’m not flustered,” Max defends poorly.

“Flustered?” El asks.

Max sighs and realizes this is their conversation now. El saying words appropriately in a sentence then asking her what they mean. Max would think she’s doing it maliciously but El’s not like that. There must be something else going on but Max can’t figure out what. “Unsettled,” Max explains, “like when I turn red and can’t talk well because you’ve shook my thoughts.”

“I do like making you flustered,” El agrees. “Flustered is a good word.”

Max huffs. “If you keep making me flustered I’m going to die,” she says dramatically.

“No, Max!” El shouts with fear, shaking her voice. “Don’t die! I don’t want you to die.”

Max shoots out her hand to let El grab it. El does, locking on with a desperate grip. Max uses it to pull El into a hug. “No, El, honey, I’m so sorry. Not like that. It was a joke. An exaggeration. I won’t actually die.”

“Please don’t joke like that,” El sobs quietly. “I’m so scared of what happened. I have nightmares about it and I hate when I wake up and can’t see that you’re okay. That you’re alive.”

“I- I didn’t realize,” Max says sorrowfully. She never meant to make El so scared. “I won’t ever say it again. I promise.”

“You promise? Will you also promise you won’t die?” El’s voice trembles as she asks it. Max wants to. She wants to promise El she won’t ever die but, ironically, she’d rather die than lie to El.

“No,” Max says softly, “I can’t promise that. I can’t control if I die or not so I can’t promise I won’t. I can only promise that I will try to live. No matter what, I’ll try to live.”

“You better,” El growls threateningly through her tears. “I need you to live. I need you, Max.”

“You have me,” Max soothes immediately.

“Whenever I want?” El asks.

“Uh, well, I- I guess?” Max confirms. “W-what exactly does that mean?”

“I’m allowed to watch you whenever I want.” El answers firmly. Max gets the suspicion she’s thought about this before.

“A little weird,” Max thinks out loud, “given that I won’t be able to see it. But. Okay.”

“Yes!” El wiggles in happiness. “I do sometimes anyway,” she confesses. Her breathing steadying under Max’s hands.

“Do what anyway?” Max asks as she strokes soothingly up and down El’s back. Their comforting hug has morphed into a comforting cuddle.

“Watch you,” El says as she tucks her head beneath Max’s chin.

“Uh, no? You don’t?” Max says. She would notice if El was watching her. Even if she is blind.

“I do,” El reaffirms. “From the void.” She explains.

“Why do you do that?” Max asks curiously.

“I like to see you,” El says devastatingly. “To watch you breathe and see you move. It reminds me that you’re still alive. My Max.” Max’s heart has never been so full. “Plus you are very pretty. My body feels more awake when I watch you. I want to touch you so badly. Sometimes I think it is good to watch you from the void so that I can’t give into the desire to touch you. Can I touch you? Oh, please let me Max.”

“Ugh,” Max groans with the blow. She doesn’t know how to respond to that innocent question. Obviously (obviously!) El doesn’t mean it the way Max’s libido takes it. She probably means it as a continuation of the reassurance that Max is alive, that she didn’t fail. Max strains to pack away those unhelpful yearning thoughts and reply to her friend’s hurt. “Yeah, if you want to you can touch me.”

El squeals with happiness. Her arm curls further around Max’s shoulder until her hand can sink through Max’s hair and stroke the back of her neck. “Thank you,” El says earnestly.

Max sighs. She means to do it theatrically as if she’s been greatly put upon. It comes out embarrassingly relieved. Her head relaxes back into El’s touch.

“Here too?” El asks. Her voice is raspy and if Max didn’t know better she’d say it was seductive. It does nothing to distract Max’s attention from her curious fingers playing with the hem of Max’s shirt at her hip.

Max makes a noise. El’s fingers are touching the bare skin of her waist. Max reminds herself to breathe. Her stomach moves the smallest bit into El’s touch as she inhales a shaky breath.

“Tell me if I can’t, Max, tell me so that I don’t.” El whispers, voice taunt. Her lips graze the skin of Max’s neck and Max…

Max has died. Full on, straight up, she has been dead for a solid minute in her life. The doctors and Lucas told her so. Vecna reached into her mind and hollowed her out. In the scale of life altering moments that pales in comparison to this one.

Every beat of her heart brings the awareness of El touching her. El’s fingers playing with her baby hairs on the back of her neck. El’s lips cushioned against the skin of her neck where her pulse beats so hard. El’s body curled into hers as if she’s the only safety in the world. El’s hand splayed on her belly under her shirt feeling the rise and fall of her breath. Max is never going to recover from this.

Max is in love.

She can’t ignore it anymore. Can no more deny her feelings than she could her blindness. She sees that now. The denial was just lying to herself. It didn’t actually change the reality of the situation. Max is in love with El. She’d thought she’d loved Lucas, and she did, but in comparison to what she feels for El it’s so small. A pebble to a mountain. Lucas felt like a brother she could trust and a friend that always had her back. El felt like gravity. A fundamental force of nature that dictated her entire life. She was built for this. For a life with the constant love of El holding her feet to the ground. Raging against it was as effective as raging against gravity. Accepting it, understanding it, learning how to ride the waves of emotion was where true freedom lay.

“I love you,” Max says, riding the swell of her emotions with the ease of countless hours falling off skateboards has given her. Hitting the ground was never the hardest part of learning to skateboard. Getting back up and trying again with a body aching from the sting of it was. She knows how to do that. How to take the blow and keep trying all for that perfect freedom of falling with style. “I love you.”

“Max,” El’s strangled voice sounds like a sob, “me too. I want to say it too. I love you. I love you so much. Say it again. I want to hear it again. I want to hear it always.”

Max’s smile is strained. She’s never heard El ramble so much before. It makes her wonder if El means it the same way she does. Max closes the door on that thought. El doesn’t. Can’t. She has Mike. Max is just a friend she watched die. Mike is the love of El’s life and Max will be okay with that.

One day.

For today she’ll enjoy this. Laying here and feeling El so close to her. Telling her all the truths she can. Tomorrow she can get clarity. Can smother that nascent hope in her heart the way she already knows she’ll need to repeat time and again. Just because El doesn’t mean it the same doesn’t mean El doesn’t mean it at all. She’ll learn to accept El’s love the way she wants to give it.

She promises herself.

“I love you,” Max whispers into the silent room. Only their breathing stirs the air.

“Again,” El requests.

“I love you,” Max says again.

“Do you mean it?” El asks. A sadness laden in her voice that brings tears to Max’s eyes. She doesn’t ever want El to be that sad and it feels worse when it’s about something that makes her so happy.

“I mean it,” Max confirms firmly. “I love you.”

“I adore you saying you love me,” El murmurs. “I could listen to you say it forever.”

“Any time you want,” Max replies. “I’ll say it any time you want.”

“Why?” El sounds so genuinely curious that Max’s heart breaks. How could she not know? El, of all people (in Max’s eyes), should know how lovable she is.

“Because I love you,” Max says. “I’ll say it until you know. Until you can hear it with my mouth closed. I love you.” El shivers and presses closer into Max. “El, I love you.”

Max counts her breaths by the rise and fall of El’s hand. “Again?” El asks.

“I love you,” Max says immediately and with no hesitation.

“How many times have you said it?” El asks in a wondrous tone.

“I wasn’t counting,” Max admits.

“Nine,” El supplies after mumbling the count. “Make it ten?”

“I love you,” Max sighs the confession. El giggles into her neck. Max hugs her close. Tomorrow is not far enough away. Max wants to live in this moment for eternity.

“How can you do it so easily?” El wonders and sounds like she’s talking to herself for all that she’s saying the words out loud. “How can you say you love me like it’s an absolute truth of the world and you’re just acknowledging it?”

Max opens her mouth to answer but El must not see it as she keeps talking.

“Do you know how many people have said they loved me? Four. Only four people in my entire life. Two of them only said it once.” El says neutrally.

“El,” Max whines as she blinks tears from her eyes, “you deserve to hear it more. Everyone should tell you all the time. I’ll tell you any time. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Please,” El twists her hand in the fabric of Max’s shirt to hold them closer together. The weight and angle of their bodies make Max’s still healing legs throb but she’d rather break her bones again than give this up. “Please.”

Words may have abandoned El but Max knows now what she wants. What she needs. “I love you.” She whispers into El’s ear. El shivers and presses harder against her like she’s trying to press herself into Max.

“How can you?” El asks with devastating honesty.

“How can I not? You are so, incredibly, lovable. You’re so brave. You try so hard to do good. You make me smile and laugh every time I’m with you just by being you. You have so much courage. I can’t not love you.” Max bites off her words before she can confess how hard she tried not to. How little she was successful in the face of El’s beautiful soul. She doesn’t, can’t, taint this moment with her own perverse desires.

“Max, why can you see that about me when no one else can?” El asks quietly. “Why don’t you see me as the monster I am?”

Max blinks frantically to prevent her tears from spilling down her cheeks onto El. She’d known, some part of her, that El felt this way. The same part of her that saw the feral shameful beast chained in her own chest. She says what she’s always wished someone would say to her. Something she knew was true about El but struggled to believe could be true about herself. “Surviving doesn’t make you a monster.”

“But I am,” El denies, “I hurt people. Not just with my powers, Max. I hit Angela in the face with a skate. Just because I was angry. M-mike was so d-disgusted with me-me. I-I’m a m-monster.” She sobs into the crook of Max’s shoulder.

Max holds her close, as close as she can with her mangled body, and rocks her gently. “No,” Max explains. “What you are is a teenage girl. Just a normal teenage girl. With all the rage and hurt we all have but with twice the expectations. If I had done it, if it was me that hit this ‘Angela’ in the face with a skate, would you think I’m a monster?”

“NO!” El’s denial is immediate and fierce. “Never! I would never think you’re a monster. I couldn’t.”

“Even if I wanted Billy to die?” The whisper slips out without her intent. The smallest, scaredest voice in her head that huddles in the darkest corners of the night and hides from all perception turning on the light switch so El can see it. See her.

“Even if you’d killed him yourself,” El promises.

Max’s eyebrows raise in surprise and she huffs a half laugh. “If it takes that much and you still don’t think I’m a monster,” Max says. “Why are you so quick to call yourself one?”

“That’s,” El trails off. “It’s different. When it’s you, it’s different.”

Max hums. “Be easier on yourself? Please. That’s my best friend you’re thinking so horribly about and I love her very much. I love you.”

El whimpers.

“I love you and well I would probably love you if you were a monster we’ll never know. You aren’t a monster. You’re someone who’s been through horrible things, who is capable of horrible things, but I know you. And I know you’re just a girl. A wonderful, angry, protective, pretty girl who I love very much.” Max says.

El presses deeper into Max and they hold each other close. Max couldn't promise the world beyond this bed, beyond El, exists. She never could. Even when she could see it.

“Can I keep you forever?” El wonders in a sleepy voice Max can barely hear despite how closely they are pressed together.

“Yeah,” Max agrees as she lets her physical exhaustion and the warmth of El beside her pull her down to sleep. “Forever.”

“-iculous to even think about it. Those boys. I can’t belie-“ Nancy’s voice trails off into unintelligible mumbles as she walks past Max’s door for the fourth time. Only to turn around and pace restlessly back, her voice growing clear enough to understand she passes the door in the opposite direction. “-est it this way! Who does that? Who just decid-“

Max sighs. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if she couldn't hear what Nancy was saying. Not that she wants to act as an ‘unconscious’ sounding board but it’s so much more frustrating to catch the odd sentence. She has no idea what Nancy’s so caught up in. Max sighs again as Nancy’s voice grows closer. “Nancy!”

“Oh shit, Max.” Nancy says clearly enough for Max to hear despite not being at the door. Her heels click as she walks to the door. “How did you know it was me?” She asks.

“I may be blind but I can hear you, y’know?” Max says dryly.

“Yes, I know,” Nancy says. “But how did you know it was me?”

“Because I know what you sound like?” Max is confused why this is even a question. Picking a voice out of a crowd is tough but Nancy’s voice was distinct enough that Max could pick it out of a mostly empty hospital corridor. “Would you just come in and tell me why you’re here instead of pacing outside my door like a trapped wolf.”

Nancy huffs an almost laugh and steps into the room. “What am I even doing here? I’m being dumb. This is ridiculous and I’m insane for even thinking of this.”

“Seriously, Nancy, what’s up?” Max asks with open curiosity.

“Alright, okay, I guess I’m doing this.” Clothing rustles and Nancy sighs with deep exhaustion. Max can’t see it but she assumes the older girl is rubbing at her face or running her hands through her hair. “I don’t want you to break confidences or anything but there’s something I nweaendt to ask.”

Max twitches, frowns and cocks her head. That was weird. It was almost like Nancy said two words at once. Or that Max was hearing the word underneath the word. “Okay. Ask away.”

“Right. I’ll just- I can do this.” Nancy mumbles and Max is starting to wonder if she can. “When- Have you- If-“ Nancy groans. “Fuck it. Max, when Steve and Robin visited, have they ever mentioned,” Nancy takes a bracing breath, “me?”

Max’s eyebrows pop up in surprise. “Oh, wow, uh, I knew you and Johnathan had broken up but I didn’t realize you and Steve-“

“This is not about Steve,” Nancy interrupts sternly.

“No, no, I’m not judging,” Max reassures. “I get wanting to go back to how easy it was with your ex.”

“I don’t want to get back together with Steve,” Nancy says defensively.

“Right, yeah, of course,” Max knows she sounds fake. “You just want to know if he’s talking about you for totally unrelated reasons.”

“It’s not about that,” Nancy insists. Max nods agreeably. “It’s not!”

Max raises her open hands to show she’s unarmed. “I’m not disagreeing.”

“It’s about Robin!” Nancy shouts in frustration then freezes. Max can tell because she can’t even hear her breathing.

“Robin?” Max’s mouth drops open in shock.

Nancy squeaks. “Ohshitohshit, I didn’t mean to say that. I can't believe I said that! How could I just say that?”

“You said Robin,” Max repeats.

“No I didn’t,” Nancy denies weakly.

“Don’t gaslight me.” Max says firmly. "Trust is all I’m going on right now. Don’t make me doubt you just because you doubt you.”

“Ouch,” Nancy hisses quietly. “Alright, You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Max has always liked how Nancy owned her mistakes. Apologizing without trying to minimize what she’d done. It was part of why she admired the older girl so much. “Thank you,” Max accepts, then offers. “I can just pretend I didn’t hear anything if you want.”

“You’d do that?” Nancy says in a shy, vulnerable voice that Max has never heard from her before.

“I’m not Dustin,” Max grins. It draws a gentle chuckle from Nancy.

“We could,” Nancy says wonderingly. “But I,” she pauses and her voice firms with determination. “I’m not going to take the easy route any more. I said Robin.”

“Sooo,” Max draws out, “why’d you say Robin?” It isn’t until she asks that a wonderful horrible suspicion blooms in her mind. Max knows that California has a reputation for being more liberal but she’s never (to her knowledge) openly talked with someone like her before. A girl who’s attracted to another girl like other girls are to boys. Robin doesn’t count because they’ve never talked about it. Her heart pounds fast with hope and muffling anxiety. She can’t bear herself to fully ask. She tries anyway. “Are you-“ she means to say 'like me' but the words don't come. She settles for something that feels so much less. "Do you like girls?"

Everything sounds so much louder when Max can’t see. Before when she closed her eyes there was always this knowledge she could just open them again. That if she chose to, she could know exactly what was making the sound and where it was. Now all she can do is rely on what others have said and her sense of touch. If her guess is right that beep is from the room next door as the patient in there is assisted in breathing. Voices so quiet she can barely hear them are from the nurses station down the hall. On the wall to her left is a clock ticking seconds away. The loud scrap on her right from Nancy pulling out the chair then collapsing into it.

“Maybe?” Nancy finally says. “I mean, how am I supposed to know?”

“How did you know you liked Johnathan? Or Steve?” Max asks in return. She’d known she liked Lucas when he saw her as a person. It had taken her years to realize she liked Lucas as a friend. That what she had with him would never be as real as just the dream of El. She’d been more attracted to the idea of a boyfriend who at least tried to respect her unlike what she’d seen from her mom’s relationship. Or perhaps she’d been so desperate for any friends that she would forgive anyone acting against her clearly stated desires so long as they included her. Either way ‘liking’ Lucas provided no insight into the mess of emotions El sparked in her from their first meeting so this might not be a helpful question.

For the longest time Max had avoided looking too close at what El sparked in her. Some instinctive fear was certain it was too much, too big, too painful to bear to see wholly. Even after she could deny it no longer she avoided the fullness of it. She allowed only those little pieces she couldn’t suppress to sneak out. It felt like every second with El those pieces grew bigger and stronger. All the while her fear about it came and went like waves. A steady rhythm as unstoppable and absolute as the ocean. She rides one of those waves now. It's one thing to tell Lucas she likes unspecified girls, another to admit to herself how deeply she cares for El to herself, and something completely different to fully admit how desperately she yearns to be more than El's friend to Nancy.

Nancy who would be the perfect daughter Max's mom always wanted and Max always wanted to be able to give her. The first girl Max had ever seen who was able to fight monsters, stand up for herself, and genuinely liked all those too girly things Max felt so off wearing. It seems almost sacreligious to think that even Nancy could still have this flaw. It feels less like it might be a flaw if Nancy's the same way that Max tried so long to hide even from herself.

“I’m not sure,” Nancy admits with slight confusion tinting her voice. “With Steve, well, it was easy. Everyone liked Steve. He was the heartthrob of the school. All the girls wanted to be with him but he wanted to be with me.”

“It sounds like you were just going along with what everyone else was doing,” Max says softly. The words are empathetic and non-judgemental.

“It does, doesn’t it,” Nancy agrees. “Sounds like you know what that’s like?”

Max snickers. “Yeah, I know a thing or two about going along with everyone else. It is easier. Just…” Max trails off and thinks back to those times she’d tried to be her mom’s perfect daughter instead of a wild tomboy. Tried to be Lucas’ perfect girlfriend instead of just his friend. Tried to be Billy’s little sister instead of the girl who hated him as much as she feared and loved him. “Don’t think it ever made me happier. Y’know?”

“A bit,” Nancy agrees. Her voice sounds quiet, or maybe distant. Like her thoughts are somewhere else and her voice has joined them. “I dated Steve for months and I always thought it was off, that I was off, because of Barb. I couldn’t stop remembering that me spending time with him is why she died. My body couldn’t forget even when my mind did. I knew I was supposed to feel safe and comfortable with him and I did, but not like I should have.”

Max gets that. She couldn’t articulate it any better than Nancy was right now. That feeling of knowing what society expects and how easy it seems for everyone else but not being able to get there. She never expected Nancy, who is effortlessly girly and yet so strong and powerful, to know it too.

“With Johnathan it was different. Johnathan felt less like something I should do and more like my choice. I felt more, hmm, me I guess? At the same time there was so much going on with the Lab and how they were covering up Barb’s death. I felt so powerless and out of control everywhere else that being able to choose him and decide what happened between us was such a relief. But. When he moved I didn’t- I didn’t miss him. Not ‘my boyfriend’ Johnathan. I missed my friend Johnathan. I didn’t even notice he wasn’t there to kiss me or take me on a date. What kind of girlfriend does that?”

Max is the kind of girlfriend that does that. After Billy died and El moved away, she built walls between her and Lucas. Going to high school helped build those walls. So did Lucas's drive for popularity. She should have missed him then. "I did that," Max admits. "Do that."

"Is that why you and Lucas aren't dating anymore?" Nancy asked sympathetically. "We all thought- after you woke up-"

"No," Max braces herself, "we aren't dating anymore because I want to kiss girls as much as he does."

"Oh," Nancy says softly. "I'm so glad I have someone to talk to who understands. Wait, no, that's absolutely selfish Nance." Max exhales with relief. "I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me and I'll do my best to live up to it."

"I know," Max grins lazily. "I wouldn't tell you if I didn't trust you. Plus, y'know, I'm always going to trust you to have my back."

"Even though I failed?" It slips out. It must. Nancy's never broached this before. Not with Max. Though Max has heard Robin mumbling to herself about Nancy's 'ridiculous perfectionist martyr complex that makes her so frustratingly sexy'. Not that Max's going to tell Nancy about that. Robin never said not to tell anyone but Max is ninety percent sure she wasn't supposed to hear that. Plus the idea of someone repeating what they overheard Max saying to someone else terrifies her. She won't do the same to any of her friends.

"You didn't fail," Max says instead. It's not the first time she's had to convince one of her friends that what happened to her wasn't their fault. "I knew the risks when I made my choice."

"Max," Nancy says seriously, "it wasn't your fault." It's also not the first time one of her friends tried to convince her back.

"I know," Max agrees readily. "It's Vecna's. He's the only one to blame for what he did to me. I get that now."

"Good," Nancy's voice is firm.

"And he doesn't get to squirm out of that blame even in your head. So every time you start thinking you failed or should have done better, take that thought and shoot it. We did the best we could with what we had. We can do better now because we know more now. We're going to learn from it and move on."

"How did you get so smart?" Nancy wonders admiringly.

Max grins. "I think dying opened my eyes."

"Max!" Nancy scolds gently. Max winks then sniffs the air. It smells like El despite Nancy’s more powerful perfume. Something splashes quietly somewhere that sounds close but Max is pretty sure it can’t be.

"Now, are we going to talk about your possible crush on the most awkward and brilliant girl we know or what?" Max smoothly redirects.

"Do you think it is?" Nancy asks far more hesitantly than before. "A crush?"

"Hmm," Max hums as she seriously thinks about it. Her own selfish longing wants it to be but there's no guarantee that's how Nancy actually feels. She can only rely on the only crush she has personal experience with. "I've only had one crush before so, like, I might be missing some signs but I'm willing to share what made me realize it was a crush if you want? To see if it's similar?"

"I'd really like that," Nancy says gratefully. "You're an awesome kid Max. Your inner strength is humbling."

Max fights off a blush at the compliment. "It started with the little stuff. Just," she thinks back, "'noticing it all. Likes how she touches things gently because she's always curious to know more. The way she tilts her head when she's thinking. How softly she says my name like my name itself is something precious she doesn't want to break. Her careful, hesitant way of touching people."

Max can't see if Nancy's paying attention or thinking about something else so she pauses. Nancy's quick to fill the silence with insights of her own. "Robin goes on these long, barely-connected tangents when she’s flustered. It used to drive me crazy—until I realized I was holding my breath waiting for Robin to stop just to see what brilliant weird place her brain would go. It's charming to see the world through her eyes."

Max nods knowingly. Not that El rambled the same way but Max was always excited when El invited her to see how she thought. "Yeah," Max agrees, "that too. How all the things that in anyone else would drive me mad are," Max sighs longingly, "so damn charming when she does them. Like interrupting movies to ask questions or asking what everything means. She's just so earnest and curious about it. Anyone else and I'd tell them to find a dictionary if they want to know what presumptuous means. But if it's her? I'd read her the whole damn dictionary if she wanted me to."

"I get that," Nancy says. "I want to sit through every chaotic, looping, breathless tangent. Which is wild because I frequently want to strangle Dustin when he does the same thing and refuses to get to the point. But with Robin, I'll even ask follow-up questions. Sometimes I catch myself smiling quietly at how Robin gets ahead of herself, or how she uses weird metaphors that don’t quite make sense. And I get this stupid flutter in my chest every time Robin says sorry for rambling because of how much I like it when she speaks so freely. And when she pokes fun at my hand-writing or my 'mom' voice, or my taste in posters I have to stop myself from smiling. When Steve or Johnathan did that it used to make me want to leave. It feels different when Robin does it. Like, like-" Nancy trails off unable to find the words.

“Like she sees you,” Max offers up her own words, her own understanding.

“Yes, exactly,” Nancy agrees. “When she teases me it feels like she’s trying to join me.” She sighs heavily and it sounds to Max like a mixture of longing, contentment, and surprise. Max sits silently as she listens to barely there mumbles coming from Nancy’s direction. She hadn’t realized Nancy was the type to talk to herself before today.

“It’s not for me to decide,” Max finally says, “but that sounds a lot like how I feel about El.” The name slips out without her intention. She’s glad she told Nancy she’s had thoughts about girls. As, like, a general statement. She never meant to say who specifically she’s had those thoughts about. It makes it real, somehow, to have another person know. To have Nancy know. Nancy who’s met El, who knows El is dating Mike, who will see Max around El in the future. Maybe, just maybe, if she acts normal enough Nancy won’t notice.

“You totally didn’t mean to say El’s name, did you?” Nancy asks dryly.

“What?” Max questions in totally not a high pitched yelp. She chuckles completely normally and not at all nervously. “I’ve never heard of this El person.” The moment it comes from her mouth she realizes how dumb that is.

“Max,” Nancy says fondly, “love makes you dumb.”

Max buries her head in her hands in shame. “Love makes me so, so dumb.” She whines into her hands. “It’s not my fault! She’s so pretty.”

Nancy laughs gently. “You can’t even see her anymore, you big goof.”

“No,” Max waves her hands, “you don’t understand. It’s not just her face or her body. Her personality, who she is, is just so damn pretty.”

Nancy laughs harder at Max’s weak defence. Max decides she can’t do anything but laugh with her. Having someone to share in the excitement and ridiculousness of her crush feels really nice. She never would have thought Nancy would be that person but she wouldn’t change it. It makes her feelings for El sit both lighter and more solidly in her chest. Real and normal in a way they weren’t before.

“You should do something, say something. God, Susan, you’re such a horrible mother.” Max wishes she were asleep. She’s doing her best to pretend she is. “But it’s not my fault,” her mother’s voice whines. “Maxine just doesn’t understand how hard it is. Neil was a good man. Good men are hard to find. He kept a job, paid for a nice house for us, he wanted me to only work part-time. So what if he was a little heavy with discipline? It just meant he was a disciplined man himself.”

Max refrains from rolling her eyes despite that being pretty much all they’re good for right now. Her mom’s always been like this. Feeding so much of herself into her partner that she doesn’t even remember her own feelings. As if Max doesn’t remember finding her mom crying multiple times about how Neil was treating Billy and didn’t see her mom flinch back in fear that Neil would treat her the same. That same hypocrisy and loss of self is why Max had even tried dating Lucas. That and..

“Just look at this shirt. Maxine, if you were awake we’d be having words about how a girl is supposed to dress. This kind of shirt is meant for boys.” Susan’s voice grumbles, distracted from her relationship woes by the need to ‘teach’ Max how to exist. As always. “At least you’re dating that boy so I know there’s a girl in there somewhere. Why he didn’t make you stop being so tomboyish I don’t know.”

Max holds herself back from saying ‘because he respects my autonomy. Maybe you should try it sometime?’ It’s hard until she reminds herself saying anything will tell her mom she’s awake. The moment she does it’ll turn into a shouting match where she has to listen to her mom sob about how Max is being cruel to her when she’s trying so hard. Never even acknowledging that Max is trying just as hard and just as hurt by her mom’s failure to just be there for her.

“I always worried,” her mom says softly in a way that makes Max unconsciously perk her ears to hear more. “Seeing you with so many boys was always so reassuring. Until you brought her home. The way you were around her, how you were so patient, how you softened. I knew then. I was right to be worried.”

Max doesn’t furrow her eyebrows and ask ‘uh, what’. She wants to so badly. Not sure what her mom is talking to herself about right now but she knows it’s important. It matters, somehow. It feels like she’s seeing the edge of a cliff she’s spent her life scared of falling off. It’s so weird to feel on the edge of seeing something she’s been blind to when she’s literally blind.

“If I let you do all those silly boyish things then you wouldn’t be dating him, would you? You’d be dating her.” Susan’s voice sounds vicious as she says it. Not angry but almost excited. Like she’s happy to be cruel.

Max’s chest hurts. She doesn’t listen to anything else her mother says in the short while she visits before sneaking out while Max is ‘still asleep’. As if they didn’t both know Susan only comes when she’s sure Max will be sleeping. There was a time when Susan felt like her mom. When Max hurt at her tears and tried so hard to protect Susan from her own choices. Max feels like that childish hope for a mother’s love is shattered into jagged edges in her heart.

Her mom, no, Susan always suspected Max would love a girl. Instead of seeing it as something precious and beautiful, like Max does, she sees it as so dirty and shameful she felt justified in bending Max until she breaks. This, Max realizes, is why Max ran so hard from her feelings for El. Why she still runs from them. A part of her knew, always, that accepting this part of herself meant sacrificing her mother. The only person in her family who still shows up for her. Even if it was infrequently and never quite the way Max needs.

Max feels the tears soaking her pillow as she grieves a hope she didn’t know she had held on to. She’s never going to be the daughter her mother wants. Her mind would have delighted in taunting her with the certainty it was her fault before Vecna. Before her friends got so weirdly open with how they thought about her and about life in general. She can feel the pretend peace that would come with pretending not to be who she is. In faking the daughter her mom wants until she can eke out just a bit more love.

But she wouldn’t trust it. Some part of her would always know that love wasn’t for her but for the girl her mom thought she was. That peace turns to pain in her soul and starts to do something it never had. It starts to heal. She lets go of trying to be the girl Susan wants and embraces Max. Blind Max who has only a chance to walk again, who survived certain death with the help of her friends, who feels guilty that she felt glad her brother died, who walked into hell with her eyes open. Max, who is deeply in love with a girl she’s proud to call her best friend. It feels, for the first time in a long time, like she finally knows who Max is.

Max has no clue what’s going on.

“Hi Max,” Will says as she hears him walk into the room.

“Hi Max,” Mike nearly talks over Will when he says it.

“Hey Will, Mike,” Max replies and nods at them. She can hear the others murmuring amongst themselves as Will and Mike join the growing crowd in her room. She’d really like a clue for why they all gathered here.

“Max,” El’s soft voice cuts through the susurrus. “I missed you.”

“El,” Max can feel her cheeks stretching from how widely she’s grinning.

“Subtle Max,” Nancy comments lightly and Max’s smile drops but no one responds to it. Weird, she’d thought with how everyone is packed in that someone would have overheard that.

“Hey kid,” Hopper’s gruff voice says. The murmur of ongoing conversations quiets down a bit as he does.

“Hi Hopper,” Max replies and tries not to think about the fact that she loves his daughter. She waits for him to continue, to be the one to explain why everyone has piled into her room. He doesn’t.

The general murmur gets louder the longer everyone stands there. Or maybe her growing impatience just makes them sound louder. She’s still adjusting to ‘seeing’ with her ears. Surely this must be everyone. She can’t imagine many poor people will fit in her room.

Max tries to be patient but when all she can think about is them telling her Vecna’s back. Why else, her fears whisper, would they come here together and not talk about what brought them here? They must assume that Max isn’t able to handle it. Honestly, she’s not sure she can. She’s not going to let that stop her though. She never has.

“So, why’d you all decide to party in my room?” Max finally asks. Her voice cuts through the noise for a heartbeat before it sounds like they all start talking at once.

She catches enough to know that Dustin is panicking, Lucas is concerned, and Will’s terrified about.. Mike? Maybe? Max isn’t sure why Will would be worried about Mike given Vecna’s more interested in Will. Unless, Will’s worried about how Mike’s going to try to keep him safe.

“Hey,” Max says sharply over the overwhelming mix of voices, “don’t all talk at once.” She scowls at them to show how serious she is and flinches slightly when something touches the back of her hand.

“It’s just me,” El whispers under the sound of everyone chuckling. Max opens her hand and flips out so El can get a good hold. Her heart takes that moment to race wildly away from her but she ignores it to focus on what’s going on. Like figuring out why they laughed at Max’s request like it was a joke.

“Right, sorry,” Dustin says and she can feel how genuine his apology is. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”

Max has done a lot of personal growth since waking up after dying. But not that much. “I wasn’t scared.” She denies with full bravado.

“Right, right, I absolutely don’t believe you,” Dustin says immediately.

“I wasn’t lying,” Max scowls at him.

“I didn’t say you were,” Dustin defends himself with a high pitched voice. Max waits for someone to call him out because he obviously just did. “Anyway, uh, we’re gathered here because I have a theory.”

“A crazy theory,” Lucas interjects.

“A well thought out and tested theory.” Dustin’s voice gets quieter like he’s turned away from her. She can picture him glaring at Lucas the way he does when Lucas doesn’t automatically agree with him.

“Who was dumb enough to test this?” Robin asks.

“I’m not sure that counts as a test,” Nancy says. Max tenses but Nancy doesn’t respond in any way to Robin’s question.

“Oh,” Robin says. “Well, I didn’t see that one coming but Nance is the bravest one here so I guess that tracks.” Max strains her ears for how Nancy responds to Robin’s clear admiration but again Nancy ignores her.

“It counts enough as a test,” Dustin responds instead. “Besides, we all agreed to do this.”

“Maybe just do this? Instead of leaving me sitting here wondering what the hell’s going on.” Max says dryly.

“Watch your language kid,” Hopper grumbles but Dustin starts talking before he finishes and Max is shocked Hopper does nothing about it.

“Th#&*@(ng, Max. *@#%(@ eird.” Is all Max manages to catch with both of them talking at once.

“What?” Max asks. She expects him to repeat himself because clearly she couldn’t hear his voice over Hopper’s. He doesn’t.

“Just, look, be honest with us. Are you reading our minds?” Dustin asks and Max can feel how everyone is holding their breath in anticipation.

Max has no idea what face she’s making but she hopes it conveys half the confusion she’s feeling. “What the fuck, Dustin?”

“Just say yes Max,” El whispers beside her with a tight grip on her hand.

“What?” Max turns to face El. Part of her wonders if this is some cruel prank but she knows El wouldn’t do that to her. “Why would I say yes?”

“Because it’s true.” El answers calmly.

“No it’s not,” Max denies.

“Max,” El packs so much affection in that word that Max feels undone. “Tell me you love me?” There’s a hint of trepidation in El’s voice, like she’s not sure if Max will. Even after Max promised.

“I love you,” Max says clearly. El’s laugh makes Max smile even though she still has no idea what’s going on. “Why did you ask me to do that?”

“I didn’t,” El says while she’s still laughing. Max’s stomach drops.

“Uh, El hasn’t said anything since she got here.” Will says somewhere between confused and compassionate.

“Yes she has,” Max blurts out. “You all did.” A faint murmur of ‘no’s goes around the room. “But-“ Max searches her dazed mind, “but she literally just asked me to tell her I loved her?” Her voice comes out much smaller than she wants it to be.

“I haven’t had to talk out loud to you since the day after you woke up,” El says. Max swears she says it. She stares at El dumbfounded.

“Are you serious?!” Max asks much louder than she means to.

“Yes,” El explains. “I didn’t realize at first. Until Dustin explained telepathy to us. Then I came to visit you and tried not talking. Before that I thought you were just really intuitive at picking up non-verbal pity because of how you always complained that the nurses pity you.”

“I am really intuitive,” Max complains. “And I’m blind, not deaf. I can hear them pitying me.”

“I don’t know what that word means,” El says lightly, “and they’ve never pitied you in my hearing.”

Max purses her lips tightly together and admits that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a prank. “Intuitive means being able to figure things out by feeling.” She explains before turning to ‘look’ at everyone else. “Please tell me you guys hear El talking too?”

“Uh, no,” Steve denies mercilessly.

“Not at all,” Robin joins him. “It’s fascinating to watch you talk to her like she is though. Her face is pretty neutral but I can see her expressions matching what seems to be ‘her’ side of the conversation.”

“This is a little bit terrifying,” Lucas comments. “Can you not even tell when someone is actually talking or when you’re reading their minds? Have you read my mind? Are you reading my mind right now? Oh god, I need to think thoughts I don’t want you to hear. Like how many times I’ve thought of you naked and Oh My God brain stop! Yellow hammer, yellow hammer, puppies, basketball, that one cheerleader who kissed me. Me kissing you. Fuck! I need to leave!”

“I was right!” Dustin shouts over Lucas’s growing panic attack.

“I don’t know how to raise a kid who can read minds,” Joyce quietly panics. “You don’t seem to know when someone’s thinking or talking. Maybe I should look into ways to signal that for blind people? Oh, wait, that’s probably not a common issue. I’ll ask Owens.”

Max steals her hand back from El to press both hands to her ears. It’s too much. They’re talking so loud that Max can hardly hear herself think. Dustin keeps rambling theories about how she got this ability while Lucas is shouting random sexual things and Will is chanting about hoping she doesn’t know. Which makes so much more sense when she realizes his thirsty Mike oversharing was actually his private thoughts.

“Maybe we should leave?” Will’s quiet voice cuts through the roar like a shark through water. Max could kiss him. Like, on his cheek or something. “Max looks pretty overwhelmed.”

“But we need to see how it works,” Dustin protests.

Max takes her hands from her ears. “It’s not so bad when you guys aren’t being so loud.” She complains.

“The only one who said anything was Steve,” Nancy explains gently, “until Will suggested leaving.” Max’s stomach drops. She figured some of what she was hearing wasn’t out loud, as unbelievable as it sounds, but she thought for sure some of it was.

It feels like waking up without her vision all over again. A familiar world rendered alien and strange by some broken and twisted aspect of herself. One where everyone else still felt the same yesterday and it was only Max left behind. Left alone.

The small touch of a finger tip against her precedes the warmth of El taking her hand again. Her grip is tight and awkward, her skin rough with dryness. Max wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Their voices are getting steadier, blending together over one another in a way she knows now means that nobody is actually talking. At least she figures that’s what's happening. Hard to tell for sure without seeing it.

“Please,” Max finally forces out, “give me a moment alone.” She hears them agree and feels the hand in hers start to slip away. Max holds El’s hand tighter. “Not you. Please.”

“Of course,” El says. Or maybe she doesn’t say. How much has she said to Max when Max thought they were talking? How much did she mean to say? Tears gather in Max’s eyes at the thought that El hadn’t meant to share those things with her. “I like how your hand feels,” El says out of nowhere.

“Did you mean to say that?” Max asks fearfully.

“I didn’t say anything,” El replies and all Max’s fears grow claws to cage her heart. “I like it. That I don’t have to find the words for you to know them. It’s hard. With other people. With you before. There were things I want to say, feelings I struggled to express or even identify because I didn’t have the words.”

“El,” Max says softly. That tight cage of claws around her heart unlocking. One that started when El moved to California. They’d promised to talk but somehow as the weeks went by it got harder. Joyce was frequently on the phone when Max was trying to call and even when Max could get ahold of El she never knew what to say. How to say it. She was falling apart by inches and couldn’t find the words to tell El in a way she’d understand just how much Max needed to hear from her. When El never called back Max had taken it as a sign she didn’t actually want to talk to Max like Max wanted to talk to her. It’s not until now Max finally realizes. El has just as many things locked in her chest with no key.

“Now I have the words,” El’s smile is audible in the brightness in her voice. “I have all the words, even the ones I can’t find because you found them for me. Everyone seemed so scared when Dustin confessed his theory. Well, when they started believing he was right. I don’t know why because this feels like a gift. A blessing. How can they see it as anything but?”

“Well,” Max smiles wryly, “so people might be scared of having me know all their fears and private thoughts.”

“But I want you to know all of me,” El says guilelessly. “I like it when you see me. The real me. I trust you with the whole of me.”

“You trust me?” Max’s voice sounds raw to her own ears.

“More than anyone.” El speaks with absolute conviction.

“Even Mike?” It slips out before Max thinks about it. She freezes for a moment, wondering if she should pull it back or regret it. The memory of El’s conviction, her willingness to bare all of herself to Max, stops her. She refuses to give any less of herself to El than El is giving to her. El can’t read Max’s mind so she’ll just have to say the words out loud. Even the ones that make Max want to squirm in embarrassment due to the unbearable vulnerability of being seen.

“Even Mike,” El agrees. “I thought I could trust him. I did trust him. But I didn’t understand what trust meant then. I was so new to everything that I confused reliance with trust, desperation with dependence. I needed him to be something he never was and I never gave him the ability to just be himself in my concept of him. He was my normal but that’s not what he wants. He wants special. That’s why I dumped him. So we could both get what we want.”

“You dumped Mike?!” Max gapes with wide eyes at where she’s hearing El’s voice come from, hoping El feels the contact.

El laughs. “Yeah, I dumped him. It took a while because I was a bit distracted by getting to you but I knew I needed to when I left with Dr. Owens. I can be Mike’s hero but I’ll never be his person. It wouldn’t make me happy.”

“What would make you happy?” Max licks her dry lips.

“Finding out what you taste like,” El staggers Max’s world with her nonchalance. “Holding your hand every time I see you. Having you beside me.”

“Uh,” Max fully intends to say more. Just as soon as she can find the words.

“Hearing you say you love me every day for the rest of our lives.” El continues.

“I love you,” Max says obediently even though she’s forty percent sure those aren’t the words she was looking for. A hand cups her cheek.

“You, Max. You’d make me happy.” El says softly. Something heavy as the Earth in her tone.

“As, like, friends?” Max asks. She promised herself she’d be more open to this part of herself but her fears speak before her bravery can. “Or maybe more than friends?”

“More than friends.” El says confidently.

“Cool. That’s,” Max can’t think, “cool.” She’s aware of how lame she sounds right now but she can’t find the words she needs and oh god, why couldn’t El read her mind too.

“Very cool,” El agrees. Her thumb brushes against Max’s cheek. “Although, I have no idea how to be more than friends with a girl. I’m kind of scared but, like, excited scared. It reminds me of how it felt to go to the mall together. Exploring something I’ve always wanted but was so overwhelmed by the newness of.”

“Me too,” Max confesses. “I guess we’ll just have to explore it together.” She smiles hopefully.

“I can’t wait,” El’s excitement is overflowing.

“Just, like, double checking. Are you sure you want to do this with me? You might not know but people don’t really view two girls together as normal. Never mind when one of them is blind and semi-paralyzed.” Max feels the need to make sure. She wants this so bad but she refuses to force El into something she doesn’t understand or feel comfortable with.

“I love that you do that. Check to make sure I’m okay in a way that presents all the information without implying I’m stupid for not knowing it.” Max crinkles her nose because isn’t that just basic decency? El laughs and rests her thumb against the crinkle in her nose. “You make me feel like the journey of discovering who I am is a grand adventure. The kind of adventure movies are made about. When I’m with you it’s not scary that I don’t know things because not knowing something is a hidden opportunity. A chance to try on things until I find the thing that feels like me. It’s, Max, I’m so ordinary when I’m with you.” 

El says ‘ordinary’ like she thinks the angels up in the clouds should be jealous of it. Max can’t help agreeing. A single ordinary day with El is worth a thousand extraordinary days without her. “I feel like that too,” Max confesses. “Safe to be me without having to pretend to be anything more. Being with you makes the ordinary a beautiful, wonderful adventure.”

A sigh of mixed longing and contentment sounds but Max couldn’t rightfully say if it came from her or El. “I want to kiss you,” the words most definitely come from El and Max can feel her cheek under El’s hand burn at the statement. “Can I kiss you?” The words sound different, echo in a way El’s voice hadn’t been and if Max had any brain power left she might realize that’s because they are the first words El’s spoken out loud. 

“Y-yes,” Max stutters embarrassingly. “Please.”

El giggles, high and light with such affection it makes Max’s heart ache, before using her hand on Max’s cheek to guide their faces together. Something soft flutters against Max’s lips. El’s breath or the barest hint of her lips she’s not sure. Then El surges forwards and presses their lips firmly together. Max’s first, inane, thought is ‘plush’. El’s lips feel plush and full, firm with how they’re pressed together but soft in a way Lucas’ weren’t. She tastes like strawberry lip chap and mint toothpaste. Max has never liked strawberries and mint as much as she does right now. It’s awkward and unpracticed and El. So, it’s the best thing Max has ever felt in her life. The feel of El’s lips moving against hers, El’s hand guiding her chin to tilt, El’s other hand squeezing hers is suddenly overwhelming. Max has never felt as much as she did right now. Like her whole body is a raw nerve against El’s tongue. 

“You taste good,” El says as her tongue explores Max’s mouth. The dissonance of hearing El while kissing her rings in Max’s ears. She reflectively flickers her tongue against El to double check there’s no way she could have talked. “Oh, I like that. Do that again?”

Max indulges herself and does before she finally pulls herself back from El’s back with a gasp of breath. Her chest heaves for air. “Holy fuck I can read minds.” 

El giggles. “Did you not believe us before?”

“No,” Max explains, “no, I did. But something about feeling your mouth not moving while you talk to me just really drove it home.”

“My mouth was moving?” El questions curiously.

“Well,” Max blushes again as she’s reminded what exactly El’s mouth had been occupied with. “It wasn’t moving to talk.” She grumbles. El giggles again and rests her forehead against Max’s shoulder. Max’s mouth curls up into a proud smile at saying something El found so funny. “So, I guess this means we’re doing it? We’re going to be girlfriends?”

“Girlfriends,” El confirms. “My girlfriend.” She presses her lips against Max’s shoulder in a quick, chaste kiss. “My girlfriend Max, who I love.”

Max shivers. She considers, for a moment, if she’s emotionally ready for being able to hear El’s unfiltered thoughts. Probably not, she decides. She’ll just have to learn quickly because no way is she backing out of dating El. “Awesome,” Max whispers with solid joy. 

El nuzzles her nose against Max’s neck. “So no more saying I don’t love you like that.” 

“Wait, what? When did I say that?” Max doesn’t recall ever saying that to El. 

“Max,” El says fondly, “you’ve told pretty much everyone but me that you wanted to be my girlfriend.”

“I did not,” Max says defensively. 

“Alright,” El agrees and Max swears she can feel El’s smirk against her neck. “You told Lucas and Nancy. That’s two more people than it should have been.”

Max’s jaw drops. She had, kinda, told Lucas and Nancy. Privately. “Is that what you meant when you said you check on me?! You’ve been spying on me?”

El goes slightly stiff against her. “You said I could,” she says defensively. 

Max laughs. A deep belly laugh that’s only slightly hysterical. “Neither of us are going to have privacy in this relationship, are we?”

“Is that bad?” El asks. 

Max considers it seriously. “Maybe to other people. I don’t think I could give you more privacy if I tried and I,” she swallows, “I want to share me with you as much as you're sharing you with me. I want you to know as much about me as you want.” 

“I want to know it all,” El orders firmly with a confidence she could never display while ordering at a restaurant. “I want to share it all.” 

“Yeah,” Max can feel the dopey smile of pure love on her face. She’s kind of glad El’s not looking at her right now. That gets her thinking about looking and how long it’s been since she’s seen El’s face. Months even before she was confined to the hospital by Vecna. “Hey El?” She waits for El to hum that she’s heard Max. “Can I see you?”

“Max,” El’s voice warbles with grief. “You can’t see me.” 

“Not like that,” Max rolls her sightless eyes. “I’ve, uh, been trying to ‘see’ people’s faces by touching them. It works better with people I’ve already seen. I haven’t asked you yet because, well, I was hopelessly in love with you and worried about-” Max pauses for a moment as she notices she can’t even remember exactly what she was scared of. That she’d fall more in love with El, maybe? But that seems so ridiculous to her right now. She’s never stopped falling more in love with El since she first saw her. Max laughs. “I don’t even remember. Probably being even more hopelessly in love with you.”

“I like you hopelessly in love with me,” El comments as she grabs Max’s free hand and lifts it up towards her face. “You’re so cute when you're flustered.” 

Max grins and lets the pads of her fingers trail gently over El’s face. It’s both familiar and strange. The same curves and dips her memory has presented in a way she’s never experienced before. In her mind she pictures El the same way she was during Max’s favourite memory of her. Bathed in gold from the rising sun and lax in sleep as they snuggled on Max’s bed. “You’re beautiful,” Max whispers. She feels El’s cheek muscles tighten and her smile slide widely across her lips. 

“I love you,” El says without moving those smiling lips under Max’s hands. Then again, this time in a way that makes Max’s fingers move. “I love you.” 

Max grins. It’s everything she never knew she was allowed to want but couldn’t stop wanting. “I love you too.” 

Later she’ll let Dustin rant about how she probably took something with her when she survived Vecna. Or maybe she always could and this just unlocked it. She’ll smile patiently while he and Robin toss ideas back and forth like it’s a timed chess game. Later she’ll tell Hopper and Joyce that no, she won’t share their secrets then ask them politely to tell her what, exactly, their secrets are because she has no idea what they meant her to hear and what they didn’t. Then she’ll do the same with Steve. And Lucas. And Mike. Later she’ll hold Will as he cries and tell him he’s not alone. He’s the first one she’ll tell about dating El and she’ll politely pretend she doesn’t hear him wondering if Mike will look at him now. Later she’ll demand Robin and Steve tell her how many times Robin’s verbally conjugated Russian verbs in front of her, then catch them finishing each other's sentences in their heads. Eventually she’ll figure out how to (mostly) tell when someone is actually speaking or not. It works best with voices she’s familiar with and there’ll be more than a few embarrassing moments where she answers something no one said. Thankfully most of the embarrassment is theirs because Max no longer cares about what strangers think of her. Not when she has a girlfriend who’s opinion matters so much more to her.   

Bonus Scene:

Lucas and El are both at Max’s physiotherapy session. They’ve found an odd equilibrium in being Max’s ex boyfriend and current girlfriend. She has no idea how they hashed it out but it’s really nice to see them growing into their friendship with each. All El had said about is that they found some commonalities to bind them. Max has a growing suspicion about what ‘commonality’ they discovered. 

“Oh god, look at that curve. That’s fucking gorgeous.” Lucas swallows so heavily Max can hear it.

“How did I never know shoulders could be so sexy?” El wonders. “Can I lick them? Would they taste good? They look like they’d taste good.”

Max is going to kill them. Physiotherapy is hard enough listening to just one of them thirsting after her and as affirming as this is Max needs to focus. 

“Bench press me,” Lucas begs. “Or just bench press in front of me.”

“Or I could bite them. Leave a hickey right on that edge there.” El muses.

“Micheal,” Max grunts as she finishes her most recent rep. “I’m going to need a minute.” 

“You okay Max?” Her physiotherapist asks with concern. “We’re just getting started. You can normally go much further than this before needing a break.”

“Oh, it’s not me that needs a break,” Max grumbles. “I’m fine. Just need a moment to talk to the cheer squad.” She nods her head towards where she knows El and Lucas are sitting. 

“Alright,” Micheal agrees and she can hear his smile. “I’ll just go grab a coffee. Back in five.” 

“Thanks,” Max calls after him. She turns to scowl at her girlfriend and best male friend. “You do remember I can hear your thoughts, right? Stop lusting over my shoulders.” She says sternly with a flustered face.

“I- I wasn’t,” Lucas protests.

“But they’re pretty?” El says with genuine confusion.

“Wait, were you also-?” Lucas asks.

“Of course. Wait. Also? Were you?” El says and Max is pretty sure they’re talking out loud right now.

Lucas shifts like he’s nodding.

“”We have good taste.”” The two comment together.

Max rolls her eyes. “Good taste or not, you're both very distracting. Stop it.”

“Impossible,” El denies softly.

“Right, sorry, I’ll try,” Lucas promises.

Max sighs and resigns herself to the horrible ordeal of being wanted.