Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I didn’t cheat!” Mike yelled, exasperated.

“Sure Mike, you totally didn’t.” Lucas replied sarcastically. Mike’s face flared up as he started yelling more excuses. Max sighed. Every time they try to play Monopoly, this happens. Mike and Lucas always accuse each other of cheating and Dustin makes a pathetic attempt to make them stop fighting. Will and Eleven stopped coming to their Monopoly games a while ago. They knew how things got and didn’t want to sit through the arguments. At the moment, Max understand why they finally got tired of this. She got up and put on her headphones.

“Woah, where are you going?” Dustin asked, pleadingly asking her to stay.

“Away from two idiots yelling about pieces of paper with numbers.” Max said as she started playing “Running up that hill” by Kate Bush. She felt kind of bad for leaving Dustin alone with Mike and Lucas but she had better things to do.

She exited the house and felt the warm spring wind hit her face. It’s been two years since Vecna was defeated. Max was now 17 and finishing eleventh grade soon. It scared her how fast time had gone by, how everyone just seemed to forget and move on. Don’t get her wrong, she was happy and relieved when she woke up after a few months in a coma to hear that Vecna was dead. It was such a relief to not worry about things like that anymore. But she could never forget. In the back of her mind, she still hears Vecna’s voice, Billy’s screams, and so much more.

She brushed those thoughts out of her head as she walked up to the Byers’s house. She didn’t mean to end up there but sometimes her legs just go on autopilot. She adjusted her ponytail and rang the doorbell.

The Byers’s house was pretty quiet nowadays. Jonathan was in college, Hopper was at work, Joyce was at work, Will was drawing or painting, and Eleven just does whatever. Joyce and Hopper got married a few months ago so their families lived together now. Their wedding was the most fun Max has in her life. She danced with El the whole time. El became her best friend the summer after eighth grade. They were inseparable. Especially now. El and Mike broke up immediately after Vecna was defeated. El said that they decided they were better as friends and some other reasons Mike was hiding. Max being Max, she trashed talked Mike for half an hour before telling El she was too good for him anyway. Max and Lucas broke up at the end of tenth grade. After Max woke up from her coma, they waited a few months before dating again. But as time went on, Max realized she was bisexual. It was a lot to take in, so she told Lucas she needed some space for now. Now, she was beginning to accept herself. She hadn’t come out to anyone at first, since it was the 1980’s.

But one day when she was hanging out with El, she went downstairs to get a snack and overheard Will telling Joyce that he was gay. It was surprising that there was another queer kid like her. Later she went into Will’s room and came out to him. It was a pretty chill conversation. Just two queer kids freaking out and coming out. Then El came into the room, saying that she overheard part of their conversation. Will and Max were frozen, afraid that El might hate them. But she was very supportive of them and asked them to explain some queer terms to her. After an hour of talking, El realized she was pansexual. It was the best day of Max’s life, because she had found other kids like her, kids that she could relate to, and she never expected it to be the Byers twins.

Chapter Text

Max snapped back to reality when El opened the door.

“Max!” She smiled as she hugged Max. Max got butterflies, which was normal of course. They were completely platonic butterflies. El pulled Max into the house. “Will! Guess who’s here!” El yelled to her brother, who Max assumed was upstairs. There was no answer. “I’ll be right back. I have to make sure he didn’t drown in paint or something.” El smiled as she ran upstairs. Her short brown hair bouncing with every step she took.

Growing her hair longer took a lot of work so El kept it short. It was still very pretty though. The way it fell perfectly to her shoulders and how it matched the color of her eyes and…

Max snapped herself out of her thoughts. She shouldn’t spend so much time obsessing over her best friends hair. Sure, both she and El liked to obsess over each other’s hair sometimes, but it wasn’t normal to do it 24/7.

“Look who it is.” A familiar voice said with a bit of mockery. Max jumped around startled and found herself face to face with Iris Roseman. Max scowled.

“Jesus Iris you didn’t need to scare the shit out of me.” Max said, putting as much venom into her tone as possible. Iris laughed.

“Excuse me for trying to talk to you while you were daydreaming about some hot person.” Iris replied teasingly. Max fumed but the fact that Iris said “hot person” instead of specifically saying “hot man” or “hot woman” was nice. Iris can be a bitch but she’s a respectful one. She’s the newest edition to the party.

Will met Iris first. In art class on the first day of tenth grade. They immediately became really good friends. They connected in a way no one could explain. She was even the first person Will came out to, which shows how much he trusted her. Iris became a part of the party in the middle of tenth grade. She usually flew solo (her definition of solo was either by herself or with Will), so she had some adjusting to do to a bigger group. She turned out okay though. She and Max developed a frenemy relationship. It was always fun to bicker for hours straight. It’s the only straight thing about her. Okay that’s not funny but it’s her life, she can do whatever she wants.

“So what’re you doing here? Trying to steal ice cream from the fridge? Because me and Will already beat you to it.” Iris snickered. Max flipped her off and Iris pretended to be offended. Iris brushed her hair out of her face. Iris’s had long blonde hair with the lower part of her hair dyed blue. Max had to admit, it looked really pretty. But not as pretty as El’s hair.

“MAXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!” El yelled as she sprinted down the stairs. Max was startled but then laughed as El launched herself at Max. “Apparently Will’s painting and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Damn.” Max said, a little disappointed. She was going to tease him about a hot guy in his social studies class.

“By the way before you came over I was going to go to the flower field behind Hopper’s cabin and pick some flowers. Do you want to come with me?” El asked with puppy dog eyes. Max could never say no to those eyes.

“Sure!” She said as she gave El a warm smile.

“Have fun on you date.” Iris smirked as she walked away.

“Iris!” Both of them exclaimed in unison. Though El said it in a much lighter tone than Max did.

“Let’s go!” El said as she and Max linked arms and walked out of the house.