platonic henfield foolish hearts au where they are all girls(bear with me)
sapphic henclair AND exes to lovers elmax bc why tf not!!
putting this under a read more bc this is long as FUCK
set in the all-girls hawkins academy
elmax as the hawkins academy golden couple, with bubbly, bright jane hopper having been with intimidating, cool, kind of mean(if you dont know her) max mayfield since their freshman year, after having been friends with each other throughout middle school and crushing on each other.
dusty henderson is a scholarship kid, here solely because of her grades. most of her actual friends are her old ones. ok, old one. singular. she doesn't make friends very easily!
two weeks before senior year starts, jennifer hayes hosts her annual tea party, with a dress code stating you must wear pink. every person in her class is invited.
usually, dusty wouldn't show, but her mom got hold of the invitation and insisted, so, here she is, wearing a pink dress, at a party where she has no friends and doesn't want to be
she's there, biding her time at the venue until she can leave when, while using the bathroom, she overhears an argument. one between jane hopper and max mayfield, about how max didn't where a pink dress to the party to piss jennifer off
dusty essentially hears the entirety of jane breaking up with max, which. oof. and then jane leaves and she hears max mayfield crying and oh fuck
if she thought she couldnt leave before, she definitely cant leave now and then the automatic flushing system accidentally goes off.
max freezes. dusty freezes, and then decides to commit to the bit
she just leaves, and pretends nothing happens
this does not work. she gets threatened. how fun!
flash forward to two weeks later. school's started, and max and dusty are in the same english class
their teacher assigns a group project on shakespeare. they get assigned partners for a paper
dusty's partner? max mayfield
see dusty still isn't convinced she's not dying tmr and max is still not convinced dusty isn't going to air her drama out to the school
this leads to a not group group project. max just goes "i'll do the first half. you do the second. we dont have to talk about this"
they submit it...and fail. dusty's in danger of losing her scholarship and max is just pissed
they are given the opportunity for extra credit...but it just so happens to be taking part in the school's production of a midsummer night's dream. they HAVE to audition
but guess who is the theater lead girl of hawkins academy? jane hopper. oh yeah.
dusty auditions and promptly falls flat on her face. yeah its bad.
max does okay, but jane? jane shines
lucy sinclair, queen of theater also happens to have auditioned
the cast list comes out and, predictably, dusty doesn't get cast, but she does join costume tech!
jane is titania, and lucy gets cast as the oberon counterpart(bc they are wlwing shakespeare. naturally)
max is the fairy, one who is doting, constantly, on titania. her ex. the one that broke up with her. the one she's still hung up on.
the thing about shakespeare is that it's complicated. the thing about dusty henderson? she's never met a problem she couldn't solve
shakespeare is just calculus but with less integrals and more iambic pentameter, if you think about it.
it starts small, with a girl trying to figure out a line during costume fittings when dusty steps in and helps her figure it out and then suddenly michelle wheeler, student director, is ordering her around as the unofficial shakespeare translator
max comes to her a few days later and michelle's behest, grumpy and reluctant and VERY mad at the world and at michelle
it starts with dusty helping max figure out her lines, so that she becomes less stiff, after school, and then suddenly her and max mayfield are friends. like, best friend, tell each other everything, kind of friends
it is then when dusty meets lucy sinclair, at a cast party that max dragged her to because, in her words, "if i have to be here then so do you"
lucy is sweet and fun and inviting. she is going to make sure that dusty makes friends if it is the death of her.
she also is crushing on dusty, heavily, but dusty doesn't need to know that just yet
she's also been friends with jane for years, and she can recognize her misery, so the two of them hatch a plan, and suddenly puck is not the only one matchmaking. lucy and dusty are giving him a run for his money, actually.
they are working together to get them back together
lucy is intent on getting dusty to *gasp* actually makes friends and stop isolating?
dusty just wants to design some costumes and keep her scholarship, but, well, maybe she'll give in one of these days. maybe
again. intense homoeroticism of being a costume tech with a crush on the actor you are doing a fitting for.
henfield bestie agenda. don't speak to me i love them
dusty and max are both still pretty terrible at the whole "friend" thing, so they are both loathe to admit it, but both of their senior years have been so much better because of each other
max is still pining. jane is too, albeit much more subtly. she wants to convince herself she made the right decision because she thinks she did but then max will look at her a little too earnestly
they have conflicts! they get back together!
after all, the course of true love never did run smooth
also:
the lesbyler subplot
michelle wheeler, shakespeare nerd is directing the show, planning out costumes, sets, and blocking
she pitched the show as "midsummer but lesbians" and "think spring...not just spring but like...flowers. think tinkerbell actually, but the whole forest is kinda like that. wonderland esque. you get it"
(their teacher did not, in fact, get it)
willow byers, who has been content as a wallflower all her life, is just fine staying in the background painting sets like she always has while her sister shines on stage
the thing is, michelle needs help with the actual designing part. turns out what looks good in her head...doesn't...really...translate to stage
she recruits the first tech girl she finds who seems to know a little about art, and that happens to be willow byers
suddenly, willow is thrust into planning, designing, and collaborating with like, a shit ton of people, and-
oh god. her name. is on the playbill. not just in the long list of set painters its ON THE FRONT PAGE???
she is being percieved(which is scary), while michelle might just be falling a little more for the sweet, sensitive girl that willow is and the powerhouse that she's becoming
willow might have been nursing a crush on michelle since grade school that's coming back STRONG, but she'll deal! especially if it means she gets to keep seeing that look on mich's face when some wild plan of hers comes together
