Go Easy - will x max fluff! during one of will and max's many sleepovers they get into some taboo topics that cause both of them to think about the people they're around, and confront some hard truths.
This is an old one shot I wrote a few years back! I posted it on AO3 but not here, might as well make it my first post on this acc. I hated how little screentime they got together so I tried imagining what their friendship might look like :)
“This is real music.” Max played the cassette and walked around the room, dancing to the beat of the music as it filled the room with an unfamiliar sound. Will sat upright on his bed with his eyes fixed on the red headed girl in front of him. She closed the space between them and gripped his hands roughly tugging them close to her. Her smile widened as she moved his arms back and forth trying to get him into the groove, and that he was.
His eyes sparkled that night. The smile on his face was brighter than it had been lately. He opted to stand with her, his hands still intertwined as he started swaying to the music and making what was a fair attempt at what he called dancing.
“There you go, that’s it.” Max’s head bobbed up and down with the tempo of the music causing her hair to go in every direction that it could and god did Will love it.
At the beginning of their budding companionship he found himself suffocatingly jealous of Max to the point where even looking at her made him want to rip his hair out. He was always jealous of the things that she had that he didn’t- nor could ever have. Her carelessness was so admirable, her wit was comical, she was one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen in his life which was odd because she wasn’t even conventional in beauty standards. She had it all. Eventually she had also picked up on his jealousy though, which if will was being honest- is why they were here like this now. Instead of getting frustrated she found it to be a prime opportunity to turn him into her own little prodigy. With her friends from California still making every effort to send her tapes with all the music that was “in” she was never a step behind, and she made sure that neither was Will.
They started with a haircut. During one of their many sleepovers she incessantly poked at him about how “that bowl on his head was such a drag”. Of course Will didn’t pay it too much attention, but it did bother him that he was freshly seventeen and he still had the same haircut that he did when he was twelve.
“Like you could even cut it.” He rolled his eyes with a small grin plastered on his face. He didn’t know what to expect, but what he certainly did not expect was for her to actually cut it- and cut it well. In all honesty he looked amazing, the cut was now shorter on the sides and his bangs fell slightly in front of his face. He was a completely new person.
He let go of one of Max’s hands and brought his own up to his hair, thinking about that night and he bobbed along with her, mirroring her movements. “What song was that?” He referred to the song that just ended which resulted in an unimpressed eye roll from Max.
“Oh Sheila, c’mon Will it’s a classic you should know this stuff.”
“I know this one, it’s-”
“Nasty. Everyone knows it it’s Janet Jackson.” She made her way to Will’s desk, sifting through his sketchbook with close attention to the focuses of each piece. The majority of his sketches were of Mike. They all knew it, well everyone except the boy himself. More than half of the sketchbook was filled with different interpretations of his features. Some of the sketches were minimalist, some of them were detailed down to the smallest freckle below his lip. It was honestly amazing. Max sighed softly as she continued flipping through the pages only to find more and more angles of the dorky boy she knew to be their friend and she turned back to Will.
She eyed him with a look that he didn’t really understand at first. Her eyes were oddly soft looking- as if she was going to cry at any second, and her lips formed a straight line and she just stood there, staring. Her eyes hadn’t left Will long enough for another song to come on and he couldn’t take it. He could feel himself itching under her stare and he hoped to god that he wasn’t going to talk about what he think he’d have to. Yes, the party knew about Will’s sexual preferences, but it’s something that they never ever bring up. It’s the second rule of the party. Don’t talk about it, don’t ask about it, pretend it’s not there. The subject of Will’s sexuality had become so taboo that they treated it like it was its own entity. Like this big thing called gay came in and swept the Will they knew away and replaced him with this weird not-quite-the-same replica. And that’s how they left it. Everyone but Max.
Her insistence on talking about it openly was what caused her and Lucas to eventually break up. Will remembered that night almost perfectly. They were all sitting in Mike’s basement watching Pretty in Pink when Max made the comment that Duckie Dale was so overly flamboyant that there was no way that he was genuinely interested in pursuing a relationship in the first place and that she was convinced that he was just a confused yet raging homosexual. The comment didn’t bother the group though. Dustin was the one to laugh it off with the bright smile that he had. He nodded in agreement and cracked a joke along the same lines but that was when Max spoke too much. Kinda like Will. The words caused everyone to freeze- even Dustin who was the least particular about the rule. Then the argument ensued.
“What did I tell you about that”
“What we can’t talk about something that’s true?"
“That’s not the point, you’re just making things hard for everyone.”
“By being honest?”
“By being a loud mouthed pain in the ass, Max.”
Will shuddered at the memory of Max’s face contorted in response to the comment. He remembered how she yelled and yelled until her voice gave out. How she told him before not to say things that Billy would say. That he was supposed to be cool and understanding considering he was different too. That she’d been wasting her time on a drag like him and she’d find someone that wasn’t a following piece of shit.
And he remembered exactly how Lucas said it that same night, and how Max’s tears poured out and she wailed even though her voice couldn’t handle it anymore. He remembered it all. He remembered holding her hair back as she vomited outside from crying so much. He remembered the “sorry”s and the repetition of “i'm such a fucking mess Will why would you want to be me” He remembered knowing very well that he wasn’t the cause of the breakup but he still felt like he was just as guilty.
“Will?” Her voice broke his thoughts and he blinked rapidly while spinning in the direction of the sound, his attention falling back at Max who wasn’t hovered in front of the sketchbook anymore but she was sitting on the bed behind him. “Can we please talk about it? I-I’m tired of pretending that there’s nothing to address or talk about. I mean for christs sake we can talk about how everyone almost got eaten alive by a fucking monster in another dimension and a girl with telekinetic powers that was tested on by the town lab but we can’t talk about you liking boys? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Max we can talk about it, I’m not the one that made the rule up I just follow it.” He took a seat next to her and closed his eyes, suddenly unknowing of what he’d exactly talk about or where he’d even start. “We both know I like boys and that i’m...”he paused for a moment, the word becoming more and more foreign to him as if he didn’t know how to put the sounds together. “Gay.” “How did you know?”
He looked at Max and her eyes were glued to him. They were full of the same worry that Joyce had whenever she catches him wiping tears, or when he coughs as if he’s starting to get a cold. It was the look that you’d give one of those pets in a mill.
“I don’t know.” He huffed out in one slow breath. “I just- I don’t feel anything around girls and it may just be that I haven’t found the right one yet, that’s a reasonable conclusion. But I like boys, I like the idea of holding their hand, or hugging them, or kissing them and things. I don’t know, it’s just easier for me to be attracted to boys I don’t have to think about it as much.”
“And Mike?”
His cheeks flushed. She knew. She had always known. From the time she first caught him drawing a rough sketch of the boy she just knew, not that he made it hard to figure out- the boy was practically pining over Mike. What she won’t mention or ask about though, is if he’ll tell Mike, because they both know the answer to that.
Will could never tell Mike.
“You already know the answer” he trailed off, not wanting to admit it out loud but the look Max gave him told him that despite her everlasting knowledge, he’d have to fully come out and admit it to her with his own words. “...but yes, yes I feel for him.” He knows that the moment is supposed to be one of sweet secrets shared between the two and gossip acquired from the last week of school, but there was something too real about saying it out loud for the first time to someone that didn’t sit well with him. It was like before there was just the mere thought of liking Mike, no real substance to it, and he could admire his best friend as much as he wanted without it feeling too weird because for all he knew his crush wasn’t legitimate because it was never finalized. The words never left his mouth. But now they had, and now they became that much more real.
“Look I know, I know he’s just my best friend and that’s all he’ll ever be- I know.” He sighed and dropped his face into his hands, his hair falling in front of his face and covering his expression more so. “I know that I can’t say anything, it’ll ruin everything and then I’ll have nobody left for me. If Mike freaks and tells them, then who’s to say that Lucas or Dustin won’t assume that I’m madly in love with them because of my ‘raging gayness’, it’ll be a nightmare. I just- I just keep thinking, what if one day Troy decides to bother me and yell at me calling me a fag, or a fairy, and what if all they do is just stay silent- or even worse what if they laugh or just walk away because they agree because they know it’s true and even worse they know I like Mike.”
Max obviously feels uncomfortable with the situation and Will knows it, especially with the mention of Lucas, but she hums anyways. She hums and she rubs his back before pulling him into the most gentle hug he’s had in his life because she knows what it’s like to be afraid of change. She knows what it’s like to have everything ripped away because of a mistake. She knows what it’s like to have no one to turn to.
“Oh Will.” She feels her heart break at the idea of not being able to express her feelings not because of nervousness but because of certain rejection and resentment and she hates it. She thinks about how much Will would love California and how much fun they’d have there, all the cool friends she’d introduce him to, how free he’d be. For the first time since she’s moved to Hawkins, she thinks she hates the suffocating town as much as Billy does. She stops consoling him briefly and she gently raises his face so that he’s looking her in the eyes and she just watches silently for a moment as the warm tears fall down his face, and for a moment she wonders if Will even knows he’s crying because he looks so terrifyingly calm. For the second time since she’s moved to Hawkins, she feels her heart shatter into a million pieces.
“Will, I want you to listen to me.” She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her own face until she heard her voice and the uneven shake that came with it. “I will never leave your side Will. Never. You know, throughout this whole shit smelling town you’re the only cool person here- I mean aside from Joyce and Jonathan. But that’s besides the point, the point is Will, if they ever become that stupid that they’d leave you like that then they don’t deserve to be called your friend.” She doesn’t know why she says it, and she doesn’t think about the words before they leave her mouth but regardless they leave and all Will can focus on are those words. “It’s senior year Will, if we have to we can move to California, you can meet my friends, and we’ll never look back. I promise.”
Now Will is crying even harder, but not because he’s so riddled with sadness but because even though she’s lost so much because of him she’d still do anything for him, even though he feels as if he doesn’t deserve it. His face twists into a pathetic smile and he pulls Max in for another wonderful breath taking hug and all he can muster out is a serious of never ending “thank you”s and “i love you”s. He doesn’t know when it happened, or exactly how it happened, but throughout the course of the last four years Max has become is rock, his foundation, his light, and he couldn’t ask for anything more.
With her comfort he thinks and thinks about it more throughout the night as their sleepover continues, and although he acts as if it’s all said and done he can’t shake the thought out of his head. The thoughts surprises himself and he wonders how he’s become so bold, but as he looks over at his red haired friend who’s stuffing her face with caramel popcorn he knows. He knows she’ll be there for him no matter what and he’d be there for her no matter what and at the moment that’s all he could ever give any care about and he makes his final decision that night.
He needs to tell Mike, sooner or later.