Chapter Text
Max strolls into Mr. Clarke’s classroom, bag slung over her shoulder, skateboard in hand. Not exactly how she’d prefer to spend her Saturday morning, but whatever. She finds she’s not alone in the classroom. Mr. Clarke sits behind his desk, and there’s one student sitting in his usual spot.
One Lucas Sinclair. Max is surprised to see him. Not because she knows anything about who he is, and if he’s the kind of guy to get detention, but because she didn’t think Hawkins High would ever discipline its star basketball player. Basketball is sacred in Indiana.
He looks up at her entrance, and she thinks a hint of a smile dances over his lips. He nods his head in greeting. She gives him a close-lipped smile in return before sitting two rows over, and a seat behind.
Mr Clarke stands from his desk. “Looks like I’ve just got the two of you today,” he says, looking at a piece of paper. He smiles at Lucas like they’re old friends. Then smiles warmly at Max. “No need to get crazy today. A couple of first offenders…just hang around for a couple hours, do some homework.”
“You got it, Mr. Clarke,” Lucas replies easily. Max resists scoffing. Okay, so they may not give him special treatment in avoiding detention, but they go easy on him once he’s here. Max isn’t about to complain though, if her sentence gets reduced by a couple hours with him.
Then, the teacher leaves the room. Just like that. Max frowns after him.
“He just…leaves?” she can’t help but ask.
Lucas turns and waves his hand at the empty doorway. “Oh yeah, Mr. Clarke is cool. He’s probably going to hang out with his secret librarian girlfriend. Probably better company than us.” Lucas flashes her a grin. He’s got a nice smile. “Max Mayfield, right?”
She tries not to show her surprise. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “You a stalker or something?”
He snorts easily at her veiled joke. Others have taken offense to similar quips. “For knowing your name?”
She nods. “I don’t know anyone else who knows my name.”
He studies her for a second, and then points the seat next to her, eyebrows raised. She finds herself nodding before she can stop herself, and he grabs his stuff to slide in the seat next to her.
“Truthfully,” he says, “I may be a little bit of a stalker.”
“Uh oh,” she says, hoping the smile that comes to her face is the right reaction. With a line like that…
“My friend Dustin used to have the Dig Dug high score,” Lucas says. “Taunted me all the time about it.”
Max feels a swell of pride. “And now someone knocked him off the top spot.”
“Mad Max,” Lucas says with a grin. “So naturally when you were introduced as the new kid…your name stuck.” He taps his temple a couple times and gives her a wink. It’s strange not to immediately be revolted by his light flirtation. If it’s flirtation. Max doesn’t know.
All she knows is her mouth keeps moving without her permission. “Hawkins High’s basketball star Lucas Sinclair goes to the arcade? Who’d have thought?”
His eyes widen a little. He’s got a dorkier energy than she was prepared for. “You…you know me?”
She snorts. “Please, basketball is the only thing this town seems to care about. And you’re the star.”
He is surprisingly flustered by her words. She hadn’t thought it praise or noteworthy. Just stating facts she’s heard around the school for the last few weeks. “I’m not a star,” he says, and she actually buys his humility. She doesn’t believe his words, but she believes he believes them.
“Didn’t you hit a championship-winning shot as a Freshman?” His eyes widen further at her knowledge, so she tries to cover. Truthfully, she hadn’t gone out of her way to ask about him, even if he’s easy to look at. “Like I said, the only thing this town talks about is basketball.”
He looks away, shy. “I was riding the bench that whole season. Lucky I was in the game at all, but yeah. Basketball is fun. I enjoy it.” He swallows, and turns back to her. “And what’s your story? California girl with mad gaming skills?”
“That’s me,” she says, looking down at her fingernails.
“That’s all you’re going to give me?” Lucas laughs. It’s more self-deprecating than accusatory.
“That’s all I’ve gotten from you,” she says defensively. “Like, what’s the school’s golden boy doing in detention?”
He cringes. “I…got into a fight.”
This actually gives her pause. She’s had too much experience with men who are quick to anger and fight. That wasn’t the vibe she’d gotten from Lucas. “Why?”
He shrugs. “My friends…my childhood friends…they get bullied a lot. We all used to. Dustin’s got a smart mouth; doesn’t know when to quit sometimes. So I had to step in.”
Billy used to get in trouble for fighting when he was in High School. Max is confident it was never in defense of a friend.
“I like skateboarding,” she tells him. He looks up, grateful for the change of topic or for some information about her, Max doesn’t know. “It’s actually why I’m in here,” she adds darkly, waving to the detention room. “Got in trouble for grinding some paint off the school benches.”
Lucas’ eyes seem to sparkle. “Max Mayfield. Vandal!”
“Shut up,” she rolls her eyes. “You have no skate parks here.”
He perks up. “You know, it’s not a full-fledged skate park like I’m sure you have in California, but there’s this park on the east side of town where I’ve seen skaters a bunch. Stairs, rails, stuff that can pass for ramps.”
“Really?” Max sits up straighter. She must have missed it when she was looking around the last couple of weeks. “I’ve never had to go on that side of town.”
“Yeah, I could show you some time.” His eyes are open and there’s a twinkle in them.
“Or just tell me where it is,” Max says, excitement still building in her. Until she sees Lucas’ smile fall from his face.
“Oh, right. It’s—”
“Sorry!” Max says hastily. “I didn’t mean to—I was just excited.”
“No,” Lucas says, looking away. “I didn’t mean to insert myself in your thing like that.”
“You didn’t.” Max sighs. She’s not sure if she’s feeling guilty for accidentally rejecting his offer, or upset with herself for the shades of Billy that peak through like this. The brusk, cruel parts she doesn’t even mean to be a part of her. “I’d like you to show me.”
She’s surprised to find a complete absence of fear at his invitation. She doesn’t worry about ulterior motives or anything sinister. It’s a little unsettling that this boy could disarm her in just a few minutes like this.
He studies her for a long time. Is she earnest? Guilty? Pitying?
“Okay,” he says after a few moments, a soft smile on his lips. He has nice lips. Max isn’t sure what he found in her expression, but she’s oddly relieved the invitation is back on the table. “Maybe I can just take you there after detention?”
He’s dangerous, Max thinks. Far different than her expectations. She doesn’t like being wrong about people. Plus, it’s easier to admire a handsome face when she’s not intrigued by the person. It’s easier to assume he’s another asshole when she hasn’t felt the warmth of his smile. It’s easier to say no when she doesn’t yearn to say yes.
“Sounds good.”
-0-0-0-
“See you, Mr. Clarke!” Lucas shouts behind him, following behind Max out of the classroom. He barely hears his old teacher’s farewell as he jogs a little to catch up to her.
Max Mayfield. He couldn’t believe his luck that his first detention in two years had landed him with the girl he’d been so interested in since she moved in a few weeks back. Beautiful, intriguing, and now he’s pleasantly surprised to learn how sarcastic and funny she is.
“I’m parked out this way,” he tells her with a weird flourish of his arm that he regrets the second he does it.
She quirks an eyebrow, but her smirk is more smile than sneer. Lucas hopes he’s accidentally charming to this girl. “You have to be messing with me at this point,” she says. “You’re really this big a dork?”
He cringes. Two hours in detention…of course he hadn’t been able to hide this side of him. Not that he wants to try. “You don’t know the half of it. See this room up here?” he points. “AV Club. Of which I’m a proud member. Or was…when I have the time.”
She laughs. It’s a beautiful laugh. “Okay, now you have to show me what you do in there.”
“Wish I had the keys,” Lucas says, and looks back over his shoulder when they stop outside the room. “I could go ask Mr. Clarke, if he hasn’t already left with his librarian…”
“I got it,” Max says, fishing something out of her bag. She comes out with a paper clip.
“No way are you this cool,” he says as she starts to pick the lock.
“Way,” comes her easy reply. “Somebody has to bring the cool between us.”
With a click, the door unlocks, and she pushes it open.
“Holy shit,” Lucas says while she straightens herself.
For all the too-cool vibes she tries to give off, Max blushes at his awe. She blushes prettily. Lucas thinks he might just like to bring that flush to her cheeks more often.
He shakes his head of the idea. He does not have time to be feeling these things. As if he can add one more distraction to his life.
“Alright, show me what this club is all about, you weird dork athlete. You’re like a rare species out in the wild…”
Lucas snorts and rolls his eyes, but enters the room and flips on the lights. “We’ve got our camera and audio equipment over here—made some pretty terrible short films a couple years ago. We are responsible for setting up the audio for assemblies, recording them.”
“Now you’re the star of the assemblies.”
He shrugs. He still doesn’t know how to feel about Max knowing him as the ‘popular’ kid. Basketball…star. At least now he can show her this other side of him.
“But this, right here,” he says bringing her focus to the center table, “is where we spent most of our time.”
“A ham radio?” she asks, leaning in for a closer look. He might even detect a bit of excitement in her. She hides emotions well, but probably not as well as she thinks.
“Have you used one?”
She shakes her head, so Lucas goes about turning it on. He unplugs the headphones so they can both listen, hits the power switch, checks the band selector, and then goes to the tuning dial. “We always looked for the furthest away signals when we were younger,” he says with a smile. “Talked to some dude in Australia once!”
Max smiles, watching his face instead of the radio. He finds a couple of solid signals as he turns the dial. But nothing all that strong or interesting.
“It’s weird,” he says, reaching for the antenna. “Do you hear the steady background sound?”
She leans closer. “Almost like a mumble?” she asks.
He nods, even more surprised when it persists after moving the antenna. He tunes the dial further. “To be across all these frequencies, it’s almost like it’s…local or something?”
He tunes some more, and the mumble gets louder, more distinct.
“--ial number 11.” The garbled message grows clearer. “Commencing at 1200.”
Lucas tilts his head. Max’s look is equally quizzical. She leans closer.
And then a horrible sound reverberates through the room. Louder than the voice by 10 times, screeching, intrusive. He and Max grasp hands by instinct as the sudden and horrible burst of noise rattles through them like a dystopic cry. Horrible shivers run down Lucas’ spine. He didn’t know a sound could embed hopelessness deep inside him.
And then as suddenly as it started, it stops.
There’s a tinny ringing in his ear, and it takes a moment for the shock of it all to fade. That strange hopelessness seeps out, and only after Lucas’ breathing steadies does he realize he’s still holding Max’s hand.
“Sorry,” he says, when he lets go.
“‘S okay,” she mumbles, bringing her own hands together nervously. “What the hell was that?”
“No idea,” Lucas says, stepping back up to the radio. It’s just white noise, like there was nothing on this channel in the first place. “I’ve never heard anything like that before. It felt…”
“Draining,” Max finishes for him.
“Yeah.”
Lucas flips the radio power off. His hands shake.
“God,” he tries to laugh it off. “That is not what I thought showing you the radio would be like.”
She smiles weakly. “No? And what were you expecting?”
He guides her out of the room, hitting the lights and locking the door before shutting it. “Obviously to show off how cool I was.”
He gets an honest laugh out of her, and it lightens the mood. His body is mostly behaving normally again, and he resists putting his hand on the small of Max’s back to lead her toward the parking lot.
Instead, they pick up their easy banter and try to push the strange experience from their minds. He’s not sure how many people would be capable of settling Lucas after that, but somehow Max does, sometime between leaving the school and driving to the park. Something about the unique combination of the warm timbre of her voice and the sarcastic teasing she uses it for.
“Here it is,” he says, pulling up to the park. It wasn’t built for skaters, but they’d made it their own. There are three of them now, riding along the smooth concrete, up and down the ramp beside the stairs. It looks like one of them is Troy Walsh. Lucas narrows his eyes at him, trying to let go of years-old anger at the former bully. He attempts to jump the set of six stairs and falls off his board on impact, which Lucas can’t help but feel a little joy at. “Oooh!”
The guy hops to his feet with a whoop and the other two cheer. Lucas glances at Max to find her staring at them with a smile. Her eyes sparkle.
She catches Lucas staring after a moment. “What?” she says, a little sharply.
He shrugs. “Sorry…I just…like the look of people around things they’re passionate about.”
Truthfully, he does. He just happens to really like the look of her.
She blushes. She reaches out to squeeze Lucas’ hand, resting on the center console. “Thank you for showing me this.”
She pulls her hand back before he can squeeze it in return. “Of course,” he says. “Do you want me to take you home or—”
“I’ll skate for a bit,” she says excitedly. “But thanks for the offer. Turns out you’re definitely a dork…but a pretty cool one.”
Lucas snorts. If there was a time to ask her out, it would be right now. He can feel the energy in his car, swirling around them. But when would he even take her out somewhere? He can’t cancel basketball practice or games; he can’t quit his job; and he’s not willing to sacrifice what little time he has left over with the Party. So, he settles for something simpler. “I really like talking with you Mad Max. I hope we can do it some more.”
A shy smile creeps onto her face. “I like talking with you, too, Stalker.”
“Oh good. That’s the nickname that’s going to stick.”
She shrugs with a gleam in her eye, and opens the door. “Well, I don’t think Basketball Star or Dork quite sum you up, so…”
“And Stalker does?” he laughs at the absurdity instead of dwelling on how weirdly hollow her observation makes him feel. Not the ‘stalker’ bit. That’s funny. The rest of it.
She climbs out of the car and leans her head back in. “Sorry, I don’t make the rules. Thanks for everything, Lucas,” she says earnestly. He likes how she says his name. “Today didn’t suck. I didn’t expect that.”
“That’s how I want everyone to feel after hanging out with me. ‘It didn’t suck.’”
She grins at him and rolls her eyes before leaning back and shutting the door. He watches for a minute while she joins the group. It’s only after he’s seen her riding gracefully up and down the ramp a few times, wind in her fiery hair, bright smile on her face, that he realizes he might be earning that Stalker name. So, reluctantly, he pulls out of the parking lot and tries to put her out of his mind.
He isn’t all that successful. She’s on his mind when he gets home and makes himself a sandwich. He thinks about her smile while he’s at work for his evening shift. He fails to push away thoughts of her while he showers off his day.
And that night, Lucas dreams of Max. But, like predators circling, the Nightmares find him first.