Chapter Text
The first thing Max hears is the beeping. Slow. Steady. Unavoidable. It cuts throygh everything- the dark, the quiet, the weight pressing down on her chest like she's sinking. It's the only thing that feels real. That, and a voice. "...you don't even like half the movies I pick," Lucas is saying, somewhere close. Too close. Like he hasn't moved in hours. There's a pause. Fabric shifting. The soft creak of a chair. "But you still sit through them," he adds, quieter. "So I think that counts." The beeping continues. And then.
Sunlight. Warm, golden, alive sunlight spilling through a bedroom window. Max squints, throwing an arm over her eyes before flopping back onto Lucas' bed like she belongs there. His room smells like detergent and something faintly metallic- tools probably. The radio on his desk is in pieces again. "You're gonna break it," she says, turning her head to watch him.
"I'm fixing it."
"You said that last time."
"And I did fix it."
"It worked for ten minutes."
Lucas shrugs, still focused. "That's still fixing." Max rolls her eyes, but there's a smile there, soft and easy. She swings her foot against the mattress, letting the rhythm fill the quiet. Outside, a car passes. Someone shouts in the distance. Normal. Inside, it's just them.
"They were staring again," Lucas says after a while. Max doesn't ask who. She already knows.
"So?" She replies, like it doesn't matter.
Lucas glances at her. "It's annoying."
"Everything annoys you."
"Not everything."
She props herself up on her elbows, eyebrow raised. "Name three things."
He thinks about it, like it's important. "Basketball."
"Of course."
"You."
She stills- just for a second.
"And... okay, maybe that's it."
Max lets out a short laughc dropping back against a pillow. "Wow, I feel special." But something about it sticks. The way he said it. Like it was obvious. Like it didn't need explaining. You.
"They act like they know everything," Lucas mutters, fiddling with a wire. "Like they've got us all figured out." Max stares at the ceiling, tracing a crack with her eyes.
"Let them," she says.
"It's not that simple."
"It is," she insists, turning to look at him. "They don't get a say."
Lucas hesitates. "Feels like they do." Max sits up now, cross-legged, certain.
"They don't," she says. "They don't know you. They don't know me. They don't know anything about this." She gestures between them. He watches her, something soft breaking through his expression.
"...yeah," he says. Then, quieter, like he's deciding it for real. "Yeah. Okay."
The beeping is louder now. Max tries not to notice.
"I mean it," she says, softer. "People just talk. That's what they do."
Lucas leans back, studying her. "You don't care?"
She shrugs, but it's not careless- it's chosen. "No. Okay, maybe a little," she admits. "But not enough to let it mess this up."
"This," he repeats.
Max reaches out, nudging his foot with hers. "Yeah. This." For a second, neither of them move. Then Lucas smiles- small, real, just for her.
"Okay," he says. Like he's choosing her.
"You're weird, you know that?" Max adds.
Lucas scoffs, "I'm not weird."
"You literally take radios apart for fun."
"That's a skill."
"You talk to yourself while you do it."
"That's thinking."
"You narrate your thinking."
He points at her. "You named your skateboard."
"It has personality."
"It's wood with wheels."
"It's more than that." He shakes his head, but he's laughing now, and it fills the room, warm and easy. Max grins. She loves that sound. "I like your teeth," she says, suddenly.
Lucas blinks. "What?"
She gestures vaguely at his face. "Your teeth. They're yours." She shrugs.
"That's not a compliment."
"It is."
"How?"
"I don't know," she says. "They're just... different. In a good way."
Lucas stares at her for a second, then smiles despite himself. "You're so weird."
"You love it."
"Yeah."
The beeping. Closer. Louder.
"Max." Her name cuts through everything. Not the sunlight. Not the room. Not the laughter. The other voice. The real one. "Max, come on."
Lucas' hand is wrapped around hers. Not in the bedroom. In the hospital. Warm, firm. Like he's been holding on for a long, long time. "Don't you worry," he says, voice unsteady. "Okay? You don't have to. Just." He exhales, slowly. "They don't get to take this," he adds quietly. "They don't get you. They don't get us." The machines keep beeping. Steady. Relentless. "I'm right here," he says. Like a promise. Like he's said it a hundred times already. Like he'll say it a hundred more.
And somewhere, deep between memory and silence Max hears him. And she holds on. Because the world can be loud, and cruel, and full of people who think they understand things they've never even touched, but this? This is theirs. And no one. Not the past, not the whispers, not even the dark waiting at the edges gets to take that away.