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The first thing that Lucas does when it’s all over is the same thing he’s been doing for a year and a half; he checks on Max.
He finds her in the hospital with El, talking softly, their hands gripped tightly together. He watches them for a brief moment, and then returns to the hallway outside, to stand some strange form of honor guard. He’s not going to interrupt her conversation. He doesn’t need to talk to her right now, though he desperately wants to. He doesn’t even need to hear her speak. He just needs to be able to see her move. To see her living and breathing. To see her awake, which he’s been waiting so many months for.
Later, when she’s balancing precariously on his lap in the front seat of the van, wearing Steve’s jacket over that raggedy old hospital gown, dust in her hair and flecks of blood on her hands, Lucas thinks she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.
He continues thinking that as they get her into her wheelchair and as she wheels herself through the Wheeler’s garage into their living room. Lucas doesn’t bother asking if he can help, because he knows she’ll say no. And that she’ll ask if she really needs it.
As Dustin races down to call dibs on the shower, Max and Lucas both stare down the staircase. After a second, they look over at each other and speak at the same time:
“Can I carry you?”
“Can you carry me?”
Having proven his thoughts of only a few seconds ago correct, Lucas laughs and bends down to scoop Max up, and her eyes twinkle in response. El notices what they’re doing, pulling Max’s chair away and storing it in the entryway once Lucas has her securely in his arms. He plods carefully down the stairs, gripping a bit more tightly to Max than might be necessary. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, as she leans her head gently against his chest.
He settles her down on a couch and they chat about the small things while Dustin takes a shower, and then take turns teasing him when he gets back. If their voices keep breaking on the punch lines of jokes, wobbling anxiously, then no one else mentions it. If Lucas is squeezing Max’s hand too hard, because she can squeeze back now, then she doesn’t complain. If their eyes keep flickering over to El for reassurance that she’s still there, hasn’t left them, then she offers them small smiles every time in return.
When it’s his turn, Lucas rushes through his own shower, firstly because the Wheelers don’t have any shampoo that works with his hair, and secondly because he doesn’t like being away from his friends for too long. When he gets back to the basement, he curls himself around Max on the couch and watches Dustin snore softly on El’s shoulder until he’s tired enough to nod off as well.
In the space between wakefulness and sleep, Lucas thinks about how quickly he threw himself in front of the Mind Flayer for Dustin, without even thinking. And how he knows he’d do it again, even with time to think it through. Dustin is something to him that cannot truly be described. A friend, sure. A best friend, certainly. A brother, sometimes. A Party member, always. But none of those words can fully encapsulate everything that Dustin means to him. Dustin is…Dustin. And that’s all that Lucas has ever needed him to be.
In the days that follow, he and Dustin will spend almost all of their time together, allowing Lucas to bask in all that glorious Dustin-ness. They help clean up the Wheeler house, steal a nicer wheelchair from the hospital for Max (which they decide is morally acceptable because she actually needs it and they give Vickie back the old one), and replace the tires on the SQWK van while Steve shouts directions at them from under the hood. They get Erica to help them build Holly a big fancy lock for her bedroom door and Robin to help them get El some better clothes so she can go out in public with them. When they’re feeling selfish, they spend long hours in Mike’s basement, doing nothing in particular but trying to build pyramids out of Doritos and seeing who can name the most Batman villains. When they’re feeling compassionate, they go around and visit all twelve of the kids who were taken, just to check on how they’re readjusting to being back in Hawkins after everything that happened to them.
“Wish we’d had someone to check on us,” Dustin mutters, messing with his rings in the way that reminds Lucas so painfully of Eddie.
“We’re doing it now,” Lucas promises, reaching out to stop his fidgeting, “Breaking the cycle, like Max says.”
Dustin nods. “So one day, when fucked up stuff happens to even littler kids, these kids will check on them.”
“Hopefully that won’t be necessary, but yeah,” says Lucas, “Nancy and Steve and them to us, us to Holly and her friends, them to someone else, one day.”
Dustin smiles in a way that’s pure Dustin, no Eddie to be found, and Lucas smiles back.
“Okay, now let’s go see Derek.”
“Ugh! Do we have to? Mike’s supposed to be his ‘best friend’, shouldn't he do it?”
They spend a lot of time with Mike too, of course, because even the apocalypse can’t change the Party’s brand of best friendships.
Lucas loves Mike in a deep and complicated way that he doesn’t think anyone else could ever understand. For every way that Dustin is easy to love, Mike is difficult, always has been, but that doesn’t make Lucas love him any less. It just makes him love him different.
When he argues with Dustin, it’s easy, affectionate, like dancing. They argue often and insignificantly. They ping-pong jibes back and forth, giving as they take, and when they really hurt each other’s feelings they apologize and move on. They can move past an argument in a few minutes, and go right back to where they were. When he argues with Mike, though, it’s real, sharp, and biting. It’s rare for them to have an argument, but when they do it’s no holds barred. They both end up clenching their fists until their palms bleed and shouting until their heads hurt and saying things on purpose that they know will hurt. They both have to leave the room, and each other, for a few hours or even days, to cool off. They don’t have to apologize afterwards, they can just lock eyes and know that they’re alright. It’s never been as bad as their argument about El in the junkyard all those years ago, and they both know how to reach out the hand when they’re drawn first blood.
So yes, loving Mike is hard, but it’s so very worth it.
Mike’s the one who bikes with him to school every morning, trading answers for Chemistry homework and thoughts on last night’s MacGyver episode. The one who complains endlessly about losing fighting games at the arcade but still plays when Lucas asks him. The one who actually gets it when Lucas worries about his little sister, and who chimes in in agreement. The one who’s always happy to take Will on a covert double date with him and Max.
Before these dates, Max likes to drag Will back into her bedroom and talk to him while she gets dressed, demanding that Lucas and Mike stay in the living room by themselves.
(“Hello? Girl getting changed in here, freaks!” she shouted at them when they tried to stay by the door the first time.
“It’s not like you’re not gay too,” Lucas pointed out as he flopped down on the couch, having been successfully warded away.
It was a statement to how much Mike had grown over the past few months that he took the word in stride. “I guess Will is just…better at it?” he said, cluelessly.
They spent the rest of their exile brainstorming ways for Mike to get better at being gay.)
He and Mike seem to do a lot of brainstorming whenever they’re together, whether it's about what class Holly’s friend Mary should play in their first campaign, plans for how to make even longer range supercoms for when they're in college, or how to keep El from burning herself out trying to learn twelve full years of public school curriculum in only a few months.
He doesn’t know why El, who is objectively the most capable of all their friends to defend herself, is also the one who triggers his protective instincts the most often. Sometimes he just wants to swaddle her up in a blanket and hold her safe and tight. Maybe he’s never gotten over that first image of her; lonely, afraid, shivering and soaking wet. Or how small she seemed sitting in that blanket fort, wearing Mike’s pajamas and flinching whenever any of them got close to her.
But he knows she would not appreciate being coddled or fussed over, so he channels his energy into teaching her all of the mundane worldly things she never got a chance to learn while she was busy saving the world. Fun stuff like how to spend a snow day, and boring stuff like how to open a bank account. How to go to the grocery store and actually pay for what you get. How to order at a restaurant. How to pronounce all the Dwarfs names in The Hobbit correctly, and once she’s mastered that, how to read and write Elvish. Okay, maybe those aren't actually that important, but she seems to enjoy it anyway, and spends the rest of the springtime sending him and Dustin little coded notes.
That next summer, he teaches her how to swim at the Hawkins public pool. She borrows one of Nancy’s old swimsuits and lets Lucas hold her hand and slowly walk her into the deep end to learn how to float on her back. They work up from floating to treading water to swimming laps in just a few days, until El can hold her breath under water without thinking about the bath at all, and beat Mike at a race, and dive between Will’s legs without scraping her chin on the bottom. Max watches from the stairs, nose slathered in sunscreen, kicking her feet up and down in the water to try and build muscle until she gets tired and starts splashing Dustin instead. Every lesson seems to end with them all descending into a Party-wide splash fight, but El seems to learn better that way, with all of them around her, cheering her on.
So even if Lucas can’t protect El from some things, he can make sure she never drowns, keep her company at the DMV, and let her keep stealing his sweaters. And when she smiles at him, eyes crinkled up in the corners and cheeks pink, he knows that that’s enough.
Before he met El, Lucas spent most of his protective energy in a different place. But that place doesn’t seem to require it nearly as much lately.
Sometimes Lucas feels like he blinked and Will shot up a foot and a half, had his voice drop several octaves and got much older than the actual years counted. He guesses they all did, but for some reason, it feels like most jarring with Will. Maybe because a lot of it happened over those months he was in California. Maybe because he’d always been the smallest of them. Maybe because of the reframing that took place in that week apart, the idea that solidified in his head of Will as the victim in need of rescue and them four as the heroes doing the rescuing. Whatever the reason, it takes Lucas a long time to stop doing a double take every time one of his oldest friends walks into the room.
There was a reason he was the first person to stand up and offer his support to Will in the SQWK briefing room. He has been his protector – his ranger – far too long to think of stopping now. Whether it was stepping between him and elementary school bullies, making sure he could get a word in edgewise when Mike and Dustin got on a tirade about their next campaign, or correcting the stoned teenage worker who got his milkshake order wrong, Lucas feels like he’s been looking out for Will forever. The newer feeling, and the one that comes as a pleasant surprise, is that of Will looking out for him.
He has this cutting way of looking at people who mess with them, like he can convey just through his eyes all the shit he’s seen. Like “You think you can scare me? That’s cute.” Most people back off after that, but it doesn’t hurt that he’s the Byers brother who actually retained his marksmanship lessons, either.
He’s tough now, sure, and he’s probably always been, even if Lucas didn’t notice it. But he’s also still the same lovable Will that Lucas has been noticing for years. The Will who gets excited about group projects in science class, where they’ll write three times as many lab notes as any one else and take extra reading home. The Will who borrows his novels and returns them in pristine condition, not a dog-eared page to be found. The Will who manages to always draw Lucas looking effortlessly cool and seem to really believe his own pictures are accurate. The Will who helps him talk Erica through her panic attacks, reciting breathing exercises through the supercom when Lucas calls him in desperation.
Lucas knows, somewhere at the core of himself, that he should feel guilty for being the reason Erica got mixed up in all this in the first place. And he does, some days. When she has those panic attacks. When she insists on taking the stairs instead of the elevator at the hospital, even though it’s four floors up to visit Mr. and Mrs.Wheeler. When she can’t look at him in his letterman jacket without a little shiver of fear (he throws it in the back of the closet and never looks at it again). When he picks her up from school and finds her sitting on the brick wall outside, alone, ignored and disdained by her classmates. But most days, if he’s honest, he’s so damn glad to have someone in his house to talk to, someone who understands, that there’s no room for guilt. When she catches his hand under the dining room table and squeezes him back to reality. When she never teases him about how often he calls Max to check on her, even though she teases him about everything else. When she sits on the floor of his bedroom to do her homework, because she knows he can’t handle being alone right then.
Erica gets him through at home, and he has about a dozen other people to get him through in the rest of the world.
When he needs to shut his brain up for a few minutes and just move his body, Steve takes him outside to shoot some hoops. When he needs to slow his body down and work his brain, Robin works through logic puzzles with him. When he doesn’t feel like doing anything at all, Jonathan lays around and listens to Hot, Cool & Vicious with him.
Nancy teaches him the basics with a shotgun (only for emergencies, she insists), and Hopper gets him a new knife to keep under his pillow. Mrs.Byers and Mrs.Wheeler force second helpings of everything on him whenever he eats dinner at their houses and Mr.Clarke sends Erica home from school with pamphlets about scholarships he thinks Lucas should apply for.
He and the Party start their movie nights back up, making awesome ice cream sundaes together beforehand; hot fudge, whipped cream, sprinkles, cherries, the works. He puts his arm around Max and Will puts his arm around Mike while Dustin and El throw popcorn at them.
They bike to the comic store for weekly releases, thrilled at the prospect of getting to look forward to something again. They each buy one issue and then trade them in a circle in the Wheeler’s basement until everyone’s read everything, and it works out, even if Dustin reads ten times faster than El and Mike keeps getting Cheeto dust on the page corners.
They go to the diner almost every evening when Steve has a job there in between other gigs and try to come up with orders complicated enough that he gives up on them. Somehow, they still always manage to get free french fries.
They spend an afternoon in the woods trying to carve their own dice out of wood and end up with nothing but splinters and knobbly shapes that aren’t polygonal in the slightest.
They plan more group Halloween costumes than years they’ll be alive and start with the Justice League. They enlist Holly’s help to make a paper-mache Hawkgirl head for El and get Jonathan to help them find a rope to be Max’s ‘Lasso of Truth’ in the Byers’ shed. Mike, seeming to remember their eighth grade costume, offers Lucas Superman and takes Green Lantern for himself. Dustin has to gel his hair down to get it to fit under the Flash cap and Will’s Batman cowl keeps slipping over his eyes, but they have a blast anyway. They take Holly and her friends around the neighborhoods as an excuse for participating, but Max says they should be allowed to do whatever they want.
“We sorta missed the end of our childhoods, didn’t we? Only fair that we should get to make it up now.”
Given their newfound proximity to Holly’s friends, Lucas gets himself a gig babysitting Josh for some extra cash. He’s pleasantly surprised by how easily the kid takes to Wizard of Earthsea and how entertaining Thundercats actually is. Lucas also finds himself telling stories about his life, both inside and outside of the Upside Down, to a kindred spirit who likes to listen. It makes him feel good to take a little dude under his wing like that, to be able to prove to him that there’s life in this world beyond discovering a new one. It makes him feel kind of like Steve, which, as it turns out, is a pretty great feeling.
Lucas teaches him, Holly, and the rest of their friends Morse code, and watches gleefully as they start sending each other messages by flashlight across the neighborhood.
One night after dinner, he sits down with his Dad and asks him about ‘Nam; about crawling through the jungles, about coming home to the protests. And for the first time in his life he really actually listens, and he understands. It’s not a hero story, the way he saw it as a kid. It’s a survival story, just like his. So he helps his Dad stock kerosene in the shed in case of power outages, and doesn’t complain at all about being reminded to be careful every time he leaves the house.
He keeps his supercom charged at all times and he still brings his wrist rocket everywhere, even now. He thinks that’s gonna be hard to explain to a college roommate. Maybe he can just say it’s saved his life more than once and leave it at that. Or go to MIT for the explicit purpose of being able to room with Dustin and not have to explain anything to anyone. He wouldn’t like Dustin’s snoring or his messiness, but those are small prices to pay. The real price to pay would be the time spent away from Max.
Max, of course, is everywhere. Max is everything. Max is, somehow, his eyes and mouth and lungs and everything in between.
They go to the cinema every Friday and she lets him buy the snacks so long as she gets to pick the movie. They spend weekday nights in his kitchen, learning to mix sauces and make their own pasta. They do homework together at the kitchen table, Lucas fixing her spelling mistakes and Max talking him through physics problems. They sit in the yard, listening to Billy Joel and watching the first fireflies of summer come out – Lucas catches them and brings them back to Max so she can hold them and make silly little wishes as they fly away. They hold hands seeing Nancy and Jonathan off to college, both silently wondering what parts of their future they’re seeing. They start a two-person book club, trading novels back and forth from the library and mocking each other’s choices while secretly enjoying them. Max lets Lucas braid her hair, an art he perfected over months in the hospital room, and she starts learning how to do Erica’s too. That takes far longer, but Max doesn’t seem to mind.
“Something useful to do while I sit,” she jokes.
Jokes like that are part of the reason it takes a few months for Lucas to work up the courage to ask her how she feels about the wheelchair.
She doesn’t snap at him for asking, the way she once might have, just thinks about it for a minute.
“I might never ride a bike again, or skateboard again, and that hurts, I’m not gonna pretend it doesn’t,” she admits, “But when I was in…there…in Vecna’s mind, that wasn’t the stuff I was dreaming about doing, you know? I was having other dreams, better dreams.”
“Was I in those dreams?” Lucas asks.
“That’s presumptuous of you,” she smirks up at him, and his stomach still flips at that even after all these years, “But yeah, maybe you were in them.”
Lucas raises his eyebrows at her, prompting.
“Fine…maybe I was dreaming about taking El shopping, and going to the arcade with Dustin, and finally letting you teach me D&D. Maybe I was dreaming about doing science fair projects with Will and arguing about comics with Mike and going to bother Steve at work. Maybe I was dreaming about letting Robin teach me French and then taking a road trip with you up to Canada. Seeing Niagara Falls. Eating our body weight in poutine. Getting a motel room together.”
“Two beds?” he asks, slyly.
“Three. One for you, one for me, and one in between. For propriety, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I mean, isn’t that how Nancy and Jonathan first got together? In a motel with two beds? Clearly it’s a slippery slope.”
“Actually, I think they slept together on a pullout couch in Murray’s house?”
A disgusted expression sneaks its way across Max’s face. “Okay, I love them, but that’s actually gross. We’re never doing that.”
When it hits what she’s said, they both blush furiously and avoid eye contact for the next few minutes, clearly both thinking about the implied sleeping together.
“I’m glad they’re not getting married,” Lucas says eventually.
“You heard about that too?”
“Will told me.”
Max giggles. “El told me.”
“Poor Jonathan,” says Lucas, shaking his head mournfully, “Absolutely no privacy.”
“Don’t waste your pity. Erica would probably do the same to you,” Max points out.
Lucas’s eyes widen in fear. “Remind me to never tell her when I plan to propose. Leaking the info is probably written into the little sister code of conduct.”
“When?” Max repeats, ignoring the phrase ‘little sister’ that always makes her chafe a little. “Not if?”
Lucas suddenly descends into a panicked coughing fit. Max pats him on the back and is kind enough not to raise the issue again once his throat is clear.
“I just don’t think I could have handled wedding-planning Nancy Wheeler,” she says, kindly changing the subject back. “Like, I love her, but she’s such a perfectionist. Imagine the color-coded calendars. The hours spent picking napkin rings.”
“I don’t think I could have handled Maid of Honor Robin,” Lucas adds. “Imagine the bachelorette party and the reception playlist.”
Max laughs, imagining. “Best Man Will would be cute though. Shame we won’t get to see it.”
“Hey, it’s not like they’re never getting married. Just not right now.”
“They need to see the world first,” Max agrees, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you ever want to do that?” Lucas asks, eyebrows sinking pitifully, “Leave and go see the world?”
Max rolls her eyes affectionately. “Of course.”
Lucas’s face falls.
“Weren’t you listening earlier, you idiot?” Max sighs, “Of course I want to see the world. But I want to see it with you.”
“Oh.”
Max rolls her eyes again. “You’re so clueless.”
“And yet you love me,” Lucas grins cheekily.
“Yes! I do,” says Max with exasperation, “Now I just need you to remember that. And act like it.”
“You’re not gonna get tired of having me stick around?” Lucas asks, “Always watching out for you? Being your ranger?”
“It’s a thankless job, you know,” Max points out, lilting her voice like she could possibly dissuade him.
“Not for me, it’s not,” says Lucas, leaning forward to steal a kiss.
Max, ever gracious, lets him steal a few. “So…you’ll be my ranger?” she asks eventually, not taking her sparkling eyes off his.
“For forever and a day,” he promises.
And so he is.