Fantastical Musings

Chapters: 12/14 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair/Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Lucas Sinclair/Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Lucas Sinclair, mild madwheeler, mild hopclair Characters: Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Maxine "Max" Mayfield Additional Tags: Polyamory, Friends to Lovers, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Bisexual Lucas Sinclair, Bisexual Eleven | Jane Hopper, Bisexual Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, the relationship square will make sense eventually, Sexual Content Series: Part 1 of the pieces of a life Summary:

It takes one kiss when they're 14 for Mike and Lucas to realize that love can take many forms.

But it's only when they meet El and Max that they realize just how many forms that love can take.

Chapter 12 Preview:

The thing is, though - and it’s important to remember this - Max is absolutely head-over-heels in love with Lucas. If she could spend the rest of her life with only one person, Lucas is 100% who she would pick without regrets.

It’s just that Max’s heart is a selfish creature and doesn’t know how to stop at its own good fortune. How else to explain why her heart does an excited little skip whenever she sees El? Or how something as simple as a compliment or little bit of praise from the other woman makes Max’s stomach feel all floaty, like an army of butterflies have invaded? Or how her skin tingles when El links arms with her or they sit snuggly next to each other when they watch movies?

Most of the time, Max is good at ignoring it - she loves Lucas, she wants to build a life with him. And when she sees him every day like she does, it’s easy to let herself be overwhelmed with the way she feels about him until she can very nearly forget that she thinks of El in ways that a friend probably shouldn’t. In fact, it’s probably because of how good Max is at ignoring it that she even approached El in the first place to come with her to California once she found out Lucas couldn’t go with her.

Max hadn’t been thinking at all what it would be like to be alone with El for days on end, without the immediate proximity of her love for Lucas to distract her. No, at the time, it seemed like such a good idea: take a girls’ trip out to California, stay with her mom out near San Diego, spend all day at the beach and eat their weight in street tacos, just relax together.

They’re still on the plane when Max begins realizing the flaw in her plan.