greedy fly

• knew he was different since he was a kid, didn’t rly like dresses or skirts, but his mom never cared much either. his dad did, and it was what caused his parents separation eventually and he always blamed himself

• was going to tell his mom he wanted to live as a boy she told him that she started dating billy’s dad and ever since meeting them max knew he couldn’t be himself around them

• felt super scared going to hawkins because it was ultra conservative, but for the most part people left him alone. except for the party.

• mike was the first one to notice that he was binding after lucas begged him to go to the pool with them and max kept saying no, he did some investigating and realized that ‘bras’ don’t really look like ace bandages when your shirt rides up

• mike confronted him but also didn’t know what exactly he was doing and max was super upset and didn’t talk to any of the party for a week until mike apologized profusely and said he would forget all about it, but max told him the truth

• mike and him got weirdly close after the confession bcus they bonded over being some form of queer together and the whole party is rly confused

• max agrees to play dnd only if his character can be male and he has to be referred to as such the whole game, as a sort of test for how the pronouns feel

• the party only messes up a few times before getting it down, while mike gives him encouraging smiles the whole time like and idiot

• when he tells the party they all have varying reactions, el thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world that you can just change it like that, while will feels a little more confident in his own identity and is immediately supportive. dustin asks all the medical questions and if there was anything he could do to help in his transition, while lucas triple checks to make sure he’s getting the pronouns right every time he says anything

• max doesn’t mind have long hair, but when mike cuts his he asks nancy to cut his too, above the shoulders, and he will take it to the grave, but he asked for it to look like steve’s

• after billy dies and his stepdad moves away max hates the relief he feels about getting to be himself at home.

• as his mom spirals deeper he spends more and more time at steve’s, starts as sleeping in his guest bedroom to having drawers full of his clothes in there and coming out on the bathroom floor after a mental breakdown (steve gets a lot of flashbacks)

• all steve says is that he’s always wanted a little brother.

• steve would be a modern day dad with rainbow socks on the day after you come out. he offers to steal money from his parents to pay for surgery and says he doesn’t care if he gets disowned.

• dustin ‘invents’ a binder. makes about twelve different colors with sewing help from el

• is still very depressed between s3-s4 but more so because of his identity and the fact he feels like he’ll never be able to be his true self. even despite the comfort of his friends he wants to be out and proud, but feels trapped

• vecna uses this to his advantage in his mindscape, showing max visions of himself as a kid to make him feel worse, to try and overtake him, but max remembers all the reasons he wants to live and escapes anyways.

• never dated lucas bcus no matter how much he liked him he felt like he was deceiving him because max wasn’t being honest about their identity

• lucas confesses a while after max comes out that he always had a crush on him and reevaluated it after he came out and said that it feels disrespectful to still like him bcus he’s not gay, but will always love max as his best friend and first love.

• max still ‘dies’, because while he did have music, he didn’t have all his friends there, which is what he needed more than kate bush.

• the entire party keeps max’s gender a secret when the doctors ask about the bruised ribs from binding, and when his hair grows out el braids it back and tucks it behind him so he looks the same

• when he does wake up he’s physically disabled, he won’t ever be able to walk ‘normally’ again without severe chronic pain, so he uses a wheelchair most times but on good days can use forearm crutches or even a cane.

• when everything was over the party together and cut max’s braids even shorter than before, it was choppy and uneven but he didn’t care, because they had all helped.

• in high school max stays closeted, but in college him and mike go to NYU together while dustin got into his top choice, columbia, will and lucas are going to school at a community college in the area and el wants to explore the world as much as possible before committing to one degree, so they all live in nyc together because they can’t bare to be apart

• max lives life as a cis guy in nyc, because all though he doesn’t feel strictly male, it feels better to have the world see him as a man than as a woman

• max goes to gay clubs and goth clubs all the time, finds they’re the most accepting as he gets even weirder.

• lovessss to work out, gets lowkey ripped

• wears crop top tanks and low rise jeans in the 90s. is the hottest guy on campus

• him and mike start a (short lived) college band

• eventually does start under the table testosterone, dustin took a phlebotomy class to be the best person to give him his shots

• years later, when the party is getting older and they’ve all gone their own ways, they choose a persons city to travel to every summer for their pride parade.

• deeply bisexual and annoying about it.

• he eventually does come out to his mom after she clocks his voice is almost completely different, she says she always had an inkling and that he’ll love him forever

• got surgery in his late twenties, wasn’t a well known procedure and had to hole up in a hotel room to heal in the middle of a random city for it, and mike waited on him hand and foot without complaining because he knows how much this meant to him

• mike and lucas convince him to change his legal name to Maximilian

• doesn’t like labels, he’s just max.