talk too much | max mayfield

bonus chapter 5

THE ONE WITH LUCAS SINCLAIR

When Nora was in 1st grade, she took part in a writing contest where her and group of other six year olds wrote their own short stories about any fictional topic they would like.

Nora wrote a very compelling narrative about a carrot who gets eaten alive, but the winner of the contest was a little boy who wrote a first-person rendition about a prince charming dragon-slayer who saves a princess from an evil snail trying to steal her beauty for itself. This boy was also Nora's very first crush.

Lucas Sinclair.

Nora found herself often trailing behind Mr. Sinclair during lunch, trying to get a glimpse of all those other magical stories he could tell.

This crush was discovered after Nora had made friends with Mike and Dustin, so the two were relentless in their teasing. They went as far as genuinely becoming friends with Lucas, just so Nora would have to deal with their sideways glances every time they all hung out as a group.

Lucas never knew about this crush, even well after it died down and Nora realized how insane she must've been to ever actually like him, and at some point Nora forgot too, spending so much time denying it happened that soon enough her subconscious just let go of the memory.

However, Nora and Lucas have never stopped caring about each other.

Whenever Lucas needed to get away from his annoying little sister, Nora was the first to challenge him to a Pac-Mac contest at the arcade, and whenever there was a forecast for thunderstorms and Nora was too afraid to sleep by herself but too embarrassed to ask Steve to stay with her, Lucas would practically drag her to his house where the two would stay up all night playing Snap and reading comics.

Nora wouldn't necessarily say she was closer to Lucas than the other guys, especially before freshman year, because she definitely found them all equally annoying and cootie-ridden, but Lucas always Got It.

For example, Nora never really learned how to play D&D and the other guys would always give her shit for it (maybe Will a little less, but he never gave up trying to teach her), but Lucas never made her feel like she wasn't really part of the party because of it.

And no one really understood what Nora was going through with her parents until Lucas was the one to notice the lack of family portraits or baby pictures of Nora throughout her house, then being the main one to assure Nora that they'd all be there for her whenever she needed it.

It's why Lucas felt so comfortable to go to Nora and ask her if she would to join the cheerleading squad.

Both basketball and cheer had offseason practices, and Lucas knew if Nora worked on her popularity circle with the other cheerleaders and he worked on his own with his teammates, soon enough their circles would overlap and he wouldn't be alone in this new world of real parties and people nodding their heads at you in the hallways rather than tripping you over.

If he had known that one of his previously mentioned teammates would shoot Nora twice, he never would've even considered the idea.

Erica assured him he shouldn't, but Lucas couldn't help but blame himself for everything that happened.

He was the one who dragged Nora into their stupid search party for Eddie, and he was the one who pissed off Jason, and he was the one who ignored Nora's warning when she told him the guy sucked.

He's apologized 16 times now, Nora forgiving him each time, assuring him it wasn't his fault that Jason was a psycho freak asshole, but her consolation falls on deaf ears as Lucas wallows in self-disappointment.

"Besides, I'm not allowed to do any physical activity for the next hundred years so you don't even have to worry if another one of your teammates ends up going insane and shoots people, because Will and Eddie said they would take that time to officially teach me D&D," Nora continues a previous conversation where Lucas was telling her to never listen to him ever again.

"Don't listen to Will, always play the offensive," Lucas provides his own insight, grateful for the easygoing response Nora chose to give him. "Always choose fireball."

a/n:
ok hi fun lucas stuff ik but i mostly did this bc i have v pressing matters to tend to
so. i'm facing a moral dilemma where i don't want to make too many bonus chapters and then none of it correlate w season 5 and then there be a million plot holes BUT i came up w a fun and fresh idea where i don't have to wait 2 years to bring nora back to life that being to rewrite s4 where nora and max go to california w mike and follow that plotline instead? i def think it'll be less plot oriented but for it to make sense we r going to have to forget everything i've written for s4 happened but then when s5 comes out i'd be following the first storyline i wrote does that make any sense?? i think what i'm trying to say is like i want to make au fanfiction of my fanfiction but idk if that's too complicated or if anyone besides me would be into it so pls give ur input and ask questions bc ik i didn't explain this well at all