talk too much | max mayfield

bonus chapter 7

DUSTIN HENDERSON, EVERYONE

"I go to the local alchemist shop and buy a couple more healing potions."

"Why?"

"So. . . that I have more healing potions."

"Well how many did you buy?"

". . . Four?"

"How much did it cost? How do you know how much money you have?"

"No-"

"What do they heal? What if you buy a healing potion for poison, but then you get stabbed?"

"That's not how-"

"I'm sorry, how long have we been playing this game with you?" Mike interrupts the conversation Nora and Dustin are having in the middle of their campaign.

The three of them as well as Will and Lucas are all sitting around Nora's hospital bed, game board, pieces, and dice all splayed out on the white bedsheets, deciding with everything going on, it'd be nice to have a minute - or 10 hours - to themselves doing what they love: bullying Nora.

"Four years," Lucas answers for him, also getting annoyed with Nora's relentless confusion.

She's changed out of the hospital gown now, deciding it was too unflattering and she much rather prefers Max's striped t-shirt (the redhead not joining the campaign as she draws the line at fictional monsters, not real ones) and Steve's jean shorts that are way too big on her, but it's not like she's going anywhere anyway.

"Six if you include when Mike first got his fancy dice," Will adds on, more supportive of Nora's inexperience, but never turning down a moment of sassiness.

She mostly only agreed to play with the guys when they were younger so that she would be included in things they did, but she's never gotten into the game like they have with their costumes and complex character lore.

"I have a concussion, you're not allowed to be mean to me," Nora takes her turn, still unsure of the total objective of the game.

A bandaid is covering the most of Nora's upper right arm and there's also one covering her entire abdomen. They've lessened her drug intake since any pain from her surgery would've died down by now, and her wounds are starting to feel a little better now too. It's less "it feels like someone's continuously kicking me in the stomach and I'm literally going to die" and more "dull ache that's never going to go away even after I'm dead" which is good!

"Had a concussion," Dustin is the most annoyed, making a rookie mistake of sitting next to Nora on her bed, trying to get under the blankets because of how cold the hospital room was; he ended up being the one Nora would turn and whisper to every time she was confused - which was incredibly often. "Two weeks ago."

They've always had the same unspoken, unassigned seating arrangements since they started playing. Normally on square tables to fit their DIY board made of cardboard and Nora's paints from 1st grade (the most she's ever contributed to their campaigns) with Mike, Lucas, and Will each on their own sides and Nora on the corner in between Dustin and Will, closer to Dustin so she doesn't have a corner pressing into her body whenever she leans on the table in boredom.

There's no logical reasoning behind this, only that Nora was mad at Mike and Lucas when they first sat down at a table (for a reason she can't remember, but it was definitely understandable at the time), and she wanted to be as far from them as possible out of pure pettiness, and while Will was trying to find middle ground, Dustin was totally on her side because he thought it was funny to watch Mike get mad.

Dustin's always taken Nora's side when it came to those kinds of things. At first, Nora assumed Dustin felt kinda bad for her, being the only girl in their group of weirdos, not relating at all when it came to X-Men comics and Donkey Kong video games. But soon enough Nora realized Dustin didn't think any differently of Nora than he did his other friends.

She was better at Tetris than all of them combined and even if her superhero knowledge was more female oriented, she was still the best Wolverine on Halloween that one year.

He never felt weird about including her in their normal "guy" things, and, technically speaking, Dustin was the first person Nora came out to - but he didn't really know it. . . neither did Nora.

The details are hazy now, but it had something to do with their classmate, Jenny Adams, and a Supergirl action figure.

"Offer gold," Dustin suggests as Mike presents a scenario.

"Why? Is that good?"

All four boys look up from their sections of the board to stare at her.

"Okay, I offer gold."

"Roll a 3 or higher," Mike looks the most done with her turn.

"Aren't those good odds? Are you sure?" Nora tries grabbing the papers from in front of Mike to which he snatches them easily out of her reach the same time Dustin grabs her arm to move it away. "I have a bullet wound!" Nora looks taken aback at Dustin's actions the same way the boys look at her.

"In your other arm!" Dustin replies a similar incredulous tone, always one to match other people's energy.

"Pain radiates," she says matter-of-factly.

"Y'know what other pain would radiate?" He says as if asking a genuine question.

"What?" Nora stares monotonously, not falling for the act.

"The pain from if I punched you in the face," Mike answers for him, knowing Dustin didn't have it in him to be mean to Nora no matter how much he builds it up.

"You would hit a girl-"

"Is that what you wanna call yourse-"

"Oh, you are so funny-"

"Yeah, I kno-"

"Guys," Will, ever the mediator, interrupts, trying to get back to the game at hand. "3 or higher," he looks at Nora pointedly.

"What happens if I roll lower?"

"Nora!"

"I'm just trying to balance my risks and rewards!"

a/n:
you'll all be happy to know Annie's not in the future chapters so 🥳