𝗥𝗲𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

bonding in the waiting room

The group had gotten to the hospital just for the nurse to tell them that only two visitors can go in at a time. So, Nancy and Jonathan had gone to see Mrs Driscoll, leaving all of the younger teenagers waiting in the waiting room for them. Asher wasn't really fond of sitting doing nothing, but he thought that while he had nothing to do, he should probably get something to eat.

"Hey, man, do you have a couple bucks I can borrow?" Asher asks Lucas "I'll pay you back, I just got nothing on me right now."

"Here" Lucas says, pulling two dollars out of his pocket.

"Thanks man, you're the best" Asher says with a smile, walking over to the vending machine with Lucas following him.

"So, you and Max, huh?" Lucas asks, leaning against the edge of the vending machine. Before Asher got out of juvie, Max and Asher barley talked, but over the past couple of days, he hasn't seem them leave each others side and when he walked in on them in Mike's basement bathroom made him feel like something was going on between them.

"What do you mean, me and Max?" Asher asks as he looks at the vending machine.

"What's going on with you two?" Lucas asks.

"Nothing, we're just friends" Asher says, still not looking at Lucas, finding the vending machine much more interesting.

"You don't need to lie to me, you know? I'm not going to be pissed about it or anything" Lucas says, making Asher look at him. If Lucas was being honest, he knew that him and Max wouldn't last forever, the amount of times they broke up showed it. He knew that one day, Max would break up with him and he'd be okay with it, and if he was being honest, when she broke up with him a few days ago, he wasn't sad about it. Lucas knew that this break up with Max was permanent and he was okay with that.

"I'm not lying" Asher says "Me and Max are just friends."

"Doesn't look like it" Lucas says, making Asher look confused "Dude, I saw the way she ran over to you after Billy beat your ass, and if I'm being honest, I've never seen her so worried about anything until that moment."

"I still don't get it" Asher says to Lucas, making the boy sigh.

"All I'm saying is that Max looks at you the way she used to look at me" Lucas says with a smile "She likes you, dude."

"You being serious right now?" Asher asks, not believing Lucas.

"Yeah, and I can tell you like her too" Lucas says, making Asher shake his head.

"Look, man, I'm not going to try anything with her if that's what your--" Asher goes to say but Lucas cuts him off.

"I'm okay with it. If I'm being honest right now, I think you'll treat her better than I ever did" Lucas says as Asher looks over at Max who's sat by herself, making Lucas turn around to see what Asher was looking at before turning back to face the Hart boy "Go over to her and make your move."

"Right now? Is that the best idea?" Asher asks Lucas. To Asher, Lucas was probably the best person to get advice from about Max, seeing that he dated her, and now with Lucas' approval, he could finally make a move on her.

"Why not?" Lucas asks "Look, I'll stay over here, get you your food and come save you if it's going to shit. I'm your wing man now."

"Dude, I owe you big time" Asher says to Lucas with a smile.

"Yeah I know, now go over there and get your girl" Lucas says before Asher walks over to Max, who is still sat by herself.

"Hey, you good?" Asher asks, sitting down next to Max "You know, with the whole Billy thing?"

"I know I shouldn't really be complaining to you about all of this; you have it way worse than me" Max says with a sigh to Asher "Whenever I think about how shitty my family is, I just think about your dad and that stops me."

"Well, I'm happy to be of service" Asher says with a laugh "But yeah, my dad is an asshole, but he's still my dad, you know? He's the only family I got. I can't just leave him."

"I get that" Max says with a small smile "As much as I can't stand Billy, I can't just let the mind flayer take control of him. He's still my brother."

"We're going to get it out of him, you know?" Asher says to Max, trying to comfort her "I'll make sure of that."

"But you hate him" Max mentions "I thought you couldn't give a shit about what happens to him."

"That is very true, but I'm not doing it for him" Asher says, making Max look confused "I'm doing it for you."

"Why are you doing it for me?" Max asks, wondering why Asher cares about her so much. Max has never really seen Asher care about anyone apart from Dustin, so seeing him being so protective of her made her have a weird feeling in her stomach and she wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

"Because I care about you" Asher admits, looking Max in the eyes "I'm not letting you lose your family, even if it's that dickhead."

"Because you like me" Max jokes. As much as she is joking about how Asher has a crush on her, she knows it's true, but that's mostly because she overheard Lucas and Asher talking about it less than five minutes ago. At the start of the summer, if you had asked Max about Asher, she'd probably just say that he's an annoying idiot who is best friends with Dustin. But now, she'd probably say that he's one of her favourite people. It's weird how over a few days you're opinions of someone could change so fast, but it happened for Max, and she wasn't complaining about it at all.

"Yeah, so what?" Asher asks, not looking at Max, leaving the two in a very awkward silence. Max wasn't really sure what to say to Asher because, if she was being honest, she didn't think he'd actually admit it.

"Hey, I got you some m&m's" Lucas says to Asher, walking over to the two after seeing that they're now just sat in silence.

"Thanks--" Asher goes to say but gets cut off by all the lights starting to flicker "Is that--"

"Yeah" Lucas says.

"Nancy and Jonathan" Asher mentions, running over to the elevator, pressing the up button repeatably "Come on you piece on shit! Work faster!"

"Stairs" Mike says to Asher, making him follow the rest of the group up the stairs to find Nancy and Jonathan "Wait, do you guys hear that?" Mike asks as they all hear the sound of banging, so the follow the noise to find Jonathan trying to break a door down.

"Where's Nancy?" Asher asks.

"In there" Jonathan replies, still trying to break the door down, right before Asher pushes Jonathan out the way, kicking the door open to see a very disgusting and weird looking thing standing over Nancy.

"Jesus" Mike says.

"What the fuck" Max and Asher say at the same time, looking at the monster.

As the monster was going to charge at Eleven, she used her powers to make the monster hit one side of the wall, then the other, then the roof, then the floor right before making it fly out the window.

"Go" Eleven says to Jonathan, telling him to check up on Nancy as the rest of the group run outside to try and find the monster, to see that it is there, but it was as a puddle of guts.

"Oh god, that's disgusting" Asher says while gagging "I think I'm going to throw up."

"Please don't" Max mumbles as her and the rest of the group watch the thing slither into the nearest drain, disappearing from their eyesight.

1334 Words