*bonus chapter 10

LOVER

"Wait, so do I need to find the y-intercept too?"

Max is the last person who should be giving Nora math lessons on the topics she's missed as the year comes to an end.

But, Mike is too mean to go to, Will is as lost as she is with his different school system, Dustin gets frustrated when Nora forgets the main equations every two seconds ("they're literally the most important part!" "When would I ever use this in the real world?!" "That's not even funny."), and Lucas is kinda an idiot in the nicest way possible.

"Yeah, so that you can plug it into the equation?" Max answers, but very obviously not sure if that's right or not herself.

"Like, why though?"

"Um. . . why not?"

"Okay," Nora shrugs along, moving to do the next step of the problem.

Max laughs softly at the ridiculousness of their situation, loosely dropping a hand on Nora's knee as she scoots over to sit closer to her at Nora's kitchen counter.

"Y'know, Steve told me your parents were asking about you," Max states after a moment of silence outside of the scratch of the pencil against paper.

"When are you talking to Steve?" Nora doesn't even look up from her paper at her girlfriend's comment.

Nora was in the room when Steve got the call from them. She could only hear his side of conversation, and then she heard the words, "yeah, she's right here, do you wanna talk to her?"

She frantically shook her head no at her older brother, trying to signal how much she did not in fact want that.

"Actually, she's not feeling too hot," he played off easily, shooting her a thumbs up that she just rolled her eyes at.

Her and Steve have been doing just fine for themselves being financially separated from their parents, and if they suddenly want to start acting concerned because Nora almost died or whatever, they can do that on their own time without dragging her into it when she would rather protect her peace.

"Me and Steve always talk," Max explains as if it's obvious.

Nora finally looks up from her paper to get a good look at the girl next to her.

"I genuinely can't tell if you're joking or not," she tries searching for answers in Max's eyes, but the brilliant blue color just kind of starts to distract her.

"Why would I be joking?" Max is utterly oblivious to the effect she has on Nora.

"Why are you talking to Steve?" Nora feels borderline hysterical.

She swears, every time she looks at Max, it's like the first time. But then the redhead opens her mouth and Nora wonders what life choices have led her to this moment.

"Nor. You almost died. Multiple times. And then you did actually die, and you had to be brought back to life. Why would I not talk to Steve?"

"Because it's weird," Nora replies in the same matter-of-fact tone Max used. "He's weird."

Max just stares at her for a second, then starts laughing. "Just. . . do your math," she shakes her head at Nora, smiling all the while.

"Okay. . ." Nora turns back to her equations. "But this Steve topic is not over."

"What else is there to say?" Max rests an elbow on the counter so she can rest her head on her arm, gazing at Nora. "We're just two people who love you and are worried about you, so we keep in touch to make sure everything's okay. Can you blame us?"

"I don't blame you," Nora hates her word choice. She doesn't look up from the paper in front of her, but they both know she's not really reading the numbers anyway. "I just feel like we can put all that bad stuff behind us now. You talking to Steve about me just makes me feel like you still think something's wrong."

"Obviously nothing's wrong," Max's hand on Nora's knee tightens its grip, reminding Nora it's there. "But it's not like everything's perfect either. There's always going to be danger out there, especially for us. For you."

Nora doesn't say anything.

She knows Max is right. Of course she's right. She's just suddenly hit with a longing for a life she's never had.

A life where her and Max meet the way they do, but there are no other-worldly demons or monsters that they have to battle all while figuring out their feelings for each other.

They can just. . . be.

They can go on dates to the mall and watch Sci-Fi movies without pointing out how ridiculous they are.

They can do their math homework together and not flinch at every unfamiliar sound.

They can live their lives without any fear that they could lose each other at any given moment.

"Hey," it's like Max can sense Nora starting to spiral.

"I just. . ." Nora tries defending herself before Max even says anything. "It just feels like now we have to spend the rest of our lives preparing for the worst."

"Orrr," Max drags on until Nora finally looks up to meet her eyes again. "It helps us find the best in more things," she says, ever the optimist.

"And what would you say is the best thing in me getting shot by Jason Carver?" Nora humors her.

"The people who have always cared about you now have no choice but to care even more," Max doesn't miss a beat. "Ask anyone to do anything for you, they have to say yes."

Nora thinks back to the night she invited everyone over and they watched Grease without anyone complaining about Nora's movie choice.

"To anything?" Nora couldn't suppress the smile growing on her face even if she tried.

"To anything," Max confirms, already amused with Nora.

"So, you'll do this math work for me?" Nora pushes the papers closer to Max, an expectant but joking look on her face.

"Should've seen that one coming," Max says mostly to herself, but she grabs the pencil from Nora despite her hesitance.

Nora just grins, tossing an arm around Max and resting her head on her shoulder as she watches her glide the pencil across the page.

"So, what else do you and Steve say about me?" Nora says after a moment.

a/n:

i missed u