𝘿𝙍𝙄𝙁𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 - Max Mayfield

48. Amends

Aiden opened his eyes and tried to shake the haziness off. Looking down,he noticed a pair of arms were wrapped around his midsection. The boy craned his neck a little to see who and sure enough,his eyes landed on a very familiar ginger.

He still found it hard to believe all that happened the previous day wasn't part of some fever dream. He'd made it out of Vecna's domain alive and made up with Max..  all in the same day.

But the thought of Vecna immediately triggered another thought.

Orochimaru.

The fact that the madman had found a way here and even worse, somehow joined with Vecna was more than disturbing. How did he even get access to this dimension? Didn't the leaf Ninjas know he was missing? If he planned to get Aiden,that meant he wanted his abilities. No matter what he wanted them for,he was a threat to Hawkins now alongside Henry..

The others had no idea what this scaly bastard was capable of...

Aiden slowly removed himself from Max's hold so as not to wake her. As he sat up in bed,he took a moment to look at her as she slept and a smile played on his lips... they'd been through things that even he couldn't believe they'd made it out of. He did convince himself all these months that he wanted nothing to do with her.. not cause he exactly hated her but he was simply hurt. And he'd much rather stay far away from her... Unfortunately,or rather fortunately.. things happened that brought them together again. He had no idea how he'd let go of everything.. Maybe it was the fact that he'd almost died that made him realise that none of this actually mattered.

He slowly planted his feet on the floor and got off the bed. Opening the floorboard,he took out his phone to check the time.

4:13am

He let out a soft sigh before placing his phone on the bedside table and throwing on the same black t-shirt from the Starcourt incident. He already had a pair of grey sweatpants on,his favourite ones. 

Aiden reached for the Rubik's cube on his bedside table; a gift from Shikamaru to "keep his mind sharp". Sitting back down on the bed softly,the 16 year old started to think, trying to to figure out a way to deal with both colossal problems they currently had.. the only thing he could think of at the moment was splitting Vecna and Orochimaru up by making the creep chase after him.. at least that would give the party one less psycho to worry about.

As he tried to construct some kind of backup plan,his fingers worked on the cube, not exactly trying to solve it but the movement seemed to help him.

About ten minutes in, Aiden heard Max stir and feel around for him. Not coming in contact with Aiden,the ginger sat up rather quickly, to see the boy sitting by the side of the bed.

"Hi," Aiden smiled a little.

"What're you doing?" Sleep was still evident in her voice.

"Thinking," Aiden said, looking back at the Rubik's cube.

"How long have you been awake?" Max asked as she rubbed her eyes.

"Quite a while," he replied. "I can't sleep anymore... Not with everything I know"

Max looked at him. She could read his eyes better than almost anyone else. He was still worried after what they'd both experienced. And that... Snake-like man. Him and Aiden seemed to know each other. She knew there was more to all this than they'd been told, but she knew not to force this out of him. Aiden would talk when he was ready.

"Come here" Max extended one of her arms.

The ninja hesitated at first but let himself put down the cube and go to her. Max gently pulled him by the hand to the bed and made him lay back down. The ginger then wrapped her arms around him. Pulling him closer as she pressed a kiss to his forehead and then both his cheeks before kissing him on the lips. It was a small gesture but it meant way more than that to him.