⋆｡˚ MIKE ENTERED THE SCHOOL BUILDING, SHOVING HIS HANDS INTO THE POCKETS OF HIS HOODIE AS HE ENTERED THE DOUBLE DOORS. The hallway air hit his face as students milled around, some holding Starbucks cups, couples linking hands, and others conversing in trios. And even though Mike was tired, the atmosphere felt good and familiar.
Obviously it was because he was high. He didn't expect anything less, due to the dosage Xan had given him before the two had driven to the school together. The boys had entered the school, all of them in a pack like usual. The administrators had looked at them dubiously, as they all usually did, but Mike and his friends paid no attention.
Xan was leading the pack, as he usually did. As he gave the regular orders to the rest of Mike's friends, and they split off in their ways to their classrooms, he stopped Mike and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey man," He said, his eyes flashing to meet Mike's. "We're not gonna have a problem with you getting Max to talk are we? Everything is gonna go like we said this morning?"
Mike snorted, half listening. The conversation the couple were having to his right was a lot more interesting for his high brain to focus on, and he turned his half-closed eyes back to Xan with a lazy grin.
"Relax, Xans," he said, rolling his eyes." I've got it all under control."
Before his friend could say anything more, Mike had turned and strode off towards his first period class, where he knew Max would be sitting in the last row from the back with Jane Hopper, captain of the cheerleading squad, by her side.
He had strode into the class right as the bell rang, and his teacher Mrs. Martinez glanced up at him with a scowl, but didn't say anything. Mike wasn't late. He had cut it close. If he had been late, it would have been detention, and he wasn't risking that due to the meeting he had with the rest of them today.
And if all went well, Max too.
Instead of going to his usual seat near the window in the right corner, he moved all the way back to Max and Jane's direction, taking the seat right across the aisle from Max. He noticed her glance his way as he put his book bag down beside him, leaning back in his seat.
He pretended to ignore her for a little while, but when her glances kept getting more and more obvious, he couldn't resist a jab in her direction. Just to get the conversation going, of course.
"Staring won't make you see through my clothes, Mayfield," Mike hissed in her direction, smirking slightly as he saw her cheeks flush a bright, crimson red.
Bingo.
Jane leaned over from her seat, her eyebrows lifting as she pursed her perfectly glossed lips. "You're distracting us from history with your stench, Wheeler."
The words dripped from his mouth a little too slow, but his reply came quick all the same. "Stench from your latest get together in the stairwell with Tyler Blaine or-"
"Drop. Dead." Jane spat.
"Any comments from the back?" A clear voice rang out from the front.
The girls' heads both whipped up, their eyes on Mrs. Martinez who was waiting for a response with her arms folded. Mike took the opportunity to shake his sleeve further down on his arm, trying to wake the nerves up in his face for the slightest second as the spotlight was shown on them.
Mrs. Martinez looked at the three of them. "Well?"
Mike cleared his throat nonchalantly. If the girls were gonna be mute like stupid fucking idiots, he was going to be the stupid fucking idiot who opened his mouth.
"Hopper didn't know the response question," He said. "We were helping her out. Group work, you know."
He prayed to shit he didn't look high. "Like you always say."
Thankfully, Mrs. Martinez merely rolled her eyes and lectured them for talking while she was teaching. She went back to her lesson after, and although Jane was slamming text messages on her phone and giving Mike the ice cold shoulder, Max had looked towards him gratefully, slipping him a small smile of thanks.
And by some miracle, he had an in.
An announcement came on over the loudspeakers announcing that the captains of the sports teams needed to go to the gym for a team photoshoot. Mike watched as Jane collected her stuff, giving another word of thanks to the people he called the Dope Gods.
She swooped down and whispered "bye" to Max, telling her best friend to text her after class and shooting Mike yet another nasty glare. She headed out the door along with the volleyball captain, and five minutes later, the bell rung dismissing them.
Mike scooped up his bag, catching sight of Max's red hair already heading towards the door. He caught up with her at the back of the group, greeting her with a simple, "Sup?"
Max turned towards him, her phone in her hand as the new text message she had yet to type to Jane blinked up at the screen towards her. "Oh shit, hey Mike!"
"Thank you so much for that back there," She said, and Mike watched out of the corner of his eye as she switched off her phone, the screen and Jane's incoming texts going dark. "We would have been screwed."
They finally made it out of the classroom into the hall, and both continued alongside one another to where the stretch of their lockers were located.
Mike feigned complete innocence. "Screwed with Martinez? Why? I thought she liked you."
The redhead sighed, matching his strides. "Yeah, she did, before I started being more stressed about cheer and my brother and all this other stupid shit and started falling behind."
"Damn," Mike said. "I know all about falling behind. What, you got a C or something?"
"An F."
Mike whistled lowly. "Oh shit, Mayfield's on the same rung as me now. Congratulations, baby."
She shook her head as they started down the stairs to the second floor. "No, it's not a congratulations. I'm failing a lot."
Mike dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He had F's, bottom zeros, in every single class. "Mayfield, I promise you, failing a lot of assignments isn't the end of the world. You'll catch up in no time, you always had a hang for-"
"Not assignments," Max interrupted him as they finally reached where their lockers were. Thankfully, the the lockers had been assigned by first names, so Max and Mike had always been close to one another whether they had liked it or not. "Classes."
Mike grimaced. He knew what that was like. He leaned against the locker beside hers as she fiddled with the lock. "Fuck, I didn't know. Are you failing one or two?"
Max succeeded in getting the door open, and unzipped her backpack, beginning to stack her unneeded history textbook in the top. It was a moment before she answered.
"All of them."
There was a silence between them. Snatches of conversation passed from the group of girls comparing pictures a couple of feet away. Max was now digging around in her locker for her cheer bag, organizing all of her competition shit into nice, straight lines.
She wasn't looking at him. If she had, she would have seen the tiniest hint of a smile as he conjured up an image of Xan clapping him on the back, thanking for bringing Max in and doing his job.
It was almost too fucking easy.
"Well," He said slowly, leaning a few inches closer. "Now we're definitely hanging from the same fucking rung, huh?"
Max finally looked at him, and when she did, he saw her eyes were slightly red. For a second, his heart dipped with concern. She merely looked at him, saying lowly, "Yeah, I guess we're both fucked."
She put her head in her hands, shifting so her forehead rested against the cold metal of the lockers. "I just wish shit could be easier. I wish.. I wish I could go through life actually appreciating the shit I fucking do."
And it was the same speech Mike had heard so many times before.
For a speech he had heard so many times, one that had even been in own head way back in March when he was just a scrawny teenager sharing a pill with another, Mike had the remedy.
"Yeah," He said softly, now reaching out and placing shaking hand that he ordered to stay still on the girl's shoulder. "I know. And... if you want..."
Max raised her head, blinking hard before turning to face him, her eyes now containing slight suspicion as she waited for him to finish his sentence.
"I think I have something that can fix that."
She was curious. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was, but she feigned aloofness, crossing her arms in the way Max Mayfield was so fond of doing. "Oh yeah? And what's that?"
She leaned closer to the black-haired boy, her blue eyes piercing his own. "What's your grand gesture, Wheeler?"
For a second, Mike had to remind himself that he wasn't into this girl. He wasn't here to flirt, or kiss her, or go on a date when this was said and done. She was now going to be in the group, which meant that to do anything before she even came up there would be a fucking disaster. No way was he going to let Xan think he was trying to one up him behind his back.
He took a deep breath, and bit the inside of his cheek. Max's eyes were still set on his own, obviously not believing.
"Look, I'm just helping you out here because it worked for me," He began slowly, pushing his dark bangs out of his gaze. "But imagine one teeny tiny pill you can take that makes everything you've ever worried about-"
He held her gaze, and sure enough, although apprehensive, she was letting him continue.
"-all disappear."
He shrugged his shoulders. "No shitty thoughts. Everything looks great, feels great, fuck I mean you even act great. Nothing feels wrong, or out of place. You finally fucking feel you belong somewhere."
Max's attention was now fully on him. "What does it feel like?"
Mike only had one word for that. "Amazing. There's other shit too. . . shit that feels even more good than that one tiny little pill. But you gotta get a taste before you move up that ladder."
He threw in a line not just to make her feel safer, but one that he believed every time he and Xan picked up a new bag of H that could or could not have fentanyl sprinkled delicately inside.
"Shit that makes you feel this fucking good isn't a fucking game."
He could tell she was thinking about it. Her failing schoolwork, cheer, her family weighing clearly on her stress-ridden face. Max bit her lip, hesitating before saying slowly, "How much does a pill cost?"
This was exactly what he had been waiting for.
Reaching into the side pocket of his duffel, he looked around to check and make sure that no teachers or administrators were nearby before pulling out an white-topped pill container, tossing it to her.
"As it just so happens," He said, meeting her eyes again as her hands gripped the sides of the bottle. "It's free."
She stared at him. "Free?"
He tilted his head. "Well, free if you come over to Xan's place after school. We're looking for someone to help us out. Someone's who tough and isn't a fucking idiot."
Mike's eyes skimmed her figure, making her flush red again. "Someone attractive too."
She was considering it, he could tell. Her fingers were sliding along the sides of the medicine as she pondered what exactly he was offering her.
He shrugged simply, lowering his voice as he leaned even closer towards her. "Come on, Mayfield. You want to be the same boring person forever?"
"Or," He nodded towards the pill bottle, a smirk curling up the side of his face as he met Max's intrigued eyes. "Do you want to be fucking invincible?"
⋆࿐໋₊ ♡·˚ ₊ author's note!
hello, and happy update week! inspiration hit for this chapter while i've been in the depths of school and seasonal depression so i figured i should definitely take advantage of it. i really hope that the people that are still reading are enjoying how mike and max's story is progressing so far; and don't worry, it only plans to be even more fragile and intense from here ♡ ♡
thank you so much for all your reads, votes, and support! i love reading your comments when you leave them, it makes me so happy people are enjoying "black tar" as much as i'm enjoying writing it!! thank you all so much ugh ｡:✦・ﾟ
🎱🗝📰
━━━ TW: addiction, heroin use, violence, etc
━━━ WC: 2193
━━━ DP: 02.23.22