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Somewhere outside, at the corner of Gamma Mu, Bradley was pretty sure his organs were filing a formal complaint against him, because nothing in his body felt like it was still on his side anymore. He stayed folded over for a long moment, forehead almost touching his knees, letting whatever was left in his stomach finally give up and leave him in peace. The brick wall behind him was cold enough to feel personal when he slid down it, like the building itself had decided it didn’t care he was actively falling apart out here.
Inside, Gamma Mu kept going like nothing had happened. Music thumped through the walls in heavy waves, laughter spilling out every now and then like the house was still alive and partying without him, completely unaware that someone had been left behind in the dark grass losing a war with gravity.
“Jesus Christ…” Bradley rasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like it was a pointless afterthought. “I will never..”
He didn’t finish it. Not because he didn’t know what he was going to say, but because his brain kept slipping in and out like it couldn’t hold onto a single thought long enough to make it real.
Then he saw the lawn.
Someone was just… there.
Flat.
Horizontal.
Existing.
Bradley squinted, because of course it was Max. Of course it would be Max, like the universe had decided tonight needed to be his problem in every possible way at once.
He pushed himself up with way too much effort for a guy who had absolutely no business being upright. The world tilted immediately, like it was testing whether he could stay functional or not. He failed the test. Still, he staggered forward anyway, stepping onto the grass like it might punish him for it.
Max didn’t move. Just lay there, staring up at the sky like it owed him money or answers or both.
Bradley kicked him lightly in the side. Not hard. More like checking if he was real.
“Max,” he slurred, voice rough. “Why are you down there?”
Max blinked very slowly, like an owl. Then he laughed. Not normal laughing. No. This was the kind of laugh that sounded like it took three business days to load. When his mouth pulled into a grin, something small caught the light. Metal, faint but there.
“Braaad…” Max said, like the name was a song he barely remembered. “Why are you so… far away?”
Bradley stared at him. “I’m standing.”
Max nodded very seriously, like this was new information that confirmed his worldview. “Wow… that’s crazy.”
A pause.
Max pointed vaguely upward, missing by like two feet.
“You’re like… huge right now.”
“I’m six feet tall,” Bradley muttered, offended on principle even while his stomach tried to evacuate his soul again.
Max gasped like he’d just learned a mythological truth, “NO WAY.”
Bradley blinked. “Yes way.”
Max rolled slightly onto his side like that took emotional processing energy, dragging a hand over his mouth. His teeth caught briefly on one of the rings there, like he’d forgotten it existed. “I think the ground is… soft,” he announced.
“It’s grass,” Bradley said.
Max considered this, then nodded like Bradley had just solved quantum physics, “Ohhh. That makes sense.”
A beat.
Max squinted at Bradley again, “You look like you’re about to die.”
Bradley let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, thanks.”
Max smiled softly, metal glinting again, like that was actually kind of beautiful. “Cool.”
Bradley stared at him.
“…cool?”
Max closed his eyes again, peaceful as hell.
“Yeah. Cool.”
Bradley looked down at him, then up at the sky, then back at him.
This was insane. This was actually insane.
He grabbed Max’s arm and tried to pull him up. Max did not cooperate. At all. He just went limp like a cat deciding physics is optional.
“Max. Get up.”
“I am,” Max said immediately.
“You are literally not.”
“I’m emotionally up,” Max corrected.
Bradley paused.
“…what the fuck does that mean.”
Max smiled again, eyes still closed, the small hoop in his eyebrow catching just enough light when he shifted, “It means I’m here.”
Bradley exhaled sharply through his nose, half-laughing, half-dying. “You are on the lawn.”
Max nodded like that was a temporary inconvenience. “Yeah but like… spiritually?”
Bradley stood there for a second, holding onto a man who was actively refusing reality, while his own body felt like it was negotiating surrender. He looked toward Gamma Mu, music still pounding, people still laughing inside like nothing had changed.
Then back at Max.
“Okay,” Bradley muttered. “We’re both dying. Great.”
Max, very gently, “Same.”
Bradley barely registered it before something tugged at him.
Max.
Next thing he knew, he was on the grass too.
“C’mon, man,” Max said, like this was a totally normal life decision. “Lay with me.”
Bradley tried to protest, but his stomach flipped so hard it felt like it was trying to escape through his spine.
The world didn’t just spin. It kicked off a whole damn rotation schedule. He shut his eyes fast, breathing sharp through his teeth.
Bad idea. Everything got worse.
“Max…” he muttered, voice wrecked. “I’m gonna actually die out here.”
Max, completely unfazed, just shifted a little closer like this was a cozy hangout. “You look like shit.”
Bradley let out a short, broken laugh that immediately regretted existing. “No shit, Max,” he rasped. “No fucking shit.”
Max blinked slowly, like he was processing that at dial-up speed, absentmindedly worrying one of the rings with his teeth again.
“Okay,” he said finally, very calm. “But like… are you dying dying or just, like… dramatic dying?”
Bradley stared at him. That was it. That was the moment his soul tried to leave his body early.
“I hate you,” Bradley said, but it came out weak, almost fond in the way exhaustion ruins your ability to mean anything properly.
Max nodded like that was fair. “Yeah. I know.”
Then, after a pause, “You wanna lay down more?”
Bradley closed his eyes. “…I am already down, genius.”
Max looked genuinely impressed.
“Ohhh.”
Max shifted up again like a switch flipped in his brain. “Wait, wait, wait, wait.”
Bradley squinted at him from the grass. “What now.”
Max pointed dramatically at nothing for a second, then noticed the buttercup flowers beside them like they had been waiting for their cue the whole time.
“Oh my god,” Max whispered. “Do you know the thing?”
Bradley exhaled through his nose. “What thing.”
Max leaned in like he was about to reveal government secrets. “The flower thing.”
Bradley stared. “That is not a thing.”
“Yes it is,” Max said immediately, way too confident for someone currently operating on another planet. “You put it under your chin and it, like, glows. It means you are special.”
“It means you’re high,” Bradley muttered. “That’s what it means.”
Max ignored him and plucked a buttercup anyway.
Bradley watched him like this was the stupidest thing he had ever witnessed in his life. Which, honestly, it was competing.
“Max, don’t-”
Too late.
Max held the flower under Bradley’s chin like it was sacred.
Nothing happened.
Max gasped anyway. “Wait. Wait, I think it’s…”
Bradley rolled his eyes. “I am literally being pranked by nature right now.”
Max frowned. “No, no, do me.”
Bradley paused. “What?”
“Just, do it to me,” Max insisted, shoving the flower back at him like this was urgent research.
Bradley groaned like a man being sentenced. “This is so stupid.”
But he did it anyway.
He held the buttercup under Max’s chin.
And
It glowed.
Not magic. Not actually. Just the soft yellow catching Max’s skin in a way that made him look unreal for half a second. Warm. Bright in a way that didn’t match the rest of the night.
Max went completely still.
“…It works,” Max whispered.
Bradley blinked. Once. Twice.
His gaze caught again but this time on the rings in Max’s lip, the way he licked his lip unconsciously, metal glinting for a split second. The eyebrow piercing flashed when he shifted, subtle but there, impossible to ignore once noticed.
“No,” Bradley said automatically. “No it doesn’t.”
But he didn’t move the flower.
Max turned his head slightly, still glowing in that stupid accidental way. “You see it, right?” he asked softly.
That second stretched.
Bradley’s jaw tightened like he was mad at the question itself.
“No,” he said immediately.
Too fast. Too sharp.
He scoffed and pulled the flower away like it burned him. “It’s a flower, Max. Relax. You’re fucking high.”
Max blinked at him, unfazed but a little less certain now, like Bradley had poked a hole in his universe. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Okay.”
Bradley leaned back on his hands in the grass, staring up at nothing like the sky had personally offended him.
“Stupid myth,” he muttered. “Of course you believe that.”
But his voice didn’t land as confident as he wanted it to.
Max flopped back into the grass like gravity finally remembered him.
“Dude,” Max sighed, staring up. “I think I could live here forever.”
Bradley let out a short laugh, but it came out thin. Distracted. “Yeah,” he said. “You’d probably rot.”
Max laughed like that was funny, not horrifying.
Bradley turned his head slightly to look at him again.
That was the mistake.
Max wasn’t doing anything impressive. He wasn’t being smooth or smart or anything that made sense.
He was just there. Hair messed up. Eyes half-lidded. A faint glint caught on the rings in his lip when he smiled at nothing, like the world was still kind enough to him even when he didn’t deserve it.
And Bradley’s brain, traitorous and slow and absolutely unhelpful, went
oh.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just… quiet.
oh.
He looked away immediately like the grass had become very interesting. “That’s stupid,” he muttered to himself.
Max tilted his head slightly. “What is?”
Bradley’s jaw tightened. “Nothing.”
A beat passed. Max didn’t push. Just existed beside him like it was enough.
Bradley exhaled through his nose, shifting like he could physically move the thought out of his head. He dragged himself upright, slower this time, like his body might actually cooperate if he didn’t piss it off. One knee came up automatically, arm draping over it, fingers hanging loose, like he needed something to hold onto and nothing here counted.
“You’re the only person who doesn’t…” he started.
Then stopped.
Like the sentence hit something solid inside him and rebounded.
He swallowed, hard. The motion dragged a dull wave of nausea back up his throat. “Never mind.”
Max blinked slowly. “Doesn’t what?”
Bradley shook his head, quicker this time, like he could shut it down before it got worse. “Nothing. Forget it.”
His hand tightened slightly against his knee, grip grounding and then the dizziness hit again, sharp enough to make his stomach lurch.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, folding forward before he could stop himself, pressing his forehead briefly against his knee like that might hold the world still, long enough to not think about anything else.
He stayed there a second. Maybe two. Breathing through it, slow and controlled, like he could bully his body back into cooperation.
Then he pushed himself back up, like nothing had happened.
He reached for the grass with his other hand like it was suddenly the most important thing in the world, fingers pressing into it harder than necessary, anchoring himself against the lingering spin.
Max accepted it the way he accepted everything. No fight, no pressure… just drifting back to the sky like it still made sense up there.
But Bradley’s chest felt weird now. Tight in a way that wasn’t nausea.
He shifted a little too fast, like changing positions could reset whatever the hell just happened in his head. It didn’t. It just made the dizziness flicker again.
Max glanced at him. “You good?” he asked, softer again.
Bradley exhaled through his nose, a little uneven. “Yeah,” he lied instantly. “I’m fine.”
Max accepted it without question and went back to staring at the sky.
Of course he did.
Bradley looked at him one more time.
Just to confirm it was still annoying Max. Still chaotic Max. Still someone he could mentally file under don’t think about too hard.
But it didn’t work.
Because Max wasn’t just chaos right now.
He was… not that.
And Bradley hated how much that mattered.
He sat there a second longer than he should’ve, swallowing again like it might settle something. It didn’t.
“Fuck.”
Max didn’t react.
Or he did.
He just didn’t make it heavier.
Didn’t turn it into anything.
And somehow, that made it worse.
Gamma Mu kept laughing somewhere behind them.
Out here, nothing did.
Max was still smiling at nothing.
Bradley hated how much he kept looking back at him anyway.