Chapter Text
Blood slipped from her fingertips as she pressed down frantically, trying to stop any of the bleeding.
The crimson bubbled up from her mother’s neck, slowly spilling out her life.
“No, no no no no come on not you please mom please no,” Max gasped, her breath leaving her, fuzzing her head.
“MAX!” El’s voice shot through the darkness. “MAX PLEASE HEL—” a blood curdling scream came before it was abruptly cut off by the whirr of a demogorgon.
Max desperately whipped around to see where it had come from, but there was only pitch blackness suffocating her.
She looked back down, eyes unblinking at her mother’s shredded throat, but bright blue eyes stared up at her, also unblinking. Max’s chest heaved without sound, her lungs ripped from her by the sight of death.
Max stumbled away, bloody hands skidding on the ground and mixing with the dirt. She scrambled to her feet before turning and running, sprinting towards the sound of El’s voice, but her foot caught on something soft, and she tumbled down.
Head pounding from the impact on the ground, Max focused on what she’d tripped on, and a scream ripped itself from her throat. Lying on the ground was Will’s prone body, mutilated and rotting with every vein in his body slit open to spill blood— so much blood— around him. He was gone.
She kept running.
Fleeing headfirst into the darkness, she lost her bearings until another scream, this time in Dustin’s cadence, tore through the void. That, too, was cut off as quickly as it came.
Terror gripped itself around Max’s brain, and she brought her hands up to cover her mouth. They smelled like blood and earth, and she could taste the death of her own mother. Ripping her hands away, Max wretched onto the ground, but what came out was just as dark red.
She kept running.
Max collided with a body suddenly, and she wrapped her arms around it, holding on for dear life.
“Max,” Lucas’ weak voice came, and Max reeled back as she realized his entire body was limp. He was hovering inches above the ground, suspended by a rope around his neck, and his eyes— or the empty sockets where they should have been— gushed blood. “Where were you? Cut me down.”
Max sobbed, frantically trying to pull Lucas down with half a mind, but she couldn’t grip onto him hard enough as her hands slipped from the combination of her mother’s blood and Lucas’, which coated him.
She finally latched on, but as she pulled, there was a CRACK, and Lucas’ body shivered then went limp as he died.
Max sobbed again, twisting around frantically until she finally saw some light, and she ran towards it. Getting closer, she made out the shape of Mike. She sped up, desperate to get to him, but as she approached, she saw that he was pinned upright by a spike driven into his gut.
Max reached him, hands flying around the spike, panic cutting off sense. Cut marks laced every inch of his bare chest, painting everything but his hands a bright, glowing red. So much blood. Max pressed down on any wound she could, but it was futile.
She screamed without any sound, crushing fear cutting her off.
Mike looked at her, and tears welled in his eyes, but as they spilled down, they were red instead of clear.
“Max,” he whispered.
“Hey,” she reassured, the sound barely human, “hey, loser, we’re gonna fix this, just keep your eyes open.”
Mike fell horribly silent as Max tried to do whatever she could— anything she could— and he didn’t blink again.
“Max, Max please,” another voice called, and Max whipped around, pushing red hair dyed crimson out of her face.
It was Billy’s voice.
She abandoned Mike and ran into the darkness towards her brother. Max found him stumbling towards her, almost imperceptible as black ichor spilled from his wounds, making only splotches of him stand out from the abyss surrounding them.
“Billy,” Max cried, and she collided into him, wrapping her arms around him with her face pressed against his soaked chest.
“Help me, Max,” he pleaded, and he put his hands on her shoulders.
“I don’t know how,” she sobbed, holding him tighter.
Suddenly the hands on her shoved, and Max was ripped away as she tumbled back.
Billy followed her, face blackened with inky blood, and his hands wrapped around her throat. He squeezed, and she flailed desperately. She stared up at his pitch black eyes, and blood dripped from his face onto hers.
“Join me. You’ve already wanted to. Let go, Max,” Billy begged as if he wasn’t killing her, blood slipping like tears from his eyes.
Slowly, as she scrambled to do anything to fight back, her vision faded and—
Max awoke with a strangled gasp, heart so high up her throat it blocked her airways. She ripped away her blankets, her head swimming, and barely made it running to the bathroom before she vomited into the toilet, the pain pulling everything from her stomach.
Max panted in the smell of her bile, and her vision came into focus as red dripped to mix with the brown and green below her.
Her hands flew to her face, finding her nose spilling blood. It coated her hands, and she stared back at the bright red she’d thought was only in her dream.
Max sat back, pushing away from the toilet to lean against the wall, her eyes blurring and unblurring through the pain. Her hands slipped on the cold tile under her, and she let her head fall limp, supported by the wall. Blood trailed down her neck.
“Fuck.”
Mike wasn’t expecting a tapping on his window today, but it wasn’t like he was asleep.
He blinked away from the comic book he’d been reading, eyes drifting to his window as another rock hit it.
It was a Thursday night— Mike checked his watch to see 12:24 AM— nope, Friday morning. His flight would leave tomorrow, then.
He’d get to see Will.
Mike shook the thought away, slowly pulling himself from his bed and moving to the window, having to tiptoe around all the clothes that scattered the floor, which really should be packed by now.
It wasn’t necessarily uncommon that they talked on weekdays, but they’d stuck to weekend nights for a little bit now.
Unlocking the latch, Mike pulled open the window, taking a deep breath of the fresh spring air. Then he looked down.
Max was staring up at him, her red hair flaming in the night. Mike blinked a couple times, getting his eyes to focus down on her.
She had her shoulders hunched with one arm tightly wrapped around her stomach, and her face was spotted with something dark, though Mike couldn't make out what it was. Her shirt, too, was splattered.
Panic curled in Mike's throat, unease spreading.
"Hey, loser," she said, her voice rough, and the quiet sound carried through the night to reach him at a whisper, almost blown away by the wind.
"Max," he whispered back down, careful not to wake his sleeping family, "what's going on?"
"I, uh," Max fumbled with her words, wincing hard very suddenly, and Mike's stomach dropped further. "I couldn't sleep."
Mike took that for what it was (a lie), and he nodded at her before shutting the window and carefully tiptoeing downstairs.
He was out on the porch quickly, his steps more urgent that they had any right to be.
There was something... weird going on. Something was majorly wrong, but Max wasn't showing it yet. Yet.
They'd done their best to stop hiding from one another, at least when they turned up after midnight, but it was always bits and pieces of a whole truth. Mike hoped this was simply another hidden piece, yet dread coated his tongue in bile.
Mike shut the door behind him, and the two stared at one another in the yellow light.
Her bike was abandoned on the ground next to her, one wheel still slowly spinning.
Rocks tumbled to the ground from Max’s free hand, and Mike saw the discolored spots coated her hands.
“Are you okay?” He asked in concern, stepping off the brick porch and approaching her.
Max swallowed, the tendons in her neck tight. “Been better,” she joked, but there was no energy in her voice.
“You’re being weird,” he pointed out bluntly. “Did something happen?”
“Why does something always have to have happened?”
Mike gave her a look, and she returned the favor.
As he got closer, the smears covering her turned maroon, shades of brown and red melding to a rusted color. That was… No. It couldn’t be. Could it? There was just… it was everywhere.
“Am I not allowed to say goodbye to you before you leave?” She deflected again.
Mike barked a laugh. “You’re not here for that.”
“How do you know?”
“Max.”
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth, “I was going to ask what your plan for El was.”
Mike pursed his lips, averting his eyes to the pavement as he finally stood a few feet in front of her.
They’d talked about that (Max had spent the entire afternoon of February 6th yelling at him, which was… fair. Eventually, they’d agreed he couldn’t very well tell El through a letter.) Mike was slowly piecing together a plan to explain to El… well, everything. Everything he was too scared to admit.
“You have a plan, don’t you?” Max asked, and where regularly her tone would have been harsher, it was thin now. She sounded drained.
“...Kinda?”
“Ugh, loser!” Max groaned, burying her head in her hands.
Mike looked back up at her in indignation, prepared to defend his hesitation to explain that he was in love with his best friend to his girlfriend of a year and a half— especially considering that said best friend happened to be a guy— but his eyes caught once more on the stains.
They were… they were everywhere. Smears and splatters of true red, now that they were closer, and Mike had seen the remnants of dried blood before.
Mike’s eyes widened, and his breath caught.
“...Max…” he choked, stumbling forward. “Why are you covered in blood?”
Max’s head whipped up, staring at him with wide eyes, before flicking back down to survey herself.
“Well shit,” she breathed, wincing again and pressing her eyes closed tight. Mike had seen her in pain many times, and her pinched eyebrows and trembling hands told him enough.
“Did you— did you—?” Mike cut off, surging forward and snagging one of her arms. She barely put up a fight, just letting herself be tugged. That scared Mike even more.
As he tugged her wrist to survey it, he found only scarred skin. She was wearing a short sleeved shirt, something she only wore around Mike. When he saw her with others, she always had a jacket or another shirt on, and he knew why. He was honestly a bit terrified for the summer when he’d have to take his shirt off to swim.
Yet, as he snatched the other wrist, there were no new wounds; there hadn’t been since early March.
“No,” she mumbled, “I didn’t.”
“So then?”
Max met his eyes, her pupils blown wide. Her look was strained. “So then nothing,” she responded, barely whispering. “Nothing— I— fuck.” Max pulled her hands away weakly, and they once again went to her head, this time putting pressure on her eyes.
“Are you…?” He asked, bringing his own hand up to hover over her shoulder. She shrunk away from it.
There was a sickening silence before Max let out a small cry, and she stumbled backward, losing her balance. Mike lunged to catch her, his arm shooting under hers to support her shoulders.
“Holy shit, Max, holy shit,” Mike mumbled in panic. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
She pitched into him, basically going limp as she whispered, “I— I don’t— fucking hurts.”
“What does? What hurts, Max?” He asked frantically, grasping for any way to help.
“Head, nose, fucking everything, los— ah, fuck,” she gasped, the last part coming out strangled.
Mike stared in horror as blood began to drip steadily from both of her nostrils, quickly flowing down her face and neck.
“I don’t know if you know this,” he said, seconds away from losing his mind, “but you are like seriously bleeding, Max.”
“I know,” she groaned, “Couldn’t— it won’t stop. It won’t stop bleeding, Mike. There’s so much blood.”
“Oh, fuck, fuck, okay,” he muttered, finding himself sorely unfit to handle any of this. He swiveled his head around, finally landing on Lucas’ house right next door. “We can— let’s get you some help, yeah?” He asked, and Max shook her head softly, but he continued, “We’ll wake up Lucas, and he’ll—”
“No!” Max choked, fighting out the sound through what was clearly debilitating pain. The force of the word sent spatters of her blood onto Mike’s shirt, staining it crimson. “No, no please not Lucas, Mike, he can’t see me like this, Mike please.”
“But he’s—” He’s your boyfriend, Mike had wanted to say, but that wasn’t true anymore. Still, it was a lie just the same to say Lucas was nothing to Max, and she nothing to him. Both of them were painfully in love with someone they couldn’t have.
“Hasn’t— hasn’t been for months. I can’t— he can’t—” she cut off with another groan of pain, leaning heavier onto him, and she was starting to tremble.
“Christ, Mayfield, what the fuck is going on?” Mike’s anxiety, which had already skyrocketed his heart rate, was now spinning his brain at a million miles an hour.
It wasn’t like Max didn’t have nosebleeds— shit, she’d had one earlier in fourth period— but the blood wasn’t just a small stream anymore; no, it was flowing freely, beginning to coat her entire chin and seep past her lips to dye her teeth; it was brutal image that sent shivers down his spine. This wasn’t— couldn’t be— normal, and that fucking terrified him.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed, and she finally looked up at him. Her eyes were black and blurred with tears, something Mike barely ever saw. “I don’t know what’s happening. I— for days the headaches— the bleeding— it won’t stop, Mike. In fourth period, and then I went— shit— then I went home, and it made me dizzy, and I thought I stopped it but I…” her knees wobbled, and Mike wrapped his arms fully around her before she could fall, stooping down to support her from under her arms.
“It hurts,” she breathed again, “God, it hurts so much. And I just tried to fall asleep when it stopped but— fuck, the nightmare, Mike.”
Nightmare.
“Oh shit,” he exclaimed in horror.
“And I can’t—” she sobbed again, clinging onto him and pressing her face into his shoulder. His shirt suddenly stuck to his body, and he felt warmth creep down his back.
Her blood.
Mike’s breath stuttered, terror strangling his brain.
“Max, Max it’s— it’s going to be alright. It’ll be alright, I promise, okay? We— whatever’s going on, we can fix it, okay? Just hold on. Hold on, Max,” Mike babbled, barely registering what he was saying anymore.
She kept sobbing, and slowly her weight became too much. They were tugged to the ground, gravity winning inch by inch. Soon they were kneeling, still clutching onto one another for dear life under the yellow street lamp.
“We’ll fix it,” he whispered, trying to convince himself, too. “We’ll fix it, I promise, I—” his voice broke.
Mike didn’t want to believe they were empty promises, he would lose his mind if he did, but the bloodcurdling warmth kept spreading along his shoulder and spine, and Max was in a state he’d simply never seen her in before.
Under her breath, through the choked sobs, Max kept whispering in a trance, “I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know— I don’t—”
She was trembling so hard it felt as if the earth was shaking under her, and her nails cutting into his shoulder blades made the ground quake under him, too.
The instability rattled him; he’d forged something strong only to discover it was falling apart at the seams, and with each rattle his world fell apart.
They’d painstakingly carved out moments of peace after February, working together to find their reasons to stay alive. Mike had thought, he’d believed, things were getting better, but here Max was, breaking down as red death soaked his back.
Out of the terror, a logical piece of Mike’s brain shifted into place.
Stop the bleeding, it listed, go inside, first aid, simply so much ibuprofen, food, water.
It was always simpler for Mike to work with a plan. His mind had a tendency to spin in wild directions, so a set path kept him from fucking everything up— though he seemed to do that anyway. He was most confident when he had a plan; he often latched onto that role simply because he could not carry on otherwise.
Mike pried her off— if lightly tugging due to how weak her body seemingly was could constitute as prying— and forced her to meet his eyes.
Max’s gaze was glazed over with pain, and tears flowed freely to dilute the blood, which her nose was still pouring, that practically coated the lower half of her face.
Through her trembling, she started to sway without him to anchor her, and Mike knew he needed to act fast.
“You have to stand, alright?” Mike said, trying to be gentle but finding it easier to talk as if she wasn’t bleeding out.
Max didn’t acknowledge him, but as Mike rose, she gripped onto his arm and struggled upright with him.
Holding all her weight, Mike pulled her to the front door, practically dragging her from how fast he stumbled forward.
Faster faster faster faster— his mind blared, and in the stretch from the middle of the road to his porch, Mike was thirteen again, dragging a limp Will through endless hallways of flickering lights and demonic screams, outrunning death.
Max was groaning when Mike shoved open the door, and she’d fallen silent once more when he dragged her into the kitchen, forcing her to sit on one of the bar stools. Mike checked his panic by rushing around, grabbing the first cloth he could see— a white hand towel folded pristinely on the counter where it glowed in the darkness— and practically suffocating Max with the way he shoved it into his face.
Mike knew basically nothing about first aid because Max always handled the injuries, and Lucas was about a fourth of the way through a medical textbook. Nothing except nosebleeds.
See, that night in the rain, with his broken nose that tasted like metal, Will and Lucas had found him leaning on that swingset. Sometime in their interrogation, his nose had started spilling again, and Lucas had dropped his anger for a moment to lean Mike's head back, pinch his nose— which had hurt like a bitch— and stop the bleeding.
Mike was never more grateful that Max had broken his nose then in that moment as he gently tilted Max’s listless head back and pinched her nose. She groaned, but she let him guide one of her hands up to hold the towel to catch the blood.
They stayed like that for long minutes, listening to their labored breathing and Ted Wheeler’s snores from the other room.
Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the night. The white towel was darkening, but slower than Mike had felt on his shirt. Everything in the kitchen was perfect; fruit arranged artfully in a wooden bowl, spring flowers blooming in a vase on the spotless counter top. Mike’s eyes landed on where Max gripped the counter, her fingers slipping and leaving smears of dark blood.
As they stayed there, silent like they had been as they patched each other up, his brain scrambled to find an answer. While this would have been concerning for regular people, Mike had a creeping suspicion that something more sinister was at work. What in a normal world would be strange, in their world it was dangerous.
Finally, after what felt like hours of waiting but was likely only twenty minutes, Mike’s hand started to cramp, and he deemed it safe, the darkness on the towel having stopped five minutes previous.
He eased his pressure, and Max’s head tilted back down. Max opened her eyes and took a shuddering breath; she dropped the towel to reveal a messy face but no fresh blood.
Mike let out the air he’d trapped in his chest, and collapsed against the counter. He slid down it with his back to the island, knees wobbly.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered, looking up at Max.
If she was covered in blood before, she was coated in it now. He grimaced at how his shirt stuck to his back, soaked in it.
Max looked down at him, and her eyes were strained.
“I don’t know,” she whispered again, voice still weak and lost.
Mike swallowed hard, pushing down the fear. “Your migraines. You mentioned headaches… do you think…?”
Max had been dipping out of class with a bottle of Tylenol more often than not for the past week or so. He’d be a fool to say he didn’t notice. He wanted to ask, but Max had been… quiet lately. He’d also wanted to tell Lucas, but everything was just— it was weird right now.
Lucas was ditching them for the guys who’d bullied them their entire lives— Jesus, the kids who used to call Lucas ‘midnight’ were now dapping him up in the halls— and Dustin seemed content to spend every afternoon at the video store or holed up at his house. And with Will gone…
With Will gone…
Things were just weird, okay? Mike was telling himself everything was fine, but at this point he was strung out trying to stay in touch with everyone, which he was barely doing because he… well, he couldn’t fucking breathe with Will gone.
So yeah, when Max— the only person who he could talk to, and he the only person she could talk to— started acting off, he noticed. She’d been worse for a week now. Mike desperately wanted to tell Lucas because Lucas was always better at helping her than he was, but Max was pushing him away so forcefully; along with them being broken up for months, Max wouldn’t even look at him, and she wouldn’t talk to Mike or Dustin when Lucas was around.
Mike knew that wasn’t just because she didn’t like him anymore (because she fucking did, Mike would die on that hill. Max loved Lucas just about the same way he loved— he loved Will, and there was no way that was gone). Max had been distant but cordial around Lucas for a while now, but over the weekend, it was radio silence. She even cut off Dustin, and until tonight, Mike, too.
Max’s hair fell down into her face, maroon in the night. Mike hadn’t seen it down for a while now.
“It won’t stop,” she whispered again, but she swallowed, and her voice came out a bit steadier than before. “The headaches started last Friday, but it was on and off. Then it got worse, and Tuesday it started when I woke up; it hasn’t gone away since.”
“Max…”
She took a shaky breath. “The first nightmare was Wednesday night, and tonight again.” She shuddered hard, pulling her arms tight around herself. “And you were there when my nosebleed started.”
“Why didn’t you…?” Mike trailed off, words dying on his tongue. He couldn’t really say anything about not coming to someone earlier; Mike had been seconds away from killing himself before he went and talked to her.
Max shrugged, her shoulders moving barely a fraction of an inch. “Just, I don’t know. Don’t really know how to explain… this.” She gestured to her blood covered body.
Once again, he couldn’t argue with that.
“So then,” Mike eyed her, fighting to put together pieces that he didn’t really think were there, “what changed?”
If this were a normal night, if this were like the night Max kept Mike alive, she would have glared at him, made a joke, acted like Max. But there was nothing normal going on. Max didn’t know what was happening any better than he did.
Max went quiet for a second, her eyes going distant, then a sob tore itself from her chest.
She curled in on herself even more, head bowed as she whispered, “The nightmare.”
“What…” Mike was almost too scared to ask, but he had to know. “What was it about?”
“Last night it wasn’t horrible, but tonight… I— I didn’t know my mind could be so awful,” she said between sobs. “All of you… I couldn’t see but one of you at a time, and everything was so dark, and I kept hearing your screams, and they died in my arms, and I killed Lucas, and there was so much—” Her voice failed.
Mike pulled himself to his feet, and he placed a hand on Max’s back to let her head rest on his ribcage, holding her close.
“It was so real. I could feel your blood, fucking taste it,” she breathed. “And Billy.”
Mike’s stomach sunk low. Max’s nightmares with Billy were always the worst ones. He tightened his grip.
“Billy was there. And I thought I could help him but he— when he strangled me, I thought I was dying. I woke up and I couldn’t breathe.”
“Strangled you?” Mike choked, throat tight in terror.
Max pushed away to look up at him, the height difference exaggerated by her hunched body. Her eyes were scraped raw. “Asked me to help him, then pushed me and tried to kill me. Said I— I wanted to join him.”
Mike’s face twisted in confusion. Join him? As in become a flayed?
Tears once more filled Max’s eyes, and she answered his silent question by baring her lined wrists. “Because I want to kill myself.”
Ah. Join him in death.
“Shit, Max,” Mike said, and he tried his best not to cry for her sake.
He got the feeling that the nightmare was still worse than that, and Mike cursed their life for the millionth time.
“Did you try tonight?” He asked carefully, remembering the nights she’d showed up shaking after being a second too close.
Max shook her head softly, and he almost collapsed in relief. “No, but my nose is valiantly trying to exsanguinate me,” she joked with no humor.
“It might start again,” Mike pointed out. “And at some point, we might have to go to the hospital.”
“I— yeah, I know.”
“Your blood is all down my back, Max.”
“I know, loser. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Mike opened his mouth to ask if she thought it was something supernatural, but he couldn’t bring himself to ponder the question.
“We could talk to Lucas,” he tried.
“Mike—”
“Or Dustin, or Nancy or Steve and Robin. Literally anyone, Max, because if this keeps happening…” Mike’s words died as he realized he wouldn’t be able to do shit.
He was leaving. He’d be gone by Saturday. If this kept happening, Mike was going to be thousands of miles away.
“It won’t— it can’t, okay? I’ve had migraines like this before, and I probably just burst a blood vessel in my nose,” Max reasoned, and Mike barely believed it because her voice was just about the furthest from her regular voice Mike had heard it.
“But the nightmares…”
“I’ve been having nightmares since two years ago,” she pointed out. “These just are a special breed of evil.”
“This still isn’t normal, Max!”
“Mike, please,” she begged.
Mike’s chest tightened so horrendously that a sob escaped. “You’re scaring me, Max,” he said through grit teeth so he wouldn’t break down further.
“I know,” she replied, her own tears beginning to fall. “I’m scaring myself, too.”
“Why?”
“God, loser, that's too many questions.”
It was. Just like a picture says a thousand words, one word asked a thousand questions. Mike couldn’t seem to put the camera down.
Mike closed his eyes tight, feeling heat spill down his cheeks, and steadied his breath. His fear did nothing to help; it never did. His fear kept him with a girlfriend that he was lying to; it smothered him whenever he tried to tell her he loved her; it choked him when he thought about Will; his fear ruined his life, and he let it because he could not stop it.
And right now, his fear let the blood dry and crack on their skin, and it let Max suffer when he could at least try to do something about it.
Stepping away, Mike got out two cups and filled them with water. Then, he got another rag and let the water warm before soaking it. Mike slid a cup to Max, the sound of the glass against the counter interrupting their quiet crying.
“Did you take anything?” He asked softly, knowing the answer.
“Two tylenol,” she confirmed.
He pursed his lips, but honestly he was way past worrying about overmedicating. He grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen and shook out four pills. He grabbed an apple, too, for good measure.
When he handed them over, Max eyed them with skepticism. “Four?”
“My mother gave me six when you broke my nose,” Mike noted, “you’ll survive. Just don’t take any more for a while, and tell me if you start hallucinating a strange man in a hat.”
Max’s mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t appear.
“What if I already see a strange man in a hat?” She asked, looking earnestly at him.
“I don’t understand how you can still be sarcastic right now.”
“I’m not,” she said, voice weak and monotone.
Mike almost broke down as it hit him how much he loved her. Sitting there after bleeding out and having the worst nightmare of her life, and she would still bicker to hell and back with him, trick him and snark at him and remind him the world wasn’t ending. Mike didn’t know what he’d do without Max Mayfield.
He didn’t know what he’d do without any of his friends, any of his family.
“Using your pain as a tool to lie to me is low, Mayfield,” he said with a laugh that was closer to a sob.
“My power is unmatched,” she responded, then took a long sip of the water and popped the pills into her mouth.
“You’re worse than my sister.”
Max swallowed quickly, looking up at him with wide— wider than they had been— eyes. “Really?”
“Don’t sound so happy.”
She shook her head in disbelief, setting the glass of water down and switching to wiping some of the blood off of… everywhere she’d touched.
“I am happy, loser. I’ve peaked. This is the greatest I’ll ever be. Just kill me now.”
Mike really hoped that was a joke, but her tone was still flat.
“I don’t need to do shit for you to die, you asshole. You’re doing a fine job at bleeding out without me.”
Max narrowed her eyes at him. “If I die, will you get that orange mohawk?”
“I swear to God, Maxine, you promised not to mention that again.”
But Max shook her head, answering herself, saying, “Nah, Nancy would kill you before she let you embarrass her like that.”
“Hey!” But he had to fight off a smile.
“Damn. I love Nancy, but she’s underestimating how funny it would be.”
“Alright, so maybe I will kill you.”
A grin finally split Max’s face, and even if it faded quickly, Mike took the win.
Max twisted on the stool so her back rested against the counter with her knees tucked up on the chair. It was a way of curling up for comfort that the two of them did so often, but it admittedly worked better for Max, considering her much shorter legs. She wasn’t a small soul in a shell of a large body like he was.
“Will Nancy leave, too?” Max asked, still looking up at him.
Mike swallowed, remembering Nancy’s breakdowns that bled through the walls of their rooms. Sometimes Mike thought he was the only one who ever knew about them.
“Nah,” he answered, trying to be nonchalant for his sister’s sake. “She’s working on… something”— Mike realized very suddenly that he didn’t really know why Nancy had so selflessly (vehemently) denied the plane tickets— “Probably some internship work again. You know what she was doing last summer.”
Last summer before the mind flayer. After that… what had Nancy been working on? The newspaper, sure, but she was only ever in the journalism room. Mike hadn’t— he hadn’t seen her in the cafeteria or with anyone else like Robin or… well, any of her old friends. Her old friends from years ago.
Max narrowed her eyes. “I thought she’d want to see Jonathan. She was… at least I thought she was pretty upset when he left.”
“...She was.” Mike paused, thinking.
She filled the silence, saying, “Kinda just as bad as us…”
“...But she had… she had other friends— didn’t… didn’t she?”
“Loser, it’s your sister. I only knew her with Byers.”
A beat. Then, hitting Mike like Max’s punch, the realization came. Mike stumbled over to the other side of Max to sit heavily on the other stool, gaping into the darkness. “Barb,” he whispered.
“Barb?” Max asked. “Like Barbara? Barbara Holland?”
Mike nodded solemnly.
Mike and Nancy had never been close. They were three years apart, and they never hung out together— never wanted to. But Barb… out of all of Nancy’s friends, she was the best one. His sister’s friends used to use him as a point of shame, and Nancy did, too: a nerd, misfit brother that yelled at Nancy in the middle of her sleepovers and “girls’ nights,” so of course Nancy had kept her friends away.
But not Barb.
“What does the girl who died in a chemical leak have to do with Nancy?” She asked in ernest.
Mike cast her a strange look. “Lucas didn’t tell you?” Max shook her head. “...No, he wouldn’t have. I only know because Will told me. Nancy never— Barb was kidnapped by the demogorgon, too, but it didn’t spare her.”
Max sucked in a sharp breath.
“Barb was… Barb was Nancy’s best friend. She died three years ago.” Mike’s voice was distant as he grieved a girl for the first time years after she was gone.
“I didn’t know…” Max breathed.
Mike shook his head. “I think Nancy lost everything when she lost Barb. She was friends with Jonathan and Steve, but no other girls ever came over again, and she stopped going out after school.” The pieces came together as he said them, realizing just how ruined everyone around him was. “Barb was Nancy’s only friend that liked me. Sure she made fun of me sometimes, but the same way that you do. God, she even liked the other three; well, it’s hard not to like Will, but you get what I mean.”
Max took in the words, picking at some blood on her arm. “She puts on a brave face, you know?”
“What?”
“Nancy. I’ve seen it since I met her, but all that… all that Nancy about her, it’s all an act.”
Mike wrinkled his nose, but there was a sneaking suspicion that Max was right— because Max was usually right, but that was beside the point. “My sister is a horrible liar.”
Max snorted. “No, you are a horrible liar. The trait is not genetic. She’s like us, loser. Not to say she isn’t awesome— she can shoot as easy as breathing, she’s probably the smartest person I know, and she’s like the bravest girl, no, person, I’ve ever met— but most of that she does to keep everything else down. Probably because of Barb.”
Mike stared, shocked, at Max. Nancy was hiding? The brave face, the facade of strength, the overreliance on intelligence… holy shit. His sister?
“My sister?”
“Yes, Nancy, you idiot. You’re lucky I’m making you realize before she fucking dies.”
Mike snapped his mouth shut, deciding instead to mimic Max’s position, retreating back into his shell of long limbs and a hollow chest.
Max didn’t add anything else, letting Mike simmer.
Finally, he breathed, “She loves Jonathan.”
“And you love Will, and I love Lucas.”
“That’s different.”
“Mike, we used to think we were different.”
Mike shut up again.
Slowly, as his awareness grew to the sleeping girl upstairs he’d pushed away his entire life, Mike began to remember how much he’d appreciated Barb. Not just for being kind, but for being Nancy’s friend.
The memories coated his skin, a love for a dead girl and a love for a sister he’d never understood; they were the first humidity of summer: sticky heat clinging to arms and legs that one revels in because it meant an end to the cold.
“She used to look out for Nancy,” he whispered in a daze, letting his filter vanish. “I remember her warning Nancy against Steve because she thought he would hurt Nance— she used to call Nancy Nance. I never did that. No one but her, and Steve got it from her. She used to bring food when Nancy was too busy studying to eat even though Mom always forced her to sit at the table. She used to read without touching her food, but when Barb was here, my sister was… I think she was finally okay.
“Barbara was more like me, you know? Bullied and a nerd and… It wasn’t like Nancy wasn’t, but she tried so hard to be nothing like me. I tried so hard to be nothing like her. Barb, she kept Nancy in check. Wheelers have egos, you know?”
Max snorted at that.
“Yeah, yeah. But I’m not kidding. Barbara kept— I think she kept my sister human. Reminded her that I was her family, not just some thing to be ashamed of. She reminded Nancy that she couldn’t ruin herself and not ruin everyone else around her.” Mike blinked, and the words— the world— shifted from being just about his sister and Barb.
“Sounds familiar, loser,” Max said wryly.
A stinging crept up Mike’s throat. “Figured you’d understand.”
Because as he talked, he realized Max was his Barb. The friend that kept him human. Will was his friend who meant everything; El was his friend who was always by his side; Lucas was his equal and opposite, a necessity predestined by Newton’s third law; Dustin was his real and true friend, someone to be a nerd and a dumb kid with; and Max was his Barb, the checks and balances to keep both of them on the ground. He needed every single one of them.
“I don’t think I noticed when she died,” Mike continued. “I was too caught up in El and Will and everything. I just assumed that because Nancy had Jonathan, everything was fine.”
“And now that Jonathan’s gone?” Max asked.
The question drowned him. It wasn’t even about Jonathan.
What if one of us leaves? It asked.
What happens if one of us ends up alone?
What happens when there’s no one to keep our feet steady?
What happens in two days? When I’m in California, and Max is like this?
Mike pursed his lips, looking back to Max to study her. She was studying him back. The pain around her eyes had receded, but only slightly. Most of the blood was flaking off or wiped clean by now.
“Max, you can’t keep doing this.”
“Mike…”
“You can’t. There’s no outcome where we survive it, you know that. I— I think I’m at the point where I’m losing everyone around me. Will’s gone, I keep lying to El, I’m more angry at Lucas than I’ve ever been even though I still love him, and Dustin is still acting like Steve is the only human being who cares about him.”
“But Mike I—”
“No. No ‘but.’ We can’t keep doing this. It can’t keep falling apart, Max, otherwise—”
“Everyone who loves me gets hurt,” she cut him off, an old anger that Mike recognized threading through the words. “Do you understand that?”
“I mean—”
“No, Mike. Do you?” Her broken face shut him up. “Because my life has been ruined so many times over that I don’t understand how it’s still getting worse. I wouldn’t be doing Lucas a favor to reach out again; I’d be hurting him more.”
Her gaze drifted back to the wall, distant and shattered.
“Max, Lucas—”
“Lucas deserves someone who is fucking poisonous. My father couldn’t stand it for more than six years. My mom has turned to drinking more times than I can count. And Billy, Mike. What do you expect me to do? Keep hurting them?”
Mike bit his lip, the words too familiar for comfort.
“I hurt people, too, okay?” He tried. “You saw what I did to Will last summer and now to El all the same. It isn’t helping them to push them away.”
“You’re wrong. If you really believed yourself, you’d be trying to fix it, yet you aren’t,” She argued back. She was facing towards the ceiling, blood flaking off her outstretched neck.
Mike stared at her long and hard. She was familiar. Not like Eddie or all his friends, not like who Mike was trying to become. Mike had already lived a million lifetimes, and they would never understand that, nor would they understand him.
Max was different. Max had lived those million lifetimes. Max, for an unfathomable reason that he was eternally grateful for, did understand him.
Max couldn’t lose the people she loved in the same way he couldn’t. She knew that. To let go of them was futile.
“And still,” he remarked, “you’re not ready to lose them. Just as you hated Billy, and you still grieve.”
Her gaze, ominously slow, fell down to Mike. He flinched, prepared for a blistering hit, but none came.
“I’m not ready,” she said instead. “I hate it as much as I hate loving them. I’ve lost so many people, you know? Not even just recently. I had a life in California, and for a while there, a real Dad. And I thought he loved me because I was six and an idiot and I let myself believe that would be my life forever. With a family that was happy and a house that was beautiful and a life that was everything six year old me could need.”
“And you tied yourself to it,” Mike inferred, knowing where this would lead. “Let yourself believe that would never change. So when it did…”
“It ruined me,” she finished. “Dad left one night, broke my mom’s wrist in the process. Said I wasn’t worth staying for because I would turn out just like her: a stubborn, spiteful girl. Guess he was right.” Max laughed something awful. “I really thought he loved me. Come to learn that no one in California really did.
“When I was twelve, my best friend at the time— he was a skater who was the nicest to me, really— pulled my board out from under me on a dare from my brother. It gave me a concussion and scratched me up pretty bad; I had to get stitches in my chin.” She tapped on a faint scar, one now overshadowed by the thousands that covered her. “He started leaving me alone in classes and all that, called me a boy because I wasn’t nice like all the other girls. Then, when he tried to shove his hands up my shirt and I punched him in the eye, he called me a stubborn bitch that wasn’t worth his time of day.”
Mike stared, wondering how a guy could look at someone like Max and not be terrified. Never in a million years would Mike ever set a hand on someone like her.
Max was always the better paladin: stronger, braver, and more good than he could ever be. Mike wondered if, given the chance, he could’ve even protected her from a guy like that before she could protect herself. Maybe she should be the one facing down the monster with a sword in her hand instead of Mike— maybe the party would be safer that way.
“Then rumors started going around that I had sex with him— and then a couple other guys, too. That’s when my step-dad got the job up here, and my mom finally pulled the plug and moved us. That’s not to mention all the other shitty people back there.
“I’ve only had you guys since then, but that’s my fault. Every once in a while, I meet someone or I talk to someone that I think could actually be a friend, but then I remember where that’s gotten me my entire life, and I prove to them I’m just as bad as I think I am. No one’s stuck around to question that.
“So when I say I’m poisonous, loser, I mean it. I’m not ready to lose them, but it's either that or let everything implode, so I’m trying my damned hardest not to let myself get ruined again.”
Mike brought a hand up to rest gently on her shoulder. “You probably won’t believe this, but we wouldn’t do that.”
“Unfortunately, I do believe that. Which is why all of this,” she gestured wildly in the air, “is so goddamn selfish. Oh sure, I’m probably hurting them by being there, but it’s so much easier to do this when I’m saving my own skin.”
He took a second, sizing her up. Her gaze dared him— begged him— to get angry, to see the selfishness as a personal attack. All Mike saw was Max, the girl he loved.
“We aren’t helping ourselves doing this,” he realized.
“And maybe that’s why we’re doing it,” she breathed back with a grim smile. “I guess the cuts and the quarry weren't enough. We’ll find a way to pull the board out first, won’t we?”
“Ruin ourselves before anything else can.”
Max’s eyes hollowed out, painful acceptance gouging them. A tear fell down her cheek like blood from the hollow socket. It mingled with the real blood on her face.
“You’ve got so many good reasons to hide, Mike,” she whispered, “and what do I have? I was broken from the beginning.”
“We’re not that different, Max. You know that.”
Her head fell down, hair curtaining off her face, but not before Mike caught the beginnings of a wry smile.
“Worse for me than it is for you,” she said.
Mike’s chest lightened by a fraction. “You asshole.”
“You’re not denying it.”
“I’m going to re-burst the blood vessel in your nose.”
“Copycat. I already broke yours.”
“And you’re deflecting.”
Max punched him in the arm with no force— Mike guessed it was because she was still very much in pain.
“So what then?” She asked, challenging. “What happens if we stop hiding? Lucas knows I’ve never in the slightest bit deserved him? El and Will find out you don’t deserve them? All our friends figure out we’re wrecks?”
Mike sighed, sliding off the stool to face her. He crossed his arms, hoping to keep his chest from slicing open.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
“Great thought process, loser. Aren’t you the one with a plan?”
“Max. It worked out once. It’s either that or end up like Nancy.”
She frowned at him. “What’s so wrong with Nancy?”
“Well, for one, she’s an asshole—”
Max glared at him.
“—but that’s just because she’s my sister. What I mean is that we’ll have absolutely no one. No one from our old life or from the new. I didn’t realize what it meant to really be alone until last summer, and I don’t want to stay that way, Max.”
“So what? We just throw ourselves into them and tell them everything. We can only do that because we’re just as bad as one another. Them? They’re better. If they knew…” She trailed off, returning to scraping flecks of red off her skin.
He swallowed, fighting down his fear. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got to. It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow. We’ll probably keep self-destructing until someone else catches on, but we’ve got time.”
“But what if—” she began to protest.
“No buts. No what ifs. We’ve made it out of the apocalypse a couple times now, so I’ll be damned if we can’t make it out of the next. Plus, Max, you promised me sixteen.”
“Shitty promise,” she mumbled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Mike prayed it didn’t start bleeding again.
“Oh come on. You made me promise, too.”
“Point still stands.”
Mike rolled his eyes before glancing around the kitchen, finding it mostly devoid of Max’s blood— which was frankly a horrifying occurrence. Even more horrifying was his increasing awareness of how that blood was caked in his shirt.
“Alright then, Mayfield. But for now, we’re both too wrung dry for this shit. I’ve decided I’m kidnapping you because you are not biking home after bleeding out an hour ago.”
“I’m the one with the lawyer.”
“And I’d like to see you prosecute when you’re dead.”
“You underestimate me.”
“Shut up. Now it’s either we sit here and wallow or—”
“I’ve been having a grand time with that one—”
“Let me talk! Can you help me pack for California?”
She gaped at him. “Sorry what?”
“Just get up. I’ve never been and you grew up there, and I— uh, I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of…” his voice died.
To say he was coming to terms with his feelings for Will was a straight up lie. More often than not, even speaking some fairy bullshit out loud made thousands of knives dice Mike up from the inside out, and he hated it. He hated himself for all of it.
Max studied him for a moment, but she rubbed her temples and rolled her eyes. “You’ll be a loser no matter what, but fine.”
Mike didn’t let her see how grateful he was for the help.
Max began to crawl off her seat, but Mike had to rush to steady her as her knees buckled from her weight.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she mumbled, concentrating on steadying her legs.
After a second of finding her strength, Max finally pushed Mike away from her, leaving only one of his hands on her shoulderblade for safety.
They trudged their way upstairs, quietly conscious of Mike’s still sleeping family.
He cast a glance at Nancy’s door, wondering things he’d never wondered about his sister, but most of all, wondering if she was like him.
Max wrinkled her nose as they entered his room, grimacing at the explosion of clothes, books, and paper.
“By God, you are a teenage boy,” she groaned, plopping down onto his desk chair.
Mike sneered at her, saying, “What, did you expect spotless?”
“Just saying.”
“Well you can shut up.”
“I don’t know… don’t really approve of your choices so far.”
He crossed his arms, glaring at her as she eyed the flurry of clothes laid out. “Well why do you think you’re here?”
“Because you're covered in my blood?” She said, sarcasm coloring her tone, but the statement was true.
Mike rolled his eyes, but he snagged up an old blue t-shirt and began to scurry to the bathroom.
“Not that one,” Max stopped him, pointing to the garment in his hand.
“...Why not?”
“You’re wearing it to California, obviously,” and at her deadpan, Mike tossed the shirt aside, relenting to grab some random white tank top.
He brandished it to Max, and she shrugged, so he slipped out and into the bathroom.
Not bothering to turn on the light— using Holly’s bright nightlight as a guide—, Mike stripped off the red stained shirt, cringing at the way it stuck to his back. Coincidentally, it was the same old navy shirt he’d worn to Max’s house a while ago, so he knew it didn’t show blood stains well. Still, he struck the faucet and scrubbed the shirt out.
Watching the clear water turn dark cracked Mike’s skull, sanity seeping out. A noose of fear again encircled itself around Mike’s throat as it had the night he learned Will would be moving. It choked him, pulling cruelly taught for a reason Mike couldn’t place.
Leaning over the sink, frantically pushing blood out of his shirt, he grasped for why this was scaring him so much. Max wasn’t dying, she wasn’t dying. No one would leave him. He could still pull everything back together and Max Was. Not. Dying.
So why didn’t he believe that?
Mike dropped the shirt and shoved away, gaze meeting his own in the mirror. He stared at himself: his hollow face was sharper than he remembered, and his brow a little bolder, his frown a little meaner… and the scars. The scars littering his torso were all the darker. Mike liked to think he could place where each one was from, but honestly the nights fuzzed into one another, ripping his awareness away from him.
Mike always wondered how Will would react to seeing them. What he would say. Would he be disgusted? Would he be concerned? Would he reach out, brush his fingers along every line with such love that Mike shivered?
In reality, Will would simply turn away. Outside of Mike’s twisted fantasies, Will was a normal boy who thought normal things, and normal boys did not attach themselves to scars like the ones coating Mike.
He blinked, a million different scenarios writing themselves on the backs of his eyes, but a flash later, he was staring back at the scars, keenly aware of how fake every dream was.
Mike shook himself out of it, using a rag to wipe off the blood on his back. He tugged on the tank top, not caring that it brandished some of the scars because Max already knew.
Hitting the faucet and hanging the shirt to dry, he left the bathroom and found Max curled over his desk, gaze drifting over the paper that covered it.
“Hey!” He whispered frantically, rushing over to snatch them up.
Max’s eyes bore into him, but she didn’t put up much of a fight, and that told him enough about what she’d read.
“You aren’t supposed to see those,” he continued, straightening them out to tuck away.
Something flicked into his vision, and Mike looked back at her to see her holding an unopened letter. Dread lined his bones.
“It’s from a week ago, Wheeler,” Max spat.
“I know, I know, I just…” Mike looked away, sitting heavily on his bed across from her. “It’s getting harder and harder to open them.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s getting harder to lie!”
“You’ve never seemed to have a problem with that before.”
Yes.
He’d always had a problem with it.
He just couldn’t be the way he was and not lie, so he hated himself for it. It was as simple as that.
He went quiet, silent as the night outside.
Max’s eyes continued to bore into him, somehow more burning than if it was her regular glare.
“You have to tell them,” she said dully.
“No.”
“Mike.”
“I’m not going to tell him. Ever.” Mike’s gaze rose slowly from the damning papers in his hands to Max, shamefully meeting hers.
There was very little soft in her expression, mostly hard lines of pain and disappointment, but beneath that was a breath of sympathy.
“They have to know,” she insisted again.
“They can’t. You know what would happen, Max; they can’t,” Mike begged.
Max’s hand began to crinkle the letter with her grasp, mouth set just as tight. “But otherwise you’re blatantly lying to El.”
“And Will.”
“And you won’t? You won’t even read the letter?”
“I wouldn’t know how to respond,” he admitted.
“So? You’ll be in California. You won’t have to respond through a letter.”
Mike coiled back, stomach clenching tight. “Face to face? How would I ever do that to them?”
“You’ve had months, Mike. You’ve had time to figure it out. You’ll have an entire plane ride on Saturday!” Max pitched forward, leaning her elbows on her knees with her hands shaking.
“Then what?” He asked, voice wobbly. “I tell her the truth? Make my two best friends hate me?”
“I can’t let you hurt her.”
“You can’t be talking!”
Max’s nostrils flared. “At least I broke up with him!”
Mike could no longer meet her eyes. “I can’t do it, Max. I’m all she’s ever known.”
“Bullshit. She’s stronger than you’ll ever be, Mike; she’d be better off without you lying to her at every turn.”
He grimaced, an old well of hatred desperately trying to drag itself up, but it didn’t. That was strange: normally he was good at hating what could hurt him, even if it was true.
Max’s eyes skinned him alive, so he brought his knees up, tucked his face into his legs, and wrapped his arms around his neck— curled as tight as could be. He couldn’t face it, he couldn’t face her.
After a moment of his cheek being skinned raw by his pants, he finally heard Max sigh.
“You can’t lie to her for the rest of your life. You know that.”
He peaked at her, finding an angry girl with balled fists yet a disappointed expression. “I’ll try, okay?” He extended the olive branch.
Max shook her head softly, but not in rejection. “I get why you can’t be honest. I’m not asking you to tell Will. Just give El what she deserves.”
“I’ll try.”
It went quiet for another second, then Max’s breath came a bit more jagged, and she began to hug herself tightly.
“They’re not coming back,” she whispered.
She was right. They weren’t. The reality of that sentence had been eating Mike alive. Years without Will, without ever seeing the boy he loved for more than a couple days at a time. Years of unreturned phone calls, lying letters, and desperately missing his two best friends. And beyond that? How the hell could a screw up like Mike ever get out of Hawkins, better yet follow Will— extraordinary Will— to New York?
The letters would begin to slow in frequency, they’d stop trying to call, they’d slowly forget each other— like the little tendencies and minute habits (maybe after Junior year he’d forget that Will tapped the mole on his lip when he was focusing, or maybe once they graduate he’ll have forgotten how it felt to have Will rest his head on his chest, or maybe in thirty years Mike’ll forget where each and every beauty mark was). But the worst future was where he still had every memory, every detail about the boy he loved, yet never had him.
“No,” he whispered back.
“You can’t be this put together about that.”
“You know damn well I’m not.”
Max laughed. She took a shaky breath. She looked at the mess of a room. She looked at the mess of Mike’s life.
“Alright then, loser, if they won’t come back, you’ll have to go get ‘em. I won’t have you looking like a tourist,” Max said wryly.
They spent the next hour— hour? It could have been more, less. He wouldn’t’ve known. He stopped checking weeks ago— packing for California.
Or Mike was packing; Max was giving him some of the most questionable orders of what to bring to the most important trip of his life. Whenever he’d refuse, she’d ask if he wanted to be a real teenager or just a knockoff Banana Republic model, so he’d shut up and fold it away.
As night crept into morning, Max began to lose steam. Mike could see the medicine wear off, slowly chipping at Max’s constitution and turning her back into the quiet, pained shell from before.
Her head dipped, resting on her palm. Her eyes drooped. Her voice quieted.
In one moment, Mike was gathering an old blue jacket she’d pointed to, and in the next he looked up to find her breathing evenly, the lines of her face relaxed, and her eyes closed.
Mike blinked at her. No way. No way Max had just fallen asleep. She never did that; she was always up until the last second with him.
And to fall asleep like this… she really was hurting, maybe in a way she never had before.
Mike watched her for a minute, wondering if it was such a horrible idea to run across the street and wake Lucas. He could tell him everything; Mike could explain why everything was so horrible right now. Maybe Lucas could help— no, he would help; Lucas always knew what to do when it came to things like these.
But he couldn’t. Though his fingers itched for the radio, Mike could not bring himself to finally stop hiding. Max was right: what could he do? Bear his soul to Lucas and give him Max’s? Let the other boy realize just how awful his friends were?
No. Mike couldn’t do that. It wasn’t the right time. After I see Will, Mike promised himself. Will would make everything better. When he came back from California, he’d start trying to tell everyone he loved what was really going on. Hopefully he could get Max to do the same.
For now, though, Mike crept to Max’s side, gently shaking her awake with a hand on her shoulder.
Her eyebrows furrowed deeply first, the pain returning with consciousness. Then she was staring at him, blue irises clouded over.
“Hey,” he said softly, “let’s get you home.”
Max nodded, the motion barely detectable.
“How bad is it?”
Another fraction of a movement: this time a shake of the head, silently telling him that it was as awful as before.
Mike sat back, beginning to stand up and offer her a hand, then it dawned on him.
How the hell was she meant to ride a bike?
“Fuck,” Mike mumbled quietly, cursing living so far away.
Sure, she’d done it before… but this much blood loss? No way was he letting her go off alone, better yet on a bike.
Max’s pinched brow followed him.
He sighed. “Hold on, Max, let me get us a proper ride.”
A slight shift in the angle of her head asked, And how do you intend to do that?
Mike grit his teeth and shrugged hopelessly at her. “I guess I’m waking up Nancy.”
Max’s continued condescending stare said it all, so Mike tugged on a jacket and left the room before she could muster enough energy to call him a loser for the millionth time.
As silently as he could, Mike crept through the dark hallway to Nancy’s door. He brought his hand to turn the knob, but he hesitated. He’d never asked his sister for favors, he just… well, Mike often acted as if his sister was another piece of furniture in the house.
He’d never really known Nancy; it was crushing to realize that needing something from her made him uncomfortable. Interacting with her in any other capacity but yelling was unfathomable.
But he’d done it with Max.
Until that first night— when he was twelve and the earth wasn’t collapsing under him— Mike had treated Max the way he treated his sister.
Mike pushed open the door, swallowing down his uncertainty.
It was dark: the only light was the creeping rays of the lamppost outside. He’d never seen his sister’s room in the night like this.
He stared for a moment at the shadow of his sister, curled in the bed with one arm outstretched to drape across the empty pillow as if she was reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
Mike pushed forward, breaking the peace of a still world. He seemed to do that everywhere he went. Tiptoeing as carefully as he could, he navigated around an unfamiliar, darkened layout
When he successfully reached her, he steeled himself to just do it. Mike grabbed onto her shoulder and shook.
Almost immediately, Nancy shot up, swiping away his hands and flinching horribly backward. She scrambled, and Mike backed up as her hands swung up in front of her, miming holding… a gun?
Nancy’s eyes were wide, and she blinked a couple of times before realizing she was holding nothing, and she shook her hands away.
Then her gaze shifted to Mike, and she began to scream, “MIK—?!?!”
“Wake Mom up and I will Kill You!” He whispered frantically.
Nancy sat back, breathing hard. Her hair was a crazed blur around her, and her eyes weren’t any better.
“What the hell, Mike?” She whispered back after a moment, anger coloring her croaky voice.
Mike stared at her for a second, unsure.
“Sorry,” he responded finally.
Nancy’s face twisted in rage, but she closed her eyes and took a shaky breath before opening them again, saying, “Why. In the world. Are you in here?”
“Uh… Can you uh…” Mike pursed his lips, recognizing how weird this was about to sound. “Can you drive Max home?”
Nancy gaped at him, processing the words. “What?”
“Max, she uh, she can’t bike home, so I need you to drive her home.”
His sister brought her hands up to press into her eyes and drag them down her face. She took another couple steadying breaths.
“Why is Max here?” She whispered furiously.
Max’s thin voice came from the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. “Car now; questions later, please?”
Mike whipped around, saying, “Max! Why are you standing?”
From the corner of his eye, Mike saw Nancy looking baffled between the two of them.
“What?” Nancy gasped.
“Just because everything hurts doesn’t mean I’m immobile,” Max retorted, but it came out a pained mumble.
“Excuse me for being worried,” he protested.
“Can someone please explain?” Nancy cut in.
Mike rolled his eyes at her. “We’ll explain in the car. Just come on!”
“Please?” Max added, looking at her through hooded eyes.
Nancy grit her teeth, but she relented, “Fine. But just so you know, Michael, if we get caught, it’s your ass.”
“Yeah yeah.”
Nancy glared at him. “Go down to the car. I’ll come in a second.”
“Why can’t you just come now?” he argued.
“Because I don’t have a bra or shoes on, you idiot. Now get out!”
Shuddering at the thought, Mike turned on his heel and pried Max from the door, taking her weight as they stumbled into the hallway. He shut the door behind him.
The two were silent as they made their way downstairs. Mike led Max outside, then left her leaning against the car. Still lying in the middle of the road was Max’s bike, the upturned wheel utterly still. Mike got it quickly, rolling it over to the trunk.
“You’re not going to start bleeding again, are you?” He half-joked to her.
Max— because she was Max— managed to roll her eyes. “If I do, we have an emergency driver.”
“She’d be cranky about it.”
“Probably because it’s three AM.”
“Probably because it’s Nancy.”
“Siblings,” Max whispered in an imitation of a groan.
The front door opened again, turning their attention as Nancy, clad in a silk robe and flip-flops, stepped out from the porch shadow. She stormed over, glaring at Mike.
“You two better have a damn good explanation for this,” she grumbled as she passed them to the car.
“Of course we have a good explanation!” Mike protested. “What you think—”
“Mike shut up,” Max hissed, cutting him off. “Nancy, we do. Just please get me home.”
Nancy bounced her gaze between the two of them before saying, “Why couldn’t you have been my sibling, Max?”
It earned her a small twitch of the mouth, but nothing more.
“Wow, Nancy, that’s very kind of you!” Mike bit.
“See, Mike, this is why.”
“You already have a sister!”
“Holly is six. And I want to replace you, you slimeball.”
“Car,” Max groaned again.
Nancy huffed, then unlocked the car, turning the key with a click that echoed through the night. “Do not slam the door, Mike!”
Mike rolled his eyes and opened the back door, supporting Max as she fumbled her way into the old wagon. He went around back and stuck her bike in the trunk before joining Max in the backseat, leaving Nancy to chauffeur them.
It was silent for a minute as they all prayed the sound of the old car didn’t wake his mother up, but soon they were slowly rolling their way onto the road, Nancy avoiding ripping the muffler.
After a beat of silence, Nancy caught Mike’s eye in the rear view mirror. They left behind the light of the lamppost, and only the headlights illuminated them.
“So… uh…” Nancy drawled, looking unsure.
“What?” Mike scowled.
“Just… are you…? Like? Max and you… are you two…?” Nancy stuttered, clearly uncomfortable with the words.
“You know English, right?” He spat.
His sister’s nostrils flared, but she burst, “Are you two fucking?”
“WHAT?!?” He cried.
Max quickly covered her ears, glaring at him.
“I mean why else would Max be here at three AM?” Nancy defended, glancing back to see Max holding her head. When her eyes returned in the rearview mirror, her brow was pinched.
“No! No!” Mike insisted, rightfully disgusted. “No we are not! We are not!”
“Absolutely not, Nancy,” Max assured quietly. “I would never. I’m better than that.”
“Hey!”
Max sneered at him, and he backed down.
They passed Lucas’s house, and Mike did not miss how Max’s gaze snapped to watch it leave them by, lingering out the window.
“...Okay,” Nancy said. “So when Max can’t stand or bike home it’s not because—”
“Ew Nancy. Just stop. Stop talking,” Mike cut her off.
“Plus,” Max added, pointedly turning to Mike, “if Mike were cheating on El, I’d have his head.”
Well that was… unnecessary. The only person Mike would want to have was Will, and that was downright impossible as well as disgusting. Sure he was kinda emotionally cheating— kinda? Mike was very confused on how his situation was defined— but that would never lead to anything, and Nancy had done the exact same thing!
Good God. Why was his love life comparable to his sister’s? Mike shook the thought away before he went crazy.
“So then what is going on?” Nancy pressed.
Mike met Max’s eyes, and her expression read ‘let me.’
“I woke up with a nosebleed,” Max answered, and Mike furrowed his brows at her candor. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was more than he was expecting. “Couldn’t fall asleep again because of a bad migraine— which is now back—, and I needed to talk to someone.”
“Why wouldn’t you just go to Lucas? I know you guys aren’t together but…”
“Lucas doesn’t want to see me, and I knew your brother would be up.”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “Uh huh. And how’d you know?”
“Because uh—”
“Because we do this,” Mike interjected bluntly.
“What in God’s name does that mean?” Nancy questioned.
Max shook her head, resting it in her palms with her elbows on her knees.
Mike took a breath, picking the words. “Look, Nancy, whenever we’d have sleepovers like before they left, me and Max were the last ones up. We’d talk, and both of us are night owls, so it’d be a while.”
“But you guys haven’t all hung out together in months,” she pointed out.
“No,” he conceded, “but… with Will gone, it‘s better than nothing.” He didn’t mention the sheer necessity of their late night visits. He didn’t mention that it kept them alive.
“Your explanation for waking me up at this ungodly hour is ‘better than nothing?’”
“The nosebleed,” Max restated.
“Yeah,” Mike added on, heart settling low for his next words. “She had one in math, and I told her that if it got worse, then she should come and get me.” He gestured outward with his hands as if to justify, having to swallow by the last line.
The curled up girl beside him gave him a confused look, and he averted his eyes. Mike didn’t like lying— no, he hated it. Hated it so much he only held himself to such a low standard as to do it. But this was Nancy, and he’d spent his entire life lying to his sister.
Mike wondered how much Max had lied to Billy.
“I—” Nancy tried, her voice unsure. If Mike had spent his life lying to her, then she’d spent her life learning when he did it. “Did something bad happen?”
“No,” Max breathed. “Just that I wanted to be with someone awake if anything did.”
Nancy went quiet, and Mike couldn’t see it, but he was sure she was pursing her lips.
“Nothing with the mind flayer?” His sister’s voice came low, quiet as if to speak the secret would bring it into existence.
Mike bit his cheek, then said, “Not as far as we know.”
“It’s almost been a year,” Nancy protested.
Max looked back up, saying, “Nancy, I’ve always had these issues… it’s not like I’m dying.”
Nancy shook her head, frizzed hair moving and sending light peaking through the strands. “But you shouldn’t have biked here at night, especially alone. Joyce made the rule for a reason. It was Billy who—”
“When was the last time anyone listened to Joyce’s rule?” Mike cut her off, noting how Max winced at her late brother’s name.
“I do!”
“Because you don’t go anywhere!”
“And where do you go? Ragers? Rock concerts?” Nancy bit.
“Just because I have— hey!” he started, but Max’s hand shot out to grab his arm in a vice grip, and she glared at him with warning. ‘Just because I have friends and you don’t have anyone doesn’t mean you can be an asshole,’ was what he was going to say, but Max was right: that was a bit too far.
His sister glanced at them through the mirror, and she sighed. It was quiet after that, which made the rolling tires and ticking blinker sound deafening.
They let Hawkins pass them by. The trailer park was flat across town, and it was so close to where the Byers used to live. The path was familiar, neighborhoods bleeding into the edge of downtown, then drifting into forest.
Mike wished they were going for a different reason. He wished they were driving how they used to: when he and Nancy would visit their respective Byers and spend the night happy. They used to ride together like this all the time that summer. After the mind flayer.
Nancy had been with them the night they’d been told the Byers were going to California. Mike’s memory of those moments were fuzzy, but he doubted his sister was much better than him.
They passed Dustin’s house where the boy was likely sleeping soundly. They passed by the road he’d taken to go to the quarry. They passed by Mirkwood. For some reason, it felt as if they were passing by his entire life— every memory, every moment, the good, the bad, the worse.
Mike looked back at Max. Her head was down, her eyes closed tight. She was in pain, yes, but she looked… tired.
Over countless nights, the way it always ended was when sleep came. Still, when it came to Max, tired was an unfamiliar state. He was used to the rest of the Party falling asleep on their own, reaching exhaustion well before he ever did, but not Max. Max was always in it with him.
Her eyes slowly blinked open to meet his own. He wanted her to glare, to say something sarcastic, even to smile, but all she did was take a shallow breath and close her eyes again.
Finally, they pulled into the trailer park, Nancy glancing back at them before turning the car off.
Mike roused himself, bringing an arm to Max’s shoulder to nudge her into awareness,
Then Mike opened the door, cringing at the sound it made in the silent night, and slid out the car. He rounded it to help Max as she pulled herself into the open air, feet still unsteady.
“You sure you’ll be alright?” He mumbled as they made their way to the steps,
“Mmmm,” she hummed back, doing nothing to ease Mike’s worries.
“Max,” Mike insisted.
“Just need sleep,” she said, brushing it off.
“Yeah, let’s hope,” though he didn’t believe it in the slightest.
They reached the steps, and Mike let her get steady before she climbed them herself, sliding her key into the lock with shaky hands.
Before she turned it, though, Max looked back at him. There was a real fear nestled deep in her eyes, and Mike’s own kicked back up.
“Tell me, Max, tell me you’ll be okay,” he whispered.
She shook her head, then she was suddenly in front of him, wrapping her arms tightly around him. His body reacted on its own, clinging to her like a lifeline on the dusty ground.
She was still tense, still slightly trembling, but her weight fell onto him and the shaking ceased, if only by a fraction.
“Mike, you know I can’t do that.”
“I know. But just lie to me, just this once.”
“Alright. I’ll be okay. You’ll see me tomorrow, and it’ll be like nothing happened. I’ll solve the math sheet before you will, and I won’t let you have the answers because you’re a bum, and it’ll be normal.”
“And you’ll talk to Lucas?”
Max went quiet, her shoulders tensing under him.
“Okay,” he whispered, “you don’t have to.”
“I will. Sometime soon. I’ll try, just like you, okay?” She said it into his shoulder.
“And you’ll tell him about all this?”
“He might drive me to the hospital on our first date if I do.”
Mike snorted. “Don’t worry, it won’t be your first.”
“First one this time ‘round.”
Max tightened her arms, pressing the bridge of her nose closer to him.
Mike mimicked her. “Don’t you die on me, got it Mayfield?”
“I won’t.”
“You promise?”
“We’ve got so many promises, loser.”
“Only one spit swear.”
Her laugh was small and muffled, but it was there.
“And we’re keeping it that way,” she warned.
Mike smiled, seeing the dark dirt dotted with pebbles underneath him… but also seeing her smile on the backs of his eyelids when he blinked.
“I love you, Max.”
“I love you, too, loser.”
And despite that, something sunk in Mike’s stomach.
Max pulled away, and her smile was tight with pain and tears.
She turned away, going up one step before doubling back again to punch him in the arm. He clutched it with mock offense, though it hadn’t hurt one bit.
“Read that letter tomorrow, or I’ll really have your head.”
“Got it.”
Max placed her hand on the door. Mike watched as her wrist twisted, revealing the ever fading scars. He wondered if some would be gone by the time he got back from California. He’d have to check.
“Night, Mike.”
“Good night, Max.”
Why did it feel like saying goodbye?
Mike watched Max slip into her door, shutting it with a quiet click that echoed through the night.
An ever gaping abyss swallowed his heart up, though he couldn’t say why. That dread, the kind that shredded your skin and burned your eyes, reclaimed itself on his body once again.
He stayed at the base of the steps for longer than he should have, waiting in fear for absolutely nothing.
There was still the rest of today before he left, but with Eddie’s campaign ending, he probably wouldn’t see her that afternoon. He’d say goodbye right after school, he promised himself that. Make sure she was alright.
His chest tightened again as anxiety wracked him, but he managed to swallow it down and turn back to the car. Mike found Nancy resting her head on her palm and looking out the window at him. She wore an expression that wrapped around his bones; something melancholically understanding.
He slid into the passenger seat, a familiarity finally settling with his sister.
She turned to rest one hand on the wheel and the other on the key, but she didn’t do anything. They just laid there, unmoving.
“Mike?”
Her voice was softer than it had been in some time.
“Yeah?”
“Why was she really here tonight?”
The siblings looked at one another. Mike didn’t feel like hiding.
“A migraine, a nosebleed—”
“Mike—”
“—and a nightmare. It didn’t sound like a normal one, at least. She said she could taste the blood.”
Nancy pursed her lips, recalculating with the new information.
“Really so bad she had to wake you up?” She asked after a second.
“Nancy, I was awake. Like I said, we do this,” Mike admitted.
Nancy kept studying him, and she found what Mike was willing to let show. It wasn’t like Max, who could find anything, but Nancy must understand some things about him.
Her brow knit.
“You love her?”
Mike let out a breath, knowing this was coming yet still being unprepared.
“Yeah, I love her.”
Nancy turned back, suddenly flicking the key and rousing the engine alive. It rumbled, the headlights illuminating the deteriorating trailer in front of them. There was the screech of old breaks and the crunch of tires on gravel, and they were moving.
Away from Max.
Something clawed at Mike, desperately trying to run back to his friend because God knows nothing was normal tonight.
But the trailer was gone a second later, and the noose around his neck convinced him he was already too late.
“When did you two start tolerating each other, then?” Nancy asked after a minute or so.
“Uh… two years ago?”
“Two?” His sister whipped her head around to glance at him quickly. “Wait but— last summer you— What?”
“It’s complicated,” he explained. “She had some pretty good reasons to hate me then. It’s better now.”
Better, sure, but in all the wrong ways, and not quite better enough.
“God, it’s weird knowing you have an actual life,” she said under her breath.
“Hey! My life is extremely complicated, thank you very much!”
“Can’t be worse than mine,” she declared.
“You have absolutely no idea, jerk.”
“Oh really? Do you even know just how many people I’ve lost? And you’ve still got your fuckass ‘party,’ grow up,” Nancy spat, glaring at him from across the console.
A part of Mike wanted to scream back, but he was tired. Tired of it all.
“I get it, okay?” He retorted, but he couldn’t find the heat. His flannel scratched against his scars, and he remembered the days of fabric sticking to open wounds where they once were. “My friends are all falling apart, so I get it.”
“You don’t get the half of it. At least you still have them! At least you still have Max!”
“Max is my Barb, alright, Nancy?” Mike said desperately.
Nancy sucked in a sharp breath, staring unblinking at the road and gripping the wheel with white knuckles. She said nothing.
She said nothing for the rest of the ride.
Silence enveloped them as they sped their way back home, leaving a piece of Mike still standing on the trailer steps, saying goodbye to someone he’d see in merely a couple hours.
They got home, pulled into the driveway, crept in the door. It was eerie… calm— too calm, like the world was holding its breath in preparation to dive under the murky water.
Mike and Nancy slipped up the steps, quiet as sin, both casting tense glances at their mother and sister’s rooms. Just as they were about to part to go to their own, Nancy had a vice grip on Mike’s arm.
Nancy forced him to meet her eyes, which were hard set with an intensity that made Mike’s spine go rigid.
When she spoke, it was tight with an old, bitter anger— but it was sad, too. A despair that had written itself into his sister since three years ago.
“If she’s your Barb, Mike,” Nancy warned, “then you better be fucking prepared for when she’s gone.”