Chapter Text
Max feels like she’s going to faint.
No, wait, that isn’t exactly right. That’s what people usually say they feel like, in stories, when they’re faced with something like this.
Max feels nauseous. Perhaps a little like she’s finally snapped and completely lost it. She feels a little angry, very confused, a bit like she’s going to start laughing maniacally and then break down sobbing.
But mostly? Max feels relief.
Because Billy’s standing in front of her. Billy, who Max thought was dead. Billy, who was declared dead three years ago, whose funeral Max went to, who Max has been missing for three years.
For a second, she thinks her eyes are playing tricks on her. It wouldn’t be the first time Max has seen someone and thought it was Billy, but the thing is, those times they had something that reminded her of Billy at seventeen. A blonde mullet, curly blonde locks, a jean jacket, a half open shirt, a cigarette, bruises.
The man at the counter does not have anything like that. He has blonde hair, curly and long, but it’s actually long all over and pulled up into a bun, and he has sunglasses on, even though it’s October, and raining, and Max can see part of a scar high on a cheekbone and disappearing behind the lenses. He takes his cup from the barista with his left hand, which would clue her in that this isn’t who she hopes it is, if it weren’t for the fact that when he turns Max can see that there is no right hand emerging from the other sleeve of his black sweater.
The funeral was closed casket, but Max is certain Neil would have said something if Billy wasn’t about to be buried... whole. And she always found that strange, because Max saw him, saw all the injuries all over him, hugged his body as he bled out in her arms, and Max knew they tried to save him, and it never made sense to her that they wouldn’t have had to amputate something.
And so Max knows, knows with absolute certainty, that this man is Billy, because he doesn’t look like asshole teen Billy with his anger and abusive asshole of a dad. This man looks like what she could actually imagine a Billy who survived the Mindflayer, and survived Neil, might look like.
And that just leaves the question of why the fuck haven’t you contacted me you complete and utter asshole? Max doesn’t know what to think.
Actually, Max doesn’t think at all. Max watches him go sit down and grabs her bag, and her coffee cup, and stands up. She walks over to the little table he’s found for himself in the corner, secluded and private, and pulls out the chair to sit down.
Billy, for it must be Billy, looks up at her over the brim of his glasses, and Max sees they’re only slightly tinted.
“Can I help you?”
It is Billy. The words aren’t ones Billy would use, no, but it is his voice. He’s quiet, but Max has zeroed in on it to the point where all the other noises of the busy coffee shop fade into the background. She’s in Indianapolis for the weekend with Lucas. They’re staying at his grandma’s place, just a couple of blocks away from where she is now.
“Where have you been?” Max decides to get right to it, no beating around the bush.
Billy leans back at that. She can see him swallowing, like he’s nervous, but when he speaks his voice is completely pleasant. The hand around his mug clenches. It’s hot chocolate, Max notes. Billy always loved hot chocolate. “I’m sorry? I... I have no idea who you are.”
Max huffs, feels a smirk pulling at her lips. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious. What’s your name? I-” He reaches out with his left hand, as though he wants to shake hers. Max doesn’t take it. She’s starting to get afraid. He pulls it back around his cup. “My name’s William,” he says, with a little halfhearted shrug.
“You’re name is Billy.”
Something’s wrong.
He frowns. “Nobody calls me that.”
Max leans forward. The edge of the table is pressing into her belly. “Everybody calls you that. The only one who ever called you ‘William’ was your mother.”
That seems to catch his interest. He tilts his head to the side and looks at her with such an open, searching expression Max almost feels like crying. He reminds her of El, suddenly.
“Do you know where my mother is?”
Max thinks back to the funeral service, to the beautiful curly haired blonde woman who showed up, who marched straight up to Neil before it started and screamed and shouted and slapped his cheek. Who screamed at him that he’d taken her son, her child, away from her. Max found out a lot, listening to that shouting match. It turns out that part of the reason why they’d moved to Hawkins was because Billy’s mum had been trying to reach him, trying to get custody over him. That Neil had moved and changed phone numbers and put Billy in a different school after their divorce.
Neil had wanted to bury Billy in Hawkins. Max knows he would’ve hated that. And so did Billy’s mum, apparently. She’d argued until they agreed to cremate him, and when she first laid eyes on the casket she’d fallen to her knees with a wail. It had echoed what Max felt in her own heart, through stronger, heavier. Darker. The sound a mother lets out when she sees her dead child. Susan had crouched down and held her.
Billy’s mum had held the urn with his ashes with trembling hands. Max had gone up to her before she could drive away, had hugged her and asked if she could touch the urn. Had asked her where she was taking her brother.
To the ocean. ‘To the California ocean’, she’d whispered in Max’ ear. ‘To become one with the waves he used to love.’ He grew up in the sea, it was only right for him to rest there in death.
And Max had cried, and asked her for her phone number. Asked if she could call her, in a few days. Ask how it went. And Billy’s mum had stroked Max’ hair, and written it down on a piece of paper. Had told her she seemed like an amazing girl. That she was glad Billy had her. Max had only cried harder.
A couple days later, she’d called the phone number, and an old woman had answered. Had sounded incredibly sad, and Max had felt like her heart had dropped to the pit of her belly. The woman told her that Billy’s mum had crashed her car, on her way home. That she’d had an empty urn in her passenger seat. That she’d died, two days ago.
Max had cried, again. She doesn’t think she’s ever spent so many days crying. Not even when she was a baby, and that was all she did.
But it feels wrong to tell Billy all of that, now. So instead, she says: “Billy, I’m your sister. Stepsister.”
Billy shakes his head. He’s starting to look a little panicked. “No... No, they told me I was alone.”
Max frowns, wonders if this is a clue as to where he’s been the past three years. “Who told you that you were alone?”
Billy doesn’t answer, instead he raises his head and looks out over the coffee shop. Max realises that from his vantage point, with his back against the wall at a corner table, he can easily survey the whole room. He’ll see anyone who comes in before they see him. He glances back at her, sharply. “ Are you with them? ” he growls, the way he would when they were younger and he was trying to intimidate her.
Max has been through too much for Billy to scare her anymore, though. She wrinkles her brows, leans back and holds up her hands, palms up. “Who are ‘they?”
Billy pulls his chair back. The metal scrapes against the floor. “I can’t stay here.” He rounds the table and sets for the door.
Max stands up and follows after him. “Billy! Billy, wait!”
The bell above the door jingles as he steps out.
Max is, at most, outside three seconds later. And yet he’s nowhere to be seen. Max gasps, looks around frantically and feels her throat start to close up. There are tears trailing down her cheeks, mixing with the rain. “Billy?” she says. “ Billy! ”
A few people turn to look at her, but no Billy emerges from the busy Indianapolis streets.
“What the fuck?” Max mutters. She’s started walking back towards Lucas’ grandma’s place without any conscious decision. She scans the crowd, but can’t find him. “What- What the fuck?”
For a second, she’s worried she’d imagined him. But no one had looked at her like she’d been insane, like she was a crazy seventeen year old girl talking to thin air. And Max refuses to even consider that she’d daydreamed up the whole scenario. So Billy must have been there. Billy must be alive. And then he’d left her again.
She’s so angry, and so sad, and afraid, and so, so relieved. He’s alive.
Lucas’ grandma opens the door. She immediately looks worried.
“Max? Did someone- Come on in.”
Max steps in, sniffles a little.
“Did someone hurt you?”
She bites her lip, shakes her head. Laughs a little. “I met my brother,” she says.
Lucas’ grandma frowns a little, not understanding how monumental that is.
“Max?” Lucas’ voice comes from the doorway to the kitchen. He’d stayed behind to help his grandma with cooking dinner, although she’d protested that she didn’t need any help. Max had only left in order to get herself a coffee, because Lucas’ grandma only had tea and Max was craving some caffeine. Lucas had laughed and kissed her before she’d left.
Now, though, now he looks really worried. “I think the potatoes are done, Gran’,” he says absentmindedly, not looking at his grandma. His eyes are fixed on Max.
“Oh!” Lucas’ grandma says, and wanders past him into the kitchen. Lucas steps out, takes Max’ hand and leads her into the living room, sitting them down on the couch.
“What do you need?” He asks her, and Max realises that he thinks this is like one of those times in the beginning, during the first year after Billy’s death. Or, well, ‘death’, she thinks, and lets out a giggle. Lucas’ grip on her hand grows tighter. He rubs his thumb over her palm. “Max?”
Those first few months, Max would see Billy everywhere. Not, not like she’d hallucinate him, exactly. But she’d think she’d seen him, or something would remind her of him, and she’d start crying on the spot. But this isn’t like that. She says as much.
Lucas tilts his head, looks at her sympathetically. “Max...”
“It isn’t!” Max fights to lower her voice. They don’t need Lucas’ grandma hearing them. “He’s alive,” she says quietly. “I talked to him. He didn’t remember me. Said his name was William.”
“His name was William,” Lucas mutters quietly beside her.
Max drags her hand out of his. “Lucas.”
“Max, we had a funeral. You cremated him.”
“Yeah, well, I never saw the body. Didn’t you tell me they made a fake body of Will? Didn’t you have a funeral for him?”
Lucas grimaces. “I see your point. But- It’s been three years.”
“I think someone took him. He kept- He kept talking about ‘them’, asking if I was with ‘them’. ”
“What do you want to do?”
“Can you call El? We have to find him. I- I need to get him back.”
Lucas nods, stands up and goes out into the hallway. Max hears him ask his grandmother about using her phone, and then, a little closer, hears him talk into the receiver.
“El? Max says Billy’s alive. We need your help to find him.”
He comes back to her less then a minute later. “El’s getting here first thing tomorrow.”
Max breathes a sigh of relief. Feels herself slowly start to unwind. “Okay.” She looks up at him. “Thank you.”
Lucas leans down, kisses her. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
—
“I think someone took him, that he’s just now managed to escape,” Max says the next day, around noon, in Hopper and El’s hotel room. Hopper and Joyce moved in together. Got married, two years ago. “He asked if I was with ‘them’. Said they’d told him he was alone.”
El reaches out a hand, puts it on Max’ knee. “He’s not alone.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
El frowns. “I’ll find him.” She reaches out, takes the black fabric she’d kept in her lap. She’s sitting on the floor, Max and Lucas on a small sofa in front of her. Hopper’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed. El looks up at her. “Anything I should know?”
“He looks different now,” Max says. “His right arm’s gone, from the elbow down, I think.”
“Jesus,” Hopper mutters. Max sees him drag a hand across his face.
“And his hair’s longer. It was in a bun, but like, I think it’d look like... like the singer from Metallica, kind of, if it was down? I don’t know if you know what he-“
“I do,” El says. Smiles a little sheepishly.
And Max remembers how Neil wanted to throw all of Billy’s stuff away, how Max had to secretly rescue some of it. She kept his favourite shirts. Wore them, sometimes. Slept in them in the beginning. Had others hidden in her closet, where Neil never looked and her mum only smiled sadly at her when she found out. Almost the same way she’d looked when she found out about Lucas, that look of understanding and love for her daughter. Combined with the cautiousness, the awareness that Neil could never know. Sometimes Max wonders why her mum’s still married to him. But she’d let her keep Billy’s things, and El had listened to some of his tapes when she’d been over after Max had broken down crying after school again and El had gone home with her. They’d lied on Max’s bed, and had talked about Billy. Had talked shit about Neil. El had held her hand.
“Is that what that hellish noise you listen to is?” Hopper asks, and El sticks her tongue out to him. He only chuckles. Max would feel too old to do that, but El hasn’t really had a childhood. They’re teenagers now, turning eighteen next year, but El hasn’t ever felt constrained by society’s norms for how she should act for her age. Max supposes there’s freedom in that.
“He’s got a scar on his cheek, as well,” Max adds, thinking back to yesterday.
El nods. “Still pretty?” she asks, and both Max and Lucas burst out laughing. Can’t really help it.
“Don’t let Mike hear you say that,” Lucas says.
El makes a face. “Ugh. He’s Max’ brother.”
Lucas stifles another laugh.
El turns to Max, raises her eyebrows. Well, is he?
Max laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s still pretty.”
“Okay,” El says, shrugging. She places the fabric above her eyes, ties it at the back of her head. She’d stopped letting her hair grow longer when the curls started reaching just past her shoulders.
They sit in silence for at least fifteen minutes, and Max is starting to worry El isn’t going to find him, when she suddenly inhales sharply. Gasps, and lets out a series of whimpers. Her hands fist where they’re resting on jean clad crossed legs.
Hopper moves from his position against the wall, and crouches down beside her. He looks like he wants to touch her, but doesn’t dare break her concentration.
“El?” Max asks, her voice shaky. There are tears trailing down El’s cheeks.
She whips the fabric of her face, breathing harshly, and turns to meet Max’ gaze. When she speaks, her words are barely louder than a whisper. “He’s screaming.”