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There was a bruise. On her face.
Actually, there was a massive fucking fist mark across her face.
Swollen, irritated, a good mix of black and blue already. Whoever had done it had got a real shiner in there. Billy would have been impressed, had it not been sitting on Max’s face along with a split lip and if her gait was anything to go by, some damage to her ribs.
She wasn’t skating either. Max held the board loosely to her body while the other gremlins she seemed to have aquired as ‘friends’ escorted her out of school like the President. Max flickered her gaze up from the gravel as she walked, only really being able to see through her unswollen eye, and saw Billy waiting stoically by his car. There was no way he wouldn’t have seen the state of her. Besides the obvious injuries her left shoe was missing its shoe lace, the end of her skateboard seemed to be swaying as she walked and Billy could have sworn she left the house this morning wearing a yellow jumper but now had on a green hoodie.
“I’ll see you guys later.” Max’s voice wavered as she spoke, turning her head slightly so that the others could catch it.
Heading towards the passenger seat, her wall of bodyguards stayed a few feet away from the tumultuous step brother as they looked on with varying levels of concern. Dustin and Lucas tried to act as a semblance of normal infront of the raging bull that was Billy Hargrove, each muttering bye, see you later.
The final straw was how even the Wheeler kid was stunned into silence, just staring at the back of Max’s head the same as mini Byers.
“She’ll be at the arcade at 8.”
The boys jumped when Billy spoke, as if they stared straight through him and forgot who dropped Max to and from school everyday. Usually he was the centre of their attention, given that on most days it was more dangerous if they couldn’t see Billy than if they could.
When they got over their initial shock they stumbled over each other in excuses to leave, Dustin accidently knocking into Will trying to get to their bikes.
Max was sat in the passenger seat patiently as Billy took one last puff of his cigarette before stubbing it out and swinging into his seat.
“What happened to your shoelace?” Billy asked as he played with his Zippo lighter, flicking the lid up and down.
“Lost it.” Max murmured. She stared straight ahead of her out the windshield, not turning to look at her brother.
“Mmm. And your jumper?”
“I’m wearing it.”
“I know that ain’t yours.” He also knew even though the Henderson kid burnt more energy than all of them from his wild movements, even he was dressed light for October in a double layered shirt and t-shirt. “Maaax, where is it?” His thumb held his Zippo closed.
“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she averted her gaze to her shoelace-less shoe.
“What, and your skateboard, that doesn’t matter too?”
“Billy just stop!” Max went to scrub at her eyes in frustration at the tears that had gathered there and forgot about her open wounds until she touched them; which made the tears worse and so she wiped them harder.
“Hey, hey! Stop that, you’ll make it worse. Don’t want it to scar.” Billy said as he reached over and pulled her wrists away from her face, having to use more force than he thought necessary to pry her hands away.
Next thing he knew, Max had swung her door wide open and was getting out of his car, albeit slower than she wanted but with much determination.
“What do you think you are doing?” Billy flew out of his side of the car as Max whiped round to finally face him, showing him the full extent of the damage done as blood started to trickle down her face like tears where it had been angrily reopened.
“Walking home!”
“Are you really that stupid? You’ll never make it home in the state you’re in.” Billy hoped it was coming across narky instead of the concern he could hear bleeding through.
“Well it’s better than being interrogated the second I get out of school. I’ve had a shitty enough day as it is, I don’t need you making it worse!”
Billy’s teeth ground against each other as Max tried to storm off, everything about the jerky, mechanical movements of her body leaving a sour taste in his mouth. He snorted one last breath before resigning himself to his own stupidity.
“Go away.” Max pushed when she looked behind her after she didn’t hear the camaro leave to see Billy following, eyes glued to her head.
“Nope. If you’re walking, I’m walking, shitbird.”
Max stopped. “That’s stupid.”
Billy shrugged and lit another cigarette. “Almost as stupid as trying to walk across town with an open wound across your face and a few bruised ribs but, you know.”
Max was silent as she stared off with Billy. Usually he would never let her win but in this case it was starting to get cold and he needed to gauge the damage done underneath her clothes.
“Just get in the car Max.” Billy gestured to the idle camaro with his cigarette. He could see how stilted the redhead’s breathing was becoming and doubled down. “I’ll give you extra money for the arcade if you get in the car.”
Max seemed to contemplate his offer if the ignited light in her eyes was anything to go by. “20.”
“5.”
“10.”
“Done.”
She seemed to deflate after feeling as if she’d ‘won’, though Billy wasn’t so sure he’d call it that based on the way he had to stop every few minutes to let her catch up with him. When they finally got there he cranked up the heat and was careful to keep to the speed limits. And if he took the scenic route that took 20 minutes longer but was smoother and had less bends, Max didn’t say anything.
~~
“So, you finally beat her into shape?”
The siblings had long since been home and Max immediately flew to the safety of her room; not before Neil could come out of the bathroom and get a good look at the youngest’s face. He had sat down eerily quietly in his armchair opposite Billy on the sofa as he switched channels to watch the football when he spoke.
“What?”
“You cracked. Held true to the Hargrove name.”
“Wh- I didn’t do that to Max.” Billy tripped over himself to defend the allegations he was hearing.
“S’lright Billy, respect and responsibility, that’s what I taught you. Now, you’re teaching Max, cutting off the seed of disrespect at the bud. Taking responsibility for your sister.”
Billy felt as though he were going to vomit. His dad believing he would follow in his footsteps so easily, condoning the actions that made him lash out in the first place.
“You don’t have to look so worried, I won’t tell Susan. Just say that some kids at school did it.”
“Some kids at school did do it!” Billy exclaimed.
“Exactly.” Neil winked conspiritorially and the blonde stood to leave the room. All those years of threats of what Neil would do to Billy should he lay a hand on his sister, now sounded like challenges, bets, goading to get him to break and turn out just like the man he resented so much. He paced down the hallway and knocked in quick succession on Max’s door, not waiting for acceptance as he opened the door anyway.
“I-I’m naked don’t come in!”
“It’s me.”
What he walked inside to see was Max with an arm still stuck in the sleeve of Curly’s hoodie and a very red face with hair stuck up everywhere. Billy almost let out a hysterical chuckle but choked it down when he saw her still struggling to get out of the offending clothing.
“Alright relax redhead, c’mere.”
Billy beckoned her over and gently pulled her head out of sweater without tugging her injured ribs too much. He found though that the hoodie was apparently all Max was wearing other than her bra which revealed to him the damage beneath. The left side of her body was a volatile red with black and blue teasing the edges where someone had clearly landed a good kick.
“Where are your clothes?”
Max looked away, curling in on her injured ribs and picking up her pyjama shirt.
“Max, enough with the silent treatment. I have been patient enough, now where are your goddamn clothes?”
“I had to trash them, okay!”
“Why?”
“They got ripped up.” She murmured, struggling to put her shirt on. Billy huffed through his nose and took Max’s arm in his hand, helping to pull the shirt over herself.
“How’d they get ripped Max?” He asked softer.
The afore-mentioned merely huffed (albeit gently, the pain preventing much of a reaction). “You know how Billy, you’re bi not blind.”
Just then Susan called them for dinner, faffing around Max when she saw the state of her eye-swelled-shut daughter. Max told her the spiel, Neil convincing Susan not to go down to the school in the morning as it was ‘already being dealt with’.
By the end of the excruciating meal, Max was exhausted. She’d had to bat questions off her mother all night while Billy was staring at her like a pitbull. She made her excuses and left the table after dessert, opting to lay very still in her very dark and very cool room; not that she’d be left alone for long. Billy appeared again, what he thought was ‘silently’ and sat on the corner of her bed, taking care not to disrupt her calm.
“Can I help you with something?”
“No.”
Max didn’t know why she expected anything less, rolling her eyes beneath her closed sockets and she breathed shallowly, the pain killers she managed to take earlier thankfully having some effect. She was starting to feel drowsy when Billy got up from her bed, whispering “I’ll be back in a second” before leaving and returning with some peas wrapped in a towel and one of his own special face towels damp with water.
“Let me clean your face.”
Silently Max lifted her neck a little as an invitation for Billy to do as he pleased, which was him gently cleaning the dried blood off of her cheek before ever so carefully dabbing at the split in her lip until he was satisfied.
“You need to put these on your face or the swelling’ll never go down.”
Max held her hand out in a grabby motion for the peas which Billy swatted away and placed them on her cheek himself. “You shouldn’t be raising your arms if you’ve hurt your ribs.”
“What so you’re just gonna hold them on my face all night?” She asked sarcastically.
“Shut up and go to sleep shitbird. I’ll check on you in the morning.”
Max rolled her eyes but within a couple of minutes she was out like a light. Billy held the peas for a little longer and gently used a couple of fingers to sweep along the yellowing outer edges of her bruise. He knew he couldn’t stay there all night, he had one last thing to do.
~~
“Well what are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know.”
“She said she’d be here at 8.”
“Well technically Billy said she’d be here at 8.”
“So? 8 is 8.”
“Sooo, Billy saying 8 and meaning 8 are two completely different things.”
“Hey.”
“AHH!”
A combined scream pierced the cool Autumn air as Billy’s voice appeared out of the blue as the party were talking about him, scaring the shit out of them.
“Would you relax? It’s just me.”
“That’s exactly why we’re screaming.” Mike’s mouth ran before his brain earning himself a hearty elbow from Dustin.
Billy rolled his eyes and threw Dustin’s hoodie at him, considering the kid was still just in his double shirt. “Thanks for that Curls.”
“What-no yeah, that’s-it’s fine just you know, helping a friend.” He tried to play off, gratefully slipping back into his warmed hoodie from Billy blasting the heat in his car on the way over.
“Max isn’t coming.”
By this point it was well past 8 and it looked as though this ‘party’ his sister had accumulated had just finished in the arcade and were going to make their way back home, after checking in on Max.
“No shit.” Mike whispered, tracing circles into the concrete with his shoe.
“Mike!” The mini Byers hissed.
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you shitheads a ride home since it’s starting to freeze-” the kids shared looks of surprised wonder- “and in return you’re going to tell me in detail who put their hands on my shitty little sister.”
With wide eyes, the party gulped.
~~
“Just hold still.”
“What exactly do you think I’m trying to do?”
It was the next morning and the Hargrove-Mayfield siblings had school, only Max’s injuries weren’t the type to heal overnight and so she actually ended up looking slightly worse than she did the day before. A lot of the wounds that had dried up yesterday were now open and bleeding or needed covering with a bandage. Her eye was still swollen shut along with some swelling along her eyebrow and down her cheek, the slit in her lip had turned black and made it difficult to talk properly because of the irritation moving it caused and she could hardly take a breath without it hitching and having to exhale.
That would be slightly harder to mend.
Thankfully Billy managed to do some light prodding and concluded that the ribs weren’t broken so there was no internal bleeding so they were most likely just bruised and very raw at the moment.
There wasn’t much he could do about the lip since Max would more than likely lick any cream off as a reflex, and the swelling around her eye would only go down with ice and time. The torn and bleeding areas of skin he tried to apply some arnica and sudocream to in order to help the healing; however some areas were requiring a little more coverage.
“You know, we’re gonna have to keep doing this until you stop moving you little shit.”
“It hurts!”
Billy internally faltered at those words falling from Max’s mouth but tried not to show it. Just cleared his throat and pulled her hands away from his wrist, promising to be more gentle as he butterfly plastered her split together and covered it with a gauze pad.
“Alright you’re done, go get your shit.”
Max crinkled with every step she took because Billy had bandaged an ice pack to her injured ribs. She was unable to skate due to the state of her very broken skateboard so all she had to do was carry her backpack to Billy’s camaro, very very slowly.
Upon rocking up to the school carpark, Max noticed all four boys waiting for her as they pulled in, looking pleased to see that she hadn’t died in her sleep or something. Billy hopped out and opened the passenger door, reaching in and gently lifting his sister out of the car; placing her on her feet and ushering her towards the friends that were itching to check she was okay but wouldn’t dare go any closer.
“Hey!” Billy called as they started walking off. “You need me? Come and get me, okay?”
The redhead nodded and Billy turned to walk to Hawkins High, but before she could get much further the boys from yesterday were stood in front of her and the party.
They looked worse than she did. Black eyes, broken noses, limbs in slings and a petrified glance in their flitting eyes. Max immediately stiffened in response, but relaxed when they looked more scared of her, moreso something they saw over her shoulder, than she felt of them.
“What the hell?” Dustin not-so-discreetly whispered.
“You don’t think?” Will asked quietly, hearing Dustin’s comment.
“I absolutely think.” Lucas nodded in horrified agreement.
“Hey so look we’re um-we’re sorry about yesterday.”
“Really sorry.” One of the others chimed in.
“But we know that words don’t mean a lot so we thought you might like some money for the arcade!”
With highly suspicious looks on their faces, the party watched as the boys rooted through their pockets and scrounged up 20 dollars and essentially shoved it in Max’s hands.
“This is weird.” Max said as she held the money like it would bite her.
“What? I don’t know what you mean!” One of the boys nervously chuckled, eyes flicking over Max’s shoulder constantly.
“Yeah yeah, and we thought you might like a new pair of shoelaces.” These were also shoved into Max’s overloaded hands.
“And a new skateboard! It’s the same as your other one, just in better shape.”
Carter rammed the board into Will’s hands, earning an oof from the surprised boy.
“Wh-”
"Enjoy!”
At Max’s confused ‘okay?’ they ran away so fast Dustin started coughing from the dust clouds they produced.
20 dollars?
Shoelaces?
A new skateboard?
Max turned to see what had them so skittish to see Billy stood next to Steve’s BMW staring straight at them as Steve and Robin argued over something or other.
She made an expression that read as a ‘are you serious?’ to which Billy shrugged and flipped her off, turning back to his own conversation at hand and leaning obnoxioulsy close to an oblivious Steve as he passionately fought his point.
**
If when Max ran (well, her current version of a run which was more like a stilted hop) to Billy’s car at the end of the day with a stupid smile on her face, he kindly didn’t say anything; just as she didn’t when he found the 10 dollar bill she’d snuck in his pocket and saw him melt a little before making his way to her room to change her bandages for her.