Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Max settles against the brick wall of the library to enjoy twenty-eight minutes of solitude and a nutritious lunch of vending machine chips.

On her way to buy them she'd glimpsed El by the lockers, talking to Will with a smile on her face that made Max's chest heavy with the wish that they wouldn't see her.

They hadn't.

Spacing out to The Dreaming, she picks up a twig and draws aimless patterns in the dirt next to her backpack.

It tickles a memory at the back of her brain.

"I forgot summer could be so boring," she had complained - or something like that - sitting on the steps of the cabin, chin in hand, drawing in the dirt with a stick.

"Every day is like this for me," El had said, leaning on the post next to her. "Max, what is school like?"

So she had explained how it would be when they all started at Hawkins High together in the fall, and El had listened with rapt attention and a smile stained red from a cherry Squeezit.

It would be El's first venture into public school, and Max meant to be her inseparable bestie and protector, her seat-neighbor and partner for every class project, her choreographer for lunches spent practicing the Thriller dance.

The girl Max meant to be in the fall didn't struggle to be around people. She was not always tired, not at a perpetual loss for words, did not spend every breath tamping down frustrated tears.

She hates the girl she is instead.

It's not completely her fault that the year is nothing like she planned. Their schedules made it impossible; all they have together is History, and even there, assigned seats on opposite sides of the room.

Feeling useless, she tried to find ways of looking out for El from a distance. But aside from covertly shutting down snickers about her mannerisms, there isn't that much to do. Besides, El has at least one of the boys in every other class. Naturally her closest friendships would shift to the people who were actually there for her. Physically and mentally.

It's not like Max has ever really been someone she could rely on for protection, anyway.

Clack.

The play button pops up at her hip as her tape ends. She flips it and hits play again even though there isn't time for one whole song before lunch is over.

Her brain taunts her with a preview of what the bell will sound like, making the ache glow inside her temples with each ding.

She would give anything for that boring summer day now, and her best friend to spend it bored with.

It was only at the very beginning of the year that the whole party sat together at lunch, the way she promised they would. Then Lucas started hanging with a different crowd, and their table started getting overrun with annoying rowdy hellfire nerds, and lunch became one more time of day to endure.

For a while she went just because it was the only regular time she spent with El anymore. El would talk about her day, and Max would watch her mouth move, and listen like from behind glass, and fight not to cry at how sincerely she wished she was paying attention.

She does care, truly, but it could not have looked that way. Understandably, El said less and less to her.

It wouldn't be ditching her if you stopped sitting here, she told herself. She has other friends, and you're shit company anyway. All you do is zone out.

Maybe the sight of El in a hellfire shirt was what finally made her feel like it was okay to stop going.

She began spending lunches alone in quiet spots. This one, outside the library, is the best she's found. It's quiet and shady, with bushes that keep it shielded from most angles, but not so hidden that she feels caught when people do see her.

The bell rings. She shuts her scratchy eyes, gathering strength.

She forgot to eat the chips.

...

Max scrambles upright, knocking her headboard against the wall, breaths coming fast and sharp and out loud.

Do not cry.

She pulls off her sweat-soaked shirt and mops her skin with it, and sits there clenching and twisting at the balled-up fabric. It's a pretty shitty substitute for crying, but she forbade herself that days ago; it just makes her head hurt worse. Right now it's pounding already.

Light would hurt too, so she doesn't turn it on, even if it might make it easier to force away the images of neon reflecting in blood.

It's been the same nightmare for months, just in different flavors. Billy and El. And herself, frozen and useless.

Almost always Starcourt. Often just the way it happened. Sometimes that thing kills El instead of Billy, sometimes both. And she never tries to save either one.

Sometimes it's Billy killing El himself. Sometimes it's El in the sauna, lifted off her feet, struggling against his grip on her throat.

Sometimes, like tonight, the scenes all sort of blend together.

Either way, Max just stands there and watches.

Either way, the worst are the ones when El sees her doing nothing.

That was  your  brother. Your problem. Yours to stop, or at least to try.

After you lived in fear every day of what he could do to you if he felt like it. How could you stand there and let him actually do it to her?

She rakes her fingers through her hair and rubs hard at her temples with the heels of her hands, like she can squeeze out the memories along with the pain.

After you hated Mom for giving you her pale skin, and believing hand-shaped bruises on your arms were from skateboarding when the ones on hers sure weren't. For bringing him into your life and not protecting you. For knowing and doing nothing. How could you fail El exactly the same way?

No, not exactly the same. At least Mom never saw anything happen. You did.

You're worse.

Like every night, she feels her way to the bathroom to splash water on her face, and once she feels sickly cold instead of flushed, grabs a fresh shirt blindly from the drawer.

Like every night, she delays glancing at the glowing clock for as long as she can... 12:51. She mutters a string of frustrated curses that veers dangerously close to tears. That wasn't even forty minutes of sleep and she's only more exhausted than before.

Do not cry. Do not.

Usually she can get a grip by now, but this time the urge to crawl out of her skin is only getting stronger. Every breath is still coming out loud and every thudding heartbeat triggers pain like an icepick inside her head.

Did she just take a Tylenol thirty seconds ago, or was that a different night? It's too hard to tell them apart.

Feeling for the bottle on her nightstand with shaky fingers, she swallows one dry and thinks of the prospect of finishing out the rest of the night like she does every other: sitting up in bed, longing for sleep but fighting against it, knowing what awaits behind her eyelids. Pretending to distract herself with music while staring at her window, pleading with it to start turning from black to blue. As if the sun coming up changes anything.

Only tonight she just... can't.

She can't.

If she sits here alone in this shithole nightmare factory one more time, counting the seconds until a dawn that won't bring any relief anyway... she will finally break. And she doesn't know exactly what she means by that, but she's sure of it anyway.

She doesn't leave a note. Mom wouldn't see it anyway.

Adrenaline makes good enough fuel that she reaches the deciding intersection before she's even thought about where she's going. There are really only two options. Lucas, right. El, left.

She sits on her bike in the moonlit empty road.

Lucas is desperate. It radiates off him when they pass in the halls - he's yelling at himself to say the right thing, but he's tried all his ideas already, ten times apiece, and she's blocked them all. She was always a good goalie.

If she tapped on his window in the middle of the night looking for comfort, he'd be like a kid on Christmas, stumbling over himself to take her in. The mental picture tugs at one corner of her mouth, and almost makes her turn her handlebars toward his house. He would sit with her, and it would be comforting... and maybe she would consider letting him put his arms around her... and maybe she could even risk sneaking a little sleep next to him.

But the thing about Lucas is that he can't not try his hardest to fix a problem. He would offer suggestions that he's read. He would voice things that she would rather had stayed tacit. He would care in a way that's really sweet but maybe a little suffocating, and she might just want to run again.

He loves her. Probably more than when they were together. And that's probably mutual, but she just doesn't have the energy for it right now.

El doesn't take much energy. She doesn't offer or expect many words, she just kind of quietly senses and accepts. A soft and easy presence - that's all Max wants. She turns left, heading for the Byers house.

But as she rides, her resolve fades.

She'd forgotten, just for a happy second there, that her greatest comfort is the same source as her greatest guilt.

The El she'd started to pedal toward is the one from giggling sleepovers in each others' bedrooms and hand-in-hand rampages through the mall. But those happy memories that made her think she'd be welcome at any hour are not so recent anymore.

That mall is gone now; they bulldozed the rubble last winter. She'll never see it again except in nightmares.

And neither of those bedrooms, which she still thinks of as home, are places she'll ever set foot again.

And those two happy girls who lived there are just as gone.

Who says you're anything to her anymore? You don't even try to be.

Why would she want to see you at all?

The image of the moonlit road goes too swimmy to see, the welling of tears making her eyes sting in the night breeze. She loses the heart to pedal, crying and coasting.

She's just the same stupid little girl as always. Always wanting to run away, never wanted where she's running.

Stop crying.

That's when she rolls to a stop near the end of the trees, nearly within view of the Byers house. And only because she's come all this way, and because she's out of steam and cold and sweaty and dizzy with pain, and because El is a nice enough person that she'll let her in even if she is just a weird imposition... she'll go.

Max lowers her bike quietly to the ground on the crunchy grass on the side of the house.

El's window is dark. Obviously.

For a minute, two, three, she stands under it trying to convince her hand to rise up and tap. She does it suddenly, before she can change her mind, but also softly, because half of her wants this to fail.

Immediately she wishes she could take it back, sweating at her own audacity. Maybe El didn't hear that and maybe she still has a chance to leave undetected.

How dare you show up here when you need something, after she needed help and you did jack shit. After you disappeared instead of apologizing. After you avoid her in the halls in case she still smiles and waves instead of hating you like she should.

Although maybe she's learned to. She doesn't exactly come chasing after you anymore. Who could blame her?

It might be terrible if El answers. It might only shine a light on the distance that's grown between them, and to feel distant from someone she once felt so close to will be worse than if she had stayed home.

The anxiety of the wait makes every heartbeat pound harder in her temples.

There's a really loud cricket somewhere close, and it makes her suddenly conscious of the fact that she's out in the open in the night. It doesn't occur to her until right this second that this could be kind of scary, and also outrageously stupid. That biking that exact stretch of woods alone is exactly how Will got taken.

Well, she's not riding back through it now, even if El doesn't answer, even if that means waiting on the Byers' porch until dawn.

She wonders if they mind living on the edge of haunted-ass woods or if this is just normal to them. She misses California. Palm trees don't get creepy at night.

That exposed feeling keeps deepening into one more like dread, like something demands she turn and look behind her. She refuses.

Even with her attention glued desperately to the window, the noise of it sliding open startles her violently.

"Max?" comes El's voice from the dark, and Max hates herself for how small and sleepy it sounds.

"Hey," she doesn't know how else to try to sound than casual, even though it's ridiculous. "Sorry I w-"

"Can you come in? Come to the door."

Max hurries around the house, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the last second. There's nothing there, except a weird sense that she let it win by looking.

The crack of living room that opens up is black, and she's grateful El hasn't turned any lights on. She wonders whether it's to avoid waking Joyce and the boys, or because El senses that she would prefer it.

She's glad El can't see her. And maybe kind of glad she can't see her either, so it's easier to pretend this is a different time and place.

"Hi," El whispers, and Max plays the syllable over and over in her head, trying to find irritation in it instead of happy surprise.

This is the space that she should fill with her reason for being here, but nothing comes out of her mouth except "Hey."

Fingers find hers in the dark and lead her toward the bedroom. She tries not to take it as an accusation that maybe she forgot the way.

They sit on El's bed, and the warm spot from where she was sleeping a minute ago makes Max feel guilty. Neither says anything, and she worries that El is realizing this is awkward after all, and she can't think of anything to say to fix it, and she's letting it crash and burn.

Instead of letting go of her hand, El brings it into her lap, feeling the back of it purposefully.

"What," Max asks quietly, surprised at herself for not yanking it away. It's trembly, and she dreads that that's what El is going to acknowledge.

"I didn't know I could recognize your hand without seeing it."

"Oh."

She's never loved touch in general, but lately it's intolerable. It feels like a pity prescription, like here, enjoy one free Unnecessary Shoulder Touch on the house, you depressed bastard, are you cured yet? But El is always so different from other people in her intent, pure like a child, that somehow her touch doesn't make Max bristle.

She intentionally puts her focus on El's hand as well, like for one of those grounding techniques she told Ms Kelly she would try out. Technically now it isn't a lie. These fingers are slender and familiar in the way they curl around hers.

"I guess I know yours, too."

Well? Are you gonna make her drag it out of you? You're the one who woke her up in the middle of the night. What do you want?

But where to begin?

Max sighs, big and jagged. The adrenaline has worn off and now she's just drained.

"Bad dreams?"

She looks up at the vague shape next to her. El has a way of hiding a lot in just a few words, and those sounded awfully knowing.

"Every time I close my eyes," she confesses. "I can't sleep. I can't let myself. And my head... it just.. hurts. All the time..."

Everybody knows about the headaches. She's been having them since last summer and, being a socially acceptable problem, they've been her go-to excuse for everything. She doesn't say that they, and everything else, are suddenly so much worse this week.

She doesn't mention the nosebleeds, although El might already have heard.

She doesn't say how her visions each night are getting increasingly more horrific than even the reality had been, or that she doesn't know how much longer she can run on fumes, or how her mind is starting to play tricks on her even when she's awake, or how she's scared shitless of the sensation that whatever is wrong with her is reaching a crescendo.

She doesn't say it feels like she might die if she doesn't get a little relief soon, or how with each passing hour that seems less like a figure of speech.

"Nothing helps," she says miserably. "I'm starting to lose it."

El's hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades, and it's the closest thing to a hug she's allowed in months.

Do not cry.

Max covers her eyes even though the room is dark. She's always hated the idea of dumping problems on people that they can't possibly fix, and that's exactly what she's doing.

"Sorry, I don't know why I came either," she adds. "I don't know what you're supposed to do about it."

"You came to be not alone," El answers simply. "I can do that."

Yes. That is why she came.

The lump in her throat hurts.

"I'm so tired," she says in the most pathetic wobbling voice, resting her face in her hands.

The hand on her back moves up her neck, threading fingers up into her hair.

"What're y..." the question fizzles out in her mouth because it's obvious - El is massaging at the back of her head. She almost pulls away, ashamed of how dirty her hair is, but it feels too nice and she can't find the strength. Her eyes roll shut.

She knows El won't keep this up longer than a moment and she wouldn't dare ask her to, but she wishes she would, because it's a wonderful distraction from the pain. She sits still, avoiding causing any reason for it to stop, already sorry for its end while it's still happening.

Drifting, she startles alert again, and El does stop. She curses internally.

The mattress shifts as El scoots into her bed, patting the sheets beside her.

"Come here, Max," she whispers, and her voice is soft and sweet and from another time. "We'll have a sleepover."

Max entrusts a bittersweet smile to the darkness.

Do not cry.

She guesses she's going to try to sleep, knowing it's a jerk move. She's doomed to another nightmare, to disturbing El and making an idiot of herself. But there isn't much choice.

She lowers herself onto her side, and her head comes nowhere near the pillows and her ankles are hanging off the end and her arms off the edge, but moving would take energy she doesn't have. How she lands is how she lands. The change in position makes her headache throb so hard that she hisses through her teeth, lashes brimming.

And then El's fingers slide back into her hair. And a wretched, deliriously grateful whimper slips out too fast for Max to stifle.

"You don't have to do that," she murmurs in a way that sounds as much as possible like pleasepleaseplease don't stop.

"Shh. Here," El eases her head up and slips a pillow under it.

Ten fingertips press slow soothing circles into her head and there's no force in the world strong enough to keep her from melting, mouth open, into the pillow as the pain recedes.

She shouldn't be letting her do this. El doesn't owe her a thing. But it's just... so nice.

Those dammed up tears are seeping into all the cracks where her pain was before. They won't wait any longer now, no matter how hard she tightens her face against them, and they start to leak out sideways down to the pillow.

"I'm sorry." It's woefully inadequate. Trying to fit a whole book into just two feeble, soggy little words. The best she can do is say them twice. "I'm sorry."

El shushes her softly, fingers smoothing out the tangles she's made only to begin making more.

Max is sure each moment must be the last, but it goes on and on.

"I have been trying to write you a letter," El says after a long quiet while. "But I keep not knowing what it would say in the middle. The only part I know is the end. I would sign it love at the end, so you knew."

Do not.

Max only means to vent a little breath, but it all comes out in one sharp sob. And then there's no going back.

It's the kind of cry that starts out for one reason and quickly becomes for every reason. She's covering her mouth with one hand and her eyes with the other, sobbing as hard as she ever has and as silently as she can manage, wishing she was not lurching the mattress.

"That's okay," El whispers behind her, her voice maybe a little wobbly too. "That's okay."

If this was going to scare her off, it would have by now, but she still hasn't stopped. Not except just long enough to reach her a tissue.

That only makes Max cry harder, because she doesn't deserve for El to love her still. She doesn't deserve to be comforted by the one she's failed, but she's too weak to do anything else.

"That's okay, Max."

.

Sleepy eyes take a second to recognize the room, bathed in soft blues from the hint of dawn behind the curtains.

It takes a few more seconds to realize that the warm thing against her face is skin. That at some point in the night she turned over, and is now wrapped snug in El's arms, with her face tucked into the crook of her neck.

Max stays absolutely still, taking stock, wondering how long they've been like this and whether El is aware of it. She expects her heart to begin an anxious thrum of oh no, how do I get out of this, but... it doesn't. That isn't how this feels.

She's slept up against El before, but not like this. She's never been this close to anybody, and would never have done this consciously, but she's so comfortable she can't bring herself to care.

Underneath the blankets her own arm, curled around El's waist, rises and falls gently in sync with the warm puffs that tickle her head.

She doesn't want to run. She wants to go back to sleep.

Oh. She had been asleep. And dreamed. For once, recalling her dreams is voluntary.

She dreamed of El backed against her in a flickering neon arena. Shielding her. Holding Billy aside, and tearing the monster to pieces. Starcourt was inevitable, but at least it's the best take she's had on it.

But she also dreamed of palm trees. Of practicing ollies on the street outside the old duplex in LA. El was in this one too, current El, sitting on the curb and cheering her on. That was a nice touch, although she's pissed at her subconscious for dressing El in that stupid hellfire shirt.

She dreamed of a night drive up PCH in the back of Dad's Mustang with the radio on low, happy and tired from all day at the beach. Of El in the other seat, watching her lazily hand-surf the wind outside the window and copying her.

The peace of it lingers.

This is the time she meant to slip out and go home. But she can't get herself to move.

Her head doesn't hurt. The realization gives her a dose of dread, like the pain will know, and come rushing back to punish her. But she waits, and.. nothing.

Another dose comes when El draws a different breath, perhaps about to wake up and discover this and end it. The hand by her shoulder shifts, grazing cool skin and tugging the blanket up another inch to hide it from the morning chill. The cheek against her head readjusts. And then.. nothing.

Max stares across the room, heartbeat slowly calming again.

Nothing happens. Nothing hurts. All she feels is safe.

Do not cry.

Safe and warm and... maybe even forgiven. Not that she deserves-

Shut up.

She lets heavy lids sink shut on her wet eyes.

Maybe if she doesn't move a muscle, the pain won't find her here. Maybe she can get away with this for five more minutes before her mind catches up with her. Maybe if she savors it well enough, then whenever she resigns herself to a night in the trailer, she can try to imagine feeling this way.

Chapter Text

Max rouses at the sound of her full name, and now the bedroom is bright.

The vague notes of Joyce's voice seep through the wall. It sounds like she's excusing them from school.

Max and El have not budged. The bedroom door isn't closed all the way, and the realization strikes her that Joyce must have seen them and taken mercy. She decides not to be too embarrassed to be caught weak by Joyce. Any other parent, yes, but... she would get it.

Still, whatever miraculous reprieve this was, it's time to let go now. Which is a terrible shame because El is sleeping now with her hand on Max's head, and few things have ever felt so much like being wanted - not just tolerated but actually wanted right where she is - as the soft weight of it resting across her temple. She wishes she could go back to sleep all over again.

Okay, one more minute, for real this time. One minute to burn that into her memory as best she can, and then that's it.

Reluctantly, she lifts her face from El's shoulder, coming to focus groggily on the collar of the black and white shirt whose contour is imprinted in her chin.

Why does she have to be wearing that stupid hellfire shirt?

Her eyes widen at the sight of El with a red-stained tissue stuffed up her nose.

Awake already, El offers a smile, "hi," and no explanation.

"What are you doing..." Max frowns, sitting up and peeking over the edge of the bed, afraid of finding more discarded tissues, and she does. "El? What were you doing?"

"Staying with you."

"Right, but what were you using- wait. Wait, you..." she squints and considers El's shirt. "You weren't in my dream because you were, like... IN my dream...?"

El wipes her nose clean and nods up at her calmly. "You came to be not alone."

"You can do that?" Max gapes. "Wait, does this mean you've been awake all night?"

A little smile and a stretch is the only answer she's getting to that. "You slept."

Max stares, equal parts touched and mortified.

She bled all night so you could rest.  And you thought you were deep in her debt before?

El sits up and studies her, messy-haired and earnest and lost, and Max doesn't realize she must look pissed instead of grateful until she adds, "I didn't do it to spy..."

"Wh-? No! I just can't believe.." she rubs her face, flaky with dried tear tracks. "Feels like I.. used you, or something."

El's face softens with understanding. "You didn't."

"I would never have asked-"

"You didn't."

"I just wanted your company."

"I know," El nods gently. "Do you feel any better?"

Max feels bad, but that's an upgrade from horrible. Her chin wants to go quivery again, so she looks across the room and nods hard.

Fantastic at expressing yourself as always. Really earning your welcome.

"We don't have to go to school today. There is nobody here until Will comes home," El says, and tucked between each of those words is, Stay?

It's not like Max has anywhere to be, and as long as El doesn't seem to be in any hurry for this to end, she guesses she doesn't have to be either. The sense of connection she feels right now is too valuable, too hard won, and not something she can count on recapturing later. She'd hate to give it up by leaving just for the sake of leaving.

Tentatively she sits back against the pillows. And for a while they stay there, side by side but no longer touching, just waking up. Resting from resting.

Max can think of nothing except El staying awake all night long, keeping her safe and comforting her. The more she thinks about it, the more she's sure it's the most loved she can remember feeling.

"Was that your dad? In the car?"

She nods.

El makes no comment, just a soft smile, and Max loves her for it.

Why don't you tell her so? She said it to you. Why has that always been hard for you to say?

A bird sings outside.

How about at least thanking her, idiot?

Max stares at a poster on the wall. "That was the first time I've dreamed about anything nice in a long time. I don't know how you made me do that, but.." she rolls her eyes at how not enough this is. "Thanks."

"I didn't make you. I just went with you."

Max wonders how this works. El's question from last night lingers in her ears.

"Do you get bad dreams too?"

"Sometimes."

"You ever... get the same one a bunch?"

"Yes. Mostly the one you had."

Max's eyes dart to her. "Of... that thing? Getting you?" ...while your quote-unquote best friend stands there not helping?

"No. Just what happened," El shakes her head, playing with a loose thread on her bedsheet. "Failing."

What.

"It felt good to do it over right. Even if it was just pretend. ...Max?" El looks over at her, eyes going shiny. "I know you don't blame me, but.. I'm sorry I couldn't do it like that really."

"Wait, what? Why would I blame you?"

"You don't. You are only... disappointed. I am, too."

"But.. no, but why would you say it like that?" Max asks worriedly. "What could I have blamed you for?"

El examines her face like she's trying to decide if the question is real.

"For not helping you."

Max frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"When it was your turn needing help... I couldn't." She looks back down to her fidgeting. "I couldn't protect you from Billy, and.. I couldn't help him either, and... I know that you understand I didn't do it on purpose, but... it's not fair I let you down, when you are my best friend. I meant to fight for you best. And I couldn't at all."

Something heavy sinks in Max's chest as she realizes how her behavior might look to El. Like she thinks of Billy's death as a failure on El's part. Like she thinks it's El's job to save the day, and has grown disillusioned with her for not doing it. It's devastating to think El might be carrying any form of guilt about what happened.

"But I am getting strong again now," El continues hopefully. "And I can protect you whenever you want. Even if it's only from dreams."

"Do you think I think- no. No," Max covers El's hand with her own. "You didn't let me down. I've never been disappointed in you. I never felt like that, not for one second. I didn't even realize it could look that way until right now, I.. I know I've been... weird lately, I'm just..." say it. "...sad. Is all. And it comes out looking.. a way I don't mean. I'm so sorry if it looked like that. Nothing about what happened was your fault. You never let me down. Okay?"

El smiles, but there's some quiet resignation in it. "Yes. I did. It is not my fault, but it is still what happened."

Max stares. The weight of El's powers must be crushing, and she could die of guilt over her share of the load.

"El.." she sighs. "I'm so sorry for how we've all treated you."

The other girl tilts her head. "What?"

"Like.. it was all on you to handle all that insane shit, just 'cause of what you can do. Like it was your responsibility 'cause you've known about it the longest." That ache is starting up inside her temples again. "You talk like you're some superhero whose job is to protect us. And it's our fault for acting like you are. When you're not. You're just a girl. You get scared, same as us. You deserve protection. It should've been us protecting you."

"You did. I am only here now because you all protected me."

"Not all of us," she answers more bitterly than she means to. "Not me. When it was your turn needing it.. I didn't even try."

It's only because El has a terrible poker face that Max believes she's really as puzzled as she looks. "You protected me," she insists.

Max shakes her head.

"You did. I remember it. I remember you holding onto me when it tried to take me. And taking care of my leg, trying to stop it from hurting. And catching me when I fell. I remember your arm around me the whole time. Staying with me to help me walk when you could have run faster y-"

"Billy almost killed you! Like, multiple times. And I just stood there. I let you down." Her voice starts out much too loud and then halfway through, goes missing entirely. "You're always protecting me from monsters and.. I didn't protect you from mine."

El blinks at her as if this is absurd. She shakes her head. "I don't understand? There was-"

"He hurt you and then... and then! He's the one who protected you! And I hate him for both. And I hate me for both," she wipes away tears that are immediately replaced.

"Max, don't. There was nothing you could have done. Why would it be on you to -"

"That was my brother. I should've protected you from him."

"How did you used to protect yourself from him?"

Max's tears pause as she looks up quickly. It's certainly never been a secret that she hated Billy, but she never actually gave El any details about why. She wonders whether El is just that perceptive or if it's just that obvious.

Oh, El doesn't ask rhetorical questions. She's actually waiting.

There's no need for Max to play dumb like she once might've. She shakes her head, at a loss.

"The only thing that ever worked was to stay out of his way in the first place. And by the time he was, y'know, strangling you it was kinda late for that super helpful tip."

"You tried that."

"What?"

"To keep me out of his way. You kept telling me it was nothing, what I saw. That he seemed fine to you. You think I believed that?" El looks a little incredulous. "You think I didn't see you only had me over to your house when he wasn't there? You didn't want me near him. You were protecting me. And that was before we knew..."

It dawns on Max like she hadn't realized it herself. That is actually true. It counts, sort of? It may have totally failed, but it's one thing she can say in her defense: at least she really did try something. She looks up at El with almost hope.

"He was not your responsibility, Max. Just because he hurt you the longest."

The air goes out of her lungs and won't come back. If that were only true, it would be an anvil off her shoulders.

It doesn't even matter. It wouldn't fix everything. You're still a piece of shit.

"That doesn't.." she struggles, denying herself the hug that El opens her arms for. "It's not like that's the only reason...!"

El is trying hard to follow, asking gently, "Reason for what?"

She shrugs and starts crying again. "To hate me."

"What?"

Max turns away, letting her feet down to the floor.

"I made you think I dropped you because you didn't do some super shit for me. I made it look like that's all I care about you for. I hate myself for not being there for you at school. I never meant to ditch you. I never meant for things to be how they are, I'm just.." she tries to catch a breath, closing her eyes against the building pain. "Depressed, okay? And I've always been alone and that's the only way I know how to be when things are hard. I can't stand that it looks like I don't care-" she hurries, weird-voiced and crying, because it's rare for words to be in reach, and she just wants to grab as many as she can before they scatter. "I know I'm being a shitty friend and I'm sorry. I'm sorry but I'll probably just keep doing it. And I can't stand that you're still nice to me when you should hate me... you know I've actually hidden from you 'cause I don't deserve- ...and then I just show up here out of nowhere and you stay awake all-"

Pain pierces her head, letting all the words escape. She gives up and cries silently, face in her hands.

"I could never hate you," El says. "I can't stand you hating you, either. Please? I know you don't feel like that about me. You are the only one who has never made me feel that way. That's not what I meant."

Max couldn't answer even if she had anything to say.

A soft weight which can only be El's head takes a rest on her shoulder blade.

"Do you know why you are my best friend?"

Present tense?

"I'm the only girl you know?" she murmurs, earning a breath of laughter behind her.

"No." El lifts her head, and Max sort of misses it. "Every person that's ever wanted to know me... it was because, at least at first, because... they wanted me to use my powers for them. Every person. Even the good ones. Mike... Joyce... everyone. Except you. You were the first time anyone ever treated me like... like I was what mattered about me."

Max stares at the carpet, focusing on the gentle way El's voice is treating these words.

"I showed up out of nowhere. And you only wanted to help me. To be my friend. Even though I didn't deserve it. Because I was not nice to you before. You didn't ask me to use my powers. You were the first time I ever got to want to show them to someone. You have never asked me for anything. I don't think you would, not even if you really needed it.

"That's why I am so disappointed about not protecting you. Not because it's my job, or you would be mad. Because with you.. I really wanted to. I mean- I want to protect everyone. But it was most important to me to protect you. So you would know you matter. Sometimes I am afraid you don't know, because... I am not so good with words."

Max turns over this concept in her mind, trying to find its edges. It's like a puzzle piece that fits perfectly but has the wrong picture on it.

It's her turn to say something. There are multiple important things that need replying to, but they're all drifting in different directions in her mind and she's too drained to choose which to chase. She misses being comfortably blank and half asleep on El's shoulder.

She's being so nice to you and you can't even say anything back.

She reaches back for El's hand and squeezes it, hoping she understands that's the best reply she's capable of right now. El squeezes back with both hands, and maybe it feels like she does.

After a quiet minute, El asks, "You are taking bad medicine?"

"N-" Max frowns. "No. What?"

"Hopper told me about depressed once. He said people do that to try to feel better."

"Oh.. yeah. Some people." She thinks of the empty cans that reappear every night on the coffee table. "But not me. I guess... music's more my thing."

"Ohh. Is that why you go away at lunch? To hear your music better?"

Max sighs, nudging her shoe around with her foot. It would be easiest to say yes, but it would be too much like a lie.

"No. It's just.. hard. Being around people. Even my favorite people."

El says nothing, but Max can practically hear her wheels turning, trying to figure if that includes her, and if so, why she came here.

"What do they do that is hard? Maybe I can stop them."

Max smiles. "Nothing. It's not anybody else, it's me. I just... it's easier with nobody talking to me or looking at me 'cause I can't act right... I can't talk right or listen right and it makes me wanna start crying or something," she mutters, pressing at the pain behind her brow. "I don't know, it's stupid."

"Not stupid." Max feels El touch her head again. "You're hurting agai-"

"Don't." she pulls away too sharply, making El withdraw her hand silently, probably feeling stung. Max clamps her eyes shut in frustration at how wrong an impression she could make.

Like she doesn't wish she could lie back down and enjoy ten more hours of that. Like she wouldn't give anything to come to El any time like last night. To deserve to, any time she's weary, and rest her aching head.

The wrong thing is always coming out, and without the energy to chase it down, she's always letting it stand. She lets people think she's a bitch, because they might as well. It doesn't matter.

But El matters. Fix it, asshole.

"I didn't mean I didn't like that, I.. " she turns to offer eye contact, but El's gaze shifts away to stare across the room. "El."

You finally pissed her off. You got all this way only to screw it up. That's almost funny.

"El, I'm sorry," she tries harder, pressing bitten nails into her palm. "That was really nice. Last night. I.. I don't know if you could understand.. what that meant to me. Being... close like that. I mean, I never... It just... felt..." she struggles. This is the most important part to communicate, and yet jumbled memories and sensations just roll around loose in her mind refusing to form into words.

Forgiveness felt like a blanket from the dryer making her teeth stop chattering and that hand on her head felt how a lullaby sounded when she was 1 and resting on her after crying so hard she couldn't breathe felt like being saved from drowning and dried tears were itchy like the sand she was grateful to have stuck to her face, but how would she say any of that?

But El sees her pat at her own chest in the fruitless search for words, and she smiles to herself like this is some absolute little treasure to her.

"I could understand."

Max wonders if El has managed to accurately receive a message she's utterly failed to send.

That's when she realizes El isn't angry. That's not why she's avoiding her eyes. It's because Max just said she didn't want to be looked at. She considers telling her that that doesn't apply to her, but it's sweet of her to do, and it honestly does make this easier.

She loves her for it. She tries very hard to tell her so.

"I just can't let you do even more for me that I can't repay," is what comes out instead. "Okay?"

That sweet smile is chased off by a confused blink. "Re pay? For being close?" El asks. "You don't owe me anything."

How can she explain? She watches El, because it's safe to.

She looks lost in thought for a minute, something that brings a series of expressions across her face that Max wonders about.

"There was a place," she says finally. "Where I used to have to stay. When I was bad."

Max's attention zeroes in. This is about the lab. It must be. El never volunteers anything about it, and nobody ever knows whether they should ask, so Max has never really known what to picture.

"The little room that was all cold floor. Where I would be alone in the dark... for so long that I would miss people. Even though people were bad."

Max's eyes want to go watery, her own problems completely nonexistent for the moment.

Do not cry.

"And sometimes my head hurt from the wires and..." Max watches with sad recognition as El's fingers slip for a moment into her own hair. "I would sit in the corner and try to think... what a soft place would be like. I would lean my head on the wall and.. if I stayed in the same place, the tile would get warm there. And to sleep I would.." she flicks a hesitant glance halfway up to Max, almost like embarrassed, and one tear makes a dark circle on the sheet. "I would try to pretend the warm place... was somebody. Like there was such a thing as somebody who would be nice to me."

Do not even bother trying not to cry.

"El.." Max reaches for her hand, and El's fingers curl around hers, but she doesn't look up yet.

"I thought about that when I got in your bed," El smiles. "And you made me comfortable. And you read to me. And I put my head on you.. and you were warm and soft and nice to me," El quavers, twin tears streaking down her cheeks. "And I was not alone."

Whether this story is done or not, Max pulls El against her in a crushing hug, crying for the little girl in her mind's eye. El squeezes back, and they sit tight, trading sniffles against each other.

"Being close could never be for you and not for me too.. see? Together, we are both not alone."

"El," Max groans, thinking back on all the sleepovers where she always seemed to find El's head resting on her. "If I ever knew that I would've broken all your ribs squeezing you."

"You're breaking them now," El laughs.

"Sorry," she eases up.

"I didn't mean stop." El doesn't let them part until she's ready, pulling back just enough to look at each other up close with tears still lodged in their lashes. Max's instinct is to shy away, uncomfortable being looked at that way even when she isn't fresh off an ugly cry in broad daylight, but she surprises herself by allowing it.

El is looking at her as if she can see inside or something, and maybe her fond expression means whatever she sees in there is deserving enough.

Max looks back hopefully, maybe considering believing her. Kind of.

"There is nothing you could ever owe me, Max. And there is nothing I wouldn't do to be a soft place for your head."

There's nothing Max can do but slump back into the hug, but a different one now, her curling fingers searching for shoulder blades and oh, there's that hand at the back of her head again that makes her want to melt. She gives her head to El's shoulder and it feels like rest.

Do not start crying all over again.

You love her. Say it. It's words. They're in your mouth already, just make sound come out.

It just comes out "El."

But the "Max." she gets back sounds like maybe she heard it.

"Whenever-" they both freeze as El's stomach growls very loudly, and even though it isn't that funny, the break in tone is so welcome that they both laugh much too hard.

As important as all this talk is, Max is fried and eager for it to be over for now.

"Could you possibly be a tiny bit hungry?"

"It sounds like. Are you?"

For the first morning in a while, Max finds that she actually does have an appetite.

"Got anything besides Eggos?" she teases, wiping her eyes with both hands.

El rolls her eyes dramatically, scooting off her bed. "I eat other things."

Following her out of the room, Max stops short at the mirror, cringing at the sight of herself. She's a wreck, dirty-haired and ugly from crying, and as she recalls her evening she realizes she must smell as bad as she looks. Poor El deserves some kind of medal for holding onto this all night.

"Hey, um.. mind if I shower super quick?"

..

Max appears quietly in the kitchen, scrubbed and scalded clean, hair wet.

She'd found two of her own shirts in El's drawer, ones she'd forgotten all about, and the idea of their laundry still being a little bit mixed up had made her smile. But the one she's put on instead is the one El had been wearing the last time she hid from her at school. Because... well, she just wanted to.

El is standing and staring out the kitchen window, spaced out, eating out of a box of Apple Jacks. Max watches for a second with a small smile at the trait she definitely picked up from Lucas.

"Did you fix my headache?"

It had dawned on her mid-shower that it didn't hurt. She hadn't noticed exactly when it stopped, but for that to happen twice in El's presence is too odd.

El's crunching pauses for half a second. "Mmhm," she wipes her hand on her shirt and opens the fridge without looking over.

"Wow. Well.. shit, thanks," Max combs back her wet hair with her fingers. "Is that like... new, or..? How come you never told me you could do that?"

"You didn't ask," El shrugs. "Sorry we don't have Lucky Charms."

Max watches her pour milk into the single bowl of cereal that's waiting on the kitchen table. It's been half a year, not a lifetime - too short, probably, to be happy that El still knows her favorite, and that she doesn't share the fondness for milkless cereal. For a second, it feels like nothing has changed.

"This is fine," Max smiles, taking a seat.

There's a note on a junk mail envelope on the table. Good morning girls, no school today, with a heart.

They eat in a silence that Max lets herself trust is a comfortable one.

Her brow furrows, and she stares thoughtfully at El, who is intently studying the back of her cereal box. "My head always seems to hurt the least in History..."

She doesn't look up. "No one laughs at me in History."

Max had hoped El wasn't aware of her efforts. She's annoyed at herself for overestimating how much goes over El's head - although in her defense, some stuff really does. This time, Max is the oblivious one. It never crossed her mind that El could have been easing her pain from across the classroom, and without saying anything. She shuts up and eats.

"Max?"

"Hm?"

El's mouth tries to start a couple times before any words come out.

"If I promise not to talk or look, and you just listen to your music.. could I sit with you at lunch one day?" she asks, eyes still glued to the box.

Let's start sitting together again all the time! is what Max wishes she would say, but she's actually a big enough asshole not to. Right now that sounds great, but it might be writing an emotional check that will bounce as soon as the lunch bell rings.

It's the old you she wants to sit with. Maybe don't worry too much about her wanting to come back after one time.

She tries not to sound any particular way when she asks, "You want to?"

El abandons the toddler-difficulty maze she's pretending to solve and looks right at her, doe-eyed, just long enough to say, "Yes."

Max softens her face. "Well, yeah. Sure."

"Okay."

"You don't have to literally not talk to me at all," Max adds, chasing a horseshoe around her bowl.

"I would be happier not talking to you than not talking to nobody."

Max smiles until she thinks that through. "What do you mean? Are you not talking to anybody?"

She shrugs. "Oh, I do, sometimes."

"What about Mike, and...?" she gestures at El's shirt. "Everybody?"

El does a little halfhearted look.

"Mike is funny, he... he writes long letters for me when he is bored in class. Saying he wishes he was with me. But when he is with me at lunch, he is only interested in his club. They all like it a lot, the boys. They've always liked that game." She shrugs. "I go in the library mostly now."

Max's face falls. She would never have stopped sitting by El if she realized it was like that.

"Where do you sit in the library?"

"One of the little tables along the wall. Under those high windows."

Max lets out a soft laugh and one tear tries to sneak out along with it.

"I sit on the other side of that wall. We've been sitting like five feet apart."

"Ohh," El says, as if something is clicking into place. "I know you sit by a brick wall behind some bushes, but I didn't know where."

Max squints at her. "You spied." She adds a small smile to clarify when El glances over, worried.

"Only for a second," El matches it. "I just.. wondered. Lucas... he said you wanted space. You would hate to be followed. Was he right?"

She thinks for a minute. That is exactly what she hissed at him multiple times; she has no right to be sad that he listened. She has no right for her first reaction, just for a microsecond, to be resentment at him for being the reason El never came. As if she wouldn't have been weird to El and then disappeared to a new secret spot.

That Lucas and El have talked about her definitely gives her a feeling, but she can't say what it is. She hates the thought of being discussed. She loves the thought of the two who know her best breaking from their cliques to consult each other.

"I... I guess," she says sadly, watching El. "Come sit with me."

"When?"

"When you don't feel like sitting alone."

El grins, taking Max's bowl and putting it in the sink.

"So if you're not into hellfire, how come you wear that?"

"Will gave it to me," she looks down at her front. "He said they made too many. I hoped if I wore it maybe Mike..." she trails off. "I wear it at home, sometimes, when I run out of sleep shirts."

Max doesn't know why, but that makes her smile. "I kinda can't stand all that DnD shit, honestly."

El chuckles conspiratorially. "Me either."

And she goes and plops on the couch and turns on the TV.

Does that mean leave?

Why are you acting like she's a stranger? She did that all the time and it never meant leave.

It occurs to Max that she's heard El talk more, and more normally, this morning than she ever has before. But speech still isn't her strongest suit, and Max is relieved that she seems talked out. Otherwise, she would definitely leave now.

She lingers in the doorway to the living room, unsure what to do.

You've stayed long enough. Go away already and let the poor girl get some sleep.

Oh, you're just gonna leave now? Get what you came for and then just disappear again?

El looks up and offers a gentle smile. Not asking stay. Not with her mouth, but with the seat left wide open next to her.

Max still has nowhere to be, and she amazes herself by still not wanting to go. She would only go sit somewhere and space out, so it might as well be here. At least for a little while.

She sits.

It doesn't matter what's on TV; she isn't paying attention. Even El only half is. She looks a bit droopy.

Max tries hard to untangle gratitude from guilt. There's so much she wants to say, but she doesn't want to say anything.

She reaches for a pillow, settling it against her hip and giving El a glance shaped like a question mark.

El gives back a smile like a little exclamation, and curls up happily with her head on it.

Max looks down at her, wondering if she intends to grow her hair super long just because she can. Wondering how she used to look without any. Wondering what wires meant. Thinking about how sweet El's fingers had felt in her hair for half the night, having nothing to do with fixing her headache. That maybe she would like it if...

Hesitantly she brushes her fingers through El's hair once, watching to see what happens. El instantly trades open eyes for a smile, and Max matches it, knowing how she feels.

She relaxes, playing lazily with El's hair and half-watching some stupid daytime soap, not caring enough to try to commandeer the remote. Her mind wanders back to all the nights when any little affection she showed El must have meant the world to her, and now she wishes she had shown her a lot more.

She doesn't mean to still be there when Will comes home. She holds a finger to her lips in greeting.

"Are you guys okay?" he whispers, making her wonder if he saw into El's bedroom this morning. If he did.. well, he would understand.

"Yeah," she smiles at her best friend asleep in her lap. "We're okay."

...

School Tuesday is long and tedious. Or it might be a Thursday, but who cares. The only period that matters is lunch.

She recognizes the sneakers before she looks up. El has arrived at her hiding spot, in a huge plaid shirt that was probably Jonathan's before it was Will's.

Max tugs her headphones down around her neck to say hi, but the only greeting El offers is a sincere smile.

Plopping her backpack on the ground, El sits up against the library wall, one foot away. She pulls out a book and a peanut butter sandwich, and starts to eat and read. Max watches for a long time, long enough that El is definitely able to sense it. She really isn't even going to look over.

Max isn't sure how well she hoped El would observe these rules she made up on her own, but she's sort of touched that it looks like she's sticking to them strictly. Especially since Max's morning classes have drained her people battery to almost nothing.

She slides the headphones back over her ears, and her index finger rests on the play button, ghosting over the worn little triangle. Not pressing it.

She feels El over there. Not in the way she worried she would, but in a nice way. Just easy presence.

It's funny. She used to sit across that lunch table from her every day, crushed with stress at the silence between them. This isn't the same silence at all.

She'd like to say something just because she doesn't have to, but that might screw up what's such a relief about this.

Max unzips her backpack and pulls out her notebook and pen. She'll write El a letter. Not the long one she plans to write her, but one for right now, with just the critical stuff.

When she's done she tears the page from the spiral, folds it twice, and holds it out with two fingertips.

El lets her book flop shut to accept it and unfold it curiously. She grins huge after barely one second, because it's not a very long letter:

Dear El,

Love, Max.

El looks at it for much, much, much longer than it takes to read, and then presses the paper to her chest.

Max scoots closer, and they lean their heads together.

Do not cry.

Chapter Text

Max feels eyes landing on her like a relentless fly. Swat, it comes back. Swat, it comes back.

They've all been looking at her ever since at the school. To be fair, if one of them just found out they were cursed by a wizard or some shit and were going to die horribly tomorrow, she'd probably act weird about it too.

Her friends occupy every seat in the Wheelers' basement, all kicking around plans for what to do about her as she sits there jiggling her knee and chewing her nails.

It's nice that so many people care about her. She loves them all. And right now, she can't stand them.

They're scared for her, and they all feel on the hook to comfort her with no idea how, and she's on the hook to react with no idea how. Spending the night in a cluster had seemed like the safest thing at first, but now it's smothering, and her fuse is growing slowly shorter, and the stress of it all has her head throbbing.

If this were a normal night, a year ago, Max would love to spend it surrounded with her friends. Just hanging out, doing whatever. If it could be like that, like a time instead of the last time, then it would be great. It's not like that. It can't be. Not on their part, and not on her part.

She presses at her brow to try to relieve her headache, and to her surprise, it seems to work really well; the pain fades way back, and she feels suddenly off kilter without the weight of it.

Suspiciously she looks to her side, where El is just returning her attention to the debate going on between the others. Max knocks her knee gently against El's in thanks, and she smiles a little without looking and knocks back.

El is honestly the only one here not contributing to Max's agitation. Quiet as always. Not staring. Hasn't tried to pull her aside and offer little plans and empty optimism and bullshit promises, even though she's the only one here who almost sort of has authority to.

"Max? Are you okay?" El had asked, hurrying up behind her in the darkened hallway.

"It... it wanted me to look."

"What did?"

Max had shone her shaky flashlight beam at the clock.  And then she had startled awake in her counselor's office, with El sitting on the desk sporting a nosebleed, hand in hers, surrounded by the worried faces of their friends.

Since that, El has stayed close by her side, and nobody has challenged her place.

Lucas has added his voice to the debate now, and Max clenches her jaw, wishing quiet could drown out loud instead of the other way around.

Heat is creeping up her neck and her headache is already beginning to stir again. This is too much pressure and attention, and she's at risk of making some of her last words to her friends snippy ones that she'll regret.

Don't cry.

Max gets up abruptly and goes for the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Steve asks.

"Need some air."

Lucas stands. "Do you want-"

"No."

"But you shouldn't be alo-"

"I'll be three feet away. It's fine."

She shuts the door on any possible replies and lets out a breath.

The chilly air is refreshing. She draws in a huge lungful of it, leaning against the bricks beside the door and looking into the clear night sky.

That's one thing Hawkins has on California - from a small town in the middle of nowhere, you can see a lot more stars. She has no particular affinity for space or whatever, but pretty is pretty. Sometime it'd be nice to make a real thing of it and lie out stargazing wi-

Oh.

There are no sometimes left.

She wouldn't have expected the stars to be what makes it all suddenly catch up with her like a cannonball to the chest. The zillion little dots go watery at once.

This is the last time she'll ever see them, most likely.

This is her last night. Like, ever.

Oh God, I don't wanna be alone. I don't want to die alone.

No, shut up. She tries her best to blink it away and stuff it back down. The longer she can put off dealing with it, the better, right? Ideally never?

Part of her thinks she ought to go out and do something crazy. Have a wild night, cram as much life as possible into her last hours. But what does that actually even mean - "life"? Everything that comes to mind is stuff people would say: go on a spree, get wasted, lose her virginity, steal a Ferrari! She doesn't want to do any of that. Nothing sounds good, and even if it did, she wouldn't be able to have any fun. She's tired. She's sad and scared and so, so tired.

Zeke, their old terrier mutt, comes to mind. She was little when he had to be put down, but she remembers how Dad wanted to make him happy before it was time to go, and cooked a whole steak just for him. He didn't want it. She knows now how he felt.

Movement in the window beside her catches her eye - Dustin and Lucas bump into each other, scrambling out of the way of being spotted peeking through the blinds.

She turns away and sighs out a big steadying breath, eyeing the tree line a street over.

What if you just started walking? What if you disappeared into the woods or something and just waited it out?

That's selfish, wanting anyone with you for this. It's gonna be so bad. You heard what happened to Chrissy. They'd all be pissed, but really, it'd be a kindness to them, wouldn't it? To spare them seeing that?

If you really cared about them, you'd do it. Just hole up somewhere where you won't be a burden on anybody and they won't be on you. Where nobody has to try to protect you from the inevitable.

They'd never forgive her. She almost does it.

She thinks about what she'd do when she got there, and the answer is: she'd curl up, shut her eyes, and try to draw up a memory to comfort herself while she waited for the end. And only one comes to mind. The only real comfort she's felt in ages: the other night, with El. That's how she wishes she could spend tonight. Quietly, with El's arms around her.

But why settle for a wish when it's something she could have for real? El would give her that happily, if she asked. And being with El doesn't have to mean burdening her with her protection. She could keep the morbid shit to herself. Pretend she's optimistic. Pretend she's not that scared.

She's sorry if it makes the others feel snubbed, but... hey, isn't she entitled to a dying wish or whatever?

Hand on the doorknob, Max wipes her eyes and tries to steady her voice and braces herself for drawing every pair of eyes in the basement. At least that'll make it easy to catch the one pair she wants.

Opening the door draws every pair of eyes except El's. She almost laughs.

"El." Immediately she gets them. "Quick question?" she asks, tilting her head like come, and ducks back out.

The door opens and shuts a moment later, El appearing silently beside her. Not taking her eyes off the stars, Max reaches out until she finds her hand.

El squeezes once.

Max spends a minute waiting for her going-to-cry-meter to ease back down before she asks, "Will you do something for me?"

"Anything."

"Can I stay with you tonight? Just you. But! -" she turns and adds when El is already answering yes, "I don't want you to stay up for me again."

Oscar-worthy, she'd say, if that sounded half convincingly like she isn't scared out of her fucking mind and doesn't want to cling to El's leg like a toddler and beg for protection. And it's not a lie; she doesn't. Honestly. It's not fair to thrust her life into El's hands like that. She doesn't want her to have to do these huge horrible things for people all the time.

El's brows rise in an unimpressed sort of way. It's a sassier expression than Max is used to seeing from her, and in another circumstance she might laugh.

"Why not?"

"I'm not asking for your protection. I just really.. really would like your company."

"I want to give you both."

"El... this might not be something even you can protect me from. I don't want you to feel responsible. I'm not putting that on you. That's not what this is. And besides, it'll probably be fine-"

"I am not the one who needs protecting tonight."

Max frowns. "What?"

"You want to protect me from how it will feel if I fail you. But do you think I will feel better if something happens in the night, and I know I didn't even try?" El asks, her voice calm, but looking at Max very directly. "Do you think I will be happier that I slept?"

Max falters, her eyes jumping away from El's. She hadn't considered that it could happen as soon as tonight, and Hey, can I come over and maybe die gruesomely in your bed? isn't the favor she meant to ask.

"I am not really asking permission to watch over you," El turns back to the stars. "I am going to do it. And I can do it from anywhere. But it would be a lot nicer to be with you."

Max stares at her. Instinct says to launch into a whole thing where she pretends to be mad, tries to insist, tries to hide. But she quite literally has no time for that, nor the energy. And she can't hide from El any more than she can hide from Vecna, which is a weird combination of a threat and a comfort. It would feel a lot better to hide with her than from her.

"You're so.." Max shakes her head and sighs. What the next word was going to be is a mystery even to her. She tugs El in by the jacket and hugs her, and El hugs back really, really hard, but Max ends it soon and a little stiffly, her emotions too close to escaping.

"Okay." She takes a huge breath. "Steve will drive us."

Again she puts her hand on the doorknob and pauses, faced with the task of telling a room full of people she loves that she doesn't want to be around them.

"Look - I'm gonna tell everybody that I want to stay with you because you're the only one who can really protect me," she says quietly. "But I want you to know that's not the real reason. The real reason is just.. you're the only one I feel like being with. Alright?"

El smiles and nods.

They sit on El's floor up against her bed, door closed so the light doesn't shine into the hallway. Max is exhausted, but too wired to lie down. The floor seemed like the only right place.

It's a relief just to sit in the quiet here. She still catches herself clenching her jaw for the millionth time, adding to the oppressive ache in her temples.

"Will you fix my head again? Please?"

El smiles warmly, like it makes her happy to be asked. She puts a hand behind Max's head, pulling them gently together, temple to temple.

They don't have to be touching for this, Max knows, so El must just want to do it this way. She feels a faint pressure, one she wouldn't notice if she didn't know to look for it, and when it abates, so does the pain. She exhales, suddenly aware of the wincing tension in her face that no longer serves a purpose, and tries to let it relax.

El doesn't take away her hand, which is nice because Max doesn't want to move apart yet, or else El is going to see how close she suddenly is to crying.

Don't.

She wishes the world would stop right here. That she could hit pause and just stay like this. Stay and heal and maybe unpause someday when she's rested and strong and ready to fight for her life (yeah right).

"Thank you," she says, and it's small and unintelligible from how hard she's trying not to let tears slip out along with it. Not Oscar-worthy.

She lets her head bow until her eyes are hidden against El's shoulder and it makes her start to cry exactly how she meant not to, her fists tightening around handfuls of El's shirt.

El's arms lock around her, sighing.

Oh, go ahead. You're not fooling anyone.

It's not misery this time, it's just fear. She cries into El's shoulder like a scared little girl, although she guesses, in the scheme of things, that's all she is. People a lot tougher than her have cried the night before their executions, probably.

She meant to really sell the stoic thing right to the end. Not to seem brave or something, but because the more afraid she looks to die, the worse El is going to feel when she does. But she isn't strong enough to pretend. It just comes out. Not all of it, but much more of it than she meant to.

Good job, you lasted almost a whole hour.

"I know you're tired." El unknowingly says the exact thing to intensify Max's silent tears.

She nods. It's been months since she slept regularly, and she was desperately tired even before all this curse shit. So it's not only true, it's sorta the scariest part - the possibility that there is a chance, but she might be too tired to try hard enough. Whatever trying even means.

"I want you to rest," El says. "If there is any fighting to do, I will do it. Max, I promise I..."

Wary at the word altogether, Max quiets, sniffing, waiting for the rest of the sentence. El seems to take a moment to choose her words.

"I will try my hardest to make you safe. I promise you are not alone. I will be with you every minute until this is over. Anywhere I can follow you, I will. And any way I can fight for you, I will. With everything I have."

Max lifts her head to look at El, stuffed up and tearstained, to give her a look that she hopes says it all. It's hard to decide which force is stronger: how much she trusts El, or how much she expects this to go down the shittiest possible way, as things in her life tend to do.

She examines the little smile El gives her, wondering whether El is a far better actor than she is, or far stronger than she understands.

"Aren't you afraid of this guy?"

El's smile fades. "He should be afraid of me."

Max's brows rise a little. She didn't think there was a single truly reassuring thing anybody could say, but that right there wasn't half bad.

There are no guarantees here, but being best friends with possibly actually the strongest person in the world is, well. Something. She would be less safe in some bunker guarded by the whole army than on El's messy bedroom floor.

She sighs, resting her head against the side of El's bed. "Thank you." That feels like a weird thing to say in response. Nobody says stuff like what El just said except in comics, and Max can't recall any fitting replies.

El smiles, so she guesses it's okay. They sit silently for a while, until El is the first to speak again.

"What would you do if you could do anything? After this?"

Max exhales, not in the mood for that sort of question. There is probably no such time, and if this were anyone else, she would say so.

"I don't know," she mutters after a long pause which she hasn't truly spent thinking.

"You like California," El suggests.

Max has always acted like she's being held in Hawkins by shackles, and the second they unlock at 18 she'll run right back to the coast, and that will fix everything. But the truth she's never let herself acknowledge comes easily now.

"California's a time. Not a place," she says with quiet resignation, a warm drop leaking across the bridge of her nose. "There's nowhere to go back to."

She tries to focus on the sensation of El's thumb moving on her hand, rather than the dread simmering in her chest.

"Would've been nice to see the ocean again, I guess," Max says, a small smile taking root as she looks to El. "You'd really like it. All you've seen is Hawkins, right? It'd blow your mind." She turns so sad so abruptly it hurts her face, fresh tears streaming hot from tight-squeezed eyes, which she covers with her hand. "I would've liked to see you see it."

"We will-"

"You'll get there sometime. If I'm not there too, um," she quavers, "remember me, okay?"

"Max," El says warningly, squeezing her hand. "I want you to show it to me."

"We both know-"

El goes still. "Wait," she says thoughtfully.

"What."

"Take me there. Tonight."

Max scoffs. El must not understand how far away California is. "Even if we got on a plane right-"

"No. From here. If I can come with you to your dreams, maybe I can come to your imagination."

"Really?" Max wipes her cheeks. "What do I do?"

El shrugs. "Build it in your mind. Concentrate on how it looks.. sounds, feels. Everything. Focus."

There's nothing to lose by trying. Max shuts her eyes. El takes both her hands.

It's easier said than done. Desperation isn't helping her focus.

There are lots of different oceans. Calm clear day ones, where the whole horizon is just blue and blue and a line. Choppy misty gray gloom ones when there are almost no people. Pinky orangey sunset ones that make her want to sit by a fire and listen to music. She tries to choose the perfect one.

She thinks hard about hot dry sand on her feet and endless breezes tickling her face with her own hair. About the sound of kids and seagulls, the rush of waves coming in and the hiss going out, of tinny pop songs playing from radios lodged in the sand.

"Can we still talk?" she whispers.

"Yes."

"Is it working?"

"Kind of..." El answers slowly. "It is... in parts. Not all at once. You keep changing the sky. It's-" she makes a soft little gasp, and Max's eyes fly open.

"What?"

"I saw you," El grins, opening her eyes. "You were small. Playing with the sand. You were so cute."

"Oh," Max blinks. "Why wasn't I now-me?"

"I think you took me to a memory and not a... imagination."

"How do you imagine something without building it out of memories?"

El looks stumped. "Practice?" she shrugs, shutting her eyes. "Try again."

Max looks at her, almost ready to go along with it, but doesn't close her eyes. El is just trying to do something nice for her, something special that literally nobody else could, and not doing it now means never doing it at all, but she still can't quite muster it. Practicing an unmasterable skill isn't how she wants to spend her time.

"You're sweet, El," she says quietly.

El's eyes open and her shoulders deflate just a little as she sees they aren't trying again.

"I really hope, um.. future, you know.. not-dead-not-cursed me can go with you someday. But.. now-me isn't really up to it," she smiles apologetically.

El nods understandingly. "What do you want to do?"

Max bites her lips together.

"I..." Her eyes, going warm again, skirt the room out of habit. But she should quit doing that. It's a waste. She picks her wet gaze up like a wayward kitten by the scruff of the neck and puts it back on El. "I just want a soft place."

The smile El gives her is so loving and so sad at the same time she's surprised a face can show all of both. "Max." She gives her a soft tug, moving them up to get on the bed.

El opens her arms, and Max gratefully crawls up alongside and fills them, wrapping herself into El even more tightly than the other night.

She exhales, spending a few long moments doing nothing but savoring the feeling of El's arms wrapped securely around her, and trying to convince her body to relax into it. It does no good to be on guard anyway.

Cool and soothing fingers move up her nape, starting to massage lightly at the base of her skull. Her eyes slide shut.

This feels so nice. Nicer than the other night, because this time she knows it's intentional, and it's just for her. It touches something in her, a want of tenderness which she hadn't realized she felt so badly until getting it makes her lashes brim with tears.

And it would be okay if she cried. She doesn't have to speak. She wouldn't have to hide it. And if it made her hurt, El would fix it.

El slides off Max's scrunchie and begins brushing her hair down her shoulders with a hundred lazy strokes of her fingers. Max focuses on the sensation, halfway relaxing in the quiet. No tears fall.

"What would you do?" Max asks after a while.

"What?"

"If you could do anything."

"Hm." El thinks for a minute. "See places, maybe. You're right, I have only seen Hawkins. There are such different looking kinds of places.. mountains and islands and big cities. I would like to see some of that."

This girl spent twelve years looking at tile walls and she pronounces the s in "island" and she deserves the world. Max smiles. "I hope you get to."

"Will you come too? After the ocean? It would be more fun with you. Everything is."

Her smile is a complicated one. "Totally."

El's fingers trace a dozen more paths through her hair.

"I meant to write you a letter," Max murmurs.

"You did."

"A long one. With feelings and stuff."

"You wanted to spend tonight close to me. I would not rather have the best letter."

Max smiles, a real one, and is quiet for a while.

And it's easy now. It's so easy:

"I love you."

El's chest moves in a little bit of a labored way, Max thinks, and tightens her hug before she responds. "I love you, too."

Max smiles again. "Can you get the light?" The dark would be a relief on her eyes.

El clicks it off without moving.

They don't talk anymore, but it's not really because Max expects to sleep. Just to rest.

It's the most lovely and most horrible night she's ever spent.

Heartbeat a battering ram against her ribs, that awful anxious sensation of hot and cold at the same time, the kind of bleary half-sleep that's only more tiring. She's both suffering and savoring every minute. Her jacket's still on and it's making her far too warm, but she doesn't dare give up the position. It feels like Vecna wouldn't be able to pry her out of El's arms.

For hours she bobs at the surface of consciousness, each descent towards sleep leading straight into the beginnings of nightmares that make her go twitchy and whimpery. Soft whisperings and soothing motions up and down her back wake her just enough to soak in a sense of safety, and she quiets and relaxes and slides under again. Repeat. Repeat.

It must be past the middle of the night when Max breaks the surface and sits up abruptly in El's bed, roasting hot and finally frustrated at the tease of sleep.

She unzips her coat and struggles out of it like it's a straitjacket. Her shirt is damp with sweat where they've been pressed together, and she tugs at it to fan herself. That couldn't have been pleasant for El, either.

Apologizing and excusing herself, Max pads down the hall to the bathroom. She pulls off her shirt, wanting to let the night air at her skin, and maybe splash some water on herself. When she turns to shut the door, she jumps at El's unexpected silhouette in the doorway.

"Oh-" she says awkwardly, but El doesn't turn the light on.

"Oh."

They both stand there for a second, Max wondering what she's doing here until she realizes that El is taking her promise to stay near quite literally.

"I was just gonna cool off a little," she whispers.

"Can I..?" El asks, and while Max tries to figure out what that means, El ushers her a step towards the tub and pats on its rim.

Max sits.

It's too dark to see practically anything, so it doesn't really matter about her shirt. Of course, El wouldn't even care if she was stark naked with the lights on. If she learned one thing in the Gap fitting rooms, it's that El has not a shred of shyness about that sort of thing.

There's the sound of El knocking something over by the sink and trying to quiet it quickly - a smile tempts Max's mouth - and then running the faucet for a moment, and the squishy sound of probably a washcloth being wrung.

Max holds out her hand for it when El sits next to her, but El pats out her location in the dark and puts it to her temple instead.

"Oh," she says at the pleasant coolness. She doesn't really need this done for her, but it's nice, so she sits still and lets El press the cloth around her face and her neck as if trying to bring down a fever.

But Max's focus falls to El's other hand - the one El rests on her shoulder blade.

It isn't anything, but simply there being skin beneath El's hand instead of shirt makes this the most intimately Max has ever been touched.

Or will ever be, she realizes.

Not that she had anything on her to-do list any time soon, but she guesses intimacy is one of the things she's disappointed never to experience. It intrigues her, because she's fifteen, and scares her, because she's fifteen. Someday it would have been nice to share everything with someone and have it not end in disaster. She's tried to believe that's possible, anyway. Maybe never finding out otherwise is as good as being right.

But maybe that's what all of this is. Not "intimacy" like how Mom's magazines mean it, but intimacy like how the dictionary means it - warmth and closeness. That's not scary. And she hasn't missed out on it totally.

She finds that she likes El's touch on her skin, in a calming way. Like those babies at the hospital that people have to volunteer to hold, who need to feel skin or hear a heartbeat or whatever it is. She's certainly not going to try to articulate that thought, but if anyone could understand, it would be El.

She wonders if anybody ever held El when she was a baby. It makes her eyes go wet again.

The girl's past is still so much of a mystery to Max. She stares at the dark shape next to her and wonders if she ever knew a moment's happiness as a kid. Ever laughed.

El's future is just as big a mystery. She's never asked her about it, because Max hates being asked what she wants to do with her own future, because she has no idea. Considering they're best friends, they actually know fairly little about each other. They've had so short a time together. And even of that, she's squandered so much.

El gathers her hair up and cools the back of her neck.

"I wish things were different."

"I know," El says softly.

"I mean for you," Max adds, met with silence. "Were you ever happy? Before?"

"For a long time I didn't know there was happy," El answers after a moment. "I didn't know to miss it."

Max sighs.

"I've never actually told you I'm sorry about.. everything. 'Cause I don't know how to say that, and maybe you hate to be told that. So.. sorry if this isn't the right thing to say, but... I wish you got to be... some average kid, you know? You're awesome the way you are, but like... I wish you didn't have to be. I wish you never had powers and only ever heard of 'em in comics... and that the worst thing you had to worry about was homework. I wish you had embarrassing parents and annoying sisters and grew up playing tag on the playground..." She wipes her wet lashes. "And I wish we were best friends the whole time."

There's a sniffle in the quiet, and El hugs her.

The amount of contact takes Max by surprise for a second before she closes her arms tight around El.

She feels El rest her cheek on her shoulder, lift it, brush Max's hair away, and rest it again.

"But as it is.. I hope um. I hope you get to be happy, El. Really happy. Like, good stuff that's better than the bad stuff was bad."

"You're my favorite part of it," El says, her words warm against Max's collarbone. "The good stuff."

Max smiles, actually quite honored. Lots of people would say that just to be nice, but not her. "You're mine, too."

Max makes the hug a very long one. The warmth of El's shirt feels good on her chilly skin, as do El's palms pressed flat to her back. It's also a really uncomfortable position, but that's not important. This hug is for El, and Max is trying not to let herself start to shiver, not wanting to cut it short.

El knows soon enough anyway, running her hands down the backs of Max's goosebumpy arms. "Cold."

"Yeah."

El drops her rag in the tub with a splat. "Let's go to bed." She hooks Max's fingertips in her own and leads her back to her bedroom.

There's the wooden squeak of a drawer, and a folded shirt is nudged into her hand. She puts it on and it's big and soft and thin-worn.

"Hey, um," she pauses short of climbing into bed, patting in the dark for the space to El's left. "Can I be on this side?"

El moves over. "You sleep better on your right?"

"No. I wanted.. um," she gives her molars a squeeze for the nerve to admit it. "I wondered if I could hear your heartbeat."

"Oh," El lets her settle into her left shoulder. "But.. that is not where my heart is," she says with a twinkle in her voice, as if Max is endearingly stupid.

"Well, I.." Max scoots her head a little lower to El's chest, taking a couple of tries to get situated and smiling when she finds the soft thump beneath her ear. "Is this okay?" she asks, new to - well. cuddling. this is called cuddling - and hesitant about the weight of her head and whether El is comfortable.

"Very okay." El rests her hand across her head, pressing lightly to make Max entrust it to her.

Oh, that's the good shit. She closes her eyes with a silent sigh, sandwiched between comforts.

"Can you hear it?"

"Mm-hm."

"What is it doing?"

Max isn't sure whether she's asking, like, figuratively, but that's the only way she can think to answer.

"Saying you're here. We're both here."

No wonder babies like this. It's hypnotically comforting. Maybe it reminds her of being small. Of long enough ago that everything wasn't shit, or maybe it was and she just didn't know it yet, and she could still be made to feel safe this way.

"Like it when you do that," she murmurs.

"Do what?"

"Your hand."

"Mm," El presses softly. "I like it too."

The steady metronome of El's heartbeat has a calming effect on her jittery one. Like if she listens long enough, maybe they'll sync. For a long time, that's all she does is listen.

"I change my answer."

"Hm?"

"The ocean. That wasn't my real answer," Max confesses. "Can I tell you the truth? Even if it's kinda.."

"Always."

"If I could do anything, after. Like.. anything..." Saying stuff like this out loud doesn't come easily, especially not with the lump that rises in her throat, but El's fingers tracing through her hair help encourage her. "It would be this."

"Max," El sighs, pressing her cheek to Max's head.

"Just like this. Except you wouldn't have to protect me anymore. And we could both sleep. For as long as we want. I wouldn't have to get up and go home. I could just... sleep and sleep," she murmurs, leaking a hot tear onto El's shirt. It's not a very ambitious use of a wish, but she means it in all sincerity. How luxurious it would be if all nights were sweet and healing, and not just her last one. "I could sleep for a week every night, with you."

"Let's. Please let's," El whispers into her hair. "You can always come. Any night. Every night. Just come. Or I can come to you."

"Okay," she sighs.

"Tomorrow night."

Max smiles wistfully. "Tomorrow night."

It's going to start to get light out soon, too late to really sleep. No surprise. She didn't expect to anyway.

But with El's heartbeat for a pillow, she finally does.