Work Text:
The car’s packed, everything Billy could lay claim to in boxes and bags in the trunk. It’s past time to go, and yet he finds himself restless at the idea of finally pulling out of the driveway. Susan hovers, eyes rolling between Max at his side and the kitchen doorway while she gathers the courage to speak and delay her daughter’s departure.
“Hold on a moment, please.” Susan asks, disappearing into her domain. She comes back with a tattered envelope held in one hand. “Here,” she says in a soft voice as she holds it out. She carefully doesn’t touch Billy.
Everything she does is quiet and sometimes, that just makes Billy louder. He doesn’t actually enjoy watching her flinch from a raised voice but she’s no mother to him. He tells himself he doesn’t care when he accidentally scares her and always pushes down the guilt that tries to fill up his chest.
“Take this, you’ll need it.” She presses the envelope into his hand, pale freckled fingers trembling against Billy’s healed skin, wrapping his fingers around the worn white paper. It’s already gone soft from too much handling even though Billy’s never seen it before today.
Billy doesn’t need to look inside to know it’s money just from the feel of it. Hard-earned cash Susan probably siphoned off from her job or maybe Neil gives her an allowance, tells her to buy something pretty. Billy tries hard not to think about the implications of that.
“Thanks, Mom.” Max says, plucking the envelope out of Billy’s hands.
“We can’t.” Billy takes it back immediately and passes it off to Susan.
She stands there in the hallway between the kitchen and the front door, a statue in a house dress.
“You need it more than us, if you want to leave.” Billy pauses to think and is gratified that both Susan and Max are hanging on his word. He speaks his idea aloud with slow, careful words. “Might not be a bad idea. You can leave and find a motel for a few days. Lay low, avoid the worst of his temper.”
“I can’t.” Susan answers him quickly, head shaking like the idea isn’t one to even be considered.
“Yes,” Max rebuts. She’s fierce, always ready to defend her mother. “You can. You should. Come with us!” Billy frowns at the thought and smooths his expression before either redhead catches sight.
“I can’t,” Susan repeats again, looking at her daughter. Billy stands next to Max and tastes regret but no surprise. “I will stay, because I married your father.” She looks to Billy then, a nod of commiseration and understanding. She hands him the money again and this time, he tucks it away in a jacket pocket. “I’ll tell him you’re at a friend’s house, Maxine. A long weekend.”
“And when he figures it out?” Max’s voice is hushed. She doesn’t wear the same marks but she’s not unscathed by Neil’s vitriol and firm hand on her immediate family.
“Everything is going to be fine.” Susan looks at the clock on the wall as it ticks over, a quiet measurement of time they continue to lose as the three of them stand in the house that was never a home to any of them. “You should get on the road. Don’t call the house after four o’clock or on the weekends.”
Max flings her skinny arms around her mother’s waist at those parting words while Billy picks up the bags at their feet. He walks out, shuts them in the trunk as Max and her mom say goodbye one last time.
He doesn’t flinch when Susan’s hand lands on his shoulder in the doorway. He locks it away behind the mask of aloofness he puts on every morning in this house.
Billy stands absolutely still when Susan hugs him. It’s the second, maybe third time she’s ever done so and he’s been a part of her life for years.
“Thank you,” she whispers, trembling just once. It’s enough for Billy to move, a tentative touch to an almost stranger that’s shared his house and his father’s bed for years. “Be safe with my daughter.”
“I will.” Billy promises. “We’ll even wear our seat belts.” He flashes a grin, insincere even though the words are true.
Susan doesn’t cry like he expects as the Camaro pulls out of the driveway. Billy keeps the music low and Max leans her head against the window as the house disappears in the rearview mirror.
It’s only the quiet susurration of the tires on tarred pavement and the music from the speakers for about an hour after they pass the Leaving Hawkins sign. Billy makes no move to break the silence, hands fixed around the steering wheel and eyes on the road ahead.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Max looks at him, brows drawn in worry. He knocks her socked feet off the dash with his free hand before answering.
“She’ll be fine,” Billy tells her. The lie is bitter as it leaves his lips; Max looks unconvinced.
“Your dad is mean.” Max says, like Billy doesn’t have first-hand knowledge. But Max doesn’t, at least she shouldn’t. She believed wholeheartedly in the family man act, the flowers his dad would bring home on Friday like clockwork to show the neighbors what a stand up guy Neil Hargrove is. Susan learned her lesson earlier, deciding it was safer to leave the room when he got going. She didn’t remove her daughter’s blinders. Billy agrees with her on both decisions.
“What do you want me to say?” Billy throws his hands up, foot lifting from the gas pedal as the Camaro coasts down another hill. His stomach swoops with the drop and he involuntarily smiles before biting his lip hard to wipe it away. “Women don’t always leave. It’s in the news all the time.” He realizes that might have been a step too far as Max’s face pales.
“Billy.”
“C’mere.” He throws an arm over her skinny shoulders, tightening his other hand on the steering wheel. “Your mom is a smart lady, except for the fact she married my old man. He never took after her, Max. I swear. It was always me.”
“I know,” Max says and there’s something in her voice that Billy doesn’t like.
He tilts his head to look her in the eyes. “What do you know?”
“That you didn’t get in those fights after school or whatever Neil always said. He, you-” Max breaks off, swallows hard enough that Billy can hear it in the quiet of the car as he slots Metallica into the tape deck. “I saw it, one time.”
Billy tugs her against his side, ignores the pain in his ribs at the motion. He’s not usually one for the touching or the talking but Max seems to need it. She’s a kid, it’s important or some shit like that. “You want to talk about it, shitbird?”
Max looks at her shoes as she speaks. “You were in the kitchen, on the floor.”
“Yep.” Billy pops the consonant. “Been there a few times, I am intimately familiar with that ugly tile.” He wonders what incident Max walked in on and how long she’s been carrying the knowledge.
“You weren’t-” Max sounds confused as she breaks off. She sounds so young and Billy doesn’t like it. “You didn’t scream. He had his belt and there was blood and you didn’t say anything at all.”
Billy has a hazy memory of the agony and the sweet blissful darkness that drew him away from his dad’s voice. He remembers, even less clearly, waking up on the floor alone. He had stumbled to his room and passed out again in the middle of bloodied towels and bandage wrappers.
When he awoke for real, the next day, the tile had been mopped clean.
He sighs when Max kicks at his ankle for an answer. “Yeah, that was a bad one.” He probably should have gotten stitches on some of those welts, they took forever to heal up and it meant Billy had to play on the shirts team for almost two months afterward at school.
“Did that happen a lot?”
Billy reads between the lines, her worry about her mom and the fact that she’s the only one left in Neil’s way.
“I’m not ever going back, Max.”
“I didn’t ask you to!” she snaps, face red with rising anger. Her stick arms are crossed defensively.
“You didn’t say those words,” Billy tells her. “But you need to know, that whatever shit my dad does, I’m not going back.” It’s not like they’re leaving a forwarding address but maybe his dad will actually put forth a little effort once he realizes. More likely, he’ll take it out on Susan. Billy hopes she can weather it and finally leave his old man. He isn’t going back.
Max curls up into a ball, skinny arms wrapped around her legs. She leans away from Billy’s side, swinging her feet up so her mismatched socks are against his thigh.
“She’ll be fine.” Max mutters to herself. She sounds resigned, not hopeful.
Billy keeps driving, humming along with the radio as Max falls asleep on the far side of the Illinois border.
He thinks as they drive, what they’re going to do when they reach California. He has a few friends he could call collect, fingers crossed they forgive him for leaving town with no follow up after almost a year.
At least it’s summer, so he doesn’t need to worry about Max in the school system for a few weeks yet.
His head aches just thinking about everything that needs to get done and he grits his teeth at the headlights blinding him from the opposite lane.
Billy’s an adult now, he’s eighteen and legal. He will find a way. Granted, his runaway ideas as a kid never involved taking his kid sister along with him. Max only became a factor when his dad sat him down to say he was getting a new mom with a kid in tow.
He sees the sign for St. Louis and slows the car, careful of speed traps in city limits. Once burned, twice shy and all. Billy can’t afford a ticket now.
They can’t afford much of anything.
“We’re here?” Max raises her head, sleep still clinging despite the fact the sun is in the sky.
“Not quite,” Billy laughs. “You ever look a map, twerp? Do you remember how long it took to reach Indiana last year?”
“Maybe you drove through the night.” Max mutters and rubs at her eyes. “I’m hungry.” Her growling stomach underscores the point and Billy realizes it has been a while.
“C’mon,” Billy spies a sign for a Wendy’s and flips on the turn signal. “I’ll buy you dinner and we can talk about what we’re gonna do.”
They eat quickly, burgers dripping grease and stealing french fries from each other’s plates. Billy knows the importance of an act, and doesn't want anyone to remember them as anything but normal siblings.
He slaps a paper map of California on the table, pen at hand. “Where do you want to go, Max?”
“Back home.”
Billy sucks at his teeth, a noise he knows she hates. It’s half the reason he does it and it’s easy to dodge the weak slap aimed his way across the sticky tabletop. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” Max glares, jabbing her finger again at San Diego until the paper crinkles. “We have friends, my dad is somewhere close by and we know the area. We can sleep at Ms. Miller’s studio in her backyard and you can go work with Bobby!”
Billy lowers his voice as he explains. “The point of running away is not to be found. We go back home, someone is going to call Neil. He will come, he will drag us both back to Hawkins and I will not see my nineteenth birthday.”
Billy isn’t even stretching the truth. He knows it’s why Susan gave them the money, why she let her fourteen-year old kid disappear into the wind with the boy she couldn’t protect. His old man has always had it out for Billy once his mom left them but lately, it’s been bad. Worse than usual and Billy doesn’t know why.
Max blinks and Billy thinks he sees something wet in her eyes. He stares at the ceiling, counting tiles until Max coughs.
“Okay.” She nods, features firming as her eyes meet his. “We probably shouldn’t live on the beach then. He’d expect that.”
“Too expensive, besides.” Billy confirms. “How about,” he doesn’t look before he points and his index finger lands on a name. “Chico?”
“Too far north,” Max wrinkles her nose and it makes Billy laugh.
“Oh, so you’d rather we go live in Tijuana?”
“Noooooo,” Max rolls her eyes as she draws out the vowel. “Besides, you said we had to stay out of San Diego and the beach.”
“Pick a city.” Billy spins the map in her direction. “Close your eyes and pick the place we’re gonna live. Better be a good one.”
Max slaps a hand over the top half of her face and her free hand trails over the map. Billy watches, munching on the last of the fries.
“You’re in Nevada. I’m not living there.”
“Too far north.”
“That’s Mexico, squirt. How’s your Spanish?”
Finally, Max growls and slams her hand to the table. “There! Here, wherever. That’s where we’re going.”
“Ojai.” Billy reads out loud. He shrugs, he might have heard of it during a grade school lesson on the history of the state. “Looks like it’s not even an hour to the coast. Sounds good to me.” He tugs the map back and starts plotting the rest of their drive to their destination.
Max swings her legs up next to Billy’s thigh on the cushioned booth and then puts her head on her crossed arms.
“Sure you don’t want some time in the play place?”
“I’m not a child and this isn’t actually McDonald’s.” Max rolls her eyes. “Not like you’re going to let me drive, so I might as well sleep.”
Billy nods his head, conceding her point and the truth. He gets up to order a cup of coffee, pleased this fast-food place is open twenty-four hours. They shouldn’t spend more than another hour here, just in case a well-meaning employee thinks they’re skipping curfew or actually running away.
To be fair, they are running away. But no one else needs to know that.
He upends three sugar packets into the burnt coffee and tries to focus on the map in front of him. Every time the door squeaks with a new potential customer, Billy’s eyes flick up. Max dozes through it all and Billy envies her a little.
He kicks out when she starts snoring, laughing a little. “Get up, gremlin.”
“Huh?” Max is not a morning person, never mind that it’s fully dark outside.
“Getting on the road, got places to be. Go pee, wash your hands and meet me at the car.” Billy orders, picking up the sludge that was his coffee some hours ago. He doesn’t listen to Max whine but glances back through his curls to make sure she’s listening.
He does his business and leans against the Camaro’s trunk, waiting. Max stumbles out, jumps down from the curb like it’s higher than it is and skips over. She’s so damn young, Billy wonders again if he’s doing the right thing taking her along.
“We getting a motel some time tonight?” Max asks as she climbs in.
“Something like that,” Billy acknowledges as he twists his head to back out of the parking space. “We’re gonna see the desert tomorrow, scrub brush and cactuses and all that jazz.” He waves a hand in the air.
They keep on driving and Billy yawns despite the coffee. He’s been behind the wheel for at least six hours and they’re still stuck in Missouri.
There’s no one else on the road to protest or honk when he cuts across two lanes to make the exit for the rest stop.
Max is fast asleep by the time he pulls into a darkened corner of the parking lot, her face smashed against the passenger window. Billy snorts and tries to shut the driver door quietly when he goes to take a piss. There’s nothing quiet about levering the driver side door down so he can get in the backseat but she doesn’t stir.
He tosses his jacket over his torso and one arm under his head, the other over his eyes. Time to get some sleep. Maybe by tomorrow they can make it through Oklahoma.
“Billy.” A voice breaks into his dreams about crashing waves and long blonde hair. “Billy. Wake up, you big lug!” He’s jostled, and nearly falls onto the floor of his car.
He’s confused, at first, why he isn’t in bed. Then he remembers, both in mind and body, that he left his old man behind and is on the road like Kerouac, if the beatnik had let his little sister tag along. Max’s hair is a dark tangled halo and her eyes peer at him from around the passenger seat in the dim lights.
“Billy, why are we sleeping at the rest stop?”
“Because motels cost money.” Billy tells her gruffly. He took a look before they went to the counter to order dinner to see just how much Susan had given them. A couple hundred dollars was nothing to sneeze at as the savings of a housewife but Billy knows it won’t get them far in California. “We’re crashing here for the night. Go back to sleep, Max.”
He awkwardly turns, putting his back to the girl and presses his face to the leather seat.
Billy is awakened for real by the sun, groggy and chilled despite the jacket. He pushes hair out of his face and sits up. Max is awake in the passenger seat, feet propped up on the dash. She’s got one of her comic books in her lap, half-empty water bottle held in one hand.
“Hey sleeping beauty. Where are we?”” She tosses him another bottle, the lid still on. Billy cracks the top and drains it, parched. It might be smarter to save their money and ration it out on this road trip but Susan had given them an admirable number of bills. Too bad it was mostly in ones and fives, bulking out the paper envelope rather than something they could present to a landlord for a shitty apartment they could call their own as a deposit.
“Ass end of Missouri,” Billy answers and climbs out of the car. “Go brush your teeth and wash your face, whatever you do in the mornings. We’re hitting the road in ten.” He takes a shit, splashes water on his face and goes to see what the vending machines have.
They drive down route 44 and then transition to 40, crossing into New Mexico shortly before sunset. Like Billy promised, there are red rocks and desert lizards for Max’s attention.
He pulls the car off on a side road, hoping the grit under the wheels is a sign the road isn’t traveled much and not a sandstorm. The Camaro’s paint job would be ruined.
“Are we-” Max looks around at the nothing around them. “Are we sleeping here?” They ate a few hours ago at the border, hot tortillas from the press and scoops of beans ordered with Billy’s half-remembered Spanish that got him a pat on the cheek from the wrinkled lady running the roadside stall.
“Need to save the money,” Billy says. “You can take the backseat tonight.” Max clambers back with the grace of a newborn foal and curls up against the leather seats as the sun drops behind the mountains. She looks small and pale in the moon’s glow.
“You think he’s looking for us?” Max’s voice is quiet and thin.
Billy sighs and pushes the driver’s seat all the way back, puts his hands behind his head. “Not yet,” he decides. “We’ve been gone a full day, two nights by tomorrow. It’s summer so it’s not like school is gonna be after him for truant kids.” He shrugs. “We’ll be in California by tomorrow if we push.”
“Good.” Max says. She pulls her arm over her face and appears to go to sleep. Billy knows she isn’t, breathing too fast and he can practically see her feet wiggling at the end of the blanket as she fidgets.
“I’m here.” Billy says, as though that counts for anything. He knows the doors are locked and there’s nothing around for miles. “Go to sleep, shitbird.”
He doesn’t know when he himself falls into sleep, between one breath and the next like it always is.
A sound awakens him. Billy blinks, confused and staring at the ceiling of the Camaro. Whatever it was was too soft to be an owl. He twists his head, trying to pinpoint a location as it comes again.
The backseat. Max.
She whimpers, hands curling around the blanket in a grip Billy can tell is white-knuckled in the moonlight. Her face is a rictus, soft gasping cries leaving her open mouth as her body twists.
“Max!” Billy says aloud. She makes that same sound again and Billy’s reaching back to shake her awake before he can think better of it. No place in the Camaro to dodge a punch if she comes up swinging but Max goes eerily still beneath his hands.
“Max, you’re safe. You’re okay.” Billy starts a litany of nice things in hopes she’ll wake up all the way. “Everything is fine.” He doesn’t know what happened to make her brain relive whatever’s so horrific.
He doesn’t know if he wants to ask and live with the answer.
“Billy?” Max asks, voice slurred in sleep.
“I’m here.”
“G’d.” Max's voice is quiet but definitive. “Watch out for dogs.” She turns over, hitching the blanket up over her shoulder to fall asleep again.
Billy wills his heart to calm down from its racing pace as he leans back in the driver’s seat, arm aching from its awkward angle. He isn’t sure he falls asleep again but when he presses Max for her dreams over a breakfast of vending machine powdered donuts, she doesn’t spill.
Their idea of getting to California by the end of the day is not to be. They get stuck on the far side of Flagstaff after spending most of the late afternoon on the highway in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic.
“I need to pee,” Max moans, crossing her legs again for the third time in as many minutes. Billy sticks his head out of the window, joining many other lookie-loos who are also trapped. The engine’s off, it’s clear they’re not going anywhere soon.
“Here,” Billy says and tosses her the partially smashed soda cup from his lunch. “Pee in that.”
“Ew!” Max screeches. “I can’t!”
Billy looks over the tops of his sunglasses at her and raises an eyebrow. “It’s either that or you hike into the brush.” He waves a hand, where two little kids and their father are doing exactly that. “Max, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Some sort of accident up ahead, I’d say. You can hold it or piss in the cup.”
Max bitches some more and flips him off before slamming the door shut on her way to the side of the road in the opposite direction from the kids. Billy hopes she remembered to bring napkins and swings the sun visor down in a futile effort to stop the sun from baking him as they sit in a parking lot on the highway.
He holds his breath as she falls asleep that night, curled up so small under the blanket. He put her in the backseat again, ignoring her cautious looks at his change in mood.
There are no nightmares, or at least none that wake Billy until the sun rises above the hood of his car.
They reach California at eleven that morning, both of them giving a weary cheer at the welcome sign with its palm trees and surfboards.
“We’re home.” Max exclaims, heartfelt.
“We’re something,” Billy agrees. He follows signs to Ojai off the highway.
They pass bungalows with manicured lawns and acres of green grass.
“What water restrictions? I don’t think they’ve even heard of them here in the valley.” Billy mutters under his breath as Max laughs and turns the car’s a/c up to the highest setting.
“Thatcher Prep,” she reads off the school sign. “Daddy’s money paid for the green lawns.”
“Sounds about right. You sure you want to stay here? We’re not so far from Ventura, it’d be real easy to disappear in LA.” Billy likes the sound of that, he’s got contacts and knows there’s bound to be help wanted signs on either side of the freeway.
“Yeah and any PI looking for the two of us won’t have to look very hard.” Billy listens to her predictions with some surprise but can’t disagree as she continues, “Neil is gonna think we ran back home, or try to disappear into LA. You’ll go to a concert and get picked up like an idiot trying to impress a girl. I’m not living on the streets by myself.” Max says with a troubled frown at the end. She’s clearly had time to think about it during all those hours on the road.
“You’re not living on the streets, period.” Billy rolls his eyes. “That’s the point of this. Jesus it’s hot around here. I forgot about that when I was freezing my balls off in bumfuck Indiana.”
“So we find a hotel and you can apply for a job and then we can rent a place.” Max says, like it’s that easy.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” Billy tries not to laugh in her face as they cruise past the very nice houses. Single-family homes that they have no hope of affording.
The Camaro carries them to the other side of town, where things are a little more run-down and familiar. Billy breathes a sigh and tells himself it isn’t relief.
“Looks like there’s a vacant house, probably good for squatting if there isn’t anyone else there.” Max’s face goes from being pressed against the glass to take in the small bungalows and the green trees to staring at him in shock.
He parks around the corner and gets out, legs aching from being in the car for so long. Max joins him on the sidewalk to stretch out the pain of sleeping in a cramped seat, but waits with her arms crossed as Billy jogs across the street to what might be their home.
“Nah,” Billy tells her when he gets back. It didn't take long to make a decision. “There’s a construction permit on the window. We’d be booted out by next week.” That’s not even a lie, but she’s still a kid and doesn’t need to hear about the unsavory things he spotted beyond the government permit.
“So we keep looking and hope to find something?” Max’s face twists at the idea.
“It’ll come. I think first, we need to get in touch with our roots.” Billy grins, shaking his hair out. All those hours in the car have done him no favors. When he flips his head back up to push his hair back, Max’s unamused stare greets him.
“What are you talking about?”
“Boardwalk,” he croons at her instead of answering like she expects. “I’m gonna take you Max under the boardwalk.” He remembers his mom playing The Beach Boys on summer days, when the house was full of sunlight and life was better for both of them. He also remembers that the 150 goes straight to the 101. The coast.
“Who knew you were such a goof?” Max asks rhetorically even as she laughs at him. She opens the passenger door, motioning for him to take his place behind the driver’s seat. “How long is it gonna take?”
“Maybe a half-hour.” Billy buckles his seat belt and eases out of the parking space with the appropriate amount of caution, which is to say very little. They’re so close to the sea, the salt air and spray; thinking about how they’re actually gonna live out here, build a life with only a hundred bucks to their name can wait.
Billy feels like he’s buzzing, excited enough to think something as cliche as ‘high on life’ by the time he pulls the Camaro into the public parking lot. The sand awaits on the other side of the dunes.
Home.
He digs out his towel from the trunk because he learned from Douglas Adams, and follows in Max’s footsteps. They’re both going to burn in the sun and Billy finds that he doesn’t mind at the moment.
He shakes out the towel and sits, watching Max wade up to nearly the hem of her shorts. She comes back when she’s soaked from the top of her head to her toes, beaming. Billy stands up and shakes out the sand from the towel, throws it at her damp hair.
Max dries off, wraps herself in the towel and sits on the sand next to him. “You don’t think your car is a little..” She trails off, biting at her lip and hesitant in a way he hasn’t seen in a few days.
“What?” Billy snarls half-heartedly. They’re both exhausted from their time on the road and not even wiggling bare toes in the sun-warmed sand is enough to overcome it.
“It stands out. You know that.” Max says quietly. She jabs her thumb behind them at the public parking lot full of sedans and minivans and Billy’s muscle car.
“I’m not getting rid of her.” Billy shuts that idea down. “The title’s mine, we can change the plates to California ones and then it won’t be a problem at all.”
“Okay,” Max agrees cautiously. She looks out at the waves again. “I want to stay here, Billy.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, leaning back on the towel. “This is the life.”
“No.” Max shakes her head emphatically. Her braids hit her cheeks and she doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean, no more anger from you. No trying to hit my friends as you drive past or yelling at me.”
“I can try,” Billy offers. He’s not sure how long it will last. Hell, Billy isn’t sure who he is under all that anger that’s been broiling under his skin since his mom walked out the door and left him behind in Neil’s care. “That means you need to be on time, and listen to me. Do well in school, don’t make a fuss.”
Max sticks out her hand, sunshine grin plastered on her freckled face. “To staying out of trouble?”
Billy takes her hand in his, shakes it as he smirks back at her. “To not getting caught,” he corrects and it brings an unfamiliar sense of emotion to watch her laugh again at his words in the sunlight.
He wonders if this is what happiness is.