Chapter Text
Billy wakes up drowning.
Not in water—heat
It presses in from every side, thick and smothering, like he’s wrapped in something too heavy to breathe under. His mouth is dry, tongue sticking to the roof of it. Every inhale scrapes his chest raw.
He opens his eyes.
The world swims into focus in fragments: dead trees, sky, the edge of a tarp fluttering gently above him. The light is wrong—too dim, too orange. Evening.
Max isn’t right there this time. Panic spikes sharp and immediate.
“Max?” he croaks. His voice barely makes it past his throat.
A second later, she’s there, appearing at his side like she’s been summoned by the sound of his breathing alone.
“I’m here,” she says quickly. “I just went to grab more water. You okay?”
Billy nods automatically. Then tries to sit up. His brain sends the signal. Nothing happens. His shoulders tense, his arms strain, but his body doesn’t follow through the way it should. There’s no sharp pain—just a sick, hollow heaviness, like his lower half is anchored to the earth.
Billy’s breath stutters. “No,” he mutters. “No, no—”
“Billy,” Max says, hands on his shoulders now. “Don’t push it.”
“I can’t—” He swallows hard, tries again, harder this time.
Still nothing.
The world tilts at the edges of his vision. His heart slams against his ribs, too fast, too loud. “I can’t move,” he says, panic finally breaking through. “My legs—Max, I can’t feel them right.”
She freezes.
Just for a second.
Billy sees it—the fear she’s been hiding cracking through her expression. Then she schools it away.
“You can feel them,” she says firmly. “You can. It’s just weak. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Billy snaps, more desperate than angry. “I know my body.” He presses his palms into the ground, arms shaking violently as he tries to haul himself up.
The pain hits then—white-hot, tearing through his side like he’s being ripped open all over again.
“Stop,” Max says, voice tight. “You’re gonna tear your stitches.”
“Stitches?” he pants.
She winces. “Bandages. And… some fishing line.”
His eyes widen. “You what?”
“You were bleeding out,” she snaps. “I did what I had to do.”
He stares at her, stunned, then lets his head fall back. “…Jesus.”
They sit there in silence, Billy trying to get his breathing under control, Max watching him like she’s bracing for something awful to happen again.
After a moment, Billy whispers, “How bad is it?”
Max doesn’t answer right away. That’s answer enough.
“Max,” he says hoarsely.
She sighs, defeated. “Okay, I know it seems bad…”
“Seems?”
“Okay, it is. It is bad.”
Billy closes his eyes. “And my legs?”
She chews on her lip. “You move them a little when you’re asleep. Not much. I don’t know if it’s fever, or shock, or…” Her voice wobbles. “I’m not a doctor.”
The fear finally settles in his gut, heavy and real. “If I can’t walk,” he says quietly, “you shouldn’t stay.”
Max’s head snaps up. “Don’t even start.”
“I’ll slow you down,” he continues. “You can’t—”
“I am not leaving you,” she says, furious now. “Stop trying to get rid of me.”
He laughs weakly. “You should want to.”
She shoves his shoulder—not hard, but enough to get the point across.
“You don’t get to decide that,” she says. “What am I supposed to do out here all by myself? Those things are everywhere”
Billy stares at the sky, blinking hard.
Then he really notices it. The softness. The ground beneath him isn’t hard dirt like he expects. It’s layered— pillows under his shoulders, folded blankets cushioning his hips and legs, something rolled up just right beneath his knees so the pull on his torso doesn’t hurt as much.
Someone has thought about this. Carefully.
Billy swallows. He shifts slightly—just enough to test it—and realizes the whole little setup moves with him, a kind of cocoon. There’s even a jacket tucked up near his neck to keep the chill off.
“…Max?” he murmurs.
“What?”
“Did you… do all this?”
“Obviously.”
“Where’d you even get all this stuff?” he asks.
Max hesitates. Just for a second.
Billy notices. “…Max.”
She sighs. “I went into town.”
“You what?”
“Relax,” she says quickly. “Not Hawkins proper. The edge. Stores that were already wrecked. I was careful.”
“How many times?” he asks.
She looks away. “A couple.”
His hand tightens weakly in the blanket. “You can’t do that.”
“I had to,” she snaps back. “You needed water. Bandages. Food. I couldn’t just—sit here and watch you die.”
“I know,” he says, voice rough. “I know you had to then. But you can’t keep doing it.”
She crosses her arms. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Billy drags in a breath.“You don’t go anymore,” he says. “Not without me.”
Max laughs incredulously. “Billy, you can’t even get up.”
“Not yet,” he agrees. “But I will.”
She shakes her head. “You’re stupid.”
“Max,” he says quietly. “I can’t protect you like this. If something happens to you while I’m stuck here—” His voice breaks.
Max’s expression softens.
“…You think I wanted to go alone?” she asks. “Every time I left, I thought I wouldn’t come back. Or that I’d come back and you’d be gone.”
Billy closes his eyes.
Max doesn’t leave after that.
Instead, she hesitates for a moment—like she’s deciding whether she’s allowed to do something—then shrugs off her jacket and lowers herself to the ground beside him, curling into the edge of the blanket nest he’s lying in.
It’s awkward at first. Too close. Too quiet.
She tugs part of the blanket over herself, shoulders hunched, knees pulled up. Billy can see the faint tremor in her ,like she’s vibrating with energy she doesn’t know where to put.
He hadn’t noticed before. Not really.
“Max,” he says softly.
She startles, eyes snapping to him. “What?”
“Come here,” he murmurs. “You’re gonna freeze.”
She hesitates, then scoots closer, pressing her side carefully against his, like she’s afraid of hurting him. He feels how small she is—how light. How young.
It hits him all at once.
Max stares up at the trees, jaw clenched so tight it almost aches to look at. Her hands are fisted in the blanket, knuckles pale.
“You don’t have to stay awake,” Billy says gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She lets out a shaky breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “Yeah. That’s what you said last time too.”
He remembers flashes—her screaming his name on the road, her hands slick with his blood, her voice breaking when she told him to stay awake.
He hadn’t really let himself think about it.
Billy turns his head just enough to look at her.
Her eyes are still open.
“Max,” he whispers.
“Yeah?”
“You can sleep,” he says. “I’ll stay awake.”
She laughs softly. “You literally can’t move.”
“I can watch,” he counters. “That counts.”
She studies him for a moment, then shifts closer, tucking her head against his shoulder carefully, mindful of the bandages. “…Okay,” she says. “But if you die, I’m gonna be really mad.”
He swallows hard. “Fair.”
The realization settles heavy and warm in his chest: She’s just a kid. A scared kid who dragged him to safety, stitched him together with shaking hands, and kept watch while the world burned.
The thought starts small.
Quiet. Slippery.
She should’ve run.
Billy stares up at the trees, at the gaps in the leaves where the night sky bleeds through, and lets the idea settle in his chest like a stone.
She should’ve left him there.
Back on the road. Blood soaking into the dirt. Him already half-gone, already fading out. It would’ve been fast. Violent. Over before there was time to think about it.
Instead, she’s here. Watching him rot.
He imagines it from the outside—Max sitting beside him day after day, trying to keep him alive with shaking hands and stolen supplies, watching him eat less, move less, disappear a little more each morning.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
God. He did this to her.
She could’ve run. She could’ve gotten away. Found somewhere safer. Somewhere without him bleeding and sick and breaking down in front of her.
She would’ve been scared, sure. Alone. But she wouldn’t be carrying this.
Wouldn’t be learning how to clean wounds. Wouldn’t be waking up every morning wondering if today’s the day she can’t wake him up anymore.
Billy swallows around the lump in his throat.
This is worse. This has to be worse.
A quick death on the road—something sudden, something clean—would’ve been cruel, but it would’ve been over. She wouldn’t be trapped in this slow-motion nightmare
He’s forcing her to sit with it. With him.
“Max,” he says suddenly.
She looks up, startled. “Yeah?”
He opens his mouth.
I’m sorry. I’m dying. None of it comes out.
Instead, he says, “You should… you should leave.”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
“Go back into town,” he mutters, staring at the ground. “Find somewhere safer. I’m just slowin’ you down.”
Her face hardens instantly. “No.”
“I mean it,” he says, pushing through the weakness in his voice. “I’m not gettin’ better. You don’t need to watch this.”
“Billy, stop.”
“You’d be better off,” he insists, panic creeping in now. “You could still make it. I’m already—”
She grabs his chin, forces him to look at her. “Don’t,” she says fiercely. “Don’t you dare.”
He blinks at her, stunned.
“I know you hate me or whatever,” she continues, voice shaking. “But you’re all I have left. I’m all you have left..”
Billy doesn’t answer.
He still thinks she deserves better. He just doesn’t have the strength to make her leave.
Wait, how did we get here, again?