Chapter Text
The only possession of Billy's Max kept was an old band t-shirt.
She didn’t know what band it was. The font was too distorted to make it out.
When her mother left her stepfather and they were sorting through possessions, everything in Billy’s room was tossed or given away. Most of it was tossed.
It was like he could be scrubbed clean out of their lives. To Max’s knowledge not even his father kept a keepsake. Max was certain she didn’t want anything of Billy’s either.
Her mother, and a few of Max’s friends, were clearing out the last things from his room when Max found the t-shirt down the back of the bed. She picked it up with her shirt sleeve pulled around her hand so her skin wouldn’t make contact with it.
She held it at arms length and just stared at it.
For a moment she wanted with her entire being to burn it. Then her eyes started to sting and become glossy. She balled it up, still careful to not let it touch her, checked her mother wasn’t in the hallway to see her, then buried it deep into one of her bags of clothes.
~
For the first few weeks in the new house the t-shirt stayed at the bottom of the bag, almost forgotten.
Max wasn’t one to unpack quickly.
~
When she had finally unpacked everything, the t-shirt was shoved into the back corner of her draws with a gap built around it so it wouldn’t touch any of the other clothes.
~
One day Max was putting off going to bed and on impulse took a pen and used it to retrieve the t-shirt from the back of the drawer.
She hung the t-shirt on the back of a chair and sat on her bed staring at its shape in the dark until she fell asleep.
~
Max had had nightmares since the battle of Starcourt.
The easiest were when she was watching Billy die again and again and again. On less easy nights she was Billy, watching herself be impaled through his bloodshot eyes.
On the worst nights she was the creature, striking her step-brother over and over long past when he had stopped breathing. She could even smell his blood.
One night, she woke up soaked in cold sweat and tears. Her mother never heard her wake, or if she did she never checked in on her. Every shadow in her room seemed to have eyes and teeth pointed at her.
She hurtled across the room, grabbed Billy’s t-shirt from its resting place and pulled it on over her pyjamas on the way back to her bed. Once under the covers she pulled the t-shirt up over her face.
The fabric smelled like cigarette smoke, cheap drink and old mustiness.
She hated that it smelled like him. But more than that she hated that it didn’t smell like a dead person’s t-shirt. Billy could wear this t-shirt tomorrow to drop her at school or to eat breakfast opposite her or to play music too loud from the next room over.
Hidden here, Billy could still be alive.
She could not deny her fear and hate for him. But she could also not deny some other feeling. Some feeling that had called him her brother since day one, no matter what. In this t-shirt, that glimmer of a brother she had seen in his last moments, could be safe and at home with her.
She still had bad dreams when she fell back to sleep, but they were subdued. The monster was still there, but it moved slowly as if through water. She and Billy were still there and Billy still died, but there was no blood and neither of them screamed.
They just moved through the motions of the scene without hurry, and then the dream would restart and they would do it all again.
~
The nightmares came back the next night so when she woke she put the t-shirt back on.
~
The same the following night.
~
The night after she just went to bed in the t-shirt.
~
She slept in Billy’s t-shirt every night for months. It still worked at keeping her dreams at bay so wearing it for sleep became the norm.
Sometimes when she got home from a long day at school she would put it on over everything else she wore and wear it straight through the afternoon, evening and into the night.
Then there came a particularly bad week. She almost fell asleep in every class and couldn’t remember when she was supposed to smile when her friends were talking to her. She hadn’t had a letter from El in an age and her mum was drinking again.
She began to wear the t-shirt all the time, at home and under her usual clothes at school. She barely peeled it off her skin to shower. When wearing it, her lungs had room to breath and her bones held her up with a fraction more strength.
There was an unfortunate side effect to this habit however.
“Max you smell.” Mike informed her at lunch as he scooted away from her at their table in the school cafeteria. “Like actually. Like when was the last time you bathed?”
Billy’s t-shirt hadn’t been washed since she found it in her old house. The time it would be in the wash was too long for her to wait to wear it.
Lucas and Dustin were too polite to be this honest. Not Mike though. Not with her. And vice versa.
Max rolled her eyes. “Like you’re any better, Beanpole. Why do you sweat so much? No one that is that unathletic should be able to sweat that much with all the sitting around nerding you do.”
Mike answered with his mouth full, “The way you smell should require a doctor.”
“The way you exist should require a psychiatrist.”
Mike looked on the verge of shooting something back at her, but he swallowed it and slurped his chocolate milk instead.
Max realised later as they were walking to class he was probably going to say something about her seeing a psychiatrist, which she did. And he had held back.
~
Micheal Wheeler was one of Max’s closest friends, though this could never be said by her outwardly or internally.
They would bicker and argue, most of the time over stuff that was stupid and small. Sometimes even the way Mike breathed annoyed Max. He would open his mouth and she would preemptively groan, just knowing that he was about to say something moronic. Sometimes they would get into an argument and he would stop speaking and would just yell noises at her until she would cross her arms and glare him in silence.
Any or all of this would happen, then the next day, or even in the next few minutes, they would walk to class together.
They’d cycle with the others to the park. Play DnD side by side. They had pictures of each other on their walls along with all their other friends. They’d even mention the other in their letters to El and Will (sometimes even in a good light).
Anyone who even remotely knew them, knew they could get under each other’s skin by looking at the other the wrong way. However they were also known to be, more often than not, voluntarily in each other’s company.
Their closest circle included each other. No one could deny it.
~
Max’s mom had taken Billy’s t-shirt to be washed.
She had picked it up whilst Max was in the shower, taken one whiff and unthinkingly had thrown it in with the rest of the dirty laundry.
As soon as Max realised she wanted to save it, but it had gone to a friend of her mother’s because they didn’t owe a washing machine anymore.
Feeling stupid about the whole thing, Max didn’t bother her mother with her distress. She paced around her room, still damp from the shower. Her skin itched everywhere and she was suddenly so cold.
She paced and paced. She rubbed her arms and chest, trying to get the feeling of panic out of her skin. It was silly really, she told herself, it was just a t-shirt, and it did smell.
It had stopped smelling like Billy long ago. Now it was stained with old sweat and breakfast. The print on the front had been worn when she had first got it, but now barely anything remained.
Her room felt smaller with every second that passed.
At last she stomped her foot and threw on the first clothes she had lying around (they felt wrong - somehow too soft and too coarse at the same time). She left through her window out of old habit and set off as the evening set in.
~
“What are you doing here…in my house?”
Max ignored Mike. She had noticed a picture of Mike from a year or so ago. He was wearing the same plaid blue shirt as her. The exact same shirt in fact.
“Max why - actually how did you get in?”
Max had borrowed the shirt from El after a sleepover and had never returned it. Eleven must have got it from Mike. So now Max owned Mike’s shirt.
“Max, it's late. Is Lucas or any of the others here too?”
She’d definitely worn it in front of him. She’d worn it plenty of times when she was with him and the others at school or the arcade. He had never said anything though.
“Max? Max. Max Max Max MAX!”
Max finally turned to face him. They were in his basement. She had got in through a window and climbed down to find him then got distracted. With no good excuse prepared she just raised her eyebrows at him like he was the one being irrational.
Mike sighed and crossed his arms. “What do you want? Why didn’t you go to Lucas’ or Dustin's or-”
He stopped himself before he finished his thought. Max knew he was definitely about to say El’s or Will’s house, but she pretended not to notice.
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Lucas isn’t home and Dustin is trying to teach Steve DnD again this evening.” It wasn’t fully a lie. She was pretty sure they were both busy.
“Then again: Why are you here?”
She breezed past him and his question in the direction of the freezer. She opened it and started rummaging around as if she couldn’t feel him watching her.
“Are you out of ice cream again?”
Mike huffed and approached her. He started putting back the food she took out which she in turn would take back out again as if she didn’t notice him.
“Max. Max! You can’t just show up and start eating my food.” She took no notice. “Max whatever you want can’t we just deal with it tomorrow? My parents don’t want anyone over after ten on weekdays-”
Max walked away with a box of lollies under her arm. She kept her face hidden from Mike. The cold under her skin was building and it took all her concentration to not shake.
Mike followed right after her. “Max. Max! You need to go away! I’m serious!” He was being harsher than usual for their standards. “Why are you being such a pain? Why? Why are you like this?!”
Max reckoned he was tired after a long day and she herself was acting on blunt instinct. What they would normally let slide between them they let grate at each other.
“Max, stop eating those and go home! Give me them!”
“El wouldn’t mind.”
It wasn’t a fair move and she knew it. She had seen how Mike lit up when a new letter from El came in and the way he would dim until another came. And underneath that she noticed him looking for Will around the DnD table. How he read every letter Will sent but sent a mere handful back. He missed them both but…
Mike’s face set. “Shut up.”
Max could feel herself overstepping, but she couldn’t seem to remember why she shouldn’t. Her skin was on fire, her lungs were screaming and her head hurt to no end.
She threw the box at Mike.
It hit him on the forehead. Didn't even graze him.
“What is your problem?!” Mike yelled. He shoved her hard.
Blood hot, Max charged at him.
~
Some fights between friends are held back. There may be a tussle, a smack or two to the face, but overall it is reserved.
Mike and Max were no such friends. They were always the most honest with each other, for better or worse.
Max hit Mike square in the face and scratched her nails down his arms. Mike pulled her hair and kicked her shins. They hit and scratched anything they could get at. When Mike clamped his hand over her face she bit him, when Max scratched his neck he headbutted her jaw.
Mike was bigger than Max, but he had only ever fought with his sister over the TV remote or play-fought with friends. To fight, for Max, had sometimes been to survive. She was always going to win.
Max grappled Mike to the ground where thankfully the carpet softened the blow to his head. As he tried to recover she trapped his arms beneath her knees and struck his face with her fist once, then twice.
Mike freed an arm and he tried to push her off him but her weight just came crashing down on top of him instead. He hit her on the back and squirmed until he realised that her shrieks had turned to wailing and she was not wrestling him, but clinging to him. Her tears wet his hair.
He stopped, more at a loss than anything.
He was battered and his lip was bleeding. Max had him pinned down and was crying into the crook of his shoulder.
Mike took a breath. Difficult with Max’s weight on top of him, but he managed it. The basement was silent but for Max sobbing. The sound of a car passed by.
Slowly, hesitantly, Mike put his arms around Max. She didn’t cease her crying or push away from him, so with great struggle, he kept one arm around her and lifted them both into an almost upright sitting position. There he enclosed both arms around her. After a bit he rested his head on her shoulder and gently stroked her back.
Mike could be an idiot sometimes when it came to reading between the lines and deciding how to deal with things. But this, this sudden spike of urgency, this sudden spike of need from another person, was where he thrived. The tugging in his chest felt right. He felt starved sometimes - starved of other’s need for his help. Lost without that pull.
He murmured sorries into her ear and held onto her.
After a long while, Max’s desperate grip loosened. She dropped her arms and sat back a bit. He looked at her, really looked at her, his eyes all soft with concern. She bristled at the alienness of it and half-heartedly shoved his chest. Mike barely reacted, his eyes still on her. Max looked away and hiccuped wetly.
Mike shuffled her gently off him onto the floor. He stood and retrieved the fallen packet of lollies. He returned, rubbing the moisture from his eyes, and gestured to the couch behind them. Max shuffled along the floor until her back was against it and did not rise to sit on the seat. Mike still said nothing. He folded his lanky form next to her. He unwrapped a lolly and handed it to her. She took it and held it in her hand. Mike unwrapped his and slurped at the ice in a way that would normally irritate Max.
Max touched the frozen sugar to her lips then licked them. She remembered that she was hungry but that she didn’t really want a little lolly. She wanted sandwiches and cereal and a roast - a big roast - the sort in those family thanksgiving pictures. She wanted to go upstairs and pretend she lived in this beautiful house with the cool big sister and sweet little sister, with a mom who made her pancakes for breakfast and a dad who was useless but wasn't cruel and the friends who practically lived in the basement.
It was silly really, she thought. She began to cry again anyway. Not like the wailing earlier, but softly. She spotted the marks she had left up Mike’s arm. She had even drawn blood in some places.
She breathed a shaky breath “I’m just like-”
“No you’re not.”
Max wasn’t certain if he knew what she had been thinking. It didn’t really matter.
They sat together as the night moved in outside. Mike finished his lolly and then also Max’s with her nodded consent. He didn’t seem to care that her saliva had been on it.
Eventually, Mike turned a little towards her. “Do you want to sleep? I could make the couch up-”
“No.” Max said firmly. “No not now…not…I can’t sleep.”
“It’s really no trouble.” Mike replied, missing her reasoning.
“No it’s…I’ve got to go.”
She scrambled up, ran up the stairs two at a time, down the hallway and out the front door before Mike could even make it out the basement.
“Wait Max!” Max heard Mike call after her as she skated down the road into the night. “Come back! What did you want? What was wrong? Max! What was wrong?”