Chapter Text
BANG! BANG!
“Max! Please open the door!”
Max pulled her pillow over her head and shut her eyes. The world felt like too much, she could barely move let alone get up and answer the door especially not to see stupid fucking Mike Wheeler. Oh who was she kidding. He’s probably the only person she’d open the door for, but alas moving was too difficult. She started school again last week. Freshman year! Yay! About fifty different girls had come up to her, telling her how sorry they were for her loss, as if they had really known Billy. They hadn't. She hadn’t either, but she knew enough to know he was a monster and she shouldn't miss him because he made her life hell. She missed him. It was confusing and she was so angry at him, but so grateful because he saved El’s life, so he was a good person, but he made her life hell, so he was a bad person. But Neil was awful, but he chose to hurt her so she shouldn’t mi- AAAHHHH. It was all too fucking much.
“Max.” Mike’s voice was closer now, quieter, gentler.
Light flooded into her world as the pillow was lifted off her face. When her eyes readjusted she looked over to where Mike was kneeling, he was next to her bed, not touching, just being there. She went to grab the pillow out of his hands, but he tossed it aside and stood up then sat down on the end of her bed.
“We were supposed to go to the arcade together. Lucas was really worried when you didn’t show.” She sat up slightly, too tired to do anything else and then rolled her eyes at him. “I didn’t want to go either Max, but we promised each other we’d try.”
“I did try.” Her voice cracks on the word try and she looks away from him, tears welling up in her eyes at the mention of Lucas.
Sweet, kind Lucas who she had to break up with because she just could not do this anymore. Lucas who just wanted to fix her, for everything to go back to the way it had been before the Russians and before Starcourt, but it couldn’t. Things would never be the same. Now she never had energy to do anything, she was tired all the time and Billy was dead and Will and El were gone to California and she just couldn’t do it anymore. And she knew Mike was struggling too, he’d never gotten the chance to talk to Will or El, and everything had been terrible for him even before last summer. She knew that the Russians had been worse for him because now he couldn’t remember some things and words slipped out of his grasp all the time and sometimes he’d get these terrible tremors and he’d drop things and really everything was worse for him so why was she the one who couldn’t move. Too busy mourning the brother that she’d never even liked.
“Max…” His tone sounded defeated and when she looked up he had a clear look of sadness in his eyes, she was only just getting used to him not guarding all his features around her. “Ok. Thank you for trying. When was the last time you ate?”
She almost laughed in his face, because she knew he almost never ate, though she supposed it was for wildly different reasons. She ate so rarely because even getting out of bed was a huge challenge, there was almost no chance she ever felt good enough to get up and get food and then eat the food. She knew he never ate because he was punishing himself, though he hadn’t told her she'd noticed, noticed that he rarely ate and when he did he threw up regularly. It was scary how skinny he was, whenever they sat together she could feel his bones poking into her. She also knew that no one else paid enough attention to either of them to really notice, Lucas might’ve if he knew the signs or knew what any of them meant. If he wasn't so hell bent on everything being normal. If he wasn't filling his time with basketball or joining the D&D club with Dustin and Mike. Though she knew Mike didn’t want to be in it, once again he was better at hiding that something was wrong, she was envious of his ability to hide so well and wondered how he’d gotten so good. Billy had been good at hiding too, very differently though. Billy attacked before people could get him, he started fights and slept with girls and was an asshole, but it worked, no one ever really knew how much he was hurting. Max only found out when they were packing up his things and she found a journal that he’d written in. Mike was more defensive, he lashed out when he felt attacked and hid behind silence and distance, he knew when was the right time to leave without seeming suspicious. Everyone worried about Max, her best hiding wasn't hiding it was escaping, just leaving, everyone worried, but at least she wasn't there to see the worry.
“Max!” Mike’s voice cut through her thoughts and she came back to the present. Right, he’d asked her a question.
“Uh… I don’t know? Yesterday?” He looked at her for a second longer before getting up and leaving the room
The first time he’d done this she’d worried he wasn’t coming back, but he had with food. As he did every time he came because Max just couldn’t take care of herself, because she was stupid. She’d try to stop him, but he’d looked her dead in the eyes-which was rare, he usually avoided eye contact-and asked who else would. He stared at her until she admitted no one, her mom was never sober or home, Lucas and Dustin had no idea how bad things had gotten and Will and El were in California. So she let him take care of her, let him give her food and braid her hair when she didn’t have the energy to shower. Sometimes in return she even got him to eat with her.
When Mike came back with a sandwich she’d propped herself up in bed, with a pillow on her lap for support. He placed the plate on the pillow then turned away and started silently cleaning the cramped room. She’d had to get rid of a lot of things when she and her mom had downsized yet somehow her room got dirtier than it ever had before, it was kept cleaner now since Mike threw out all the garbage, she could even tidy herself sometimes.
School was purely routine these days, it was get up and get out of bed, throw on the nearest clothes that smelled passable, grab her school bag and get on the bus. Sit through five hours of classes, avoid everyone except for Mike at lunch, leave, get back on the bus, collapse into bed, ignore homework. The only time any homework was ever done was if Mike did it with her, but that was rare since he also seemed to have no motivation for it, if their matching C’s were anything to go by. Usually after school she and Mike would just exist together and by usually she meant every day without fail because everyone else was too much. It seemed that being kidnapped and drugged together really made two people closer. Today was different though because Mike had Hellfire club and so she was all alone, just her and her thoughts. The house was quiet, it never used to be quiet, everything used to be so full and loud, even if it was unpleasant. The silence feels wrong, wrong because Billy and her mom and Neil aren't here to fill it with arguing, fill it with fights and violence. Billy isn't here to fill it with his loud workout tapes or to fill it with blaring music or to fill it by turning the television to an unreasonable volume. Billy isn't here to fill it because he’s dead, dead like Max should be. Why should Billy have to have died when he never got the chance for a good life, died for someone he didn’t even know. It should have been her, Billy would still be a functioning member of society. Her mom would still be happy with Neil if it had been her instead of him.
The sound of the door opening interrupted Max’s thoughts, she could hear her mom come into the trailer and collapse on the couch. Everything was quiet again until the TV started blaring through the trailer. She picked up a pillow and shoved it over her face, trying unsuccessfully to drown out the noise. She could get up, sneak out, her mom wouldn’t notice, she could skateboard back to school and meet Mike there and then he’d make fun of her but let her come with him back to his house. That was a good idea. Ok. The first step was getting out of bed. So she rolled over and fell out of bed and onto the floor, painfully, now her back hurt and she needed to get off the floor. It took her another half hour but she was successful! Now getting dressed, then out the window, grabbing her skateboard and setting off towards school. Once at school she checked her watch, the watch that used to belong to Billy, she’d taken it out of the drawer in her room and had gone through Mike’s extensive collection of batteries to find the right one to make it work again. She got to school just in time to see Dustin bike out the other way and three cars pull out of the parking lot. In the parking lot she could see Mike and Lucas standing face to face, Mike was yelling about something and Lucas looked like he was seething. She stayed at the edge of the parking lot, partially hidden by some of the trees. Mike’s back was to her but she could see him gesturing wildly with his hands and while she couldn’t hear what he was saying his tone was clearly very angry. She watched Lucas lift his hands up and shove Mike back, Mike’s voice faltered as he stumbled back and fell to the ground. Lucas turned around and grabbed his bike, he got on and pedalled out of the parking lot. Mike sat up and looked around, scanning the parking lot for people before bringing his knees up to his chest and sobbing into them. She cautiously walked towards him and sat down next to him, she carefully patted his arm and as soon as she made contact with his skin his head snapped up and he scrambled away. He visibly deflated when he saw that it was just her.
“What are you doing here?” Mike stood up and wiped his eyes, clearly trying to pretend he hadn’t just been crying.
“I was wondering if I could come over.” She was trying really hard to make sure her tone didn’t reveal how much she wanted him to say yes. No matter how close they’d gotten she still pretended she didn’t care, just to protect herself. Just in case.
“Sure.” Mike seemed to mistake her silence following his agreement as permission to keep going. “Why?”
“No reason.” She knew he would keep pressing if she didn’t distract him, which was in hindsight not the best idea. “What was that with Lucas?”
“It was nothing.” His tone was irritable and his face got red when she didn’t answer again. “IT WAS NOTHING! Ok!”
She flinched back slightly as he walked back towards the bike rack, clearly angry again. He got on his bike and started pedalling, when he got to the entrance of the parking lot he turned back to her, his face back to sadness.
“Are you coming?”
She hurried after him on her skateboard and followed him back to his house. Neither of them said another word that night, but when they went into his basement he wordlessly pushed the box of tapes that he kept down there towards her. When his mom called him up for dinner he went up and came back down a few minutes later with a plate that he shoved her way. Then she fell asleep on the couch next to him and when she woke up she was covered with a blanket and he was sitting in front of her on the floor, staring into space.
Gravel crunched under her feet as she stepped out of the school and into the back lot, she rounded the corner and sat down. She’d opted out of the school lunch today and so had nothing to do while she waited for Mike, if he showed. She could do her homework, but the motivation was lacking. She reached into the front pocket of her jeans, where she kept the white zippo lighter she had stolen from Billy’s room. She’d taken to opening it on to watch the flame flicker and sometimes go out if the wind was strong enough, it was enchanting. Someone slid down the wall next to her and she looked up, Mike was sitting next to her, his hair that he’d been planning on growing out was partially covering his face and he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing for nearly a week. In one hand he had a container with a half eaten sandwich and in the other he held a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out and put in his mouth he pulled a second one out and held it out to her, a silent offering. She took it and put it in her mouth the same way he had then she brought her lighter up and lit the end, inhaling and choking on the smoke. Mike laughed next to her and she glared at him, he held his hand out for the lighter and she reached up and lit him before closing it and storing it safely in her pocket. Mike showed her how to smoke properly and she only got through about half of it before stopping, she waited for Mike to finish his before speaking.
“Why do you have cigarettes? I didn’t peg you as a smoker.” She watches as he puts the pack in his pocket and pushes his hair out of his face.
“I steal em from my mom. She buys a pack once a week but never smokes any. It's convenient and I like it.”
Max nods, her lungs are burning but she feels lighter in a way and also hungry. “Are you gonna eat that sandwich Wheeler?”
Mike laughs and tosses her the container. “Have at it.”
After lunch they headed off to math class together, stopping at Max’s locker first then Mike’s. Max tossed the now empty sandwich container into his locker as he grabbed his notebook and exercise book. Max turned around just in time to see Lucas coming towards them, she grabbed Mike’s arm and dragged him away and through the crowd. They stopped in one of the nooks and waited until the warning bell rang. Together they ran to class, getting in just before the bell. Sitting down on the opposite side of the class as Dustin just as the teacher walked in, with a pile of tests in her hand. She walked to the front of the class, wrote TEST DAY on the board and started handing out the tests. A test landed in front of Max and she started flipping through it. Math was her best class, she was getting all B’s in it, the same could not be said about Mike, who was looking at his test as if it was written in a foreign language. He glanced over at her with a silent call for help and she angled her test so he’d be able to see, whispering “you owe me” while the teacher was on the other side of the room. He nodded at her and they both started taking the test, Mike copying her pretty much exactly. Some of the test was difficult and by the time the class only had fifteen minutes left she only had three questions left. Mike was trying to be subtle about his cheating, but was pretty leaning entirely across the aisle. It was a good thing that their math teacher liked to read books instead of supervising the class. Just as she was about to start the second last question the door to the class swung open and in walked the guidance counsellor, Ms. Kelley. Ms. Kelley scanned the room quickly before her eyes fell on Max.
“Maxine Mayfield, I’d like to talk to you outside quickly.” Ms. Kelley turned to her teacher. “If that’s alright with you.”
Her teacher nodded so Max figured she had no choice and stood up, Mike grabbed her wrist and when she looked at him he was holding a thumbs up. A silence, are you ok. If she shook her head he’d probably cause a scene to try to get her out of having to go and knowing him he’d succeed. She nodded her head and followed Ms. Kelley out of the class.
“So Maxine I’ve been meaning to ta-”
Max cut her off to correct her. “It’s just Max.”
“Alright. Max. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about coming to my office for sessions. Just to talk. I know it must be hard having lost your brother in that fire and I just want to make sure you're ok. If you're willing, I'd like you to come to my office now so we can figure out a time for you to come in every week.”
“I’m good.” Max shook her head and went to go back into class.
“Please Max. Just a few weeks, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work but at least give it the ol college try.” With that Ms. Kelley sets off towards her office, looking back and making a follow me gesture at Max.
With no other choice Max trails behind her. The silence is awkward all the way to Ms. Kelley’s office and Max wants nothing more than to run away into one of the bathrooms or out the door, but she doesn’t. On the walk she thinks about what Ms. Kelley had said and how she kind of had a point. Max probably needed help and this was free counselling and if it didn’t work she could just stop going. A few weeks, that was three or four, so a month, four sessions. She could do that, it probably wouldn’t help but a little optimism never hurt anybody, right? Maybe she could even talk to Ms. Kelley about getting Mike into her office. If he found out she made her do that he’d hate her, but it was a possibility.
Once they were both seated in Ms. Kelley’s office she took out a binder, opened it, wrote a few things down and then looked up at Max.
“So, I have an opening every Thursday right after lunch. Does that work for you? You’d be missing half of your history class.”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Max decides she’ll show up and give it a real try, but right now she just wants to get to English class to finish writing an essay.
“Oh that’s great Max! I’m proud of you already!” Miss Kelley writes something else down and then closes the file and puts it away.
“Oh, good.” Max's tone is sarcastic and she’s about to say more when she’s cut off by the bell ringing.
“You’re free to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow for our first session” With Miss Kelley’s words Max got up and left quickly, leaving the door open behind her.
She walked back to math class where Mike was waiting with her stuff, which was neatly packed up, she picked it up and together they set off to English class. As soon as the teacher got into class Max pulled out her notebook and got to work on her essay, next to her Mike had a troubled look on his face as he stared down at his own paper. She nudged his foot gently with her own and he looked up at her.
“What’s wrong?” She was whispering so the teacher wouldn’t get mad.
“Nothing.” When she raised an eyebrow at him he sighed and kept talking. “It’s just I’m trying to write this… essay and I can’t…, fuck, conjure up the words I keep wanting to use.”
“Oh. That, uh, sucks.”
“Yeah. It really fucking does.”
Max hated the stupid phone in the Wheeler’s house. It was ringing right now and it was like one in the morning, the ringing had woken Max up from her spot on the couch, what made it even worse was she hadn’t even been having any nightmares. It had been a peaceful night, which was now interrupted by the blaring of he stupid phone. When her eyes came into focus enough to see the room she noticed that Mike was sitting on the floor and staring at the phone, rather warily. He seemed to have no intention of picking up and looked really dazed, not in a the phone just woke me up way, but in a I can’t believe that this happening way.
“Mike.” As soon as Max whispered his name he seemed to snap out of his daze, he whipped his head towards her and had a really startled expression on his face, as if he had no idea that she was here. “Pick up the god damned phone!”
He nodded his head and turned back towards the phone. “Right. Pick up the phone. I can do that.”
If Mike had hesitated a moment longer the answering machine probably would’ve picked up, but since Max was there to snap him out of whatever trance he’d been in he picked it up just in time. She couldn’t help but listen in on the call, curious about who would be calling in the middle of the night on a weekday.
“Hello?”
“Oh. Hi Will.”
A few seconds went by and then Mike slammed the phone back down on the receiver, he turned around and slid to the floor against the post. Max stood up, bewildered, why wouldn’t he talk to Will, Mike always made time to talk to Will. She walked over and sat down in front of him, she reached a hand tentatively towards his knee, but hesitated and kinda left it floating in the air.
“Why’d you hang up?” She waits for his answer and is met only with sniffles. “Are you crying? … Hey… It’s ok.”
She rests her hand on his knee for real and starts rubbing it in circles, trying to be comforting without being overbearing. They sit in silence for a few minutes while Max waits for Mike to calm down and comes up with what to say. When his tears have stopped and he’s lifted his head to look at her she takes another second to think before settling on what to say.
“You know, I haven't talked to El since they moved to California. Not a single phone call or letter, not even to say hi.”
“Why?” Mike’s voice cracks and he sounds so small and broken, something Max is not used to hearing even with how close they’d gotten in the past months.
“It’s complicated…” There's a long beat of silence where Mike just looks at her, waiting for her to keep talking instead of jumping in like he usually does. “Well… There was Lucas and he’s so great, right. And I really liked him, but… It’s complicated.”
“Do you… Are you… You know… El… Like Me?” Mike can’t seem to find the right words to convey what he’s trying to say but she understands nonetheless.
“No. Yes.” She thinks of her sexuality and how she’d already accepted herself by the time she’d moved to Hawkins. How even if everyone wasn't accepting in california these things were still talked about, at least way more than they were here. It was no wonder how long it took Mike to even be able to voice his identity in a tiny way and that he was on drugs when he’d done it.
“What?”
She let out a little laugh at the utter confusion in his voice before explaining herself. “I’m bisexual. Which means I like boys and girls, whereas you only like boys so that makes you gay. At least that’s what I can gather from what you've told me.”
“You can do that?” The look on Mike’s face is so confused that it’s kind of hilarious.
“Do what?”
“Like boys and girls?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Well this is Hawkins, so…” Mike nodded his head in agreement, his face still shining in awe. “Do you think you like girls as well? You just thought you couldn’t?”
“No. I mean I don't think so. I’ve only ever really had crushes on boys.”
Max hesitated for a second before asking her next question, knowing full well it would either lighten the mood and change the conversation topic or it would make Mike shut down and stop talking. She decided to ask it because she had no other ideas to keep the conversation going and she desperately wanted to keep talking. Talking was nice.
“Who was your first crush?”
Mike rolled his at her but he kept talking so things were good. “Honestly?”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Obviously.”
“Ok, but you can’t laugh.”
“No promises Wheeler now spill.”
“It was Jonathan.”
True to her word she started laughing, just a little though. “Byers!?”
“Yeah. I was like seven ok! After him it was Steve. Harrington.” Mike looked back down at his legs and Max was able to see the red on his cheeks even through the darkness.
“Damn.” She was laughing even harder now and he lifted his head back up to glare at her.
“What?”
“It’s just, you and your sister have the same type.” She grabbed a pillow off the floor and buried her face in to not make too much noise as she laughed.
“It’s not like I’d ever date them they were… what do you call them… I know this! Uh… uhh… baby crushes? That’s not ri-”
She cut in before he could get too worked up. “Puppy love?”
“Yeah. That.”
“Yeah and Nancy would never like Will, so you only have most of your crushes in common.” Mike goes quiet at her comment, looking back towards his knees and starting to scratch his ankle right below his sock line.
“Yeah… Will…” Mike looks back up at her, seemingly watching her face for a reaction. “It’s just I still haven't talked to him and I don’t want to do it over the phone because that's kind of dick move and I'm so in love with him Max and what if he hates me and never talks to me angina and we already barely talks and he probably hates me already because of how much i ignored him and I've been sending El letters because she’s easy to talk to and I talked to her before they left but what if Will know I send her letters and not him and he resents me even more, but every time I write him letter they always end with me confessing my love to him and then i have to burn them because i cant keep them because what if my parents find out then they'll kick me out and ill have nowhere to go and you'll have no escape when your trailer‘s is too much and I know I should've talked to Will before they left but every time i tried to start a conversation he thought I was just trying to apologise for being distant over the summer so he'd say its fine and refuses to talk about it so how was i supposed to tell him and oh my go I’m such a terrible friend I mean what kind of awful person falls in love with their best friend and if my dad knew he’d be so disappointed not that he isn't already but that would be the final straw because who really wants to keep a fag around especially me because i have no other redeeming qualities because I'm annoying and I cant seem to do anything right ever and i have nightmares like every night but I’ve had it the easiest like none of the trauma is even mine and I'm the one falling apart and what the hell is wrong with me?”
“Nothing. If you’re an awful person for liking boys and falling in love with your best friend then I’m an awful person too. I'm guilty of the same crimes.” She reaches her hand out and takes the hand that was scratching his leg, she threads them together and squeezes. Mike looked up at her, his cheeks coated in tears and started shaking his head vigorously.
“No you’re good. You don’t hurt and disappoint everyone around you.”
“Yes I do. I haven't talked to El. She sent me a few letters. The last one I read was kind of warped, like it was wet and got dried. She was crying on it. In the letter she begged me to talk to her, to write her back, for anything and I still couldn't do it. Face it Mike we’re too similar. Anything you say about yourself applies to me too. Worse things for me because I was still with Lucas when I fell for her and now I can't talk to either of them.” She squeezed his hand again as tears started to stream down her face.
“It’s different.” Mike had that stubborn glint in his eyes he got when he wasn't going to let someone go, it was a good thing she was more stubborn.
“How!?”
“IT JUST IS! OK!.” He looked back down after his outburst and Max looked up, waiting for someone to come down and catch them.
Mike seemed to notice that even with his head down and spoke, his voice really low, to reassure her. “No one’s going to come down. My mom passes out every night and drinks too much to wake up until the morning. My dad is the deepest sleeper known to mankind and even if he did wake up he wouldn’t get out of his chair he’d just turn on the TV and watch until he fell asleep again. Nancy doesn't care enough to check on me and the only thing that wakes Holly up is someone going into her room and literally shaking her awake or if she has an incentive to wake up earlier and I haven't promised her anything for this morning.”
Max nods her head and shuffles over so she’s sitting next to Mike, grabbing a blanket on the way, their everywhere since the basement is an absolute mess. She awkwardly rests her head on his shoulder and drapes the blanket over them. She squeezes his hand again before falling asleep against him.