Chapter Text
Every time she closes her eyes Max can see it. The tentacles entering his body, piercing through his chest. She sees his mouth open in a scream but oddly enough she never actually hears anything. She had felt pain then, watching someone die is never easy, especially not a brother. Or step-brother. Max and Billy never liked each other but they had had a sort of understanding, the way business partners do. Mutual understanding leads to mutual survival, while the opposite could lead to mutual destruction. So yeah, Max had felt pain at his death, most of it from watching someone she cared about die. But also from watching her safety line die.
It was an unspoken agreement. When their parents had gotten married Max learned pretty quickly that Neil had a “unique” style of parenting. It only took a few times of Billy getting smacked around before Max casually started lying. One of Neil’s friends said they saw Billy smoking outside the drugstore on 3rd? Couldn’t be him cause Billy was helping Max with her reading assignment. Neil was about to pound on Billy for taking a $20 from the kitchen drawer, Max was actually the thief. She needed tampons (Neil always left when feminine hygiene was mentioned). Max covered for Billy without him having to ask and in turn he protected her.
Out of everyone in their little dysfunctional family Max had been hit the least. She tried, she really did, to stay on Neil’s good side but over the years it was impossible to be perfect all the time. Neil may accept her tomboy personality and tendency to talk back but the one thing he never accepted was poor grades, or disrespect. Although, sometimes he was just drunk.
After Max started covering for Billy, Billy started covering for Max. Lightly kicking her under the table whenever it was time to shut her mouth or taking her report cards and changing the B- to an A without a word. Even distracting Neil when he got too drunk. None of this they vocalized to each other. And outside of this pact the two of them still hated each other. But they had respect. Billy still broke Max’s stuff and Max still put glue in his hairspray. Billy still squeezed her arm a little too hard at times and Max purposefully pushed his buttons. But these disagreements never made it back to Neil. Anything they had going on between themselves was dealt with between themselves.
So Billy dying was more than just an emotional loss. She couldn’t really put it into words, it was just more. When Max was dropped off after the mall incident and a cop sat her mother and stepfather down Max had run to her room. The following weeks weren’t pretty, both her mom and her gathered more bruises than ever before. It was fine though, Max could deal with it. It wasn’t like she loved Billy or anything. Neil loved Billy in his own fucked up way, but not Max. And hey, Billy was dead after all, at least Max was alive.
She was lucky to, with El moving in with the Byers and everyone taking time to process there really wasn’t anyone to notice her split lip.
And it was fine, she was alive.
But was that really better?
At night Max liked to remember how she and Billy were as kids. They were both so small and relatively harmless that their dislike of each other was almost comical. She would smile remembering the time Billy ripped up her poster and she retaliated by putting salt into his football practice water bottle. The next day Max had covered for him, telling Neil that those computer searches for “shirtless teenage boys” were hers. She had had to quickly explain how she got the password for the computer (someone had left it open) and had gotten a very awkward puberty talk along with two hits from a ruler but when she got back to her room the poster was crudely taped back up and back on her wall.
She didn’t miss him though. No, you can’t miss someone you didn’t like.
Billy had gotten rougher as he got older. Hair pulling turned into harsh shoves into walls and bruising grabs. He started staying away from home more which put Max in difficult situations at first until he started taking her with him. He never explained where he was going, he’d just drop her off at an arcade with some money or the skate park for a few hours. When they got home Max would fabricate some elaborate story about the library or any other location that wouldn’t get either of them beat, Billy especially. But he was still an asshole, and she was still a brat. They just got along like the sky and the sea.
After two months Max was getting tired. It took a lot of energy to constantly be healing bruises, to live on adrenaline and fear. Maybe if she was less tired she would have noticed the strange anomalies happening around her sooner. The first one she did notice, however, was during the first night back to school.
Neil was yelling, he was always yelling these days.
“COME HERE”. Max had been trying to escape to her room before Neil noticed she was home. Today there had been a school assembly about the mall fire, she really hoped they hadn’t informed home. No such luck. Max walked over to where he was lounging in the lay-Z-boy. “Did they mention him?” She didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. “Did they talk about my boy?” He took another sip from the can in his lap.
“No, sir”
The can hit her chest with a dull smack.
“Why not?” It wasn’t a real question but Max knew she needed to answer it nonetheless.
“I don’t know”
“Excuse me?”
She flinched, shit “I don’t know, sir”. G-d, Billy wouldn’t have messed up like that.
“They’re trying to forget my boy aren’t they. Push him under the rug with that faggot from last year. No one cares about my boy”. Neil stood up wobbly, Max didn’t move. “All they care about is that sheriff and you lot of fucking survivors”. He took another step forward. “I had to bury my boy in this Hick town and you survived”. He was standing over her now, face just a few inches from her own. Max kept her eyes down but flinched when a breath of beer hit her face. “What did you do…”.
Her head snapped up “wha-“.
That was the wrong choice. As if to answer her the lights above flickered.
Something struck Max in her stomach and she keeled over coughing. She tried to huddle into a ball to provide herself with a semblance of protection but a hand grabbed her throat, picking her up and slamming her into the wall.
“I KNOW YOU DID SOMETHING. DON’T FUCK WITH ME MAXINE, BILLY WAS STRONG. ARE YOU STRONG MAXINE?” He slammed her into the wall again, dislodging the hands that had been scrambling for her neck. She could feel tears prickling at the corner of her eyes and the lights overhead seemed to be flashing more rapidly. “ARE YOU”. Neil was so close now that spittle landed right on Max’s cheek. The hand around her neck tighter and she gagged. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BOY, WHAT DID YOU DO TO BILLY. HE SHOULDN’T HAVE DIED WHY DID YOU LIVE WHAT DID YOU DO.” The lights were flashing brightly.
Oh yeah, that was it. At least she was alive, right?
Max couldn’t hear anymore, the blurring from her vision travelling as white noise into her ears. She could see the darkness creeping into her sight, feel herself slipping closer and closer towards unconsciousness.
Suddenly the lights above their heads exploded. Glass rained down on stepfather and stepdaughter. Neil hissed and let go of her neck as shards pierced his back. Max collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath as she put a hand to her throbbing neck. Above her Neil cursed, holding up a hand showing blood and muttering something about “Damn hick houses”. She sat up, pressing her back against the wall as focused on taking deep, slow, breaths.
“Get the tweezers from my bathroom, girl” Neil waved lazily at her as he inspected the spot where the ceiling light used to be. He wasn’t wobbling as much as before, nothing like tiny shards of glass to sober a man up she guessed. It was something Neil could do so easily that Max considered it a talent. He could go from frothing at the mouth to calm and collected in a second. At times like these she was grateful for it.
When Max’s mom came home it was too Neil and Max in the kitchen. Neil was sitting on a chair, shirt off, while Max used the tweezers to pick the small pieces of glass from his back. It had been hard at first, her hands had been so shaking she actually ended up cutting him more. But he didn’t say anything and eventually she calmed down.
As Max’s mom walked into the kitchen, asking Neil about the broken glass in the living room her eyes flickered over the bruises on her daughter's neck. But she didn’t say anything, and neither did Max.
Incidents like that with the lights became more frequent. Small flickering seemed to follow Max wherever she went at home. The big flickering became normal with Neil’s breakdown, although actual broken glass only occurred once in a blue moon. Four different electrical companies had been to the house, each one telling the same story. No, the electrical system wasn’t broken. No, they didn’t know why the lights were flickering and frankly they were starting to think it was his eyes. Had he been to see an optometrist? Yes? Well then, perhaps they needed an exorcist, or a priest.
No more electricians came to the house after that visit, and no priests came either.
Neil kept ragging, the lights kept flickering and Max was getting hit less and less. Whenever it looked like Neil was going to lash out the lights would start up again and her stepfather would stomp off to check the electrical box, again. She knows it’s odd, but Max was starting to feel a connection with the lights. In a weird way they felt like they were protecting her. She even played around with the idea of a guardian Angel but not for long. Then again, if bald twelve year old's could throw cars, maybe there was a spirit watching over her. It was comforting at the least.
Her first hint that something was going on came from the stalkers. They were at school grabbing lunch when Mike made the joke that caught Max’s attention.
“All I am saying is Will wasn’t this good with technology before he fused with the lights” Mike held his hands up in a placating manner. Will blushed bright red. Dustin groaned and Lucas punched Mike’s shoulder.
“Dude, that is so messed up,” Lucas said.
Mike turned to Will. “Come on, when the radio busted last week you took that thing apart like you were its father”.
“Or daddy”
It was now Mike’s turn to playfully punch Lucas.
Will looked thoughtful “maybe, I don’t really know. When I was in the lights it wasn’t like I was in the lights. It was like… I was using a muscle that I couldn’t feel?” The three boys were watching Will intensely, Max, on the other hand was just confused. “I guess sometimes when I’m using technology I feel like I’m using that muscle again?”
With every second that passed where no one spoke Will turned redder and redder. Suddenly Dustin broke into a wide smile, “Dude, that’s so cool”,
“You got a freaking super power, man” congratulated Lucas.
Max had had enough, “would someone like to explain what you’re talking about?” She interrupted.
“Oh yeah, forgot you weren’t there Max”. She rolled her eyes. “Remember how I told you Will talked to his mom through those Christmas lights?”
She nodded at Lucas. “So you were really controlling the lights? It wasn’t the Demogorgon?”
“What? No, why would you think that?”
She shrugged “Seemed like a smart way to lure your mom in”.
Mike shook his head, “they aren’t that smart”
The conversation moved on to other things as the group started back up to the lunch room. But a thought stopped Max in her tracks.
The lights.
No, it wasn’t possible. Plus who would be sticking by her? Hopper would go to Jane if he was out there somewhere, and Billy was dead. She shook her head as if to clear out that thought. It was dumb. Lucas called back to her to hurry up and she jogged back to the group.
Plus, even if Billy was alive. He wouldn’t stick around her.
Billy’s funeral had been held on a sunny day, two weeks after he died. Her “family” had all dressed in black and headed to one of the many churches not too far away. Max didn’t remember the name. Billy’s casket had already been up at the front when they entered, although the lid was closed. Besides a photo Neil had been asked to look at in the coroner's office nobody had actually seen Billy’s body since the day he died. According to the mortician it was unrecognizable. There hadn’t been a lot of people there, just Neil, Susan, Max, some guys from the high school and a handful of Billy’s hookups. Neil had sent them sharp glances throughout the entire ceremony.
So no, Billy hadn’t disappeared like Will. The last time he was alive was with a gaping hole through his chest. Max knew that wasn’t something survivable, but a little part of her wished it was. So no, Billy wasn’t alive, Max had been to his grave after all.
Some days were worse than others. You didn’t fight demon dogs and watch people die without getting your own little dose of PTSD. Everyone in the group had their own things. Steve didn’t do well in small spaces, Dustin didn’t like the dark, Mrs. Byers sometimes had panic attacks when the phone rang and Will sometimes couldn’t tell what was reality. And then of course they all had nightmares. She had gotten one nasty bruise after Steve had called the house at 3am needing to make sure she was safe. She hadn’t been but that wasn’t for him to know.
Everyone in their little trauma bonding group also had their own coping mechanism. El turned to crushing cars in the nearby junkyard, and Max, she turned to self harm. But hey, every girl has got her thing and she wasn’t alone in this one. She and Robin had been pulled aside once and given a lecture on the dangers of cutting by Mrs. Byers. She hadn’t realized anyone noticed. It had been embarrassing and violating but the book Mrs. Byers had given them was actually useful at times. She practiced breathing exercises whenever Neil was especially mad. Besides that, it had brought her closer to the other girl. Robin even confided that the reason she did it was because of the time she and Steve were kidnapped. They didn’t hurt her, at least not physically. But Steve had been beaten black and blue, she had a hard time accepting that and so she got a razor blade. Max told Robin she did it because of Billy’s death, both girls pretended like they didn’t know she was lying.
But some days were worse than others, for Max, today was one of those days. She knew she was being reckless, she was going deeper than she should and on her wrist of all places. Something in her mind was screaming at her though, it was drowning out all other conscious thoughts. She needed to go deeper, to feel to do something that did something. She was supposed to call Robin at times like these but that wasn’t happening. Max briefly wondered if it was because she wanted to die? She quickly pushed that thought aside.
Being alive was better than being dead after all. Or at least it should have been…
Max had found herself increasingly jealous of Billy recently. Why was he the one that got to leave this shithole? Why was he the strong one? Why wasn’t she good enough to be like him? And why did she long so much for someone she hated. None of it made sense, the only thing that made sense in that moment was that she needed to go deeper.
The phone rang. Max’s head shot up, a brief moment of clarity from her foggy mind. It rang again. She looked towards her bedroom door. Who would be calling her at 10pm? Both Neil and her mom were out so it was only her in the house. She stood up, grabbing a wad of tissues she pushed it to her wrist until it seemed like the blood would keep it in place. She made her way into the kitchen and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?” She called into the receiver. The other line sounded gurgley, like the connection wasn’t too good. “Hello?” She called again and heard nothing. She was about to hang up when suddenly…
“Max”
The world froze, it couldn’t be.
“M-, p-ease stop” it was, she knew that voice anywhere. It was garbled and kept cutting out but Max knew that voice.
“B-billy?”
It was like he couldn’t hear her. He just kept talking, “k-ll -orself, gotta -op”. His voice was getting more and more distorted until his voice was unintelligible. She stood there frozen, unable to make her mouth work, unable to ask Billy if he was alright, if he was alive, if he was real. Eventually the phone cut off and all that filled Max’s ears was silence.
This was what happened to Mrs. Byers. Max thought back to Will’s explanation about the lights and to how his mom always flinched when the phone rang. Something bright started bubbling up in her chest, pushing into the back of her eyes until tears fell. Billy was alive, he had to be.
The tears stopped. Wait. Her Billy would never say please. Her Billy would never stick around her. Her Billy was six feet under with a foot wide hole in his body. She suddenly felt a new sensation, a burning sensation that spread to all her limbs.
Someone was fucking with her.
And they were using her dead stepbrother.
Max let out a primal shout, halfway between a scream and a growl. She spun around and punched the wall. What kind of sick fuck would prank call a mourning family’s house as their dead relative.
She was mad.
She was furious.
And she was lost.
That’s where Neil and her mom found her two hours later. Curled up in a fetal position on the floor, phone smashed on the ground next to her and a tiny pool of dried blood under her wrist. Neil made Susan go to their room while he dealt with the mess Max had made. She was so far gone though that Max didn’t feel a single hit and eventually her stepfather just left after instructing her to clean up the phone and the blood.