WHAT: El gets her final canon bump and seeks Max out WHERE: Foxway WHEN: This morning WARNINGS: Grief and death talks and give Max All The Hugs 2022 STATUS: Complete
Papa said she hadn’t been ready. That she needed more time to work on her powers and hone them in a way that wasn’t just raw and unpredictable, and she had thought she knew better. She thought if she could just get there in time, go toe-to-toe with Henry (or One, or Vecna) like she had done in the past because she knew him. She had fought him before. She could do it again. She could win again. Kill him again, like she had threatened.
Bold assumption to make when he was… whatever he was, some monster molded by whatever forces that existed and fueled the Upside Down? But she had finally realized, back when he had his soft blonde hair and gentle smiles, trying to forge a bond with her - he was a monster then too.
Now Hawkins was being torn apart, and people were missing (dead, she was sure of it but she did not want to dash hopes), and then there was -
“Max,” she whispered loudly from the other side of the door, having quietly moved through the halls of Foxway like a ghost. The floor had barely made a noise under her weight. It was early; if anyone was up she hadn’t seen them. “Max, open up. It’s me.”
Max was fine. Max was not fine. Max wasn’t in a hospital with broken bones and blinded eyes. Max was here still, alive in every form - a beating heart to match a mind that was there and conscious. Max didn’t die here for a whole minute. Max died there, and El remembered what Papa and Owens had done to her while she flatlined every time they tried to dig up the memories that smothered her powers.
Restart the heart.
It had worked, technically. But El was not convinced that Max was saved.
Even before Vecna had set her as a target, sleep had been a difficult task for Max. Moving into the trailer had only made the problem worse, the walls paper thin giving everyone who lived there a front row seat to everyone else's shouting matches, and the constant worry over her mom. Coupled with everything that had happened at Starcourt playing on repeat in her mind when she tried to close her eyes she was lucky to get a few hours a night. Vallo hadn't really helped there.
While she was glad to be here - clearly back home wasn't the best place to be - it was still hard. People from before what she could remember and she didn't really want, or even know how, to drop what she knew happened to her. It was just easier to go with the flow. Be vague and let other things dominate conversations.
But it was harder to be okay about it all when everyone was asleep and it was just her, her thoughts, and music playing lightly through her headphones. Light enough that she could hear El at the door and Max pulled the headphones off, listened again and then got out of bed.
She moved to the door and opened it for El, concern immediately flooding her face. "El, hey… what's wrong?"
El breathed a sigh of relief. Then she squared her shoulders, and went for it. It being a hug.
Max wasn’t bound to a hospital bed where the only movement was the rise and fall of her chest. Her bones were not broken. They were not in her mindscape - the skateboard park, the school gymnasium. Henry did not sink his claws in her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t in pain or that it still couldn’t happen, and that was a fear that made her chest feel tight.
“I remember,” she whispered, cheeks damp and voice slightly choked. Eleven did not let up on the hugging. “I remember going into your mind. Finding you.”
Listening to you. Waiting for Henry to take the bait. She didn’t want to announce it immediately that she had heard every word that drew him to her because she knew that was a lot, and El showing up like this and trapping her into a hug out of the blue was also a lot.
The hug was a lot, and somewhat unexpected. El was kind of like a skittish cat Max had learned. But could she really be blamed? After everything that El had gone through, Max was impressed most days she even wanted to try to be around people. But Max fell into it quickly and wrapped her arms around her friend, hugging back tightly.
I remember tugged at Max and while there was the smallest relief that she didn't have to keep it quiet with El anymore it was more than drowned out by the sadness that El remembered. She didn't want her friend to have that memory, that worry. That burden.
"I'm sorry," Max said quietly, muffled against El. She wasn't entirely sure what she was apologizing for - just that she was.
"You saved me," was added. Sure and certain. Even if in the end it hadn't ended the way they wanted, El had saved her.
El didn’t feel like she did. Max’s body was alive but there was something still very wrong. Her mind wasn’t there. She didn’t know where it went; if it was gone forever, if Henry somehow had her hostage in a different way, she didn’t know. She hated it.
She also hated how she couldn’t fix it now that she had her powers back (and her powers usually always fixed it), but she didn’t come here to talk about her feelings of inadequacy.
There was an even tighter squeeze before she finally let her ego. One hand was used to wipe her face while the other went on her shoulder. “Can we talk?” El asked, nose a bit stuffed up but it would clear. “There is… something I want to tell you. I think we should sit for it.”
Max pulled back when El did, but her hands lingered against El's forearms for a moment before letting go. She nodded at the request and placed her hand in the cook of El's elbow to walk them back over to her bed.
Max set her pillows up against the headboard and pulled back the top duvet for them before she crawled into the bed, leaving room for El beside her. "You can tell me anything," she assured El. Even if anxiety curled in the pit of Max's stomach at the words, at the way El said them. She was pretty sure whatever was about to be said was not good.
Eleven followed wordlessly. This was familiar - Max had been her first official introduction to a sleepover back in Hawkins, and they’ve had a few here (which made her happy, she has missed this) so this was comfortable. She even went to fluff the duvet a little, making sure they were both sufficiently covered and cozy.
As if that would do anything to soften the blow of the conversation.
“Um,” she started, reaching up to tuck some hair behind her ear except - woops, she didn’t have it long anymore. It was still taking a bit to get used to again. “When I got my powers back I used it to check up on you. All of you. I heard about your plan for Henry. I heard about how you wanted to be bait. That is how I knew to look into your mind.” Max may have already guessed all of this but El wanted a little more explanation to lead up to what she was really getting at. “When you were at the house, with Lucas - I waited with you. I was watching. I was… listening to everything you said. About Billy.”
How Max wished something horrible would happen to him. How she also hated herself for thinking that - and wanting the same kind of outcome for herself too after everything.
Max pulled her knees up under her chin as El spoke, bringing up the time in the house as she tried to call out Vecna. The blanket went with her and she hooked her arms around her legs, chin resting on her knees. Even weeks later it still felt so raw, but then she hadn't really done much in trying to sort it out had she.
"I guess I got to disappear huh?" she said, voice tight. And immediately regretted the words. "Sorry," came quickly after. "That was a bad - joke - not even a joke," tacked on just as quick.
Max's hand pressed hard into her eyes as she swallowed hard against a lump in the back of her throat. "That's the last time I saw Lucas, and he wasn't even - I know it wasn't him, but sometimes I still see it you know? Hear it. Him telling me I'm not normal, that I'm wrong and broken."
Eleven didn’t find that quip funny although she also understood - in a weird way? Max(well) used to cope with humor. So did Richie. Sometimes making jokes about the situation you found yourself in was the best you could do. Max was allowed. It meant she was at least opening up about it, and she could relate to the feeling of not being normal; like there was something inherently and deeply wrong with you, like you were a monster because your thoughts were sometimes violent and dark.
It wasn’t easy to free yourself from that.
“Lucas loves you,” she said quietly but with certainty. Whether she was referring to that romantically or platonically didn’t matter, it was just true. “He held you. He stayed with you for all of it.” He cried for her, and cried for Erica to help him and she cried with him, helpless. “He has not left your side since. But that is how Henry - One, Vecna, whatever we are calling him - works. He uses you and manipulates until he gets what he wants. He did not get to take you. Not completely.”
There was still a chance, wasn’t there? If Max’s heart was still beating then there was hope. El had to believe that.
Max rubbed at her eyes as El talked about Lucas. Her heart broke for him, for what that must have been like. Felt like. She knew if it had been him, or any of her friends, she would be devastated. She shifted so she could lay her head on Eleven's shoulder and let her eyes close.
"But then where am I?" she asked quietly, the fear evident in her voice. It was such a daunting thought, too damn big for her to even try to unravel.
"I should have been stronger," she added, lips pressed hard together for a moment before she continued. "I shouldn't have let him - everything's fucked now and it's all my fault, me and my stupid plan."
Eleven didn’t know. She had looked, god she had looked - she had screamed Max’s name out into the void to see if something would ricochet back but she was met with emptiness. The silence had been unnerving. “We will find you,” she promised and drew her in closer by snaking an arm around her shoulders for a squeeze. There was a tightness in her throat that made it painful to swallow. “And you did not do this, Max. If you did not come up with that plan then… I would not have known to get to you as soon as I could.”
She hadn’t been ready to take on Vecna - Papa had been right about that. Her powers at what they were weren’t enough, and she was not sure if she alone would be enough to stop this. But if she had waited for him to mold her powers into what he considered ‘ready’ then Max would have been lost completely.
“We are here, and you do not have to go through this by yourself. With how you felt about Billy, and… everything,” she tacked on, voice wobbling. “So let us be here for you? Please?”
The thing about shutting everyone out in the months following everything that had happened at Starcourt was it had gotten easy. A slippery slope into a self imposed isolation that had let her just rot in her own thoughts and sadness. Crawling out, even the little she had, was hard. People were hard. It was exhausting and even still Max was hiding. Or at least as much as she could by not being totally honest.
She leaned into El, grateful for the contact. "I know," she said softly and let out a slow breath. "It's just - hard?" was admitted quietly after. "It was so hard without you," she added. That was the thing wasn't it. The boys were fine but they were just that - boys. It was different.
"I'll try though," she promised El. Maybe it would be easier, now that El knew. Now that Max didn't have to worry about saying too much.
"Want to go get waffles?" she asked after a moment. It was early, but not so early that nowhere would be open. And she doubted either of them would get back to sleep now.
El understood. It was hard, and things were always changing. If they had stayed, if she had been around for everything - maybe it would have been different. She would have noticed more. Pushed more. Lucas had tried (they had caught up a little, helping fill in the gaps they were missing) but he could have used the help, and maybe they could have been there for her together when she needed it the most.
The what ifs were pointless, though. Everything happened. There was no changing it. They at least had a reprieve from things here, and it was worth trying to live with what they had between what happened last and what would eventually come.
But, also - fuck Vecna. That was appropriate.
“I always want to go get waffles,” Eleven laughed wetly. “Yes, please. I will buy. There is a very fancy waffles place Katou takes me to sometimes. They open early. They have really fancy coffee drinks with lots of whipped cream, and we can eat a lot, and come back for a big nap.”
If Max wanted to talk to her more about what happened while they were out, she would be open to it. If she did not want to and preferred a distraction, then El was going to give it to her.
While it was probably going to be baby steps back from the brink, Max felt like this had been a big one. As much as she hated Eleven having those memories there was a strange sort of comfort too. Knowing she didn't have to hide it anymore, her friend knew exactly what had happened and already Max could feel some of the tension and anxiety unravel a little in her chest.
"If we can sleep after all that sugar and caffeine," she pointed out with a little laugh of her own. Not quite carefree but she would get there eventually. "I do love giant sugary coffee drinks though," was added.
Max shifted so she could hug El properly. "I'm glad you're here," was said, muffled into El's shoulder before she pulled back. "Alright, let's go."