Here goes my first ST fic! I can't stand that Max and El didn't seem to be in communication much in Season 4, so I had to dig into why. I picture this as Max when she doesn't know she's cursed yet. Tw for brief mention of abuse.


Max settles against the brick wall of the library to enjoy twenty-eight minutes of solitude and a nutritious lunch of vending machine chips.

On her way to buy them she'd glimpsed El by the lockers, talking to Will with a smile on her face that made Max's chest heavy with the wish that they wouldn't see her.

They hadn't.

Spacing out to The Dreaming, she picks up a twig and draws aimless patterns in the dirt next to her backpack.

It tickles a memory at the back of her brain.

"I forgot summer could be so boring," she had complained - or something like that - sitting on the steps of the cabin, chin in hand, drawing in the dirt with a stick.

"Every day is like this for me," El had said, leaning on the post next to her. "Max, what is school like?"

So she had explained how it would be when they all started at Hawkins High together in the fall, and El had listened with rapt attention and a smile stained red from a cherry Squeezit.

It would be El's first venture into public school, and Max meant to be her inseparable bestie and protector, her seat-neighbor and partner for every class project, her choreographer for lunches spent practicing the Thriller dance.

The girl Max meant to be in the fall didn't struggle to be around people. She was not always tired, not at a perpetual loss for words, did not spend every breath tamping down frustrated tears.

She hates the girl she is instead.

It's not completely her fault that the year is nothing like she planned. Their schedules made it impossible; all they have together is History, and even there, assigned seats on opposite sides of the room.

Feeling useless, she tried to find ways of looking out for El from a distance. But aside from covertly shutting down snickers about her mannerisms, there isn't that much to do. Besides, El has at least one of the boys in every other class. Naturally her closest friendships would shift to the people who were actually there for her. Physically and mentally.

It's not like Max has ever really been someone she could rely on for protection, anyway.

Clack.

The play button pops up at her hip as her tape ends. She flips it and hits play again even though there isn't time for one whole song before lunch is over.

Her brain taunts her with a preview of what the bell will sound like, making the ache glow inside her temples with each ding.

She would give anything for that boring summer day now, and her best friend to spend it bored with.

It was only at the very beginning of the year that the whole party sat together at lunch, the way she promised they would. Then Lucas started hanging with a different crowd, and their table started getting overrun with annoying rowdy hellfire nerds, and lunch became one more time of day to endure.

For a while she went just because it was the only regular time she spent with El anymore. El would talk about her day, and Max would watch her mouth move, and listen like from behind glass, and fight not to cry at how sincerely she wished she was paying attention.

She does care, truly, but it could not have looked that way. Understandably, El said less and less to her.

It wouldn't be ditching her if you stopped sitting here, she told herself. She has other friends, and you're shit company anyway. All you do is zone out.

Maybe the sight of El in a hellfire shirt was what finally made her feel like it was okay to stop going.

She began spending lunches alone in quiet spots. This one, outside the library, is the best she's found. It's quiet and shady, with bushes that keep it shielded from most angles, but not so hidden that she feels caught when people do see her.

The bell rings. She shuts her scratchy eyes, gathering strength.

She forgot to eat the chips.

...

Max scrambles upright, knocking her headboard against the wall, breaths coming fast and sharp and out loud.

Do not cry.

She pulls off her sweat-soaked shirt and mops her skin with it, and sits there clenching and twisting at the balled-up fabric. It's a pretty shitty substitute for crying, but she forbade herself that days ago; it just makes her head hurt worse. Right now it's pounding already.

Light would hurt too, so she doesn't turn it on, even if it might make it easier to force away the images of neon reflecting in blood.

It's been the same nightmare for months, just in different flavors. Billy and El. And herself, frozen and useless.

Almost always Starcourt. Often just the way it happened. Sometimes that thing kills El instead of Billy, sometimes both. And she never tries to save either one.

Sometimes it's Billy killing El himself. Sometimes it's El in the sauna, lifted off her feet, struggling against his grip on her throat.

Sometimes, like tonight, the scenes all sort of blend together.

Either way, Max just stands there and watches.

Either way, the worst are the ones when El sees her doing nothing.

That was your brother. Your problem. Yours to stop, or at least to try.

After you lived in fear every day of what he could do to you if he felt like it. How could you stand there and let him actually do it to her?

She rakes her fingers through her hair and rubs hard at her temples with the heels of her hands, like she can squeeze out the memories along with the pain.

After you hated Mom for giving you her pale skin, and believing hand-shaped bruises on your arms were from skateboarding when the ones on hers sure weren't. For bringing him into your life and not protecting you. For knowing and doing nothing. How could you fail El exactly the same way?

No, not exactly the same. At least Mom never saw anything happen. You did.

You're worse.

Like every night, she feels her way to the bathroom to splash water on her face, and once she feels sickly cold instead of flushed, grabs a fresh shirt blindly from the drawer.

Like every night, she delays glancing at the glowing clock for as long as she can... 12:51. She mutters a string of frustrated curses that veers dangerously close to tears. That wasn't even forty minutes of sleep and she's only more exhausted than before.

Do not cry. Do not.

Usually she can get a grip by now, but this time the urge to crawl out of her skin is only getting stronger. Every breath is still coming out loud and every thudding heartbeat triggers pain like an icepick inside her head.

Did she just take a Tylenol thirty seconds ago, or was that a different night? It's too hard to tell them apart.

Feeling for the bottle on her nightstand with shaky fingers, she swallows one dry and thinks of the prospect of finishing out the rest of the night like she does every other: sitting up in bed, longing for sleep but fighting against it, knowing what awaits behind her eyelids. Pretending to distract herself with music while staring at her window, pleading with it to start turning from black to blue. As if the sun coming up changes anything.

Only tonight she just... can't.

She can't.

If she sits here alone in this shithole nightmare factory one more time, counting the seconds until a dawn that won't bring any relief anyway... she will finally break. And she doesn't know exactly what she means by that, but she's sure of it anyway.

She doesn't leave a note. Mom wouldn't see it anyway.

Adrenaline makes good enough fuel that she reaches the deciding intersection before she's even thought about where she's going. There are really only two options. Lucas, right. El, left.

She sits on her bike in the moonlit empty road.

Lucas is desperate. It radiates off him when they pass in the halls - he's yelling at himself to say the right thing, but he's tried all his ideas already, ten times apiece, and she's blocked them all. She was always a good goalie.

If she tapped on his window in the middle of the night looking for comfort, he'd be like a kid on Christmas, stumbling over himself to take her in. The mental picture tugs at one corner of her mouth, and almost makes her turn her handlebars toward his house. He would sit with her, and it would be comforting... and maybe she would consider letting him put his arms around her... and maybe she could even risk sneaking a little sleep next to him.

But the thing about Lucas is that he can't not try his hardest to fix a problem. He would offer suggestions that he's read. He would voice things that she would rather had stayed tacit. He would care in a way that's really sweet but maybe a little suffocating, and she might just want to run again.

He loves her. Probably more than when they were together. And that's probably mutual, but she just doesn't have the energy for it right now.

El doesn't take much energy. She doesn't offer or expect many words, she just kind of quietly senses and accepts. A soft and easy presence - that's all Max wants. She turns left, heading for the Byers house.

But as she rides, her resolve fades.

She'd forgotten, just for a happy second there, that her greatest comfort is the same source as her greatest guilt.

The El she'd started to pedal toward is the one from giggling sleepovers in each others' bedrooms and hand-in-hand rampages through the mall. But those happy memories that made her think she'd be welcome at any hour are not so recent anymore.

That mall is gone now; they bulldozed the rubble last winter. She'll never see it again except in nightmares.

And neither of those bedrooms, which she still thinks of as home, are places she'll ever set foot again.

And those two happy girls who lived there are just as gone.

Who says you're anything to her anymore? You don't even try to be.

Why would she want to see you at all?

The image of the moonlit road goes too swimmy to see, the welling of tears making her eyes sting in the night breeze. She loses the heart to pedal, crying and coasting.

She's just the same stupid little girl as always. Always wanting to run away, never wanted where she's running.

Stop crying.

That's when she rolls to a stop near the end of the trees, nearly within view of the Byers house. And only because she's come all this way, and because she's out of steam and cold and sweaty and dizzy with pain, and because El is a nice enough person that she'll let her in even if she is just a weird imposition... she'll go.

Max lowers her bike quietly to the ground on the crunchy grass on the side of the house.

El's window is dark. Obviously.

For a minute, two, three, she stands under it trying to convince her hand to rise up and tap. She does it suddenly, before she can change her mind, but also softly, because half of her wants this to fail.

Immediately she wishes she could take it back, sweating at her own audacity. Maybe El didn't hear that and maybe she still has a chance to leave undetected.

How dare you show up here when you need something, after she needed help and you did jack shit. After you disappeared instead of apologizing. After you avoid her in the halls in case she still smiles and waves instead of hating you like she should.

Although maybe she's learned to. She doesn't exactly come chasing after you anymore. Who could blame her?

It might be terrible if El answers. It might only shine a light on the distance that's grown between them, and to feel distant from someone she once felt so close to will be worse than if she had stayed home.

The anxiety of the wait makes every heartbeat pound harder in her temples.

There's a really loud cricket somewhere close, and it makes her suddenly conscious of the fact that she's out in the open in the night. It doesn't occur to her until right this second that this could be kind of scary, and also outrageously stupid. That biking that exact stretch of woods alone is exactly how Will got taken.

Well, she's not riding back through it now, even if El doesn't answer, even if that means waiting on the Byers' porch until dawn.

She wonders if they mind living on the edge of haunted-ass woods or if this is just normal to them. She misses California. Palm trees don't get creepy at night.

That exposed feeling keeps deepening into one more like dread, like something demands she turn and look behind her. She refuses.

Even with her attention glued desperately to the window, the noise of it sliding open startles her violently.

"Max?" comes El's voice from the dark, and Max hates herself for how small and sleepy it sounds.

"Hey," she doesn't know how else to try to sound than casual, even though it's ridiculous. "Sorry I w-"

"Can you come in? Come to the door."

Max hurries around the house, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the last second. There's nothing there, except a weird sense that she let it win by looking.

The crack of living room that opens up is black, and she's grateful El hasn't turned any lights on. She wonders whether it's to avoid waking Joyce and the boys, or because El senses that she would prefer it.

She's glad El can't see her. And maybe kind of glad she can't see her either, so it's easier to pretend this is a different time and place.

"Hi," El whispers, and Max plays the syllable over and over in her head, trying to find irritation in it instead of happy surprise.

This is the space that she should fill with her reason for being here, but nothing comes out of her mouth except "Hey."

Fingers find hers in the dark and lead her toward the bedroom. She tries not to take it as an accusation that maybe she forgot the way.

They sit on El's bed, and the warm spot from where she was sleeping a minute ago makes Max feel guilty. Neither says anything, and she worries that El is realizing this is awkward after all, and she can't think of anything to say to fix it, and she's letting it crash and burn.

Instead of letting go of her hand, El brings it into her lap, feeling the back of it purposefully.

"What," Max asks quietly, surprised at herself for not yanking it away. It's trembly, and she dreads that that's what El is going to acknowledge.

"I didn't know I could recognize your hand without seeing it."

"Oh."

She's never loved touch in general, but lately it's intolerable. It feels like a pity prescription, like here, enjoy one free Unnecessary Shoulder Touch on the house, you depressed bastard, are you cured yet? But El is always so different from other people in her intent, pure like a child, that somehow her touch doesn't make Max bristle.

She intentionally puts her focus on El's hand as well, like for one of those grounding techniques she told Ms Kelly she would try out. Technically now it isn't a lie. These fingers are slender and familiar in the way they curl around hers.

"I guess I know yours, too."

Well? Are you gonna make her drag it out of you? You're the one who woke her up in the middle of the night. What do you want?

But where to begin?

Max sighs, big and jagged. The adrenaline has worn off and now she's just drained.

"Bad dreams?"

She looks up at the vague shape next to her. El has a way of hiding a lot in just a few words, and those sounded awfully knowing.

"Every time I close my eyes," she confesses. "I can't sleep. I can't let myself. And my head... it just.. hurts. All the time..."

Everybody knows about the headaches. She's been having them since last summer and, being a socially acceptable problem, they've been her go-to excuse for everything. She doesn't say that they, and everything else, are suddenly so much worse this week.

She doesn't mention the nosebleeds, although El might already have heard.

She doesn't say how her visions each night are getting increasingly more horrific than even the reality had been, or that she doesn't know how much longer she can run on fumes, or how her mind is starting to play tricks on her even when she's awake, or how she's scared shitless of the sensation that whatever is wrong with her is reaching a crescendo.

She doesn't say it feels like she might die if she doesn't get a little relief soon, or how with each passing hour that seems less like a figure of speech.

"Nothing helps," she says miserably. "I'm starting to lose it."

El's hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades, and it's the closest thing to a hug she's allowed in months.

Do not cry.

Max covers her eyes even though the room is dark. She's always hated the idea of dumping problems on people that they can't possibly fix, and that's exactly what she's doing.

"Sorry, I don't know why I came either," she adds. "I don't know what you're supposed to do about it."

"You came to be not alone," El answers simply. "I can do that."

Yes. That is why she came.

The lump in her throat hurts.

"I'm so tired," she says in the most pathetic wobbling voice, resting her face in her hands.

The hand on her back moves up her neck, threading fingers up into her hair.

"What're y..." the question fizzles out in her mouth because it's obvious - El is massaging at the back of her head. She almost pulls away, ashamed of how dirty her hair is, but it feels too nice and she can't find the strength. Her eyes roll shut.

She knows El won't keep this up longer than a moment and she wouldn't dare ask her to, but she wishes she would, because it's a wonderful distraction from the pain. She sits still, avoiding causing any reason for it to stop, already sorry for its end while it's still happening.

Drifting, she startles alert again, and El does stop. She curses internally.

The mattress shifts as El scoots into her bed, patting the sheets beside her.

"Come here, Max," she whispers, and her voice is soft and sweet and from another time. "We'll have a sleepover."

Max entrusts a bittersweet smile to the darkness.

Do not cry.

She guesses she's going to try to sleep, knowing it's a jerk move. She's doomed to another nightmare, to disturbing El and making an idiot of herself. But there isn't much choice.

She lowers herself onto her side, and her head comes nowhere near the pillows and her ankles are hanging off the end and her arms off the edge, but moving would take energy she doesn't have. How she lands is how she lands. The change in position makes her headache throb so hard that she hisses through her teeth, lashes brimming.

And then El's fingers slide back into her hair. And a wretched, deliriously grateful whimper slips out too fast for Max to stifle.

"You don't have to do that," she murmurs in a way that sounds as much as possible like pleasepleaseplease don't stop.

"Shh. Here," El eases her head up and slips a pillow under it.

Ten fingertips press slow soothing circles into her head and there's no force in the world strong enough to keep her from melting, mouth open, into the pillow as the pain recedes.

She shouldn't be letting her do this. El doesn't owe her a thing. But it's just... so nice.

Those dammed up tears are seeping into all the cracks where her pain was before. They won't wait any longer now, no matter how hard she tightens her face against them, and they start to leak out sideways down to the pillow.

"I'm sorry." It's woefully inadequate. Trying to fit a whole book into just two feeble, soggy little words. The best she can do is say them twice. "I'm sorry."

El shushes her softly, fingers smoothing out the tangles she's made only to begin making more.

Max is sure each moment must be the last, but it goes on and on.

"I have been trying to write you a letter," El says after a long quiet while. "But I keep not knowing what it would say in the middle. The only part I know is the end. I would sign it love at the end, so you knew."

Do not.

Max only means to vent a little breath, but it all comes out in one sharp sob. And then there's no going back.

It's the kind of cry that starts out for one reason and quickly becomes for every reason. She's covering her mouth with one hand and her eyes with the other, sobbing as hard as she ever has and as silently as she can manage, wishing she was not lurching the mattress.

"That's okay," El whispers behind her, her voice maybe a little wobbly too. "That's okay."

If this was going to scare her off, it would have by now, but she still hasn't stopped. Not except just long enough to reach her a tissue.

That only makes Max cry harder, because she doesn't deserve for El to love her still. She doesn't deserve to be comforted by the one she's failed, but she's too weak to do anything else.

"That's okay, Max."

.

Sleepy eyes take a second to recognize the room, bathed in soft blues from the hint of dawn behind the curtains.

It takes a few more seconds to realize that the warm thing against her face is skin. That at some point in the night she turned over, and is now wrapped snug in El's arms, with her face tucked into the crook of her neck.

Max stays absolutely still, taking stock, wondering how long they've been like this and whether El is aware of it. She expects her heart to begin an anxious thrum of oh no, how do I get out of this, but... it doesn't. That isn't how this feels.

She's slept up against El before, but not like this. She's never been this close to anybody, and would never have done this consciously, but she's so comfortable she can't bring herself to care.

Underneath the blankets her own arm, curled around El's waist, rises and falls gently in sync with the warm puffs that tickle her head.

She doesn't want to run. She wants to go back to sleep.

Oh. She had been asleep. And dreamed. For once, recalling her dreams is voluntary.

She dreamed of El backed against her in a flickering neon arena. Shielding her. Holding Billy aside, and tearing the monster to pieces. Starcourt was inevitable, but at least it's the best take she's had on it.

But she also dreamed of palm trees. Of practicing ollies on the street outside the old duplex in LA. El was in this one too, current El, sitting on the curb and cheering her on. That was a nice touch, although she's pissed at her subconscious for dressing El in that stupid hellfire shirt.

She dreamed of a night drive up PCH in the back of Dad's Mustang with the radio on low, happy and tired from all day at the beach. Of El in the other seat, watching her lazily hand-surf the wind outside the window and copying her.

The peace of it lingers.

This is the time she meant to slip out and go home. But she can't get herself to move.

Her head doesn't hurt. The realization gives her a dose of dread, like the pain will know, and come rushing back to punish her. But she waits, and.. nothing.

Another dose comes when El draws a different breath, perhaps about to wake up and discover this and end it. The hand by her shoulder shifts, grazing cool skin and tugging the blanket up another inch to hide it from the morning chill. The cheek against her head readjusts. And then.. nothing.

Max stares across the room, heartbeat slowly calming again.

Nothing happens. Nothing hurts. All she feels is safe.

Do not cry.

Safe and warm and... maybe even forgiven. Not that she deserves-

Shut up.

She lets heavy lids sink shut on her wet eyes.

Maybe if she doesn't move a muscle, the pain won't find her here. Maybe she can get away with this for five more minutes before her mind catches up with her. Maybe if she savors it well enough, then whenever she resigns herself to a night in the trailer, she can try to imagine feeling this way.


Find me in the void (tumblr) at givehimthemedicine