AN: Here's the first full chapter, will post one a day till caught up then a fresh update, please do drop me a comment/review I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Trigger Warning- Please note this chapter contains mentions and descriptions of abuse.

Preview- An accident at the Wheeler's make quite the scene.

Chapter One: I Think You Broke Her.

Home.

A strange word, in an even stranger world. For many people it meant different things.

For Max, it meant nothing good.

Currently Home meant a mother who was too high or too wasted to realise she still had a daughter. Home meant a step brother who was a bully and took fun in causing her misery and pain. Home meant Neil, who she had come to know as the bringer of pain.

So much pain.

That night when Neil had sent Billy out to find her changed things. That night Billy returned by police assistance, Max in tow, off his face and facing a two month, well 48 days to be precise community service order for driving under the influence.

Neil had smiled for the cops, acting like the concerned parent who was disappointed in his son and concerned for Max, however as soon as Hopper and the other officer had gone all hell broke loose as Neil levelled up on Billy who for once in his life, instead of saying some witty remark winding his own father up enough to beat him even further to a pulp, told him the truth of what happened that night.

How Max had ignored him, how he'd tried to bring her home and got a needle jammed in his neck for the privilege. Well, it was his version of the truth.

That had sealed her fate.

In Neil's eyes that night Maxine hadn't only disrespected Billy, but him too.

Her step father knew nothing of the horrors that happened after Billy passed out or what had been happening beforehand. Not that Max could tell him either with that NDA she had been forced to sign before Billy woke and Hopper brought them home with a story he and enough evidence he thought would cover for them.

Instead Max could only keep quiet and all Neil could see was that she had to learn a lesson.

Respect and responsibility.

She was learning it daily. Learning it through the ripping of leather against skin.

It had only been three weeks since that night, but they were the longest and hardest three weeks of her life so far and as the days continued the pain was building.

Neil had decided for each day Billy had community service Max would be taught a lesson with his belt on respect and responsibility while Billy watched - laughed - and drank.

Max was becoming almost jealous of Billy; Neil's fists seemed like a lesser evil than his belt at present. His fists would bruise sure, she had felt them a few times prior to this when he was drunk. His fists had taught her to be more careful around angry people. Drunk people. His fists however, didn't give her white hot pain just sitting down like his belt did. They wouldn't leave her butt and the backs of legs covered in welts and blood, turning a darker shade of purple and black by the day. They wouldn't leave her having to bite into her own arm as hard as possible to stop herself from screaming out while bent over the back of the couch as the belt bit into her flesh over and over.

Screaming was not tolerated. She learnt that very quickly.

Screaming earnt more lashes, more than the 48 she received daily. 1 lash per each day Billy had community service. To be delivered daily for the 8 weeks he served his sentence.

That to Max seemed unfair, and felt like it was going to kill her from the pain.

How she had survived three weeks already she had no idea. How she would survive the next five she had no idea either as she was starting to crumble.

It hurt.

Constantly.

School nearly made her cry, from sitting on the wooden chairs and pressure it brought to her sore and constantly hurting butt.

It left her unfocused on anything other than watching the minutes tick away till she could get up. If she was lucky enough to have a nice teacher who let her have a hall pass for the toilet she would wait till half way through the lesson then ask to go.

It was becoming noticeable that something was going on.

The small hisses of pain every now and again, the way her eyes closed, clenched shut as she sat. The party were starting to pick up on the fact something was not right. Just this morning Mike asked if she had fallen off of her skateboard as she was limping while walking.

She was over at the wheelers now finishing a school project with the boys, meant to be anyway. Only she and Will were currently doing anything, the others were messing around.

Billy was due to pick her up after his community service, in an hour's time and take her home to Neil.

To his belt.

It was making her tense and nervous just thinking about it. Making her zone out and not really listen to what was happening around her. Concentrating on the project and the sentence that she was trying to neatly add.

Attempting to think of anything but home when it happened.

Max hadn't even heard how it started. All she felt was sudden white hot burning pain across her backside that caused her to cry out loudly. Caused all other movement and sound in the kitchen to cease as her sobs filled the room while she stood dead still. She couldn't control it and once it started nor could she stop it.

"Max?" Will's eyes widened in shock as he said her name in question.

Max was fairly certain she could hear Nancy calling from the other room, "What's going on? What did you nerds do? Who the hell is crying this time?" Nancy almost stopped dead in her tracks at the sight she was met with. Max 'tough girl' Mayfield was crying, bawling her eyes out in the middle of the room, as the boys stood around her in utter shock.

"Mike towel whipped her to tears!" Lucas shouted out accusingly, at the same time Will shook his head clearing his thoughts and asking "how hard did you hit her?" in disbelief.

Mike spun around to stare at him, hurt, "I didn't do it on purpose, I was aiming at Dustin!"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! I think you broke her!" Dustin yelled, pacing while holding a towel over his shoulder, so far the only person to actually move.

Nancy looked from each of them in utter confusion, rolling her eyes as they continued to stare at Max, towels still held limp in Mike and Lucas's hands, while Dustin continued to pace as Will looked to his brother who was just rounding the corner for help. Sighing Nancy continued forward, seeing that no one else had any clue what was going on she thought the best plan of action was to calm Max down from whatever frenzy this had caused as her crying was not relenting in the slightest and the girl looked to be shaking with the force of her sobs and clearly in pain.

"Hey, hey, try and breathe through it, you're okay Max, come here", Nancy murmured, carefully turning Max to face her and pulling the red-head into her arms with a frown.

Nancy barely knew the girl but could tell this wasn't normal behaviour for her. Not only from their brief interactions but the boy's reactions too. She felt as Max tensed at first in her arms before her sobs turned harsher and the younger girl almost melted into Nancy. Max's hand still holding the pen came up to wrap around Nancy's back while her hand fisted the sweater Nancy was wearing tightly, almost as though securing her in place.

Nancy's eyes widened, looking behind her to Jonathan who was scratching the back of his head. She motioned to the boys with her eyes, before turning her attention back to Max fully, swaying her softly from side to side in her arms and rubbing large circles on the trembling girl's hoodie covered back.

After a few moments Nancy could hear the boys filtering out the room slowly as she rested her other hand that wasn't rubbing circles on Max's back on her head, stoking her hair softly while murmuring soothing words she remember her mother always saying when she was upset, "It's okay, just let it all out sweetheart, you're okay, try and calm your breathing, you're gonna be okay."

Where 'sweetheart' came from Nancy wasn't sure, it felt right in the moment.

She wasn't even sure Max registered the word, giving no reaction to having heard her other than her sobs very slowly turning to hiccups and frantic shuddery breaths while her body continued to tremble, possibly even harder than before.

Max could feel the shock and pain now starting to slowly disperse and the panic settling in. She had no idea how she was going to explain this reaction away, and if she was honest with herself right now, at this moment in time she didn't care.

Nancy was doing for her the one thing she wished her mother was aware enough to do over these last few weeks.

Hold her.

And god, did she need it.

AN: Don't forget to let me know what you thought :)