(2) Love You to Hell and Back (Max Mayfield / (Fem) You)

-Chapter 8: Mornings and Meetings-

We make it back to Max's house and we go bathe straight away. Wanting to wash off the dirt and grime that came with the storm. While Max and I wait for El, we sit together on her bed, cuddling. "Did Billy seem weird?" I ask her. "What do you mean?" She asks. "He was so nice....that's not normal, Max." I say. "That's true...but maybe meeting Heather changed something?" She suggests. I shake my head lightly. "I don't think so...something isn't right." I say. Before Max could reply, El walks into the room. We had an extra mattress on the floor for El while Max and I will share her bed. "Which one?" Max asks El, holding up two comics. "I don't know," El replies, sitting on Max's other side. It had space for us to sit, but probably with how much we move, not for sleeping.

"Hey, there's nothing to worry about anymore, okay?" Max says, looking at the girl. El sighs, rubbing her face. "Doesn't make sense." She says. I tilt my head, watching the brunette. "What doesn't make sense?" I ask. "Heather. The blood. The ice." She says, looking at me. "Heather had a fever...so she took a cold bath, but she's better now." Max says. "That has to be it. I don't know where the blood came from, but we saw her. All of us saw her. She's totally fine." Max adds.

I feel like...the three of us are on a scale of suspicion towards Billy. El really thinks he did something, I feel like...something is wrong about him and Max doesn't want to believe it.

"What about Billy?" El asks, as if on cue. "What about him?" Max replies, tilting her head. "He seemed wrong." El mutters. Max chuckles, leaning back a little. "Wrong is kind of like his default. But it's nice to know he's not a murderer, because that would've totally sucked." Max says. El smiles quickly, it leaves her face as fast as it appeared. She turns towards the two comics in Max's hands. "Which one?" I ask her, smiling. "Who is that?" She asks, pointing to Wonder Woman. "See, this is why you can't just hang out with Mike all the time." Max says, placing the Green Lantern comic down and opening up the Wonder Woman one. "This is Wonder Woman. AKA, Princess Diana. She's from paradise island, which is like, this hidden island where there are only women Amazon warriors." Max continues, her face lighting up when she speaks.

I love how passionately she speaks about it. The way she grins when she gets to a part she likes, when she frowns when mentioning a misfortune in the story, the way she laughs at a joke she remembers from the comic. It's been about a year since I first met Max, but I know, or I'm pretty sure, I'm falling for her.

I don't remember much else because I soon fell asleep, admiring Max's side profile as she reads to El.

__________________

"Do you copy? This is a code red!"

What is that?

"I repeat, do you copy? This is a code red! Max, Do you copy?"

I groan, opening my eyes slightly and reaching up to my face, only to end up touching a facefull of red hair. I turn my head, spotting the redhead next to me who is also blinking sleep away.

"Max, Do you copy?"

Max locks eyes with me, rolling them and turning around, grabbing what I assume is the walkie and speaking into it. "Shut. Up" She says before turning it off. She places it back down, sighing and rolling back over, facing me. We face each other and I smile slightly, causing her to smile back and reach an arm over me, pulling me into her. "That was an annoying thing to wake up to." I mutter into her chest, closing my eyes again. Before she can respond, the phone rings. "You've got to be kidding me." Max mutters, giving me apologetic eyes before releasing me, walking past El who's waking up on the mattress on the floor to the phone in her room.

I don't get up, but look down slightly to look at the girl. "You woke my girlfriend, idiot. Go away." She says before turning to put down the phone....but she doesn't. She listens and her eyes widen slightly. "What are you talking about?" She asks, furrowing her eyebrows. "What?" She asks. Soon after, she hangs up, turning to us. El sits up, rubbing her eyes. "What did he say?" She asks.

"We have to go." She says, walking over to me and holding a hand out to help me outta bed. I take it, pulling myself off before I follow her to the bathroom where we brush our teeth. "What's happening?" I ask her afterwards when El goes in. "He didn't explain much, only that it's something bad and that our lives are at stake." She says.

___________

Riding our bikes again, El riding behind Max, we arrive at the Wheeler's house. We quickly drop the bikes outside the door and knock, getting let in by Mike. "C'mon." He says, running down to the basement. Inside, we see Lucas and Will sitting on the sofa, greeting us lightly. Max, El and I settle in the room, El sitting on a chair while Max and I sit together on the floor.

"I didn't think it was anything at first. I mean, I think I just didn't want to believe it." Will starts, his eyes not moving from the table in front of him. "The first time I felt it was at Day of the Dead." He says, looking at us. "Power went out that night too." Mike adds, nodding lightly. "And then I felt it again at the field near the Nelson farm the next day." Will continues. "Then again, Yesterday outside Castle Byers." Will finishes, looking at all of us.

"What does it feel like?" Max asks, furrowing her eyebrows. "It's almost like....You know when you drop on a rollercoaster?" Will asks us. I nod. "Sure." Mike replies. "Yeah." Max replies. "No...." El adds, innocently. I look at her and give her a small smile. "It's like... everything inside your body is just sinking all at once, but..." He continues, frowning. "This is worse. Your body...it goes cold, and- and you can't breathe..." He adds, before lightly nodding. "I've felt it before, whenever he was close." Will says.

"Whenever who was close?" Max asks, confused. "The mind flayer...." I mutter, looking at Will who just nods. "I...closed the gate..." El says, trying to make sense of it. "I know, but... What if he never left?" Will asks. "What if we locked him out here with us?" He adds, looking at El. He suddenly gets up, grabbing a paper and graphite before placing it on the table. "This is him. All of him." He says, drawing a spider-like creature. "But that day on the field, a part of him attached itself to me." He adds, swiping across the drawing, leaving black marks on his hands. "My mom got it out of me...and eleven closed the gate." Will adds, looking at us.

"But the part that was still in me, what if it's still in our world? In Hawkins." He asks, placing his palm on the paper and creating his handprint. Max steps forward, furrowing her eyebrows. "I-I don't understand. The Demo-dogs died when El closed the gate. If the brain dies, the body dies." She says, looking for an answer. Mike steps in, shaking his head. "We can't take any chances. We need to assume the worst. The Mind Flayer's back." He says, looking at us. Will nods lightly, fear in his eyes. "Yeah. And if he is, he'd want to attach himself to someone again. A new me." He says. "A new host..." I say, realising what he meant.

Will nods, confirming my thoughts. El looks over at Max and I, locking eyes with us as she speaks. "How can we tell if someone is a host?" She asks.

Billy.

Word Count: 1342