Work Text:
Ice Cream Cures all ills
Eddie does not have a super close relationship with Max Mayfield. Not like he does with Henderson, who he can hardly get to leave him alone. Max sees him as he really is, a high school nerd who deals drugs and lives in a trailer park. But she is only as mean to him as she is to the rest of the world, there's never any particular malice in her scorn. Her being a depressed trailer park kid who has pushed away all her friends, he feels like she gets it. They may have all faced monsters in the upside down, but he gets the feeling that Max Mayfield has seen many more of the monsters that plague the real world than some of the other kids.
So that's why it concerns him when Max breaks their shared morning ritual. Every weekend morning the two of them would sit out on their respective porches and chill in silent solidarity, Eddie taking a drag, Max taking sips from a steaming hot mug. Eddie would sometimes take his guitar out and practice chords, while Max did homework.
However, Max was a no show this morning. Her mother had gone to work hours ago and she was still nowhere to be seen. Eddie hesitated for a long while, knowing that the teen wouldn't appreciate him barging in on her if there was nothing wrong. But with everything that had gone on recently...with Chrissy. He would never forgive himself if something happened to Max, if that bastard Vecna had come back for her, and he did nothing about it.
With that thought he started out of his seat. He wasn't going to let that shit happen again. He wasn't going to run away. He knocked hard on the door of the trailer, and then caught himself. "Max? You in there?" He tried to speak as gently yet as audibly as possible. Nothing. Fear gripped him so he took the plunge. Who cares how many insults Max threw his way if he was wrong. Opening the door he saw nothing but an empty kitchen, though the kettle was boiled. He ventured over the doorstep and suddenly got a whiff of a smell of sick. It enveloped the tiny space. He took a second to stop himself from gagging, though it didn't take much. As a druggie he had seen and smelt worse. He tried to make as much noise as possible on his way to the bathroom, to give Max prior warning. She would not like being seen like this.
She was knelt on the cold floor attempting to clean up the mess on her bathroom floor. She was very obviously struggling not to upchuck again. Max looked up at him in surprise, her white face stained with tears. "what the hell are you doing here?" He threw his jacket around her shoulders. "it's ok kid, sit down over there" he motioned to the toilet as she tried to shove off the jacket shaking her head. "I'll deal with that, ok, don't move a muscle". She looked miserable but too shaky and uneasy to do more than heave into the toilet. "There you go, get it all out" he patted her back and left her to it, knowing this was probably mortifying for her.
Grabbing the bucket she had filled with hot water, he went to grab some soap and a mop. By the time he had returned she had stopped vomiting and had gone at the mess with toilet paper. "Stop, Max, relax, you go to your bed ok? You look dead on your feet". He started to gently support her by the shoulder, leading her back towards her room. "Why are you even here?" She snapped with as much aggression as she seemed able to muster. ""I can deal with this by myself just fine." Her voice was hoarse and it told Eddie everything he needed to know. No one had ever really tried to deal with this for Max before. Just Max's luck that as the most sealed off kid around, she had the fortune to live across from Eddie, the person with the best track record for weaseling his way into people's lives.
"I'm here because you missed your weekend coffee break Mayfield, and I'm not leaving until you get yourself warm. Jesus, you're cold as fuck." "Has anyone ever told you you're nosy as all hell?!" Max came back, her teeth chattering together. "They have actually, thank you, it's one of my best qualities" He said, acting mock flattered. "Do you have anymore buckets?" "Under the sink" she said grudgingly. He grabbed one for her and left it by the side of the bed in case there were any more spills. "Don't try to get up by yourself either you dumbass, or I'll be cleaning more than sick off of the floor". "Fucking baby deer legs" he teased, and he got a reluctant smirk in return.
He boiled the kettle again for some tea, looking in on Max as he passed to make sure she was ok, and grabbed an extra blanket from the couch to throw over her. He foisted a mug on her and told her "small sips, ok". She nodded and started to drift off with the warmth. He ran across to his trailer and rooted out an ancient hot water bottle. Eddie tried to be as quiet as he could in cleaning up the bathroom, but he soon heard coughing from Max's room again.
He finished up in the bathroom and went in when there was silence. Max had managed to get most of the mess into the bucket, but she was crying again, into her pillow. He grabbed her some toilet paper to clean herself up. "I'm sorry" she sobbed, shocking Eddie to his core. "There's nothing to be sorry for" he assured her. "I.. I'm disgusting," she hiccuped, shaking her head and flailing a hand at the soiled floor. "Happens to everyone Red, you should have seen me when I had the flu. Absolutely pitiful. Snotty and sad. Wayne had to light my ciggies for me I was so weak" he swooned falling back onto Max's bed. He was rewarded with a tearful snuffle. "Now is there anything I can do for you M'lady Mayfield, now that you know that I am a far more repulsive creature than thou." She rolled her eyes at his dnd voice, but in a fond way. "Actually, there is one thing".
Eddie came back from the shop to find Max mostly returned to her normal colour. She had stopped shivering completely and was sitting up eagerly. "Ah, ah, shower first ok, Mayfield, I'll be out here if you need anything". Max dragged herself up for a shower while Eddie changed her bed and laid out some fresh pyjamas. He had learned a lot from Uncle Wayne over the years. Max came out looking a million times better without her grimy oversized jumper. He let her change while he prepped their treat.
Max's eyes were lit up, sat in the fresh bed with a bowl of vanilla ice cream. "All better?" she nodded vigourously, mouth full of sweet spoonfuls. "woah take it easy". They sat in silence for another while, both savouring the taste, though Eddie could see Max's brain whirring, and her retreating once again. "I'm really sorry for the mess I made, you really didn't have to do any of this for me Eddie, I really can manage myself-" Eddie cut her off. " Don't you dare apologise, there is no reason why anyone should feel bad for being sick Max, especially a kid like you". He was a little bit angry now, not at Max, but at whoever had made her feel like she had to do everything herself. "I'm not a kid" she bristled, he had said that wrong.
"Look, you are awesome Max, you are so mature and brave, probably braver than me, but at the end of the day you are a kid, and you should be able to be one. Most of your friends would have called their parents if they were this sick Max, did that even occur to you?". She shook her head but looked determined. "My mom only just got this job, she can't afford to take time out". "Then call me next time, or Joyce or someone! We're all here for you, you were here for me. Does your mom look after you when you're sick? Did your brother?!". Eddie had gone too far. He was encroaching and making things worse, like he often did when he tried to fix things. He just couldn't stand the idea that someone had made this kid feel bad for being weak, when she was so strong. But Max didn't immediately kick him out.
"Billy looked after me" She was very quiet. "I'm sorry, that was too far" Eddie tried to backtrack. "No you were right" Max stopped him. "Billy would look after me, he would sometimes be so nice, he'd bring me ice cream." She sighed heavily. "But then he got mean, he would fix me up but he would do it like a chore, he would call me disgusting, shameful, he would go on and on about cleaning up my messes, so I'd try to do it myself. He was so gentle sometimes, you know? But when he was bad he was really really fucking bad." She was crying now. Eddie put his hand on hers and let her be. Letting her get this, just as toxic, out of her system.
To his surprise, she let herself slump on his shoulder, physically and emotionally exhausted. He let her have the space to sob tiredly into his Metallica t-shirt. "You can hate someone and love them at the same time you know" he whispered. She nodded and wiped away her tears, yawning. "And none of it is true, zoomer". She looked up at him, startled. "The party told me you're so badass, you had to have your own class. They never stop talking about you. Lucas and El especially, they think you hung the moon Max. You should come play with us sometime". She smiled sleepily and mumbled "maybe".
He shifted so as to lay her back down on the bed. Warm peaceful and comfortable, she finally looked her age. He picked up the book on her desk, "The Talisman" and started to read aloud from where she had left off. When she was fast asleep he got up to pop their ice creams back in the fridge. Ice cream was indeed a cure-all. He noticed an uncovered nail in the floor of the kitchen as he returned and told himself he must find a way to cover over it, concerned for Max's feet. He realised as he checked on her again, he'd accidentally gained a reluctant, stubborn ittle sister.