I wish you would write a fic where Billy protects Max from Neil. And then Susan protects them both... by whatever means necessary.
u guys keep guessing what's gonna be in the abcs!! that is a thing that happens!! but since this is a scenario with a v wide range of possibilities, i'll give u a few other versions of it that i will not actually be writing.
under the cut bc one has downer ending. 😢
1) happens back in cali. max broke the brand new tv on accident. max is like ten here and until this point neil hasn't escalated to physical abuse with her but the television was expensive and susan isn't home rn, which also emboldens him. so he totally explodes on her. grabs her really hard and holds her in a vise grip. beats her with the remote control while the tubes in the tv continue quietly crackling n fizzling.
billy hears max cry out and comes running. throws himself at neil. then neil's attention shifts his way. susan arrives unexpectedly early. enters to the sight of neil kicking billy into the wall while max is on the floor, blood trickling around the bridge of her nose and bruises forming. it's clear what's happened. susan knows asking neil to stop won't make him stop (she's tried) so she grabs the letter opener off the glass coffee table, stabs it into his throat from behind.
neil turns so suddenly and forcefully, susan loses her grip. he rips the letter opener outta his neck, screaming and cursing up a storm at her. there's nowhere for her to retreat before he slams her head into the wall. hard. she's stumbling, disoriented, can't dodge fast enough with the double vision before neil's stabbing her once, twice, three times with the letter opener.
for a moment both kids are just frozen. billy moves a lil faster bc the situation is somewhat less shocking to him since he witnessed neil's violence toward his own mom. scrambles to his feet. bodily rams into neil hard enough to get him away. but susan's just gushing, sundress soaked. her descent is a clumsy one, flailing hands and crablike, disoriented drunkard steps. the coffee table explodes into hundreds of crystalline shards when she collapse onto it. susan makes a wretched noise when she chokes on her own blood that's going to haunt max until the day she's elderly and demented, and no longer truly remembers where it came from, this horrible echo in every fractured nightmare.
neil has just enough time to take in what he's done before he's swaying too, drops to his knees. he's been bleeding since he pulled the letter opener out. just didn't notice. too enraged. succumbs to his wound a couple minutes after susan.
max gets returned to her father. billy goes into the system when authorities fail to locate his mom.
2) max steals from neil's wallet in an attempt to run away from home. they're in hawkins now but it's p fresh after the move, she's thirteen. neil punches her in the face twice. billy walks thru the front door in between the blows. isn't fast enough to stop the second one from landing and knocking her out cold. she drops like a stone. billy's so pissed he actually goes at neil for the v first time in his life.
popular headcanon of neil being former military is true to this 'verse. i've seen this mainly used in reference to explain some of the psychology behind his abuse of billy, but uh...it also makes him so much more dangerous?? do ppl generally not acknowledge that part or do i just miss it bc i don't actually go here??
that means combat training, including weapons training, likelihood of weapons ownership, a propensity to maintain fitness. that, uh. that'd defo make neil extra dangerous...
but okay, anyway, so billy's athletic and big enough that he actually prolly has raw strength > neil. but neil, maintaining combat fitness in this scenario, has roughly equivalent functional strength. also combat training means he's maximizing his strikes as far as placement/precision/timing goes. raw power and bull-in-china-shop-rage gets billy p far but. not far enough. neil chokes him out. proceeds to keep beating him after he's unconscious bc he's just that pissed billy even dared to come at him like that. kicks him in the ribs until he hears a crack or two.
by the time susan gets home, max is nauseous from being concussed and her eggplant purple eye's so puffy it can only open a needle slit. billy can barely move, like the tinman in the wizard of oz before the oil can. neil's got a bruise on his chin where billy landed an uppercut. internally susan is sick to her stomach and screaming but externally, she lowers her eyes to the floor and informs everyone she's going to do a bit of gardening while the sun is still out but not to worry bc she'll still have dinner ready on time.
even thru the concussion fog, max feels pissed and betrayed. this is exactly why she wanted to run away. she stomps to her room, fuming and burning to throw and break everything, except that would make a ruckus. that would get neil's attention. she cannot afford the bad side of neil's attention twice in one day.
what max doesn't realize is that susan has white snakeroot and water hemlock in her garden. it's vegetable curry for dinner, but neil's bowl is a tad different than everyone else's...
3) max reaches out to the police one night when she can't take it anymore. wondering who's hitting the floor on the other side of the wall, her mother or her brother. walking on eggshells when she wants to run, whispering when she wants to yell. wilting and warping in a house that isn't a home so much as a cage.
her mouth goes dry when neil walks into the room. he calmly plucks the phone right out of her hands and has a civil conversation with the officer on the other end of the line. puts on his public friendly polite smile even tho no one but max is actually looking. it vanishes when he hangs up, crumbles into an ugly, menacing scowl.
max sees his fist come up. then the next thing she knows, she's on her back, blinking her eyes open under weight. billy's weight. neil is on a tirade like no other and he's shielding max from the worst with his own body, taking the hits. raises an arm and crooks it to protect both max's face and his own when neil picks up a kitchen chair.
both wood and bone snap in that go. billy doesn't cry out. remains protectively braced above max. no one hears susan approach. max blinks and catches a glimpse of soft, fine red hair.
she's armed with a steel pipe wrench, old and rusty, no longer particularly practical for plumbing purposes. but nearly as long as a pole arm, and thirteen solid pounds. practical enough for something else, maybe.
max blinks again to the reverberations of a new body falling, not her mother or her brother, but her stepfather. this time the red she sees is wet and glistening.
