𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥

023. Freddy Krueger.

NANCY TOOK a seat by Max who looks at her, smiling faintly. Max then paused the music, taking off her headphones and looking at Nancy again. "Hey." She says and the Wheeler smiles. "Hey." She also glanced at Val who nods, raising her mug of coffee she then sips.

She looks back at Max, "you okay?" She asked. "Just couldn't sleep." The Mayfield replied, looking at her. "People kept blasting music in my ears, for some reason." She smiles and Nancy chuckles, looking away.

"But Holly let Val and I burrow some of her crayons. We've been having fun, right, Holly?" She asked the concentrating blonde little girl who hums, "mm-hmm." As she's playing with her Brite Lite. Nancy now looks at the drawings splayed out on the table.

"Is this what you saw last night?" She asked, looking at Max as the ginger glanced away. "I mean, it's supposed to be." She replied as Val glanced between them, eating the last of her pancakes. "I thought it'd be easier to draw it out than to explain it, but... not so much." The youngest of the girls says. "Is that...?" Nancy reached out, pulling a paper of two sharp pillars with deformed bodies.

"It was like they were on display. Or something. And then there was this red fog everywhere." She gestures around the papers. "It was like a dream. A nightmare." She adds as Val just stared at her then glanced down. She hated that she couldn't have saved Chrissy, or saved her in any way whatsoever. "You think Vecna's just trying to scare you?" Nancy looks at her. "With Billy? Yeah." She answers.

"But when I made it here... I dunno, something was different." She says, gesturing to the papers. "He seemed surprrised, almost. Like he didn't want me there." She added on as Dustin came over to the table, smiling sweetly at Val who smiles back as the boy sat down by her. "Maybe you infiltrated his mind." He said suddenly, looking at Max.

Max looks back at him. "He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?" She asked and Val raised her brows. "Like Freddy Krueger's boiler room." She says and they all look at her, surprised because she was more of the type to watch rom-coms or whatever, like Pretty in Pink, Grease, Splash and so on.

"Robin loves horror movies and we work at a video store?" She says making them all nod and glance away. "Wait, who's Freddy Krueger?" Holly spoke up, her voice full of curiosity as Val looks at her. "He's a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers." Dustin said before Valerie can even say anything, making her look to him right away. "And he kills you in your dreams." He said as he pretended he had Freddy's hands. "Dustin, seriously?" Nancy says as Val gave a pointed look to him.

"She's only six." She whispers and Dustin looks at the blonde girl. "Sorry. It's a movie. It's not real." He says and Val sighs, looking at the others across her and the boy. "Just think about it. Dustin's onto something." She says, crossing his arms. "Yeah. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world?" Dustin spoke up, looking at Max.

Nancy looks at the papers as Dustin goes on, "like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing." Dustin held up the paper he had grabbed from the pile. "God, we need Will." He says as Val sighs, raising her coffee again to take another sip. "Yeah, no shit. But I tried them again this morning and it's the same busy signal." Max says and Nancy grabs the paper that Dustin had just set down onto the table.

"Is this a window?" She looks at Max. "Yeah." The redhead nods. "Stained glass with red roses." The older of the two says. "Yeah. See? I'm not so terrible after all." Max now says to Dustin who just shrugs, making a face to say he begs to differ at her.

"Yeah, well, it helps that I've seen it before." Nancy glanced around at the others as Val furrows her brows, leaning forward a bit to get a better look as the girl started folding the pieces of paper, then slowly pieced them all together to find they formed a house. She draws the outline of the building and windows with a sharpie. "It's pieces of a house." Max says. "Not just any house..." Val spoke up right as the Wheeler set down the one with the stained glass window.

"It's Victor Creel's house."

Nancy then stood up, "where are you going?" Dustin asked with a mouth full of pancakes. "Waking the others." Nancy glanced over and Valerie quickly got up. "I'll wake up Rob!" She rushed to follow after the girl into the basement where she went to Robin's side. "Robbie, Rob," she shook her gently.

"Hmm?" Robin sleepily sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and looking at Valerie. "Good morning." She smiled softly. "Afternoon." Val corrects, smiling back and Robin nods softly. "What's going on?" She asked when she noticed Nancy waking up Steve snd Lucas. "We're going to Victor Creel's." She smiled widely and Robin furrows her brows, her eyes slightly squinted as she got even more confused why it was something to smile about.

"Max made these drawings and Nancy pieced them together, it formed a house that she recognized because it belongs to Victor Creel, so roadtrip." She shrugged and raised her brows slightly before leaning over to peck a kiss to Robin's cheek, grinning.

In the car, Nancy drove, Max got to sit in front as Robin and Val sat side by side in the backseat with Lucas as Steve and Dustin were far in the back of the vehicle. It's oddly quiet on the way there but Val found it comforting, her hand in her girlfriend's, Robin was rubbing the back of her hand with her thumb gently.

Val catches Lucas glimpse at their hands then look over at Max, making her frown slightly and then glance down at their hands. She gave Robin's a soft squeeze which the blonde returned as they now arrive to the boarded up Creel home, flashlights and tools ready to take off the plywood on the door as they all got out and walk up the steps.

"Yeah, that's not creepy."

authors note max and val <3
why must i always write my oc's somehow having a bond with max in one way or another and losing their shit when miss girly gets snap crackled and popped 😔