Friday Night Movie

Chapter 1

"Yeah we do." Max said. "I can still feel him. I'm still marked. Cursed." Max calmly explains her plan for them to kill Vecna, which Lucas 100% does not approve of. She is gonna die. Oh my god I'm gonna lose her. Lucas can't bear to think about losing Max. Not after how close they had come to losing her last time at the graveyard. Lucas told himself he is gonna get Max to change her mind because there is no way in hell he is gonna let her die. Not on his watch. So when they were heading to the Creel house, it finally hits Lucas: maybe another one of Ms. Kelley's students is cursed. 

He turns around and sees Max sitting at the back of trailer. God she is so beautiful. Lucas stands up and carefully makes his way to the back of the trailer and tells Max his plan. "Lucas stop!" she quietly tells him, in a stern tone. "We don't have time for any of that ok? And even if we did, even if your plan did work, we would be putting a total stranger at risk. A stranger who has no idea what their up against." Lucas wanted to protest but he could tell by the tone of Max's voice that no amount of protesting would get her to change her mind. She was set in being the sacrificial lamb if she had to. "You got a memory in mind?" Lucas asks. Max nod's her head, smiles and says, "Yeah. Yeah it was a time when I was..." she hesitates for a moment, then continues, "the happiest." Lucas, feeling a little braver than usual, decides to ask her something. "Was I there?" As soon as he says it he feels stupid but immediately relaxes when he sees the smile on Max's face and he knows he was right. "That's presumptuous of you." Lucas is overcome with the feeling he felt when they were talking to Max for the first time, inviting her to go trick'r'treating with them. She continues with a smile as she thinks back to the memory, "But yeah, yeah you might've been there." Her smile softens as she looks at Lucas's features: his beautiful, soft, welcoming brown eyes, his sweet, genuine smile, and his soft lips that she used to kiss. Oh how she misses him holding her. But those thoughts will have to wait until after they kill Vecna. "Ok but the second you start to lift I'm calling in Kate Bush." Max can't help but chuckle at Lucas's words. A nervous chuckle that she tried to play off as a calm one. She hadn't thought about the possibility of being that close to death again. She survived at the graveyard, but could she truly do that again?

As they pull up to the Creel house, Max takes a deep, shaky breath. She can do this. She is Max Mayfield. She is a badass. Lucas notices and reaches out to squeeze her arm. She smiles in response to Lucas. A smile that says "I'm trying to convince you that I am ok and I really hope its working." But Lucas sees right through it. But right now is not the time to make Max open up. Lucas decides to smile, his comforting smile that tells Max that everything is going to be ok. 

Erica, Max, and Lucas step out of the trailer. Erica was never one to be nervous or scared. But she couldn't lie, seeing Max's confident and brave persona slowly fading as they took one step after another towards the cursed house made her stomach churn. 

Lucas knows every single one of Max's tells. Something Max hates because she can never convince Lucas that she is fine because he knows tells that she doesn't even know are there. But recently, it hadn't mattered.

 After Billy died, Max seemed to be "ok." Well, to everyone else around her. She was sarcastic and rude like she always had been. Was sweet and caring and fun with El. But when she was alone with Lucas, she transformed into another person that Lucas didn't know was in her. 

She would often come over to Lucas's house and stay there for days. Her mom and stepdad would constantly be in bad fights. And when Max was at Lucas's house, she would lay on the couch with him and just cuddle so close to him. She would often readjust herself to try and be even closer. She had lost her brother, who made her life a living hell, and she was a wreck. And all she could think about was how it was her fault and how Lucas would one day realize that and ditch her. So she was trying to soak up every moment with him. When she wasn't silent and in her own mind, she was crying into Lucas's chest. She would cry for hours and hours on end. She did that mostly at night when she was on his bed and he was supposed to be sleeping on the floor. But that first night when he heard her not-so-muffled sobs he couldn't just stay on the floor and let her be like that. So he crawled up to the edge of his bed and started rubbing Max's back. Max turned over to face him and grabbed his hand and pulled him up to the bed. And he got in and laid down next to her. It took her a second but she finally gave up on trying to hold back her tears. So for the next 2 months, Lucas would lay with Max at night or in the mornings or whenever she would cry, and would sit there in silence for sometimes only a few minutes and sometimes it was hours. And in those two months, Max and Lucas become closer than ever. And Max seemed to be getting better. They had started high school and everything seemed to be going great.

And then one day, Max started being distant towards Lucas. And eventually she broke up with him. Lucas was confused and hurt and didn't know what had happened. But he wasn't going to let Max push him away that easily. So a few weeks after they had broken up, Lucas started doing daily check-ins on her. And she was so distant. Not just from him, but reality itself. Her grades started dropping. The boys would often catch her zoning out in class. And they were all worried but none as much as Lucas. 

But this time, he was so scared. Because she was never like this when they had "broken up" in the past. This time seemed more permanent. That is, until that evening at the graveyard. 

Max was holding onto Lucas the whole entire car ride back to the Wheeler's. And she held onto him for a long time. She didn't say anything to anyone. She thought she was ready to die. She had accepted it. And then when she was about to die, she realized everything she had to live for. And it was then that she realized she wanted to live. She never wanted her friends to have to open the letters she had written them. Because then she would really have been gone. 

So she was prepared to do anything and everything it took to stay alive this time. And if she did die, she was not gonna go down without a fight. She didn't want El to come back and find out her best friend had died. She didn't want Lucas to have to deal with the pain of losing her. She wasn't ready to go. But she wasn't gonna go. Not today Vecna. Actually...

Never Vecna.