sweetie little jean | stranger things

008 ━ running up that hill pt. 1

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008

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Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me? 
Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm making? 

𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐇𝐀𝐌 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 her hand on Max's shoulder. They'd made it to the school and just in time it seemed. Max was shuddering, shaking so deeply Lucy could feel her tremors moving the bracelets against her wrist.

"It was here," whispered Max, desperate, but she didn't need to be. Lucy would believe her through anything, just as Jean would.

"A grandfather clock?" asked Nancy, looking for affirmation.

Max nodded, still looking dazed. She'd described what she'd seen to them once they arrived and as outlandish as it seemed, it wasn't the craziest thing she'd heard all day. "It was so real," urged the girl. "And...and when I got closer...suddenly I just...I woke up."

Dustin and Steve had been shaking her, trying to get her attention. She hadn't moved an inch from her seat to have seen the clock where they stood now.

"It was like she was in a trance or something," said Dustin. "Exactly what Eddie and Jean said about Chrissy.

"It's what Jean described," murmured Lucy, repeating it to remind herself of what was happening. If it happened to Chrissy and now it's happening to Max... "With what happened to Chrissy, it's exactly what she'd told us last night."

Max turned abruptly, lips quivering. "That's not even the bad part." She looked so small standing there and when she took them back into Ms. Kelley's office and sat on the desk with the files they'd found, she looked even smaller. "Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Ms. Kelley for help. Uh, both were having headaches, bad headaches that wouldn't go away. And then..."

"Nightmares," whispered Lucy, flipping through Chrissy's file. "Chrissy couldn't sleep, she couldn't..."

"They'd wake up in a cold sweat," murmured Max, speaking almost from memory. "Then they started seeing things. Bad things. From their past."

What had Chrissy been seeing? Was it her mom? The cheerleading nightmare that happened every summer? Or something worse she didn't tell them?

"And these visions, they just...they kept on getting worse and worse, until eventually..." Max was breathing heavily, her cheeks still glistening with tears and panic. "...everything ended."

"Vecna's curse," whispered Robin, holding Fred's file.

Max nodded. "Chrissy's headaches started a week ago."

Lucy brushed her hair back from her face. "She'd been acting funny and we'd brushed it off like she hadn't gotten enough sleep, because the big game was coming up and Jason was stressed too..." Lucy wanted to sob openly into her hands. She wanted to wail and scream.

"Fred's started six days ago," said Max. She was quiet for a moment before murmuring, "I've been having them for five days." Everyone went silent, like not a person could breathe in air through their lungs. Even Steven wiped a worried hand across his mouth. "I don't know how long I have. All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than twenty-four hours after seeing their first vision. And I just saw that goddamn clock, so..." She threw her hands in the air and let out a deep breath. "...it looks like I'm gonna die tomorrow."