Strawberries and Cigarettes // Max Mayfield x girl OC

Chapter Six: The Dive

"Not to be a wimp, but can I maybe sit in the car for the next visit?" Robin asked as they all drove down the road.

They had left the Creel house as they went to bring Eddie the supplies he requested.

"Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck," she finished her thought.

"It'll be fine," Nancy told her, although she sounded a bit annoyed.

Nancy, as sweet as she was, had the tendency to snap at people when she was stressed out. Chris didn't blame her, though. It was a completely normal thing to do; people just had to learn not to take it personally.

"I just can't stand to see those dull eyes of Eddie's break again," Robin sighed. "I really, really can't."

Chris sat in the middle row of the car, sandwiched in between Lucas and her girlfriend. Max had her headphones positioned so that they covered one of her ears, leaving the other one free to listen to the conversations. Dustin and Steve sat in the very back, eating pringles. In all honestly, it was kind of pissing Chris off. I mean, Vecna had just killed again, they had no clue who the victim was, and they were eating goddamn pringles like there wasn't a care in the world.

"At least he can drink himself into feeling better," Steve said through a mouthful of chips, accidentally leaning way too close to Chris as he held up the six-pack they were bringing Eddie.

Chris rolled her eyes at how disgusting Steve was being and lightly shoved his head away from her.

"That's what my mom does," Max replied sarcastically, not turning to face Steve.

"Babe," Chris whispered. "We've talked about this."

Max used humor as a coping mechanism. Well, Chris did, too, but Max did it a lot more. Chris was trying to help her be more open to talking about her feelings, instead of burying them with a joke.

"Why don't we just give it a trial run," Robin suggested. "'Hey, Eddie. Uh, good news first this time. We got you some Dustin-approved junk food and that six-pack you requested. Oh yeah! And we found Vecna. Only, the bad news is that he's in that other, darker, much scarier dimension that we told you about, and the gate's closed, so we have no way of getting to him. He's entirely shut off to us, so, basically, you're screwed. And no, no... I know you were already screwed, but now you're doubly, triply screwed!'"

Chris threw her head back and rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling a tension headache forming. She tried to listen to the others, but the headache just kept growing and growing until she could no longer focus on anything other than the pain.

Finally, all of the sudden, the pain stopped. She opened her eyes — which had previously been squeezed shut — and looked around. The energy in the car seemed... off. Nobody was talking anymore; they were all just staring blankly ahead. Even Max, who had previously been holding Chris' hand, just sat there. Their hands were no longer entwined. In fact, Max's hand now rested in her own lap. Without talking, the car was silent. Too silent. Chris noticed that she no longer heard the crunching of pringles from behind her, so she turned around to see what was going on. Just like everyone else, Steve and Dustin were looking forward with blank expressions.

Chris gulped nervously, noticing her throat was rather parched.

"Hey, can you pass me a water bottle?" she asked Dustin, who had a bag of them sitting next to him.

There was no response.

"Dustin? Hello?" Chris waved her hand in front of the curly-headed boy's face. Once again, nothing happened. "Guys, cut it out, this isn't funny!"

Chris began to shake everyone's shoulders, hoping to get someone to snap out of it, but she had no luck. She cursed under her breath before she heard a voice.