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❛ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴄᴋᴇᴅ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴇʏᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪɢᴇʀ ꒱


❝ RISING UP TO THE
CHALLENGE OF OUR RIVAL ❞

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After a rough night's sleep, Jessie decided that she was up for the day at some early hour in the morning. She rubbed her eyes despite her lack of tiredness and wandered into the kitchen where Max was sitting at the dining table. Neither girl spoke to the other as the redhead still wore her headphones, but they did glance at each other in acknowledgement.

Mrs. Wheeler and Holly were the first up for the day a few hours later. The sun had risen by the time the older woman set her daughter up at the table with crayons and other childish activities. Max asked if she could borrow the crayons and Jessie took a few as well, so they drew for a while after that.

As she began to make pancakes, Mrs. Wheeler looked up to watch the two teens for a moment. "It's nice that you stayed up with your friend, Jessie."

The brunette did her best not to roll her eyes. While the blonde was clearly making an effort to be polite, she was plainly one of the ones who believed in the 'Jessie is crazy' rumors. Instead, she replied dryly: "yeah, a friend."

Mrs. Wheeler didn't seem to pick up on her sardonic tone but thankfully stopped trying to make conversation as her husband joined them. He said nothing as he occupied a chair at the table and opened his newspaper. That was fine; Jessie had less problems with silence than she did with nosy people.

The brunette finished with her blue crayon and held up the solidly-colored paper critically. She turned it around in several circles as she tried to determine if this was the right color. She sighed when she came to the conclusion that it wasn't. It joined the pile of red, brown, yellow and orange papers that she'd already colored in. Her hand reached for the purple crayon as Nancy joined them.

"I think it's so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this," Mrs. Wheeler commented as she finished her last batch of pancakes.

"Could try sticking together at a different house for a change," her husband commented from behind his newspaper.

"You know you're welcome anytime."

"Totally. You're like family," Dustin agreed as he entered the kitchen behind Nancy. He reached for the pancakes. "May I?"

"Absolutely," the blonde woman told him with a smile.

"Yeah, why not? Take us for all we're worth," Mr. Wheeler grumbled.

Dustin shrugged. "Okay."

Nancy joined them at the table while the curly-haired boy leaned against the counter. "Hey." She received similar greetings from the two girls. "You okay?"

"Just couldn't sleep. People kept blasting music in my ears for some reason," Max answered sarcastically. Jessie pressed her purple crayon more firmly onto the paper as she made long strokes with the wax point. The redhead continued: "but Holly let us borrow some of her crayons. We've been having fun. Right, Holly?" The girl made a sound of agreement.

Nancy glanced at the brunette to her left. "What're you drawing, Jessie?"

The teen held up her most recent artwork to show it off. She shrugged. "Hell if I know. I'm trying to find the right color."

The Wheeler's eldest daughter reached over and shuffled through her completed pages with a frown. "The right color? Are you drawing a cloud? A blob?"

"Again, I dunno," Jessie replied. "It's just. . ." she trailed off, unwilling to share what she'd felt last night with their entire audience. "I think it might be purple," she finished vaguely.

Nancy gave her a concerned look before she turned her attention to Max's more detailed drawings. "Is this what you saw last night?"

"I mean, it's supposed to be. I thought it'd be easier to draw it out than to explain it but. . . not so much."

"Is that. . .?" The older girl held up a page with two people attached to what looked like broken tree trunks.

"It was like they were on display," Max explained. "And then there was this red fog everywhere. It was like a dream. A nightmare."

"You think Vecna's just trying to scare you?"

"With Billy? Yeah. But when I made it here. . . I dunno, something was different. He seemed surprised, almost. Like he didn't want me there."

Jessie's attention narrowed on a space of white in the upper corner of her page. She directed the crayon there and pressed down hard enough on the tip to blunt it. She didn't even care that these weren't her crayons; any mention of last night made her uncomfortable and made the desire to find the right color even more important.

"Maybe you infiltrated his mind," Dustin suggested. "He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his? Like Freddie Krueger's boiler room."

"Freddie Krueger?" Holly repeated curiously.

"He's a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers," he explained obliviously. "And he kills you in your dreams."

At her sister's horrified look, Nancy shot him a much sharper one. "Seriously?"

"Sorry. It's a movie," Dustin added hastily. "It's not real. Just. . . think about it. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world? Like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing." He picked up one of the images. This one was mostly an angry red with its only detail being a small, rectangular window that had a rose imprinted on it. "God, we need Will."

"No shit," Max commented.

The brunette finished with her purple crayon and dropped it on the table. Then, she held it up to look at it analytically. "Yeah, this is closer."

"What— exactly— are you looking for?" Dustin asked. He came to stand behind her and copied her narrowed gaze as he tried to see it from her point of view.

"I dunno," Jessie repeated. "But I think it's missing something." She looked over at her other drawings thoughtfully. "Maybe it's more than one color?"

"I still don't understand what it is," he complained.

"Neither do I, that's what I'm trying to figure out." She searched the table for the color that she was looking for. "I— um— hey. Could you pass the black one?" This question was directed at Max.

With more than just their friends present, Jessie was being extra cautious when she addressed the girl that she still held feelings for. She didn't want them escaping into normal conversation and put Max under fire, so she did her best to be formal with her. Unfortunately, formal wasn't exactly what she was best at so she got awkward instead. Either way worked so long as the Wheelers didn't pick up on Max's relationship with her.

Since she hadn't used the other girl's name, Jessie kicked her subtly under the table to get her attention. The redhead gave her a half-confused, half-irritated look for her strange— well, stranger than normal— behavior but conceded. She dropped the black crayon on top of the purple-colored page.

Nancy brought more of Max's drawings towards her as Jessie began to use her new crayon. "Is this a window?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Stained glass with roses."

"Yeah. See? I'm not so terrible after all," Max aimed this last comment at Dustin since he'd been so critical of her skills (or lack thereof.)

"Yeah, well, it helps that I've seen it before," Nancy said. She began to rearrange the images as if they were a puzzle.

"It's pieces of a house."

"Not just any house. It's Victor Creel's house."

She stood, causing Dustin to ask, "where are you going?"

"Waking the others," the older girl explained shortly as she left the room.

Jessie held up her now black-and-purple drawing. "Yeah, this feels right."

Max leaned over to get a look at it as she'd been too focused on her own works to pay attention before. She frowned. "You know, those two colors remind me a lot of fear."

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

Once Nancy had gotten everyone on board with her discovery, they left the Wheeler's quickly to take a trip to the crumbling house. After they climbed out of the car, they stood in front of it to take in the view.

"Yeah, that's not creepy," Steve commented.

Despite its disrepair, they went up to the abandoned house without hesitation. Steve and Nancy used hammers to pry the door open. While they waited, the older boy looked over at the girl. "What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?"

"We're not sure. We just know this house is important to Vecna."

"Damn," Jessie complained— mostly to ease the mounting tension. "An otherworldly monster has a better house than I do! I bet it doesn't even bother to pay state taxes." She brightened. "Could we arrest it for tax evasion?"

"I doubt it," Steve replied. "It would probably kill us first."

"Good point," she conceded reluctantly. "I mean, it didn't even like seeing Max in its red soup mind world."

"Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is," Dustin suggested. "Why he's back. Why he killed the Creels. And how to stop him before he comes back for Max."

"We don't think he's in here, do we?" Lucas asked hesitantly.

Jessie shot him a taunting look. "Why, are you scared?"

"Yes! And you should be, too. What if it gets to one of us?"

The thought of that made her go quiet. "I guess we'll just have to find out, won't we?"

"Ready?" Steve asked Nancy. She made a sound of agreement and together, they lowered the plywood panel.

It fell with a resigned flop that caused the leaves to blow away from its edges. Max went tense next to Jessie and the brunette watched to her with a worried look. She took in the girl's wide, blue eyes and the way she jumped as the stained-glass door was revealed before she came to a decision. Without giving Max a chance to say no, she reached for the redhead's hand and grasped her fingers tightly.

The girl turned to her and to her surprise, there was a faintly grateful expression on her face. Max squeezed her hand once before her gaze returned to the stained-glass door. Even that small interaction was enough to make her straighten determinedly.

Steve tried the door. "It's locked. Should I knock and see if anybody's home?"

"No need," Robin spoke up. They looked over at her and she held up a loose brick. "I found a key."

A single throw later and some searching for the knob on the other side of the door allowed them to enter the house. The door creaked ominously as it opened and the shafts of sunlight that spilled in illuminated columns of dust that hung in the air.

Steve led the way with Robin following behind him as she shone a flashlight around the gloomy space. Nancy, Max and Dustin brought up the rear. Jessie paused before she entered the house and turned to Lucas with a smirk. "Too scared to take the caboose or do you want to show Max what a brave, strong man you are?"

He gave her a distasteful look. "I wouldn't take the end just for her, you know."

"Sure," she agreed doubtfully. "Whatever helps you sleep at night. But you still haven't answered my question. Avoiding it, are we?"

"I'll take the back," Lucas answered quickly.

The brunette snorted. "Typical jock. Well, if anyone dies, that'll be on you, yeah?" She gave him a bright, sarcastic smile and patted him on the shoulder. "No pressure." Then, she followed Max into the house.