Chapter Text
Lucas stares at the door Max disappeared through. He can’t help the anger pulsing through him. Also pulsing is residual hurt from her comments, even if her apology felt real and soothed much of his pain.
But damn it, despite the anger and pain, he still has to fight not to run right through the door after her. His instinct to protect her and to support her as she faces Billy or her step dad in that Nightmare overwhelms the parts of him that want to stew here like a child.
Ultimately, neither the anger nor the pull to her have the chance to win out. The door vanishes before his body can move, the Watcher hovering behind it. Lucas thinks he understands the rules of this place enough to know why the door disappeared. Max doesn’t want to be found. Maybe it’s good he’s forced to respect that decision. If she wants him, that door will appear. Then he can decide whether to walk through it or not.
“Fuck,” he whispers in the general direction of the Watcher, who remains unmoved by anything going on. He simply ignores Lucas like always. Or…almost always. He’d looked that one time, after he and Max handled his Snow Ball Nightmare.
Lucas tries to shape the swirling red smoke around him. Clean up the trees, make the ocean blue instead of red. He seems to have marginal success until Max’s words echo in his head again.
How would you know when your biggest problem is that you got popular and didn’t know how to deal with it?
Stupid words said in haste and fear. She hadn’t meant them. She'd immediately retracted them.
Still, the forest tightens around him, trees growing, twisting. The Watcher somehow finds empty space to fill and stare—but not at him.
A door appears, then. A door Lucas thought he’d never seen again.
“Fuck,” he says again, a little louder this time.
Max had gone in her door despite not needing to. He thought he felt why, but this new door confirms what he'd guessed. There’s a compulsion to go in these doors, even if they’re not chased by the Demo. He knows ignoring it would leave him distracted and fatigued. And so, with a sigh, he walks into Mike’s basement once more.
-0-0-0-
Max blinks at the scene before her. It had been what…eight? Nine months?
“Stop!” her mom shouts at Neil and Billy.
They’re in the dining room. It was meant to be a reconciliation dinner. At Susan’s urging, they’d invited Billy over. For all of their fights over the years, Neil loved his son—or at least Neil’s fucked up version of love.
And in the two years since Billy moved out, their relationship had healed, some. A call for help on car trouble here. Help moving the new dresser there. They resembled people who kind of cared about each other as long as they didn’t live together.
As much as Max didn’t want Billy back in the house for extended periods of time, even she thought this dinner might work out. Maybe now that Billy didn’t have to take out his anger and frustration on her, they could start to resemble a real sibling relationship. A naive thought.
“You do not mention Susan!” Neil roars from his side of the table, their fight escalating as they both stand, chairs clattering to the floor.
Neil can call Billy’s latest girlfriend a whore, but Billy can’t imply Neil’s wife is anything less than perfect—even though Neil treats her like garbage. Max shakes her head at the insane way Neil’s mind works and contorts to make himself the good guy.
As long as he defends her to Billy’s barbs here and now, he can talk down and demean her at every turn later.
Max knows the truth, of course. He’s protecting his own honor and image as the man who married her. He doesn’t give a fuck about her outside of her relationship to him.
Billy throws a punch at his dad from across the table as the shouts escalate. Max stays huddled against the wall, as she did last year in real life. Stay small. Don’t get noticed. Don’t get dragged into anything unnecessarily.
Neil manages to grab onto Billy’s jacket and pulls him across the table. Plates crash to the ground. Food splatters everywhere. Max’s mom shouts. Billy gets in an elbow. Neil lands a vicious right hook.
Max stays frozen as Billy gets taken to the ground.
-0-0-0-
Lucas descends the stairs, wondering exactly what to expect. This is his fourth time here.
The first time, he’d had no idea what was going on. That first night of Nightmares was a terrible blur. His lucidity couldn’t protect him from the fear of his friends’ distance. Their callous words, digging at every part of him that was afraid of losing them—and that it was his fault.
The second time, he’d had Max with him. She’d held his hand and muffled the harsh words and muted the fear. Lucidity with Max brought comfort and clarity. The feelings of the Nightmares were easier to bear when he had feelings for Max competing for the space.
The third time, he’d been alone. Not only had he and Max split for the night, but the basement was empty, too. That didn’t stop the overwhelming fear from suffocating him far more than the smell of old pizza and teenage boys. He was going to be alone. His friends would leave him. Max would be ashamed to be with him.
Then they showed up at his game. They apologized. And Max saw him. He hadn’t seen this Nightmare door since, and thought he never would again.
“Hey guys,” he says softly as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. Mike, Will, and Dustin turn in their seats at the game table.
Their eyes are mostly foggy and red. But it’s different this time. Lucas thinks he can make out pupils within the red smoke. It’s somehow more unsettling that they’re closer to reality while still having that unseeing fog present.
“Nice of you to finally show up,” Mike says, sarcasm thick.
Lucas fights the shame that comes with the Nightmare. It’s so much harder without Max.
“This isn’t you guys,” he says bravely, taking a seat. “We understand each other now.”
Dustin scoffs. “We understand you’re a pussy, yeah. Oh boo hoo, we don’t come to your basketball games. Yeah, well you ditched us! You turned your back on the outcasts, your supposed friends, because you were ashamed.”
Lucas feels a stab of panic. Had he not cleared the air with his friends like he thought he did? Did they still think he ditched them?
“No, of course I’m not ashamed! I just…I like multiple things! Just because I don’t identify myself by only what you guys are doesn’t mean I ditched you!” He knows he’s arguing with figments of his imagination. Somehow that doesn’t matter. His anxiety compels him to do it. “I…I step in when you’re bullied! You’re still my best friends!”
“Our brave hero. How wonderful to have you protect us,” Will says flatly. Normally so kind, thoughtful. Tonight, his voice is sharp, bitter. “You have no idea anymore what it’s like to be us. How to help us.”
“No, Will. I…that’s not what I…”
And then suddenly Max is there. For the briefest of moments, Lucas feels a burst of hope. She’d left her Nightmare and was here to help him.
But her eyes—normally a perfect pale blue—are filled with foggy red smoke. Her words are cruel.
“He’s right, Lucas. This is your biggest fear?” She waves to the boys around the table, mocking. “And you think you can possibly know how to protect me?”
-0-0-0-
Billy and Neil roll on the floor, grappling and twisting. Billy gets another shot off on his dad, blood at his lips. Max’s mom screams from the other side of the room. Stop, stop. Neil gets position on top of his son and swings a brutal fist into his face. Max stays frozen against the wall.
Always frozen. Always running.
For the briefest moment, her mind flits to Lucas. Her hand is cold and empty, and she wishes she could feel the warmth of his skin there, fingers interlocking with hers. She wishes she could feel that small but infinitely-meaningful security as he shifts just in front of her to protect her from the scene before her. She wishes she could hear his voice and the unfounded optimism telling her it’ll be okay.
“Fuck you!”
It could’ve been the father or son who shouted it. Max doesn’t remember, and even just the dream of Lucas was enough to take her focus from the fight. But it’s back now, and Max braces herself.
Bleeding from multiple blunt cuts across his cheek and face, Billy reaches to his side. There, a cut of steak and potatoes are smeared into the rug. A broken plate cuts his hand as he searches before the next punch arrives and takes him out of the fight completely. He closes his hand around the steak knife.
Max squeezes her eyes shut. No need to see this again. Just like there’s no reason for Lucas to ever see it.
But she hears the knife. She hears Neil scream out in horror and pain. She hears her mom crying. It’s a few long seconds before she opens her eyes. Neil lies on his back now, thrown off of a panting Billy. His hand holds at his side, where blood stains his shirt.
Billy drops the knife. This was when he’d run. He’d slowly gotten to his feet, taken a look around the room, at his hands in shock, and then he’d run from the room.
In this Nightmare, though, he doesn’t run. He turns to Max.
“This is what you are,” he says. It pierces worse than the knife.
-0-0-0-
“No,” Lucas whispers. “This isn’t you, Max.”
The Nightmare version of her snorts, derisive. “And you would know?”
Remarkable how different this haughty, sarcastic response is from Max’s usual sarcasm. Her words are normally filled with a warmth and charm, so even the sharper of her retorts fill Lucas with affection.
Here, with her eyes foggy red, there’s no affection. No warmth.
“I would know. I know you,” he says.
“Do you?” she asks, eyebrow raised. “I don’t let you in. And why would I? Someone like you, We’re from different worlds. Born on Maple Street, family that actually cares about you, popular.”
The word might not be a slight in another context, but not ten minutes ago, the real Max had thrown it in his face. His biggest problem was that he got popular and didn’t know how to deal with it. How could he possibly understand?
“You let me in,” he says weakly. But the emotion of the Nightmare is so strong. He feels the fear of Max leaving him. The betrayal of her words all over again. It’s so hard to remember her apology when he feels like this. He needs the real Max to stave off this emptiness.
“Then why am I not really here?” she asks. Lucas has to look away, her red eyes chilling and wrong.
“I don’t know,” he says, voice shaking. “Why did you leave?”
“Because you don’t get it, and you never will. Just like I don’t understand you, and never will.”
He freezes, and Mike’s basement swirls into another scene. Mike and Dustin and Will are gone. He’s at school, and he instinctively knows when this was. Things should be good. He’d just hit the game-winning shot last weekend. He’d just kissed a girl for the first time. Instead, whispers follow him in the hallway. The girl is nowhere to be seen. He’d looked for Stephanie that day, and she’d turned her back on him.
Today, it’s not Stephanie in the hallway. It’s Max. It’s happening again.
“That’s how this story goes,” Max says, voice cold. “You know it.”
Lucas stares at her, heart shattering. Not again. The whispers around them grow louder. It’s even worse this time, because Max was supposed to be different…Max is different.
He balls his fists and shakes his head. “No.”
“Yes,” she counters, but he advances on her instead of running away. The whispers intensify. Whispers of people who don’t know him. Who don’t matter.
He focuses on her eyes. On the wrongness of her. “This isn’t you,” he repeats, finding strength in their truth.
“Oh but it is. And we both know it.”
Impossibly, Lucas smiles. “The Max I know might be a little rash, and a lot stubborn, but she wouldn’t turn her back on me in this hallway.”
The whispers quiet.
“You would know that if these eyes were hers,” Lucas says, reaching up to brush her cheek, just under the unsettling eyes of the Nightmare. He wills the red fog to change. Become the beautiful blue he could stare into for eternity. “Those eyes saw me.”
It’s a truth he holds close. Max understood him without needing to experience his life for herself, with compassion and empathy. He can do the same for her, even if she doesn’t think it’s possible.
The Nightmare’s eyes turn blue. For a few seconds, his Max stands in front of him. She even flashes him a beautiful smile. Around them, the hallway and unseeing students disappear. He continues to cup her cheek until she swirls into red fog under his fingertips. The fog dances out ahead of him and reshapes, back into a humanoid form. But this time, instead of the gorgeous girl of his dreams, it forms into the constant of the Nightmares. The Watcher stands, watching.
Watching him.
Lucas stares back at it. It looks unsteady. Like the fog that forms it is still swirling just under the facade, ready to puff away.
But it’s still stable enough to remain because it’s not just a creation of Lucas’ subconscious. It’s grounded by Max’s fears, too. And he thinks, maybe, he’s starting to understand. He needs to find her.
-0-0-0-
“No,” Max whispers.
Billy gets to his feet. Blood drips from his hands. He stalks toward her. “Yes. We’re the same.”
“I would never do what you did,” Max pants.
“You’re right. You’re too much of a coward.” Billy sneers, getting closer. “But how about you admit what you thought, watching my father bleed out.”
She shakes her head. It was a passing thought. Not how she really felt. “That you’re a piece of shit.”
Billy stands in front of her. Behind him, her mom is calling 9-1-1. Neil is dying. And just like that night, Max can’t stop the thought. Billy says it for her.
“No. You thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing. If he died.”
Max sobs. Justifications flood her mind. He hurt her mom. He controlled his house and everyone in it. She was slow to find friends, and they had to be shallow at best because of him. She wondered when Neil would finally turn on her, and whether her mom would let it happen, or if that would finally be the last straw.
“I didn’t want him to die.” Tears flow down her cheeks.
“Sure you did,” Billy says. “Part of you still does. Because you’re just like me, lashing out at anyone else you can find. You just don’t have the strength to fight him.”
She covers her face with her hands. Billy pries them away so she’s forced to look at him. This mirror into her worst self. His hands are clammy and bloody. His grip is harsh.
She misses Lucas’ hands.
It’s a small thought, but it’s a seed. She latches on to it, willing it to grow. No words form to push away Billy. Her conviction is small and distant, but there’s something there.
Lucas had seen some of the worst of her, but he still held her hand.
Somehow it’s enough. Over Billy’s shoulder, Max sees the front door of the house open. Lucas steps through. She’s relieved and terrified and hopeful and disgusted all at once that she’d let the door appear for him to walk through. He takes in the scene in a hurry, but his eyes don’t linger on her dying step dad. They search for her, and the moment they find her, he dashes through the dining area.
He grabs at Billy’s shoulder and shirt, and heaves him bodily backward. Max painfully yanks her hand free of Billy’s as he goes tumbling to the ground with a groan.
“Max, Max,” Lucas pants, holding her face in his hands. Her breathing is fast. “Look at me. Are you okay?”
She nods, but she’s not sure. “Lucas,” is all she can say in warning, nodding behind him. He swivels around as Billy gets to his feet.
“Ah, the heroic boyfriend,” Billy says with a swagger. “You know the only thing that’s going to fuck you up worse than me is her.” He gestures wildly at Max, tucked behind Lucas’ protective arm.
“We need to get out of here,” Max whispers, hands shaking.
“What are you afraid of, Max?” Lucas asks softly, moving with Max, keeping between her and Billy. “What is this Nightmare actually about?”
“Are you kidding me?” she asks. “Look at him!”
Billy feints a couple of times, fists raised. Lucas has his hands up, ready to block a blow and strike back.
“Did he fight you?” Lucas asks. “In this memory? Are you afraid of him hurting you?”
“I’m afraid of him hurting you!” Max cries as Billy takes a swing. Lucas takes it on the arm and lands an undercut to Billy’s gut. It buys them a few seconds as Billy catches his breath.
Lucas continues to rotate, getting Max closer to the front door. But he hasn’t told her to make a run for it, even if it’s the smartest move. And Max thinks she knows why. He intends to stay here with her.
“No,” he tells her. “Billy is out of your life now. He’s in jail. He’s no physical danger to us. Is it about your step dad?”
Max’s heart hammers in her chest. “Not exactly,” she says honestly. Can she really tell him the truth? The awful things Max thought that night, and multiple nights since?
“I’m not going anywhere, Max,” Lucas says firmly. “Whatever this is, I’m here.”
Billy takes another swing. This one, Lucas can’t deflect as well, and it catches him across his face. He staggers while Max shouts his name.
“You shouldn’t have to be here!” she pleads. “Let’s go!”
He rights himself and is able to parry the next fist and swing his elbow into the side of Billy’s head. It drops him to the ground.
“I’ll leave if you need to,” Lucas says, turning to face her. He’s got a split cheek, blood dripping from his chin. “But Max, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You see the real me. And I promise to see the real you.”
Her heart hammers in her chest. “I don’t want you to see the real me,” she whispers.
He nods, as if he’d been expecting the words. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says for the third time. “You can show me all of you.”
Billy stands back up. Max can warn Lucas and he can return to the fight. Or she can pull him to the door and run away. She’s good at running away.
Or she can trust the man he’s shown himself to be, and hope he doesn’t hate the person he sees.
“I’m afraid I’m just like him,” she says, voice soft. Billy stops his pursuit, the external fear frozen and flickering while she internally embraces it. “I am afraid you’ll get hurt. Just not by him. I’m mean and sarcastic and willing to hurt people just to protect myself. I hoped that my step dad might bleed out so that he can stop hurting my mom. I took something personal and raw that you shared with me and twisted it to keep you at arm’s length. I’m going to keep hurting you, just like he said.”
Lucas swallows. She braces herself for his rejection. Or worse, his denial of her words. “And if I tell you that you’re nothing like him?” he asks. “That you’re cool, and different, and super smart, the strongest person I’ve ever met, and so beautiful inside and out that you make it hard to breathe?”
Even though she doesn’t believe him, that doesn’t stop her face from heating or her heart from racing. “I’d say you don’t know me well enough. Or that you’re ignoring a lot of evidence.”
“You’ve hurt me a couple times,” Lucas admits. “When you’ve been at your worst, you’ve pushed. And we’ll have to work through those times. But Max, you’re the one ignoring the evidence. You’re fiercely loyal after knowing me for just a couple days. Protective and incisive in helping me understand myself and my relationship with my friends. When you did realize you hurt me, you did everything you could to make it right. Do you think he’s ever done that?”
He points over his shoulder at Billy, who is muted with a reddish hue as the fog tries to figure out what it should construct.
She can’t deny what he’s saying. He’s being truthful about what she has meant to him, even if Max doesn’t understand how.
She crosses her arms. “So you’re just going to ignore that I hurt you? Ignore that I’ve thought terrible things about Billy and my step dad?”
He shrugs. “Not ignore. I doubt these Nightmares will let us ignore it. But it’s such a small part of who you are. If I were only my worst days, I wouldn’t have become friends with El. Hell, I wouldn’t have any friends left. You’re so much more than your worst moments. That’s the person I see when I look at you.”
“What if you find out your usual optimistic gloss is blinding you to what I really am?” she asks, voice shaking.
Lucas doesn’t bite on her deflection. They’ll talk in circles for an hour if he does.
“You don’t need to be afraid of letting me see you,” he says softly, stepping right into her space. He continues to hold one of her hands, and brushes his thumb over her cheek with the other. “You’re beautiful. All of you.”
Tears form in her eyes. She desperately wants to shake her head again. Deny him. What does he know? A week of Nightmares. A few guarded conversations. A kiss in a fake world their subconscious created?
But her other desperation grows stronger. No one has seen what Lucas has seen, and he’s still here. He’s still fighting this battle for her. He still thinks she’s worth holding on to. Max wants to believe him. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for him to be right.
This is what real love looks like. She’s craved it for so long. Maybe she can be brave enough to reach out and hold it.
“I don’t know if I can be the person you think you see,” she says. “But…I want to be.”
Lucas’ eyes sparkle. His lips turn into a wide smile. “You’ll let me in,” he says, a gentle encouragement.
“And not just when Billy is about to hurt me,” she promises. “We’ll face him—and anything else—together from the start next time. No matter how ugly.” She reaches up and tenderly wipes the blood from his cheek with her sleeve. “I’m so sorry, Lucas. For all of it.”
He pulls her into a fierce hug, and the Nightmare around her finishes fizzling away into red fog. It’s not gone forever. Max knows it deep down. That night still carries far too much weight in her everyday life to simply move on. But for now, she can let it go, knowing Lucas is right. She’s not Billy.
“It’s not all ugly,” Lucas says, shaking her from her thoughts as the world around them takes shape. She squeezes him tighter and takes it all in. A pale blue California ocean, a peaceful Hawkins forest. A girl in the arms of a boy.
The Watcher stands a short distance away, staring at the two of them. Both of them. It looks unstable, foggy in a way it never has before. Max reluctantly pulls back from their embrace and Lucas follows her gaze. Miraculously, a smile comes to his lips. “I was always afraid no one saw me or never would,” he tells her. It makes sense, then, why the Watcher never looked his way. “Until you did. You do.”
She looks at the creature, staring back at her. “And I was always afraid of people seeing me—either because the people seeing me might hurt me, or because I’m afraid of the person they’ll see.” For the first time, the Watcher’s gaze doesn’t make Max feel trapped or exposed. She turns to Lucas. “But if it’s you…if you’re the Watcher. Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it’ll even be nice to be seen.”
He squeezes her hand, and nods back at the creature. It’s faceless head cracks, red light and fog seeping from the jagged fissures. It twists in on itself, the embodiment of their mixed fears, the looming shadow they’d carried with them in their waking hours long before these Nightmares started. And with a pitiful, dying gasp, the Watcher disappears.
To replace it, Max turns back to Lucas and his kind, earnest eyes.
“Do you really think we can make these Nightmares livable?”
Lucas hums, looking around him. The In-Between now without a Demogorgon and without the Watcher. “A world I can shape with my thoughts? A gorgeous girl trapped in here with me? One I fall for more each night?” His eyes find hers again, stare intense. Can he hear how his words make her breath catch? “It sounds more like a dream to me.”
She doesn’t have time to call him a dork before the familiar pull reaches out to them from the waking world. His answer is once again overly optimistic and maybe naive. But somehow, she doesn’t feel the urge to fight him on it. She’s not sure she could’ve found her voice enough to speak the words anyway, so she only smiles and lets wakefulness claim her.
It’s a strange experience to wake from a lucid dream into the delirium of anesthesia. She can barely open her eyes. Her limbs feel heavy beyond possibility. Her mind is foggier than the Nightmares ever were. But through it all, she knows the feeling of Lucas’ hand in hers.
Time blurs before her. She vaguely remembers Hopper checking in on her. Dr. Owens asks a few questions that she may or may not give coherent responses to. Lucas also says things with a slurred voice that go in one ear and out another. Minutes pass before she finally manages to control her limbs and lips and eyelids like a normal person. She sits up in the bed, dragging Lucas with her by his hand until they’re both sitting against the back wall.
“Hey Hop,” Lucas says, his voice finally sounding clear and intelligible to her.
“Yeah kid?” the Chief says, a reluctant smile on his face.
Lucas clears his throat. “Did I say anything stupid? When I got my wisdom teeth out last year, Erica said I tried to dance with the dental assistant.”
Max snorts and squeezes his hand affectionately. Hopper’s eyes dance as he looks at Max and then back at Lucas. “You might’ve said some things, yeah. I’m not sure you want me repeating them.”
Lucas raises his eyebrows, then glances over at Max. “Oh no. Was it gross?”
This time it’s Owens who laughs, and hands two bottles of water over to Lucas and Max. “It depends on how cheesy something has to be before it’s considered gross. Waxing poetic about your girlfriend’s beauty while drugged doesn’t sound all that much like poetry.”
Lucas leans his head back and groans in embarrassment while Max laughs. She nudges him with her shoulder. “It’s okay, Lucas. I already knew you were a huge dork.”
His grimace turns into a soft smile. The quirk of his eyebrow seems to ask her why she didn’t correct Owens for calling her his girlfriend. She only winks.
Hopper won’t let Lucas get behind the wheel of his car for at least 30 minutes. So they discuss the disappearance of the Demogorgon in their Nightmare. They make plans to return to Hawkins lab weekly for the foreseeable future, and what that will look like. How they’ll help the Lab understand the Nightmares, and how the Lab might help remove them. Lucas might even be able to quit his part-time job because their unwitting human trials of this new interrogation tactic might have just earned them some participation compensation, if they play their cards right.
“You’re sure you’re good to drive?” Hop asks for the third time as they finally leave the building and walk to their cars.
“I’m good,” he swears. “Besides, Max will be there to slap me if I get drowsy.”
Hopper appraises them. “Yeah, something tells me you two will be more a distraction to each other than keeping you alert.”
Max flushes and narrows her eyes at him. “Relax!” he laughs, raising his hands in defense, but then grows serious. “You call me first thing in the morning if tonight’s Nightmares don’t go well. Hell, call me in the middle of the night.”
Lucas nods. “Thanks, Hop,” he says. “I think we’re gonna be just fine, though.”
The Chief gets in his truck, and Lucas leads Max to her side of the car to open the door for her. She puts her hand on the door, holding him up. He frowns. “What’s up?”
“I think we’re going to be just fine, too,” she says, and he smiles. Big and beautiful. “Maybe not as effectively as you think, but…”
“But we’re gonna figure it out,” Lucas says, completing her thought. Hopper’s truck pulls away, leaving them alone in the parking lot.
Max nods. She takes a deep breath. She promised to let him in. And that doesn’t just mean in the Nightmares. “There are a lot of things that can go wrong,” she starts. She raises her hand to stop him when he tries to interrupt her. He closes his mouth, and she lets her hand fall on his chest. His heart beats steady under her fingers, and it gives her courage. “We might not be able to get rid of Nightmares. New ones might pop up. Who the hell knows if we can ever get a true night’s sleep again. But…” she smiles despite her sweaty hands and shaky breath. “If you’re in there with me, I think I can face it all. ‘Cuz Lucas…I’m falling for you, too.”
His smile grows wide, and his eyes dance with a joy she’ll give anything to keep there. He reaches up and cups her face. She tips her face up as he dips his, and they press their lips together in a gentle kiss.
It doesn’t remain gentle for long as their lips move together. She grips his shirt, he grabs her waist and pulls her to him before spinning them both and pressing her back against the car. It strikes her then—outside a disgusting government building in a parking lot, a cloudy day, still slightly dizzy from anesthesia, probably getting her clothes dirty on Lucas’ car door—how imperfect it all is. The Nightmares could be terrifying, but they were sculpted by the fog to be ethereal. Otherworldly. Unreal.
As she hums her pleasure against his lips, Max revels in this imperfect moment. A second first kiss that is somehow better despite the imperfection. Nothing has ever been more real than Lucas.
Lucas wakes in his Dream before Max. He takes in his surroundings. Sometimes they’re a little different upon entry, depending on what’s been going on in their waking lives.
Tonight is fairly standard though, a mountain vista that they’ve recently taken to sculpting together in their nights together. But Lucas is feeling a little spicy and a little nostalgic. So, after checking to see if there are any doors that appear, he shapes the world around him with thoughts and memories.
The distant mountains puff into red smoke. Beneath him, earthy soil turns lighter, finer. Beach sand forms under his feet. It’s warm to the touch as his shoes disappear to leave him bare-footed. Fog moves like waves of the ocean, turning from red to blue with each swell, gas turning to liquid until the crashing sounds of water against land surround him. He even manages the salty scent of the west coast and smiles against the setting sun as it appears in the far distance.
He looks down at himself, his shirt puffing away, pants turning into a swimming suit.
“Oh, you’re in trouble,” a voice says from behind him.
Lucas turns, a grin on his face. Max stands, hands on her mostly-bare hips. She’s in a beautiful two-piece, glaring at him. He lets his eyes drink in her smooth skin, the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts.
“In trouble?” he asks, stepping right up into her space and moving one of her hands so he can grab at her hip and pull her to him.
She tries to fight it, but her grin betrays her excitement about his choice of Dream tonight. “You’ve gotten too good at deciding my wardrobe before I even get in here.”
He hums and presses his nose against hers. “Maybe you should go to bed earlier so I don’t beat you in here.”
“You know damn well why I was up later than you, and if you think taking your shirt off and putting me in a bikini are gonna make you lucky, guess again!”
Lucas laughs at her empty threat and presses a kiss to her lips. She immediately kisses him back.
“But look at the beautiful ocean,” he says between kisses. “The sunset.”
Maybe he put the sunset over the water to emulate California instead of the East Coast, reminding her of childhood home. Maybe it’s just more beautiful than a sunrise and he knows it’s more likely to get Max in the mood. Why not both things?
“It is pretty,” she admits, kissing him longer, hand running up his chest. “No Nightmares tonight?” she checks.
He shakes his head. “I was a little worried, considering how stressful work’s been lately. But…no sign of doors or anything we’ve got to deal with.”
She pulls back, smiling her beautiful smile. “I’m still upset you’re dressing me now.”
She’s not. But he’ll play along. “Then do something about it. Undress me.”
She snorts, and gets a gleam in her eye. Lucas is thrilled when his swimming suit turns foggy. Only to let out a bark of laughter when he sees what replaces it. “Oh no no,” he says, stepping back to get a better look. “You did not just put me in a speedo.”
“Fair’s fair.” Max gives a triumphant grin.
“This isn’t fair at all!” He holds his hands out and gestures to her. “You look super sexy. I look…”
“Super dorky,” Max says, looking down at the ridiculous speedo on him. She bites her lip. “Just how I like you.”
She steps forward and gently pushes at his chest. Lucas grins, and he sits down on the beach, grabbing her hand on his way down. She crawls on top of him as he leans back. Yes. Super sexy.
She settles, lying on top of him, her skin hot against his, breasts pressed to his chest. After a tender kiss, Lucas rests gentle hands on the small of her back.
“I love you, baby,” he whispers against her lips. He feels a slight shiver in her body at his words. Even after all this time, he loves that his words and his touch still affect her so profoundly. She deepens their kiss, and Lucas lets his hands run up and down her back.
Just as he gives her perfect ass a nice squeeze, they feel a familiar pull from the waking world. Lucas groans and Max lets out an exasperated laugh.
“No privacy whether we’re awake or we’re asleep,” she grumbles goodnaturedly.
“See you up there,” Lucas sighs and kisses her again as he wakes.
His eyes open to their darkened room. Light pours in from the bedroom door. Silhouetted by that light is a beautiful young lady with curly brown hair, a big frown on her face, and tears in her big gorgeous blue eyes. She got her mom’s eyes.
“Hi Katie,” Lucas says, trying to soften the roughness of his voice from sleep. “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
“I had a nightmare.” His little girl sniffles. It breaks his heart. He sits up in bed and reaches out to lift her into bed with him.
“A nightmare?” Max asks, sitting up beside him, such love and devotion in her gaze. Lucas smiles. She’s such an incredible mother. They’d spent weeks battling new Nightmares when they’d learned she was pregnant. They were both overjoyed, of course. But that didn’t stop Nightmares for both of them about the massive responsibility they were taking on. Max’s were especially tough, given her own relationship with her parents.
But she never had anything to fear. She’s amazing. Just as Lucas knew she’d be.
He sets Kate between them and they each hold one of her tiny hands.
“What was it about, baby girl?” Lucas asks, pressing a kiss to Kate’s head.
“I don’t remember,” she says, fighting off a fresh wave of tears. “But it was scary!”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Max says. “Tell you what. You can spend the rest of the night here with us. I don’t know if you know this, but your dad and I are really good at fighting off nightmares.”
Another sniffle. “Really?”
Lucas smiles, and he lies back down, on his side this time so he can stare at his two girls. He shifts a pillow for Kate to lie on. “We’ve been doing it for years,” he says. “We actually had the chance to get rid of them permanently, but we chose to keep them.”
Kate’s eyes grow wide. “What? Why?”
Max reaches over and Lucas captures her hand in his, brushing his thumb over her engagement and wedding band. They rest their hands gently over Kate’s body, letting her feel their presence and love. She rests her hand softly on top of theirs. Max’s gaze flits up to Lucas’, and she smiles. “It turns out, when you fight your fears together, you get stronger. And your dad and I wanted to be super strong so we can always be there for each other, and for you.”
Her smile is so pure, Lucas thinks his heart might melt. “So you’ll help me fight my nightmares, too?”
“Of course we will, Katie,” Lucas says and presses another gentle kiss to her cheek.
They all settle back under blankets and onto pillows. Lucas watches his daughter with adoration as her eyes close. She still holds her parents' hands lightly as she starts to drift off. Lucas lifts his gaze to his beautiful wife and they give tired smiles to each other.
They’ll soon re-enter their Dreams. He won’t linger on a beach this time. Partly because they won’t be continuing their previous activities while their daughter is here with them, so why torture themselves with bikinis and speedos.
But mostly because he’ll be anxious to recreate this perfect moment with Max. They’ll settle into their bed with their daughter, protecting her and each other. And they’ll fall asleep within the Dream, knowing they can fight off any Nightmares that come their way.