He Who Controls the Flame (001 fanfic)

Chapter Thirty Five- California Dreaming

I've changed the Nina Project to take place in California ya'll... I didn't realize it was in Nevada till it was too late 😐🧍‍♀️

I set down a tray of brownies at the table in front Max, who was drawing on a piece of construction paper, her head down, headphones over her ears.

"I'm not great at baking, but I hope these are okay," I said, going over to my daughter's side, tugging on one of her ponytails. I had done her hair in two pigtails this morning since I didn't have the attention span to do anything too complex, especially not after last night.

Dustin, Lucas, Steve, Max, and Nancy Wheeler (somehow she was involved too) stayed the night at the cabin, sleeping on the couch or on the floor. The others were still sleeping after our late night, where I had explained, once again, my entire life story from getting kidnapped by my father to Peter...Peter dying. I had yet to explain that Max was my sister though, that was a hill I had yet to discover how to climb.

"They're perfect," Max said, smiling up at me. "Thank you."

"I wouldn't eat them," Elena stage-whispered. "There's a reason my uncle does all the cooking."

"That's very true," Seven said, coming up to the table with a pan full of steaming eggs in one hand, a plate of bacon in the other. "Jules can do a lot of things, but she cannot, for the life of her, cook shit."

"Okay, first off, I don't measure my value based off of what I cook, I base it off of my being valedictorian and my art skills." I gave Seven a pointed look. "And second, no swearing in front of the kids."

Elena stuck out her tongue at me and I stuck mine right back out at her.

"I'm Seok, by the way," Seven said, offering Max his hand.

"But Juliette said your name was Seven," Max said, her brows furrowing.

"Yeah, the one Pa...Brenner gave me. I introduce myself as my real one, I'm still trying to grow into it." He shrugged, scratching at the back of his head.

"It's cool. I like it." She smiled at him and he grinned, nodding.

"Brownies?!" a voice said behind us. Dustin reached a hand out and a combination of three voices yelled: "No!"

"Oh come on guys, they're not that bad." I reached forward and grabbed one, taking a bite, then proceeded to spit it back up into the trash can. "I take it back. They are that bad."

"It's okay, valedictorian," Seven said, clapping me on the back. I glared at him, knowing I'd be giving him my tallest finger if my six-year-old daughter wasn't in the room.

"Alrighty, no brownies," Dustin said, sitting down at the table. He grabbed the bacon Seven had left out on the table, biting into it crunchily.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked, touching Max's shoulder, who was staring off into space. She blinked, her gaze jerking up to mine.

"Yeah, I'm okay. People just kept blasting music in my ears, for some reason." I chuckled, knowing that the music was the only way of keeping Vecna out of her mind. "But Elena let me borrow some of her crayons. We've been having a fun morning haven't we, Elena?"

Elena nodded. "I'm drawing you and Daddy, Mommy. Look!" She held out a photo of two stick figures holding hands, one with bright yellow hair, the other with red. The one with the red had some sort of squiggly orange lines coming out of her hand. Fire, I was pretty sure.

"Aw I love it, baby girl," I said. "We'll hang it up on the fridge when you're done. okay?" She nodded eagerly and kept on drawing.

I looked down at Max's drawing. I wasn't entirely sure what it was, but she had multiple pieces of paper out, each containing different drawings.