These two are so cute, and I received a few requests from thesnarkknight and paladinscleric on tumblr/AO3 to write about them, so here is my first attempt! I hope you guys enjoy it. This is canon-based, after the second season, although a slight tweak, with the implied Stoncy.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything and the title comes from California Dreams by Molly Sanden.

Maxine Mayfield pursed her lips together and tugged at the end of the messy braid that her hair had been attempted to be tamed in.

It was stupid.

It was fucking stupid and there was no way that she was going to tell the party what was really wrong with her.

Jane Hopper—Eleven—didn't push anything because she never really did, she just gave Max a small smile and reached over to touch her long hair gently.

Personal space really wasn't a thing that she was aware of.

Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson were arguing, which was pretty normal, and Steve Harrington was trying to get them to be quiet, making promises about buying them a life time supply of twinkies if they just shut up, Will Byers wasn't paying much attention to anyone, and Lucas Sinclair was just coming back from the food stand, balancing seven paper plates of pizza in his hands and up his arms, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

That brought a smile to her face, although she smothered that as soon as he looked up at her, rolling her eyes and trying to pay attention to what Mike and Dustin were fighting over.

"I swear to god, I don't know why I even try to tame you lot," Steve muttered under his breath, running his hand through his fluffy hair.

"Because you're always trying to impress Nancy and Jonathan?" Max retorted in a sassy voice and Steve narrowed his eyes and pulled the fingers at her.

That actually made Max laugh a little, ducking her head and grinning at her scuffed up purple and green shoes.

She was pretty certain that Steve and Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers were all together, they just hadn't figured out how to make it public yet.

But she'd seen them all together.

Usually they came to the arcade with them, but Nancy was tutoring and Jonathan worked at the food mart down the road, so Steve was left to look over the party.

The party was hardly ever allowed alone anymore, except if they were at home, and while Max complained about it constantly and insisted that they weren't babies, it was actually nice having people around who were protective and looking out for her.

The parents—other than Joyce Byers, and by extension, Jim Hopper—found it a bit strange that the older kids were always hanging out with the younger ones, but it wasn't as though they could tell them the whole truth.

"Pizza!" Lucas announced with a grin, his eyes glittering as he attempted to slide the plates down his arm smoothly.

It really didn't work.

One of the plates tipped off his forearm and went spilling toward the ground and another plate flopped and the slice of pizza splatted onto the table in front of Eleven.

"Five second rule!" Lucas cried out as he reached for the plate and pizza that had fallen on the ground, quickly picking it up and blowing at it to get rid of any dust.

"That's gross, stalker," Max wrinkled her nose at him, picking up one of the safe pieces of pizza that had made it to the table with it's paper plate, and taking a bite.

Eleven picked up the pizza slice that had fallen on the table and studied it for a moment, before opening her mouth and going to take a bite.

"Wait—El!" Steve swooped in, taking the pizza out of her hand and swapping it out for another one, a clean one. "Have this one."

"But...Five second rule," Eleven stated determinedly, snatching the first piece of pizza out of his hand and taking an even bigger bite than she had originally planned, almost a third of the pizza.

Max, Dustin and Lucas snorted.

Will giggled.

Mike's dreamy eyes just got bigger.

"Ya try to help someone," Steve sighed as he bit from the pizza he had tried to give Eleven. "And just for the record, that was definitely longer than five seconds."

Eleven didn't say anything, just took another bite of her pizza and chewed stubbornly.

Max grinned as she bit into her own pizza, momentarily forgetting about what was going to happen when she got home, when she had to go to bed that night.

After they ate, they went back to playing games throughout the arcade.

Nancy and Jonathan joined them about an hour later, and they sat in a booth in the far corner with Steve, the three of them all huddled really close together and sharing small smiles and talking quietly.

Lucas met Max's eyes when she looked back from the older trio, and he smiled, and Max considered rolling her eyes and looking away, but she found herself smiling back at him instead, her cheeks turning a little red as his smile got bigger.

It was almost eight when the older kids all started rounding them up and telling them that it was time to head home.

Will, Eleven and Mike went with Jonathan and Nancy, while Max, Dustin and Lucas were herded into Steve's car.

Dustin got the front seat—Dustin always got the front seat—Steve constantly said that he couldn't choose favourites when it came to his kids, but they all knew that Dustin was his favourite.

That was okay, though, because that meant that Max and Lucas got to sit in the back seat by themselves, and Max sat in the middle sit so that their legs were pressed together and their knees kept bumping against one another, and their fingers were laced together.

Max tried to ignore the constant sparking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

And the way Lucas kept grinning at her.

It was kind of impossible, though, and Max couldn't help the small smile on her face, although she ducked her head so that Lucas couldn't see it.

Although from the way he squeezed her hand, he had already seen the smile.

They drove out to Max's place first, since she was the furthest away and then Steve would just drop the others off on his way back in, and Max took in a deep breath as they pulled up in her driveway.

Steve had learnt to not drive all the way up the driveway so that his headlights lit up the front of the house because he had had more than one run in with Neil Hargrove.

The run ins didn't result in too much happening to Steve himself, just some uncomfortable conversations and the occasional raised voice, but Max had told him about what would happen to Billy Hargrove if Neil was in a bad mood—or if Neil felt as though Billy wasn't looking after Max properly.

So it was more for Billy's sake that Steve hung back, only just off the road, and waited for Max to get out of the car.

Max liked that about Steve—because even though Billy had been a complete and utter asshole to him just a couple of months ago, Steve still didn't want him to get in trouble.

It was probably also because Max had mentioned a few times that Billy seemed to be getting better, seemed to be loosening up a little, wasn't as angry.

Probably because the end was so close, his escape from high school and Hawkins, back to California.

"You got everything?" Steve asked as Max opened up the door beside her.

"Yeah," Max flashed him a quick, small smile in the rear view mirror that Steve was watching her in before sliding out of the car and tightened her jersey around her as the cool wind whipped up around her.

Lucas then got out the car as well, but he didn't begin walking toward the house, because he understood the need to keep their relationship quiet, given her family life.

It sucked, but they dealt with it.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lucas asked quietly, chewing down on the corner of his mouth and tugging at the zipper of his jacket.

He had asked her at the beginning of the night but when she had just rolled her eyes and gone back to playing Q*bert, he hadn't pushed it again, which Max had appreciated.

"I'm fine," Max muttered, scratching at her jawline and then tugging at the end of her braid before sighing. "Billy and Neil were fighting this morning...And they ended up fighting in my room because it was over not leaving for school soon enough. It was my fault, I didn't get ready fast enough but Neil always blames Billy." Lucas nodded, because he didn't like Billy, but he knew that Max was warming up to him. "Neil pushed Billy and they broke my..." her lips twisted for a moment. "My night light."

It was embarrassing to say out loud, because Max didn't like to admit that she was afraid of anything.

But ever since everything she had found out about in Hawkins...She was afraid of the dark.

She wasn't the only one, she knew that, but she was pretty sure none of the others slept with night lights.

At least, she hadn't asked.

Maybe they did.

But Max wasn't about the admit that.

"Oh," Lucas blinked at her in surprise, head jerking back a little, his lips parting, and Max let out a huff.

"It's no big deal or anything," she leaned forward and gave him a light shove on the shoulder, which ended up turning into pulling at his jacket to bring him in for a quick hug.

Then she whirled around and stalked toward the house, hoping that no one had been watching through the window.

Max showered and dragged a brush through her hair before going out in the living room where Neil and her mother were watching TV.

She watched TV with them for nearly two hours, even though it was M*A*S*H, and she found that show so boring, before her mother said that she really needed to get to to bed.

Max had been hoping that she could stay out there until she was practically asleep, but Neil was starting to play with her mothers hair and she really didn't want to hang around them any longer.

So she got up and left the lounge.

"Max?" Billy's door opened and he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Yeah?" Max gave him a wary look, because even though things were getting better between them, he could still be a real jackass at times.

"Sorry about what happened this morning, in your room," he waved the hand with the cigarette in it toward her room. "And about your light."

"It's okay," Max shrugged.

"It's not," Billy mimicked her gesture, shrugging as well. "Neil is an asshole."

That they could agree on, but Max didn't say anything, just gave him a nod and then went to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Max glanced around her room, and then by habit, she went over to the window to make sure that it was shut and locked—even though she knew the things that went bump in the night could get through a glass window without any regard for the lock.

Then she looked at the empty spot on her bedside table where the night light usually was and made a face.

She had slept without any lights on pretty much her whole life, it had only been since everything had happened, and now she couldn't sleep without some light on that let her see what was happening around her before she closed her eyes.

Max gritted her teeth together as took off the soft jumper she had thrown over her pyjamas and then got into bed, pulling the duvets up and around her chest.

She wasn't sure how long passed.

She tossed and turned, tried to bury her head under her pillow and then pull the blanket up and over her face, but it didn't work.

She heard the music from Billy's room quiet down and then the house fell silent, so it must have been late, because he didn't go to sleep until the early hours of the morning.

She was just thinking about creeping out into the hallway and turning on the bathroom light, and then lying in the morning and saying she just forgot to turn it off if anyone asked, when there was a rap on her window.

Max nearly let out a squeal, her head flying up so fast she gave herself whiplash.

"Fuck," she hissed out as she turned her head toward the window where she saw Lucas' head pop up. "Stalker?" She slipped out of bed and quickly walked over to the window, jerking open the curtains and unlocking the window quietly as she could and pulling it up. "What are you doing here?"

"I, uh," the bushes had clearly attacked him a bit, he had scratches on his cheeks and forehead. "I brought you something here."

"What time is it?" Max asked, glancing over her shoulder, toward the clock on her bedside table, but without the night light, she could barely see anything inside her room.

With her curtains open, she could only see shapes outside from the moon behind the clouds, and it was only because Lucas was right in front of her face that she could actually make out his expression in the darkness.

"I brought you something," Lucas said, and there was a hiccup in his voice and Max realized that his teeth were chattering a little.

"Shit," Max glanced behind her shoulder. "Come on—get in here."

She helped him climb in through the window, and then she closed it after him, looking worriedly toward her bedroom door and hoping that no one had heard the gentle thump that had sounded out as Lucas had tumbled in her window.

"How did you get here? It's the middle of the night!" Max whispered to him.

"I biked here," Lucas stated with a goofy smile.

"It's a ten minute drive from town—like almost an hour bike!" Max exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah—that's why I'm here so late," Lucas nodded as though that explained it all.

"Lucas!" Max waved her hand in front of his face. "What are you doing here?" She repeated her earlier question.

"Right," Lucas grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets.

They were shaking a little, from the cold, and Max kind of wanted to reach out and rub her warm hands around them to heat them up, but he was digging around in his pockets as though he was on a mission.

"Here," he pulled out one hand and it was filled with something that was dully glowing.

And then he pulled out his other hand and there was something similar in that hand.

"I, uh," he laughed. "I took them from my sisters room. She's gonna freak out in the morning when she wakes up in the morning and realizes that all of her stars are gone, but...I figured we've got more to be afraid of when it comes to the dark than she does," his eyebrows pulled together in a frown and his upper lip curled. "At least for now—and I..." he pursed his lips. "I hope she never knows what's really there."

"She won't," Max couldn't help but reassure him. "Hopper and El and Steve and everyone else will never let that happen."

Lucas' shoulders seemed to loosen a little at that and he nodded.

"I know they're not as good as your actual light, but it's not like there's any stores open or anything," Lucas shrugged. "So I figure these could do for tonight."

Max blinked at him as he dropped the cluster of stars, a variety of sizes, all in the dull, greenish-blue colour, and then started pulling out more.

There were still little pits of sticky tack on the back from where they had been sticking to Lucas' little sisters walls and ceiling, and Max couldn't stop the wide smile that spread across her face as she watched him empty his pockets.

"We can put them all on the wall above your bed and then some on the ceiling and then some—" Lucas' ramble was cut off as Max pressed her mouth to his.

When she pulled back, his eyes were still wide open, as though in shock.

"Oh, we've kissed before," Max mumbled bashfully. "Get over it."

Lucas blinked at her and then he leaned back in and kissed her again.

Max reached up and gripped his jacket, bunching it up in her fingers and holding his mouth to hers for a few beats longer.

But then he raised his hands to cup her face and she squeaked.

"Shit, nope!" She shook her head and pulled away from him. "Your hands are freezing!"

Lucas grinned and nodded.

"I should probably be heading back," he said. "Do you want help putting these up?"

"No, it's okay," Max assured him. "You need to get back home, it's already so late."

"Yeah, you're right," Lucas agreed. "But...I mean, we're all here for each other, you know? The party, I mean. We've all been through this shit, and we're all there for each other. I know it can be...Weird talking about things, but that's what friends are for, right? So...If you ever need to talk to any of it, we're all here—I'm here. Promise."

Max couldn't help but smile at that.

"And a promise is something that you can't break...Ever," she recited back.

"Yeah," Lucas nodded firmly.

Max kissed him one last time.

"Go home," she gave him a light shove in the chest.

Lucas grinned before he was climbing out her window carefully and heading back through the pushes toward wherever he dumped his bike.

Max watched him go through their front yard and she couldn't stop smiling—probably looking as love struck as bloody Mike—or Steve, when he was mooning over Jonathan and Nancy.

Once he had disappeared from view, she turned back to look at the stars that Lucas had dumped on her bed.

Her smile was so big her cheeks hurt, and she didn't give a damn as she gripped the first star and leaned toward the wall behind her bed, pressing it on firmly with her thumb.

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