The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

middle schooler's scare the living shit out of me - steve

"Hello!" Steve screamed. He exhaled, his chest falling flat. They had come to a complete halt.

Mike blinked dumbly. "Incredible."

"Told you," Max pulled the keys out of the ignition. "Zoomer."

Max got out of the car first, and everyone began to follow. Sam shut the passenger door behind her, watching the boys file out. Corey threw himself out of the car gratefully, and a part of Sam wondered if he was about to kiss the ground. She let him do his thing while she walked to the trunk with everyone else.

In the mess of it all, they had collected supplies. Masks, bandanas, hockey sticks, gasoline, lighters, full body gear, Sam's gun, Corey's axe — why the Byers had all this, it was a mystery. But after all working together to manage an unconscious Steve into the car, they had stuffed the trunk. Now, it was going to be put to use.

Then, Mike — who had gotten out from the opposite side — jogged around the entire car just so he could make it to Corey. Mike's fingers wrapped around his wrist, and Corey jolted out of the hands-on-his-knees-breathing-in-and-out-gratefully position he'd been in before.

"Are you okay?" Mike asked softly, eyes furrowed unconsciously as he stared at the boy before him.

Why the fuck is he holding my wrist again? Why the fuck is he holding my wrist again?

Corey stared dumbly back at Mike, barely even hearing what Mike was saying to him. All he could really think was Mike, Mike, Mike, but then there was an echo in the back of his head — the voice of his conscious that just sounded like Sam — that whispered Eleven. Then, Corey remembered.

"I'm fine," responded Corey shortly. He wrenched himself out of Mike's grip and headed for the trunk.

There, Sam and Dustin had just chaotically heaved a tank of gasoline from the trunk to the grass. They beamed at each other in excitement of their accomplishment, doing their signature handshake — a fist-bump followed by synchronized snaps. By that point, when the kids had loaded a good amount of their supplies from the trunk, they heard Steve tumble out of their car, landing in the hard grass with a groan.

"Guys," he grumbled, but was ignored.

Sam tied a yellow bandana around her head so that the triangle flap covered up her mouth. Then, she reached into the trunk for one of the goggles they'd brought, and fumbled to rest them over her forehead, not quite protecting her eyes yet. The Party members around her were doing the same, as they'd brought enough of both bandanas and goggles and gloves for everyone — even Steve. Sam would be the only one without gloves. Since she was using her gun, she couldn't wear gloves, too scared it would mess up her aim or accidentally make her shoot when she definitely shouldn't.

Speaking of, Sam carefully snatched her shotgun from the trunk with the intention to reload it with spare shells that had been in the pile of junk thrown out of the shed. Once the magazine tube was full again, she held in the action release button and pumped the slide backwards before pumping it forwards to load the chamber.

"Oh, no," Steve groaned, resting against the car to help him stand up. "Guys."

Once Mike finished tying a plaid, Christmas scarf around the lower half of his face, had the goggles situated over his eyes, and snapped on a yellow pair of rubber kitchen gloves, he grabbed two tanks of the gasoline and started walking towards the hole they'd found Hopper at.

"Hey," Steve's head snapped to Mike, a blur or black hair passing him by. "Hey, where do you think you're going?"

From the trunk, Sam also pulled out a Maglite flashlight, and a roll of duct tape. She wouldn't be able to hold both a flashlight and aim her shotgun at once, so she was going to tape the flashlight onto the barrel of the shotgun for brighter vision. Sam positioned the Maglite underneath the shotgun's barrel so that she could still peer over the barrel without anything interrupting her line of sight. Her teeth held the tape in her mouth, and she used her free hand to grab the end of the role. Sam began wrapping the tape around and around and around the end of the shotgun, attaching the Maglite to the bottom of the shotgun. After testing the secureness of her add-on to the shotgun, Sam nodded, satisfied, and turned the flashlight on. Then, because Billy made Sam bleed again, Sam wrapped the rest of the duct tape around the roll of gaze around Sam's torso.