The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

know it's for the better, know it's for the better, know it's for the better

There was a picture of the Party on the night of Lucas's fourteenth in this very basement. Mike and Corey had been forced to sit beside each other on the couch while Will held a hand over Lucas's eyes and gestured for Sam and Dustin to bring out the collection of Atari games and Lakers tickets they had all chipped in to get him per Sam's request. Max was caught taking a finger dip of the frosting on Lucas's cake before they sang happy birthday to him.

They skimmed through the rest of the handcrafted booklet of memories — Sam and Mike covered in paint after a paint war Sam started on the last day of art class, Max laughing at Dustin busting his ass on her skateboard, Will posing with one hand holding a Sharpie and the other holding up a peace sign next to a sleeping Corey who had a mustache and glasses drawn on his face, Lucas trying to fit on El's pink dress she wore when they were twelve.

There was a candid picture — which Sam had never seen before — of Lucas trying to braid Sam's hair. The key word was trying, and Sam-in-the-picture was giggling because she didn't even have to look to know how bad of a job Lucas had done. She had smiled in remembrance of that day, but her entire expression dropped when she noted the ♡s drawn all around it.

Sam and Lucas stiffened, pointedly looking away from each other for a good bit.

There were much more pictures for them to look through, some not even including the Party. There was Jonathan and Joyce and Hopper (which Sam distinctly refused to look at) and Steve and Robin and Erica included here and there. The Party didn't stop until they came to the heart-wrenching end.

It was called 'Familey.' The word was written in big lettering that stretched across the last two pages of the scrapbook and it was misspelled, the pages were bordered with colorful little doodles.

When the scrapbook was done, it finally made Sam realized that their time together was coming to an unwilling, devastating end. She had burst out into tears, which made Dustin burst out into tears, and soon enough they were all crying. Even Corey, who avoided all emotion besides anger as much as he could.

To try and cheer themselves up, the gang put E.T. the Extra Terrestrial on Mike's dingy little television he kept in his basement. Unfortunately, though, no one got to see the end of the movie. All of them ended up falling asleep tangled in each other; a pleasant surprise to Karen Wheeler who took a picture before waking them up the next morning.

Lucas and Mike — the psychopaths they were — had fallen asleep sitting straight up on the couch. Lucas had a blanket draped over himself while Mike just let himself freeze. Although there was more room on the sofa, Sam was the only other one on the cushions. She had laid down onto the couch and fallen asleep with her head in Lucas's lap. Corey hadn't meant to fall asleep sitting next to Mike on the arm of the couch, but he had, and in the picture, he was curling up inches away from brushing against Mike. Max and Will both slept on the group with their heads using either side of Lucas's legs as a pillow, and El was lying across both of their laps. Dustin's entire body, somehow, was lying on top the back of the couch, sprawled out with one arm dangling on Sam.

It would be the last picture the eight of them ever got for a while.

One sleepover, and now they were all forced to face the inevitable.

Sam wished they had a million sleepovers, because now, she was helping pack the entire Byers household into one, simple U Haul truck. Years and years of memories into a puny vehicle that was driving thirty-three hours to California.

She was sat on the floor of the now-empty living room next to Lucas. There was a wall with cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, and Max and Dustin were all the way in what used to be the dining room separated by more cardboard boxes. The four friends had volunteered to pack up everything that was left that didn't belong to Will, El, Jonathan, or Joyce personally.