The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

they're burning all the witches even if you aren't one

"I'm sorry you have to be put through it," rasped Sam.

Max shook her head, frowning, too. "It's not your fault."

It felt like it was though. It always felt like it was all Sam's fault. Ever since she was around eight years old, she'd felt permanently responsible for the bad things that happened around her. Sam always urged to stop it all, to keep everyone safe; when she inevitably failed, each mistake was another heart-crushing blow. The pain cut like a knife.

She really wasn't built for this.

"I know what it's like, now," Max spoke up again.

Sam snapped out of it, turning to Max to stare at her with furrowed eyebrows. "What?"

"The nightmares," she admitted. "I know what it's like to have them, now. I can't believe you've been going through that."

Oh.

Sam wanted to say that she got used to them, but she never really did. The same, paralyzing nightmares never got any easier to bear. Her heart hurt at the knowledge Max was so affected by them, too.

Sam wondered, "Are yours... real? Or are they — Vecna visions?"

"Sometimes it's Billy. Sometimes it's real," said Max, breath catching in her throat. "I see you, and I feel the same fear I felt that moment, thinking you were going to die. But then Billy steps in, and I'm screaming before I can stop myself."

Sam nodded. She swallowed uncomfortably, because she was about to confess something she'd never spoken aloud to anyone.

"Mine start off in a car."

A family of four. A family, late because of casserole.

"It's me, Steph, and my parents, and we're late for something because by dad didn't want to show up empty handed," Sam laughed wetly. She sniffled, and continued, "But it's not a memory. It's not real, and I always realize it too late in the dream. The same song starts playing on the radio—"

Stars shining bright above you...

"—and I start screaming for them to stop—"

"STOP THE CAR!" Sam began yelling desperately, tears in her eyes. "PLEASE, DAD, STOP THE CAR!"

"—but they never do. Then the crash happens, and they die, and Steph — Steph tells me it's all my fault," she croaked. "Then I'm with Will in the shed, and he's telling me it's all my fault, too."

A sensitive boy. Lights flickering. A film that's been seen before.

"And then it's Bob."

Sam sniffled again and wiped the underneath of her nose, trying to go on.

"That time it is a memory. I live out what happened. Every single time."

Her hand closed around her B necklace she only ever took off when she was going to shower or bathe or swim. Max shifted closer to Sam, trying to provide some comfort as the words seemed to get caught in Sam's throat.

"And it used to end there," Sam strained out. "Until the Mind Flayer came back, and it—"

The void. The mistake. The wreck of Hopper's cabin. The battle at Starcourt.

"I get it, Sam," Max whispered in a pleading voice, not wanting to see her in anymore pain. "I'm sorry. I get it. I do."

Sam's fist clenched, and she forced herself to stop — stop crying, stop getting so worked up over nothing. Max had just evaded death, and here Sam was, talking about her nightmares. It was an attempt to bring them closer, but now she felt like she was failing at that the same way she failed at everything else.