The Long Game, Lucas Sinclair

pauses, then says...

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Now that it was the next day, Sam wore a sheer, nice, floral short with long, airy and puffy sleeves; it had a frilly turtleneck and cinching sleeve cuffs. On top of it, she had a greenish-blueish, knitted sweater vest. Like usual, Sam had on bigger jeans, and the ends didn't have cuffs, just frayed edges. Steph had a pair of old, pink Dr. Martens that she didn't fit in, anymore, so Sam stole those. Half of her hair was separated from the other half — the top half was split into two parts, French braided on both sides, then pinned down at the back crown of her head.

After yesterday's horrible events, Sam forced everyone to retreat back home, telling Mike and Dustin they would all reconvene at Mike's tomorrow morning (today).

"I'm guessing El never came back," Sam said, announcing her presence to Mike.

He had been kicking down the fort he made for Eleven to stay in, destroying it with frustrated anger he could no longer contain. At the sound of Sam's voice, he startled around in fear, meeting Sam's analyzing features.

"Shit, Sam! What the hell?!" cursed Mike, trying to recover from his instinctive responses of his panic.

Sam seemed unapologetic, shrugging her backpack off casually and setting it onto one of the basement's sofas. She took a look around the place as if she were an art connoisseur, ignoring Mike's annoyed glare.

"Dustin's not here yet?" Sam analyzed, making a really obvious conclusion.

Mike scoffed at her. "You could knock, you know? I thought my mom was coming down here! She could've found..."

"Nothing?" Sam finished for him with a raised eyebrow. She gestured around the empty room, and the now-decimated fort. "Because it looks like there's nothing down here."

"Now is not the time to try and be funny," Mike snapped. He looked like he was trying not to burst at the seams.

Sam widened her eyes judgmentally when Mike turned around to start pacing. She muttered under her breath, "Looks like someone's still cranky."

"I heard that," scowled Mike.

She pretended to shrug her hands up cluelessly, tilting her head and saying, "Heard what?"

Then they heard a knock upstairs from the basement door, and Sam really did look like a hypocrite because she flinched in fear of who would come down there. Then, she remembered her own words, and remembered it wasn't really that deep.

"Dustin?!"

"Yeah, it's me!"

"All right, you can come down!"

And then, there was the creaking of the wooden, basement door. With the sound of thumping marches down the stairs, Sam slowly saw Dustin come into view.

"Holy shit, I can't stop — Oh, hey, Sam!" Dustin cut himself off, his freaked-out face quickly switching to beam at Sam.

Sam waved, "Hi!"

Dustin nodded, faced Mike again, took in a deep breath, then, "Holy shit, I can't stop thinking about what happened at the junkyard! I mean, I got no sleep, dude!"

"I don't think any of us did," said Sam, no longer stalling and forcing them all to discuss what happened.

"I can't believe her!" exclaimed Mike.

Throwing her head back, Sam asked, "What did I do this time?"

"I'm talking about El," Mike clarified, indignantly.