The Long Game, Lucas Sinclair

021. i also fucking hate tunnels

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
2x09: The Gate

Sam sat in the passenger seat of Billy's car, trying to externally hide her internal panic as much as possible.

Max was the one tasked with driving them, as she was the only one with any driving experience—though all it may be was a lap around a parking lot. Next to her, Sam was tasked with being the navigator. In the backseat, Lucas, Corey, Mike, and Dustin were all squished against each other. There was an unconscious, bloodied, and beaten Steve Harrington laying across their laps; they were treating (or at least trying to) Steve's severe wounds from Billy, and Sam made sure that Steve's head was in Lucas's lap, because she trusted him most to know the correct medical skills.

The group was riding in a tense silence, and it was tense for a number of reasons. Sam's was the fact that Max was a horrible driver, which didn't combat well with sam's already pre-existing car trauma, but she was trying not to let it show for Max. She didn't want Max to freak out and drive even worse.

"That was really awesome what you did back there," Max broke the silence quietly, head glancing to Sam for a moment, until Mike hissed at her to keep her eyes on the road when she almost swerved. "With the gun and protecting us and Billy and everything. I can't believe when we met you thought I was the cool one."

Since Sam wasn't driving, she could peel her eyes from the road and focus her gaze on Max. Worried, her eyebrows furrowed. "You're not mad at me? For pointing a gun at him?"

"No, I," Max sighed, deflating for a minute before stretching up so she could see over the dashboard, "I knew what you were doing. I knew you weren't actually going to shoot him. You promised you wouldn't."

Sam felt a little mad at herself, and her lips pressed together in embarrassment. "Yeah, well... he knew I wasn't gonna shoot him too. He almost tried killing me."

"But he didn't," Max countered.

"Because of you," Sam added. Her defeated mood was gone quick, and a small smile was planted on her face. "You saved us back there, Max. I told you that you were cool."

Max laughed fondly, ignoring Mike's panicking that Max should be more focused on the road.

"Okay, fine," Max conceded. "We're both cool or whatever."

"Or whatever," Sam echoed in a light-hearted mocking tone. Max could hear the grin in her voice, although she couldn't turn to see it.

A beat of silence.

Then—

"Nancy?"

Sam turned around in the passenger seat to look at the back, listening to Steve's slurring voice. From what she could see, Steve was slowly waking up, eyes trained on Mike in disorientation. Before Sam turned around to continue reading the map, she watched Mike's face screw up, appalled that Steve referred to him as his sister.