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WITHIN TEN MINUTES OF BABYSITTING, Amara wanted nothing more than to leave the Byers house and find a way to help the others.
It wasn't as though she didn't like the kids – on the contrary, she thought they were all quite endearing. But they were restless and had a tendency to induce chaos everywhere they went. Lucas and Max were actually trying to do something useful by sweeping up the glass shards from the floor, Mike was pacing the living room as he conjured a thousand different scenarios where he lost Eleven again, and Dustin – Amara didn't even know what to think of him. He had emptied out the refrigerator to make room for the corpse of the dead monster, claiming it was a "ground-breaking scientific discovery." Steve had actually helped him put the creature into the fridge to her surprise, but it was nice to see that he was becoming a sort of older brother figure for Dustin.
"You'd agree with me though, right?" Dustin asked Amara as she approached them in the kitchen, Mike's pacing having bothered her to the point where she had to exit the living room before she snapped at him to quit it. "It's an undiscovered species, so it's worth preserving."
"It's an undiscovered species that tried to kill us, Dustin," Amara reminded him with a roll of her eyes. "But if you're planning on preserving it, maybe choose a place that isn't Mrs. Byers' fridge. Or a fridge in general, it won't even last a month."
"Duly noted," Dustin replied, but he made no move to remove the corpse from the refrigerator.
"Mike, would you just stop already?" Lucas demanded, having had enough of Mike's visible unease for Eleven. They were all worried about her safety, but they trusted that her powers and Hopper aiding her were sufficient for her to close the gate.
"You weren't in there, okay, Lucas?" Mike's voice was just as sharp, yet also filled with trepidation. "That lab is swarming with hundreds of those dogs."
"Demodogs!" Dustin blurted from beside Amara.
"Dustin, stop trying to make 'Demodogs' happen. It's not going to happen!" Amara whisper-shouted as Lucas attempted to assure Mike that Hopper would guarantee her protection. Dustin scowled at Amara but nevertheless let the matter drop as he finally conceded that they had more important issues than what to name the monsters.
"Listen, dude, a coach calls a play in a game," Steve told Mike as he swabbed the Demodog (fine, Dustin) slime off of his hands with a towel. He wanted to be useful for once but he could only explain things the way he knew best, which was through sports. "Bottom line, you execute it. All right?"
"Okay, first of all, this isn't some stupid sports game," Mike pointed out. "And second, we're not even in the game. We're on the bench."
"Right, so my point is... " Steve stammered, embarrassed that in addition to Amara having better girl advice than him, Mike apparently understood more about sports than he did. "Right, yeah, we're on the bench, so, uh, there's nothing we can do."
