CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
3x03: The Case of the Missing Lifeguard

"Angel" by Madonna played on El's radio as the girls were in her room. Sam and Max decided to treat El to her first ever sleepover. The sun had officially gone down, signifying the night, and now Sam was using El's hairbrush as a microphone. She and Max were dancing around El's room, jamming out to Madonna.

"You must be an angel," Sam and Max sang, Max twirling Sam into her. They swayed together, both singing into the hairbrush. "I can see it in your eyes! Full of wonder and surprise!"

The song continued, but Max stopped jumping up and down when she saw the magazine El was staring down upon. Sam and Max had gathered together magazines from their own houses, along with anything else they felt was necessary for a sleepover, and brought it to El's so she could fully experience a sleepover. The magazine her eyes were currently adoring was one that made Sam stop dancing and singing too.

Max chuckled amusedly at El's reaction. "Oh, you found Ralph Macchio."

"Macchio?" El questioned, intrigued, as Max sat down next to the side of El's bed and threw her arms over the top of it. Sam elected to sit properly on the bed, diagonal from El.

"He's the Karate Kid," Max explained.

Sam nodded vigorously. She wiggled her eyebrows, then enthusiastically added, "And hot."

"Hi-yah!" Max chopped her arm down, mimicking a karate move. El flinched back in surprise before laughing with Max at her action.

But Sam was still staring at the magazine El was holding, visibly dazed and swooning. "He's so hot, right?"

"I bet he's an amazing kisser too," Max agreed. Sam nodded rapidly, but El looked at Max totally scandalized. "Hey, uh," she started, leaving the floor and sitting across from El on the bed so that the three made a triangle, "is Mike a good kisser?"

Sam's face screwed up, because she did not want to talk about her best friend's kissing abilities, thank you very much.

El scoffed. "I don't know. He's my first boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend," Max corrected with the tilt of her head.

Sam nudged Max with a disapproving look when the grin fell from El's face. "Way to be gentle about it, Mayfield."

"I'm just saying!" Max defended half-heartedly.

Sam shook her head, sighing critically. She placed a gentle hand on El's knee, wanting to cheer her up. "Hey, don't worry about it, alright? Everything happens for a reason. It's probably better for you to be single—to experience the world on your own—and Mike clearly needs to work things out for himself. This is a good thing, El."

"You really think so?" El said in that timid voice she first used when Sam met her.

"Yeah." Sam nodded softly. "Yeah, I really do."

"And look at you, El!" Max motioned to her energetically with an impressed smile. "You look great! Imagine Mike—who's probably like, totally wallowing in self-pity and misery right now." El giggled, while Max ignored Sam's sad, puppy-dog look. "God, I would give anything to see his stupid face!"

At that, El was seemingly struck with an idea. Her eyes fell away from both girls, staring at the wall in a contemplative manner.

Max's eyebrows raised warily. "What is it?"

"Oh my God," Sam realized, reading the look on El's face that had never been there before. She was hanging out with the party too much. "The void?"

A mischievous smile slowly grew on El's face. She nodded eagerly.

Quickly, El explained to Max what her idea was. She asked for Max to retrieve a blindfold for her, which Max was eager to do. Sam, on the other hand, wasn't as sure about it all. Against her own will, she barely touched El's radio and it somehow turned onto an empty station. The soft crackling of static filled the room as she sat next to Max on the bed.

El made herself comfortable on the floor in front of the radio.

"Are we sure we wanna do this?" Sam stressed warily. "Like, isn't this breaking the rules of privacy?"

Max nudged Sam with a smile. "Aren't you the one who said breaking the rules is the best part?"

Sam groaned, Max using her own words against her. "This just feels wrong though. We wouldn't want them doing this to us."

"Luckily they can't," El added, and Sam had no clue where this sudden sass came from. Her suspects were Mike and Max.

Sam exhaled, knowing she was being overruled again. "What's the point of having morals if no one listens to you?" she grumbled.

"This'll be fun, Hughes!" Max clapped Sam on the back, before looking to see El was tying the black blindfold around her eyes. Excitement rushed in her. "Is this really gonna work?"

El nodded silently, trying to focus on the static of the radio.

Sam could feel Max's elation heighten. Max held onto Sam's arm in excitement, sending her a questioning look. "Have you seen her do this before?"

Sam nodded back, also quiet, because she knew El needed it. She also still had a bad feeling about this, so she was basically grimacing.

Max beamed at the information, hugging Sam's arm tighter. "Holy shit, this is insane—!"

"Max," El said seriously.

"Yeah. Quiet. Sorry."

Finally Max fell quiet, and El could actually focus. Sam could hear the static of the radio in her ears, could feel it in her chest. It was a feeling she didn't like. It mixed with that usual, sharp cold she felt when things like El or the Upside Down were involved. Above Sam's head, the warm light of El's fan flickered slightly.

Max's eyebrows furrowed, and she looked up to see the light stuttering. Then her head tilted down, and she noted Sam, who was still uneasy. It wasn't that far off of what happened when Sam was having a nightmare.

"Hughes, you okay?" Max whispered. "If the whole eavesdropping thing really freaks you out, we can stop."

At being addressed, Sam snapped out of it and the light stopped flickering. She sniffled, turning to Max and shaking her head. "No, sorry, I'm fine."

Max opened her mouth to interrogate Sam further, because she didn't believe Sam, but El spoke up before Max could.

"I see them," El said, catching Max's attention.

Max brightened up again, easily getting very distracted. She let go of Sam's arm and shifted off the bed, kneeling right in front of El.

"What are they doing?" Max asked curiously.

"Eating," El replied.

Max shared confused eye contact with Sam. Sam shrugged back cluelessly. She still sat on the bed, not really wanting to take part in the whole invading sacred privacy thing.

Blood began dripping down El's nose as she continued watching the boys in the void. She went silent again as she presumably spied further. Sam thought it was very ironic how Max called Lucas and Dustin stalkers last year, but was very okay with stalking them now.

Although, Sam was suddenly very interested when El said, "They say we are species."

"What?" Max exclaimed.

"'Emotion, not logic.'"

"What?" Sam cried, shifting off the bed and joining the two girls on the floor. She kneeled on the other side of El, sharing an angry look with Max.

But El didn't elaborate, still gathering intel from what the boys were saying about the species of women. Sam didn't want to believe they were saying that, any of them. She would've thought she'd taught them better than that over the eight years of friendship and fourteen years of cousinship (?), but apparently not.

It honestly felt like this summer was tearing her friends apart, but Sam had been too afraid to say anything about it, in fear that if she spoke it aloud it would actually happen.

Eleven yanked off the blindfold with a gasp. When her eyes met Sam and Max's as if she were traumatized, blood pouring down her nose, Sam grew scared.

"What happened?" Sam worried, leaning closer to El, trying to get a better read on El's emotions.

But then El broke out into a fit of giggles.

"What?" Max questioned, just as confused as Sam.

El fell onto the ground, lying down as her laughter grew. It was so contagious that Sam and Max joined in, although still startled.

"What happened?" Sam huffed amusedly, but El just continued laughing, and Sam couldn't help but do the same.

She and Max began laughing harder as El continuing rolling around the ground, dying of chuckles. Their laughter was a more "caught off guard and our friend is absurd" laughter, but they didn't really care the origins of it.

Sam was now laughing so hard that her stomach ached, and it felt like she had abs for a moment. She could barely breathe, and it hurt, but it was also the best feeling—and, honestly, the best feeling Sam had in months. Everything had been feeling so off, but here, with two of her best friends, it was as if Sam that feeling had never existed.

Then a car was approaching, and the laughter abruptly stopped out of surprise. El pushed up from the floor, propping herself up by her arms, staring towards the front of the house with Sam and Max.

"It's just Hopper," El said, dispelling their worries. "He's home... late."

"Probably spending extra time with Officer Callahan." Sam said, dead serious. "It's what I'd do if I worked with him... if you know what I'm saying."

"Sam!"

"What? It's true!" Sam laughed unapologetically. She crawled over to El's bed and grabbed the magazines she and Max had brought before returning back over to the girls on the floor. Sam flopped stomach down, beginning to flip through one of them. "Here, I wanna show El more hot people."

Max and El chuckled, amused by Sam's zany behavior. They decided to listen to Sam and joined her by lying with their stomachs down on the floor too. El turned the radio back on to a pop channel before she did so, but once she was lying with her friends, she picked up a magazine of her own.

And, truthfully, Sam's goal had been showing El more hot people. But she just couldn't focus on her own task she'd placed on hand.

They say we are species.

"Emotion, not logic."

Well, and... who was "they," exactly? Because Sam couldn't stop thinking about it. She was wondering who, exactly, was saying that about them as girls. And the more she thought about that, the more she thought about...

You have too much faith in him. Among others.

Didn't know you thought I was important anymore.

I just think it's funny you were talking about wanting to have a good time with us yesterday, then you went missing with Zimmerman for "popcorn."

"Hey, El?" Sam questioned, forcing herself out of her own thoughts.

El tilted her head at Sam curiously past Max. "Yeah?"

Sam exhaled, trying to prepare herself for something that wasn't even a big deal—or, at least, it shouldn't be a big deal. She didn't know why she was so freaked out about it.

She closed the magazine she'd been pretending to focus on and met El's stare.

"Did Lucas... say anything, maybe?" she asked, virtually out of nowhere since they had no clue what was going on in her mind.

Predictably, she was met with very confused looks.

"Um... what?" El wondered, genuinely unsure.

Sam sighed, because, yes, she was well aware that was unhelpful. "I mean, like... when you watched the boys in the void."

"Oh, now you care about what we were doing," Max muttered, and Sam nudged her with a half-hearted glare.

"I'm just saying," she started, clearly nervous and anxious. "It's just that—well, you know..."

"Know... what?"

Sam groaned. This was hard.

Trying to get it over with, to just start explaining, she began, "Lucas has been weird lately, okay? Really weird. And he's been getting mad at me a lot." She inhaled a shakily as she finally verbalized what she'd been holding in for weeks. "I don't know why. I don't know what I did. And Lucas—he's not that kind of guy. He's not usually... like this. We're not usually like this."

The silence from her two friends only made her more worried, even though they couldn't speak, because Sam was rambling on and on, and when she was worried, she couldn't stop talking, so it was all a massive spiral that wouldn't end.

"I mean, usually we're on the same side. With everything. He's like, the only person I feel like I know will be there with me—or I guess 'felt,' because we're not on the same side anymore. Or the same page. Or the same book. Or the same anything. I just—I don't know. I want to know what I did wrong. I don't want to... lose him."

Max huffed incredulously, as if the idea of Sam losing Lucas was absurd.

Sam took that laugh the wrong way, so she was plowing on: "I miss him. Which is stupid, because he's literally in my life all the time, but... he feels gone. Checked out from me. And it sucks, 'cause I'm pretty sure he was the only one who would ever truly understand me." Then, "No offense! I didn't mean it like—"

El's door flew open abruptly, hitting the wall with a slam!

All three girls flinched at the loud noise, scared by the vulnerable moment being ended so suddenly. Sam's head whipped over to see it was Hopper who had stumbled into El's room with an angry shout. She wasn't anywhere near him, but she could still smell the alcohol practically wafting from his breath.

"Jeez!" Sam hissed, trying to calm her beating heart from the jumpscare.

Max's eyes widened on Hopper judgmentally. "Do you knock?"

"Yeah! Jeez!" El agreed, copying her friends.

"Oh... hey..." Hopper faltered. He clearly hadn't expected to be met with blonde and ginger heads of hair. Trying to fix his mistake, holding an entire bottle of wine, he retracted. "I'm sorry. I thought that, uh—"

"Mike's not here," Max interrupted, still judging Hopper.

El nodded. "Sam and Max wanted to have a sleepover. Is that... okay?"

Hopper seemed even more caught off guard than before. He forced himself to say, "Yeah...! Yeah. Yeah, yeah." His eyes flitted between the other two girls. "Your parents know about it?"

"Yup," Max replied.

"My parents are dead," Sam answered.

"Uh, yeah," Hopper slurred, nodding rapidly. "It's cool. That's—that's really cool."

And Hopper just... stayed standing there. Nodding.

The girls looked back at him warily. Sam wondered just how drunk he really was. Max sent him a condescending look.

"Did you need something?"

"No! No," Hopper responded, realizing he hadn't moved from El's doorway. "Uh, I'll... leave. I'll just let you... I'll leave you..."

Then he shut the door, and the three girls heard him start to whoop from the other side.

"He knows we can hear him... right?" Sam wondered, raising an eyebrow.

Hopper continued cheering. He definitely did not.

Sam, Max, and El started dying of laughter again.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

The reminder of Mike gave El another mischievous idea of her own: spin the bottle.

Not actually, but still—El got the idea for their next activity from spin the bottle.

(Sam didn't get how El knew what spin the bottle was, when she didn't know about anything else in the world, but Sam chose not to ask.)

This spin the bottle game would go a little differently: They would spin an empty Coca-Cola bottle over a piece of paper that had names of people they knew on it. Whoever it landed on, El would go into the void and spy on the chosen person.

"Guys, seriously, I still think there's something wrong about this. Morally and legally," Sam worried, watching Max write on a piece of construction paper with a Sharpie.

"What if we check on Lucas?" Max asked in return.

"No!" El panicked almost immediately. Both of the girls looked at her, shocked. "Anyone but Lucas! He... farts."

Sam and Max's faces morphed into those of amused shock. They shared a look with each other before laughter bubbled out of them. El joined in for a moment, although it sounded like she genuinely feared Lucas and his ability to fart.

"Okay," Max huffed, entertained. "No Lucas. We won't do Mike, Corey, or Will either, since you already saw them."

Max continued writing on the paper, placing the pieces on a harder board the bottle could spin on. Sam found herself frowning again in unease.

"Or maybe we don't do anyone?" Sam tried for the last time. She still did not have a good feeling about all of this.

But Max and El had started ignoring her now.

Sam sighed. She was losing this battle today too.

When Max finished writing the names, Sam looked down at the board to see Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Wheeler, Dustin, Mr. Wheeler, Steve, Stephanie, Nancy, and Jonathan's names.

"Holy shit, I can't believe we're really doing this," Max commented as she put the last name down: Billy's.

"I can," Sam muttered, though it was passive aggressive.

Max pretended not to hear. She put down the Sharpie and the construction paper, turning to El. "Ready?"

"Ready." El nodded.

And so, El grabbed the glass bottle. She spun it, the girls watching it twirl around before it slowly came to a stop...

"Stephanie," Sam, Max, and El read in unison.

Sam's eyebrows furrowed, and her nose scrunched slightly. "Ugh, boring. She's probably just smoking weed with Warren, Jo, and Gina and crying about her five-year-long crush."

Max and El started laughing, but Sam shrugged seriously.

"What? It's true! Spin again."

El raised an eyebrow at Sam. "Against the rules?" she worried.

"We make our own rules," Sam said impishly.

Max smirked, nudging Sam's side. "And we break the existing ones," she referred back to Sam's previous words again.

El's eyes darted between Sam and Max, contemplating. Their smiles spread onto her face, and she suddenly had no issue in the matter. She twisted the bottle quickly so it began to spin.

Sam watched the glass slow down again. Instead of the handle stopping on her sister's name, it chose someone else.

"Billy," they chorused, reading Max's handwriting.

Sam fidgeted with her golden B necklace while El grinned in an intrigued manner towards Max.

"Okay, look," Max started, getting off El's bed to grab the blindfold and radio, "I should just warn you, if he's with a girl or doing something gross, just get out of there right away before you're scarred for life."

Max tossed the blindfold to El, and gave the radio to Sam so she could find the empty station. Max looked stressed, so El tried, "Max—"

"No, I'm just saying!" Max explained. "I'm serious. He's really gross."

"Max," El repeated.

"Okay," Max exhaled finally. "Shutting up now."

El grinned in amusement at Max's ramblings, as Sam successfully found the channel she'd been looking for. What her friends hadn't noticed as they'd been talking, was that when Sam put the radio on an empty channel, a blue spark connected the technology and Sam's finger when she touched it. Her eyes widened a smidge when she noticed it, but she didn't say anything, wanting to keep the light mood of the sleepover.

Sam set the radio down with a, "Here," once static was playing out of the speakers. Luckily no one had noticed the electricity Sam pulled from the radio, so she was safe. For now.

El shared one last look with the girls before tying the knot of the blindfold behind her head. She placed her hands on her thighs, going remotely still. When Sam saw a little blood begin to drip out her nostril, she knew El was in the void.

Sam shared a look with Max, because El was silent for much longer than she had been for the boys. Her fingers began playing with the golden B necklace again before her eyes settled on El once more.

"I found him," El finally said after a few minutes.

Max's brows furrowed curiously. "What's he doing?"

"Oh," Sam tried pushing out her own tension, "I swear if he's fuc—"

"No," El said in a dangerous whisper. "I don't... I don't know what he's doing."

She shook her head, driving the point that she was truly bewildered. Sam noted there was more blood coming out her nose.

"He's... on the floor..." El tried describing, though still sounding unsure, "talking to someone..."

Sam raised an eyebrow. To Max, she mouthed, Definitely fucking.

Max huffed in amusement, playfully nudging Sam. Sam smiled a little, happy to get a good reaction out of Max, but she couldn't deny that the bad feeling in her chest was growing. She could mask her fear as much as she wanted, but the truth was that Sam was afraid. Afraid of what was still unknown—herself, what the feeling was, what the feeling meant. But despite all her joking, something wasn't right.

Jolting Sam, El gasped suddenly. She was hyperventilating in out, clearly distressed. It was nothing like when El pulled off her blindfold after the basement.

"What is it?" Max asked, worried.

Tears were filling El's eyes as she heaved, eyes darting all around the room.

"El?" Sam questioned. She placed a hand on El's thigh in concern. "Hey, El, what happened? Are you okay?"

El snapped out of it, head whipping towards Sam, deeply troubled.

"Billy," El breathed, trying to calm herself. "It was Billy."

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Corey Alan Gray really favored his sleep, okay? It was a hassle for Sam, Stephanie, or his mom to try and get him out of bed. He hated when he had to work early shifts at Fostering and Repair, he hated waking up in the morning for his stupid school to see his stupid grade he stupidly didn't even belong in. And, yes, Corey did hate a lot, but waking up was high on the list.

Needless to say, Corey was a little pissed when he was woken up by unreasonably loud, medieval music (???). His first thought was What in the nine circles of fucking hell? until he realized something much worse that was going on.

There was a warm weight on top of his side. Blinking blearily, Corey put together Mike was laying on top of him. Mike Wheeler. The totally straight guy Corey was probably in love with but couldn't be probably in love with because he was totally straight.

Yeah. That Mike.

And Corey wasn't proud of it—truly, he wasn't—but he couldn't help his body reacting the way it did next. In a panic, Corey spasmed with Mike on top of him, like the gay idiot he was.

Mike shot up a second later, the empty can of Coke he had fallen asleep holding flying out of his grasp and hitting Corey in the side of the face.

"Ow! The fuck, Wheeler?"

"As if I was aiming for you, dumbass!"

"Well, it hit me in the fucking head, so obviously you were—"

"Oh my God, I was not—"

"ATTENTION!" Will shrieked, thudding his makeshift staff against the wooden floor, donned in a purple wizard costume that had not left the cardboard box in the depths of his basement for four years. "Arise, brethren!"

"What are you doing?"

"What are you wearing?" Corey judged.

Mike rubbed his eyes tiredly, shifting up off of Corey's side finally. "Yeah, Will, can you turn down the music?"

"Please address me by my full name," Will said triumphantly, although Corey couldn't take him seriously with that stupid pointy hat.

"What?" Lucas groaned, falling back into his sleeping bag but startling when the staff connected with the floor once again.

"My full name!"

Corey shrugged helplessly, just wanting all this to be over. "William James Byers?"

"That's Mike's middle name," Lucas corrected. "His actual middle name is Jacob."

"I don't care."

The staff slammed into the floorboards again.

"Oh my God." Mike rubbed his temples, and he was so close Corey could feel his left arm moving. "Okay, Will the Wise, can you please turn down the music?"

"Who the what?" Corey questioned, trying to hold back a rude laugh.

"That is not music," Will sneered, banging his staff on the floor again. "That... is the sound of destiny! I have seen into the future, and I've seen that today is a new day—a day... free of girls!"

While Corey's queer ass was riveting with the idea of that, and while he found Will's costume absolutely dashing, Will's sound of destiny was making Corey's ears suicidal.

"What is happening right now?" Lucas cried cluelessly.

Mike threw his head back miserably. "Will, come on."

"Come on what?" Corey teased, earning two tired groans from Mike and Lucas.

"Yep," Lucas deadpanned. "Definitely Sam's cousin."

In that short amount of time, Will had moved over to the D&D table—or The Nerd Table, as Corey liked calling it—free hand mystically waving around the most recent set-up.

"A tribe of villagers are under threat from an evil force from the swamps of Kuzatan," Will began, and Corey got lost at just the second word of his sentence.

"No way you woke me up for this."

"Will, it's so early," Mike whined.

Will tilted his head. He stood up straight from the way he'd been hovering over the board. "Is it? Is it early, Micheal?"

"Micheal," Corey snorted, sending Mike a teasing look.

Mike's face tinted, and he scooted away from Corey a little. "Shut up," he grumbled.

"Tell that to villagers crying for your help," Will continued, "the children so frightened they cannot sleep. Are you truly going to let them perish? Or are you going to come to their rescue, and become the heroes you were always meant to be?"

A moment's silence. Three boys blinked back at Will the Wise.

"Let them perish."

"Can I take a shower first?"

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Sam didn't quite know what El saw in the void when she'd spied on Billy; El wasn't explaining it all that great. When she took off her blindfold, she told Sam and Max almost exactly what she said before—Billy was on the ground talking to someone. Don't be afraid. It'll all be over soon. Then his head whipped around, as if he could see El there with them.

Weird, sure. But Sam didn't really know what to feel yet.

She was sort of always worried something was wrong, so it got really hard to tell if this time was any different from every other time. And, Max continued telling El it was nothing in the same way she shot Sam's anxieties down as nothing. So Sam should really listen to Max too.

Everything was fine!

Right?

They were trying to investigate the answer to that question. Right now Sam, Max, and El were making their way towards Max's house. El hoped to find Billy, or Billy's room, or something that might explain what she saw in the void last night.

The clouds were overcast above them, a tell-tale sign it was about to rain. Sam much preferred the sunshine, but was choosing not to be a downer and stayed silent.

Max, however, was choosing the opposite.

"It's gonna start pouring soon," she complained, nose scrunching unhappily. "We should be at the mall, or like, watching a movie or something."

El turned to Max with a frown. "You don't believe me?"

Max's eyebrows raised at the blunt accusation. "I believe you saw some super weird stuff, totally," she began, "but you said Mike has sensed you in there before, right?"

El nodded.

"So maybe it was just like that. Maybe Billy just... sensed you, somehow."

El's eyebrows furrowed, because that hadn't been the answer she wanted from Max. She turned to her other side, focusing on Sam who was just walking along in her own little world.

"Sam?" El questioned, wondering her opinion.

Sam hopped out of her daydreaming and met her friends' stares. She shrugged simply, said, "I believe you."

Max rolled her eyes. "You just say things to please people because you're terrified of upsetting them or having them mad at you."

Sam gaped back, totally caught off guard and feeling absolutely attacked.

"But also the screams," El reminded, trying to get the girls back on the subject of Billy.

Max threw her head back tiredly. "Yeah, I know, but... here's the thing—when Billy is alone with a girl, they make like, crazy noises."

"They scream?" El wondered, totally bewildered.

"Yeah, but like," Max struggled to explain, "happy screams..."

"Oh God," Sam muttered.

El tilted her head in confusion. "Happy screams? What is 'happy screams'?"

"Oh God."

"It's like," Max tried again, but ultimately failed. She gave up with a sigh. "I'm just gonna lend you my mom's Cosmo."

When they finally reached Max's front yard, the three girls stopped. Max's house looked the same as it always did, except now just empty outside.

"His car's not here," Max analyzed.

Sam wiggled her fingers and shoulders at Max and El, putting on a ghost-like voice: "OooOoO, spoOoOoky..."

"Sam, stop," Max deadpanned, to which Sam dropped her hands at her sides with a defeated frown. Then, to El, "You really want to do this?"

El really did.

So Sam, Max, and El traveled inside the Mayfield-Hargrove household together. Max guided them to a corner of the house that not even Max herself had dared trespassing: Billy's room. Sam was glad Billy wasn't home, because she knew if he caught the girls trying to enter his room, he'd kill them all on sight.

Why were they spying so much lately :(

Max opened Billy's door, leading the trio, followed by El, and Sam coming up behind them. Aloud, Max wondered, "Why do I get the feeling we're gonna find all kinds of wrong in here?"

Sam slowly followed the sound of Max's voice into Billy's room. She couldn't see, because she was covering her eyes with both her hands, in fear of what awaited her.

"Yup." Sam's hands stayed firm over her eyes. "I'm not taking any chances."

Max and El turned around in confusion to see Sam shielding her vision. The former rolled her eyes, forcing herself not to show her own amusement. Max stepped up to Sam and pulled Sam's hands off her eyes; Sam was met with Max's face and smiled innocently at the sight.

"Hi."

"Come on, Hughes." Max glared playfully. She grabbed Sam's hand and dragged her further into Billy's room.

Sam took a brief look around (brief, in case there really was something nasty), and immediately noted the tray of used cigarettes. Or maybe she smelled them first. She couldn't really tell.

There was also heavy metal playing on Billy's stereo, but that really didn't surprise her. She'd slept over at Max's house multiple times, and knew that Billy's radio was playing on full blast constantly. He clearly had no issue with wasting electricity or regards for the eardrums of those around him.

There were vulgar posters up around his walls, and the room as a whole was a mess. He had weights here and there, and clothes everywhere. The stench of cigarettes lingered with sweat, and Sam couldn't stand it. She was so lucky Corey wasn't a typical boy, because if his room was anything like this, she would've been his personal maid by now.

Max opened the top of Billy's bedside dresser. She pulled at the drawer only to see a multitude of magazines containing near-naked girls. Her face immediately screwed up, nose scrunching in disgust.

"Ugh! Gag me with a spoon."

Wondering what Max was looking at, Sam came up right behind Max. She looked at the magazines with an intrigued face.Max glared at Sam, whose head was now hanging over her shoulder, and she shut the drawer to stop her from looking.

"I don't think there's anything here," Max said, leaving Sam's side and talking to El. "Besides everything disgusting."

El shook her head, not wanting to believe it. Without saying a word, she left Billy's room, and Sam could hear her footsteps creaking elsewhere in the house.

Sam and Max looked to each other and shared confused eye contact. Sam shrugged cluelessly, before signaling they should follow El. She went after El first, with Max behind her and shutting Billy's door.

They trailed El all the way to Max's bathroom that she shared with all members in the household. Sam had also been here multiple times, but the moment her mind immediately went to was she and Max getting ready for the Snow Ball together.

But the second Sam stepped into the actual bathroom, those happy thoughts vanished. Sam felt... cold. Her hand instinctively moved up to the B necklace around her neck.

El led them further into the bathroom. She was the first one to catch sight of the yellow and blue tiled bathtub, although that wasn't what made Sam mark it as weird.

The tub was filled to the brim with water, even if there had been no one occupying the house before Sam, Max, and El. There were bags and bags of ice that had melted into water. Someone had been using the tub, but it couldn't have been anytime recent, but it also couldn't have been that long ago, because no one had noticed yet what had been done.

"Guys?" El said, because yeah. This was weird. Something was off.

Max joined Sam and El in standing over the tub, peering down at the sight before them. The longer Sam looked at the previously-iced tub, the more unstable she felt. She held her necklace tighter.

But Max just casually bent down and picked up one of the empty plastic bags out of the water. "Ice," she said simply. "It's just ice."

Sam shook her head, because it didn't feel like just ice.

"He likes it cold," Sam recalled, almost as if in a trance.

Max's head whipped to Sam in shock. It was always creepy when she acted like this, like she knew something no one else did.

"What, you... you really think this," Max held up the plastic ice bag, "could be related to that?"

Sam blinked rapidly, snapping out of her daze but still feeling uneasy. "He was acting weird that morning of our sleepover, Max," she reminded. "What if it's all connected?"

Max sighed, shaking her head and tossing the empty bag back into the tub. "He's always weird," she dismissed. "It's probably just for his muscles or something. He works out like a maniac."

El let out trembling breaths, because Max hadn't successfully calmed either of them down. Slowly, El's head turned from the bathtub, but it wasn't because she was trying to look away from it. She was looking towards something else.

Sam and Max watched as El took a couple steps closer and crouched underneath the bathroom sink.

Sam gasped in a sharp breath when she realized the cabinet was covered in blood.

Then El opened the cabinet, and Sam felt herself frozen in place as she waited for what could possibly be inside. She was normally a patient person, but she couldn't be more desperate now to know what El looked at.

From the cabinet, El pulled out a green bucket used for storage. As she stared at whatever was inside, she stood up again. Her back was turned to Sam and Max, head tilted down, eyeing the contents.

"El, what is it?" Sam asked shakily, hands fidgeting around the B pendant.

Then, El pulled out a lifeguard's fanny pack.

Then, El pulled out a lifeguard's whistle, and it was covered in blood.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

There were many times Corey contemplated committing the act of murder, and while this wasn't one of the times, Corey was feeling himself get very close to reaching that desire—whether it be the annoying nerd game Corey never cared to understand, or Will's dramatic voice, or Mike and Lucas's aggravating inputs, or the pounding rain outside, Corey was irritated by all of it. It wasn't the blaring music, because Mike had caught on that it was annoying him and turned it off.

The game had been going on for like, three and a half hours. Each minute was as excruciating as the last. Corey refused to play, Mike and Lucas weren't playing seriously, and Will was clearly reaching his last straw.

Corey had to give it to him—the boy's perseverance to make today work was insane.

"Do you guys hear that? It sounds like... thunder," Will said, as the thunder outside perfectly timed whatever he had in store. "But, no, wait. That's not thunder. It's... a horde of juju zombies!"

Corey blinked himself awake as a handful of figurines were slammed against the surface of the table in the distance.

"Brute Corey, your action!"

"Still not playing," Corey grunted from the couch.

Which—yeah, Will should have expected that. Corey hadn't participated in a single campaign in the three years he'd been in their party. Will nodded, undeterred.

"Sir Mike, your action!"

"What should I do?" Mike sighed, looking at an equally-as-tired Lucas.

Lucas shrugged, waving his hand around airily. "Attack?"

"Okay, I attack with my flail," Mike mumbled, tossing the die on the table and rolling his eyes when the wrong number glinted back up at him.

"Whoosh! You miss," Will exclaimed, eyes lighting up as he threw his own die. "Your flail clanks the stone, the zombie horde lumbers towards you, and... the juju bites your arm. Flesh tears! Argh! Seven points of damage."

Corey knew Will was trying to reinstate the party's imagination and childlike wonder—really, he got that part. If he didn't hate D&D, maybe that would be a little heartwarming to him. But everyone's innocence died long ago, being overtaken by their trauma and suffering of the past few years. It seemed like Will struggled to comprehend that.

"Oh no, my arm," Mike groaned, clutching at his shoulder with a sarcastic wail of pain. "Lucas, look, my arm."

Lucas shook his head at Mike's stupidity, snickering to himself.

"Literal nerds." Corey rolled his eyes from the couch, throwing his body back down in a lying position.

Will shifted in his seat uneasily, noting his friends were growing bored and wondering where he had gone wrong—he had tried to make it as exciting as possible, but nobody was ever in the mood anymore. Corey was the only one acting normal, and that was because Corey was hating on D&D like he usually did, but that still hurt. Will turned to Lucas, trying to force the thoughts from his mind.

"Sir Lucas, the zombie horde roars! Do you fight back, or do you run?"

Corey sat up from the couch again, offended. "Why are they both 'Sir' when I'm just 'Brute'?"

"If you played the game, you'd know," Mike snarked, shooting Corey a sassy look from the table.

Corey rolled his eyes, realizing it was better to just ignore their stupid campaign. Lucas had raised a finger in the air, trying not to burst out laughing at Will's childishness, contemplating what answer to give.

But his attention was redirected by the sound of the telephone ringing.

"No, it's a distraction—it's a trap!" Will cried, banging his staff again as he jumped to his feet. "Do not answer it!"

Lucas and Mike looked back and forth before the latter gave an indifferent shrug, causing Lucas to lunge for the phone .

"What?" Will deflated sadly. "No—"

"Sam...?" Lucas asked the phone desperately, hoping to hear the radiant girl's voice. Then he exhaled in defeat when it wasn't her. "No. Sorry, not interested."

Lucas hung up the phone despondently, turning back around to where Mike and Will were at the D&D table.

"Is it them?" Mike asked, from where he had remained sat at the table, sighing in defeat when Lucas shook his head and informed Mike it had been another one of those telemarketers for a new vacuum line in Ohio.

"Maybe we should just call them?"

"Can we do that?" Mike asked, turning to address Corey. "Are we allowed?"

Corey's eyes were shut, unbothered. "Nope."

"Core says no."

"Then we probably shouldn't." Lucas shrugged with an uncertain look in his eyes. "I mean, what would we even say?"

"We'll say nothing!" Will yelled, slamming his staff on the floor and reminding the two boys he was still there. "The Khuisar tribe still needs your help."

"That staff is getting snapped in half on your head if you don't stop it with all the banging," Corey growled, eyes snapping open to glare at the poor boy.

"It's the only way to get you people to listen!"

"Alright, then," Mike exhaled, leaning back in his chair and gesturing a hand over the board. "I'll use my torch to set fire to the chambers, sacrificing ourselves, killing the jujus and saving the Khuisar. We all live on as heroes in the memories of the Kalamar."

Lucas pursed his lips sympathetically, engaging Mike in a sarcastic high five. "Victory."

"And you all live as absolute nerds, happily ever after," Corey drawled, standing up off of the couch and stretching his tired limbs.

"Okay. Fine." Will slammed his staff to the floor, tearing off his ridiculous costume, and began packing his things into his bag. "You guys win. Congratulations."

They only allowed themselves half a second to recuperate from being so stunned.

"Will, I was just messing around," Mike attempted, guilty and panicking. He stood up when that did nothing in making Will feel better. "Hey, let's finish for real."

Corey had no clue Will could reach this kind of anger, and it sort of scared him—the boy who supposed to be deflective and tough. His eyebrows furrowed sympathetically. "Yeah, you can teach me how to play."

"Just forget it!" Will snapped, still packing up his things.

"No! We want to keep playing! Right, Lucas?"

"Y-yeah, totally!" Lucas stammered, unsure of how things had escalated so quick.

"We'll just call the girls afterwards," Mike assured.

Will wheeled around, furious. "I said forget it, Mike, okay?!" Outraged tears swam in his eyes. "I'm going home."

"No you're not, it's raining—Byers!" Corey reached out, but his hand was shoved away. "Dude, we didn't mean anything against you, don't be like that! Let's like, chill upstairs for a bit, then you can finish the campaign when—"

"Fucking LEAVE IT ALONE!"

Corey flinched, and Mike tried to quell his anger as Will shoved past a pleading Lucas and stormed up the stairs. Mike looked at Corey next to him from the corner of his eye and felt his annoyance towards Will only increase when he saw that traumatized look of remembrance on Corey's face.

"I didn't mean to make him feel like that," Lucas said, his voice wounded for multiple reasons.

"I'll talk to him," Mike ground out, forcing himself to remain calm as he mounted the steps of the basement.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Corey muttered, because if an angry Mike was about to play mediator then they really fucked up. "Where's Sam when you need her?"

Lucas huffed, but he was still too startled by what just happened to find anything that funny. He nodded idly, though his eyes were trained on where Mike and Will just left. Maybe Corey made a mistake in mentioning Sam, because Corey was aware Lucas wasn't on good terms with her either.

(No one better tell Sam what was going on or she'd freak out on all of them.)

Corey walked over to the basement couch and found his flannel that he'd discarded there. Tugging it on, he said, "Mike's pissed. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I should go play ref so this doesn't get any worse."

"We really do need Sam," Lucas added, forcing a laugh. Corey as ref was an even worse idea than Mike as mediator. Lucas contemplated in joining the fray instead of Corey, but he felt like it had to be Corey in this moment.

Maybe he and Mike could resolve whatever they have going on if he did.

Corey ran up the stairs quickly. Mrs. Wheeler tried to call him from the kitchen, asking what was going on, but he just shook his head and ran for the garage door. He slipped through it and grimaced as he was hit with a gust of chilled wind thanks to the rainstorm that had unexpectedly rolled in that morning.

There, outside of the house, Corey spotted Mike and Will, who were arguing right near the pounding rain—they stayed underneath the garage though, to stay dry as they fought.

"Where's Dustin right now? Did you even notice you forgot to invite Sam?" Will snapped, to which Mike seemed to be just now realizing the uncertainty of both questions. "See?! You don't know, and you don't even care, and obviously Dustin and Sam don't either, and I don't blame them! You're destroying everything, and for what? So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?!"

"El's not stupid!" Mike cried. "It's not my fault you don't like girls!"

"Mike!" Corey shouted in alarm, shoving Mike's shoulder as a tense silence fell over his friends. "What the hell?!"

Mike pointed an accusatory finger. "Oh, don't come over here and act all high and mighty like that doesn't apply to you too!"

At the broken expression on Corey's face, Mike completely deflated, exhaling shakily. Corey stared at him, and the only other time Mike had seen him hurt like this, was that day in the hospital when his mom and dad fought about him, Sam, and Stephanie in front of everyone.

"What is wrong with you?" Will scrutinized Mike. "What are you so afraid of?"

I just... get scared, I think.

Of me?

Of me.

Mike retracted himself entirely, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Look, I'm sorry for being a jerk, okay? But we're not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think, really? That we were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?"

"Yeah," Will sniffled, shoulders tensing as he wiped at his eyes again and adjusted his feet on his pedals, "I guess I did. I really did."

And Will's voice cracked, and he hopped on his bike properly, and then he began riding from Mike's garage, not even caring about the pouring rain.

"Will!" Mike called out, a certain desperate tiredness to his voice. "Will! Will, come on!"

But Will didn't listen. He just pedaled away.

Corey sniffed, wiping his nose before he raised his eyebrows and sent Mike a scathing look. "No, that went really great," he snapped. "Good job, Wheeler."

Mike's fists curled into fists, and Corey couldn't tell if it was out of anger or self-punishment. Maybe it was a bad habit he picked up from Sam, because Corey knew the latter option applied to her.

"God, I'm sick of your condescension, Gray." Mike glared, and Corey knew then it was a mix of both. "You're always trying to make me feel stupid when I'm just trying my fucking best, okay? At least I don't stand here and act like this high-and-mighty asshole, covering up all my feelings with sarcasm and pushing everyone away!"

"Yeah, you don't"—he shoved Mike backwards harshly—"act like an asshole! You are an asshole!"

"There it is again!" Mike cried. "I wasn't the one who promised me that I was a good person, or that I was irreplaceable! I wasn't the one who told me that I meant a lot to someone—that was you. And then you took that away. You got that stupid fucking job you don't even need just so you can avoid me as much as possible. You really want to point fingers right now?!"

"Stop putting this all on me!" Corey snapped, but his desperation, fear, and anguish showed just as much as his anger. He decided he would point fingers. "I didn't even want to be in this stupid party in the first place!"

"Then why did you join it?!"

"For YOU, you idiot!" Corey shouted, and that was it. There it was, all laid out for Mike to piece together. He panted heavily, trying to blink away the angry tears threatening to form. "Is it not obvious? I did it for you."

Mike inhaled a sharp breath, and he wasn't leaning menacingly towards Corey anymore. He straightened up, eyebrows furrowed in what seemed to be genuine confusion.

"That's—" His voice caught in his throat. "You don't mean that."

Corey laughed humorlessly, arms throwing up in the air with a resurfacing rage. "Oh, I don't? Why the fuck not?"

"You don't... you don't... care like that," Mike said, as if he knew Corey better than Corey knew himself.

Corey crossed his arms, because he needed something to do with his hands that wasn't bashing Mike's skull against the concrete.

"You're one to fucking talk!" he accused. "You brought up the job I had to get when it's you who's always ditching me for some girl!"

"Leave her alone, she's not 'some girl.'" Mike frowned. "She's your friend."

Corey scoffed. "Of course you would say that."

"Would you stop bringing El into all this?!" Mike snapped, bewildering Corey.

"Oh my God, why not?!" Corey cried after recovering, basically pleading, because he was so fucking frustrated. "She's all you ever talk about! She's all your life even is anymore! What else would I fucking bring in?!"

"You just—" Mike's gaze turned darted away nervously, and his fists were clenched again. "You don't understand!"

"Then help me understand! You're the one who likes her so much!"

"I don't like El, I like YOU!"

Both of them stopped breathing.

The rain was pounding outside, yet everything was silent—everything, except the rapid beating of Corey's heart in his chest. He couldn't even hear his own thoughts over the greatness of it all. It was too overwhelming, and, still, Corey couldn't breathe.

I like YOU! I like YOU! I like YOU!

Mike took a startled step back. Even he hadn't excepted himself to blurt that out. He never did this. He always thought before he spoke. He'd been so good at holding this secret in, but here it was. Corey heard it. Mike heard it. They both heard it, and Mike couldn't take it back.

He wouldn't take it back.

Sucking in a deep breath, Mike continued through watery eyes. "El's only there so I don't have to accept that I want this more. There. Happy? That's why I want her back so bad! That's why I won't stop talking about her! Because you don't like me like that, and no one knows I want you like that!" Now that Mike was rambling, he couldn't stop. Even when his brain yelled at him to, his heart (which sounded a lot like Sam for some reason) wouldn't let him. "I'm not about to—to mess up everything because I'm some fucking queer—"

Corey grabbed the sides of Mike's jaw and shut him up with a kiss.

Corey Alan Gray kissed Michael James Wheeler as if he would never get another chance again—as if this was the first time, the last time, the only time, and every single time that would ever matter. Mike's mind emptied. He wasn't thinking of what had happened before or what might happen next. There was only the reality of a kiss that was desperate and fierce, and Mike shouldn't have expected it to be anything else. It was blissful oblivion, better than D&D or girls or writing; he was the only real thing in the world, Corey, the feel of him, one hand at Corey's back, one of Corey's behind Mike's neck.

This was the kiss Mike had been waiting for. It was the strike of Corey's axe. It was the fire setting the Upside Down tunnels alight. It was the words Mike wished he had said. It was the words he and Corey had thrown at each other their whole lives, passionate and angry. Mike felt the pounding of his heart—or was it Corey's?—like a stampede in his chest. The only thought in his head was a happy, startled, Oh.

And he felt so utterly distraught when Corey pulled away.

They stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"I should go find Will," Corey croaked, terrified.

Mike barely had any time to register the fact that Corey was running to grab his bike, mounting it quickly.

"Wait, Core!" Mike exclaimed over the rain he'd just been reminded of.

Corey wasn't listening—he was pedaling away from Mike's garage before Mike could do anything about it.

"COREY!"

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Published: January 15, 2024
Re-published: October 30, 2025

BAILEY YAPS...

FUCKING COREY AND MIKE FIRST KISS!! FUCKING FEELINGS CONFESSION!!

I don't know to explain it but this was the most Colorwheel kiss ever like Colorwheel just Colorwheeled so hard. And now I'm laughing because their ship name is so silly and gay but I will never change it because it's so silly and gay

"But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain" !!!!

In honor of this momentous occasion, you guys should totally stop by at my Pinterest to check out the Colorwheel folder on The Long Game board I have 🙂 I'm @/flayedcrank which you can click the link in my bio to find