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It took a lot to shut Samantha Hughes up. Anyone you asked, they would tell you that Sam was a bright and extroverted, lively girl full of jokes and laughter. She was surrounded by seven friends that she was loyal to at all times. She wore bright colors and had a girly fashion sense. She befriended everyone around her, despite how willing that person may be for Sam's friendship. She talked about music, and science, and love, and comics, and so many random things that you couldn't keep count on what she liked. She had twinkling, green eyes that lit up brighter when she grew passionate. She always had something positive to say when her friends were down, and she lifted everyone around her up with her radiance.

When Sam got to high school, all of that changed.

It didn't take very much to dull Sam, anymore.

Sam didn't know how everything turned downhill so quickly, but suddenly she was losing friends left and right. Max was trying to pull away from her, Lucas joined basketball, and Mike and Dustin in Hellfire weren't too happy about it. Sam was always their glue, and she tried holding them together — she really fucking did — but it just made everything worse. They got mad at each other, and they got mad at Sam, and it all went to shit.

The Party was the only reason Sam had remained so happy throughout the years; despite everything she'd been through.

And now the friend group was shattered to pieces.

Now Sam had nothing.

She stared at herself in her full-length mirror as she got ready for school. She stared at her faded yellow, oversized American Summer shirt from the thrift store. She stared at her baggy brown pants with thin, darker brown lines striped down then. She stared at her old, vomit green, corduroy jacket with a shit brown collar. She stared at her brown Dr. Marten Mary Jane shoes. She stared at the rings on her fingers, an accessory she never wore before high school. She stared at her messy, wavy hair pulled up by a banana clip with blonde hair poking up.

Sam didn't care to maintain her hair anymore; now, she just let it dry naturally and never straightened it. She had dark circles underneath her eyes from the sleep lost to nightmares. She still had that stupid slit running down her eyebrow from Troy Walsh pushing her in the seventh grade. She wore the gold necklace with the B pendant gifted to her by Joyce. She was tired, and she looked tired, and the fact she didn't care enough to hide she was tired spoke volumes.

She wasn't the same Sam Hughes she used to be.

There was maybe one thing that remained the same, and it was the fact Sam remained in the AV Club — contrary to everyone else in her broken friend group. At first, her friends thought it was weird of her to join AV when all the rest of them were dropping it, but Sam was glad she didn't. It was all she had left going for her, anymore.

There were only two people in the AV Club — Sam, and a senior named August Santos. Sam liked Auggie. He was cool... kind of.

Actually, "cool" wasn't really how Sam would describe him. In reality he was really awkward and a loner and his only friend was technically Sam, but he was coolish.

Like, he introduced Sam to a lot of her now-favorite songs, he talked shit with Sam in their free time because of how empty the AV room was, every Wednesday during lunch they watched different films for "official club business," and they get to do morning announcements together.

Morning announcements was kind of a drag, though. It consisted too much of "Goooood Mooooorning Hawkins Highhhh" and"today's lunch is" and "don't forget your tickets for the basketball game" and on, and on, and on.

But, hey, it was better than nothing. She didn't play music that much anymore, she hasn't played D&D in a while (Sam refused to play D&D without Will. Call her stubborn, she didn't really care. If she wasn't playing it with all of Lucas, Mike, Dustin, and Will, it didn't feel the same), and Corey was slowly becoming the only Party member she was close with. So, one weird friend that was four years older than her was considered luxury.

School itself was an entirely different problem in its own, friendship issues aside. Over the summer, Mr. Clarke had gone to Sam's high school principal and officially requested that Sam be placed in classes higher than her grade level. Towards the middle of July, Sam was forced to pause her grieving of what happened in Starcourt and go to her new high school for testing.

She tested up in all her classes, of course.

Now, Sam was a freshman in classes with sophomores and that wasn't even the worst part.

Her Chemistry teacher — Mrs. Rowley — wanted Sam to move up to junior year instead of sophomore year when this current school year ended. Mrs. Rowley offered Sam the option to skip an entire grade so Sam could take senior-level classes as a junior instead of junior-level classes as a sophomore.

She was fifteen years old.

Sam was running out of excuses as to why she couldn't stay after class and give Mrs. Rowley an answer.

Because, yeah, she was fifteen and she had a lot going on. That age in the Gray/Hughes household meant that you were officially old enough to get a job. For Steph, it had been at their local music store — because not only did she learn to love music from her father like Sam, but she also hoped Robin would stop by on occasion. For Corey, in the literal eighth grade, it was Josephine Foster's father's auto-repair shop.

For Sam, it was Radio Shack.

She worked there four times a week, made $7.25 an hour, and every single shift was filled with thoughts of Bob and how much she missed him. It hadn't been easy to apply there, but it was a job Sam knew how to do and she was good at it.

All in all, Sam was doing perfectly fine. She didn't care that out of the eight people she loved more than anything — two of them lived all the way in California, two of them were too caught up in Hellfire Club and being edgy, one of them was too caught up in being popular now, one of them refused to talk to her, and one of them was literally her cousin. She didn't care that her boyfriend of ten months treated her horribly and spent more time around Carrie Cunningham than he did Sam. She was perfectly fine.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Sam eyed the letters she'd kept from Will and El before packing up her crappy messenger backpack and throwing it over her shoulder.

"Sam!" Stephanie yelled the second Sam exited her room. "Did you steal my eyeshadow?!"

Sam stared at her, deadpan. "Does it look like I stole your eye shadow?"

Yes, Sam was dressing differently now, but she was not emo like her sister.

"Okay, well, I can't find it and I have to leave, like, right now!"

Sam leaned against Corey's doorframe before she heard him call out, "Maybe it's for your own good, Steph! It makes you look gay!"

"You're gay, you fucking asshole!" Stephanie shot back.

"Stop calling each other gay!" they all heard Aunt Kat chide from the kitchen.

Corey and Stephanie broke out into laughter while Sam let out a huff of amusement. Aunt Kat was a million times cooler since she divorced Uncle Dan, and now that the kids were more comfortable around her, she was yelling at them to stop using gay as an insult rather than yelling at them for pissing off Uncle Dan.

Then Sam heard Stephanie let out a noise of muffled surprise as she found her eyeshadow in the mess of the bathroom. Against Corey's doorframe, she took the time to call out, "Core, are you almost done? We gotta get going!"

Sam and Corey had to walk to school every day because Stephanie still drove with Warren, whose car was always full by the two of them, Josephine, and Gina. Sam couldn't help but think it was unnecessary, because they lived only two blocks away from school and walking was very simple (and less wasteful), but she didn't say anything. Not to Stephanie's face, at least.

"Uh — yes!"

Corey's voice was followed by a quiet crash in his room.

Sam threw her head back against the doorframe, catching his lie. "Corey Alan Gray, I have to be there early today!"

She threw his door open, only to find Corey's body flailing to get up from his bed. He was, of course, still in his pajamas, and Sam contemplated electrocuting him.

"Get. Dressed," Sam ordered, glaring at him.

"Shit, shit, shit," Corey searched for clean clothes. "Okay, okay."

"I will not hesitate to throttle you before you dare step a foot on that plane to California!"

Sam shut his door then to let him get dressed, heading for the kitchen. She may have been a little petty that Corey got to go to California with Mike and not her — sue her. It was the one thing she wanted after her horribly shitty first year of high school, but Aunt Kat was only letting she and Corey go if they bought their own ticket. Corey, of course, had been working longer than her. He was able to gather together enough money while Sam wasn't. She was stuck here in Hawkins to do nothing the entirety of her spring break.

It was going to be terribly boring.

She walked over to Aunt Kat, who was putting freshly-made waffles out on a plate for the kids to grab. Sam sent her a forced smile before she took one.

"Did you sleep all right, Sam?"

Sam tried not to stiffen. "Yeah," she lied. "I slept fine."

Aunt Kat smiled at Sam, but Sam could tell it was sad. The guilt radiated off of her aunt in waves, and Sam tried not to be so affected by it. She chewed on her plain waffle as she grabbed her electronic equipment for AV.

"The basketball championship is today, isn't it?" Aunt Kat tried to keep up the conversation. "Are you excited?"

Sam swallowed the bite of her waffle, fidgeting with the strap of her bag. "Yeah."

Aunt Kat breathed in at the despondent sight of Sam. She fully turned her attention off the waffles to tilt her head down at Sam.

"Okay, well—"

She was cut off by multiple series of honks. It was a sign that Warren Aquino was in their driveway.

"SHIT!" Corey and Stephanie both cursed. Then, Stephanie was bolting into the kitchen and stealing four waffles for herself and all her friends. "Thanks, Aunt Kat, you're awesome! Bye! Gotta go!"

And she was speeding out the door, causing Sam to roll her eyes. Stephanie didn't even need to be at school early — Warren did, because he was in band, and Stephanie wanted to get a good spot to watch the band.

However, it reminded Sam that she did need to be at school early.

"Corey!" Sam yelled, moving away from the kitchen. "I've get a pep rally to get to! I will leave without you!"

"One sec! Let me get my camera!"

Because, yeah, he was a photographer now. Taking pictures for Nancy and the school newspaper. Honestly, Sam had to check and make sure they didn't accidentally pick up some random guy in place of Corey one day, because who was this?

I think you should find a way to distract yourself. Channel all that anger into... photography, I don't know.

They were Sam's own words looking back at her. She saw Aunt Kat sighing in exasperated fondness at her son's discombobulation. Sam didn't commune in the amusement; she was going to be late.

She heard a series of thuds from the hallway. Corey was running out his room and grabbing two waffles from the stack Aunt Kat made. "Jeez, you're insane!" he panted, nodding towards the front door. "Let's go!"

Corey jogged to the throw the front door open, camera in his other hand. Sam rolled her eyes before following after him more calmly.

One more day, she told herself. You just gotta get through one more day and you're on break, Sam.

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Students buzzed in the parking lot around them. Corey wasn't an Empath, yet he could still feel the day-before-break high incited upon the high school students. He couldn't deny it — Corey was feeling it too. After over a year of working at the repair shop, his hard work had finally paid off, and he'd managed enough money to buy plane tickets to and from California. It did suck that Sam wouldn't be going, but Mike was, and that made up for everything that could possibly go wrong.

As he and Sam trudged closer to the Thunderdome — as Sam used to call it before, well — he side-eyed the sophomores that used to be Corey's classmates and were somehow now Sam's classmates because she tested up in all her classes like the fucking nerd she was. For some reason, she'd been on edge about that little fact recently, and Corey didn't understand why. To his knowledge, they weren't giving her a hard time (at least, not as hard as a time that they gave Corey). Sam was just growing increasingly anxious when she was around them or the topic of them was brought up, and neither Corey nor Stephanie could figure out why.

Because that was really the only people who talked to Sam, anymore.

Then they heard that beautiful, familiar voice — just a simple "Wait up!" that had Corey completely stopping in his tracks. To his right, Sam was mumbling a rushed excuse as to why she should get going (maybe it was something about Zimmerman or something about AV) before she was trying to get away as fast as possible.

He knew who she was trying to get away from.

It sort of made his stomach hurt.

She was so different now.

"Hey, Sam!" Corey called out before she could vanish into the crowd completely.

Sam turned around, walking backwards with a rougher gaze than she used to have. "Yeah?"

"Just..." Corey sighed, shrugging unhelpfully. "Have a good day, yeah?"

The smile she pulled for him was small, the corners of her mouth quirking up just enough for it to be noticeable.

"Yeah. You, too."

Corey honestly felt awful, because the change in Sam wasn't attributed to something she'd done. No. It was the Party, and how they had been pulling apart, and how Sam had tried keeping them all together, and how they'd hadn't even given her a single glance through it all. In the process of trying to be friends with everyone, Sam was beginning to lose everyone, and it was all their faults. Corey knew they all were feeling horrible, because he did himself, but none of them were like her — they didn't know how to fix situations like that. Not like Sam.

So Sam walked away just in time that Mike couldn't reach her.

It very well could be about the pep rally, because she was in AV, and Corey was aware they were in charge of the technology of it all. He knew because he was forced to sit through these stupid things that absolutely no one wanted to be at save for the popular people. Just walking to one right now was an absolute drag and he didn't know how everyone did it without throwing up in disgust.

"Core," Mike muttered, snapping Corey out of his thoughts. There was a smile playing along his mouth as he held up Corey's photographs without breaking his gaze on him, "These are incredible."

His ears immediately started glowing pink from the praise. "They're okay," he shrugged, eyes falling down to the black concrete they walked on.

Then they were set off course. Instead of walking inside and to the gym for the pep rally, Corey was being dragged over to the side of the school and in between two brick buildings — the gym and the school, and the soccer field was only a few yards away.

"Hey," he whispered, looking back and forth to make sure no one was looking. Then, Mike was lowering his face closer to Corey's, breath ghosting over Corey's mouth. "They're amazing, okay? You're amazing."

"Nerd," Corey couldn't help but tease, grinning wide as Mike huffed playfully.

It wasn't as if Corey was trying to ruin the moment. It was just that, sometimes, it was still overwhelming. Much like how Mike surprised him at work, or how he invited Corey to his house just so they could watch Corey's favorite movies, or was simply just simply there for Corey when he was having a bad day.

It was love.

They'd been dating a little over six months now. It had been the best thing that had ever happened to Corey, even if times were still tough. Even after all this that they've done together. Even after everything they've faced with their (old?) friends. There was still that feeling that lurked in the back of Corey's head like a shadow, deep in his heart like an abyss.

They both had their demons, and some days, they were too loud to be ignored. Sometimes they had to resort back to those boys that hid who they were a little too much, and the regression impacted them like an unwavering force.

This, though. This wasn't one of those days.

Corey could feel it. There was no build up in his chest, and the smile stayed light on his face. His skin wasn't crawling with discomfort at being so close, and his ears were still rosy from Mike's praise, and there was fire in each and every one of Mike's breaths.

This was a good thing.

There was nothing bad about it.

"Seriously, though. You're so good at photography."

"Well," said Corey, feeling his ears darken. "I had a good model."

"That is true," Mike agreed, laughing when Corey rolled her eyes.

Mike's eyes crinkled when he smiled and there were freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, and they were the small details that Corey loved the most. They were the features that were most prominent in his latest photos, those that wouldn't make his portfolio at the end of the year, and was just for him to stare at Mike's figure that was leaned against Corey's bedframe.

"I wish I could capture moments like you," said Mike next. "I'd want to draw you like you took photos of me."

"You drew me yesterday."

Mike gave him a flat look. "Stick-people don't count."

"Yeah, they do," Corey insisted, bashful smile high on her mouth. "Why do you think I put it up on my wall?"

Corey watched a wave wash over Mike's face, lines smoothing out and lips parting, becoming impossibly soft. Corey's own ears flared even deeper, not that he'd thought it were possible, but Mike never ceased to amaze him.

Mike's eyes were shining before he closed them shut, trying to take a calming breath, and Corey read his look all too well. He made that face often, too. It was the desire to kiss one another in public, right here, out in the open; it was the knowledge that they couldn't, not yet, not until they got far away from Indiana and the world became a kinder place.

But for right now, just being around each other was enough.

"You're my favorite, you know that?" Mike murmured.

Corey smirked up at him, "I'm not taking you seriously in that ridiculous shirt."

Mike looked down incredulously to the half-sleeve shirt he was wearing. It was his "Hellfire Club" shirt — the bozo blouse, Corey liked calling it — for his D&D club, and Corey knew it was because they had their last meeting of the current campaign today.

As much as Corey loved Mike, he would never refuse to make fun of him — especially for D&D. Over the four years Corey had befriended the nerds, he had never once changed his stance on that stupid game; thankfully, none of them got offended anymore because they knew insults were Corey's way of expressing love. When high school first started and Mike, Lucas, and Dustin joined Hellfire, Corey and Max made fun of them ruthlessly for weeks. When they wore their shirts for the first time, the duo couldn't stop laughing.

But he hadn't talked to Max in a while now.

"It's not ridiculous!" sputtered Mike.

Corey could actually agree. In his honest opinion, Mike looked very attractive with the way this shirt fit him. And it wasn't helping that Mike had started wearing his hair the way it naturally curled, having grown it out much to his mother's demise. Not to Corey's demise, however, because that also made Mike look even more attractive. He would never admit it though, and instead just opted on teasing him until no end.

He nodded at his boyfriend — his boyfriend — sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, Micheal. I'm sure." Then he coughed into his arm, "Nerd!"

With that, Corey was pivoting away from Mike, grabbing his photos, and walking backwards to send Mike a sorry-not-sorry shrug.

"Corey Alan Gray!" Mike complained, but the adoring smile on his face told Corey that he was not all that upset.

Corey grimaced playfully, pointing to the gym, "Sorry, I've got a pep rally to get to."

"You're awful," Mike breathed as he ran to catch up with Corey, and stayed just a normal enough amount apart that wouldn't rise suspicion.

Three more years and they could get out of Hawkins. Three more years, and maybe — just maybe — they could hold hands out in the open.

Corey sent up a look, one that said Mike should know better, "This pep rally is mandatory, Mike" — to which Mike snorted, because they both knew how much Corey hated school spirit — "I mean, I just gotta go."

Mike sent him the infamous asshole grin that Corey wished he didn't love. Corey could sense what Mike was about to say, and he was right when Mike shot him with, "And after that?"

Corey tried to send Mike a glare, because he knew what Mike was implying.

"And — And after that..."

"Yeah?" Mike smirked.

Corey shoved Mike away, but he didn't go far because there was something like a stupid magnetic force keeping them to each other still holding hands. "I have a free period first, and you know that—"

"What a coincidence, so do I—"

"—but I've gotta develop the photos from last night's game," Corey pointed a scolding finger at his boyfriend. "And you know how neurotic Nancy is, so I have to do that, okay?"

Mike saluted like an idiot. "Yes, sir."

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Sam tried not to look totally bored as she stood in the gym, right by the entrance doors. She was with the only other AV Club member — Auggie — and their job was to set up the mic feedback for the pep rally. With their knowledge of technology combined, it took only about a few minutes, so now they were just standing in disinterest whilst the cheerleaders performed, and the student body cheered.

The male cheerleaders threw Carrie Cunningham up in a basket toss, and she came down into their arms with a fake smile plastered on her annoying, bitchy face. In Sam's totally unbiased opinion, Carrie's older sister Chrissy Cunningham was a million times better at the sport (and a million times nicer). Sam tampered down a grumble when she caught sight of her boyfriend, Justin Zimmerman, cheering loudly at the performance.

"I could totally do that," Auggie whispered to her, when one of the cheerleaders did a round-off back handspring.

Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Auggie, looking him up and down.

Before she could give him an ego-shattering response, the entrance doors were pushed open. Over the sound of the band playing for the cheerleaders, no one could hear it, except for Sam and Auggie who were right there.

It was Max, entering the gym late.

Sam brightened up when Max made eye contact with her. Enthusiastically, she whispered, "Hey, Max! How was the ride to school?"

"Fine."

Then Max brushed past Sam after her uninterested response.

And Auggie was able to watch as the smile dropped from Sam's face as Max walked away, but he didn't say anything. The cheerleaders were beginning to wrap up their performance.

As they finished, the band stopped playing, and the cheerleaders sit to the sidelines. Sam teasingly motioned to Auggie with a smirk as a way of saying 'by all means, go ahead.'

Auggie was clearly more unwilling to be here than Sam was. He gave her a very annoyed look of disgust before he picked up the microphone.

With an incredibly fake-enthusiastic voice, he announced, "And let's hear it for your Tigers!"

As the student body cheered louder, the basketball team broke through a brown paper banner decorated all for them. Auggie handed the mic to Jason Carver — preppy snob who was Captain of the team — as he ran past.

Jason didn't even say a simple thank you to Auggie, not like he ever did. His eyes were on the prize — which was seeming like a fucking god for the student body of Hawkins. The rest of the basketball team was running in his wake. Among the boys, Sam spotted other seniors like Patrick McKinney, Andy Fairchild, and Chance Locklin. There were seven juniors and six sophomores (that Sam all recognized from her classes). There was only one freshman.

It was Lucas.

"Good morning, Hawkins High!" Jason exclaimed into the mic, and Sam and Auggie shared offended looks that he stole their signature line from the morning announcements. However, everyone else just cheered in excitement — except for the Scrooges of school pep like Corey. "First off... I'd like to thank each and every one of you. Without your support, we wouldn't be here. Give yourselves a big hand!"

Whoops and hollers sounded out from the crowd. Sam and Auggie looked at each other with a roll of their eyes. Sam mocked Jason, mouthing, 'Without your support, we wouldn't be here!'

Sam turned away from Auggie to see Lucas was already staring at her. He was frowning, having seen that Sam was making fun of the whole ordeal. She crossed her arms over herself nervously before she was shocked to see that Lucas sent a small wave her way, despite however awkward.

Sam startled, eyebrows raising as she gave a tinier wave back.

"And of course," Jason continued into the mic, "of course, I have to give a special shout-out to the best and prettiest fans of all time: the Tiger Cheer Squad!"

The audience cheered again, louder. They whistled and the cheerleaders grinned, and Sam wanted to knock that stupid look off of Carrie Cunningham's face. She thought it was a little unfair Jason wasn't recognizing the band for doing just as much work as the cheerleaders did.

"Chrissy... Chrissy, I love you, babe," Jason beamed at his girlfriend once the roar of students quieted. He patted his heart and Chrissy blew him a kiss.

Sam sighed to herself, looking for where Justin was. He was already looking at Sam, but the second they made eye contact, he looked away.

Sam glared at the ground.

Jason continued in the mic, more serious now, "You know... I think I can speak for all of us when I say, it's been a tough few years for Hawkins. So much loss. And sometimes I wonder, 'How much loss can one community take?' In dark days like this, we need something to believe in. So, last night, when we were down by ten points at half to Christian Academy, I looked at my team, and I said, 'Think of Jack. Think of Melissa. Think of Heather. Think of Billy.'"

A few heads turned to Max (including Sam), who had an emotionless face on that made Sam's heart squeeze.

"'Think about our heroic police chief, Jim Hopper,'" Jason continued, and the microphone feed whined for a moment as Sam couldn't control her emotions. "'Think about each and every one of our friends who perished in that fire. What did they die for? For us to lose to some... some crap school? For us to return home with our heads hung low in defeat? No! No. Let's win this game. Let's win this game for them.' And that's exactly what we did!"

The crowd went wild again as Jason used death to excite people for the upcoming game, and Sam honestly couldn't believe he was a real person.

"We embarrassed those candy-asses in their own house, and now tonight... tonight... WE'RE GONNA BRING HOME THE CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY! LET'S GO!"

Jason proceeded to dramatically toss Sam the microphone, to which she fumbled to catch and felt like a fucking stagehand in a musical theater play for the stupid basketball team.

One more day, she told herself. You just gotta get through one more day and you're on break, Sam.

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"I took my love, I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down..."

"Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac (shocker) played through the headphones of Sam's Walkman as she shut the door of the AV room behind her. Now that she finished morning announcements with Auggie, they would be going their separate ways until later in the day. Now, Sam began her journey to one of the four AP classes she took this year (reminder, they were all a level higher, and her teacher wanted her to test up a second level higher). Sam might've been taking a little slower than she needed to, because it happened to be her least favorite of the APs — English.

"Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?"

She didn't hate the class — actually, she didn't hate any of her classes — it was just that Sam liked classes that were more STEM-oriented than language. Sam used to have no issue at all going to English if she was being totally honest. She and Lucas had their English classes at the same time with their classrooms right next to each other, so they used to walk there and back together. Sometimes, she'd hear Lucas loudly ask to go to the bathroom through the walls, and Sam would do the same, just so they could hang out in the halls and talk.

"Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too..."

They didn't do that anymore.

"Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too
Oh! I'm getting older too..."

Since they didn't, it was a little bit of a shock to see Lucas, Mike, and Dustin congregated outside of their English classes in the distance. In confusion, Sam turned off her Walkman and put let her headphones around her neck. That way, she was able to hear Lucas beg, "Come to my game. Please."

Mike and Dustin stared back at Lucas with defeated looks.

"Um, what's with the clergy?" Sam asked, eyebrows furrowed and one hand on the strap of her bag.

"Sam!" Dustin startled, like her appearance was a total wild card no one was prepared for. "Hey! Thank god you're here! We were just..."

Then he trailed off, unsure of what to say.

Sam raised an unamused eyebrow.

Dustin awkwardly cleared his thought. He asked, "What do you think is more important?" He motioned between him and Mike. "Our Hellfire campaign... or Lucas's championship game?"

"Lucas's championship game," Sam answered easily, shrugging.

Mike and Dustin gaped exasperatedly at the blonde while Lucas seemed to lighten up around her presence. It was good to see at least one person from their friend group still tolerated her.

"Sam," Mike cried out in offense.

Sam really didn't see how this was a debate. She said, "You can't just miss one campaign? Or get Munson to change the date?"

"Thank you!" Lucas exclaimed, gesturing towards Sam like she was everything good left.

"Who are you," Dustin asked, "and what have you done with Samantha Hughes?"

Sam took a step back, face tightening. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means he thought you'd be a little more supportive," Mike grumbled and holy fuck, Sam was trying not to lose her shit.

Sam pointed incredulously at Lucas. "You're not being supportive to Lucas!"

"Thank you," Lucas repeated, finally feeling understood.

"Hellfire's important to us!" argued Mike, who clearly didn't see an issue in his logic. "And, honestly, you don't even get a say! You're not going to Lucas's game, either. You have work after school!"

All at once, all of Mike, Lucas, and Dustin broke out into qualms. Their voices warped over each other as they addressed Sam:

"You have a job?" Dustin asked.

"You're not coming to my game?" Lucas said, hurt.

Sam was gonna kill that blabber-mouth son of a bitch that was Corey.

She sighed incredulously, stomping her foot a little in frustration. To Dustin, she said, "Yes, I've had a job since December. I work at Radio Shack." To Mike, "And yes, I did have a shift scheduled after school today," then she turned to Lucas, "but — I swapped shifts with my co-worker, and now I work Sunday morning so I could go to your game." Then, she addressed the boys as a whole. "Is everyone happy now?"

"No."

"Yes."

"What's it like at Radio Shack?"

Sam had to pause, and close her eyes to take a calming breath. The bell run overhead, signaling they all needed to get to class, and Sam was grateful for the interruption.

"Don't be assholes," Sam told Mike and Dustin. "Come to the game."

Then she turned, and she walked into her classroom.

One more day, she told herself. You just gotta get through one more day and you're on break, Sam.

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um

I'M SORRY OKAY??????

no because guys let's think on it. throughout the years sam says she's nothing if she doesn't have her friends/they were keeping her sane/etc. so when i found out the party was cracking when i first watched s4 i started.... you know.... plotting

it just makes sense she would be so miserable okay i'm sorry (not really)

my heart's breaking for her though really cus like... she has no one... but it's not even her fault bruh. fake ass friends she deserves personal apologies from all of them

this chapter was just like an intro to season 4 and what the mood will be like going into the season, so i think i'm going to post the second half of episode 1 as an apology...

anyways, here's the fit i envisioned sam was wearing...

new style is so unlike old sam i'm emo :///

theories on what's gonna happen this season? excited to hear what people think

what'd you think?