The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

middle schooler's scare the living shit out of me - steve

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Sam sat in the passenger seat of Billy's car, trying to externally hide her internal panic as much as possible, to be honest. Max was the one tasked with driving them, as she was the only one with any 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, with 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 health skills.

The group was riding in a tense silence, and it was tense for a numerous number of reasons. Sam's was the fact that Max was a horrible driver, and she was trying not to let Max know that, only for 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 Max almost swerved off the road. "With the gun and protecting us and Billy and everything. I can't believe when we met you thought I was the cool one."

Sam, since she wasn't driving, could peel her eyes from the road and focus her gaze on Max's face. Worried, her eyebrows furrowed, and she asked, "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."

Mad at herself, Sam's mouth screwed up in embarrassment. She sadly responded, "Yeah, well... he knew I wasn't gonna shoot him, too. He almost tried killing me."

"But he didn't," said Max, focusing on the important part.

"Because of you," Sam added, also focusing on the important part. Her defeated mood was gone quick, and a small smile was planted on her face as she stared at Max. "You saved me back there, Max. I told you that you were cool," she finished in a teasing voice.

Max laughed fondly at Sam's addition, ignoring Mike's panicking that Max should be focusing more on the road.

"Okay, fine," Max put on a mock-exasperated tone. "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 Max couldn't turn to see it. Then—

"Nancy?"

Sam turned around in the passenger seat to look at the back as she heard the sound of 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.

"Oh," Steve mumbled, his vision focusing, to see it was Mike and not Nancy. He groaned, moving a hand to touch one of the cuts on his face, which happened to be by his eyes.

"No, don't let him touch it," Dustin stressed, all the way at the end with Steve's feet in his lap. Corey grabbed Steve's hands and shoved them away from his face, very annoyed with the whole position he was stuck in. Dustin cooed, "Hey buddy — shh — it's okay. You put up a good fight. He kicked your ass and the girls had to step in to save the day, but you put up a good fight. You're okay."