The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

they're burning all the witches even if you aren't one

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Sam wouldn't have slept even if she had the ability to. How could she have? Max almost died yesterday and Sam wasn't even there for her.

At any moment, Max still could die. Now she had to listen to Running Up That Hill at all times to tether herself to reality. While the night passed, Nancy assigned everyone shifts for "Max Watch" to ensure Max wasn't levitating in the air through the night.

But Sam never slept in the first place. She certainly wasn't sleeping now.

It was way too embarrassing to picture screaming the entire group and the Wheeler family awake from her horrid nightmares, so Sam just refused to sleep at all. She wasn't getting drowsy, because the visions of Fred and Victor and the poor, Creel family and Max plagued her mind.

She wasn't built for this. Any of it.

"Max?" whispered Sam. "Are you sleeping?"

The sun was slowly rising now, signifying the early dawn as night began to fade away. The windows of Mike's basement intertwined the moonlight and an orange glow. Everyone around her was sleeping, even if Dustin was supposed to be awake for Max Watch. Although, she wondered if Max would be able to sleep at all after what she'd been through.

"Yes," Max responded, not sleeping.

Sam grinned.

She gently broke away from leaning her back against Lucas's legs — he was using a TV for a pillow and had sat himself on a desk for comfort ?? Sam quietly moved over to the couch everyone elected on giving her, because Max had been through a lot and she deserved it more than any of them.

Seeing that Sam was coming, Max sat up on the couch and stopped her aimless attempts at sleep. She scooted over to give Sam a spot, and while the blonde got closer, she could faintly hear the voice of Kate Bush coming from Max's headphones.

Right when Sam sat down, though, the cassette of music ended, and Max had to start the process of rewinding it.

"I wish we had a longer loop," Sam frowned, making sure to talk quietly in consideration of the sleep-deprived teenagers around them.

Max shrugged softly, "Forty-six minutes isn't bad. I think there are bigger concerns — Like... what if, by listening to this over and over, I get sick of it, and suddenly it's not my favorite anymore?" she wondered, and Sam could've laughed at the insinuation. "Will it still work? Or will Kate Bush, like, lose her magic power or something?"

"Kate Bush?" Sam scoffed. "Never."

Max jolted, and her head ducked down a little to stare at Sam in surprise. "You're that big of a Kate Bush fan?"

Sam's hands lifted in a little shrug, like the answer should be obvious.

"Uh, yeah. Now I am."

"Really?" Max questioned, shocked as if Sam hadn't been the one to introduce her to her now-favorite song.

Sam nodded incredulously, "Yeah, mega-fan. She saved your life."

You did too, Max restricted herself from saying.

"Besides," Sam shrugged like the task was easy, "even if Kate Bush doesn't work her magic, anymore, we're gonna kill that predator creep before it even happens."

Max huffed, humorlessly and desperately. "I hope so," she muttered. "I'm so tired of... all of it."

Her voice dipped lower, sadder. Sam's heart squeezed and she wondered what she had done for the universe to put all of her dearest friends through this kind of struggle. Max didn't deserve it.