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❛ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴄᴋᴇᴅ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐈𝐗 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴄᴀʟʟ ᴍᴇ ꒱


❝ CALL ME, I'LL ARRIVE ❞

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Jessie arrived at the Wheeler's home just as Dustin was storming away from the house. Almost instinctively, she looked around for the flash of red hair that belonged to Max. While she was disappointed when there was no sight of the girl a part of her was relieved as well. The time they'd spent at the arcade together had only. . . strengthened her feelings for the redhead. The last time she'd felt like this she'd damned herself to social isolation and so it was probably for the best that she had space to settle her emotions before they got the best of her.

"There you are," Dustin's voice brought her back to their current issue. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I told you twenty minutes, didn't I?" she asked rather crossly.

"Well yeah but couldn't you have made it ten?"

"You're lucky I'm even here. You know I ignored your first ten calls, right?"

"If you heard it was a code red then why would you wait?"

"I wasn't gonna show but I'd rather not have your dead body on my hands," she replied with a shrug. "The town thinks I'm already crazy as it is. I don't need to be blamed for murder as well."

The curly-haired boy scoffed. "I'm not gonna die. Probably."

"We'll see about that. If Mike shows up, I'm out."

"Fair enough," Dustin conceded. "He's not home so I don't think that will be a problem. We need more troops."

"What are we dealing with here anyway?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," he said distractedly while he scanned the area as if he expected his friends to pop up out of nowhere. Instead, his gaze fell on Steve who had just pulled up in his car and was currently getting out of it with flowers in hand. He immediately dropped his bike and got the older boy's attention. "Steve! Are those for Mr. or Mrs. Wheeler?"

"What? No!"

"Good!" he exclaimed before he snatched them from Steve's hands.

"Hey!" the older boy snapped as Dustin pushed past him and opened the passenger door of the car. "What the hell?"

"Nancy isn't home," Jessie explained shortly as she opened the back door. "Unfortunately, we need your help."

"What? Is something wrong?"

"It's a long story," the boy said. "We have bigger problems than your love life. You'll have to apologize to Nancy later."

"Oh, um, okay," he agreed. "What do you guys need?"

"Do you still have that bat?"

"What bat?"

The brunette groaned. "The one with the nails, idiot! Dustin will explain the way."

"Now?"

"Now!"

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

"So, how big?" Steve asked after they had stopped by his house to pick up their requested weapon. It was now dark out as they drove back to Dustin's.

Alone in the back of the car, Jessie smirked. "That's what he said."

Both boys pointedly ignored her as Dustin held up his hand to demonstrate Dart's size. "He started out like this and now he's like this." He held up both hands to show the creature's new size.

"I swear to God," Steve said. "It's just some little lizard, okay?"

"Or a Skink," the brunette suggested.

This time, Dustin twisted around to glower at her. "He's not a Skink!" Then he glanced over at their driver. "And he's not a lizard either."

"How do you know?"

"How do I know?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yeah, how do you know it's not just a lizard?"

"Because his face opened up and he ate my cat!"

After Dustin had explained his story, Jessie had been infinitely glad that he hadn't gone to get Max's help after all. She still didn't know everything about the Upside-Down and this certainly wasn't the best introduction. (Little did she know, though, the redhead had gotten a crash course about what had happened last year from Lucas earlier that day.)

It was a short while later when they arrived at Dustin's house and clambered out of the car. Steve opened up the trunk to grab his bat before they made their way to the cellar doors. They listened quietly for a couple of moments before the older boy banged on the metal panels to disturb whatever may be down there. Unfortunately, he was met with silence. "I don't hear shit."

"He's in there."

Steve shot the pair an irritated look and shone his flashlight directly at Dustin. "I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you're dead."

"Twice," Jessie added pointedly. "Maybe even three times. If Mike found out I'm helping you he'd probably kill both of us."

"It's not a prank!" Dustin exclaimed.

The older boy took the next step and unlocked the basement doors before he used his flashlight to illuminate the underground space. At first glance, there was no trace of Dart.

"He must be further down there," Dustin reasoned. "I'll stay here in case he tries to escape."

"I'll go with you, Steve," the brunette offered as she sent the boy a pointed look. "I'm not a coward."

"No, stay here. If there really is something down there, it's not safe."

"That's why you need back up, idiot," Jessie huffed. She reached into her pocket that contained her pistol.

"Stay," he ordered her sternly before he started down the steps.

She ignored his warning and hurried after him, though she was careful to stay quiet so he wouldn't send her back to Dustin. When he turned on the basement light, though, he caught her silhouette and sighed. "You can come out."

Jessie came down the last stairs to join him under the house. "I'm gay, you know."

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You said that I could come out, so I did," she said with a faint grin.

His only response was an exasperated huff before he turned away to see what damage Dart had done to the cellar. The brunette's eyes caught on the greenish slime that had been left on the floor and she bent to get a closer look at it. "Oh, cool."

Her hand reached out to feel it but Steve slapped it away. "Don't touch it!"

She pouted slightly as she stood and allowed him to lift it with his bat instead. They exchanged a look as he shone his beam of light around the cellar walls. The dark-haired teen dropped the shed skin back on the ground. "I'm going to get Dustin. Don't touch it."

Jessie held up her hands placatingly as he retraced his steps to the entrance to call the other boy down. Seeing as how Dart wasn't in the cellar, she slid her pistol back in her pocket and (purposefully breaking Steve's rule) she used her sneakered foot to nudge the leftover skin.

"Hey!" he said sharply, causing her to jump away guiltily. "I told you not to touch it, didn't I?"

"Touch what?" Dustin asked. They showed him Dart's evidence including the whole the creature had left behind in the wall. His next words summed up their current situation quite nicely: "well, shit." 

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

Jessie trailed behind the two boys with a bored expression on her face as they made their way down the leaf-covered train tracks. Dustin and Steve were both carrying buckets of raw meat while she aimlessly kicked the cut-up pieces into a neater line with her beat-up sneakers. After Lucas had finally returned the curly-haired boy's radio call, she'd tried to make her escape but to no avail. (Dustin had only won because he'd said that it hadn't been Mike who'd responded.)

"Alright, so let me get this straight," Steve said a few feet ahead of her. "You kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl who. . . who you just met?"

At his question, the brunette's head jerked up as she suddenly began to pay attention to what the older boy was saying. She knew that Lucas had been getting close to Max from how often she'd seen them together in the hallways, but Dustin? She swallowed against the bitterness that rose in her throat and slipped her hand into one of her many pockets instead as she traced the cool metal of the pistol that rested inside. She hoped that they'd meet a Demogorgon soon.

"Alright, that's grossly oversimplifying things!"

"I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?"

"She wouldn't!" Jessie huffed before she could bite back the words. Steve heard her exclamation and gave her a curious look as he glanced between the two with confusion.

"Because it's awesome," Dustin retorted. "Besides, it was an inter-dimensional slug!"

"It's not awesome," she grumbled.

"You said it was neat," he reminded her.

That's before I knew you liked Max. "I was lying."

"Uh-huh."

". . .Right," the older boy put in warily, not wanting to get caught up in whatever was going on between them. "Anyway, even if she thought it was cool, I don't know. I feel like you're trying to hard."

"Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright?" Dustin scoffed.

"Or charm," Jessie added with a pointed look at the curly-haired boy, who glared at her.

"It's not about the hair, man. I mean, charm helps but that's not everything. The key with girls is acting like you don't care."

"What?" the brunette demanded as Dustin asked, "even if you do?"

"Yeah," Steve said with a nod. "It drives them nuts."

"If I may speak for the estrogen side—"

"Shut up, Jess. Steve's talking," Dustin interrupted her. "Then what?"

"Then you wait until. . . uh. . ." He cleared his throat. "Until you feel it."

"Feel what?"

"It's like before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it but you feel it. It's like an electricity, you know?"

Jessie thought about his words. While she didn't think his advice was credible, this part might not be so wrong. She remembered the warmth of Max's hand against her own as the redhead guided her gameplay and the short circuit her brain had done when Max had stepped up behind her to help. She thought about the girl's ocean eyes and the flinty edge they'd had in them as she talked about her family.

"But this girl's special too, you know. It's just, like, something about her," Dustin was saying as they continued to lay their raw-meat trail.

"Like an ember," the brunette offered quietly.

The curly-haired boy glanced back at her in surprise. "Yeah. I mean, I guess. It's like everywhere around her is dark but she's still shining brightly—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey," Steve cut him off.

"What?"

"You're not falling in love with this girl are you?"

Jessie almost tripped over her own feet as she stumbled to a halt to stare wide-eyed at the boy. Love?

"Uh, no. No."

"Okay, good. Don't."

"I won't," he promised.

"She's only gonna break your heart and you're way too young for that shit."

Jessie wanted to protest and say that Max wasn't like that but with Dustin and Lucas already after her like wolves, she didn't want any part in the "competition." They were quiet for a few seconds before Steve spoke again but at this point, she was no longer interested.

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

They finally made it to the junkyard at the end of the train tracks and paused to observe the setting. Steve nodded approvingly. "Oh, yeah. This will do just fine. Good call, dude."

Jessie rolled her eyes at Dustin's proud smirk and followed the older boy further into the abandoned field where they dumped the last of their raw meat.

"I said medium-well!" a familiar voice yelled from some distance away.

The trio turned to see Lucas and— here, Jessie's stomach flipped (pleasantly) nauseatingly at the sight of very familiar red hair. It soon turned sour as she realized that Lucas and Max had come there together. On Lucas' bike. She'd have to be a fool to not know what that meant.

"Who's that?" Steve asked.

Instead of receiving a reply, though, Dustin went over to greet his friend as Jessie followed him. Normally, she would have gone over to talk with Max but with her and Lucas getting. . . closer, it would be better if she kept her distance. The curly-haired boy was less than pleased at the turn of events, however. "You told her?"

"So what?" Lucas asked as they crouched behind an old car. "You wanted to tell her, too."

"But we didn't," the brunette put in.

"Yeah," Dustin added. "We agreed not to tell her and look for Dart."

The dark-haired boy's gaze met hers and he wore a guarded expression on his face. "Why are you here anyway? I thought you ditched us."

"You're one to talk about ditching," Jessie responded shortly. "I was the only one to answer Dustin's call. He'd probably be dead right now if it wasn't for me."

"I had Steve!"

"Then you'd both be dead," she replied dismissively. "You should keep better tabs on your friends, Sinclair."

"Maybe you should mean what you say, Salvador," he shot back. "If Mike were to find out—"

"I don't give two shits what Mike thinks," she cut him off.

"Speaking of Mike, have you heard from him?" Dustin interrupted them, not wanting their argument to blow up like it usually did. Lucas shook his head and he added, "or Will? Hopper?" At the boy's continued negative answers, the curly-haired boy grew frustrated. "No one's around. Something's—"

"Wrong," Lucas said. "I agree, which is why we need as much help as we can get." At the sound of Max struggling with moving some of the discarded metal plating, the trio stood slightly to peer out of the broken car window. "She didn't believe me, anyway."

"You probably didn't tell it right," Jessie muttered, earning an annoyed glare from him.

They straightened and Lucas held his hand out to Dustin. "So, we good?"

Before they could shake on it, though, Steve came up behind them and banged a chair loudly on the car, causing them to startle. "Hey, dickheads! How come the only one helping me out is this random girl? We lose light in forty minutes. Let's go."

[edited jul. 2022]