Feat. Lucas - Blog Posts

sinclairss​:

the hideaway wasn’t usually at the top of lucas’ list of places to hang out, but after the carnival, he was looking for just about anything that might take the edge off. he’d been attacked by the doppelganger. max had been taken by the monster. the older kids had nearly gotten blown up. any of those things would be traumatic enough on its own, but add on the fact that five people -including mr. clarke- had died, and it left lucas with a lot to think about. according to his therapist, he’d gotten to the anger portion of his grieving process when he’d vandalized his middle school. showing up at the hideaway when he was supposed to be at physical therapy? that was squarely in the depression part. it wasn’t that he didn’t drink, but lucas didn’t usually drink alone. 

which was probably why lucas’ first instinct upon walking into the dimly lit bar was to find a drinking buddy. relief loosened his shoulders when he spotted cole montgomery sitting at the bar. ever since the guy had fallen into an open grave trying to help lucas out of one, he’d felt a strange sort of camaraderie with the other. he wondered if cole’s doctors knew he was spending his time drinking at the bar before realizing he probably didn’t care if they did. “same as you,” he answered with a humorless smile. “needed a drink.” he nodded as he slid into the seat to cole’s left and ordered a beer. 

the good thing about this bar was that they rarely ever carded, especially not after tragedy struck town. again. he remembered that his dad came here the night will’s ‘body’ had been found. and he and the basketball team had spent time tucked into a corner after…something had happened to jason’s girlfriend, right? lucas couldn’t remember. either way, the bartender passed over a glass and lucas thanked her with a smile, lifting the beer in cole’s direction in a mock toast. “thanks.” he took a long sip and wrapped both hands around the cool glass as he turned in his seat to look at cole properly. “so…” his eyes flicked back to cole, one side of his mouth quirking in the shadow of a grin. “what’s new? seen any good movies lately?”

xx.

Needed a drink. Cole certainly couldn’t argue with Lucas’ logic, enough had happened to warrant everyone in town taking a load off, especially Lucas. Cole absentmindedly wondered if Max knew Lucas was here. He hadn’t exactly gotten an update from her in a while, so he didn’t know what was going on between the two of them, except that there was something. There had always been something. “Well, cheers.” Cole raised his glass to Lucas’ and took a long drink, barely stopping himself from downing the whole glass in one gulp. Best to reign it in, in case Lucas relayed anything to Max.

Not that they were exactly talking right now, anyway. Things had been weird ever since Tessa Calloway’s funeral, which Cole only attended because Adam wanted to, for the record. He’d been torn up about the whole thing since then-- partially because he’d fought with Max, but also because he couldn’t help but wonder: How many others were afraid of Adam? How many others wouldn’t hesitate to restrain him or hurt him, even though none of this was his fault? Cole took a long look at Lucas, the other’s words processing somewhere behind the alcohol-induced haze of Cole’s mind. Was Lucas one of them, too?

The side of Cole’s mouth quirked over the glass at Lucas’ joke. “Hmm... Dirty Dancing? I’ve watched that like, six times with Adam’s youngest sister now. Or Hairspray,” he added, laughing at his movie choices. He knew Lucas wasn’t the type to make fun of him, but still, couldn’t he have at least seen a Star Wars movie or something? Then, it clicked. “The Lost Boys. Max really liked that one,” he smiled fondly, but his smile faltered after a second. “Is she... doing okay? It’s been a minute.” 

who: Cole & @sinclairss​​

where: The Hideaway 🍻 

Since he’d been admitted to the hospital, Cole had rarely had a moment alone. He didn’t mind it, when the people surrounding him were Adam or Max or Chrissy or Beth, not at all! But he had so many questions and was exhausted to his core with worry, and around them? Cole wouldn’t express that. Everyone else was scared enough, the last thing he wanted to do was add to that. Even still, Cole hadn’t been able to get the carnival out of his head-- the way Adam had reverted back to whatever happened before he died-- the way Max wasn’t even there-- the way Tommy H had acted more animal than human. 

So he’d found himself at The Hideaway a few times this week, somewhere he doubted any of his friends and certainly not his boyfriend would willingly go. It was a nice excuse to wallow for a while, allow himself to drown the fear in a few jack and cokes. At the moment, Cole was on his third, desperately trying to numb the ache in his chest, the uncertainty about whether or not Adam would live to the end of the week. Cole finished the glass, setting it down on the bar with a rattle, and motioned to the bar tender that he’d take another. With his eyes lifted, Cole saw the last person he’d expected to see: Lucas Sinclair. When it was clear that the other had seen him, Cole lifted a hand in greeting and pasted a smile on his face. 

“Hey, man. What... uh, what are you doing here?” Cole asked, ignoring the twinge of embarrassment in his gut. Drinking alone was so uncharacteristically uncool. “Can I buy you a drink?” he offered, figuring Lucas had some shit to air out, too. He’d been attacked by Tommy H, after all, and that was the last Cole remembered seeing of him before the explosion. Though, admittedly, he’d been a little busy. 

sinclairss​:

.

lucas nodded. he was thinking about how he’d seen billy and how cole had seen someone who’d died, too. if the others had seen visions of dead people then…he didn’t know what it meant, but it was pretty fucked up. and it couldn’t be a coincidence. it just seemed like…it felt like it was starting again. he didn’t like the feeling. he’d wanted to get out of hawkins, but it had at least been tolerable over the last few years. a little boring, maybe, but tolerable.

they were almost at the doors when cole asked, so lucas paused, gripping his injured shoulder as a guy holding a towel to his face walked into the hospital past them. “it means something’s happening in hawkins.”

he kind of wanted to tell him. he wanted to warn him that maybe being in hawkins wasn’t the safest thing to do. but a voice that sounded a lot like steve’s warned him not to do that. he wasn’t sure what was up with steve tonight, but he trusted steve. and the code didn’t really count for non-party members. he walked through the electric doors and to the reception desk. “hi. we were out drinking and i hit my shoulder.” he lifted the affected shoulder. “and my friend hit his head, so we need to get checked out.” 

xx.

Something’s happening in Hawkins. It seemed like something was always happening in Hawkins, especially lately. Or maybe it had always been happening and Cole hadn’t realized it. Through bleary eyes, Cole tried to read Lucas’ expression-- but he seemed guarded. Maybe he was hiding something, or maybe Cole was paranoid. 

He tried-- unsuccessfully-- to put it out of his mind as they walked into the hospital. Nodding along with Lucas’ story, Cole touched his head for good measure. As the receptionist gave them the proper forms, Cole lead Lucas over to a few plastic hospital chairs in the corner of the waiting room. He tried not to let his eyes linger on the guy with the alarmingly green tint on the other end of the room.

Cole couldn’t focus on the forms, so he turned to Lucas instead. “If I asked what you mean, would you tell me?” he asked, keeping his voice low to not attract any unwanted attention.

sinclairss​:

if it weren’t for the most recent injury, lucas would’ve gone on a run right now. the adrenaline coursing through his veins meant he barely felt any pain, not from his surgically-repaired knee and not from his newly-dislocated shoulder. he could use something to channel that adrenaline, especially when he wasn’t entirely sure how deep into this conversation he wanted to get.

to buy himself some time, lucas hopped out of the car and rounded the passenger side to tug cole’s door open. “yeah,” he finally said with quick nod. “i felt like…i thought i was gonna die.” and that would be a shitty way to go. he held his arm out, unsure if cole might need him for balance and then heading for the doors beneath the glowing EMERGENCY ROOM sign.

this, lucas wasn’t sure on, but he had a hunch. “two’s a coincidence. three’s a pattern,” he said, like he didn’t need to elaborate at all.

xx.

“Thanks,” Cole gave Lucas a grim smile as he climbed out of the passenger seat. He was able to stand on his own, which Cole hoped meant it wasn’t a major injury. Something that would go away in two days, tops. But Cole was tired-- not just physically, but emotionally. He was drained and if he was honest, all he really wanted to do was lock himself in his room for a few days to try and understand what was going on.

Cole waved his hand, dismissing Lucas’ arm. “I’m good, thank you though,” he repeated, feeling bad that Lucas had driven him all the way here just to field his questions and be released with a concussion. Lucas said ‘I thought I was gonna die’ so casually that Cole barely clocked it, so when he realized what Lucas said, Cole stumbled over some shitty landscaping job. “Mine was really real too. Only I wasn’t the one dying,” he added the last part in a mumble.

Raising an eyebrow at Lucas’ comment, Cole turned to him. “Three?” he prodded. He knew he’d remembered a few others mentioning things they’d seen, but everyone was so rattled that he guessed he hadn’t paid much attention. “What does it mean, if it is a pattern?”

sinclairss​:

lucas caught cole’s eye in the rearview mirror. he hadn’t really thought about it, but steve had been acting a little bit off, now that he did pause to look back on it. he shrugged it off. “maybe he was just freaked out too?” he didn’t think any of them had been acting particularly normally, but given the circumstances, who could blame them? 

hawkins had exactly one hospital and it was all the way on the opposite edge of town. luckily, everything in town closed by nine, so they were nearly there as cole answered his question. lucas’ good hand tightened on the steering wheel, just slightly. he wasn’t sure who cole’s best friend was, but he had a bad feeling about it. people didn’t just die in the fire…they were involved with the mind flayer. he pressed his tongue against his teeth and debated keeping it to himself but…well, falling into a grave together kind of made it easier to want to share. besides, he had to tell someone or he was going to explode. 

“yeah, uh, nothing like that.” he offered cole a wince, maneuvered the car into the parking lot closest to the emergency room and threw it into park before turning to look at him properly. “just somebody from my past who didn’t like me very much. he’s not even around anymore.” that was putting it mildly. “he was going to run me over with his car, i think. and i couldn’t move. it was….” fucked up. that’s what it was. 

xx.

Cole nodded slowly, careful of further exacerbating his head pain. Of course Steve was freaked out-- everyone was. He still wondered, though, if Steve was a little... cold. But, whatever, that was by far not the weirdest thing to happen, so it was easy to put out of his head.

So Lucas had a dream-- or vision, whatever they were calling it-- too. Cole wondered what it meant that whoever he was isn’t around anymore. With a frown, Cole shook his head, “That’s horrifying.” He paused, looking for similarities between their visions. “Did it feel... like, super real to you? I don’t know about hallucinations, but I don’t think they usually feel that real.” 

Cole couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t just a hallucination, though that’s likely what the ‘reasonable’ explanation should be. He touched Adam, he heard Adam, he even smelled Adam’s fucking cologne. How could that be explained? And if Lucas had one too, then... “Do you think everyone had one? A different vision?” 

sinclairss​:

his car was kind of aa junker, but since he’d helped get the thing up and running again, he was kind of proud of it, even if lucas had to loop around the vehicle to unlock cole’s door manually with the key because the passenger side’s internal lock stuck. “oh yeah. probably.” he lifted his shoulder experimentally and tried not to wince at the white-hot surge of pain through him. he put on a brave face because that’s what he did, climbed into the driver’s seat and started up the car. hiphop crackled over the speakers and he reached over to turn down the volume, waiting until cole was safely in the car before backing up and out of there. 

at a stoplight, lucas looked over at cole and shook his head, a silent i-have-no-idea. he cleared his throat and focused back on the road as the light changed, thumb tapping out a rhythm against the steering wheel as they rolled through downtown hawkins. “all i know,” he said as the song changed on the radio. “is that one second i was over by you guys and the next i’m at the bottom of a grave.” he shrugged with his one good shoulder. a hollow chuckle followed. 

the headlights across the road were playing tricks on him. he kept seeing bill hargrove behind the wheel which was…that didn’t make any sense. right? he didn’t know what made him ask. maybe it was because he wanted to feel less insane. or maybe he just wanted to feel less alone. “did you…see anything while we were out there?”  

xx.

Cole climbed into the car, his movements slow due to the pounding of his head. He tried to watch Lucas’ face for a hint of pain, but there was nothing. Cole knew he’d fallen on his shoulder-- hard-- but he was showing no signs of pain now. In the back of his mind, Cole wondered if Lucas should even be driving, but it’s not like he was in any better condition, and given his track record with cars, Lucas probably wouldn’t want to hand over the keys.

Leaning his head back, Cole’s eyes fixed on Lucas’ hand, tapping out a beat to whatever song was in his head. How was Lucas so nonchalant right now? “It happened so fast,” Cole confirmed, unable to even remember how Lucas fell into the grave. He remembered trying to help him out and then being below himself. “Steve was being super weird, right?” Cole asked, unable to remember details of what Steve had said. 

Turning towards the driver, Cole felt a twisted sense of relief at Lucas’ question. Finally, Lucas wasn’t acting casual or unaffected. Finally, Cole knew that maybe he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t quite ready to make a definitive statement. “Actually... yeah. It felt like a nightmare, but like, really real. My best friend died in the mall fire and I just... kept seeing what would’ve been his last moments.” Cole tried to force the image of Adam out of his mind. “Did you? See something?” 

Cole hadn’t retained anything that anyone in the last... ten minutes? Thirty minutes? Hour? since the vision. He vaguely understood that Officer Callahan wanted them gone, and that Tessa had agreed, and that now they were going. So, he shuffled towards the front gate like a zombie, falling behind everyone else. His mind was a loop of Adam bursting into flames. 

When Lucas clapped him on the back, Cole jumped. Embarrassed, he swiped at his still-wet eyes and turned to Lucas. “Hey, man,” he flashed a pathetic smile. Something about being stuck in an empty grave together made Cole feel like he could trust Lucas, even if they’d never spoken much before tonight. With a nod, he walked with Lucas towards his car. “Probably should. And your shoulder, too.”

Casting a sidelong glance at Sinclair, Cole tried to read his expression. “So, that was...” he paused throwing his hands out in an I-don’t-fucking-know gesture. Cole knew that Lucas was friends with Will, and that Lucas was at Starcourt when it caught on fire, so he wondered if Lucas was somehow better equipped to handle these things. Or at least, maybe he had some answers. Worth a shot, anyways. “What the hell was that?”

who: lucas sinclair & @colemontgomeryx​​​ where: outside the cemetery when: 5 minutes after escaping a grave💙

lucas’ shoulder throbbed. it was strange how he hadn’t really noticed it during the night, but as soon as all of the excitement died down -and the group was safely out of the cemetery gates- it hit him like…well, like falling into an open grave. he’d left his bag behind, but callahan was probably still hanging around. that was definitely the reason he’d left it behind. 

at least he still had his car keys stuffed in his pocket. lucas tugged them free and spun them on his keyring. he was sober enough to drive. something about being scared out of your mind did that to you. he couldn’t even feel the shot he’d taken ten minutes ago. the group began to disperse, back to their own little worlds, and lucas felt panic creeping up his spine and making his lungs feel like they couldn’t get enough air. he didn’t really feel like being alone right now. not after what he’d seen. and besides that-

“hey,” lucas said, relieved to find that cole hadn’t wandered off too far and jogging over, lightly clapping him on the back with his good arm. “don’t you think maybe you should go get that checked out?” he pointed to his own head and gestured to his beat-up honda, parked edge of the grass.