"I couldn't care less."

Blair didn't sleep much that night, well, she didn't sleep at all in all honesty. Instead she sat at her table in the kitchen, shaking hands with scarred palms holding over a cup of steaming coffee, and the moment it grew cold in her grip was the only time she'd move from her spot to refill it. She spent the night there, ignoring the weather twirling dangerously outside, staring at the phone on the wall with red-rimmed eyes, waiting for a call that never came until the sun came up, bathing the room in its warm glow.

The suffocating silence eventually got too much, and she stormed upstairs to get changed, pulling her clothes on with trembling lips spitting out curses as she tried to steady her breathing. A kid going missing for a few hours was bad, a kid missing for more than 24 was so much worse. And with that thought echoing inside her mind with its vile touch, she went rushing back down the stairs, calling the Byers household, and tapping her foot against the floor awaiting an answer, but it seemed the moment she was put through, she was cut off. She blinked, brows furrowing in confusion and tried again, only for the exact same thing to happen, she tried again and again and again before slamming the phone into the receiver.

"What the fuck is wrong with you." She snarled at the inanimate object, and then, upon realising how stupid she looked, turned away from it with a grimace, rubbing her forehead with her knuckles in frustration, jaw tense and hair messy from her fingers constantly running through it, making the thick strands puff up. Just as Blair was about to go back into the kitchen, a loud horn blaring rung out from outside, causing her to frown in confusion.

She quickly jogged over to the window and lifted the pale red curtain slowly, eyes just peaking out from under it suspiciously and was surprised to see Jonathan's car parked outside with the anxious boy drumming his fingers against the wheel. The young girl physically jerked backwards, before running over to the stairs where she yanked her converses on, not soaring another glance as the mud coating them and ran for the door, locking it behind her with a curse.

"Hey! I tried calling but there wasn't any-" She began, opening the car door to plonk her ass onto the passenger seat, but Jonathan had already interrupted her, his hazel eyes anxious and frantic. "-The phone broke last night, practically liquefied because of the storm. I came to uh, I came to tell you that I'm going over to Lonnies."

He paused for a moment, gauging her blank-faced reaction, and upon seeing nothing to help with his decision, continued on, alot more quiet and slower than he originally started. "The cops think Will... they think he might be there, or Lonnie might know something but I know my dad. He won't cooperate, or he'll just ignore them and it'll make a bigger mess than it is now."

It was silent after he'd finished talking, the only sound coming from the still running engine which filled Jonathan with anxiety, but he kept his mouth shut, waiting for his friend to tell him her thoughts on the matter. Blair chewed on the inside of her cheek, dark brows furrowed with her hand hovering in the space between them, wanting to give the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder but the amount of caffeine running through her system made her second guess herself. She knew Jonathan didn't have the best relationship with his dad, mainly because he was a massive asshole, she remembered having sleepovers in her attic with the boy whenever the arguing got too much for him, while Will would usually be dropped of at Mikes.

"Do you want me to come with you?" She asked hesitantly, lowering her hand into her lap and playing with her fingers, just to give herself something to do as she sat there awkwardly, not knowing how to comfort him in the slightest but offering her support, even though she was scared if she met Lonnie face to face, she'd end up punching him in the throat. Her grams always did say she was an emotionally constipated brat with a capability for great violence, and that was probably the only true thing that came out of her mouth.

"No. This is something I need to do for myself, look, can you just do me a favour and put some of these on the message board when you go in? I just- I know it's a long shot but-" He trailed off quietly, somewhat surprised that his friend had strangely kept her thoughts to herself as he looked down, and Blair finally noticed the papers held in his trembling hands, with a picture of Will right on the front, the ones they'd been working on before she left and felt her heart squeeze inside her chest.

"You don't even have to ask, Jonathan. I've got your back, whatever you need." The dark-eyed girl reached over, plucking the papers out of his hands and transferred them into hers, holding onto them tightly as if she didn't, they'd float away. She smiled over at her friend gently, and for the sake of his sanity and her own, pretended she couldn't see the way his bottom lip trembled as he nodded his thanks towards her, placing his hands on wheel and tightening them until the skin around his knuckles shone white.

"Hey uh, I'll drop you off at school, it's the least I can do after everything-"

"I am not going to let you finish that sentence Byers, but, I will take you up on that offer because I'm too lazy to walk to school." Blair joked, placing the papers into her lap before stretching to the side to yank the seatbelt over her body securely, smiling when she heard Jonathan's weak snort of laughter as he reversed out of the driveway. "I'm um, going to search around the woods again later tonight. You can come if you want."

"A night out with you, alone in the woods where no one can hear me scream? This can go one of two ways Jonny boy, a really bad porno or murder."

"Or the unseen third option of us just looking for clues?"

"Spoil sport." The two continued to talk amongst themselves quietly, keeping their minds off the tragedies at had and trying desperately to ignore the growing hole in their hearts of missing people that meant the world to them.
_________________________________________________

"Goodluck." Blair told Jonathan softy as he parked outside the school, his hands shaking as he gave her a jerky nod, throat feeling tight and unable to push his thanks out in words as she patted his shoulder softly and opened the door and climbed out. He only waited a moment before driving away, wanting far away from the accusing eyes as he possibly could, and she watched him go until she couldn't see his car anymore, wishing for a selfish minute that she had just gone with him for the sake of it, so she didn't have to face everything all alone.

"Fuck my life." She then whispered, and then turn around and began to walk away towards the hell hole in front her, keeping her breath as steady as she could and feeling that certain kind of red hot flush that warned her that no matter what happened today, she was already filled with rage with tensions pulled so tight it was only a matter of time before she snapped.

And sure enough, the moment she'd stepped inside the school, all she could focus on was the various voices of her fellow peers assaulting her ears, each and every one of them loud and grating, talking over the other in excited tones about the missing kid and wondering what happened, trading theories and jokes as if they didn't know Will, as if their younger siblings didn't go to school with him, as if they themselves didn't know his brother, or their parents knew his mom...they just kept talking and talking and talking.

Blair opened her eyes, not even aware she'd shut them to find herself standing in front of the message board numbly, missing poster in hand that had crinkled slight from her tense grip, and she allowed herself to release a shaky exhale to try and loosen her nerves. She then shook her head, and pulled out a pin from her pocket and pushed the piece of paper in, stubbornly trying to avoid looking at his picture but finding herself unable to, tears filling her eyes without her permission as she looked at his earnest face.

Fuck Will, where are you? The question was burning her, twisting at her, pulling at her with a bloodied string of fate that begged for an answer...However, she didn't have alot of time to think, or to cry, as the familar and frustrating voice of Steve fucking 'bitchboy' Harrington and his clonies echoed through the hall as they talked about her, obviously not expecting her to hear or perhaps not caring as they giggled to themselves mockingly.

"How much do you wanna' bet that Byers killed him and she's helping him cover it up? Bonnie and Clyde style." Tommy whispered conspicuously to Steve, who cringed slightly, both of them ignoring the disgusted look that Nancy gave him as she looked over at the obviously distraught girl, remembering how close she was with her brother and the rest of his friends and feeling a strange guilt swell in her stomach.

Blair tried to keep herself calm as she heard them mumble to themselves, teeth trembling and hands shaking, but all she wanted to do was storm over and break Harrington's nose...again. But she was interrupted from her thoughts of violence with the sight of Nancy Wheeler walking towards her nervously. The two girls never really talked much, a half-hearted smile in the hallway, or a few conversations here and there when they'd bump into each other when Blair was leaving the Wheelers home. They had no affection for each other, no friendship but they certainly didn't hate each other, but at that moment in time, all Blair could think about was knocking the girl out and away from her.

"Hey."

Blair didn't answer, of course, stupidly hoping the tense silence would be enough of a deterrent but when had she ever been that lucky? "I, um, I just wanted to say that this- it really sucks. Can you, can you tell Jonathan everyones thinking about him?" Nancy said, wringing her small hands together and looking up at the taller girl from under her lashes, voice rather meek and small which really, shouldn't of gotten on Blair's nerves as much as it did, but for some odd reason, it really did.

"Thinking he's a serial killer you mean?"

"What? No, that- they were just kidding." Nancy defended them, gesturing behind her as the group of kids who were still laughing and mumbling on, watching the two interact and the smaller girl didn't even try to hide her flinch as Blair glared down at her with a fake smile plastered onto her face. "Pretty disgusting thing to joke about."

"That's not-"

"You know, I really couldn't care less, now I'm going to tell you politely to fuck off, because we both know you don't give a shit about anything other than what's it Harrington's pants, which by the way, you're probably going to be dissatisfied with. Theres a reason his hair is so big, its definitely fucking conpensating for something." Blair said, wrinkling her face up into a nasty grin that was all teeth and bite, hands shaking and a vein throbbing in her forehead as she stalked past Nancy, leaving her standing in the hallway with trembling lips.

She stormed past Harrington and his lackies, glaring at them in disgust as she knocked his shoulder with hers roughly, walking through the halls with her nails digging into the palm of her hands and leaving welts in its wake as she felt the familar thurm of burning hot rage creep up into her veins, filling them up and up and up until she felt like she was about to burst at the seams.

But once again, she didn't have the luxury of being left in silence, or even have a chance to calm herself from the explosive rage bubbling inside her because she head thundering footsteps coming up behind her, echoing in the quiet of the halls just before a hand latched onto her upper arm and aggressively yanked her around to meet Steve's dark gaze.

"Hey! What the hell did you say to her?" He snapped in agitation, brows furrowed into a frown as he obviously took offence to his future fuck toys hurt feelings, and Blair felt another swell of resentment because how the fuck did he have the audacity to be offended by anything she had to say after the rumours he'd been spreading about Jonathan?

"Nothing untrue. Now get your hands off me before I break much more than your fucking nose." She quickly pulled her arm away from him aggressively, breath coming out in heavy gasps as an invisible pressure began to press down onto her chest, and she could only watch as his face twisted into an expression unfamiliar to her, his mouth opening and closing and hands hovering around her body but she couldn't hear a word of what he was saying.

All she could hear was the blood rushing to her head and her heart pounding rhythmically, getting faster and faster until she was scared it was going to rip itself from her chest, her vision blurring and she quickly ran, not caring that Harrington probably had the last word and just wanting to get as far away as possible before she turned a corner and slumped against the floor, anger boiling and blooming and there was nothing she could do to stop it. There was an overwhelming ache in her head telling her to go apeshit, and no matter how hard she hit the sides of her head with shaking fists it wouldn't go away.

She hit herself again, trying desperately to focus on the pain instead of the terrible and consuming rage because all she wanted to do was let it all out and scream. Again, again and again she hit herself, thumping her closed fist into the soft part of her temple, until a headache formed and that, that had been the relief she'd been waiting for as she finally was able to catch her breath, tears streaming down her face as she rested the back of her head against the wall, shoulders shrugging down as she breathed a dry sob of pained relief. Grams was gone...Will was gone...strange things were happening that she couldn't explain and she had no one but herself to look after her and help her and no matter how much she tried not to focus on that, it wouldn't stop echoing inside her head.

She just wanted her Grams, she just wanted her fucking Grams.

The next few hours she spent in blissful and ignorant silence, going to her classes and roaming the halls like a ghost, ignoring the whispers echoing around her and about her, talking about the missing kid, the crazy old town drunks death, the vicious bruising on the sides of her head that most definitely hadn't been there that morning, which meant that the Blair bitch had another freaky episode. However, no one dared call her out to her face, because the thing was with Blair is that no matter how bad you could think you were, she was worse.

And when the bell finally rang, she was one of the last ones out, taking in the settling sun with deadpan eyes and hardly an expression on her face, wanting nothing more to curl up in her bed and feel something other than fucking numb.

"Blair!" She turned around, face shifting into a frown just in time to catch a body as they barrelled into hers, arms wrapping around her stomach tightly and almost sending her crashing down onto the ground below her. The young girl quickly gained her footing and looked down to a familar head of curly hair of Dustin, and felt her eyes close in frustration, for herself more than anyone else because she'd been so busy trying to look after Jonathan and herself, she'd managed to forget about the kids and how they were feeling.

"Shit Dustin, you want to mow me over you little bastard?" She said, plastering a fake smile onto her face that she knew didn't reach her eyes as she ran her fingers through his curls affectionately, causing him to look up at her with a goofy smile on his face, showcasing his gums. "Sorry. I've just missed you."

"Yeah, yeah I've missed you too."

"Dustin! We've got to go!"

Her eyes snapped over to the other side of the road where Lucas was walking towards them, his face moving into a shocked expression when he seen Blair, before shifting back into his anxious one, looking at the watch on his wrist then down the street, obviously in a rush to get somewhere as he hurried closer to them.

"Lucas? What, no 'hello' for me? And where's Mike?" Blair asked, looking around for any sign of the dark-haired boy, unaware of the looks the two present boys exchanged at her question, having a silent argument on if to tell her about the stranger in the woods before a quick decision was made as they both smiled up at her innocently.

"He's uh, he's really sick!"

The young girl leaned down, and allowed her gaze to flicker from face to face watching as they visibly squirmed at the scrutinizing they were being given, knowing a lie when she seen one and after a moment, straightened her back, arms crossing over her chest and quirking a single dark brow as the glared at them. "Uhuh, okay how bout' we cut the bullshit yeah? You two are acting really suspicious, more so than usual."

Dustin threw his hands up into the air, giving Lucas a glare as if to say 'told you so' as he cursed loudly. "Shit, how does she always know!?" But then Blair heard a car rumble behind her, and she spun around to find Jonathan's car parked in the car park, and her friend sitting in the drivers seat, nervously drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and sighed slowly, turning back around to give the two a look, dark eyes glistening with a strange emotion that they couldn't decipher.

"Look you little shits, I'm not going to be an ass and get up into your business and all that because it's not my style, but whatever you're doing, I need you to promise me one thing." She said ominously, watching as their eyes flickered towards the other before they nodded. "What?"

"That it's not dangerous."

Lucas stared up at the older girl who'd cared for them for years now, who'd bought them pizza out of her own money when she'd babysit them, who'd played whatever game they wanted to play and watch whatever movie they wanted to watch and all without complaint because she was their friend, no matter how hard she tried to play it off...and then he lied right to her face. "It's not dangerous, Blair. We promise."

"Okay, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I'm definitely going around Mike's tomorrow to give him some soup because, well, y'know, he's so sick." She mocked slowly with a sly grin, watching as Dustin panicked but Lycas just smiled up at her sarcastically, calling her bluff like he always did as she began to make her way towards Jonathan. "Yeah right, bye Blair!"
_________________________________________________

"Your dad is such a dick."

"Yeah, I know."

"Like, he's just a great big bag of dicks."

"You've said that already."

"Well I'm saying it again, I just wanna smash his stupid face into a wall."

"As long as it's not your own again, do what you want."

"Hey! Don't do that man, I can't control it." Blair snapped, pushing a tree branch out of her way with a frustrated huff as she stepped over a fallen log, rolling her eyes when she heard Jonathan mutter something else under his breath, her flashlight held tight in her cold and trembling hands, with the occasional shuttering click of his camera going off every couple of minutes assuring her he was still behind her.

They'd been out there for a few hours now, the sun already gone and taking it's natural light with it, leaving them in the ominous darkness surrounding them as they trekked through Hawkins woods, searching everywhere and anywhere, constantly moving around and looking for any kind of clue but coming up empty. Blair was really starting to miss her bed, hell, even her couch would do as she yawned quietly, but they'd finally made their pit stop at 'Mirkwood' to find any clues the police might of missed.

She was almost blinded by the bright light of the camera as Jonathan decided that there was something worth looking at right next to her fucking head, blinding her for a few moments as she staggered away, pressing the heel of her hands into her eyes with a curse.

"I'm sorry! Shit I'm sorry, are you ok-"

"Oh, you're definitely going to be sorry in a minute pal when I shove my foot up your a-" However, before she could spit the full threat out through gritted teeth, a scream suddenly interrupted her causing her to drop her flashlight, echoing around the thlrees and circling over their ears hauntingly, and Jonathan and Blair only wasted a second of looking at each other with wide eyes before they took of running towards the noise, adrenaline and fear coursing through their veins as the screams continued, getting louder and louder the closer they came.

But when they finally came to a stop, it was to Blair's worst nightmare. They were at Steve fucking Harrington's home, where instead of some great and terrifying danger was running ramped, there was his cliche joking around the pool edge, laughing their annoying laughs and pretending to throw one another in, obviously drunk and disorderly because that's just the type of assholes they were. She shuddered, leaning her forearm against the rough bark of the tree next to her and panting desperately for breath, chest heaving and a cold sweat working itself across her brow as she looked over at Jonathan who hadn't taken his eyes away from the party goers. "Is it bad I hope one of them drown in that pool."

"What? Because they made you run?"

"No. Yes. Shut up." They both simply watched for a few moments, well Jonathan watched while she was trying inconspicuously to not pass out and happening to be looking at the mind-numbing group that had tried to make their lives hell for no other reason then popularity, and Blair felt her nose wrinkle against her face as she noticed that there were two new members of Harrington's cliche, Nancy Wheeler and Barb Holland, and only just resisted the roll of her eyes as she watched the shorter girl start chugging a beer.

"Y'know, she's a smart girl, and the sooner she realizes Harrington is a sham the better. All he cares about is his fucking hair and his popularity, she's never going to be a priority to that asshole." She murmured, and finally grew sick of watching them, going to grab her flashlight from her belt before remembering she'd dropped it, and then turning to Jonathan with a huff. "I'm going back to grab my flashlight, keep taking pictures around here and I'll meet you back at the car?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah sure." He mumbled, raising his camera to the small private party and taking a quick picture causing her to frown, not what she'd meant but alright, turning back around and walking the way she'd came, cursing every so often as she'd stumble over a stick or a rock, barely able to see her own hand in front of her stupid fucking face. Until finally, she found her flashlight on the floor, light dimming and brightening weirdly causing her to pause, a shiver creeping up her spine as she slowly picked it up.

Blair felt really tense all of a sudden, like she was being watched by something lurking in the shadows but, instead of giving into the fear inside of her that told her to curl up into a ball and beg for them to leave her alone she stood taller and glared out into the woods in front of her, upper lip curling into a snarl. "If you jump out at me, whoever you are I'm just warning you now that I am not afraid to bite you. And I bite hard."

But nothing answered her and, after a few tense moments, that stalking presence went away, and she was filled with the sense that she was alone once again, that is, until loud thundering footsteps came running up behind her and she spun around, squealed and launched her flashlight right off the offenders head, hearing them hit the floor with a strangely familar grunt.

"What the hell was that for?"

"Jonathan? What the fuck man, why would you charge at me like that, you dick?" Blair snapped, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding as she caught sight of his mousey brown hair as he struggled to sit up, camera held tightly between his shaking hands that she didn't look twice at as she strolled over with a breathy sigh of relief.

"What- I didn't you freak." He hissed as she quickly helped him up, brushing the dirt from off his back with her face shifting into a guilty expression, pausing as she looked at his face to see what would be a bruise already forming on his forehead leaving a bright red mark, before she paused and brought her face closer to his, narrowing her dark eyes in confusion. "Are- are you blushing?"

"W-what? Oh yeah, y'know all that running and stuff, c'mon anyway, it's getting late." Jonathan said, brushing off her concerns as he hurried to the car, not even waiting for her as she continued to look after him with a frown before she shrugged, picking her flashlight off of the floor and following after him, still a bit tense after everything but, knowing that things couldn't really get any worse.

...right?