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"Dusty! Mia! You're home!" Claudia greeted her children. Mia and Dustin lingered in the hallway awkwardly.

Dustin had managed to grab the mysterious, slimy creature from the bottom of the trash can with surprisingly little difficulty and put it inside his fake ghost trap, then the two siblings had tried to sneak inside without their mother noticing, but now Mia was just praying the thing stayed quiet until they reached Dustin's room.

"How was it?" She asked.

"H-How was what?"

"'How was what?' The greatest night of the year, of course."

"Oh, oh, yeah it was...uh, tubular." Dustin answered. Mia cringed.

"What's wrong with you guys?" Claudia frowned, noticing their unusual behaviour. "Did something happen?"

"No!" They yelled a little too quickly, glancing at each other then back to their mother.

"Uh, we've both just had a busy night. Nothing to worry about." Mia assured her.

"Are you sure? Dusty, you're not constipated again are you?"

Mia snorted and Dustin elbowed her in the ribs roughly, earning a soft grunt from her. "No! Mom!"

"Okay, you're both acting weird."

"No we're not!"

The creature decided then was the right time to make noise and rattled the box aggressively. Dustin laughed nervously, and Mia had no other choice but to do the same.

"Awesome, right? Yeah...I rigged the trap with, uh, a motor to make it look like I caught a ghost. Just like the movie," he said.

Claudia laughed nervously. "Oh, Dusty."

"I told him it would freak you out but as usual, he didn't listen to me." Mia added.

"Oh, you kids never cease to make me laugh."

"Yeah..."

The three of them continued laughing awkwardly, until Mia said goodbye to her mother and shoved Dustin down the hall. They hurried into his room and he locked the door behind her, then held up his box.

"I told you to keep quiet." Dustin said to the creature.

"Dustin."

"All you had to do was stay still for one minute."

"Dustin..."

"One minute."

"Dustin!"

"What?"

"You do realise it can't understand you, right?" Mia asked.

"You don't know that." Dustin replied.

Mia rolled her eyes and sat on Dustin's bed, watching as he removed the cover from his tank.

"Sorry, Yertle." He gently took his turtle out and placed it on the floor. "Temporary eviction, buddy."

Mia stood abruptly and walked over to him. "You're not actually taking that thing out? Dustin, what if it jumps up and bites us or something?"

Dustin looked at her as if she was overreacting. "It won't."

He opened the box and dropped the creature into the tank. It chittered and squirmed, and the two leaned in closer to have a look.

"What are you, little guy?" Dustin asked it, clearly fascinated.

Meanwhile, Mia scrunched her nose. "And what were you doing in the trash?"

"He could be hungry?" Dustin suggested. He walked to his bed and tipped the bag upside down.

"I hope you intend to share some of that."

"Not with you."

Dustin grabbed a Nougat bar and broke off small bits, putting them in the tank to feed the creature. It poked its head out from under the rock and screeched, hiding from the light.

"Seems like it doesn't like heat." Mia noted.

Dustin turned off the lamp. "Sorry about that, little guy."

The creature came out of hiding and started eating the chocolate.

"You like nougat, too, huh?" Dustin smiled. "You're pretty cute, you know that?"

"Cute is not the word I would use to describe him."

"Shut up, Mia."

"What? He looks like something you'd find in sewer...except more mutated and disgusting."

"Ignore her, she's just jealous that I found you first."

"Oh my god," Mia rolled her eyes. "How am I related to you?"

"D'Artagnan. I'm gonna call you D'Artagnan." Dustin called him, and Mia decided she'd had enough.

"Okay, that's enough for me for one night, I'll leave you to your new best friend." She swiped some of Dustin's candy, ignoring his protests as she took a bite of one of the chocolate bars and went to her room.

♪♪♪

Mia found most of school the next day a blur. She'd been thinking about a multitude of things, but the things occupying her mind the most were Dustin's weird slimy new pet they'd found the night before, and what it actually was.

Before she left school that morning, she found Dustin asleep still in his Ghostbusters costume with piles of books and candy wrappers around him, and saw D'Artagnan–which she still thought was a stupid name–had grown about three inches bigger. She woke her brother and neither of them could find an explanation. Of course, while Dustin thought it was cool that he grew so fast, Mia knew it wouldn't be anything good and was afraid of what it meant.

That had been on her mind for most of the day, but also, the party at Tina's was on her mind. Or, more to the point, the whole Steve and Nancy spilled-punch-argument thing.

Mia wasn't sure why she cared so much about it, and she knew it wasn't really any of her business what happened, but she saw the way Steve had stormed out of the party. Plus, news travelled fast around Hawkins High and the rumours that Nancy was already moving on to Jonathan Byers spread like wildfire. Mia tried to convince herself she didn't care about Steve and how he was feeling–after all, they barely spoke and were far from friends–but the truth was, that she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him since.

It annoyed her, because of all people for her to think about, she was thinking about the guy who had acted like nothing but a spoiled, rich jock for the entirety of their high school life and had barely spared her a glance up until last year when everything went down with the Upside Down.

But, she was thinking about him and had been trying to find a way to talk to him since the start of second period.

"Yes, Miss Henderson?" Her art teacher asked when he saw her hand up.

"Can I use the bathroom?"

He nodded in response and Mia hurried out of the room. She wasn't really going to the bathroom though, she was going to find Steve. She wandered through the halls, subtly looking through the doors to different classrooms until she reached the gym and heard the sound of a whistle. She opened the door and saw the basketball team practicing, but she paused at the door when she saw Nancy in front of her.

"Steve?"

Mia quickly closed the door and hid out of sight as Steve and Nancy came out of the gym and walked outside to talk. Mia closed her eyes and sighed.

"What are you doing?" She asked herself quietly, before realising her plan was dumb and heading back to art class.

"You okay? Carmody whispered when she returned.

Mia nodded. "Yeah, fine."

She wasn't fine, but she wasn't about to admit she'd gone looking for Steve in the middle of class for no absolutely no reason.

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