Chapter Text
MONDAY
The smothering heat of a July afternoon taunts Mike as he sits on a plastic guard chair at Hawkins Community Pool as a considerable amount of sweat drags down his forehead. Out of all the days to be understaffed, today had to be the worst. He pushes his fingers further into the temples of his burned skin, applying as much pressure as he possibly can to somehow soothe the dull pounding behind his eyes. He’s not sure if the headache is the result of a developing case of heatstroke, or from the 6 pack of Smirnoff ice he crushed last night – who’s to say for sure?
All he knows is that he is pissed off, hot, sweaty, hungover, and underpaid. A fantastic combination. He plays with his whistle in his hand as he contemplates his life choices, bouncing his leg anxiously as he checks his watch.
2:34
He’s 4 minutes over rotation. Where the fuck is Max?
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
“No, I swear I’m not lying. He’s going to be so mad when he finds out. I think he already did. Why else do you think Andy isn’t here today?”
Max’s hot gossip is received with a gasp from both Will and Jane, who share a shocked – and maybe just slightly hopeful – look. Max leans back on the temporary sofa she made with some old, tattered guard tubes, the red vinyl shedding off onto the floor as she shifts to lean against Jane. She’ll just make Mike clean it up later or something, as per usual.
Guard office gossip is a sacred time shared among these three, and anyone who interrupts is immediately met with a dastardly scowl from the trio and is usually the next victim of their conversations.
Will turns from the disorganized guard counter (which is littered with old Slurpee cups, freezie wrappers, and a box of granola bars that Mike – and only Mike – can eat or else he throws a massive fucking hissy fit about his “finances” and the budget he creates to purchase them every week) to look out the door of the office, checking for any eavesdroppers. Lucas and Mike are currently on rotation, and Dustin has his headphones on at the counter, so they’re good. Will leans in cupping his hands around his mouth.
“I think he’s gone for good this time. I think he is coming today to give us the beats.”
He, as in their evil, twisted manager, not the element helium. They had already been on thin ice since the incident during the first week of summer operation (unattended pool, kids with food colouring and dish soap, a week-long pool shut down, you get the idea), it was a wonder Max still held her head guard position considering how much she doesn’t do her job.
If they couldn’t figure out that their manager hated them through the confusing and ever-changing schedule, impossible hours, and refusal to help on busy days, they were about to find out just how much he absolutely despised his teenage staff today.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
The angry voice outside the guard office door makes Will nearly jump out of his skin. It’s Mike. He stands in the frame with his fists clenched, the summer heat apparent on his increasingly reddening skin. His bangs are plastered to his forehead, and his small ponytail (or at least what he likes to call a ponytail, a better definition would be a stub) has just about fallen out. He shoots a bitter, accusing look at Max and raises an eyebrow, tapping his flip-flop adorned foot against the cracked concrete floor.
“Jesus Mike! Don’t sneak up to the door like that you creep.”
Max pushes herself off the tube-couch and makes her way to the counter to grab her guard pack and walkie talkie that she discarded the moment she went off rotation. She looks to the clock on the wall, contrasted by ancient brick painted over with some (already peeling) grey paint and an “employees must stop crying before returning to work” sign above it. Max scoffs at the time.
“I’m only 5 minutes over, stop being such a baby.”
Mike raises his eyebrows and quickly jumps to his own defense, his tone a whiny high pitch.
“Do you know how hot it is out there, Maxine? I’m out there working my ass off with a massive headache, meanwhile you’re in here having girl time and gossiping like it’s some fucking sleepover!”
“Excuse me, Will is right there, is it because he’s gay?” Max points to Will, who is not focused on the conversation, and is instead looking worriedly past Mike out the door at something, beginning to mouth something along the lines of “guys, shut up!”
“-plus, it is not my fault you’re a lightweight. If I can recall correctly, I told you to slow down!”
She pokes at Mike accusingly, pushing her finger into his red chest, the impression turning almost white before fading back to a burnt lobster colour. The two continue to bicker mindlessly at the door, though the locations for their arguments expand much wider than the door.
“First off, he’s my fucking boyfriend so that makes me gay too, so obviously no.” Mike begins “And you know what? Shit will hit the fan eventually for you, all your slacking will catch up to you one day. Just you wait until he finds out.”
Mike’s comment is met with an immediate response, but not from Max.
“Until who finds out?”
A new, but familiar voice fills the guard office, which is now silent with fear. A tall, lanky figure looms behind Mike, who is now frozen in place with a slender hand weighing on his shoulder. Despite the blistering heat outside, he’s never felt so cold with fear in his life.
It’s over. He’s here. Their evil manager.
Henry.
He looms behind Mike for a moment longer before removing his hand and pushing past him to center himself in the guard office. He straightens his golden nametag reading “CREEL”, attached to his white, perfectly ironed polo shirt, button done up to the top. His polo is tucked into his painfully white shorts, secured with a black belt containing keys to pretty much every entry to the pool, and quite possibly the entire town at this point. (Picture the “You know I had to do it to em” fit, if you will.)
He taps his orthopedic runner adorned foot impatiently as he looks around the office, scanning the faces of his very obviously terrified teenage staff with his piercing blue eyes, before finally landing on Mike.
“Michael, why are you not at your rotation post? You have left Lucas out there all alone with 15 patrons to supervise. You do realize the severity of your actions, yes? I want you to look at this poster, Michael.”
He turns and taps a laminated poster labeled “patron to guard ratio” attached to the communal fridge with a silver pen, which he removed from the clipboard currently in his hands to do so.
“There are 15 patrons in the pool, 5 over the limit for a lone guard. Do you wish to explain yourself, Michael?”
Mike spares absolutely no time defending himself (fork found in kitchen).
“It was all Max’s fault! Henry, I swear I’m not lying-” Mike points over at Max, whose jaw has dropped in disbelief and fear. Mike is totally on bathroom duty for the next week.
“-she has been in here gossiping with Will and Jane and was late to her rotation. I came in here as a worried coworker.”
Will and Jane both scoff at Mike’s remark, and Will tosses his arms out in a “what the fuck, mike?” motion. Mike closes his eyes and puts his hand over his heart as if that would somehow prove his innocence.
“Maxine, William, Jane, is this true?”
Max is not having it, no way she is going to get in trouble because of Mike Wheeler.
“That is some bullsh- baloney! The only reason I stayed back was because, um-” She looks to Jane to somehow come up with a convincing story “because I am on my lady’s days, and I needed a tampon. Jane was just… getting me one from her bag, right?”
Jane meets this claim with a feverish nod and immediately hops on to Max’s story. “Yeah, totally. I guess Mike is just ignorant of the female struggle.” She shoots a shit-eating grin at Mike, who does not appreciate a single word coming us of either of their mouths. Before he can get a word in, Henry interrupts, flipping through his clipboard as he speaks.
“Impossible. I have tracked your menstrual cycle, as I do for all the ladies in the name of scheduling efficiency, and if I am correct, you are not currently menstruating.” Henry flips to a page on the clipboard to one containing some graphs and uses the silver pen to point at the one labelled “Maxine Mayfield”.
This situation perfectly sums up how Henry is. Insane, creepy, and controlling. If there was a news report of Henry running some illegal business from his basement cloning magic babies or something, none of the guards would be surprised. In fact, there is a bet on this happening, with Will starting it betting $20 on the situation.
“Anyway, I am far to busy to be concerned with your delinquency at this moment. I have come today lead an emergency staff meeting regarding Andy’s absence. I have already instructed Lucas to clear the pool, please meet me outside to discuss.”
With that, Henry sharply turns around, almost on a perfect 180 swivel, and exits the guard office.
The office is filled with tense silence, that is only broken by Will’s whisper-yell.
“I’m telling you guys! He probably has graphs tracking his cloning progress on that clipboard.”
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
By 2:50 pm, all the guards have moved from their usual day of work to an ominous emergency meeting led by their creepy, awful manager. They all sit lined up on a bench against the mechanical room wall, the low hum of the machinery behind them vibrating against their backs. Henry is pacing back and forth in front of them, flipping through his clipboard and writing down notes, shaking his head.
“I have gathered you here today to discuss the removal of Andy Johnson from the guard staff. As you may be aware, he tried to start a physical altercation with two adolescent boys over a misunderstanding regarding professional basketball teams and subsequently ended up losing said altercation.”
It is taking Lucas an absolute will of steel to keep from laughing, he is head guard after all. However, his partner sat next to him in both head guarding and in life has no will at all and is currently covering her face with her hands, laughing her ass off.
“Maxine, just what about this do you find amusing?”
Max immediately sobers up from her laughing high and sits as still as a stone, responding in the most monotone way she can muster.
“Nothing at all sir, it’s a true tragedy, sir.”
Henry’s gaze lingers on Max, his eyes full of disdain, before it switches back to the rest of the group.
“To fill his position, I had posted that there was an emergency need for a guard, and that we would be hiring one new staff member. I got a response almost immediately from a young man. I just finished an interview on the phone with him. Claude Ayeigh will be joining our lifeguarding team this summer.”
The entire party all share the same expression, looking amongst each other in shared confusion.
Who the fuck is Claude Ayeigh?
Henry snaps his terrifying blue-eyed stare to them, tapping his silver pen on his clipboard in an even, rhythmic motion.
“If there are no further questions, you may be dismissed.”
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
TUESDAY
“Max! He’s fucking doing it again!”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Grab the broom.”
This is the third time today that Claude has stuck a straw in the pool and started drinking the water. It is currently 9:21 am.
Will runs into the storage shed and fumbles with the ancient rusty lock on the outside. The thing hasn’t actually been locked in years, and it doesn’t really matter because the shed contains exactly one broom and approximately a billion aqua fit weights that the elderly ladies use on Sundays. Oh, and also one pool noodle that somebody (everybody thinks – and basically knows – that Henry is the culprit) keeps taking large bites out of.
With a few honest shakes, the lock falls off and breaks in half on the pavement under Will’s feet. Great.
He quickly grabs a broom and speed walks (no running!) to the edge of the pool where Claude is. There, he lifts up the straw end of the broom and starts slamming it into Claude’s back.
“Down boy! I said down boy!” Will shouts. Claude yelps sharply in response, hisses at Will, and scampers away into a nearby bush. Will sees Mike exit the guard office, and waves him over, smiling. Mike notices the rustling of leaves in the bush and realizes that Claude is missing. Booyah!
“Jesus, hopefully that’s the last of him we’ll ever see.”
Will nods, and Mike slings a shoulder over him, pulling him closer.
“Oh yeah, he also stole like six or seven water guns from the toy bin.”
“Seriously? What did he put in them?”
Mike’s face twists into a confused expression, and he turns to be squarer with Will.
“Uhh, water? Obviously? What the fuck else would you put in there?”
Will shrugs. “Yeah, fair.”
Mike’s watch beeps. The screen reads 9:30. Time to open.
“Alright, time to open the gate, hopefully there aren’t too many patrons today.”
Will scoffs a laugh in agreement, and starts making his way toward the gate door in the guard office to let people in.
“Yeah, me too. Especially because we’re now down a guard.”
Mike shrugs as they reach the corner. “I’m sure It’ll be fine. It’s a Tuesday after all.”
It was, in fact, not fine.
Outside the gate, it appears as if the entire state of Indiana has decided to spend their day at Hawkins Community Pool. Will slouches against the wall in defeat, and Mike stands in shock, completely frozen. He’ll have to go sandals without socks today.
“Oh, what the fuck.”
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
This guarding shift could only be described as absolute super hell.
Without an extra guard on shift and nearly one hundred patrons in the pool, the rotation consisted of changing chairs, no breaks in the guard office at all.
To start the day off fantastically, a kid continued to run across the extremely slippery deck right in front of Max, and despite her multiple whistle blasts targeting him and her demands for him to stop, he still tripped and fucking split his lip right open. His mother immediately blamed the pool instead of her idiot son and decided that she was going to sue the pool for negligence. Good luck with that Jenny.
A birthday party of twenty patrons arrived in the middle of the day, during the absolute peak of heat and sorrow. Now normally, a birthday party would be perfectly fine, except every single person in this party could not swim, which resulted in seven tubes tossed mainly by Mike and Lucas, two in water rescues done by both Will and Jane, and fifteen incident reports filed by Max.
But worst of all was that the chair tippers were back.
There’s five minutes left of public swim, and the entire party is barely holding onto their sanity. Mike sits in the tall chair, bouncing his leg in anxious anticipation for this awful shift to be over so he can go home and be with Will alone. He checks his watch. 7:56 pm.
He does his zone scan, making sure that everybody’s head is above water, nobody is struggling, and nobody is doing gainers off the diving board, before looking over to the other side of the pool where Will is.
He admires the way the sun has delicately kissed his shoulders, the way his hair slightly lightens in the summer sun and how it falls just above his eyes. Even though he can’t currently see them, he pictures the scattered freckles and moles on his arms and legs, how each one connects in a beautiful constellation across his body. Will notices him and starts waving. Mike waves back, smiling warmly.
Will keeps waving, growing increasingly more frantic, then he starts pointing. Mike furrows his brow, thinking it was some kind of game Will was playing with him, and points back with a certain flirty choice of body language, and throws a coy wink to him.
Will is now yelling something. That’s weird. Mike leans forward, trying to make out what he’s saying. When the words finally register, he goes cold.
“Mike! Get the fuck off the chair! The chair tippers are back!”
Before Mike can even think of moving, he feels plastic guard chair slide across the pavement deck with haste, then he can feel himself tip forward, and the next thing he knows, he’s in the water – and so is the chair.
When Mike breaks the surface, he lets out a very colourful string of curses and flips off the culprits, who have now hopped over the fence and are making a run for the hills.
Dude, fuck this fucking job. They do not get paid enough to deal with this.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
WEDNESDAY
The entire guard team fights for their life on the searing hot pavement of the pool deck as they watch their uptight manager pace in front of them in nothing but an extremely tight speedo.
Henry writes something down on his clipboard, ever so often snapping his neck toward his team and staring into their souls with his icy blue orbs (sorry).
Max leans to Jane and tries her luck at a whisper.
“Do you think we should get him brown contacts as a year-end gift?”
Big mistake. Big. Huge.
Henry’s voice slices through the air, cold and low.
“𝕸𝖆𝖝𝖎𝖓𝖊 𝕸𝖆𝖞𝖋𝖎𝖊𝖑𝖉. 𝕴𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖘𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖜𝖔𝖚𝖑𝖉 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖙𝖊𝖆𝖒?”
Max shakes her head, grateful that it is still attached to her body.
“No sir. Sorry sir. Won’t happen again sir. Nice speedo sir.”
Henry stares a moment longer, before resuming his languid pace.
“Thank you Maxine. I got it on sale at Costco.”
He halts in the middle of the deck in front of the party, finally giving them an explanation as to why they are in their swimsuits at 6:00 am on a Wednesday morning when the pool opens at 9:30 am.
“Considering the events of the past couple weeks, I have taken it upon myself to plan a mandatory surprise staff inservice morning. We are going to be running through drills of CPR and performing deep-water spinals on each other.”
Honestly, it would’ve been kinder and more gracious of him to douse them all in lighter fluid and throw a match at them.
This itinerary earns a loud and unanimous groan from everyone. Henry does not care in the slightest. Lucas rubs the bridge of his nose with his fingers and decided to interject.
“Do we seriously have to do this? Can’t we just find some uncertified random on the street and have them fill in instead? It’s practically the same thing.”
Man, they never learn, do they? Henry is furious.
“Lucas Sinclair you know that it is entirely illegal to do that and even considering such a thing would most definitely get us all in an extremely large amount of trouble, and a hefty lawsuit as well. I am taking no further comments from you delinquents now. Hop in the pool.”
They start in the pool with spinals, which is quite possibly the worst way to start one’s day.
Henry points a bony finger at Mike.
“You’re going to be our victim Michael. I trust that you will not become,” he pauses, lingering on his words for a moment before continuing. “Aroused by William here, as such happened last time we did an inservice.”
Okay so what if Mike got a boner strapped to the spinal board because Will was the one strapping him in? What-fucking-ever. He’s not bothered by it at all. Nope. Not one bit.
It keeps him up at night.
He flushed red with embarrassment, and he’s lucky that everyone was on thin ice this morning or else they would be calling him “Weenie Wheeler” again.
“Whatever.” He mumbles, and he swims out to the middle of the pool to play pretend unconscious while the others prepare the rescue on deck.
The rescue goes as good as a deep-water spinal can, they nearly drop Mike while trying to lift him onto the deck twice and unfortunately Weenie Wheeler did make an appearance. It’s their fault for letting Will do the straps again. Why couldn’t he hold the head blocks or the board? This must have been premeditated.
When finally brought to the deck, he immediately breaks out of the straps and grabs a towel to tie around his waist.
Henry stands in his usual lock-kneed way, constantly tapping his pen on his clipboard. He writes a few more notes and raises his voice to announce.
“Satisfactory. CPR now.”
They take the dummy out, place it on the deck and practice on it, because practicing any form of CPR on any human person who is conscious and not in need of it can cause punctured lungs, broken ribs, internal bleeding, and can disrupt their natural heart rhythm, fun fact.
They take turns with their individual assessments, performing their scene checks, consciousness and ABC assessments, proper contact of EMS and the location of a first aid kit and AED, before using their individual CPR masks to perform two rescue breaths after thirty chest compressions.
Just like they were trained to do. They all passed their assessments wonderfully.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
9:30 hits, and it’s time to open the pool. The party is wet and exhausted, but persist with their duties. Upon opening the gates, the first patron to visit is a little boy with cake smeared all over his face.
Fan-tastic.
It takes approximately two minutes and three swallows of pool water for him to blow chunks everywhere. In the pool, on the deck, and in Max’s hair when she was writing the incident report and contacting his guardians.
Hey, at least the pool is closed for the day because maintenance has to shock it. Great!
As the party makes their way to Mike’s car in the parking lot for a group trip to Dairy Queen, they stop dead in their tracks when they see a familiar woman in the parking lot, she is extremely angry.
“Holy shit-”
“Is that?”
“Oh my god that’s the angry mom that wants to sue us. That’s Jenny!”
Will assesses the angry woman, then looks down to her hand. His blood runs cold.
“Oh, holy shit she has a knife. Guys get in the fucking car right now.”