Jailbird || Stranger Things

forty-six ➵ something wicked

"I don't have time for this right now."

    Teresa allowed her eyes to close in order to take a deep breath and keep her cool. Jim watched in confusion as she tried to keep her breathing and heart rate even. With her head bowed, she kept her eyes closed, speaking quietly but evenly, something that for once actually frightened Jim. Just a little.

    "If I'm having nightmares, and we've established I'm sensitive to the Upside Down, then something is happening."

    As she looked up, her blue eyes electrifying as they stared at her half asleep father, she realised she would not get through to him. He had some other problem that she didn't know of, but which she didn't believe he would tell her about.

    "You know what, it's nothing," she suddenly got up, snatching up her UIUC softball shirt. "Somebody else who isn't hungover will listen to the serious problem that might put us all in weird Stephen King type of danger again. Have a nice day, dad," she added before she slammed the door behind her.

    The breath she let out once she was standing on the porch was heavy, full of frustration and laced with regret. This wasn't a conversation they should table. They should be talking about it in that moment.

    Foreboding settled into her bones, the same darkness as in her dreams seeping through the new scratches on her chest started to throb in pain. Although she was able to hide them with a t-shirt, she knew that when she'd be on duty, the top would have to come off and her swimsuit would show them fully.

    With excuses already scrambling round in her head, she found her car keys and unlocked it, just as Joyce practically jogged through the woods.

    "Reese!"

    "He's inside," she told her, opening the door and throwing in her bag. "Sometimes I think I'm the grownup in my family, Joyce. Good luck with his stupid attitude," she added before she got into the car, a confused Joyce watching her leave. "Asshole."

    Furrowing her eyebrows, Joyce made her way to the house, knocking on the door. What could Jim had done to piss off his mostly patient daughter like that?

    "Hopper!" she knocked on the front door, needing to keep her head straight. There were important matters at hand. "Are you there? I just saw Reese leave, I know you're home!"

    "Oh," Jim opened the door, tying the towel stronger on his hips. "Look who it is!"

    "We need to talk," Joyce moved into the cabin, going straight to the fridge and digging around in her car.

    "Yeah, we do," he shut the door, similarly to how his daughter had just a couple of minutes ago. "I haven't been stood up like that since Alice Gilbert in the 9th grade," he picked up his patrol shirt from the back of the couch, pulling it on as Joyce crouched on the floor and emptied her bag in her hunt for some magnets. "What are you doing? Joyce, hello?"

    "Just watch," she lifted a hand, reaching to show the lack of reaction between the magnets and the fridge.

    After a couple of failed attempt to put the magnets onto the refrigerator door, Jim spoke up once more, "Okay, you're freaking me out."

    She got up, picking up a magnet from Melvald's and showing it up to him, "You slipped on this, remember?"

    "Yeah."

     "Yeah, it fell in the night. It lost its magnetism."

    "Oh, did it?" he asked, now sitting on the back of the couch."