Halley's comet | Steve Harrington

ii.xxv splitting up

"𝑱𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏, 𝑰'𝒎 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈."

⇜☾✩☽⇝

"We burn it out of him."

"Take Denfield, then you'll see a large oak tree." Hopper was carrying Will's limp body as Joyce, Jonathan, and Halley all followed quickly behind him. "You're gonna swing a right. That road is gonna dead end." Jonathan rushed ahead to pull open the back door of the car. "And it's about a five minute walk from there."

Jonathan, with shaky and heavy breaths repeated the directions back to him. "Denfield, oaktree, right, it's— it's channel ten, right? Channel ten?" he stopped suddenly, looking up for confirmation as Hopper closed the door after setting Will down on the seats.

In a fatherly act, Hopper clasped Jonathan's shoulder. "It's channel ten," He said calmly, then, raising an eyebrow and leaning down slightly to properly look Jonathan in the eyes, "You let me know when that thing is out of him." He finished with a small nod, clapping Jonathan's back before walking away.

For a moment, Jonathan was still, then he turned to face Halley, his eyes were misty, but it was obvious he was trying to hide it. She chose not to mention it.

Joyce had gone to grab something from the house, Halley suspected cigarettes, so she had a few minutes before it was time to take Will.

"Jon," She said slowly, stepping closer to him. She spared a glance through the smudged car window. If she were naive, she would have believed that Will had just fallen asleep on the way home.

Seeming to misunderstand what Halley was trying to say, Jonathan shook his head, "It's gonna work, we just gotta—"

"Jonathan, I'm not going." The air went still around them. Halley could hear the crickets deep within the forest as she waited for her brother to say something. Anything.

Finally, he blinked, licked his lips, and started to form words. "What?"

Halley shook her head. She knew that her being there was a bad idea. She couldn't particularly explain it, but it was a gut feeling, a terrible, rumbling gut feeling. The same feeling she felt when she had seen Bob brutally torn apart and Mike jump off a cliff. She didn't know what it was, but she did know she couldn't be at the cabin.

"It's... better if I stay here," she said softly, not quite looking at her brother, her fingernails dug into the backside skin of her thumb. The thought of lying crossed her mind. She could tell him it was because she wanted to keep an eye on the boys, make sure they were all evenly spread out in case anything happened, but she couldn't bring herself to. She didn't offer an explanation, but Jonathan didn't push for one.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Hopper wrangling El away from Mike, and Joyce emerging from the house, Halley knew she should break away; let the plan kick start into action. But it was difficult.