Bloody Negatives {Stranger things}

Chapter Twenty-Six

《Chapter Twenty-Six》
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"You're going to kill me," Tally muttered under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief. "You all are."

"Calm down," Steve muttered as they hiked through the woods, looking for Eddie. "You're fine."

Tally could feel his hands tremble as he barely managed to deflect the branch Dustin let snap back in his face.

Robin patted Tally's shoulder in a somewhat-sympathetic manner.

"We're going the wrong way," Steve finally announced after several minutes of exhausting silence.

"No, we're not," Dustin argued, causing Tally to breathe out heavily. He didn't think he could handle listening to another petty argument.

Of course, the two of them began to bicker, triggering another massive migraine to plague Tally's head.

"Shut up," Robin muttered, dragging out each word, annoyance dripping from her voice.

Max snickered as Steve and Dustin turned to look at Robin, eyes wide with mock offence.

"You're going to make Tally's head explode, and right now that's the complete opposite of what we want," she sighed, pushing a branch away from her face.

Tally groaned in agreement.

Steve shook his head and began walking in a completely different direction than from where Dustin had been leading them. "No point in arguing, I'm right."

Dustin threw his arms up in the air, rolling his eyes, but still following Steve.

The others did the same. Once the path had widened enough for them to walk next to each other, Tally felt Nancy reach for his hand. Her fingers wrapped around his, squeezing gently, reminding him she was still there.

It somehow made his headache go away.

"—I pioneered skull rock—" Steve was bragging when Tally tuned back into the conversation.

"No one's arguing with you," Dustin muttered, pulling on his hair with frustration.

Steve began to respond, though the sound of someone yelping quickly distracted him. The whole group looked up. They'd arrived at skull rock.

Eddie was barrelling towards them, running down the hill with a look of desperation.

"Two days!" he yelped, practically tackling Dustin the the ground, while the rest of the group watched. "You left me here for two days!"

"Eddie—" Steve sighed, grabbing the older boy by the collar of his jacket.

Tally had to turn away to stop himself from laughing. The way Eddie's arms clawed through the air wildly, trying to get to Dustin, was simply too funny for him to be serious.

"Don't fucking laugh!" Eddie yelped, noticing Tally's reaction. "I was scared."

The amount of stress Eddie put on the last word make Tally shiver.

"We're here now, right?" Steve asked, shifting so he was looking at Eddie face-to-face. "And I was right."

"Shut up!" Dustin called out, lunging at Steve.

"Holy shit," Tally put a hand over his face to contain his snickers. "They're literal toddlers."

That comment caused Robin to laugh, which caused Max to laugh, causing Lucas to laugh, causing Tally to laugh even harder. Eventually even Nancy was giggling as the three boys tried to tear each other apart.

The trio slowly stepped away from each other, suspicion in their actions. The circumstances were horrible, but frankly it was hilarious.

Tally began to zone out again, staring at his feet. Despite his best efforts, intrusive thoughts began to worm their way into his head.

What Jason had said. Well, he'd said several things, but it certainly wasn't the cult accusation that was driving Tally mad. Why did it bother him so much?

It wasn't like he didn't like Nancy. Well he didn't like her. Sure he liked her but he didn't... like her?

Why was he like this.

"Ba-da-bing!" Dustin suddenly shouted. Tally almost had a heart attack. He whipped his head up to see what had caused Dustin to exclaim so suddenly.

Dustin grinned, raising his eyebrows with a look of excitement on his face. "I was right."

"Oh my God—" Robin began to complain, but Dustin held up a hand to silence her.

"Skull Rock is North," Dustin said, his grin widening.

Steve threw up his arms, his face a placid lake of severe annoyance. "What."

Dustin held up the compass. "The compass was wrong, not me."

"You're still wrong, dude," Steve said, his face contorting into a mixture of confusion and concern.

"Unless..." Dustin prompted, waving his hands wildly.

"The electromagnetic field," Lucas called out all of a sudden, his voice cracking as he threw his arms up in the air triumphantly.

Tally cleared his throat and pointed at himself. "Hi, stupid jock here, what the fuck does that mean?"

Dustin smiled and turned to look at Tally. "I just found our way into the Upside Down."

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