‘The Dustin Person’

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My point is, I get it, okay?

Summary: Dustin visits Max in the hospital after she wakes up. He talks about his father to help her come to terms with her own guilt.

Or

I give Dustin’s family a backstory

Words: 2332

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All that was left were the memories

Summary: Mike learns about Eddie's death and he and Dustin reminisce about their friend

Words: 2465

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show me how to unfreeze time

Summary: The only things Dustin felt were Eddie's unnaturally cold body, his unblinking eyes staring up at him, and his blood covering Dustin's shaking hands.

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Steve, Robin, and Nancy finding Dustin after the battle

Words: 1098

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Clumsy

Summary: Dustin Henderson was clumsy. Everyone knew this. His friends had grown used to steadying him whenever he tripped over his own feet. Despite this, he was always sporting some kind of injury.

Dustin Henderson was clumsy. At least from the perspective of those around him. He knew that most of his injuries could have been avoided if only he had been a little more careful. He didn't want to be careful.

Or

Dustin has unhealthy coping mechanisms

Words: 3150 (2 chapters)

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I want to give up but not if doing so kills you

Summary: Dustin is tired.

He is tired of feeling guilty, tired of nightmares, and tired of failing. When Vecna comes to end his suffering, Dustin might have let him if only he hadn’t said he was coming for his friends too. So he would fight for his life only to save his friends. - My take on Dustin getting Vecna'd

Words: 2248

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Let me help you heal

Summary: Joyce Byers knows a thing or two about losing someone you love. She knows the ache that comes with grieving them, and she knows the guilt that comes from not being able to save them

Or

Joyce helps Lucas and Dustin heal

Words: 1417

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Hospital Visits

Summary: Lucas never left Max's side. From the moment they entered the Creel house, he was constantly beside her. He was there in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and now he was sitting in the chair by her hospital bed.

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But he wasn't always alone

aka the 'everyone visits Max and/or Lucas in the hospital' fic you didn't know you needed

Words: 13917 (10 chapters)

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Anger

Summary: Dustin doesn’t know what to do with all this anger. Why is he the only one who cares about Eddie? The anger keeps growing, filling him up until that’s all he feels. Anger.

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A look into why Dustin is behaving the way he is in ST5

Words: 1075

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Isn't this what we do for each other?

Summary: Something goes wrong on the way to Vecna's lair.

Dustin decides they don't need him anymore.

He just doesn't understand why Mike of all people is making such a big deal about it.

Words: 1610

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Addicted to Pain

Summary: Dustin discovers that pain is very useful when he needs a distraction from every emotion threatening to break him down. He doesn't want his friends to stop him from hurting himself, and brushing away their concern is easy when every injury is because of accidents or assholes beating him up. They don't need to know that the accidents were preventable and the assholes provoked.

Words: 2019

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I deserve to feel miserable and you deserve to live (so please let me go)

Summary: Steve doesn’t know what he did to make Dustin push him away. He desperately wants to be there for him.

Dustin isn’t interested in any feelings of comfort, and he’s trying to make sure Steve doesn't meet the same end as Eddie. He has no choice but to push Steve away.

Words: 1261

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You're not alone anymore

Summary: “I can’t stop thinking about that moment. In that moment I felt - I felt so -”

Lucas struggled to find the right word before it suddenly came to him. But not from his mind. No, it came from Dustin’s mouth.

“Useless"

If it wasn’t for the sadness - and recognition? - In his voice, Lucas might have thought Dustin just confirmed all his fears. That he really was useless and should have done more to help Max.

But when he looked over at Dustin, the boy was fiddling with his rings, fixated on the floor with a vacant look in his eyes.

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Dustin never told anyone about Eddie dying in his arms. Lucas is the first one to find out and it strikes him how similar their situation was. Max dying in his arms. Eddie dying in Dustin’s.

Words: 4837 (2 chapters)

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You would tell me if you heard the clock, right?

Summary: Max wakes up early from her coma, and she recognizes the way Dustin is acting a little too well. She doesn’t want him to go down the same path as her, and she’s afraid Vecna will target him like he did her. So she promises herself to keep Dustin close and make sure he’s okay.

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This fic follows Max and Dustin during the 18 month time jump all the way up to the start of season 5.

Words: 9408 (5 chapters)

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empty graves and scattered minds

Summary: Dustin doesn’t know how to grieve properly. But he’s pretty sure he isn’t supposed to feel empty.

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What happened during and after that cemetery fight? Kinda a missing scene but more about Dustin’s thoughts and feelings at that time.

Words: 1512

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Keep that curiosity door locked

Summary: Dustin takes one look at Mr. Clarke in the Upside Down and desperately wants him to walk away from all danger. He doesn’t want to have to worry about losing another person to the horrors lurking beneath Hawkins.

Mr. Clarke hears the words 'Dustin' and 'danger' and knows he has to save his favorite student.

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The missing Dustin and Mr. Clarke reunion we should have gotten.

Words: 2827 (2 chapters)

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It gets easier with friends around

Summary: What do you do when the friend who usually never shuts up is suddenly quiet? Well, you get him to talk again, of course.

Dustin and Max catch up. Dustin reveals something he shouldn’t have. Max learns about Eddie’s death. They talk about grief, guilt, and smacking people over their heads? Oh well, hop along for the ride.

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The Dustin and Max reunion we should have gotten.

Words: 2845

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Drowning

Summary: Mike hadn’t known how much Dustin was struggling until he found himself hurting in the same way as him. They meet up at the quarry to keep each other company through complicated feelings and maybe eventually they heal.

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Dustin talks and Mike listens, but somewhere along the way he starts to understand.

Words: 3855

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Just a mile

Summary: Then, when sobs turned to sniffs, and hammering hearts turned to steady beats, Steve tried to lighten the mood and put on his best teasing voice.

“You know, maybe you should practice your running? Get a little faster so you can outrun the monsters instead of tripping. You should join me on my next run.”

And it was nothing but a joke, yet for some reason, Dustin agreed to it, and he looked so eager to do so that Steve couldn’t find it in himself to admit that he wasn’t serious.

OR

Steve and Dustin have a heart to heart and then they go for a run? Fun times.

Words: 1036

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Feeling Stuck

Summary: They saved the world on a Friday, and Max knew that the day after was a Saturday, but every day blurred together, and time didn’t feel real. It could have been hours, days, or even weeks; she wouldn’t know. She was still stuck there, that Friday, watching the Upside Down disappear, taking El with it.

…

“Want me to go in with you?” Steve asked, while helping her out of the car and into the wheelchair. Max nodded, because, yeah, she didn’t want to do this alone.

And she wanted to get better, she really did. She wanted nothing more than to wake up knowing what day it was - that it wasn’t still Friday.

OR

Max has a long road to recovery, but luckily Steve is there to drive her to and from physical therapy and cheer her up on the way.

Words: 3772

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Written Goodbyes

Summary: For a second, she was confused as to why Dustin had the letter she wrote to Steve, but then she looked at it, really looked at it, and that definitely wasn’t her handwriting. That’s when she noticed that the letter was just the first one in a whole stack. She picked them up and flipped through them.

Steve. Mom. Lucas. Mike. Will. El. Suzie. Robin. Nancy. Erica.

Some part of her had a pretty good idea of what those letters were. Though another part was refusing that thought steadfastly, desperately searching for some other logical explanation.

Until she got to the last letter.

Max.

And she knew. She knew without a doubt what those letters were going to say. But her mind couldn’t wrap itself around it - didn’t want to.

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Max finds out Dustin has written some letters of his own.

Words: 4883

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Dustin's guide to grieving (Series)

Dustin copes with Eddie's death by hiding behind masks

Works in series:

All the ways to hide yourself

Summary: Dustin was only there in fragments. Pieces of himself that he played up in an attempt to shove aside his real feelings. They called those fragments his masks, and they never knew which mask he would hide behind on any given day.

OR

Dustin refuses to talk about how utterly broken he feels, and hides behind six different masks. The Party is worried about him and wishes he would just talk to them.

Words: 1807

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I see my reflection in your eyes

Summary: Dustin hadn’t known how his grief looked to the people around him until he wasn’t the only one grieving. Until he saw that same grief mirrored in his friends.

OR

Dustin realizes that he has been hiding behind masks when the rest of the party starts doing the same thing.

Words: 8358 (7 chapters)

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Hearts Beating in Sync

Summary: Dustin has a flashback of Eddie’s death and Steve helps him calm down.

OR

Dustin listens to Steve’s heartbeat.

Words: 1036

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friends have a way of finding you, even in the darkest of places

Summary: During preparations for the final battle against Vecna, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Hopper fall into a trance. Vecna traps them in his mind, in a world where he has changed their lives in drastic ways. It's up to Will, Max, Steve, and El to rescue them from this world so they can finally defeat Vecna. But first they have to convince their friends that the life they're living is fake, which is easier said than done. Especially since Vecna has meddled quite a lot in at least one of their friends' lives.

(very loosely based on Agents of Shield's Framework arc)

Words: 47648 (15 chapters)

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Birthday Celebrations

Summary: Dustin had always loved his birthday. It was more than just the gifts, it was the celebration and spending time with his loved ones. It was impossible to be sad on such a day.

That’s what he used to think anyway.

Then Eddie died.

OR

A look into how grief affected Dustin’s desire to celebrate his birthday through the years.

(a lil fic I wrote in honor of Dustin's birthday)

Words: 4007

He wasn’t even scared that she wouldn’t believe him. His mom never doubted a word he said. Sometimes he wished she would because he felt so bad the way he had betrayed her trust with lies over the last couple of years. He would make that up to her now.

Dustin told her the truth about Will’s disappearance, Dart - that story came with about seventeen apologies and several tears, the summer spent under Starcourt, and Vecna, and what had really happened to Eddie.

Then he told her about the last 18 months, the self-destruction, the Crawls, and the plan to stop Vecna once and for all. 

Lastly, he told her about the world Vecna had trapped him in. His heart hammered in his chest as he told her how everything had played out in that world - what he had been through, the things he had done, and the way he could still feel that version inside him.

Dustin spared no details in any of the stories.

When he was done talking, his mom spent minutes crying her eyes out, not saying a word. He was terrified he had ruined everything, that he had made her unable to look him in the eyes ever again.

But then she opened her arms and Dustin barreled into her, once again feeling like a little kid. Though most of all, he felt safe.

“Aren’t you scared that that other part of me will take over?” He had asked, dreading the answer.

“Oh, Dusty, the fact that you feel so guilty about it all tells me I have nothing to worry about,” She had answered, and Dustin had burrowed into the warmth of her hug. 

His mom having so much faith in him was only a little uplifting when he could still hear that other Dustin’s voice in his mind. 

He couldn't help but be scared of himself.

Dustin did not leave his house for weeks. On very bad days, he asked his mom for homemade cookies. She never refused to bake them, and Dustin held on to the taste of his real life.

His friends came by as often as they could.

Lucas and Mike biked over a lot. Those two had been spending almost all their time together. Mike told him that Vecna’s world had felt so real that now they felt like they were making up for lost time. Dustin was relieved he wasn’t the only one who had trouble figuring out which memories were real. 

He admitted that the reason he didn’t want to leave his house was all the pictures hung on the walls. They reminded him what his real life had looked like, and they helped push the fake memories out. 

The next day, Mike and Lucas came by with three small photo albums and several pictures from their own houses. The three of them spent the afternoon making personal photo albums they could carry wherever they went.

In the end, they had three full albums. There were pictures of snowball fights, DnD nights, birthdays, AV Club, Hellfire Club, science fairs, Halloween group costumes, etc. Thank god their moms liked capturing memories so much.

After that, it got a little easier to leave the house.

One of the hardest things to do was face his guilt. Or rather, the three people who reminded him exactly how cruel he had been in that other world.

At first, he had thought he could avoid them. 

But Steve came by the house almost every day. In fact, he visited a few hours after Dustin had told his mom everything. Claudia Henderson had pulled Steve into a tight hug and thanked him through tears for keeping her son safe. Steve had replied that Dustin had saved him plenty of times too.

And just like that, Steve had a permanent seat at the dinner table. He never failed to let Dustin know that he did not blame him for breaking his arm in that other world. Steve kept assuring him that that version wasn’t real. It didn’t make it feel less real, but it did ease his guilt a little.

Max just showed up one day and demanded that he be the one to push her wheelchair from now on because she was sure he would go full speed over every bump in the road, and that was what she needed. She didn’t want to feel fragile. 

Dustin obliged. Maybe because he felt he owed her that, for the way he had completely abandoned her without giving a reason in that other world. And maybe because he felt like it was a wrong he could actually right. They got to talking on all their little trips. They talked about their guilt and grief, and all the abuse they had been through.

Dustin was terrified when their friendship started feeling too similar to the one they had had in Vecna’s world. But after a while, he realized that his friendship with Max had perhaps been the realest thing in there. 

Will was the most difficult one to face. He was also the one he had managed to escape confrontation with the longest. Dustin didn’t want to ignore him the way he did, but every time he looked at him, he saw the eyes of the boy whose light and wonder he had slowly seen disappear over the years. Every time, he was reminded of how he stood by while the lab tortured him. Will seemed to respect that he needed space.

Until one day, the last of Dustin's guilt came knocking. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Will said before Dustin even had the chance to process that it was him on the other side of the door.

“I, um, I’m sorry,” he replied, feeling like the apology could be nothing but lacking, “I just can’t stop thinking about all the ways I wronged you in that world. I mean, how can you even look at me?”

“Dustin,” Will sighed, “that wasn’t actually me. I don’t have those memories. The only one I have is you throwing me into a wall, and to be fair, I did confuse and piss you off, so that’s on me.

“Besides, I think you’re punishing yourself enough for the both of us. Which you shouldn’t do, by the way. The things you did in there, you might have been the one making the decisions, but Henry was always pulling the strings. He made sure you felt you had no other choice”

Dustin couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him.

“Will the Wise strikes again” he said, although he couldn’t keep the sad tinge in his voice out.

Will might have been right, but it would not rid him of the images of Will’s terrified face and the sound of his screams.

“We’ll be okay, right?” Will asked after a beat of silence. His voice was full of anxiety.

Dustin didn’t answer. He just opened his arms. Part of him wanted to test if Will truly wasn’t scared of him. 

When Will stepped into his embrace, Dustin was the one who melted into the hug. That was enough to assure both of them that they would be okay.

School was a whole other obstacle to face. Dustin might have been able to keep that other version of him at bay with his friends, but Andy and his goons would be a whole other story. One word about Eddie and Dustin was almost certain he would give in to the urge to break a bone or two on them. 

The others seemed to realize that. So Will and Max always led him the other way whenever the jocks approached him, while Mike and Lucas did what Dustin had begged them to do for the last 18 months: they defended Eddie with all they had.

But they all knew it wasn’t a long-term solution. So Dustin worked with Nancy, Murray, and Hopper to clear Eddie’s name. Nancy spoke to him about her own experience with grief and seeking justice, Murray had many ideas for ways to spin things without causing panic, and Hopper was reinstalled as police chief and Hawkins had nothing but respect for him.

Dustin had known it wouldn’t be easy so he was grateful they wanted to help.

Clearing Eddie’s name was what he had wanted to do since Hawkins split open. The end of the world had been the one thing standing in his way. But with it prevented, he could finally work towards a world where Eddie could actually rest in peace.

Three months after they destroyed the Upside Down for good, and a little over a month after the military at long last left town, El and Kali returned to Hawkins.

And Dustin found that talking to them helped his guilt and fear immensely. 

They were the only ones who understood what he had been through at the lab. At first, he had been apprehensive about sharing anything with them, too afraid that they wouldn’t view his experience as real. But they assured him that though it hadn’t actually been real, the memories existed alongside his real ones and affected him just as much. 

Kali convinced him to start training his powers. Dustin had refused at first, adamant that he wanted nothing to do with them. But she told him that, though it might feel contradictory, nurturing his powers would help keep that other version of him away.

"You won't be able to get rid of the powers, so gaining control is an important step to take to make it feel part of the real you and not just a remnant of the one our brother made," she said.

Dustin couldn't fight that logic. Kali's thing was illusions. She knew a thing or two about differentiating real from fake. So he did the wise thing and trusted her.

After a training session, El pulled him aside and told him something that stuck with him.

“Maybe you should forgive that other version of you. I saw the things that happened. You did not have it easy”

Dustin had been appalled at first, but with time, he could see why El had encouraged him to stop being so hard on himself. He would never forgive himself for the things he had done in there, but maybe he could forgive the scared little, lonely boy who thought those were the only options he had.

That at least made it easier to accept that other version of him in the back of his mind. 

But the thing that helped the most was his friends. 

It was Steve's reassurance and forgiveness, Lucas and Mike's presence and support, Max's compassion and company, Will's comfort and kindness, and Kali and El's help and understanding.

Their love.

He kept reminding himself that they had fought hard to get him out of Vecna’s world, to save him from the version of him that monster had created. And though that dark version of him still existed, buried deep inside, he knew that if it clawed its way out, his friends would reach through that darkness again and pull out the real him. 

Dustin wasn’t scared of himself anymore. Not when he had his friends by his side.

Friends had a way of finding you, even in the darkest of places.

-

Those left behind at the lab could do nothing but wait. They were all up on the roof on the lookout for any military activity, in case they sent more soldiers their way. That was partly why Max had insisted on joining them on the roof. She didn’t want to be near all the dead soldiers down in the lab. 

It was also because she wanted to know what was happening. They were all waiting for the others to either get back or for the confirmation that they had failed if the Abyss started descending towards them.

Vickie kept her company and answered all the questions she had about what her recovery process would look like. Max was mostly asking to get a distraction from worrying about her friends. Vickie told her it would probably take some time before she could get back on a skateboard.

Max wasn’t exactly looking forward to the intensive physical therapy she would have to go through. She wanted to skip right to the part where her limbs worked again. But as it was, standing at the potential end of the world, she just hoped she survived so she would get the opportunity to recover.

Max stilled when she finally saw the truck return to the lab, and only when she had laid eyes on everyone alive and well did she let out a breath of relief.

They were quiet when they got up to the roof. Haunted was the only word Max could come up with to describe the expression on Dustin’s face. Steve hovered near him. She didn’t get the chance to ask what had happened before Lucas wrapped her in a tight hug, and Hopper broke the silence.

“I’ll let the needle drop. The rest of you, get to the truck and prepare to leave this shit hole”

There were a few exhausted nods around them, and Lucas stood up from their embrace to push her wheelchair. The rest started moving towards the door too, but Dustin stood still by the record player.

“Come on, Henderson, what are you waiting for?” Steve asked.

“You guys go ahead. I’m gonna stay and make sure the bomb goes off.” Dustin replied determinedly, like his mind had been made up for a while, and everyone froze.

“The hell you are, let’s go,” Steve said and reached out to grab Dustin’s hand. Max could hear the fear and horror in his voice as he did so.

“No!” Dustin yelled back, and though Steve never got close enough to Dustin to grab or even touch him, he was thrown back several feet, landing hard on his back, groaning in pain. Dustin’s eyes flickered around in panic at those around him. 

Max felt her own eyes widen. She didn’t know it was possible for the powers he had gained inside Henry’s mind to exist in the real world too.

“See, this is exactly why I’m staying! None of you are safe if I go with you. I can still hear his voice in my mind” 

Mike took a careful step towards Dustin, "You know Vecna lied to you, right? You were never weak. You were stronger than him from the start. That's why he had to manipulate you the way he did. Dustin, you were the reason he had to use so much energy to keep us trapped"

"It doesn't matter, Mike. In the end, he won. This is what he made me into," he said, pointing over to the ground where Steve was struggling to get back up on his feet, "I’ve hurt so many people"

Robin helped Steve stand up, and he approached Dustin once more, “We talked about this, that version of you wasn’t real. I don’t care that you still have the powers from that other place. We’ll figure things out together! We always do”

“Don’t be stupid, Steve," Dustin said, sounding utterly defeated, "I hurt people long before Vecna got his hands on me.”

Max saw his eyes flick over a cut on Steve’s cheek and a bruise on his jaw. 

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked, looking just as confused as Max felt.

“I get people hurt constantly, Steve! I punched you! And that’s not even the first time you’ve gotten hurt because of me. You and Robin got captured and tortured by Russians because I was too obsessed with the thought of being an American hero! 

“I got Mews killed because I decided to keep Dart. Hell, Nancy and Jonathan almost died because I was too confident in my own theory about the wall! I don’t think things through, and all it ends with is pain and death!”

The guilt was so clear in his voice. Max wanted nothing more than to wheel over to him, wrap her arms around him, and tell him that she had been down that same path before, thinking she deserved something awful to happen to her because she had just stood by while Billy died. She wanted to tell him that he wasn't alone.

But neither her arms nor her voice wanted to work with her at the moment. She couldn’t even wipe away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.

“That right there, that’s what’s stupid,” Steve said, laying a hand on Dustin’s shoulder, voice heavy with emotion, “you thinking you deserve to die because you've made mistakes. Newsflash, dumbass, we've all made mistakes”

“Yeah, that’s part of being human. We make mistakes, and we forgive each other.” Robin said as she went over and stood beside Steve. Max could see there were tears in her eyes too.

Dustin was quiet, and for a second, Max thought it was because he was turning their words over in his head. It did seem the determination from before had faltered a bit. She hoped he was reconsidering this plan of his.

But then Mike and El also walked over to stand by Dustin, and his gaze shifted over the four people now closest to him. Max recognized the look on his face. It was the same look he got whenever The Party had some stupid debate, and he figured out a new argument in his favor. 

“No, actually none of you get to talk,” he said, shrugging Steve's hand off his shoulder and pointing at each of them, “you’ve all sacrificed yourself for me. It’s my turn now”

Mike stopped in his tracks before he spoke up, “None of us died doing that, Dustin”

“Eddie did,” Dustin said, voice breaking.

“Eddie died saving you, but that,” Steve said, gesturing to their makeshift bomb, “that won’t save anyone. It isn't a sacrifice, Dustin. It’s suicide”

Dustin was breathing heavily, and there were tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. “Please, just let me go” 

“No! This is ridiculous. I’m not leaving here without you”

“None of us are,” Max said, finally having found her voice. She hated it when someone tried to speak for the whole room, but as she looked around at everyone, felt Lucas's shaking hand on her shoulder, and heard his hiccuping breath, she knew she had spoken the truth. 

Dustin just squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head violently.

“I can’t lose you!” Steve yelled, desperation seeping into his voice.

Then he took a deep breath and tentatively put both hands on Dustin's shoulders, "If you die, I die. Remember? If you’re staying, then so am I.”

That was apparently the right thing to say, as Dustin’s resolve seemed to crumble. He fell forward, sobbing into Steve’s chest. Robin, Mike, and El quickly joined the embrace.

Max let out a breath of relief before she caught another conversation happening to her left.

El walked over to Kali, with a sad look in her eyes.

“I can’t do it. I can’t leave them,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Kali replied, taking El’s hands in hers, “I have a new plan”

“Really?”

“Yes, besides, it looks like our new brother needs us,” she said, shifting her gaze over to Dustin.

Max wondered what that was about as they all finally made their way out of the lab.

-

Part of Dustin hadn’t believed Steve when he told him, ‘You die, I die’ in the basement at the Squawk. But on the roof at the lab, the look in his eyes had shown him how serious he was about it. Dustin had known right then and there that Steve would have gladly died by his side, and he couldn’t let him do that. He couldn't be the reason for more deaths.

He wondered if he could somehow sneak past Steve into the Upside Down right before the bomb went off. But that plan quickly went out the window when Kali explained how she and El would have to fake their death to get the military off their backs by doing exactly that. 

Well, making it seem like they were sneaking back into the Upside Down.

Kali would create an illusion, making it look as though the two of them would stay behind in the Upside Down. She would make the military believe that they had been blown to pieces by the bomb. If Dustin went through with his plan, it would mess with the illusion and doom the two to be on the run from Dr. Kay forever. He didn’t want to do that.

Someone asked if Will and Dustin had to fake their deaths too. Will said his powers were connected to the Hivemind, and with it gone, so were his powers. Mike told them that the military didn’t know about Dustin’s powers, so he just had to make sure he didn’t use them in front of the soldiers.

During the whole ride, Dustin sat between Steve, who hadn’t let go of him once since they left the lab, and Max, who told him that if her arms had worked, she would have smacked him over the head to make him see reason. 

Max had been joking, but Dustin could still hear the way her voice broke as she said it. Shame curled around him at what he had almost done. He had almost abandoned her again. He had almost abandoned all his friends. 

The thought horrified him. He knew exactly how it felt to be the one left behind. The confusion after El disappeared in that classroom while defeating the Demogorgon. How scared he had been watching Mike jump off that cliff for him. The guilt that had crawled up on him when Steve and Robin gave themselves up so he could escape with Erica in that Russian base. How panicked he had been when Eddie cut that rope, and the devastation that followed when he had found him lying in a pool of his own blood.

Dustin had almost inflicted that same hurt on his loved ones.

And Steve was right, it wouldn’t have saved anyone. Except maybe himself, from living with the knowledge of who he had been and what he had done in Vecna’s world. It had been a decision made in fear - fear of himself, what he might do, and what his friends thought about him now.

But Dustin was starting to realize that, despite that other version of him still residing in the back of his mind, his friends weren’t scared of him. They recognized the real him. Even if Dustin still had a bit of trouble figuring out who that was, as his memories continued to clash.

When they drove out of the Upside Down, the military captured them immediately, just as Kali had theorized.

So now came the hard part: putting on the performance of a lifetime - making the military believe they were watching their friends sacrifice themselves.

It wasn't a problem at all, though. When they all spotted them, standing hand in hand at the gate, it looked so real that acting distraught over their imminent death came easily to all of them.

On the way out of the Upside Down, they had talked about the military’s secret weapon, their Kryptonite. El and Kali would be far enough away so it couldn’t mess with them, but Dustin’s powers meant he was no longer immune to it. He had assured them that he would be able to handle it.

Perhaps it had been that other Dustin’s confidence talking. But when he did get to hear that grating, high-pitched ringing in his ears, he was still determined not to let the military see that it affected him.

It worked in his favor too. He headbutted a soldier to make sense of the blood starting to pour from his nose, which just made him look desperate to get free to save his friends.

The blood trickling from his ears was hidden behind his hair, and the agonizing scream he wanted to let out at the excruciating pain in his head was stopped by biting his tongue till it too bled.

At one point, the awful sound that rattled his skull was joined by the screaming inside his mind. That other version of him was yelling that he was showing weakness. Dustin had to focus hard to drown it out. He held onto Mike's words from earlier. That it was all a lie - he had been strong long before Vecna changed him.

Even if he had to fight the urge to show the soldiers the strength Vecna had taught him. He could snap all their necks with the tilt of his head.

But the real Dustin, who operated on logic and reasoning, knew that it would do nothing but create more problems for them. 

When the bomb went off and the dust settled, leaving nothing but a broken brick wall behind, Dustin fell to his knees and let out that scream he had been holding in.

They did it. 

They got rid of the Upside Down and all its monsters that had terrorized them for the last four years.

It was finally over.

The drive to the Squawk was quiet. As was the climb up the tower. The silence wasn’t broken until they all reached the platform. They saw that the Abyss had crashed into the top of the tower, breaking off the tip and destroying the railing around the platform.

Steve pointed to the edge, “Good thing we weren’t up here when that happened. One of us could have fallen off,” he joked.

They all let the comment hang in the air.

Nancy went first into the Abyss and called out the all clear before the rest of them followed her. Once they were all there, Lucas had no doubt they were thinking the same thing. 

It was not at all what they had imagined. It was too empty - too quiet.

They had expected it to be crawling with demo-creatures sent out to stop them. That’s what they had been prepared for. But it was nothing but cliffs and sand for miles, not a creature in sight. 

Not that they were complaining. It made their mission a little less dangerous, at least.

Still, Lucas mulled over why there weren't any monsters. The only explanation he could find was that the lack of creatures had something to do with how much energy Vecna had used to erase all their memories and create that other world. It must have taken a lot of power, so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think that Vecna was too exhausted to use the Hivemind.

Well, it was the only explanation that didn't strike fear in him, so he was counting on being right about it. Hopefully, that meant it would also be easier to kill the asshole when they eventually found him.

Lucas cast his worries about the demo-creatures away. The worries he had about his friend walking a few feet behind him were far greater.

Dustin had looked out over the Abyss when he first entered with eyes full of emotions Lucas couldn’t quite decipher. Now he kept his eyes on the ground as he walked by himself. It was his own choice to be alone. Several of them tried to join him, but every time, he just slowed his pace or gradually drifted away from them. He wasn’t interested in talking either, but none of them really were at the moment. They all just wanted to get this over with.

And if Lucas knew his friend right, his mind was currently cluttered with too many thoughts to be able to form a single sentence. Dustin rarely went quiet, but when he did, it was usually because his brain was working overtime to make sense of something.

When Will had to stay behind to tap into the Hivemind to help the kids escape Vecna, Steve told Dustin it was okay if he wanted to stay too. Lucas had a feeling it was partly an attempt to keep him far away from the battle. He couldn’t blame him. He didn’t really like the idea of Vecna being anywhere near Dustin either.

But Dustin refused, shaking his head wildly, like the idea of being alone near Will was more terrifying than facing Vecna. Lucas didn’t know exactly what had happened with Dustin and the other Will in Vecna’s world, but judging from the look of guilt in Dustin’s eyes, it wasn’t good.

The walk towards the tree-looking thing Will said he had seen in his vision was long and unnerving. The knowledge that they were getting closer and closer to the end of this years-long battle was on everyone’s mind. It was weird, knowing that it would all be over soon.

Mike slowed down so he could walk beside Lucas and cast a glance back where Dustin was walking alone.

“Do you think he’s okay?” he asked.

Dustin hadn’t been okay for a while. After the earthquake, it felt like there was no time to be there for each other. Lucas had found it hard to outwardly show how much he was affected by Max’s coma because it felt like they had bigger things to worry about. Dustin hadn’t shied away from his grief, but the few times they did reach out to him, it was like he didn’t want their support. Maybe they had used that as an excuse not to keep trying, and Lucas couldn’t help but feel ashamed about that.

He knew that wasn’t what Mike was referring to, though.

“Are you?” Lucas replied. 

The silence he was met with was answer enough. 

Lucas wasn’t sure any of them were okay. He wasn’t, at least. It was like his memories were messing with him. He had trouble remembering which ones were real and which ones were forced upon him. Even now, when Mike had approached him, for a second, he had been annoyed that the words coming out of his mouth weren’t an apology for abandoning him. 

He could only imagine how difficult it was for the others. Especially Dustin.

They had all heard Dustin mutter about his mom as they escaped that place. He kept repeating the phrase ‘she’s alive’ and El let them know that when she saw the memories Vecna had planted in his head - the life he had lived in there - Mrs. Henderson died when Dustin was four or five. 

The rest of them had about seven years worth of changed memories, but Dustin had about twelve years. Almost an entirely new life that, from the looks of it, was drastically different from his real one. 

Lucas felt for Hopper too. It must have been like he was losing his daughter all over again when he realized it was all fake. Mike and Lucas’s lives had been pretty similar to their real ones before Will’s disappearance. After that, the grief and loneliness had definitely sucked, but it had still felt like a world that could have been a reality. If they hadn’t found Will, that world seemed quite accurate to what could have happened.

But for Dustin, whatever he had been through in that world to turn out the way he did, it must have been very different from the real world. If he were struggling like Lucas, he had no doubt the memory clashes were a thousand times worse for him.

Lucas was snapped out of his thoughts when the thing they were walking towards suddenly rose from the ground. When the dust settled, they all saw the giant creature in front of them.

The Mindflayer, in the flesh. Of course, they had to fight that thing again, just their luck. 

But they weren’t stupid; they were tiny compared to it, and the wisest thing to do was run. Except when they turned to run, Dustin was frozen to the ground, just staring at the now spider-looking creature in horror.

Steve had to grab his hand to drag him along, but they were still a few steps behind, and when the Mindflayer caught up to them, it stepped down only narrowly missing them. It did, however, throw them off balance, and they went sailing to the ground a few feet away from each other. Steve got up first, but Dustin just lay there staring at the fast-approaching leg coming straight for his chest.

There was no way for Steve to reach him in time. Lucas reacted on instinct and dove for his friend. The Mindflayer missed them both by inches, and when they got up, Lucas kept a tight, bruising grip on Dustin’s hand as they ran for their lives once more.

The look in his friend’s eyes as he lay there ready to die was seared into Lucas's brain. It wasn’t like he didn’t recognize it. He had seen it before on Dustin, whenever he turned up with bruised knuckles and black eyes. He had even seen it on himself in the mirror on very dark nights by Max’s bedside. It was the look of giving up, of thinking nothing really mattered anymore. 

He had always thwarted those nights he wore that expression by clinging to the hope that Max would wake up. Dustin hadn’t had that luxury. 

Lucas was determined not to lose his friend, though. He was not letting go of Dustin’s hand.

But when the Mindflayer trapped them with no way of escaping, and El got there just in time to draw it away from them, he knew he had to let go. They had to spread out to help El, and Lucas’s weapons worked best from above, while Dustin’s were most effective from below. 

It did help that Steve was going with him, as Lucas knew he would also do anything to keep Dustin safe.

But even then, he still couldn’t help but listen for any screams of distress and glance down where he knew Steve and Dustin were fighting under the belly of the beast as he used his wrist rocket to launch as many fireballs as he could towards the Mindflayer. 

Only when the creature lay still on the ground below, and he caught sight of Steve and Dustin emerging unharmed, did he let out the breath he had been holding since the Mindflayer started chasing them.

-

Dustin thought he just needed time - that the longer he spent outside of that world, the easier it would be to push that other version of him away. But entering the Abyss only made it harder and more complicated. 

His heart sank the minute he looked out over the place he had tried so hard to reach in that other world. He was finally here; he had finally reached that dimension he had fought tooth and nail to get to. But once the kids were free, the plan was to destroy the bridge to get here, and part of him insisted that he couldn’t let them do that - that Henry would be mad at him if he helped them. Another part was anxious to get it done because he never wanted to think about this place again.

It was like there was a war going on in his head - like he was fighting himself on what the correct way to feel was.

He could feel Steve’s eyes on him the entirety of their walk through the Abyss. Of course he recognized that Dustin was struggling. He knew all his tells - the quietness, the fidgeting, the anger. They had been on full display since Eddie’s death, and Steve had studied them closely.

So it didn’t surprise him when Steve asked if he wanted to stay behind with Will. Dustin desperately wanted to say yes. He wanted to say that every step he took in The Abyss filled him with more confusion and dread. But he couldn’t stomach the thought of being near Will at the moment. Not when he could hear that other version of him scream in agony every time he looked at him.

Dustin was not ready to face that guilt, so he powered through and went with the others, leaving Will behind with his mom.

When the Mindflayer finally showed itself, he froze. This was the power beyond imagination that Henry had preached about. This was the monster Dustin had willingly tried to unleash on their world. It didn’t matter that the world hadn’t been real. It had seemed real, and Dustin felt so stupid for having believed it all. For not immediately knowing something was off. 

But he felt it, deep inside him, excitement and pride and wonder. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the creature while everything screamed at him to run. Those conflicting feelings felt like they were slowly destroying him from within. So when he tripped and landed hard on his back as the Mindflayer started chasing them, he just stared up at the certain death awaiting him, surrendering his fate to the power he had spent so long trying to get to.

Lucas saved him, and for a moment, he snapped into reality. Dustin remembered what he was fighting for. Eddie. Revenge was what had kept him going, and he would let it carry him to the finish line.

So when El showed up to fight Vecna, and they realized they had to focus on hurting the Mindlayer to help her defeat this horror movie once and for all, Dustin did his best to shove those unwanted thoughts and feelings from the other version of him to the back of his mind.

But even as he yelled ‘for Eddie!’ that other voice kept screaming at him. With every stab he inflicted on the Mindflayer, the image of Henry’s face full of disappointment became clearer in his mind. And letting Henry down was the one thing he never wanted to do.

The battle was over almost as soon as it had started, and Dustin hesitantly followed Steve and the others to where the kids were. He was afraid of the sight he would be met with. It was done, so why did it feel almost like grieving to think of Vecna being dead?

Once he laid eyes on the crumpled form on the ground in front of him, he was rooted to the spot. It didn’t even matter that he barely looked human and more like the stuff of nightmares. Dustin knew that this was the man he had spent so much of his life with in that other world. He had to remind himself that that hadn’t been real and this was instead the man who had put them all through hell for years.

Dustin tried to tear his eyes away from him, but they were fixed on the chest that was rising slowly, weakly. 

Vecna was still alive.

He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved about that. It was all so confusing. The war in his head wasn’t over.

“DUSTIN!” 

Steve’s scream pulled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up just in time to see the Mindflayer particles that left the kids all at once head straight for him. 

Before he had time to react, El threw out her hands and stopped the black cloud quickly approaching. It screamed and hissed as she made it disappear into thin air. The threat was eliminated, and Dustin let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

Steve and Lucas found their way to him immediately, and the rest were not far behind.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asked while Steve hovered his hands over him, and asked if anything had managed to get in.

He opened his mouth to answer when a cough was heard from the ground where Henry lay. Everyone snapped their eyes to the body on the ground. 

For a few seconds, it seemed that no one knew what to do, but then Joyce stepped forward with her axe and prepared to let it hit its mark.

Dustin moved before his brain could catch up, shielding Henry with his body. 

“No! Stop!”

It was a miracle that Joyce managed to stop the axe mid-swing.

When he finally realized what he had done, Dustin burst into tears. He was horrified. Nothing made sense. He wanted revenge, didn’t he? He wanted Vecna gone, so why was it so hard for him to let it happen?

Dustin hated that voice in his mind that told him he had to protect the only one who had ever given a shit about him. That world hadn’t been real, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single person currently with him was proof of that. So why couldn’t he just let Henry go? 

Lucas, Mike, and Will led him away from Vecna. Probably so the others could finish the job. Part of him still wanted to protest it, wrench himself free from them, run to the one he had thought of as a dad, and prevent them from killing him. Dustin tried his best to instead clutch on to the thought of revenge. Henry, no Vecna, needed to die for what he had done in the real world. As long as he was still alive, they would have to keep fighting, and he was so tired of fighting.

As they walked away from the man, Dustin thought he heard a weak chuckle. The sound felt heavy in his chest. Henry was finding Dustin’s inner conflict funny. Or maybe it had been a scoff, and he was letting his disappointment in Dustin show. Neither option did anything to calm Dustin’s racing heart.

He sat down on the ground, drew his knees to his chest, and buried his head in his hands. No matter how complicated his feelings about the situation were, he did not want to witness what happened next. He let the hands of his friends, that rested on his shoulders and back, ground him.

Dustin waited for the sound he had gotten so used to: death - the breaking of necks. But it never came. Instead, it was Steve’s voice that interrupted the silence that had settled over them since Dustin’s outburst.

“Wait, no, I gotta know what the point of that world was”

It seemed everyone else did too. Dustin thought someone would say it didn’t matter, that they had to finish things now. But he couldn’t say he wasn’t curious too. He also wanted to know what the point of it was, why Henry changed what he did.

“To keep them trapped. To make sure they wouldn’t try to escape,” Henry rasped out.

“Yeah, I get that, but why did you change their memories and make their lives completely different the way you did?” Steve asked, and Dustin could feel the way everyone held their breath waiting for the answer.

“At first, I didn’t change anything. That world you entered wasn’t the first version”

What? Dustin only remembered the world his friends had come to rescue them from. What other versions were there?

“I trapped them in old memories, made them think they were just living those moments for the first time, but I underestimated the connection you all share, and as they spent time together in there, they figured it out. I knew I had to separate them.

“So, I killed Eleven. I made sure she wouldn’t be able to help them find William when he disappeared. Grief has a way of pushing people apart.”

Henry was right about that. Dustin thought back to the last 18 months. He had pushed everyone away and ignored their attempts to reach out and support him. But Henry was also wrong, because they hadn’t abandoned him. They had stayed by Dustin’s side despite his harsh comments and sour attitude. None of them had left him.

El’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. There was an edge of sadness and anger to it.

“What about Sara? Why was she alive?” she asked.

“Well, I had to keep things realistic, and someone who has not gone through the grief of losing a child was less sympathetic to a mother’s desperate search for her son. So, the police chief not risking his life investigating William’s disappearance made sense in that world.

“And I knew you would come search for him. I wanted you to realize that you were nothing but a replacement daughter to him.”

“But that is not what happened,” She whispered, and Dustin looked up just for a second to see Joyce put a hand on El’s shoulder.

“No, again, I underestimated the connection you share,” Henry spat out, bitterness apparent in his voice.

Dustin realized all at once that Henry had been so confident in his plan that he thought it impossible for their friends to reach the real versions of them. The fact that they succeeded made a sense of pride swell up in him. 

“Okay, but what about Barb? Why did you erase her death when Nancy wasn’t even one of the people you trapped?” Steve asked, and Dustin had a feeling Henry’s explanations did nothing to clear up his confusion, or maybe he just wasn’t listening. 

Dustin heard Nancy’s quiet, choked sob before Henry answered.

“As I said, things had to be realistic, and a Nancy who didn’t search for answers about her friend's disappearance would have been suspicious, and I knew if she did investigate it, it would lead the others to figure things out too. So I made it so that her little friend never died.”

As Henry talked, Dustin could hear his voice get clearer. He seemed to be slowly recovering from his fight with El. Dustin knew exactly what he was doing.

When The Party first started playing DnD, they didn’t want their characters to die after a bad roll, so they implemented a time-out - a recovery period. Instead of their characters being completely out of the game after they “died”, all that happened was that they couldn’t impact the story for a while. 

Whenever it happened to Dustin, he always made sure to ask Mike an in-depth question about the campaign right as the timer was set. By the time Mike finished answering the question, Dustin’s character had recovered.

Dustin had stalled, and Henry was doing the same now. The others didn't know. They didn't know they were allowing him to recover.

That other part of Dustin wanted to let them carry on with it. But he really should warn them before it was too late.

Steve interrupted his thoughts before he could make up his mind about what to do.

“Hold on, that still doesn’t explain why Dustin ended up at the lab”

Dustin couldn’t deny that he wanted to know that too, so he kept his mouth shut and listened. They would have to deal with the consequences later.

“Oh, that, well, making sure they never found William, worked for a while. The boys stopped talking until he brought them together again,” Henry said, and Dustin could almost feel the finger pointing directly at him. He did feel his friends’ hands tense on his back and shoulders.

“Dustin convinced them all to stick together through their grief”

He nearly scoffed at that sentiment. Sure, when Will disappeared, he had been the one to try to keep them all together, but the last year and a half, he had been the one to pull away from them. 

Dustin didn’t want to think about that. Not when all it did was make Eddie’s voice echo in his mind - ‘Never change, Dustin Henderson, promise me?’

It would make him start dwelling on all the ways he had broken that very promise, all the ways he had changed. Especially now, and Dustin didn’t want to spiral.

So instead, he turned his focus back to Henry’s explanation.

“I had to separate him from that friend group, so I killed his mother. I made sure his father raised him. Walter Henderson convinced his own son that no one would want to be friends with him.”

Dustin felt anger slowly rise in him. The image of his mom dying was seared into his brain forever, and he had endured endless insults from his dad, all because Henry had needed a stupid plan to work?

“I thought it worked. But eventually his friends managed to assure him they did want him in their little group. Then, when William disappeared, history repeated itself.” Henry spoke with venom in his voice.

Lucas, Mike, and Will rubbed Dustin’s back and squeezed his shoulder. He appreciated their support, even if part of him still wondered if he even deserved it.

“So that version of the world failed too, and I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. It worked. I brought Dustin to the lab, and I showed him he didn’t need friends,” Henry said it with pride, and Dustin wanted to throw up.

He felt hot, burning rage boil over inside him.

All those years spent by Henry’s side, and the sole purpose had been to keep him away from his friends. Henry made him think he was the only one who cared about him, all to make sure he stayed away from the people who actually did. 

All that crushing loneliness he had felt came crashing down on him all at once. For the first time since he escaped that hellhole of a world, he saw things clearly. Betrayal curled around him like a vine.

Dustin got up and stomped over to the man still crumpled up on the ground, the monster who had caused him and everyone around him so much pain. He briefly saw the others shoot him wary looks before he laser-focused on Vecna.

“I can’t believe I actually thought you gave a fuck about me!” he yelled, with tears in his eyes, “I spent years worth of memories trying to please you, trying to make you proud. But El was right, you manipulated me!”

“No, I made you strong!” Vecna seemed just as angry for some reason.

“Oh, is that what you think you did?” Dustin couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped him, “You think that was strength? No, you broke me. You damaged me beyond repair. I’m not sure I know who I am anymore!”

Dustin could tell Vecna wanted to respond, but he didn’t let him. The fury was building, and he never wanted to hear a single word from him ever again. Dustin would not let him manipulate him further.

“You stood by while I went through countless uncomfortable tests. And then you made me do the same to my friend. You twisted my curiosity, my love for science, into something cruel, something it has never been. I’ve done things I won’t ever be able to forgive myself for”

He felt his breath hitch. It was hard to get the words out through his tears, but he let the rediscovered and newfound resentment carry him.

“You convinced me to kill my dad!” he yelled, and he heard the soft gasps coming from those around him.

Dustin was shaking with rage. He wasn’t done yet.

“You isolated me from everyone! I felt so alone!”

Vecna got up on his feet with ease. It startled everyone but Dustin, and they took their fighting stances. El and Will raised their hands, and Steve reached out to get Dustin away from Vecna.

But Dustin wasn’t intimidated. He felt it inside him. That feeling he had become so familiar with in that other world.

Ever since he learned of Vecna’s true intentions inside that world, it had simmered inside him right beside the betrayal and fury.

The power inside him begged to be let out.

So he lifted both his arms, and Vecna followed right after, hanging in the air. 

He seemed bewildered by what was happening, and Dustin had to admit he was a little confused too. After all, the experiments hadn’t actually happened. But then again, if Vecna was able to break bones and pull eyes from their sockets, all from inside people’s minds, then perhaps it was possible to change blood too. 

It seemed Vecna had accidentally poured a little too much of himself into Dustin’s development in the world he created.

Dustin didn’t bother thinking more about that. He was too focused on revenge. The thing that had carried him since Eddie’s death. The thing that would end this once and for all.

“What- what are you doing?” Vecna stammered out, and Dustin thought he heard a hint of fear in his voice.

He didn’t care. Vecna’s own voice echoed in his mind.

Let go of your attachments.

“I’m getting rid of the last attachment I had in that sick world of yours,” Dustin said with as much calmness as he could muster.

With steady hands, he started pushing his arms to the side. He felt Vecna’s flesh slowly tear apart in his mind, and then he screamed as he ripped him apart in one swift move. 

He wiped the blood from his nose, and when he felt exhaustion overtake him, Steve was right there to catch him before he fell.

The walk back through the Abyss was when things finally caught up with him.

Dustin hadn’t wanted more of that world’s version of him to follow him back. He already had his cold and cruel voice in the back of his mind. The powers? That was just one more reminder of the things he had done in there. How could he live with the constant signs pointing to who he was in Vecna’s world?

But then again, maybe he had always had the potential to turn out that way. Not the powers, but the darkness. Maybe it had already been there, just waiting for someone to draw it out. 

After all, he wasn’t entirely innocent in the real world either. Yeah, he might have caused more direct death and destruction in Vecna’s world, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t also gotten people hurt or killed in the real one.

It was a long trip back to the lab. Dustin flinched away from everyone who got too close. His mind wasn’t quiet once.

When he first met the kid, he had been so full of light. Never failing to meet Steve with an infectious, goofy smile, and always ready with a joke or a random fact. He was so eager to learn and be the one to explain every situation they ended up in. 

Despite how scary it was to fight monsters from different dimensions and dismantle a Russian scheme, Steve always felt like a part of Dustin saw it as an adventure. 

He didn’t think it truly hit Dustin just how dangerous the shit they were roped up into was. Not until he clutched Eddie’s dying body close to his chest, and Max was lying too still in a hospital bed. 

After that, Dustin changed. He started to look less like Dustin and more like Eddie. His own attempt to keep the guy's spirit alive. Maybe it felt less like he had lost his best friend completely that way. But to Steve, it looked more like he was losing himself.

He rarely smiled anymore, and when he did, it always looked like it took great effort. All his jokes turned more cruel, and his eagerness to learn was paired with the need for revenge. 

And he looked angry all the time. Steve had been on the receiving end of Dustin’s many angry looks over the course of the last 18 months. Though he had a feeling that Dustin had simply been trying to disguise his own self-hatred - that he had let the anger bleed onto everyone else. 

The light had dimmed, and he hadn’t allowed anyone to try to bring it back.

So, yeah, Steve knew different versions of Dustin, and he hadn’t tried hard enough to get through to the real one, so he would be damned if he let this one keep him away too.

Ever since Vecna had taken Dustin and pulled him into this world, Steve had been anxious to get to his best friend. Now he was right in front of him.

Steve had had nightmares where Dustin was dead, and he always looked unrecognizable in those - eyes sucked into his skull and limbs broken or tortured, bloody, and beaten by Russians. 

This version - Vecna’s version - at least he was alive. 

Sure, he looked different, and he might be glaring at them all with a borderline murderous look, but at least he was alive.

“Looks like your friends finally found you, Byers. It took them quite a while, didn’t it?” Dustin said, and there was a coldness in his voice that sounded so wrong.

His eyes glided over everyone before landing on Steve. Something close to recognition flickered in him before he visibly forced it away.

Screw self-preservation, Steve thought, and walked towards Dustin.

Will put a hand on his arm, and for a second, Steve was afraid he would try to stop him. He had a feeling Will had already tried to get through to this Dustin to no avail. But he seemed to recognize that there was no stopping Steve.

“Be careful. He has powers here” 

What? How had that happened? 

Steve wished he had more context, but in the end, it wouldn’t change a thing. Dustin was the last one still trapped in fake memories, and the goal was to get everyone out of here. They couldn’t achieve that by standing still and staring at each other, or worse, running away from Dustin.

Steve nodded at Will before taking a careful step towards Dustin.

“Henderson,” he said carefully, holding his hand out like he was approaching a wild animal. That might as well have been what he was doing, “Come on, bud, you gotta remember. This place isn’t real”

Dustin didn’t answer. He just glared back, and the anger in his eyes seemed to intensify.

Steve took another step.

“This is Vecna’s mind. He’s trying to fool you. But look around,” he said, gesturing to everyone, “we’re all here to get you out because you’re important to us”

He said it because he knew that was what Dustin needed to hear most of the time, and it couldn’t hurt to try to get through to him like that. But he also said it because it was true, and Dustin often needed the reminder. He tended to minimize his own importance to them.

“And you mean nothing to me,” Dustin replied, venom in his voice. But Steve couldn’t help but hear the way he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was Steve.

He went to take another tentative step, never keeping his eyes off of Dustin. But before he could lift his foot, Dustin did a rapid tilt of his head, and a loud crack was heard as pain exploded in Steve’s arm.

He screamed, falling to his knees. 

El stepped forward, stretching her hand out towards Dustin, “We don’t want to hurt you”

“Too bad I can’t say the same,” he replied, throwing out his own hands.

Steve felt his body leave the ground. He looked around to see the rest of them hanging in the air too, all straining to get free.

Lucas was crying, desperately reaching out towards Max, and Steve was sure the image of her floating was bringing up bad memories. It certainly was for Steve, and he knew Lucas had had to witness this twice - the second time with the addition of snapping bones. 

Dustin seemed to fixate on Max too for a brief while, a look of terror on his face. Then he shook his head wildly before pressing the palm of his hand into his eye, almost like he was trying to get rid of a headache.

The others had mentioned that they had gotten headaches when they got their memories back, so maybe that was what was happening.

Steve barely got the chance to hope before Dustin turned his gaze away from Max, and suddenly it felt like the air was being squeezed from his lungs. The sounds of gasping breaths told him that it was the same for the others.

“Come on, Kid, this isn’t you,” Hopper forced out, but it did nothing more than make Dustin squeeze tighter.

“Dustin, please stop,” Steve choked out, and a look of panic and grief washed over Dustin’s features, breaking his concentration.

It allowed El to break free of his hold, and she threw him aside. The rest of them fell to the ground, coughing until they could breathe normally again.

Steve watched as Dustin slowly recovered and got back on his feet.

“Aim for his bad leg,” Steve quickly yelled out to El. 

Luckily, she didn’t question him. It would have taken too long to explain to her how he had seen Dustin hold onto his injury after Eddie’s death, almost like he wouldn’t allow himself to heal. Steve knew Dustin felt guilty about not being able to save Eddie. The injury he had gotten while trying had been so much more than physical for him; it was mental too. So maybe it was still deeply ingrained in his subconsciousness. It was worth a shot.

Somehow it actually worked. El had picked up a small pebble with her mind and sent it flying towards Dustin. She hadn’t hit him very hard, but still, he buckled under and screamed out in pain. He sounded far younger than he was, and it broke Steve’s heart. 

Steve was on his feet faster than lightning. He ignored the others’ protests when he ran over to Dustin and wrapped his unbroken arm around him in as tight a hug as he could give him. 

Dustin struggled in his grip for a few seconds before he got a faraway look in his eyes and stilled. The rest of the group joined them in a mess of limbs and beating hearts. Dustin relaxed completely before breaking down in tears.

El tentatively reached out to hold Dustin’s hand, and Steve knew this was how she had given the others their memories back. 

She screamed, voice full of horror and devastation, when her hand reached Dustin's. Windows shattered, and blood poured from her nose. 

For a few terrifying seconds, Steve thought that meant it hadn’t worked. But then Dustin fell forward, shoving everyone aside, and threw up all over the grass, just like the others had said they had done when they got their memories back. 

-

When Steve ran to him, he tried to shove him off. But he caught the smell of something, a hairspray of some kind, and the image of him walking along the train tracks with Steve entered his mind so vividly, he felt frozen, allowing Steve to hold him close. 

Then he felt several arms join the hug, and he should have thrown them all off of him, but he couldn’t get himself to do it. He felt safe in a way he hadn’t before. He felt so at home in their warm embrace, like they had chased away the loneliness he had always felt following him around. Dustin broke down in tears. Henry would be so mad at him if he saw him now. He had given in to the weakness.

Still, when El, the girl from earlier, the girl with powers, reached out to hold his hand and he felt her push at his mind again, he allowed her access.

It felt like his mind was being split in two as pain shot through his head. The memories hit him instantly.

He remembered his mom, her lively laugh, and her warmth - and he could almost taste her homemade cookies on his tongue. He remembered his parents’ divorce and moving to Hawkins with his mom, leaving Walter in the dust. He remembered The Party - Lucas, Mike, and Will inviting him into their friend group, finally allowing Dustin to believe that there were kids who wanted to be his friend. 

The last several years came flooding in. Will’s disappearance, Mike jumping off a cliff for him, finding Will with El’s help, Dart and befriending Steve, intercepting that secret Russian code and getting stuck in the elevator, Steve and Robin sacrificing their own freedom so he and Erica could escape, trying to save Max, failing to save Eddie, spending over a year lost in grief and anger, picking fights with everyone, pushing all his friends away, yelling at Steve, making up with Steve.

But all the memories were blurring together with the ones Henry - no, Vecna? - had given him, and it was like his mind was fighting itself. He wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

Distantly, he heard El scream, but he was too focused on how much everything hurt, and how dizzy and nauseous he was to pay it much attention. Dustin fell forward and threw up everything he had had to eat that day.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Henry emerge from the lab. Dustin fought the urge to run to his side. This was his dad, the man who had shown him what it meant to be strong. Wait, no, this was the man who had trapped him in this place. It was all so confusing. It didn’t matter, though; Dustin was too exhausted and weak to get up anyway.

Max noticed Henry next. 

“We need to go now,” she said, making the rest of them look up from where they were fussing over their friends.

Dustin saw El stand up on shaky legs, glaring daggers at Henry. He had a feeling El must have seen what his life had looked like in this world.

“You monster!” she yelled, throwing her hand out towards him, before being stopped by Max.

“El, we don’t know what will happen to the kids or us if we kill him in here” 

She pulled El away, and Dustin felt someone lift him from the ground. He locked eyes with his dad - no, not his dad, Henry. Vecna? - who just stood there not moving, with a sinister smile.

“They won’t ever look at you the same way,” Henry calmly called out to Dustin, and something inside him shattered.

He couldn’t hear what the others were saying over the rushing in his ears, but he let them drag him away from the lab. He was aware that they needed to get out of this place.

Max had told them that the way she got out the first time was by focusing on her connections on the other side, so Dustin thought of his mom and how he wanted nothing more than to hug her right now. 

She was alive. She hadn’t ever died, even if he so distinctly remembered her using the last of her strength to tell him she loved him. But that hadn’t been real. The one who had actually died that way was Eddie. 

He kept his focus on his mom, and soon enough, they were running through a foggy place with a red sky, past creepy, vine-like pillars, into a portal.

They all made it out, gasping for breath, waking up in what Dustin recognized as the Upside Down version of the lab. Nancy was standing in front of them, her back turned, with a raised gun, before she turned around with relief in her eyes and dropped the gun to run over and hug Mike.

El clambered out of the bath and briefly joined Mike and Nancy’s hug before she went over to embrace Hopper. Joyce and Jonathan hugged Will tightly, and Lucas was clinging to Max, holding her close. 

Steve was met by Robin, who fired off a million words at once, too fast to comprehend. Dustin let her voice wash over him. Normally, he would have listened intently to every word she said, but he couldn’t concentrate when his thoughts were so loud.

He was distinctly aware that he was alone, but part of him knew it was for the best. He felt all the air leave his lungs as his heart raced. 

They should have left him in there. He could still feel that other, different, cruel Dustin in the back of his mind, clawing at him. Everything he had done in that different world had felt so rational.

He was panicking. He couldn’t breathe. The Dustin in his mind was screaming at him, calling him pathetic and weak. He screamed at it to shut up. 

But he had apparently done so out loud because suddenly everything went quiet and his friends ran over and surrounded him. Would they even still want to be friends after everything he had done?

“I think, I think that I’m a bad person,” he stammered out, finding Steve in the crowd of people around him, “I hurt you.”

“No, no, look,” Steve said, swinging his arm around, “not a scratch. I’m okay. I promise.”

“You don’t understand! It’s not safe to be near me. I hurt so many- oh my god, I killed people. I- I snapped their necks with my mind.” 

“Hey! It wasn’t you. Whoever you were in there doesn’t matter. The powers you had don’t exist out here.”

That calmed Dustin down a little. It was a relief that at least he didn’t have to worry about what he could potentially do to his friends if that other version of him decided to take over. He hated how part of him still found reason in all the things he had done.

“But it felt so natural to be like that,” he argued, before El placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“I saw the life he made you live. Henry tricked you.”

Something still insisted that he had to defend Henry. What was wrong with him? El interrupted his thoughts when she continued talking.

“You are not a monster,” she said with tears in her eyes. 

Dustin froze. They were the same now. Kids having grown up in a lab, being experimented on, and made to do horrible things - even if Dustin’s experience hadn’t actually happened, it had felt so real. 

Except it wasn’t the same. El used to think she was a monster. The Party had helped her realize that she wasn't. It had taken a lot to convince her she wasn’t. 

But this was different. Dustin was definitely a monster. El had done everything to escape that place, Dustin had willingly stayed - the door to his room had never been locked.

It made him feel sick to his stomach, but a part of him still longed to go back.

“I just don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore,” he admitted, as tears rolled down his cheeks. His brain hurt, and everything felt so confusing.

“We’ll help you with that,” Lucas said, and Dustin wanted to pull him close and push him away at the same time.

But before he could make up his mind, Nancy interrupted.

“I really wish we had more time, but the Abyss has already moved once. We need to go.”

And so the original plan kicked into gear again. 

Before they left the lab, Max rolled over to Dustin and looked deep into his eyes.

“Give him hell,” she said, and Dustin nodded absentmindedly, feeling wrong for agreeing.