‘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: 35230 (ongoing fic)

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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

Nancy now had two siblings trapped in that maniac’s mind, and she would not let that bastard win. 

Mike had just, like her, stumbled upon this fight while searching for a lost friend. He had grown up much faster than he should have. She had watched him put himself in life-threatening situations again and again for his friends, and she had noticed how he tended to push his own feelings aside to focus on making plans when things got tough. 

There was a certain guilt that came with that as an older sister, not being able to protect her siblings from physical and mental harm. Once this battle was done, she would have to check in with Mike more often.

Nancy had hoped she could keep Holly away from the terrors that lurked in Hawkins. Vecna had also made sure to take that away from her. Now, she would protect them the only way she could. By making sure no harm would befall them while they were trapped.

But her siblings weren’t the only ones currently wading through Vecna’s mind, and Nancy felt just as determined to protect the others.

Lucas was in there. The boy whom she had known since he was little, when he used to trot over from the house next door to ask if Mike wanted to play with him. The boy who had stuck by her brother’s side ever since then. The boy whose heart she had seen break a little more after every visit to the hospital with no news of improvement in Max’s condition.

As well as Dustin. The loudmouthed boy whom she had a soft spot for. The boy she had danced with at the snowball. The boy she had seen lose himself in grief and anger that felt all too familiar. She wondered if she had just been there for him - told him what she had needed to hear after Barb’s death - if anything would have been different. 

And Hopper, the former police chief who had been through hell and back to keep them all safe, and who they now had to keep safe.

Not to mention Steve, El, Max, and Will, who had put themselves in harm's way so many times over the years - who were now once again risking their lives to rescue their friends.

The shotgun felt heavy in her hands, but she refused to lower it. Nancy had to be ready for anything; she was not letting a thing near her family - democreatures or dumbass soldiers. They would all have to go through her.

Once the Abyss started moving, panic swept through the lab. Nancy tried to keep a level head, but they kept asking her what they should do, and she didn’t know. She was too busy trying to disguise how much her hands were shaking to come up with a plan.

Murray suggested that they wake the ones they could and proceeded with the original plan, going to the tower and entering the Abyss to kick the motherfucker's ass.

But Nancy knew they needed everyone awake for that plan to work. And also, they would have to leave Max and the ones still trapped by Vecna defenseless in the lab, and that thought left her as terrified as the moving world above her. 

“Everyone needs to stay put for now!” she screamed, frustrated that she was the one they looked to for answers. 

There were protests, but luckily for Nancy, the Abyss stopped moving before she could succumb to her own panic or lose her temper completely. 

Nancy stayed focused on keeping her gun ready in case the military or a demogorgon found them.

She didn’t want to waste energy thinking about what the others were currently doing inside Vecna’s mind. She trusted them not to be stupid enough to confront him where he had the advantage. There was also the fact that they didn’t know what would happen if they killed him while still being inside his mind.  

The atmosphere was tense, and as the minutes ticked by, she knew she wasn’t the only one growing more anxious. They were all waiting for the Abyss to start descending again or for their friends to wake up, and it felt endless.

Nancy tried to keep her head held high. She had to; they were all relying on her to keep her cool. It was hard, though, when she was getting increasingly more annoyed at Kali, who kept glaring at her from the corner of the room.

“If you have something to say, then say it!” she yelled once she reached her breaking point.

“You’re wasting time,” Kali sighed.

“How so?” she asked, feeling her patience wear thin.

“Jane is strong; she could have gone up there to kill our brother alone, but you’re too reliant on each other to see reason”

Nancy felt her blood boil. 

“You don’t get it. You haven’t fought this guy. We have, and the last time we did, we did so when we were separated, and we lost!” she screamed, taking a deep breath to compose herself before she continued, “That can’t happen again. We all need each other” 

What she meant to say was that they all needed to be here for this to work, but her voice had cracked on that last sentence, much too aware of all the loss they had endured over the years. 

But Nancy was too annoyed to care about that bit of vulnerability she had accidentally shown - even more so when she saw Kali open her mouth to retort. 

Thankfully, she was interrupted by Robin, who entered the room by throwing the door open and running down the stairs, Vickie hot on her heels.

She stopped awkwardly, most likely sensing the tension in the room.

“Uh, not to alarm anyone,” she said, before pausing for a second, “Well, I guess that is exactly what I came here-”

“Robin!” Nancy exclaimed, trying to prevent the girl from rambling. 

“Oh, yeah, sorry, we’ve got company,” she said, pointing back towards the door she had just emerged from. “Military van just pulled up.”

She had barely finished the sentence when the door burst open again, and it poured in with soldiers, guns raised.

Robin and Vickie ran for cover, and Nancy? Nancy raised her own gun and let the bullets fly.

-

It all happened so fast. One minute she was arguing with the girl with the gun - Nancy, she thought - before they were interrupted, and then the next minute shots were being fired left and right.

Kali froze, rooted to the spot. It was happening again, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. Soon, everyone would be dead on the ground, and the soldiers would drag her away, kicking and screaming, back to Dr. Kay. 

She didn’t want to go back. She would rather die; that was the plan after all. Anything but being hung up and drained dry over and over again. She was tired of being nothing but a means to an end, nothing but a science experiment. She had spent too much of her life living that way, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

The shots were deafening, and everything felt like it was happening in slow motion. Nancy was shooting down every soldier who dared approach the bath Jane was floating in, the bath her friends were lying unconscious in front of. Jane’s new mother was swinging an axe around, getting a few good hits in, and the weird man who yelled a lot had, for some reason, chosen hand-to-hand combat and had miraculously not been killed yet.

Kali noticed too late the soldier who had set his eyes on her, pointing his gun in her direction. She knew it wasn’t a kill shot; they needed her alive after all. So she closed her eyes and waited for the sound of her doom.

It never came. Instead, she heard someone scream out in pain, Nancy responding with her own scream of horror, and then three rapid shots being fired before everything went quiet.

She was shaking when she opened her eyes again, and her breath was coming in short bursts. It took a minute for her to calm down and finally look around at the aftermath.

The girl who had interrupted her and Nancy’s arguing was helping the weird man up from the ground, where a soldier had knocked him down. That soldier was dead. So were all the others, littered across the floor. Kali couldn’t say she cared about that. She was delighted that it was the other way around this time. She had no sympathy for them. They had dug their own graves once they started working for Dr. Kay.

But the scene that had captured her attention the most was what was happening in front of her. Jane’s brother - Kali was pretty sure his name was Jonathan - was being tended to by the redheaded nurse. Jane’s new mom and Nancy were hovering around them. 

Jonathan had stepped in front of a bullet for Kali. The shot hadn’t even been to kill her, but he had still taken it for her. Kali was speechless. 

The bullet had only grazed his shoulder, but he still needed to get it bandaged, and everyone was standing around him, making sure he was okay.

It was admirable the way they put their lives in danger for one another without hesitation. She was beginning to see what Nancy had meant when she said they all needed each other. 

This was a family willing to die to protect each other. This was Jane’s family. Jane deserved to be free and live her life with these people who clearly loved deeply. They were determined to save each other, and Kali thought maybe these people could actually manage to keep Jane safe. They would certainly fight for her freedom in any way they could. Kali had a feeling that they would also be devastated if they were to lose Jane, so she couldn’t let her sacrifice herself. 

And if Jonathan stepping in front of a bullet meant anything, then maybe they would be willing to fight for her too.

Nancy’s ‘we all need each other’ echoed in her mind.

They were all well aware that the military would send backup once they hadn’t heard from their fellow soldiers in a while. Kali could see on everyone's faces that even though they were clearly all exhausted, they were still prepared to fight just as hard to prevent any loss. 

They didn’t have to.

When the military came knocking again, Kali shushed everyone and held out her hand, casting an illusion to hide both them and the dead soldiers. She had to hold it for as long as it took the military to deem that there truly was nothing to see. Blood dripped from her nose and ears at the exertion. Kali was hoping this act was enough for Nancy to forgive her for her misguided words. 

It seemed to be.

He woke up again in a hospital bed. His dad only briefly visited to tell him about his mom’s passing. He left again before Dustin even processed what he had said. He felt like the whole world slowly shattered around him, and cried alone in the hospital room, feeling much older than he was.

The hospital discharged him a week later, and Dustin was hesitant to get in a car again, but his dad didn’t care and told him that he was leaving with or without him.

Once on the road, Dustin asked when the funeral would be.

"I already buried her. Trust me, it's better to get these things over with as soon as possible," his dad replied, not even bothering to cast Dustin a single glance.

And he also wouldn’t tell him where his mom was buried because, according to him, it was better to move on quickly. But Dustin just wanted somewhere to go to feel close to his mom. Still, he didn’t bother to ask again or beg for an answer, because he knew his dad couldn’t care less.

When they arrived home, he expected Mews to trot up to him, meowing for their mom. He wanted to scoop her up and hold her close - seeking comfort from the last part of his mom he had left.

But the cat didn’t meet him at the door, and Dustin looked to his dad for answers.

"Oh, that beast was your mother's. With her gone, there's no reason for the cat to stay either," he said, and waved his hand nonchalantly.

Dustin had felt anger and resentment brew in him. The way his dad clearly didn’t care made him furious. But as much as he wanted to blow up on his dad, he was too tired to muster up the energy to scream. So he retreated to his room, sitting with his knees up to his chest, and cried silently.

It was weird. He couldn’t seem to remember his mom all that well. Even the image of her as she died blurred in his mind sometimes, and though he was sure his mom’s hair was light, almost blonde, he saw the bloody smile with long dark hair instead. But still, he felt like he knew the warmth of her hugs, the taste of her homemade cookies, and the feeling of being loved by her.

Living with his dad wasn’t easy. Dustin knew he was different; he knew all about the condition he had been born with, always listening intently whenever he had a doctor’s appointment. Mostly because he was unsure his dad cared enough to learn what the condition entailed.

The only thing Walter Henderson seemed to get out of those doctor appointments was that there was something wrong with his son.

The doctors told them he would probably never grow to be very tall. But Dustin didn't care much about that. His dad already made him feel plenty small. He was constantly belittling him, calling him worthless and stupid, or making him feel guilty for all the medical debt they were in because of him. 

His dad’s favorite thing to do was to convince him that no one would ever want to be friends with a freak like him. 

When they moved to Hawkins, he told him that he shouldn’t attempt to make friends to spare himself the heartbreak of rejection. Dustin believed him. There was no reason not to, since he had never really had any friends before. Loneliness had become a crushing and far too familiar weight.

A trio of boys did try to befriend him, and a voice inside him screamed at him to accept their friendship. They were outcasts like him, and he felt as though he was meant to be a part of their little group. But his dad’s voice telling him they were only doing it out of pity and they would inevitably leave him was far louder, so he made sure to be the one to reject them before they could hurt him.

Living in Hawkins didn’t make things easier. Kids were being mean, and he felt increasingly more alone. 

His dad was also still complaining about their medical bills.

Then one day, Dustin saw a mysterious man drop a flyer into their mailbox. He only seemed to leave it in theirs, which confused Dustin a little. His dad was elated when he saw what it was - a medical trial that would pay very good money.

Dustin felt unsure about it. It sounded scary. They needed a kid to do some harmless tests on, but somehow Dustin knew exactly how untrue that was. His dad felt his hesitation.

“Listen, how about this, kid,” he said, putting his hands on Dustin’s shoulders - Dustin felt himself shrink, “we meet up with them, they explain what the trial is about, and then you can let me know if you want to do it?”

Dustin could do nothing but nod. He knew, he knew that the decision had already been made for him. He could hear his dad’s voice in his head.

It’s the least you can do since you’re the reason we’re in debt.

The meeting was more for whoever had left that flyer in their mailbox to see if Dustin was good enough for the trial. 

It turned out that he was.

The trial was simple, really. They were researching ways to improve kids’ health. That’s what they said, at least. Dustin was sceptical. They promised to pay the debt Dustin had put his dad in, and on top of that, they would also take care of any future medical bills. The deal had been sealed right then and there. 

The man behind the trial, Doctor Martin Brenner, wasn’t scary-looking at all. Yet Dustin was still terrified of him for some reason. He had a chilling smile that sent shivers down his spine, and he was familiar in a way he couldn’t explain. He felt like he had seen him before, and something screamed at him to get away.

But a part of him felt like he owed his dad this. And he was desperate to have his approval. 

He would have to show up at Hawkins' lab every weekend.

On the first day of the trial, Dustin learned that Dr. Brenner wasn’t actually in charge; a man named Henry was.

Henry took his hand and led him into the lab. His hand felt cold yet oddly comforting. 

Dustin hated everything about the trial. He had never felt more like a lab rat. He resented the poking and prodding, and he especially did not enjoy the feeling of whatever it was they injected him with. 

He told his dad how uncomfortable it was to be a human pin-cushion as they entered the building for the second time. But he just yelled at him that it was the only way he could be useful. Dustin flinched at that and was embarrassed to see that Henry had witnessed the interaction. 

“Mr. Henderson, your presence here seems to hinder any progress,” Henry said calmly, “I think it would be best if you left. I promise to take good care of Dustin.”

Dustin’s heart fell when his dad didn’t protest about it, leaving him all alone with the man. He couldn’t help but feel a little abandoned. 

Henry crouched down in front of him, “This experiment can change your life for the better, if you just let it.”

He said it with a softness and care, a tone that was so rarely, if ever, directed at Dustin. He believed every word Henry said, so this time, Dustin was the one who reached out to hold Henry’s cold and strangely comforting hand as they walked to the lab.

A few weeks later, Dustin felt something change. He felt a sense of power inside him. After a particularly frustrating morning where his dad had done nothing but criticize him, Dustin didn’t feel like being pricked with needles, and he was shocked to see the scientist who had tried to do so fly across the room when he tried to swat the needle away. 

It felt exhilarating, and as blood trickled from his nose, Henry looked at him with the kind of pride Dustin had longed to see from his dad. He couldn’t help but feel immense joy. For once, he didn’t feel like a disappointment.

They cut his hair that day. Dustin wanted to protest. He felt like his curls were the only thing he had left of his mom. But he also wanted to keep that look of pride on Henry’s face, and he had a feeling that doing what the tests required would ensure that. So he let them.

They needed him to have less hair so they could put a device that read brainwaves on his head. It wasn’t just being pricked with needles anymore. 

Henry told him not to tell his dad about his powers, and Dustin didn't question him. Though he wanted nothing more than to make his dad as proud as Henry was, he knew that if Henry advised against telling him, he would be wise to listen. 

As his powers grew, so did the number of tests they put him through. 

The deprivation tank scared him. Dustin had never learned how to swim. His mom never got the chance to teach him, and he never bothered to ask his dad to. He had a feeling his method of teaching would just have been to throw him in the water, and if he drowned, then at least he would be rid of a burden. Henry assured him that he was safe, though. 

Dustin learned that he could enter a sort of black void to spy on people. It felt weird and invasive to do so, but Henry told him to pay no mind to those feelings. As time went on, it became easier to ignore his worries, and he began to find his powers fascinating. 

But the tests also got more intense. He went from crushing an empty soda can to hearing the sound of a cat's bones being crushed with the tilt of his head.

That broke him. He cradled the orange cat close and dug his hands into the blood-stained fur as he called out for his mom in childish shame and fear - and a sense of guilt he couldn’t quite place. He wanted nothing more than for her to tell him everything was okay, all while he munched on her homemade cookies.

Henry pulled him aside after that.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. This is your power to bear. Be your own strength; you can’t rely on anyone else to save you. You have to let go of your attachments.”

His dad had told Dustin that no one would ever want to be his friend, but Henry told him he didn’t need friends in the first place. He told him how corrupt humanity was and that his powers made him far superior to those around him. Once he let himself believe that, Dustin stopped entertaining the idea of making friends and started paying no mind to the bullies at school.

The only thing still grating on his confidence was his dad, who had perfected the art of getting under Dustin’s skin. He didn’t want all his insults to affect him so much, but part of him still desperately wanted to please him, which was hard when all he did was let him know how big a disappointment he was.

“You could just get rid of him,” Henry suggested one day, and Dustin tilted his head in confusion.

Henry explained that he had done it with his family. He told him that Dustin’s powers came from him, and Dustin knew all at once that it must have been Henry’s blood Dr. Brenner kept injecting him with.

Henry put a hand on Dustin's shoulder and told him that he was stronger than he thought, and he didn’t have to put up with his dad’s demeaning comments.

The next weekend, Dustin convinced his dad to come to the lab to see the progress he had made. He went with him but grumbled that it was a waste of time, since his son couldn’t amount to anything. It made the task Dustin had been given much easier.

He let the resentment that had built up over the years give him strength. He thought about him taking away his last goodbye to his mom, him getting rid of Mews, the insults, and the constant crushing loneliness. 

As he felt anger roar in him, he lifted his dad into the air and snapped his bones one by one, enjoying the agonizing screams he heard from him. 

A voice inside was begging him to stop, but it was overpowered by one sentence:

Let go of your attachments.

He wouldn’t ever be able to satisfy his dad anyway, he thought as he reached into said man’s mind, pulled his eyes inward, and snapped his neck. 

Dustin had closed his eyes at some point, but once he heard the body thud to the floor, he opened them. He watched his dad’s crumbled form on the floor, wiped the blood from his nose, and walked out of the room with Henry’s hand on his back - still cold and weirdly comforting.

The look of pride was back on Henry’s face, and Dustin had never felt happier. His mind stopped seeing Walter Henderson as his dad and started giving Henry that title. It made sense for Dustin, the man's blood was running through his veins after all. But part of him also felt it emotionally because he was the only one who had ever seen Dustin’s true potential - he still wouldn’t voice that to Henry, who seemed so adamant on not having any attachments.

Dustin moved into one of the rooms at the lab, not really questioning why there seemed to be so many empty ones. There was even a playroom with a rainbow on the wall. It felt weirdly lonely and a bit haunted, so Dustin never spent much time there. 

After a few weeks of living at the lab, Henry ordered Dr. Brenner to let Dustin in on the science behind the tests. He had to contain his excitement at that, but really, he wanted to jump with joy. He was curious about how it all worked.

Curiosity seemed to come naturally to him. He had always been curious, but Walter used to get annoyed by all his questions, so he stopped asking them. Dustin had a feeling his mom would have encouraged him.

Henry told him that they were working on a way to reach a different dimension with a power far greater than mankind could even fathom. It intrigued Dustin a lot. He wanted to call it a curiosity once locked, now opened, but it felt weirdly forbidden to think of it like that.

Nevertheless, Dustin started working harder to reach that different dimension Henry talked of. But no matter how hard he tried, how much he tired himself out in the void, or concentrated on opening a rift to said dimension, it never worked. 

Every time he failed, Dr. Brenner would throw him into an isolation room. Dustin never knew how long he was in there - if it was hours or even days - but Henry was always the one who went to get him out, telling him not to give up yet.

Dustin still felt disappointment linger at the back of his mind. 

Years went by like that, trying to reach that other dimension with power beyond his imagination while strengthening his own powers.

Until Will Byers disappeared and somehow ended up in the room right beside him. Dustin asked Henry what he was doing here, and he explained that Will might one day succeed where Dustin had failed.

He tried not to let it show how much that affected him. He couldn’t help but feel like Will was going to replace him. But at the same time, he couldn’t find it in him to be mad at the boy for some reason. Part of him wanted to make sure he was alright. Dustin had a weird fondness for Will. 

Maybe it was just because he was one of the three boys who had tried to befriend him when he first moved to Hawkins. But Dustin felt like it couldn’t be that because, despite still feeling lonely most of the time, he knew he didn’t need friends.

Henry seemed to pick up on Dustin’s complicated feelings towards Will when he almost threw a scientist into a wall as they tried to prick a terrified Will with the same needle Dustin had become so familiar with.

Henry stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and told him that he was letting weakness corrupt him. That he had to remember not to have any attachments. Henry looked almost angry at him - a look Dustin never wanted to see again.

So he started biting his tongue whenever he heard the boy scream out in pain for his mom and brother. Will also sometimes called out for Mike and Lucas. Dustin observed that those boys grew more distant from each other at school. Maybe they would also soon learn that being alone was more powerful. 

A part of him wanted to pull Will away from all danger and reunite him with his friends. But Dustin violently pushed that thought away from him, reminding himself that it was weakness talking.

As time went on, it got easier to detach from those feelings - from that weakness. Dustin began to think of Will as just another complex science project he had the honor of witnessing. Will was there to serve a bigger purpose.

The ends justified the means. He ignored the loud voice in his mind screaming how wrong that was.

Will fought back the first year before he gave up and numbingly went along with the tests. Dustin could see that Henry enjoyed having broken him. But Will never seemed to show any signs of powers, and Dustin felt himself wondering why Henry kept wasting time with him.

It did nothing but grate on him, almost like Will started representing his own failures. It felt as though Henry had lost faith in him, choosing instead to place it in someone who had shown no sign of being able to reach his goal. 

Dustin felt that weird sense of fondness he had had for Will turn into resentment instead. 

He did his best to focus on all the things he did manage to accomplish. Like the time he stopped some Russians from building a mall to hide their shady business in Hawkins. Dustin felt a kind of joy that he couldn’t quite describe when he had done that. For some reason, he just wanted to jump around, calling himself an American hero.

When high school rolled around, Dustin suddenly had a bunch of new problems.

He took one look at Eddie Munson and felt his leg give out under him, leaving him with a permanent dull ache and a feeling of guilt and grief he couldn’t make sense of. Dustin knew that if he asked Henry about it, he would say it was a weakness poking through, and he couldn’t handle disappointing him further.

So he kept quiet about it and tried his best to ignore it. Which, unfortunately, meant that another weakness of his got the opportunity to escape.

Dustin fell victim to the crushing loneliness that had followed him around since childhood and started hanging out with Max Mayfield. 

For weeks, he spent nearly every afternoon with her. He listened to her complain about her brother and, in turn, he told her about Walter. He never let her know about the lab. But for once, it was nice to allow himself to try to chase away the loneliness. Max felt kind of like Lucas, Mike, and Will had. Something told him being friends with her was right. 

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

He hadn’t let Henry know about his new friend because he knew he wouldn’t approve. So he told him that the afternoons he spent away from the lab were for a mandatory group project. It felt wrong to lie to the man he thought of as a dad, and had he known how bad the situation would turn, he would have spared himself the grief and never approached Max.

One time after school, her asshole brother cornered him and threatened him not to step near his sister again because he could sense he was nothing but trouble. Billy had a bruising grip around his throat. Anyone else would have been scared, and something did tell him he should be, but Dustin knew he was far stronger than the guy. So he snapped the bone in his leg and calmly walked away.

But when he got home, Henry looked at him like he already knew what had happened, and Dustin felt he had no choice but to tell him. Henry had never been so mad and disappointed. He screamed about weaknesses and attachments.

For the first time, Henry was the one who threw Dustin into the isolation room, and for a couple of weeks, every test was much more brutal than they needed to be.

Dustin cut all contact with Max, and though he could see how sad that made her, it didn’t take long for him to get over it. He knew he had messed up, letting weakness convince him to form an unnecessary attachment. However, the guilt of abandoning her stayed in the back of his mind.

For a long time, nothing interesting happened. But there was comfort in that too. Dustin had a routine, and he liked to stick to it. 

He kept to himself at school, learning all the things the lab couldn't teach him. He closely followed the experiments done on Will. And he kept strengthening his own powers so he could hopefully one day reach the dimension Henry talked of and finally see that look of pride on his face again.

But then one day Will Byers started screaming. 

The boy had stopped talking completely at one point during his time at the lab, but then, out of the blue, Dustin heard him banging at the door for someone to let him out.

Once Dustin entered his room, Will looked at him with something akin to relief and started talking about someone named Vecna and a fake world they needed to escape. 

Dustin thought it was just nonsense talk, that maybe Will had finally broken irreparably. But he also tried hard to ignore how he suddenly felt familiar in a way he hadn’t in the last four years they had shared a wall.

He went to school hoping it would keep his mind off that weird familiarity. But it only seemed to grow once he laid eyes on Max, who also felt different and strangely familiar. 

It started crumbling when Max showed up with a girl he felt he knew but hadn’t ever seen before. She took his hand, and Dustin felt a presence trying to invade his mind. He knew letting it would be allowing weakness to win, so he focused his mind and pushed it out. 

He told Max and the mysteriously familiar girl to stay away from him, and once again tried to move on. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and all it did was make him angry.

When he got home from school, he found himself back in Will’s room. The boy was the reason Dustin felt confused and angry. He wanted to know exactly what was going on. Maybe he had done something to him. Had he finally gained powers of some kind?

But when he entered, he lost his voice, not knowing what to say, and his silence somehow made Will think he was allowed to speak.

When he did, Dustin couldn’t help but focus on what he was saying. He mentioned Lucas and Mike, and Dustin tried to counter him by saying that they didn’t care about Will anymore, but deep down, he knew he was mainly attempting to distract himself.

It didn’t work. When Will mentioned an El, Dustin somehow just knew it was the girl from earlier, and it only confused him further.

He felt like his whole worldview was shattering. He couldn’t make sense of why all these people suddenly felt so familiar.

Will talked about DnD at Mike’s, snowball fights at Lucas’, Castle Byers, Max and Dig Dug, and finally, he mentioned Steve, whom Dustin had never uttered a single sentence to - yet somehow he got the feeling he would die for him.

None of it made sense.

Dustin felt a headache forming. He pressed on the side of his head to try to alleviate the pain. His whole body was shaking and only stilled when Will mentioned Dustin's house.

But at the mention of his mom’s homemade cookies, Dustin saw red.

He had seen his mom die, felt the blood smear on his face as she tried to comfort him one last time. Will was trying to manipulate him in some way, and Dustin wouldn't let him. Henry would be so disappointed if he let the boy corrupt his mind, if he let his weakness infect him too.

So he threw Will into the wall, screamed at him that he wouldn’t let anyone poke at his mind, and left the room in anger, trying to get his breathing under control.

Dustin would have to let Henry know that Will probably had powers now. It was the only explanation. Maybe it would delight him to know that he hadn’t wasted resources keeping Will here. 

But before he even got the chance to tell Henry, Will somehow escaped and ran straight into him. Now Dustin had a whole new problem to solve. He couldn’t let the boy escape. Henry would never forgive him for that. But Dustin was hit over the head with a heavy object, falling to the floor, before he could grab Will. 

When he got on his feet again, blood poured down the side of his face, and Will was nowhere to be seen. There was only one way out, though, and Dustin ran for that exit, letting his anger carry him. 

Once outside, he saw Will surrounded by those same people Dustin suddenly felt were weirdly familiar. But he was furious enough to push those thoughts from his mind. Will would not be allowed to escape and ruin what he and Henry had worked so hard to achieve. He was prepared to harm every single one of these people to get Will back inside.

It didn't matter how much the voice inside him screamed that they were his friends.