‘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.

-

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: 38156 (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

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.

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.

Nancy kept a steady hand on her shoulder from the minute the soldiers entered the lab to the minute they left again, and she made sure to catch her when she fell to her knees in exhaustion.