featherless biped

Specify in the tags please what species or breed of animal you would choose as a witches familiar if the most obvious were off the table

Let's have fun with this

For example for me it would be a great white shark

a tag which says

“#9 year old girls at recess also”

But Dustin is struggling.

Because yes, Eddie survived, he’s going to be okay, but none of that changes the fact that Dustin heard his desperate screams as the bats tore at him, that Dustin had to watch as he bled out right in front of him, felt his hand go limp in his, slick with blood.

But it seems like everyone’s fine, riding on a wave of relief, so Dustin figures he should push it all down, seal it off as neatly as The Upside Down had been.

And he tries. He cracks corny jokes to make Max roll her eyes and laugh while she’s getting a cast on her arm, plays off Lucas and Erica against each other until they’re fighting smiles as they rile each other up.

It all feels like stuff he would have done before. But he can’t get rid of the horrible feeling that he’s like a little robot with set phrases, that he’s acting convincingly, but his heart just isn’t in it.

Never change, Dustin Henderson, Eddie had said, but Dustin can’t help it, doesn’t know how to reach the old version of himself. Doesn’t know if he ever can again.

It comes to a head one afternoon, while it’s just him and Eddie in a hospital room. It’s easier to keep up the act in group settings—one-on-one feels too close to a spotlight being on him.

“Hey, you’re pretty quiet,” Eddie says kindly. “You okay?”

And it’s such an innocuous remark; Dustin could easily shrug it off, just say that he’s tired.

But instead his eyes prick with shame that he’s failed, that Eddie’s noticed, and he suddenly can’t stop himself from crying.

“Eddie, I’m—I’m sorry.”

Eddie’s eyes are wide with dismay. “Woah, woah, you’ve got nothing to—”

“Y-you said not to change,” Dustin gets out through sobs, “but I—I don’t know h-how to—”

“Oh no,” Eddie breathes, “no, no, no, just—come here.”

And he pulls Dustin into a hug with surprising strength for someone still lying in a hospital bed.

“I didn’t mean—shh, shh, I’ve got you. You don’t have to—you don’t need to do anything, Dustin, you hear me?”

Eddie kisses the top of Dustin’s head, hugs him tight, because he knows a thing or two about being forced into a crossroads in adolescence, about guilt and trauma, and a kind of loss that goes beyond death.

“You’re loved, you’re so fucking loved, Dustin Henderson,” Eddie whispers. “You’re loved just as you are, okay? Always.”