◟ ͜ ׁ ˙ ㅤㅤ𖤓 ㅤ emi

˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶ the grinner⠀◌⠀⠀⠀⠀ ֗⠀⠀⟡⠀⠀ .⠀⠀dustin henderson ˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶

a 𐔌 n im sorry im so insanely rusty i havent written fanfic in so long i feel like this is boring ash😭 thank u so much for the request ily enjoy

"they called me grinner."

replacing first period with your own dramatic reading of john gaunt's latest escapades was the only admirable way to skip, and as you growled the dialogue in the fresh panels, you were more of a grinner than the child warrior himself.

grimjack issue #22 hit the spinner rack at bradley’s big buy on january 10th, 1986, and you knew this because you’d been standing there at 8:14 a.m, waiting impatiently for keith to finish unpacking the comics shipment while he complained about how somebody had bent the corner on a copy of west coast avengers #3 and how january is for post-christmas gifting, not working two jobs where he often is faced with "insufferable beep freak gimps".

your insufferable beep freak gimp self wasn’t technically supposed to be there before school.

actually, you weren’t technically supposed to be there ever during school hours anymore, because hawkins high had recently decided that freshman attendance mattered very much, now that half the town had been eaten by “mall fire chemicals” and “government negligence,” and principal higgins had apparently developed a personal vendetta against teenagers wandering the downtown strip before first period.

but the grimjack cover had been teased in comics buyer’s guide two weeks earlier, and you had spent enough nights thinking about it that your dreams had started arranging themselves in panels.

it would be self-bullying to not allow yourself this.

you were crouched beside the new arrivals box with grimjack issue #22 already in your hands, staring at the painted cover like you were receiving divine revelation through cheap pulp paper, when the bell over the door jingled against the january wind and somebody stomped snow sludge from their sneakers onto the entrance mat.

“holy shit,” dustin henderson cried, his shoe-snow-shaking quest abandoned. “you actually found it.”

“barely. stupid keith shelved the x-men annuals first and my second period is lit.”

“keith, you airhead," dustin muttered as he practically scuttered over to crouch beside you. you shifted slightly away.

keith, mouth ever gaping open as if someone had just pantsed him, drawled from behind the counter. “i can hear you, hummus dip.” hummus dip? he was indisputably high.

“yeah, well,” dustin called back immediately, shrugging off his coat, “you alphabetized the transformers comics under ‘r’ for robots one time, so frankly, your credibility’s shot.”

the rebuttals of both the boys faded as you took in the issue. grimjack stood knee-deep in red water beneath a sky that looked skinned alive. the title lettering cracked through the middle like a snapped vertebra. dustin leaned in closer to your shoulder, his curls still damp from melted snow. “okay, wait, let me see the back... does it have the munden’s bar preview or no?”

he always crowded so close to you. in no way were you used to it. solidarity was anodyne, even if the days blurred as your tiny television glowed blue late into the night with grainy anime recordings copied from copied-from-copied tapes through increasingly terrible vcr degradation. it was safe.

this made you feel insane.

dustin flipped carefully through the pages with the concentration of somebody observing the inner workings of a bomb. his caterpillar gloves claudia no doubt knitted for him were shoved half out of his coat pockets, and every few seconds he made these tiny thoughtful noises in the back of his throat while reading.

you watched him instead of the comic. that was becoming a problem.

you averted your eyes outside, the january morning looking dirty and silver through the store's front windows. the slush on the street had turned gray from tires and boots and chemical salt, and every passing truck hissed wetly against the road. the heater near the register rattled like it had emphysema.

but your eyes came back.

"jesus christ, this is dark. you read this shit?" dustin morphs his voice into an imitation of principal higgins, and the image of those words coming out of the old man's mouth drew to you a small grin above the panels of john and his brother's murdering a man.

his eyes were fixed on yours for far too long, but the perpetual glinting softness of their undemanding blue seemed less like he was examining you in some way, and more like he was... cherishing something.

keith made a violent gagging noise. you were so occupied wondering how dustin's hair looked like that in the mushy snowfall of indiana that you weren't sure whether it was a consequence of early morning drug comsumption. dustin seemed to catch the cue though.

he led you both to a few aisles over from the counter, oput of earshot of the customers racing to snag things they'd forgotten to get for their day.

he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, sinking his caterpillar gloves deeper as though he had noticed their eyesorish prescence, rocking once on his heels. “so, uh… are you actually going to school now? well, i knew... know you are because you're not gonna miss lit. i've got... i mean... eddie needs me at lunch, obviously, i mean, that's where i always am. like with him and mike and lucas. you know them. but, uh, do you want to read up on gaunt's traumatic history on... on our table later? at lunch?”

it was not the question itself that startled you. lunch invitations existed. people asked people things every day with shocking casualness. civilization depended on this sort of exchange. kingdoms had probably been founded on less.

it was the way dustin asked. like this was a pivotal, amissable level and not just a simple offer due to the fact that you had run into one another (though your run-ins were nonverbally agreed rendezvous).

it was the way you had never been seen by another human as interesting addition to a conversation, a gathering, a table. solidarity was safety. and now, dustin henderson was asking you to join the hellfire cafeteria table on a friday morning.

you could shrug and make an excuse about lit homework or library volunteering or a spontaneous illness that the dawn frost had infected you with. you could preserve the careful ecosystem you’d built around yourself over the past year: headphones on, eyes down, detached enough that nobody could take anything from you because nobody had ever really been given access in the first place.

"i will join your fellowship at noon."

it might've entirely been the worst thing you have ever said, but the instant hardly reined joy in dustin's expression would be the part of the moment that was truest in hindsight. his eyes widened first, then crinkled at the corners; his mouth pulling upward like he’d just rolled a natrual 20.

it made your stomach feel horribly unstable and your face do things your brain had not reviewed for public display, like you always scraped and clawed to manage your whole life.

“there it is,” dustin said quietly.

you panicked for a millisecond, worrying he'd seen something in you, the uncertainty churning in you. “what?”

“the grinner."

why can't you ever be enough? (i'm unraveled, i'm unraveled)

all because my head is full of poison, and my heart is full of doubt”