Chapter Text
The Mind Flayer jolts against the assailants, beginning to look like they may actually beat it.
“Yes! We’re doing it, Steve!” Dustin cheers across the dead, gray field. Steve pumps his fist and whoops, taking another shot at the Flayer.
Then…The tone seems to change. The Flayer moves faster, stronger, as if Vecna has begun to take the upper hand.
“Run!” Dustin’s head whips around at the sound of Robin, and sees everyone backing away, and running from the flayer. His head swings up, but…too late.
One of the huge, demon-esque legs of the beast is speeding towards him. He kicks up from the ground, but catches his foot on the rough ground. He glances back to his frie-his family, as he tries to embrace his incoming doom.
He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to avoid watching the inevitable. In his phased state, he feels a sharp, stinging pain, then a heavy pressure, he hears yells from everyone, Steve’s sticking out to him the most, he smells the cold, grimy must of the dimension. And, in a second, it’s over. He pries his eyes open, to see Lucas’ face, staring wildly back at his own.
“Lucas!!!” He cries, lunging into an embrace. “Dustin!!” Lucas squeezes him hard, harder than he ever has before. “ Are you okay?? Are you hurt?”
Dustin shakes his head quickly, “No, no, I’m fine!”
He gets pushed forwards, another embrace plunging into him. He twists in the arms, squeezing the now-recognized body of Steve.
“Steve!”
“Don’t you ever cut it that close again, you got it, Henderson?” Steve snaps at him, his affection betraying his own words.
Dustin nods choppily, distracted by the absence of the Flayer.
He glances towards the cliffs, and sees Eleven emerging from it, beckoning the others into the corpse.
Steve pulls him to his feet, still draping one arm around his shoulders.
Lucas punches him in the side, and jogs towards the corpse, pulling out his knife as he does, as if expecting the worst.
Dustin pushes Steve off of him in a playful way, but in doing so, they both notice his hand, covered in red.
Steve snatches his wrist, tugging them towards each other.
“Are you okay? What hurts?”
Dustin tries to pull his hand away, but to no avail.
“I don’t feel anything, it doesn’t hurt, Steve.” He again tries to pull away to look closer for himself.
They hear a yell from inside the corpse, and Steve finally relents his hand. When Dustin begins walking back towards the Flayer, he’s tugged back by Steve, who’s now holding a hunk of cloth in his hand.
“We’ll wrap it, and look at it when we’re out of here. You don’t want some creepy alien infection, right?”
“Right. We’ll check when we’re back.”
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