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Dustin had changed a lot over the past year and a half. Eddie’s death had hit him hard and he held onto his memory and legacy with all he could, even when it meant threats of violence against him from Andy’s gang. He just kept reminding himself that Eddie wouldn’t have cared, actually Eddie would have just smirked and acted even weirder to piss them off further.
Dustin still had a lot to learn about that part.
“Hey, freak, didn’t I tell you that shirt is not welcome here?” Andy called out across the hall as Dustin walked by, and he glared at their direction, seeing a few guys from the team slouching there. He knew what people thought about him, about Eddie, that he was sympathizing with a monster.
He shrugged off his backbag, laying on on the floor as he opened his locker and started unloading the insides of his backbag inside, when he saw a shadow approaching from behind, and the bustle around him quieted down suddenly.
“Hi, Dustin,” a voice softly said, and Dustin froze. He knew that voice. But why would the captain of the cheer squad come up to him? He stared at his locker for a moment, brains whirring, jaw clenching as he tried to muster up courage to say a hi back, while trying to think all the possible reasons why someone like you would talk to someone like him.
Except if — of course.
Andy had somehow found out about his crush on you.
He pursed his lips together, heart beating faster now, thundering in his chest. He wasn’t sure if it beat out of anger or nervousness now, they meddled together. He turned towards you slightly. “What.”
You frowned at his expression. A cheer captain and a good actress, Dustin sighed internally. “Uh, I was just wondering if you’re interested to come grab a coffee or something with me? Today, after school. There’s—”
Dustin raised his eyebrows, his lips turning into a scowl. “Are you asking me on a date?”
You blinked, still keeping up the act. An Oscar was just one movie away. “I, uh, you don’t have to of course, if it’s not your thing or if—”
“Andy put you up to this,” he interrupted you, and your mouth opened. Now, that’s truly an Oscar-worthy expression for a surprise.
“What? No—”
“And you probably want to sleep with him,” he hissed. “You think I haven’t noticed? Girls have tried to pull pranks on me before too and they all have that in common.”
Your jaw clenched. “Dustin, I swear—”
“Yeah, I’m not interested,” he retorted, slamming his locker shut. “Go back to Andy.”
He left you by his locker, marching away, and could swear he heard a sob breaking out from you before he disappeared to the classroom.
“She’s sitting all alone,” Mike murmured to Lucas at the school diner, and he hummed while poking on his excuse of mashed potatoes.
“Yeah, people outed her completely after Dustin turned her down.”
Will leaned closer to the two. “Does Dustin know that’s the reason? Should we tell him?”
“What I should know?” Dustin interrupted them, slamming his food tray on the table, making the three boys break apart.
The trio looked at each other nervously. “Um… do you think your actions a few days ago were reasonable?”
“What actions?” Dustin sighed. “The way I turned down that girl I have liked since before all of this started happening, because it was obvious she was trying to hit on me just so she could get into Andy’s pants?”
Lucas sighed. “If you think that’s what it was about, why is she sitting alone and not with her friends, and why she looks so miserable?”
Dustin turned his head toward the table you sat at and frowned. You sat at the very edge of the table, with not a soul around you. “Huh. She’s really committing to it.”
Mike scoffed, crossing his arms. “Committing to it? Are you stupid?”
Dustin laid down his fork. “Look, I know you and Eleven have the love story of the century, but nobody falls in love with me. Not before Eddie, and certainly not when I’m… this.”
Mike shook his head. “Well, at least not if you’re scaring everyone away by being a tough guy and flipping off everyone who’d show you even a sliver of positive attention.”
Dustin scowled at him, before taking another glance at you. You did seem miserable, and he’d think that if it was truly a prank, the whole school wouldn’t act with the prank, but his stubborn side still kept the lock shut. “You think I should embarrass myself and have her laugh at me for believing she’d ever like me?”
“Yes,” Lucas interjected, throwing his arms into the air. “Please.”
“Eddie would have never exposed himself like that,” he murmured, wrapping his hand around his glass of milk.
“Eddie would have taken the leap,” Mike argued. “He wasn’t so stupid that he’d think that the person who he had had a crush on since he was a kid would turn on him too. You like her for a reason, you see the kindness in her, do you really think she’d also turn out to be your bully?”
Dustin laid his gaze down on his food, the gooey sauce on the mashed potatoes staring back at him. No, his heart told him. Along with his brains, he realised — his fears of being seen as a monster by you was the only thing holding him back.
“Fuck,” he muttered, making his friends sigh in relief as they saw the realisation dawn in his eyes.
He had cycled past your house a hundred times, and even more times he had imagined himself going to your door with a bouquet of flowers, asking you out, you replying yes and it would be happily ever after. But as you grew up, you became the most beautiful girl in Hawkins High, you got the position as a cheer captain, you got a lot of boys around you, and he knew he had little to no chance so he stopped fantasising.
He didn’t have a bouquet, but sweat covering his face in embarrassment and nervousness with every step he took towards the front porch of your house. And once he stood in front of the doorbell, he squeezed his eyes shut for just a moment before pressing the doorbell down, and forced himself to stand still as he heard steps coming towards the door.
The door opened, just a crack, your face peeking through. Your face hardened the moment you saw him. “Oh. You.”
For a moment he thought you’d tell him to go to hell and slam the door in front of him, but you didn’t. You actually opened the door a bit more, and Dustin rubbed his hands together.
He grimaced slightly. “I was an ass. I’m sorry.”
You huffed. “Yeah. You were.”
Dustin felt like his ears were drooping in shame. “I thought you were sent by Andy, he has sent girls to flirt with me before too just to get a laugh, but it was unfair of me to assume that of you too.”
You sighed. “Andy used to bully me too, in case you don’t remember. Even if he became the hottest guy in all of Hawkins, I would still not do any kind of favours for him.”
Dustin grimaced, a flashback memory of Andy and you being in a fight after he had stolen your diary and read it to all his friends breaking through his mind. “Shit. I didn’t remember that.”
“Yeah.”
Silence ensued, Dustin trying his hardest to stand still. “I… uh, I’d like to take you to that café you mentioned and you can take whatever you want on me?”
You frowned at his proposition. “Are you asking me on a date now?”
He shrugged. “Well, I can accept your date invite or you can accept mine or we can just pretend neither ever asked anything or you can stay mad at me.” His voice lowered towards the end, before he shyly looked up through his eyelashes. “But I’d like to go on that date with you, if you still want to go.”
You stood there frozen for a moment, before your face broke into a grin and you nodded. “It’s a date, then.”