Chapter Text
Dustin Henderson had defeated Demogorgons, outrun government agents, and lived to tell the tale of an alternate dimension full of teeth, slime, and nightmares that still crept into his dreams when he was overtired.
Asking Jane Hopper to prom, however, might actually kill him.
He lay flat on his bedroom floor, arms splayed out like a fallen action figure, staring up at the popcorn-textured ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars—put up years ago during a very serious astronomy phase—were scattered above him in loose, inaccurate constellations. He’d sworn a dozen times he’d take them down once he was “too old for that stuff,” but tonight he was silently begging them for help. Any help. A sign. A miracle. Divine intervention would be great.
His Walkman sat abandoned beside his head, cassette tape half-spooled where it had been rewound too aggressively. One earcup still pressed against his cheek, leaking the faint, tinny warble of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven. Normally, he loved this song. Normally, it made him think of late-night drives and summer air and the way Jane smiled when she forgot she was trying not to.
Right now, it just felt like mocking background noise.
Because his brain—traitor that it was—had latched onto exactly one thought and refused to let go.
Hey Jane, do you wanna go to prom with me?
Simple. Straightforward. Eight words.
Impossible.
He squeezed his eyes shut and let the reel play again.
Version one: confident, casual Dustin. The version who totally existed in theory.
Hey Jane, prom’s coming up. Thought we could go together?
She smiles politely, head tilted, that careful softness she used when she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Like friends?
Dustin’s soul leaves his body. His funeral is sparsely attended because he is dead of embarrassment.
Version two: romantic, heartfelt Dustin. The kind of guy they put in teen movies. The kind of guy Dustin Henderson had never actually been.
Jane, I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of accompanying me to prom.
She laughs. Not mean—never mean—but surprised. Fond, even. Like he’s a kid playing dress-up in his dad’s suit.
He sounds like a nerd in a rented tux.
Which, okay, to be fair, he was going to be.
Instant death. Again.
Version three: funny Dustin. His usual go-to. Humor was his shield. His sword. His entire personality.
Hey, so, hypothetically, if someone very cool and handsome asked you to prom—
She raises an eyebrow. One eyebrow. The one she did when she knew he was dancing around something.
Dustin, what are you talking about?
Public execution. No survivors.
He groaned, rolling onto his side and grabbing the crumpled notebook page beside him like it was a life raft in open water. The paper was soft from being folded and unfolded too many times, the corners bent, the ink smudged where his palm had dragged across it. Fifteen—no, closer to twenty—crossed-out sentences filled the page, all variations of the same doomed question.
Some were too stiff. Some were too long. One had a stupid smiley face next to it.
One had little hearts doodled in the margins.
He’d crossed those out immediately, scribbling so hard the pen nearly tore through the page.
Hearts were too much. Hearts screamed middle school. Hearts said passing notes during algebra and holding hands behind the AV club. They were seniors now. Eighteen years old. Mature. Practically adults.
Except Dustin felt approximately twelve years old and like he might throw up.
The worst part—the truly unfair part—was that the problem wasn’t that he didn’t know Jane well.
That part was easy.
He knew she took her coffee with way too much sugar and stirred it too fast, clinking the spoon against the mug like she was impatient with it. He knew she pretended not to like New Wave music because it was “too dramatic,” but he’d caught her humming along to it more than once. He knew she tapped her fingers against her leg when she was thinking and got this tiny crease between her eyebrows when she was worried, like the world was too loud and she was trying to hold it back.
He knew she hated being called “El” at school—Jane, always Jane—and that she still flinched when lockers slammed too hard or when someone shouted unexpectedly. He knew she liked strawberry Pop-Tarts better than blueberry and that she always tore the crust off first.
He knew all of that.
The problem was that he cared.
A lot.
Prom wasn’t just a dance. It was the dance. The kind of thing people talked about like it was a rite of passage, like something sacred. Hawkins High had been hyping it up for months—posters curling on the walls, announcements crackling over the intercom, teachers pretending not to care while absolutely caring. Girls whispered about dresses in the halls. Guys pretended it didn’t matter while secretly worrying about tux rentals and limos and whether anyone would actually say yes.
And Jane?
Jane deserved perfect.
She deserved someone smooth and confident and calm. Someone who didn’t ramble or overthink or rehearse conversations until they lost all meaning. Not awkward, fast-talking Dustin Henderson, who tripped over his words and filled silence with noise and got nervous about literally everything.
Which was…all the time.
He pushed himself up and started pacing the room, dodging his bed like it was a battlefield obstacle. His sneakers squeaked softly against the carpet as he practiced out loud, hands moving like he was delivering a TED Talk to an invisible audience.
“Jane Hopper,” he began, voice way too formal. He stopped, shook his head, tried again. “Jane. Hi. Okay, so—prom. There’s prom. Which you know about. Obviously. Everyone knows about prom. And I was thinking—”
He stopped mid-sentence, slapped his forehead with his palm, and let out a strangled groan.
“Oh my god,” he muttered, spinning in place. “Why is this so hard?”
The posters on his wall—Star Wars, Back to the Future, some science thing he didn’t even remember buying—offered no answers.
“It’s just a question,” he said to them desperately. “A single question. With two possible answers. Yes or—well. The other one.”
He did not like thinking about the other one.
By the time the sun dipped low and the streetlights flickered on outside his window, casting long orange shadows across his room, Dustin had officially gotten nowhere. His notebook lay discarded on the floor. His Walkman battery had died. His confidence was in shambles.
There was only one option left.
Steve Harrington.
Steve answered the door wearing gym shorts and a faded tank top, hair still somehow perfect like it existed under different laws of physics. He blinked down at Dustin, clearly not expecting company—let alone the boy he had practically, unintentionally adopted.
“Dustin?” Steve said. “It’s a school night. Are you dying?”
“Emotionally,” Dustin replied, stepping inside without waiting for permission. “Yes.”
Steve sighed, already closing the door. “Okay. Couch. Talk.”
Dustin collapsed onto it like a Victorian child with the vapors, covering his face with his hands. “I need your help.”
Steve leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “This is either about girls or something supernatural. Please tell me it’s the first one.”
“It’s about Jane,” Dustin said, muffled.
Steve’s expression softened immediately. “Ah.”
“I want to ask her to prom,” Dustin continued, sitting up and gesturing wildly. “But every time I try to plan it, I sound like an idiot. Or a robot. Or an idiot robot. And what if I mess it up and make things weird? What if she says no? What if she says yes but feels bad for me?”
Steve snorted. “Yeah, that tracks.”
“Steve,” Dustin groaned. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Steve said, pushing off the counter and sitting across from him. “Okay. First rule, stop trying to make it perfect."
Dustin frowned. “But it has to be perfect.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Steve said firmly. “It just has to be you. Girls like Jane? They can smell fake confidence from a mile away.”
Dustin hesitated. “So… no cue cards?”
“Definitely no cue cards.”
“What about, like, a grand gesture?” Dustin asked hopefully.
Steve tilted his head, thinking. “Jane doesn’t seem like a grand gesture person.”
Dustin nodded slowly. “She hates attention.”
“Exactly,” Steve said. “So ask her somewhere she feels comfortable. Be honest. Don’t overthink it.”
Dustin let out a shaky laugh. “You say that like it’s easy.”
Steve smiled—not teasing, not smug. Just honest. “Yeah. It’s not. But trust me—she already knows who you are. You don’t have to prove anything.”
That thought settled in Dustin’s chest, warm and terrifying all at once.
When he stood to leave a few minutes later, he was still nervous. Still unsure. Still very much terrified.
But maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t doomed.
As he stepped back out into the cool spring night, Dustin took a deep breath and looked up at the stars.
Okay.
New plan.
He didn’t know exactly what he was going to say yet—but for the first time, he thought he might actually be able to say it.