Work Text:
"El?"
It shivers out through Dustin's lips, barely more than a breath, and for a moment, he almost wonders if he's said it at all. If it even left his lungs before the wet cave air smothered it into silence.
Still, the girl knelt across from him (the moon-pale afterimage of a life long gone) seems to hear him all the same. Even with her sunken eyes and her too-dark hair (nearly blackened with dirt, or soot, or maybe even blood), her bluish lips pulled thin and the sharp jut of her bony shoulders, the contemplative look on her face is horribly, painfully — beautifully — familiar. Her stare settles on him and stays there, unwavering even as she continues to stoke newborn flames, and there's that curious glint in her eye.
She's considering him. Analyzing. Searching for answers to a question she hasn't asked. Dustin wishes she would ask. Wishes she would take it upon herself to guide him through this… this thing. This thing where El is alive
(even though she died, and he knows she did, because she looks dead and he doesn't think he's heard her breathe)
and Dustin is bound in musty, fraying rope. Where she set him so carefully on the stone floor before she turned away to build a fire.
But she doesn't ask. She doesn't speak at all. She just tilts her head, something strange flickering across her gaunt face before it smooths back into a still, unaffected mask.
Her lips tighten as her eyes slide from Dustin to the fire. All he can do is watch, torn between disbelief and painful numbness, as she pokes idly at the kindling — once, twice — and then pauses. Again, she looks at him.
Then she takes the iron from the fire, sets it aside with a clatter, and rises.
Dustin's head pounds in time with the rapid beat of his heart, world narrowed down to the shambling corpse of his friend approaching him.
(but it's not just El's corpse, is it? it's El. somehow, some way, it's El.)
She's crouched down and in his space before he can process that she's reached him. She leans in — close, so close, close enough for him to feel the complete absence of warmth. No body heat, no tickling breath. Just the cold touch of her hand as she places it on his cheek.
At once, he freezes. Breath catching.
Her fingers are hard and stiff, unable to do much more than press their tips into his cheekbone, and her skin is waxy. Unreal.
So fucking cold.
Maybe she can read his mind.
(he wouldn't be surprised. he never would be. not then, when she was alive, and still not now that she's dead.)
Maybe that's why her face falls. Why it looks so unbearably heavy, some invisible weight dragging her mouth down to her chin and drawing her into herself. Till she's slumping forward, head down and shoulders hiked up. Her body, already stiff in its death, trembles minutely.
It's grief. In its purest form.
That sad, bleeding thing in Dustin's chest opens itself wider.
He should say something. Tell her how much he's missed her. How much he loves her. How much they all love her. But his tongue is too heavy, his breath too uneven, and he doesn't think he could speak through his tears, anyway.
When he started crying, he doesn't know. There's no part of him that cares to figure it out. Not right now. Not when El is both dead and not dead and so obviously aware of it.
Dustin sucks in a wet breath and forces the tension in his neck to yield. He leans into her touch. Pushes his cheek into her rigid palm.
She lifts her head. Meets his gaze with dulled, glassy eyes and something terrible on her face. Something dark and anguished. No tears, but he can tell there would be.
If she were alive, there would be.
"El," he says again, and though it comes out as a sob, thick with misery and cracked into jagged shards, at least he knows he's said it this time. And then, because he still doesn't know if any of it's real, doesn't know if he'll ever get the chance again if it is, he tightens his voice into something almost steady and says; "I love you."
Her fingertips twitch against his cheek. Pushing harder into the bone. More like reflex than anything else.
"I love you," he repeats, and he's sobbing now, loud and open-mouthed, but he's insistent. He needs her to hear it. Needs her to know. "So much."
He blinks rapidly, clearing his tears until he can see her solemn, silent understanding.
She brings her other hand up. Touches frozen fingertips to the skin beneath his eye and tries, clumsily, to wipe the wetness away.
He can't help his choked, hiccuping laugh. "Fuck." He nuzzles into her palm, angles his face to let her continue her attempts, and says it again. "I love you."
She considers him for a moment longer. Trails her fingers down the bridge of his nose, tracing the seam of his lips and gently tapping at his chin.
Then she opens her mouth. No sound comes, and her lips barely twitch, but he gets the meaning. He sees it on her face, in the way she holds his gaze as she tips forward, placing emphasis on the words she cannot form.
He swallows around the lump in his throat and smiles at her. "I know," he whispers.
She nods. Lets her mouth slip shut.
Then she rocks forward. Touches her forehead to Dustin's and rests there. Cupping his face in still-gentle hands. Never pulling away, even as his shaking turns violent and his sobs turn to near-screams.
It's the longest I love you he's known.