Chapter Text
Dustin didn't remember much of his father — not in the way other kids seemed to remember theirs. There were no clear snapshots. No steady image of a face smiling across a dinner table. His memories came in fragments instead — flashes of movement, the smell of stale cologne, the heavy sound of boots in the hallway. The man existed less as a person and more as a presence. A pressure in the air. A shadow stretching across rooms long after the light should have changed.
When Dustin tried to picture him clearly, the details slipped away. But the feeling never did. He'd left when Dustin was five, disappearing so early that the man never quite solidified into a full person in his mind. Instead, he lingered like a shadow cast across the room — always there, always looming, but impossible to look at directly. Not someone Dustin could picture clearly, just a weight that pressed down on the edges of his memories.
It didn't upset him — at least, that was the version of the truth Dustin had repeated so often it almost sounded convincing. He'd rehearsed it internally for years, smoothing it over until it felt simple. Clean. Manageable. It was easier to believe he didn't care than to untangle whatever feelings might still be buried underneath. He'd learned early on that missing someone only made sense if they'd ever been worth missing. And the few memories he did have weren't the kind anyone looked back on fondly. His dad had beaten his mum while Dustin hid beneath his bed, knees pulled tight to his chest, fingers digging into his arms hard enough to leave marks. Dust clung to his nose and throat, making every breath feel thick and scratchy as he listened to her cries leak through the thin walls, each sound sharp enough to lodge itself somewhere he couldn't forget. He remembered pressing his hands over his ears, not to block out the sound—because that never worked—but to pretend he was somewhere else.
And when the man wasn't angry at her, he was angry at Dustin. Yelling at him for choosing science books over footballs, sneering at words like smart as if they were insults. As if curiosity was something shameful.
Dustin hated him — but not in the loud, explosive way movies showed. Not in shouting matches or slammed doors. His hatred was quieter than that. It lived in the tightening of his jaw when someone mentioned fathers. In the way his shoulders tensed at raised voices. In the instinct to calculate escape routes whenever arguments started.
It wasn't fire. It was stone. Heavy. Settled. Permanent. It didn't burn itself out — it stayed, solid and unmovable, built slowly over years until it felt less like an emotion and more like fact.
So when he and his mother moved away to Hawkins, Dustin wasn't sad. Not even a little. If anything, the distance felt like relief. Each mile they put between themselves and him felt like another breath Dustin hadn't realized he'd been holding, another step away from a life that had felt more like something to survive than something meant to be lived.
He had assumed she wouldn’t be sad either. It seemed logical. Relief had flooded Dustin the moment they packed the last box and drove away — so why wouldn’t she feel the same? But some nights, after the dishes were done and the television had gone dark, he would catch her sitting perfectly still on the couch. Not crying. Not moving. Just… staring. Her eyes fixed somewhere beyond the wall, beyond the room, beyond Hawkins entirely.
It unsettled him more than shouting ever had.
She would blink slowly, like she was replaying something only she could see. Her thumb would rub absent circles against her palm — a nervous habit Dustin didn’t think she even realized she had.
She missed him.
That was the part Dustin couldn’t untangle.
How could you miss someone who made your life smaller? Someone who filled rooms with fear?
Maybe she didn’t miss him. Maybe she missed the version of him that had existed before everything went wrong. Or the future she once imagined — the one with shared dinners and quiet mornings and a husband who didn’t turn anger into a weapon.
Dustin wondered if loving someone once meant you were forever tied to the ghost of who they used to be. And if that was true, he hoped he never loved anyone that much.
But she still should've realized what kind of person he really was. That love—or memory, or loneliness—didn't erase violence. Didn't rewrite the past.
And she definitely shouldn't have let him stay over for "just one night," not with her fourteen-year-old son living under the same roof. Dustin knew better than to trust promises like that. They never stayed small. Never stayed contained. "Just one night" was how things always started — and how they always spiralled.
The first night had gone surprisingly well — and somehow, that unsettled Dustin more than if it hadn't. Calm never lasted. Calm was always the quiet before something worse. His father slept on the couch most of the day, sprawled out like he belonged there, and the only real nuisance was the TV blaring through the night, its noise bleeding into Dustin's dreams. It was annoying, sure. But annoyance was manageable. Annoyance didn't leave bruises. As long as he wasn't putting his hands on Dustin or his mum, Dustin told himself they could endure it.
Everything changed the second night—so quickly it felt like the ground had dropped out from beneath him. Dustin returned home from school on a Friday evening—exited that school was done for the week and already planning meet ups with his friends.
But instead of finding his father asleep on the couch and his mother cooking dinner like he expected, Dustin walked straight into chaos. The two of them were locked in a screaming match in the middle of the living room, voices sharp and overlapping, anger filling the space like smoke.
Great.
Dustin didn't listen to what they were saying. He'd learned a long time ago that the words didn't matter—only the tone did. Raised voices meant danger. He squeezed past them without a word, heart pounding, and locked his bedroom door behind him with shaking hands, as though the thin barrier might somehow keep everything else out.
He couldn’t stay. The walls felt porous, like the shouting could seep through drywall and wrap around his throat. His bedroom — usually his sanctuary — suddenly felt like a box with no ventilation. Waiting was the worst part. Waiting meant tracking footsteps. Measuring tone. Predicting impact. Waiting meant your body preparing for something your mind desperately hoped wouldn’t come.
He’d spent too much of his childhood waiting.
He refused to do it again.
He grabbed the radio from his bag, holding it to his mouth and pressing the button.
"Anyone there?" he whispered into the radio, voice tight with a hope he already knew was fragile.
He waited.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Each one stretched painfully long, dragging out until Dustin could practically hear his own heartbeat counting the seconds for him.
Nothing. The static was louder than his parents fighting in the other room. No one was there to distract him, no one to hide him away from the threatening yells.
The screaming lasted until the early hours of the morning, Dustin couldn't sleep. Not when he was so afraid, he was scared that the man would hurt his mother like he had done before.
He hadn't done it yet—and that was what terrified Dustin the most. The waiting. The pressure. The way anger simmered instead of exploding right away. He could see the rage bubbling up inside him, ready to explode.
On the third night, the tension snapped. Not gradually. Not in stages. It broke all at once — like something brittle finally giving under pressure.
One of his fellow party members had reached out and made plans to hang out in Mike's basement.
The invitation felt like a lifeline. An excuse. A way out.
"Where are you going?" Dustin could hear the thickness in his father's voice from halfway down the hall — the slow, slurred drag of someone who'd had too much to drink and not enough restraint.
Great. Dustin thought, grip tightening on the door handle.
"I'm going to hang out with my friends," Dustin grumbled, trying—and failing— to keep the resentment and anger out of his voice.
Dustin heard the slap before he felt it—the sharp crack of skin against skin echoing through the hallway. A heartbeat later, pain bloomed across his left cheek, hot and shocking.
"Don't strike him, he's just a boy!" He heard his mother cry before she was struck as well.
Dustin stood rooted to the spot, the world narrowing to a dull ringing in his ears. His brain lagged behind the moment, replaying it in fragments — the sound, the impact, his mother's cry — as if understanding might change it. Everything felt unreal — like he'd stepped outside of himself and was watching it happen to someone else. His mind struggled to catch up to what had just happened, replaying it over and over like it couldn't quite believe it was real. His father had hit both him and his mother.
He stumbled back into the hallway, breath coming shallow and uneven. He needed someone — anyone — to anchor him to something normal. Someone who could remind him that this wasn't the only version of the world.
Steve's number came to him automatically. Muscle memory. Like dialling it might rewind time to a version of the world where someone older and steadier could step in and fix things.
Steve had always felt like proof that not all grown-ups were unpredictable. Not all of them raised their voices. Not all of them walked away.
So Dustin called him.
Because that's what you do when you're scared — you reach for the person who once made you feel safe. Even knowing he was probably busy, even knowing it wasn't fair—Steve was always the one who made things feel safer.
"Henderson?" Steve answered, his voice tight with stress and exhaustion—and somehow, hearing it nearly broke Dustin all over again. "Look, I'm busy right now. This better be important."
"Well, not really but—"
Dustin was cut off by Steve's heavy sigh, "look kid, it's a busy day right now at work if it's not important then you're gonna have to call someone else. How about that Eddie guy you're always on about, he doesn't have a job does he?"
The comment felt like a targeted insult, Steve had made it clear he wasn't fond of this new friend of Dustin's.
"Well yes, but, I'd rather talk to you—"
Dustin could now hear Robin yelling at Steve in the background, "alright, alright. Talk to Eddie now if you're desperate and I promise you we'll have a movie night this weekend and you can tell me all about it then. Yeah?"
A small, defeated sound slipped from Dustin's throat before he could stop it, something fragile and broken that he immediately hated hearing. "Yeah... okay."
Steve hung up with a beep, leaving Dustin staring at the phone like with the same gaze he did when all his friends left him on the hill last year. After a long moment of staring at the phone, Dustin took a shaky breath and dialled Eddie's number, fingers trembling slightly as it rang.
"Hello?" Eddie sounded confused, Dustin doubted he got phone calls often. "Eddie... could we, uh, hang out?" He tried, and failed, to keep the sadness out of he voice. Eddie seemed to notice it straight away, "yeah, sure man. You wanna come over?"
Dustin nodded, an assurance for himself that everything was going to be alright. "Alright, I'll head over now."
This time, he was the one to hang up — Slipping on his shoes and rushing out the front door, not even slowing to grab his coat. He couldn't stay around and listen to his parents arguing any longer.
The night air hit him like a shock to the system — sharp and merciless against his overheated skin. He hadn’t grabbed a coat. Hadn’t thought that far ahead. His fingers felt stiff against the handlebars as he pedalled harder than necessary, the wind stinging his eyes until they watered. He told himself it was the cold. Streetlights blurred into streaks of gold as he rode, the rhythm of the wheels against pavement the only steady thing in his world. Every rotation carried him farther from the house. Not far enough. But farther.
Dustin had only been to Eddie's trailer a handful of times during the day, he wondered briefly if there was even proper heating inside, or if the cold would just settle into his bones the way everything else seemed to.
…
Dustin pulled up outside Eddie's trailer, bike wheels scraping against the dirt. The lights were on and he could hear rock music practically vibrating against the metal walls. There was a chemical smell in the air, like the one that always seemed to cling to Eddie's clothes but stronger.
He knocked on the door, the chipped paint scratching against his knuckles. Dustin heard shuffling inside before the door opened, Eddie's red tinted eyes looked down at him "hey, man." Eddie's voice slurred around the edges, and he stumbled as he stepped aside to let Dustin in.
Eddie was high — it was obvious in the unfocused tilt of his eyes, the way his movements lagged just a second behind his intentions.
The trailer felt smaller than Dustin remembered. The ceiling lower. The air heavier. Music pulsed against the thin walls, vibrating faintly through the floorboards.
Eddie’s grin was loose, unfocused — just slightly out of sync with the moment.
Dustin’s instincts prickled immediately. Something about the room felt unstable. Not dangerous in the explosive sense — but unanchored. Like stepping onto a dock that shifted beneath your weight.
He hesitated in the doorway.
Going home meant shouting.
Staying meant uncertainty.
He chose uncertainty. Eddie wouldn't hurt him, not willingly at least.
He sat himself down on the couch, something sat on the table that didn't belong—green and rough-looking, faintly fuzzy, like a crushed plant someone had forgotten to throw away. The smell was sharp and earthy, stronger the closer he leaned, clinging to the air and his clothes in a way that made his stomach twist. Whatever it was, it felt adult in a way that made his stomach knot — something secretive and reckless. Dustin became painfully aware that he wasn't in Mike's basement or his own bedroom. There were no safety nets here. No rules he understood.
Eddie sagged on the couch beside him, limbs leaning against Dustin's like a sack of potatoes. "So, what's up?" He asked.
Dustin tried to look anywhere but the table, but his eyes seemed to be glued to the unknown substance. "It's just my asshole of a dad..." He muttered, flexing his face where his dad had struck him — was it already bruising?
"Is he the one that gave you that bruise?"
Oh, it had.
Dustin nodded slowly, the motion stiff. Admitting it aloud made it solid — no longer just a burning feeling in his cheek, but something real enough for someone else to see.
"My father used to do that too," Eddie's voice seemed a little more sober now, a little more real. "How did you deal with it?" Dustin's eyes finally lifted off the table to look Eddie in the eyes.
Eddie snickered, like he was looking back on good memories. He looked over to the table, "I got high," Dustin followed Eddie's gaze, the stuff on the table. He pointed towards it, curiosity piqued — he hated it, but he couldn't help how it settled in his gut "with that?"
Eddie nodded, "yeah, weed works great."
Silence stretched between them, thick and waiting. Then Eddie tilted his head slightly, voice softer but edged with something unreadable. "You wanna try some?"
Dustin should have refused, he really should have. Maybe if he were in a better mental state he would have, but the small, subtle nod he let out had already decided for him.
Eddie smiled widely, like he didn't realise the severity of what he was doing — or was already to high to realise the consequences.
He reached for the substance on the table, "first, you roll it up in paper." He instructed, ringed fingers wrapping paper around the earthy powder.
Once he had secured it, he handed it over to Dustin who took it in shaky hands. "And then you light it," Eddie held up a lighter and stared at Dustin, as if expecting something.
"Well? Put it in your mouth,"
Dustin looked down at the joint before hesitantly lifting it to his lips, maybe if he thought that it was no different than chewing on pencils in math class it would take the edge off it.
Dustin felt the heat of the flame lighting the joint against his chin as Eddie flicked the lighter. "Now just inhale and relax," Eddie leant back and started rolling up his own joint, like what he had just done was nothing — like it didn't matter.
Dustin inhaled softly, not too deeply but the substance seemed to fill his lungs anyway. He coughed, clenching the joint between two fingers.
He doubled over as he gasped for air, it felt like it wasn't only filling his lungs — but his heart and brain too.
Eddie rubbed a hand on the younger's back, "do you want a drink? It helps, especially the first time."
Dustin nodded, yeah, water sounded nice.
He allowed Eddie to guide a glass to his lips and parted them so the liquid flowed inside. But he found that the 'water' only made him choke even more, it didn't even taste like water. But still, his throat was screaming for hydration so he downed the rest of the glass.
When the glass was finally pulled away, Dustin found that it had given him no relief. "Why... does the water taste funny?" He asked through coughs as he patted his chest like something was stuck in his throat — he just felt like he was suffocating, he hadn't eaten anything that could get stuck but he still felt like he was choking.
"Water?" Eddie blinked at him, confused. "That's not water." The word that followed landed heavier than the slap had. Alcohol.
Dustin's stomach dropped. He hadn't meant for this to spiral. He hadn't meant for it to become something bigger than just escaping for a night. But the room already felt tilted, like gravity had shifted slightly off-centre.
"I—I should stop," Dustin stuttered, fear overtaking him. Eddie's hand continued to rub comforting circles in his back as he spoke, "I was scared my first time too, but then I realised how good it was at making everything painful seem so quiet and distant."
Dustin knew — with startling clarity — that if Eddie were sober, he might be the one pulling Dustin back right now. Telling him to slow down. To think. But Eddie wasn't sober. And Dustin wasn't thinking about consequences. He was thinking about silence. About how, for the first time in days, his chest didn't feel tight. About how the noise in his head had dulled to something distant and manageable. Relief, even temporary, can feel a lot like permission. "Yeah," He shakily nodded, "okay."
The paper of the joint had warmed up between his fingers by now, he rubbed the surface of it between his fingers before bringing it back up to his lips. This time, as he inhaled he felt slightly more used to it. Like it didn't choke him as much anymore, it still felt bitter against his tongue but it felt as though he was used to it this time.
As he took puff after puff, he felt himself floating even lighter, thinking about his father even less. At some point, Eddie had refilled his glass with more alcohol before sitting down and rolling up his own joint. Dustin stared at the glass for a moment, it tasted horrid, sure, but when combined with the weed it made him forget everything.
So he continued, mixing the two of them together like the potions he used to make during bath time when he was younger. But this was different, more serious — this had consequences, Dustin just wasn't in the right mind to realise them right now.
It didn't take long for the headache to kick in, followed by a strong sense of realisation and dread. He shouldn't be doing this, his body was screaming at him — this is wrong, stop it. It begged.
And, to his own surprise, his brain listened.
He stood from the couch, body stumbling. Eddie was downing another glass of alcohol by now and didn't even realise Dustin leaving — it was like he had forgotten he was even there. He pushed the door open, the cool night air doing nothing to ease his fevering skin. He almost tripped down the steps as he stepped down into the trailer park, home, he wanted to go home — he wanted his mom.
His bike lay abandoned in the grass, tipped sideways like it had simply given up. Dustin barely registered it. The world felt too tilted to manage wheels and balance.
The ground didn’t feel stable beneath his feet. His steps veered slightly to the left, then overcorrected to the right. His body wasn’t responding the way it normally did — like the signals between brain and limbs had to travel through water first.
He blinked hard, trying to focus on something solid. The street. The curb. The faint glow of porch lights in the distance.
Home.
He just needed to reach home.
He found himself by the roadside, each car that whizzed past made his head want to explode. He just wanted his bed, he wanted to sleep. He tripped over his own feet and scraped his palms on the harsh gravel, he whimpered and pressed his face into the gravel.
The gravel bit into his palms and cheek, sharp and grounding. Tiny stones pressed into his skin through the thin fabric of his clothes. It hurt — but the pain felt distant, dulled at the edges.
Cars roared past in bursts of sound and wind, headlights streaking white across closed eyelids. The world kept moving. Loud. Indifferent.
Dustin pressed his face further into the earth, inhaling the scent of dust and asphalt.
If he didn’t think about where he was… if he didn’t move…
The ground was solid.
Solid was good.
Solid didn’t shout.
He let his eyes drift closed, body curling slightly inward — small again, instinctively protective.
Just for a second, he told himself. Just until everything stopped spinning.