Chapter Text
Contrary to what his friends currently seem to believe, Dustin is not dumb.
He spotted the trap they set up for him from miles away. First, it was Lucas agreeing to set up patrols again; they had stopped for awhile, once the military had swept in and started actively monitoring the active gates currently splitting Hawkins in quadrants. Lucas had been the most vocal about being compliant with the military's demands; his father had served once, and the last thing Lucas wanted was his access to Max getting restricted, Dustin had guessed.
But now it's October and Lucas had agreed, out of nowhere, to restart the patrols. Guess it can't hurt to be cautious, right? he had said, with a wary look in Mike's direction, and Dustin had slouched into his seat wary and skeptical.
Then, as Hopper and Nancy started outlining the pairs and patrol routes, Mike had, in a moment of total dumbassery, looked right at Dustin and volunteered their names together. Dustin couldn't outright protest it, not without making an ass of himself, but he had scowled and glared at Mike hard. I know what you're doing, he had tried to communicate with his eyes alone, I can see right through your bullshit.
At least it wasn't Steve. Dustin thinks he would've pitched a whole fit if the others had, once again, paired him off with Steve.
At first, he thought that was it. Mike would take Dustin towards the trailer park and try to talk to him, one on one, and it would be the most miserably awkward experience in the entire world. Dustin does not want to talk to Mike. He does not want to talk to anyone. He doesn't understand why he can't manage to get this point across without being invalidated for it every two seconds.
Of course, things couldn't be that easy. At the very last minute, as Dustin is strapping his spear to his back, Mike had flushed bright red. Oh no, I totally forgot, he had said, I promised Holly we'd hang out tonight. Hey, Will, you wanna go on a patrol?
And that was how Dustin found himself, spear slung across his back, arms crossed, marching across Randolph, with Will Byers dutifully following him in silence.
It makes sense now, Mike's whole scheme of getting Lucas to agree to a patrol. Will rarely ever leaves Mike's house nowadays, and when he does show up for their routine meetings, he barely participates; he wasn't allowed on patrols before, and honestly, Dustin's a little surprised he'd even gotten away with coming now, undoubtedly thanks to how late Mike waited before backing out.
It doesn't settle his nerves. If anything, he feels more riled up than he would've if it had been Mike he was sent on patrol with. There's a reason he's been avoiding Will, and now that they're alone… Dustin's stomach churns anxiously.
"Okay," he says, just to break the tense silence they've been sitting in since they left Hopper's cabin. "The plan is for us to loop around the trailer park, avoiding the military, and check the status of the gates, make sure they're not–spreading, getting bigger, or looking generally worse off. There hasn't been any monster sightings, so we should be in the clear; I really don't think this is going to do anything."
Will hums. "It can't hurt to check," he says quietly. He has a gun slung around his own shoulders, his hands fiddling with the strap every time Dustin's gaze strays to him out of habit; when Will had learned how to shoot, Dustin doesn't know, and he doesn't particularly care. "Hey, Dustin?"
Dustin groans. This is why he was avoiding Will; his friend has that patented mediator tone of his, sounding a lot like he did the time Mike and Lucas stopped talking for a week and not even Dustin could pull them out of their asses. Somehow, Will had coaxed them both to sit down and discuss their feelings or whatever, and because they were ten years old at the time, it had worked.
When they were twelve and Will was missing, Dustin had tried that approach, the mediator one, and… well, look where it got him.
"Stop," he says immediately, instinctively, speeding up his walking a little just to try and outpace Will before he can start spewing his typical bullshit. "I know what you're going to say, and I don't want to hear it."
"Dustin," Will just repeats, and he's speeding up too, matching Dustin's pace. "Look, it–it isn't what you think, I'm just worried about you."
This makes Dustin snort involuntarily. "Worried about what?" he snips, shoving a low hanging tree branch out of his face. "I'm fine, Will. You guys have gotta learn to mind your own damn business."
"Are you though?" Will, somehow, walks faster, speeding up just enough to all but cut Dustin off. Reluctantly, Dustin stops in his tracks, crossing his arms a little harder as he taps his foot impatiently. Might as well just bite the bullet and get this over with, he thinks; they haven't even reached their designated patrol spot. "It's okay to–to grieve, you know? But shutting us out, not letting yourself be supported–I can see the toll it's taking on you, Dustin, and I'm worried. I'm scared."
"You don't get to dictate how I grieve!" Dustin's voice raises against his own will, and, to his dismay, his eyes are starting to sting. Fucking Will Byers. "You don't get to decide how I'm feeling for me, do you know how messed up that is?"
"That's not–" Will groans, dragging his hands through his hair. He's grown in the time they spent apart; they haven't been physically close since the initial reunion right after everything happened during spring break, and Dustin hadn't noticed how much taller Will's gotten, the way he towers over Dustin even with the slouch to his shoulders and back. "I'm not trying to tell you what to feel, Dustin, god."
"Oh yeah? Sure sounds like it to me," Dustin snorts, stepping forward. Will steps back in response, and it sends a little spark of smug satisfaction down Dustin's spine. "I can't stand it sometimes, okay? You, and Lucas, and Mike, you all look at me like I'm fragile. It doesn't help! There's nothing fucking wrong with me, and none of you get it!"
Something like sympathy flicks across Will's eyes. His gaze softens, and he extends his hands outwards in a placating gesture. "I'm not trying to treat you differently," he insists, using that mediator tone again. "I just miss you. I know…" he hesitates, conflict flicking across his face, and then continues, "I know what happened to Eddie was awful–"
"-oh, spare me." Dustin scoffs. The audacity of Will to talk about Eddie; Will didn't know Eddie outside of passing mentions in their letters, Will didn't know what it was like to hold someone as they died, Will didn't know anything. Will wasn't there. The one time Dustin needed him, actually truly needed one of his original friends, and he wasn't fucking there. "You don't know shit."
This was a mistake. Dustin never should've agreed to patrol with Mike in the first place. The seeds of anger and resentment, the ones he's been smothering inside his chest for the past seven months, come sprouting to the surface, forming roots in his lungs and vines clawing up his throat.
Dustin does not talk about his feelings. He, on occasion, needles his friends into talking about their feelings, because their feelings are important and if they don't share their feelings they all implode and then Dustin's left behind whether he likes it or not. Dustin's feelings though? They're usually irrelevant and unnecessary. After all, it was his feelings that led him and Steve and Lucas and Max to near death in the junkyard, nearly driving a permanent wedge between himself and Lucas that still, years later, Dustin doesn't think they've ever fully mended. It was his feelings that drove him to recruit Steve and Robin and later Erica into getting stuck in a Russian spy base, once again nearly getting them all killed in the process.
It was his feelings that led Eddie to… to…
"I might not be able to fully empathize," Will is saying, with a wince on his face and conflict still written in his eyes like he doesn't even fully believe in what he's saying, "but nobody knows more about what it feels like to lose to the Upside Down more than me–"
Wrong thing to say. The seeds of anger fully blossom, and Dustin's hands curl into fists at his sides as the resentment, the anger, the grief overwhelms him, stealing his tongue and teeth. "That's right," he spits, full of a venom he thought he could swallow down before he was forced to endure Will playing mediator, "because you're so tangled up in the Upside Down you dragged us all down with you."
Will blinks. For the first time in their conversation – fight? are they fighting? – he seems at a loss for words. "What?" he breathes, eyes going wide.
Danger! All of Dustin's senses scream at him to stop. There was one line that their party had, once, sworn to never cross, and here he was, toe over the line, clenched fists shaking at his sides. He can already hear the warning sirens screeching in his brain, but he can't stop now, he physically can't.
"You think any of us asked for this?" Dustin gestures at the road around them, the way the grass is rotting and limp from the leaking of the gates that are splitting his town open. "It was fun at first; getting to play heroes, rise to the occasion, just like in our old campaigns. But we're not kids anymore, this isn't a fucking D&D campaign, and the only reason any of us are here, the only reason we're stuck risking our lives every single fucking day, is because whatever the fuck the Upside Down wants has to do with you!"
For a long moment, it's quiet. Dustin's chest is heaving with the force of his words, and Will is… standing there, looking shell-shocked, with that barely disguised look of hurt that Dustin once swore he would never, ever inflict upon him.
"...so you think this is my fault?" When Will does speak, it's quiet, the words barely a whisper. Dustin's heart aches at the sound, but not enough to tamper the seeds of anger still sprouting in his chest.
"Think?" Dustin laughs mirthlessly. "Isn't it obvious? Somehow, for some reason, you're the root of everything we've been through. We've all thought it, we all know it, but nobody's been heartless enough to bring it up with you because they're all too busy coddling you instead. Tough luck, Byers, spending all this time being worried about me when you could've been taking some fucking responsibility and actually helping us put a stop to what you started."
Will's mouth opens, then closes. His face smooths into a carefully curated mask of indifference, but not before the flicker of hurt flashes across his eyes once again. His hands lower to his sides, picking at the strap of his rifle. He doesn't say anything, doesn't argue or fight back, which… well, Dustin expected, because the only person Will ever stands his ground to is Mike and only for the sake of others, never himself.
Still, a part of him, the small part of his heart that had ached seeing the hurt in Will's eyes, is crying out. Fight back, it pleads, with a voice that sounds suspiciously like El. Don't let me win this fight so easily, fight back!
Will's not a fighter though, he never has been. Instead, with a small slump of his shoulders that means a conceded victory, Will spins on his heel and starts walking. With hands still clenched into fists and lungs still bleeding out from the roots lodged in them, Dustin lingers for half a beat and then follows.
The silence is agonizing. Dustin thought–well, he assumed that getting all of his buried-up resentment out of him would make him feel better, given how long he's let it fester inside of his chest. Instead, it sinks deeper into his stomach, twisting up in a way that feels a little like guilt.
Finally, they reach the trailer park. Even in the middle of the afternoon, the entire area is bathed in a dark red light, the pulsing of the gate only yards away. Most of the trailer park is under military lock-down, so it isn't like they'd be able to get close to the gate, but even this close to it, Dustin can feel the evil radiating from it, chills lacing down his spine.
"Okay," he says, as neutral as possible. He does not look at Will, does not want to see his friend's mask of indifferent calm. "The gate's still being monitored, and it doesn't look like it's spread at all, which we already knew about. God, this was such a waste of time."
"Dustin." Will's voice is so quiet, Dustin nearly misses it.
"What?" he snaps, still not risking looking at where Will's voice originates. "Finally have something productive to add?"
"Do you hear that?"
The immediate answer is no. Dustin almost groans out loud, but they've been dealing in the supernatural for… well, a long time, nearly four years, and dismissing Will's concerns just to be petty would be beneath him. That was Mike behavior, not Dustin behavior. So, instead, he shuts up, tilting his head in consideration.
For a moment, there's nothing, just the faint whistle of the wind and the faded, distant sound of whatever the fuck the military does while guarding the rifts. Dustin's about to scoff in Will's general direction – you don't have to make shit up to prove me wrong – until he finally does hear it; a rustle of leaves, a clicking sound that is distant but all too familiar.
"Shit," he breathes, smartly.
The shadows around the forest twist, the clicking sound gets louder, and then the twisted, sick form of a fully grown demogorgon comes launching out of nowhere, a flower-shaped maw extending with a violent hiss and a terrible shriek.
"Shit!"
Dustin scrambles backwards, his hands flying to the spear on his back. Curse his clever hands and affinity for building, he thinks to himself; the spear is fixed in place a little too hard, and his body betrays him, his shoulders popping as he tries to dodge the form of the demogorgon flying in his direction while fumbling with the spear at the same time.
It doesn't work. The demogorgon makes that clicking screech again, and there's a moment, as it comes closer and closer, where Dustin looks into the rows and rows of teeth that line its maw, the long, sharp claws that can tear through flesh as easily as paper, and all he can see in it is… death.
So this is how I die, he thinks, freezing in place. He's always had good survival instincts, has outrun monsters before, but all the resentment and anger that festers inside of him starts to simmer down, leaving only the emptiness of fear in its stead. This is how I die. Guess I should've seen it coming.
"Dustin!" Then, in a moment that feels like deja vu, hands shove him to the side, hard. Dustin makes a strangled yelp as he hits the ground, the demogorgon sailing through the space he once occupied. A moment later, and Dustin would've been toast, he realizes with a hammering in his heart, his breath caught in his lungs.
Will is on top of him now, but he scrambles off as soon as Dustin's brain catches up to the fact that despite everything, Will had just tackled him out of the way. No, no, no. Will, who is aiming the barrel of his rifle at the demogorgon, firing a shot that rings in Dustin's ears right into the monster's gaping mouth. It wails in outrage, stumbling backwards at the force of the shot, and then Will is dragging Dustin up by his shoulders, Dustin helpless but to follow.
"Shit, shit, shit–" the demogorgon is already getting back to its feet, screeching at them. Will starts to back up, but then he yelps, his foot catching on something that sends him flying back downwards–and he's still holding onto Dustin's shoulders, so as he falls, Dustin falls too, tumbling over him, and then his foot catches on the same something and he's slipping, slipping, falling, falling.
How he hadn't realized there was a gate right next to them, Dustin has no idea. Later, he might blame his conflict with Will for distracting him, but in the moment, he knows, he knows it was own fuck-up, his own fault for not paying enough attention to their surroundings. Not that it really matters anyways; he didn't see the gate, didn't notice that they were walking into a trap, and now there's a dizzying swoop in his stomach as, for the second time in his life, he has fallen right into the Upside Down.
He lands on his back, coughing immediately as the air turns heavy and wrong in his lungs, the faint afternoon light fading into a chilling darkness that permeates the dimension that has begun to swallow Hawkins. The ground underneath him is damp, his spear digging into his spine, and for a moment, all Dustin can do is stare up at the crackling sky and twisted, wrong shapes of the trees, the fear in his stomach sinking into his veins and lodging itself into his throat.
"Come on, come on, we have to go." That's Will, who is already rising to his feet. His hands, still holding the rifle, are shaking, but he's wearing that mask of calm; his eyes betray him a little, only because they've been friends long enough that Dustin can read the faint edges of panic seeping into his gaze.
Go? Dustin swallows around the thick air, but complies, shakily getting first onto his knees and then standing. He brushes off the hand that Will offers for help, finally managing to reach around his back and unhook his spear now that he's not completely frozen.
The gate, the one they had both managed to fall through, is already sealing up, the faint red glow sizzling into nothingness before their very eyes. The demogorgon is still on the other side, but, as Dustin draws his eyes to the various scrapes he's managed to accrue in the past minute, he knows probably as well as Will does that it's only a matter of time before they are being hunted once again.
"Shit," he says again, rather helplessly. The cold of the Upside Down is already stinging his skin. This can't be happening. I can't be back here, I can't–
"Dustin." A hand grabs his own. Will's hand, attached to Will, who has slung his rifle back across his shoulder, who is now looking at him with wide eyes full of a steeled determination that nearly covers up his fear. "The gate's closed."
"I can see that!" Dustin snaps, tone raised in hysteria. "Do you think I can't see how royally fucked we are?"
"We're not fucked," Will says a little insistingly, accompanied with a wrinkle of his nose and a deep exhale. "But it's going to come back, so–so we need to go."
"Shouldn't we wait for it to come back?" Dustin can barely hear himself. "How else are we going to get through without alerting the military? We can't just–we can't just run."
"We'll never get around it," Will points out. "And even if we do, it'll just follow us. We can't outrun a demogorgon. We need to hide."
Dustin scoffs. "Oh, and I suppose you know so much?"
He regrets the words immediately. Will has tensed up, not because of Dustin being mean to him on purpose, but with something that is a lot like familiarity, a quick adjustment to their surroundings; because Dustin is wrong. Will does know so much, because Will is still the only person to stay in the Upside Down for longer than a handful of hours and live to not-tell the tale.
But Dustin hates nothing more than admitting when he's wrong, so instead, he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I suppose we don't want to lead the demogorgon to the Squawk," he admits, the closest he will ever get to an apology right now, "but where do we even go from here?"
Will bites at his lip. "I know this area," he says a little vaguely. He's still gripping onto Dustin's hand, and Dustin nearly yanks it away if not for the warmth it brings him. "Follow me."
With that, Will turns, taking off into the underbrush of the Upside Down with careful steps. Dustin, still connected to Will, is once again helpless but to follow.
~~
Will leads Dustin to Steve's house.
Well, it isn't the same house, being in the Upside Down and all, but it's close enough to make Dustin bristle as soon as they start to approach and he recognizes it. He understands why Will had led them here, in theory – from Dustin's own knowledge of their town and its layout, he knows that Steve's place probably is the closest home to their current location – but he also knows how close that puts them to the Lab, and, more importantly, how badly Dustin does not want to be here.
He doesn't stop them though, not as Will steps over vines and hops his way inside, and Dustin follows the movements, avoiding the vines with a wince. On the way over, he had heard the faint screech of the demogorgon, but it had faded the further away they had gotten, which means, once again, that Will was right.
And god, doesn't that sting. Dustin swallows the sting down, letting it nestle with the still sprouting seeds that have begun to sprout again now that the severity of their situation has settled.
As soon as the door shuts, Will releases a deep sigh, his shoulders slumping as he finally looses his grip on Dustin's hand. "Okay," he breathes, his voice quiet and low, "okay. We need–we need a plan."
"Oh, now you want a plan?" Dustin laughs humorlessly, giving their surroundings a once-over. It… certainly looks like Steve's house, if Steve's house was infested with vines crawling over the walls and if he replaced all of his lights with an eerie blue glow. "You didn't have one when you tackled me into a fucking gate, and now we're trapped in the Upside Down because all the big gates are being monitored by the military, so great going there! I mean–god, Will, did you think any of this through?"
Will does not answer him. Will's eyes have gone glassy, his gaze somewhere far away, and his hands tremble as he presses them against his face. His knees shake, and then he's sinking down onto them, curling into himself in a move very reminiscent of his thirteen year old self.
Once again, guilt rises in his stomach, and Dustin swallows around it. You really fucked up, huh? The sound of his guilt, again, sounds like El, which is not helpful.
Talking to Will when he's in this state isn't going to be efficient, he recognizes immediately. Instead, Dustin sighs, and he sinks down onto his knees as well, letting his spear clatter to the ground as he stares at the vines lining the walls, tapping his fingers together as the silence hangs heavy between them.
He hates it here. The heaviness in the air reminds him of the bats. The dampness of the house, of every surface here in the Upside Down, makes him think of blood, syrupy and thick against his hands. Will and the rest of his so-called friends wanted him to talk about his problems? Well, they certainly succeeded in something, since now he's trapped in the same place Eddie died.
Dustin can't do this, can't pretend to be fine in this place. With a shuddering sigh, he thinks; well, at least he isn't alone, even if the company he has isn't exactly his ideal.
Could be worse, he thinks with a grimace, could've been Mike. That would've been a nightmare.
Oh god, Mike.
Mike, who, after a period of time where he pretended himself being an asshole wasn't a massive turn-off to everyone that knows him and that he hadn't clearly done something when Dustin was away from them that finally, definitively put a wedge in the previously untouchable Mike-and-Will dynamic, had finally returned to form. For the past several months, he had placed himself right at Will's side, Will's own personal guard dog, bristling and snarling at anyone who even looked at Will the wrong way. It was why Dustin could only air out his grievances when Mike wasn't around, after all; he knows he's in for a lashing when they return and Will inevitably tells Mike all the horrible shitty things Dustin had spat at him and then their friendship will be ruined, permanently, which is what he wants.
Is it what he wants? Dustin shudders; he doesn't know anymore. But he does know that now, the lashing he's going to receive when he sees Mike again is bound to be a hundred percent worse, definitely friendship ending. Mike is going to lose his fucking shit knowing that Dustin got himself and Will dragged into the Upside Down, and they'll never talk again, and Dustin won't have to keep pretending around him because he won't be around him at all.
It'd be a good thing, he tells himself, stealing glances every so often in Will's direction. Will still has that glassy-eyed look, and his breathing is quick, and if Dustin were a better friend, he'd probably lean over to give Will a calming touch, to remind Will that they're alive, to do something that might alleviate the clear panic Will is experiencing. Instead, he only feels that rage, because how dare Will shut down right now?
They need to work together to get out of here, and then Dustin will finally be cut out of the party for daring to hurt Will and breaking the unspoken rule, and it'll be deserved because he might lightly regret the words but they didn't come from nowhere and he's tired of being the only one who wants to admit it out loud.
It'll hurt, being cut out of the party, but it's not like Dustin hasn't seen it coming; not since the long stares Lucas gives him at school, not since the irritation that Mike shows him in their shared literature class, and not since Will came back to Hawkins and stepped back into their group like he hadn't left it in the first place. They don't need him anymore, clearly they never have, and the only person who might've understood him is dead so there's nothing Dustin can do about it except delay the inevitable and he's so, so tired of it.
With that thought lingering in his brain, settling into an unsteady acceptance, Dustin glances at Will again and finds, to his own surprise, Will looking back at him, gaze finally present and not distant and far away. Finally.
"Okay," Will finally says, with a deep breath and a rake of his fingers across his hair. "We're in the Upside Down. The only gates currently open are being monitored by the military, which makes our options for getting out limited. Nobody knows we're here yet, but they'll get suspicious when we don't come back from patrol."
Dustin leans against what small section of the wall doesn't have vines, crossing his arms. "We need a plan," he agrees.
Will gives him a tight-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "The first step is survival," he says. "The air isn't completely unbreathable, but it'll start hurting after a couple of hours. As you know, everything here is connected; that includes the trees, the vines, everything, so our best bet is going to be staying indoors as much as possible." He gestures vaguely towards the kitchen. "There's no natural water here, but canned food and bottled water still exists; it's a little gross, but we can't afford to be picky, not here."
He recites all of this in a monotone, his lips pursed as he ticks at his fingers. "We don't have the numbers to get a drop on a demogorgon, so we can't get out the way we came. El… she used to have the ability to open gates, but it was hard for her then and she's stronger now but we don't know if she'll be able to open another one, or how long it'll take her." Will takes another deep breath. He's started fidgeting with the straps of his gun again. "So I think we should act on the presumption that we're going to be stuck here for awhile, which means being careful."
He's… not wrong. Once again, Dustin is reminded that Will does, in fact, know this place better than anyone else he knows, and the thought makes him a little queasy. He's going to be so useless here in comparison, he realizes, and that, if nothing else, is sickening.
Desperate for a chance to prove that thought wrong, he fiddles with his hands. "Well, if we're going to be stuck here," he starts, "shouldn't we look around for… clues, evidence, anything that'll help us get the jump on Vecna when he shows his rotting face again?"
Will blinks. "We'll have to be careful," he repeats, with a small shake of his head. "We're trying to avoid the monsters, not dive headfirst into their hunting grounds."
"Well, we can't just sit here doing nothing." Dustin stands up abruptly, careful still not to touch the vines, and he scowls down at Will, keeping his arms crossed. "I don't want to be here any more than you do, so we might as well make something of it." A thought crosses his mind. "We can start at the Lab. I know it's nearby, and Vecna was a test subject there. There's bound to be information about what he was like back then, something that might give us a clue to his plans or how to defeat him."
Will looks uneasy, but he stands too, pulling the sleeves of his jacket over his hands. "Okay," he agrees, but he doesn't sound enthusiastic about it. "You want to go to the Lab? Fine. Let's go to the Lab." He pauses, tilting his head. "But first, we should rob Steve's house. We're going to need food and water."
"You have fun with that," Dustin waves a hand in his direction dismissively.
Will gives him a pinched look, but he doesn't protest, slinking off in the direction of the kitchen. Dustin watches him go, his chest squeezing.
It'll be fine. It's a good plan, he thinks, one of the only plans they have for actually doing something useful while they're here. It'll keep them from the only other place Dustin can think of that might offer some insight into Vecna's motivations; the Creel House, which Dustin would rather avoid forever than dare approach with Will in tow.
As Will scours the kitchen for supplies, Dustin leans against the door, tapping his foot against the ground, and he thinks. He doesn't know much about Hawkins Lab; everything he does know is pieced together from the stories El has told him in private and all of the snooping that Nancy and Jonathan had done while Dustin was busy letting his friends down. But Will has been there, had spent an entire year ditching school once or twice a month to head down to the Lab , which means once again, it'll be a place that Will knows and Dustin will have to trip over himself catching up.
If only El were here. Dustin doesn't actually want her here, in this place, but her company has been… probably the most tolerable of anyone's in the past seven months, and for a moment, he misses her.
Dustin?
He misses her so much, he is apparently hallucinating her voice.
Dustin, can you hear me?
Dustin blinks. One moment, he's standing in the entryway of Steve's house, listening to Will rummaging through cabinets half a room away. In the next, he's standing in an empty blank space, complete nothingness.
Well, nothing except El, who is beaming at him. She's wearing her wetsuit, which means she's in her bath. Her hair is slicked back, and Dustin hates it immediately; sometimes, when he visits her, her hair is loose and curly and pretty and she actually looks human, not the superpowered machine the rest of the group tends to treat her as.
"Dustin," El says again, bright and cheery and relieved. "I was unsure if I could bring you here. You can see me?"
"I can see you," Dustin confirms, and he gives her a shaky smile. "It's… really good to see you, in fact. You weren't kidding about getting stronger."
El smiles, looking a little pleased at the compliment. Then, her expression smooths, concern flitting through her eyes. "Where are you?" She looks around the void, her nose wrinkling. "You and Will have not been responding. Everyone is worried."
"Yeah, so about that," the resentment seeds are back in full swing, Dustin swallowing around them. "We ran into a demogorgon just outside the trailer park. Fell through its gate, so now we're stuck here. On the other side. It's a shit situation."
El blanches. Her hands fly to Dustin's, but they don't touch; she once told Dustin that she's never really been able to touch people in her void without making it disappear. "Are you okay?" she asks, actually sounding concerned. "Will is with you? Is he okay?"
Ugh. Dustin groans, offering El only a shrug. "We're not injured," he tells her, "and we have a plan. Half a plan. We're going to snoop around."
"I can get you out," El says. She sounds resolute, firm, but Dustin knows her, can see the anxiety in the way her shoulders tense up. "It will take… time, but I can get you out."
"Don't push yourself too hard, okay?" Dustin swallows through the sinking in his gut. "I don't want to be stuck here, but I don't want you to hurt yourself trying to save us. We're… we're fine."
For a moment, he thinks El will take this, smile at him that kind way she always does. Instead, she wrinkles her nose again, her lips pursing. "Will is okay?"
And… and Dustin knows that El cares for Will. It'd be hard for them not to care about each other, seeing as they lived as siblings for over half a year on the other side of the country, but all that means in this moment is that El, too, is another person he might lose when she finds out how horrible Dustin has been to Will here, and losing her… it hurts worse to think about than losing Mike and Lucas.
Still, he can't keep the bitterness out of his tone. "Will is half the reason we're stuck here in the first place," he says, inhaling sharply, "and he doesn't ever fucking talk about what he's feeling, so if you really want to know, you might just have to ask him directly."
El frowns at him. "I tried," she admits, "but his mind is… blocked off, from me. It is strange. I'm worried."
Dustin snorts. "Of course," he mutters. Of course Will is so closed off not even El can get into his head. He doesn't voice this, doesn't want to risk El realizing the extent of his resentment towards his friend, but he can't help the thoughts. "I'll… I'll keep an eye on him, okay? I might be angry with him," understatement of the year, "but he's still part of our party. No party member left behind, remember?"
Relief flicks across El's face again, and she nods with a small smile. "No party member left behind," she repeats, and she reaches out again, then hesitates, thinking better of it. "Keep each other safe. I will contact you when we decide how to get you home."
That same relief warms Dustin's chest, and for the first time in the past hour, he feels a little better about the situation he's landed himself in. "I trust you, El," he says, and he means it, giving her a small smile of his own.
The last thing he sees, in the void, is El's smile turn smug and pleased again. Then, he blinks, and the void is gone, leaving him stuck in the Upside Down form of Steve's house once more.
At some point while he was communicating with El, Will must have finished stocking up, because he's standing in front of Dustin now with worried eyes. Somehow, he's found a bag that's now slung over his shoulders, the rifle on the other side, and he looks… a little too prepared, a little too ready.
And Dustin can't stand the way he's looking at him, so he huffs. "I spoke to El," he says. "They noticed our absence already, so they're working on a solution. We have nothing to lose going to the Lab anymore–if we ever did in the first place."
Will smiles thinly. "That's good," he says. "Um. So. You ready to head out?"
He sounds nervous. Dustin grimaces, but nods. "Lead the way, oh wise one," he snarks, stepping out of the way and gesturing towards the door.
Will sighs. He adjusts the bag, slides the rifle into his hands. Dustin reaches for his spear in turn, clenching it tightly as Will finally pushes the door open and, together, they head out into the vast expanse of the Upside Down once more.
~~
The walk to the Lab is quiet.
Dustin hadn't really gotten the chance to take in the scenery last time he was down here, and he was too busy stewing on the walk to Steve's to pay attention. Now, as Will takes the lead and Dustin trails behind him, he can finally look around, and what he finds is… not pleasant.
The trees are long, bare of any leaves or foliage, stretched up to the sky that is rumbling with thunder every other minute. The vines cover everything; they stretch over bark and limb, crawl along the ground, making the entire walk a minefield they have to hop and step around. The air is heavy with the spores floating in the wind, and each clap of thunder overhead makes Dustin wince in anticipation.
Above all, it is quiet. The quiet is definitively a good thing, considering the fact that they're probably being actively hunted, but it is smothering. Plus, it's fucking freezing, and Dustin had been dressed for a Hawkins autumn but he doesn't think anything could've prepared him for the bitter chill that sinks into his skin the longer they spend in this hellscape.
If the cold is bothering Will though, he doesn't show it, and Dustin knows it has to be bothering him; Will wears long sleeves in summer now, and he's currently layered in what Dustin is sure is one of Jonathan's shirts and one of Mike's jackets. But he's not shivering, or complaining about the cold, so Dustin grits his teeth and pretends to ignore it.
Finally, they reach the Lab. In the real world, it was shut down nearly two years ago, left abandoned in the wake of Nancy and Jonathan's prying, but somehow it looks even worse here, covered in vines, looming ominously against the crackling red-and-blue sky storming overhead.
It's menacing. Every sense of self-preservation Dustin has is screaming at him to not go in there. But Will does not hesitate, just marches through the gate swinging listlessly open, and if Will has the bravery to go in against his better judgement, Dustin can't back out. Not now. Not when this was his own fucking idea.
"Okay," Will says in a low voice, once they've made it to the entrance of the Lab. His eyes are dull. "This place is… huge. Any idea of where we should start?"
Dustin only shrugs. "You're the one that's actually been here before," he points out.
Will winces at this, a grimace flitting across his face before it smooths back into that careful mask of neutrality. "I wasn't exactly exploring," he says. "But Hopper said that the water tank was downstairs, basement level, so maybe we should start down there."
Wasn't that where the original mother gate was? Dustin shivers; he really, really doesn't want to go down there, but it's a solid idea. "Better than walking around aimlessly," he agrees. "Let's just… get this over with."
This time, he takes the lead, navigating to the stairwell. The only sign that Will is following is the careful sound of his footsteps against the tiled floor. Dustin does not bother to look back; he doesn't know what he'll see on Will's face, and he's not prepared to look, not yet.
As they descend, though, the silence that followed them from Steve's house is even more oppressive. Will still has not brought up any of the accusations Dustin had leveled at him before, and this… pretending to be more fine than they actually are is starting to drive him a little bit mad.
"So are we going to just… not talk about it?" he finally says, once they've traversed the entirety of the stairs. The hallways here all look the same. El would know how to navigate this place, he finds himself thinking with a wince; he really, truly would not wish coming here on anyone, and especially not El.
"Talk about what?" Now that they're not walking down stairs, Will has sped up just enough that they're more or less walking side by side, avoiding the vines together in a near-sync.
"You, trying to therapize me," Dustin says, punctuated by a roll of his eyes, "me, pointing out how little you've been doing to help us."
Will turns his head, fixing Dustin with a flat look. "I've been navigating my literal worst nightmare because you think there might be answers here," he says, but his voice is still so flat; there's no emotion in it, nothing that betrays what he's really thinking. "Just–do you really think I don't want to help?"
"Let me think," Dustin tilts his head, offers Will a sarcastic smile. "You haven't done any patrols before this one, which only happened because you and Mike and Lucas started conspiring against me. You barely show up at meetings. You haven't told anyone what the Upside Down was like for you, when I know that you've been asked, despite the fact that it might reveal something about why you were chosen. So, yeah, forgive me if I think you might be holding out on us, just a little bit."
Will goes quiet. Dustin scoffs, shoving past him to gaze into a room. He doesn't really know what they're looking for; something about Vecna, yes, but where that information might be, he doesn't know. Most of the rooms look empty, small. This is really where El grew up? Something lodges into his throat, thick and painful. God, this must've been awful for her. Once we get out of this I'm giving her the biggest hug.
"I don't remember much," is what Will finally says, once the silence has started to stretch out. When Dustin glances over at him, he's staring at the walls, his gaze focused and pointedly not on Dustin. "About the Upside Down, I mean. Most of what I remember is… vague, blurry. I remember what I had to do to survive, but not any of the details."
Right. Dustin swallows thickly. "Yeah, guess that tracks."
"You didn't convince me, by the way," Will says, with a little tilt of his head. He slows to a stop, all but forcing Dustin to stop with him. "That's why I haven't talked about it, or whatever. I don't think you believe any of what you said to me."
Dustin scowls at him. "What do you know?" he asks, metaphorical hackles raising. "What does that even mean?"
Will just gives him a tired look. "I think," he says, slowly, "that you were very attached to Eddie, and he died in your arms. That would mess up anyone. It's scary, because he represented normalcy to you, a life outside the Upside Down. You don't want that to happen again, so it's easier to become unattached, to push everyone you care about away so that when they leave you, it's their fault and not yours."
Dustin blinks once, twice. His hands clench into fists. "Fuck you, Byers," he sneers. "You don't know me, you didn't even know Eddie, so shut the hell up."
"No, it has to be said," Will steps closer to him, and he's biting at his lip, eyes suddenly full of that sickening concern he had before. "That's why you're mad at me, and I get it. Lucas is going through the same thing as you, so you can't be around him but you can't really be mad at him either. Mike wasn't there, but he was friends with Eddie, so you can't bring yourself to hate him. But me?" he smiles sadly. "I'm the easy target. I didn't know him, I wasn't there, and… you're right, Dustin, I am connected to all of this in a way that the rest of you don't have to be."
"Shut up," Dustin repeats. Will's words wash over him, and… and it stings, how easily Will had managed to read him in such a short amount of time. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't, he doesn't.
"So I'm not mad," Will continues anyways, still with that sad smile, still acting so unbothered. "Just worried. Not because I think there's something wrong with you, but because I miss you, and I care about you, and I don't want you suffering alone; trust me, it only hurts worse in the long run."
"Shut up!" Dustin shakes his head. He doesn't know what he's talking about! "I don't need your pity, Will, I'm not–you're wrong, you're wrong."
But Will doesn't look convinced, and he's so… so understanding, so patient, there was a reason he was always the mediator, why their party splintered the first time when he was missing. Will is, and has always been, the best one of them all, the most undeserving of everything the world has put him through – well, aside from maybe El – and it hurts, seeing just how much shit Dustin can pile on him without him getting angry and just fucking fighting back.
Dustin thinks about what it was like, seeing his fake dead body in that quarry all those years ago. He thinks about Barb, and Billy, and Eddie, all victims of the Upside Down, all people who failed to come back when Will, somehow, had. He has his theories, he knows that Nancy has some of her own kept close to her chest, but they've never been able to talk about it because Will had never attended those fucking meetings and when he had, he was distant, not paying attention, with his guard dog keeping careful watch and snapping at them if they even broached the topic of Will's time in the Upside Down.
"You're wrong," he repeats, with a little more conviction, "because I wasn't lashing out, I was stating a fact. Somewhere in this lab, we're going to find the answers, and I would place money on them all leading to you, and the fact that you're not concerned with that possibility tells me all I need to know."
Will's smile finally slips off his face, that familiar hurt flashing in his eyes once again. Dustin forces himself to look away; he can't face that expression, not without his resolve crumpling. Will has such nice hugs too, that traitorous voice in his head thinks, and he shudders.
"Whatever. We just–we need to keep going." Dustin clears his throat, grimacing as he realizes that they're coming to a fork in the hallways. "And maybe we should split up. I can't–it'll be more efficient."
Nevermind that splitting up is a bad idea in any situation, nevermind when it's two people trapped in the Upside Down. Will makes a sound like he might protest, but Dustin shoves around him and storms off towards the left before Will can say something in retaliation.
~~
If the silence of walking to the lab was bad, the silence walking alone in the lab is even worse.
Dustin scans each room he passes. Left with nothing but his own thoughts, checking each and every room is the only way to stave off the turmoil plaguing him. Will's words still churn in his brain, ringing through his head, and he hates it, hates that after all the work he put into creating distance between them, Will still managed to read him so well.
After maybe ten minutes of solitude though, he's frustrated enough to admit that Will… wasn't wrong. When Dustin thinks, even vaguely, about the party breaking apart, it was always with the assumption that they would just… get tired of him, of dealing with his anger and grief and depression, leaving him in the dust, and then he'd be justified in his treatment of them because if they couldn't handle him at his worst, why would he want them there at his best?
If Mike had been the one trapped with him, they undoubtedly would've already reached that point. It would be easy to push his buttons; Dustin knows, from his time spent with El, that Mike had fucked up sometime in between leaving Hawkins and coming back during spring break, that the two of them are barely on speaking terms nowadays, let alone still dating. El hasn't told him much of whatever had happened between them, but her silence had said enough; it was Mike's fault, which means Mike had lost yet another person to his own teenaged angst, and yet, somehow, he had managed to rekindle his friendship with Will.
Dustin remembers how lonely Will had been, in their time apart. Apparently, Dustin was the only one who kept up with writing letters, which meant that when Will was homesick, or friendsick, or just sick in general, Dustin was the one Will was writing to about it, spilling his guts about how he never managed to make new friends in California, about how he was sure that the party, though fraying at the edges, would be strong enough to handle anything in the end, that they all love each other with an unspoken but not me left in between the pages.
The guilt from earlier comes clawing back to the surface, settling in Dustin's throat. He swallows around it, swearing under his breath when he feels his eyes starting to sting, mortified. Half a year ago, Will had trusted him, loved him. Half a year ago, Dustin didn't have any problems with Will, and now… now, they're falling apart, and who's really to blame for that?
It was easy to place blame on Will for not being there, for not being involved, for being all the way in California when Dustin had really, really needed him. Easier still, to add onto that blame; to be angry with Will for getting stuck in the Upside Down four years ago in the first place, for being the reason Dustin was even involved in this mess. But Dustin knows better, knows just how much Will had wanted to be there, how he would've thrown himself headfirst right back into danger for the sake of the party because that's just who Will is.
And Dustin, damn him, misses him. He misses the Will who sent him a poster for his science fair project, who was the only one of his friends to show any interest in Dustin's inventions after summer camp, who held the party together until the loss of him drove them apart, who even now, in the middle of what was undoubtedly his worst nightmare, was still trying so hard to look past the anger Dustin has given him and find the good instead.
It doesn't matter. As soon as Mike finds out about what was said, he'll tell everyone else, and then they'll all hate him, and considering even Steve has already given up on trying to talk to him, Dustin will finally be alone and it will be what he deserved and no amount of guilt threatening to choke him or remorse that he only feels in solitude will change it.
Fuck. Dustin kicks a vine-less section of the wall. It doesn't really make him feel better, but the stinging that accompanies the kick helps curb some of the guilt, helps take his mind off of his impending doomed friendship. Dustin shakes his head, rubbing his hands together. I can be moody and angry about this later, he tells himself. I have to find something before Will does.
He turns another corner, and then falters.
It looks like the same as any other hallway, blank and bland and downright eerie in the dim Upside Down lighting, lined with rooms. The main difference is that the rooms, here, have numbers above them.
Two paces down is a room with a dull 11 etched into the top. Dustin swallows, curls his hands into fists once more, and then steps forward, the door creaking open as he peers into it.
El's room, here, is… sad, mostly. There's a little paper taped to the wall, a drawing of two stick figures holding hands. There's a tiny cot in the corner, and not much else. Dustin lingers, his chest aching; this is how El grew up, he thinks, with a sniff. This is where she lived the majority of her life. Here I am, wallowing in my grief and self-obsessed pity.
It's not like he didn't know already that El is the strongest person he's ever met, he just… doesn't think he's ever really internalized it the way he is now, staring at the bare bones of her room in another dimension. Just like, and he already hates his own line of thinking, he doesn't think he truly understood what Will had gone through until he was here, with him, watching the way Will had immediately shifted into survival mode the second they landed in the Upside Down.
Compared to them, Dustin's a nobody, a pathetic nerd who could only handle a fraction of the pain both of them had experienced without breaking. He had been sure, so sure that Will couldn't understand his pain, that El was the only one he could turn to without feeling pitied, but now… now, he's not so sure. Shame he fucked it all up.
Just as the thought is crossing his head, the room around him spins, melts, and then Dustin's stumbling forward, in the void once more. It's like I summoned her, he thinks to himself, tries to let the giddiness of that override the guilt.
El is waiting for him. Her eyes are more tired than before, and she's still wearing the wetsuit, still full of that familiar determination. "Hi again," she greets, almost shyly. "We have an update."
"Thank god," Dustin sighs, crossing his arms as he takes her in. "We, uh, found the Lab. Split up to search it."
"You split up?" El frowns, like she's going to protest the decision – which would be unnecessary, because Dustin knows it was a bad one – but then she shakes her head. "No time. I can open a gate."
"You can?" Dustin looks at her with wide eyes, swallowing nervously. "It isn't–too dangerous?"
El shakes her head again. "When I opened the first gate," she begins, taking a deep breath, "it was because I made a connection. I found the demogorgon. It created a link. It allowed the demogorgon to enter our world."
"It wasn't your fault," Dustin says immediately. He has to let her know; if she's thinking about this, her opening the first gate, it means she's been sinking into the guilt that opening the gate had instilled in her, he knows that from their conversations.
Thankfully, El doesn't look particularly haunted; she gives him a tired smile. "I know," she reassures, sounding grateful nonetheless, "but that is the truth." She pauses. "After talking, we believe I can… do that again. Create a link, and use it to open a gate. But this time, that link will be to you. It will be…" she pauses again, clearing her throat in frustration as she searches for the right word; Dustin waits patiently, knowing better than to rush her. "Temporary," she finishes after a moment. "It will close once you are through."
It sounds a little too good to be true, but Dustin… if he can't believe in himself, he can at the very least believe in El. "Sounds great," he admits, wringing his hands out a little. "We haven't found anything yet though. When? Is this supposed to happen?"
"I will need to recharge," El says thoughtfully. "And, if you are at the Lab, we will need to send a team to retrieve you." She pauses, again. "Mike will be there," she admits. "He has been… very worried."
Worried for Will, maybe. Dustin tries not to let the annoyance he feels bleed through.
"Hopper says we will be ready in an hour," El says, like she's reciting information; probably conferring with Hopper at the same time as being in the void, which truly just showcases how strong she's gotten in only a matter of months. "You must be ready in an hour."
"An hour," Dustin repeats, mostly to himself. "Cool. Yeah, that's… that's good. We're probably on the right floor, we'll find something in an hour, definitely."
El smiles at him again, something fond and warming and more than what Dustin deserves. If only she knew what I've said to Will. "I believe in you," she says. "Now I must go and recharge. Be careful."
"Yeah. Uh, you–you too."
The void vanishes, and Dustin is left standing in El's old room once more. He stands there blankly for a moment; an hour really isn't much time, and for all the confidence El seems to have in him and his researching capabilities, he doesn't know if they'll actually manage to pull it off, making this whole trip nothing more than a waste of time.
Whatever. He musters all of that false confidence, squeezing his hands into fists. He'll find something. He will. He will.
"Dustin?"
Fuck! Dustin groans at the sound of Will's voice, but reluctantly, he moves, slipping out of El's room. Down the hall, Will is peeking his head around the corner, making a come-hither gesture with three of his fingers. "I found something," he calls.
"Of course you did," Dustin mutters under his breath. Still, with another groan, he moves, trudging down the hall to meet Will at the end of it.
Will only waits long enough for Dustin to catch up to him. As soon as Dustin reaches him, Will turns, taking off towards what first looks like just another section of the wall; Will pushes at it with one hand, and the "wall" creaks, swinging open.
"A fake room," Dustin muses, "how original."
"There's records in there," Will says, gesturing ahead of him. "But I haven't read them. Wanted to wait for you."
The admission sends something fluttery down Dustin's nervous system. The guilt lodges itself back in his throat; god, it'd be so much easier to hate Will if he weren't just so goddamned nice. "Thanks," he mutters, half under his breath, and then he pushes into the room, not waiting to see if Will heard him or, worse, if Will responded.
Surely enough, the room is full of filing cabinets. There's a table covered in documents, ones that Dustin can only read with a flashlight, the words too small for the dim lighting; which he immediately pulls out, slipping into the chair left forlorn at the table while Will rummages around the rest of the room. Dividing and conquering.
With nothing left to do but wait for El to open a gate, Dustin flips through the documents, gripping his flashlight tightly in one hand as he skims through.
Most of it is legal and medical jargon. In proper circumstances, Dustin might be able to interpret it, but he ignores the bulk of what he's found, flipping through until he strikes gold.
And strike gold he does.
Halfway through the documents, Dustin finds a sketch that catches his eye. He squints down at the page, frowning to himself. "I think this belonged to Brenner," he comments out loud; not really to Will, just talking to fill the silence. "I guess he was involved in some experiment back in the 20s; or, not him, a relative? Man, this is dense."
Will doesn't answer. When Dustin glances up out of the corner of his eye, he finds Will leaning against the cabinets, a frown on his face as he also reads through something he must have found. Dustin almost asks him what it is he's found, but… well, they'll have time to recount whatever information they've gleaned when they get out of here, so instead, he turns back to his own reading.
The more he reads though, the more confused he grows. Brenner writes about another dimension, one he labelled "Dimension X". He wrote of the Rainbow Project, some experiment his father was apparently involved in, and how an entire ship had gone missing; his father was the only one to come back, and he came back changed, physically altered.
Brenner had been obsessed with Dimension X, had studied everything his father left behind in a desperate attempt to figure out how they had accessed it. He had tried replicating the experiment, but all attempts were unsuccessful–at least, until he had stumbled upon a blood sample from a kid in the 50s, one that suggested that the kid might exhibit the same physical alterations, suggesting that this kid, this random kid, had somehow accessed the other dimension.
Brenner theorized that this secondary dimension was in another plane of existence, making access impossible without a wormhole, something to bridge the space between. Dustin pinches the bridge of his nose. Is this the wormhole? Are we physically in the wormhole, right now?
It still doesn't fully explain the Upside Down, or how to defeat Vecna, or anything Dustin had walked into this Lab expecting to find, but it is a start. With a blazing determination – and the knowledge that their hour must be nearly up, for how long Dustin's been reading – he gathers the documents, glancing up at where Will is standing.
"I forgot to mention," he says casually, trying not to grimace at how awkward he sounds, "El is going to open a gate directly to us in…" he glances down at his watch, "five minutes. Wow, time flies when you're researching. So maybe we should gather everything we can into your bag."
"Uh huh," Will doesn't look up from whatever he's reading. In the dim lighting, he looks pale–paler than usual, his eyes glassy.
Dustin frowns. He steps towards his friend, curling around to peer over his shoulder. "Will?" he questions. "What did you find?"
"Nothing!" Will snatches the paper out of Dustin's sight before Dustin manages to read even a single word, his hands trembling. "Nothing important. What were you saying?"
He's hiding something. That irritation bubbles inside of Dustin's stomach again, and he frowns harder, reaching for the bag slung over Will's shoulder to carefully tuck the documents inside. "Is now really the time to hide shit from me?" he says instead of answering the question. "If something in that paper is important, you have to say so, you can't just…"
But Will only shakes his head, and he takes a step back. Then, slowly, he slides the bag off of his shoulder, opening it. "We can talk about it later," he says faintly, adding his documents to Dustin's. "You said we have five minutes?"
"Until El opens the gate, yeah," Dustin nods, but he doesn't take his eyes off of Will, giving him a careful once-over. Whatever Will had read clearly had affected him; his eyes are glassy even still, his hands shaking as he zips the bag closed. He almost looks like he's seen a ghost, and Dustin just… cannot fathom why. "So we have some time. Talk."
Will purses his lips. For a moment, it almost looks like he's going to give in, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound escapes him.
Then, his gaze fixates on something behind Dustin's shoulder, and somehow, he goes even paler. "Dustin," he breathes, even his voice shaking in fear, "when I say go, you need to run."
Dustin blinks. "What?"
"Go!" Will reaches forwards, grabbing Dustin's hand, and then Dustin is being helplessly dragged forwards, out of the archives room, out into the hallway.
At the far end of the hallway, the air has somehow darkened. There's a hissing in the air, a sharp sound that Dustin would almost mistake for wind if they weren't currently indoors, and the darkness… it almost seems to be moving, creeping closer to them. What the fuck?
"Come on!" Will yanks his hand, and Dustin turns away from the darkness, stumbling over his feet as Will bolts and Dustin follows, hand in hand.
They run through the halls together. Every time Dustin glances behind him, the darkness seems to creep in a little faster, following them steadily; there's no way we're outrunning this, he can't help but think, struggling just to keep up with Will. Whatever the fuck this is.
All thoughts of El opening the gate soon are gone. Will launches himself up the stairs, and Dustin scrambles behind him, their intertwined hands the only thing keeping him from being left behind. The hissing grows louder still, and the darkness winds up to follow; Dustin pants for breath, forcing his legs to move faster, harder.
"Shit," he breathes out once they've reached the ground floor. The entrance is in sight now. "Will, we're supposed to meet the group on the other side in like, a minute, wait–"
Will skids to the entrance, and then he stops completely, Dustin nearly running straight into him by sheer momentum's sake. "Shit," he whispers.
Dustin, stumbling to a halt, peers out the open doors, trying to understand what on earth might've possessed Will to sprint through the lab like a maniac only to stop now.
Then, he blinks once, twice, because what he sees out there, he cannot entirely comprehend.
The storm perpetually churning in the skies here has grown darker, stronger; that isn't the freaky part. What is freaky is that now, there's a giant shape forming, shadows twisting and coiling and forming something that Dustin has only seen twice; once on paper as a simple drawing, and once in person back in Starcourt last summer, though it had only been a fucked up entity made of poisoned flesh and rot.
"Is that…" Dustin trails off, staring blankly into the sky where the gigantic, shadowy form of what could only be the fucking Mind Flayer itself towers over them.
Seeing it in person is terrifying. Will, next to him, has gone completely still, his eyes wide and full of fear. This isn't the first time he's seen this, Dustin realizes immediately, and he swallows thickly. God, how does someone see this and not crumple under the weight of it?
He already knew that Will was a lot stronger than anyone ever gave him credit for, but standing here, staring up at the Mind Flayer, only cements the thought. Dustin is, quite possibly, the world's worst friend.
I'll apologize to him later, he thinks, swallowing thickly again, once we're out of here. I will apologize to him, and we will have an actual discussion, because holy shit. Holy shit.
Behind them, there's a faint red glow. Dustin doesn't have to turn around to know what it is; he can feel it, a small pulsing in his chest as El forms the connection to him, allowing her to tear open a gate. A gate that will close, very soon; they're out of time, officially.
"Will, we have to go," he says, glancing over his shoulder at the space where the gate has formed. It's already small; they really, really won't have long before it closes, and who knows if this is something El can do again? "El's opened the gate, we have to go."
The hissing gets louder. One of the giant tendrils forming the Mind Flayer's body hurdles towards them, touching ground like a giant tornado made of shadow and smoke.
"Hey Dustin?"
Dustin looks at Will. Will, who has a sad little smile on his face. Will, who is shrugging off his bag, looping it over Dustin's shoulder before Dustin has the time to protest. Will, who hasn't even touched his gun, who squares his shoulders and grits his teeth and he looks so resigned, determined and yet hopeless at the same time.
"What… what are you doing?" Dustin stares at him blankly.
Will's smile goes shaky. In front of them, the tendril is growing closer and closer. "The papers I put in there, it'll explain most of it," he says simply. "But… you were right, Dustin. I am the reason this is happening, and I always have been. I think it's time that I… what did you say again? Take some responsibility?"
"No, Will, I didn't–" Dustin makes a strangled sound. He steps forwards, reaching for Will's hands; he'll drag him out of here if he has to, he's not losing another friend to the Upside Down, he's not, he can't! "That's not what I fucking meant, I didn't mean it, Will."
But Will steps out of his reach, shaking his head. "I can't let it hurt you," he says calmly. "This is… I was always going to end up here, one way or another. I can't stop it, Dustin, and I'm too scared–if I keep prolonging it, more people are just going to get hurt."
"What are you going to do?" Dustin can't keep the fear, the horror out of his tone. He reaches out again, but Will steps away, again. "Will, please. I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, don't do this–!"
Will's eyes glisten. "I'm sorry too," he murmurs.
Then, he does something fucking crazy. Will makes a gesture with his hands, and from the gate, vines shoot out, curling around Dustin's ankles, his torso, faster than he can blink. Will gestures again, and those vines start retreating, and Dustin stumbles, falling to his ass as he's dragged backwards, towards the gate, the gate that will close the moment he slips through it.
"Will!" Dustin wails.
The last thing he sees before being swallowed by the gate is the sight of Will turning around, standing firm as the tendril of the Mind Flayer reaches him. It engulfs him whole, and Dustin screams.
Then, he's gone. Dustin tumbles through the gate, the vines retreating as the gate starts sealing up. Immediately, there's a pair of solid arms hauling him to his feet, a cacophony of voices calling his name, and he can't hear them, can't hear anything, can't do anything except stare at the place where the gate has now sealed up entirely.
The air is fresh. The sky is dark, not because of a never-ending storm, but because night has fallen. The world has righted itself, and yet Dustin finds himself sinking to his knees, clasping a hand over his mouth as some of the voices follow him down.
"Dustin, Dustin!" That's Mike, who has a hand on Dustin's shoulder, shaking him back to full awareness. Mike's eyes are wide, and full of horror, and he peers into Dustin like he can read his mind through eye contact alone.
Maybe he can, Dustin thinks with a choked laugh, considering Will just commanded vines to launch me through the gate.
Will just launched me through the gate.
God fucking damn it.
"What happened, kid?" That's Hopper, hovering but not kneeling, eyes squinting in confusion. "Where's–"
"Where's Will?" Mike interrupts, shaking Dustin's shoulders again. "El said you two were together!"
Dustin opens his mouth. What does he even say? We were together. I told Will that he started this entire thing and that he needed to take responsibility, and apparently he took that to heart even though he told me he knew I didn't mean it. Oh god, I didn't mean it, shit, I really really didn't mean it.
All that comes out, as his mind replays the image of Will being swallowed by shadow, is a sob. Then, he's crying, sobbing harder than he has in months, curling into Mike's shoulder if only for a sense of security. Mike wobbles underneath him, but holds him anyways.
"It's my fault," he chokes out, when he finds his voice and finally manages to speak. "He stayed to save me, he sacrificed himself to save me, it's all my fault."
Mike's hand stills on Dustin's shoulder. Dustin can't afford to look at him, can't bring himself to see the look in Mike's eyes, the anger and blame he'll find there; rightful anger and rightful blame. Instead, he rubs at his eyes, pulling away from Mike entirely, sniffling shakily.
"...we'll get him back." There's something dark in Mike's tone, and Dustin, startled, finally looks at him. There is anger in Mike's eyes, but it doesn't seem directed in Dustin's direction; instead, his friend stands with clenched fists, protective fury burning in his gaze. "We're going to get him back, I swear it."
Hopper reaches out a hand. Dustin takes it, lets himself be pulled back to his feet. "Tell us everything, kid," he says gruffly, with a touch of concern. "El said you were looking for answers here, did you find some?"
Dustin swallows, nods slowly. "Will said–" he falters, "he said the answers were in here, he was reading something. Wouldn't tell me what it was, but it must be important."
"Then we'll go over it together," Mike decides. He stares at Dustin, and Dustin stares back, wondering if Mike can see the guilt that has now fully overtaken anything else. You're going to get kicked out and nobody will ever be your friend again.
Instead, Mike extends a hand. "It's good to have you back," he says, and he says it so sincerely, like he genuinely means it, like Dustin hadn't just doomed Will to being trapped in the Upside Down in the grasp of the Mind Flayer once more. "Come on. We'll reconvene with El, and come up with another plan. This isn't over."
Dustin doesn't deserve it, Mike's sincerity. The seeds planted in his stomach have finally fully withered, and all that's left is a hollow numbness, a total disconnect of his mind and body, a weary quiet that doesn't quell the grief that the resentment has been hiding but doesn't stifle it either.
He doesn't deserve it, but he can't, he can't let the last things he ever said to Will be out of misplaced anger and targeted grief. "A party member requires our assistance," he chokes out instead, and it doesn't help, doesn't stop the guilt, but it does make Mike nod a little eagerly. "Yeah. Okay. Let's talk to El."
With one last, lingering look at the space where the gate had been, Dustin allows himself to be led out of the lab, towards Hopper's truck. Steve is there, sitting in the passenger seat, and he's watching them with almost-concealed concern. Dustin has missed him so much.
He climbs into the back, the bag in his lap, spear still slung across his shoulders. We're getting you back, Will, he promises in the safety of his own mind. I will not let another one of my friends die for me. We're getting you back, I promise.