Chapter Text
After the whole mess of Vecna’s curse, somehow the party had more hangouts than ever. The Byers are currently living with the Wheelers, and everyone is going on with their lives as if nothing happened. Right now Dustin was at a party at the Wheelers’. He just felt tired, wishing for his old energy and joy back. It was just so hard, after what happened… Dustin had never understood how everyone moved on. Or maybe everybody is just pretending? Even then, how could they pretend so well? He was trying to be present in the moment, like Steve said, but every time he tried he started to slip back into the usual, hazy feeling. Dustin watched the party around him. He could see his friends talking and having fun, but their words and faces started to slip away. His mind started to zip around, playing random moments he connected to the people around him. He felt underwater, almost.
“Dustin!” a voice said, shaking his arm.
It was El Hopper trying to get his attention. She looked at Dustin with her deep brown eyes.
“Huh? What?” Dustin said, looking up, confused, realizing that he had let himself get lost in thought again.
“Um… Mike wants to play Dungeons & Dragons. Do you want to play?” El said.
D&D…Dustin hadn’t played that in a while. What was the last time he played D&D? Must have been Hellfire Club. With Mike, and Lucas, and… Eddie. Dustin remembered how fun Hellfire Club was, with Eddie being the perfect Dungeon Master, back when everything was okay. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to play; he’d missed spending time with the party like they were kids again. But now Eddie was gone, ripped to shreds by those Demobats. Dustin couldn’t shake off the image of Eddie’s cold, dead body. And it was all Dustin’s fault; if he would’ve made Eddie stay with him… he could’ve been alive, if…
“Dustin?” El asked with a concerned look on her face, “Do you want to play?”
Dustin was startled by El’s voice; he’d forgotten he was in a conversation. He hadn’t realized how tense he was. His heart beat was beating really fast, and he couldn’t think quite right. Every time he tried he just sent himself into another spiral of thoughts. Quietly, he uttered, “Uh, I think I need to leave.”
He ran out of the Wheeler house; visions of Eddie’s body kept flashing in his head. He was gone. So many people have died, Dustin couldn’t understand how everyone could just keep going, after everything. He needed to get away. Away from the party. Somewhere where he could be alone. He didn’t want people to see him crying. They’d ask him questions he couldn’t answer. Dustin tried his best not to think about it as he lifted himself onto his bike. Hot tears streamed down his face. He started biking as fast as he could, in no particular direction, not knowing where to go. Then he thought of it. The perfect place to be alone. The Upside Down.
~~~~~~~
This wasn’t the first time Dustin wanted to go to the Upside Down to be alone. It was the only place he could think of where he could be truly alone with his thoughts. Being with the Party was fun, but it was way too overstimulating. He couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. Dustin’s heart was laced with fear and guilt. Dustin would’ve gone before, but every time he came close to going, he thought of Eddie and it was too much for him. Plus Steve would be so mad if he knew Dustin went there. The Upside Down was dangerous as fuck, but Dustin had been dealing with it since he was twelve; he could handle a short trip down there, right?
Dustin started to bike. Without realizing it, he kept speeding up. Dustin felt the air around him pass by. His mind started to space off and his eyes lost focus. Nevertheless, he kept biking. He arrived at the trailer park way faster than he expected. The place felt eerie, because there was not a single person there. Because of the past year, most, if not all, people living in the trailer park had abandoned the park. Somehow though, he felt like someone was watching him.
Dustin ditched his bike near Eddie’s trailer and pushed back the police tape circling the house. Dustin ran up to the trailer and rattled the door until it opened. It creaked open and a layer of dust dispersed from the home. The home looked completely untouched. Abandoned. Dustin tensed up, he didn’t expect just coming back he would be so hard.
The rift to the Upside Down was on the ceiling in the living room, because that’s where Chrissy was when Vecna got her. Dustin looked up at it, trying to figure out how he was going to get up there. There was a small coffee table in the corner of the room, he could just use that. Dustin pulled the coffee table to the center of the room, and a cloud of dust exploded off of it. The whole house smelled strongly of strange Upside Down air, but Dustin was used to it. He reached up to the ceiling, grabbing the vines and pulled himself up through the rift, cutting the vines that were in his way. He cringed at the slime that got all over him as he pushed himself through to the Upside Down. His stomach did a belly flop inside of him as he flipped around and crashed down on the other side; his center of gravity flipped. He landed on the mattress they put on the other side, and dust flew out of it. Dustin caught his breath for a moment before standing up.
He felt a rush of adrenaline, followed quickly by his stomach lurching. He had never been to the Upside Down on his own. For some reason he felt accomplished in a weird way. He also felt empty inside, as he remembered what happened last time he was here. Being near where he last saw Eddie felt like an act of respect towards his life. Best of all, though, he was alone. Somewhere he could just reflect.
Dustin exhaled, not realizing he was holding his breath the entire time. He scanned the room, not sure what he was looking for, when his eyes caught on the makeshift ladder he and Eddie made to go on the roof. He precariously stepped towards the ladder; it was very weak and looked like it could fall apart at any moment, but Dustin decided it was worth a try. He started up the ladder when his foot got caught in the vines slowly taking over the room. It coiled itself around Dustin’s foot, pressing into his skin.
“Son of a bitch!” He exclaimed as he wiggled out of the vines' grasp.
“I forgot how annoying those vines are,” Dustin thought.
Dustin climbed up the ladder and struggled with the hatch to open the roof. Balancing on the rickety rungs of the ladder, he pulled himself through. Once on the roof, he inhaled a breath of putrid air. Dustin made a disgusted face, then he started violently coughing. He lost his balance and almost fell off the roof, but at the last second he centered himself. Dustin felt extreme unease for some unexplainable reason.
He sat down on the cold metal roof and stared up at the sky. It was a greyish green. The Upside Down had never been pretty, but Dustin sort of liked it in a way. Ever since he was a kid, he enjoyed being the one to figure things out about the Upside Down, like how the electromagnetic field messed with the compasses and what Dart really was. It truly was fascinating, well, if it wasn’t so evil.
Looking across the roof, he spotted something and froze. It was Eddie’s guitar. Abandoned on the roof. Dustin bit his lip, trying not to cry. The guitar, to distract the Demobats, was the last thing Eddie ever did before running out to distract the Demobats from Dustin. It was all his fault. If only he didn’t need to be protected, if he had just stayed in the rideside up as Steve told him to, none of this would have happened. He was such a failure. Why couldn't he just move on? It seemed like it was so easy for everyone else.
Dustin wrapped himself in a ball, and heavy tears streamed down his face. A sharp pain struck his leg. Dustin felt a wave of nausea come over him. His heartbeat quickened.
“What the fuck was that?” Dustin exclaimed in a panic. He let out a yelp of surprise upon seeing that there was a vine that had lodged itself into his leg. Blood dripped from his leg. He tugged on it, but it was pretty stuck in his skin.
“Shit Shit Shit!” He exclaimed as he tensed, ready to remove it from his leg. He was too focused on his leg; he didn't realize that there were more vines around him ready to strike. The vines started to coil around his left arm and his legs. He was all alone in the Upside Down; he had to get out of this on his own. He rolled over on his stomach to try to find something to cut the vines off of. He spotted a sharp piece of metal and reached for it. At the same time, the vines tightened around his skin, turning it slightly purple. He managed to grab the metal, but another wave of nausea passed through him, and an unexplainable pain shot through his blood. He was on the edge of becoming unconscious.
In a strange blur of pain and frantic movement, he managed to get the vines off of himself, and he was on the ground next to the trailer. He must have fallen, because his body ached in many places. He couldn’t quite remember how it happened. Looking up at the trailer, the vines were creeping down. Almost like they were chasing him… Instinctively, he started to run. He scrambled in a random direction, just trying to put distance between him and the vines, which were still chasing him. His sight blurred. He knew he had to get to the gate somehow, but that didn’t seem important right now. He just kept running.
He started to run out of breath, and somehow his thoughts were racing way faster than he could run. If only he was fast enough, he wouldn’t be in this mess. If only he could’ve moved on like everyone else. He tried reminding himself that he was a good person, but he didn’t mean it. He was filled with regret. He should’ve just listened to Steve and never came to the Upside Down.
Suddenly he ran into something. It was an Interdimensional Gate. Why would there be a Gate in the middle of the trailer park? Was there one that the party missed? Looking behind, Dustin observed that the vines were still chasing him, and they were catching up. Fast. Without another moment of hesitation, he hurls himself through the Gate. On the other side he lands in the dying grass. He sighs in relief. Pain shoots through his body. Those weren't some normal vines, they did something to him. Dustin was too tired to think about it, and it was probably time to go home.