I never know what to put for these made-up fanfic titles, but! how's "boy that's never been" sound? (or girl, which is the original line, or child, which has its own flavor)
oh boy that’s never been is perfect. Congratulations/commiserations, you’ve let me unleash probably the most tragic thing I’ve ever thought of.
warning: the first section of this will have a major character death. it’ll then be followed up by an alternative take where the character is initially believed to be dead but survives, so feel free to read both or one or neither. ❤️
-
It starts with laughter, with Dustin and Eddie jumping up and down, clinging to each other, riding the high of the most metal concert in the history of the world.
Eddie drapes the guitar pick around Dustin’s neck, like giving a medal to an Olympian. “Souvenir,” he says, grinning, and Dustin’s about to speak, to probably just reiterate just how fucking cool Eddie’s playing was, but then they hear the bats come through the vents, and the words fly out of his head.
They barricade the door, and Eddie is screaming at him to, “—go! Let’s go!”, and Dustin starts to hurry up the rope. He can hear the distant crackle of his walkie, Lucas’s voice shaking with relief, “It worked, it worked, he’s out of her head.”
Dustin looks back instinctively, because by all rights, Eddie should be right behind him.
But he isn’t. He’s just standing there, watching Dustin climb, and he’s got this look on his face, and Dustin suddenly thinks oh, don’t you fucking dare.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie says, just as Dustin’s about to ask the very same thing. “Go!”
“Not without you.”
Eddie shakes his head. And then his eyes widen; he looks up, somewhere beyond, and Dustin doesn’t know what it is that he’s seen, but his face goes white.
“Dustin, hurry!”
The world trembles; Dustin loses his grip on the rope, hears Eddie say, “Shit!” right before he falls, ankle giving way beneath him, and he lands flat on his back, aching and winded—
He opens his eyes. The Gate on the ceiling has knit itself shut.
“Oh, Christ, oh, Christ,” Eddie’s whispering, over and over, and he’s pulling Dustin up, “are you—”
Dustin whacks him on the shoulder. “What the fuck was that? You’re not getting left behind, asshole.”
And while he’s still so angry, Eddie must hear how his voice shakes with fear, teetering into anticipatory grief.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The swarm of bats are still scratching at the door; the wood’s splintering.
“We’ve gotta get out of…” Eddie trails off, eyes darting in thought. He glances down at Dustin’s foot. “Fuck, you can’t run.”
A chorus of demonic screeching, far too close.
“Okay, c’mon, I’ve got you,” Eddie says, and he’s bearing Dustin’s weight, half-carrying him outside. Dustin hears him curse as he slams his shield against the few bats that still remain, scaling the wired fence. He makes short work of them.
He leaves Dustin on the porch, runs for the bike.
As Dustin waits, he feels a new sharp pain in his ankle—looking down, he sees one of the bats that Eddie thought he’d killed, still weakly crawling on the ground, teeth sunk deep into his skin.
He kicks, stomps on it until it lets go. There’s a trail of blood seeping down from the skin around the fibula, and he’s a little light-headed, but he thinks that’s mostly because he’s looking at it, so he simply doesn’t anymore.
Eddie comes into view, pushing the bike with a frenzied energy. He’s muttering under his breath, “Where do we go, where do we go?”
Maybe it’s down to Eddie being so panicked—suddenly Dustin has no trouble at all focusing on a solution.
“I think it worked,” he says calmly. “They’ve killed him. That’s why…”
Eddie nods, face still so pale. “Are you saying we’re stuck down—god, there’s gotta be something we can—”
“Yeah, it’s sealing up,” Dustin says hurriedly, “but I—maybe not all at once. Maybe it’s in the order of the—”
“So. Chrissy,” Eddie says shakily, “then Fred, th-then Patrick.”
“We’ve gotta go to Lover’s Lake.”
Eddie breathes out, “God, you fucking genius.”
He sits forward on the seat of the bike, so Dustin’s got enough room to sit behind him. Dustin grips onto his jacket, presses the side of his face against his back.
“Hold on tight, Henderson,” Eddie yells, and then he’s off, pedalling for their lives.
Dustin can only pray that Nancy, Steve and Robin have come to the same conclusion—his heart leaps when he sees them running across the rocky bed, to the still open Gate.
They all dive through it as quickly as they can. The only pause comes when Dustin insists Eddie go in front of him, and Eddie looks ready to fight him on it; “No time,” Steve interjects, and he gives Eddie that same kind of nod he’d given before he left the trailer park. “I’ve got him.”
“Deep breath,” Steve instructs, voice deliberately even. “Good, that’s it.” He grabs onto Dustin’s hand. “I won’t let go.”
It’s a vow; Dustin knows it.
The two of them make up the rear. Swimming through the depths of the lake is hardly scary at all, not when Dustin can see Robin and Nancy break through the surface, Eddie right behind them.
Steve’s trying to make him go in front; he can tell from the way Steve’s urging him along—but his strong kicks mean he’s always slightly ahead, no matter how hard he tries.
Dustin’s still bleeding. He can feel it. He’s kind of glad that it’s dark, honestly; he doesn’t know what Steve would do if he could see it.
They emerge up above, gasping, and they’re almost at the boat, almost home, when Dustin feels the vine wrap around his ankle.
The first tug doesn’t pull him under. But Steve’s still holding his hand, so when it happens, he feels it, too.
His head turns in alarm, and his expression is scarily similar to Eddie’s as he watched Dustin climb up the rope; and Dustin knows that Steve will never let go, not even if it kills him.
So he does.
He wrenches out of Steve’s grip. He doesn’t have time to say I’m sorry, I love you, before he’s being dragged down, and just as he’s submerged, he hears Eddie scream his name.
He tries. But he keeps sinking no matter how hard he kicks, and then, even though it’s completely illogical, even though he knows it will kill him, he simply has to breathe in.
He swallows water. It burns.
And then the burning goes away, and it doesn’t hurt at all; he just feels so, so sleepy.
The faintest impression of arms around him. And even though it doesn’t make sense, it shouldn’t be possible, he still feels a final comforting warmth at the touch.
It’s Steve, Dustin thinks for the last time. He’s got me.
-
Steve emerges with Dustin in his arms. He barely registers the screams from the boat, just yells, “Someone grab him,” and lifts him onboard.
Robin gets Dustin by the legs, and Nancy gently lowers his head. As Steve climbs aboard too, he knows he cannot even look in Eddie’s direction for fear of the expression he’ll see on his face.
“Nance, count for me,” he says.
He starts chest compressions. She counts.
Two breaths.
Compressions.
Two breaths.
“C’mon, bud,” he says, “you’ve gotta breathe, you’ve gotta cough it all up, you hear me, Dustin? Come on.”
He keeps going. He keeps going even when Nancy finally stops counting.
“Come on,” he says. His voice breaks. “Come on, kid, come on.”
“Steve,” Robin whispers.
“Don’t,” he says, because there’s something in the shattered way she says it that snaps him out of it—that makes him see Dustin, so small and so still, and his hair is so wet, and he’d usually be so pissy about that, but he’s not, he’s not saying anything.
It’s Eddie who stops him. A shaking hand on his forearm.
“Steve,” Eddie says. He’s crying. “You can—you can stop now. He’s gone. He’s gone.”
“No,” Steve says flatly.
“He’s dead,” Eddie says. His fingers dig into Steve’s skin; he chokes on his words. On a sob. “God. He’s dead, sweetheart.”
A grief-stricken keen. Later, Steve realises that it comes from him: his mouth, his throat, his heart. He pulls Dustin close, in a desperate hug that can’t be returned, as if he could somehow shield him from a fate that’s already been given.
…
Or, in a world that’s perhaps a little bit kinder:
Steve is just a fraction quicker, keeps his grip on Dustin’s hand so they’re both yanked down, down…
Steve tries his hardest; he strains and pulls as they reach the Gate, and his last sight of Dustin is his wide, fearful eyes before he slips out of his grasp. He surges forward instantly, reaches for him, but then, like a sudden tidal wave, is pushed back, back—
The Gate’s closed. Gone.
Steve frantically searches the bed of the lake, cuts his hands on perfectly ordinary rocks until his lungs burn, and he has no choice but to kick for the surface.
Eddie’s in the water too; Steve almost hits his head on his dangling feet as he comes up for air.
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie shouts. He treads water erratically, and for barely a second, he goes absolutely still. “Oh my god. Oh my god, where is he?”
“The Gate—” Steve says, and then can’t go on.
Eddie’s lips tremble, move soundlessly. “This can’t be—this isn’t happening,” he whispers. He dives under not a second later.
For a wild moment, Steve almost follows him, even though he still can’t catch his breath. Nancy pulls him onto the boat before he can try.
Eddie resurfaces, barely draws breath before speaking. “So, what’s the plan? How are we gonna—”
“Eddie,” Robin says, reaching for him. “Get out of the water.”
He acts like he can’t hear her.
“Am I not fucking speaking English or s-something? Tell me what we’re—”
“It’s over, Eddie,” Nancy says quietly. “Vecna’s dead. The Gates are closed. We… we won.”
Eddie’s shaking his head. “No, no, this isn’t—just tell me what to do! I’ll do anything, I’ll—”
“What am I gonna tell his mom?” Steve says helplessly.
He doesn’t mean to say it. But Eddie definitely hears it, because his mouth twists in grief; Robin’s finally able to pull him up onto the boat. He rests his forehead against her arm and shudders.
Nancy waits for a long while before she starts to row them back, like she’s waiting on a miracle. But the water remains eerily still.
When the boat starts to move towards the shore, the awful reality of it all finally seems to sink in for Eddie. He moves out of Robin’s arms and his hand finds Steve’s knee, squeezes tightly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “S-Steve, I’m so fucking sorry, I should’ve—”
“Stop it,” Steve says. “You—you got him through—I was supposed to—”
I trusted you, and I was right; you brought him back to me.
“I let go,” Steve says through a wave of self-hatred. “I—I had him, and I let go.”
“Steve,” Eddie says, but Steve doesn’t deserve to hear the disagreement in his voice; there is nothing Eddie could say to ease this all-consuming guilt.
“I should’ve—he was my—”
Steve’s voice fails him, which is just as well. He doesn’t know how to finish that thought without it destroying him.
“I’m coming with you,” Nancy says, when they’re on dry land.
“What?” Steve says, exhausted.
“His—his mom. You’re not doing it alone.”
-
They might’ve won, but that doesn’t mean the town remained unscathed as each Gate shut. Violent tremors were felt all over; there’s a shortage of beds in the hospital, and there’s yet more people missing.
It helps Claudia accept it, at least. She’s not the only parent waiting in vain for a body to be recovered.
Nancy keeps her word, leading the explanation, but Steve forces himself to speak at the end, underlines that her son cannot come home—because he had seen how hope had destroyed the Hollands.
She nods silently.
You should hate me, Steve thinks. Hate me.
But the only emotion in her eyes is love—love and pain.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I wasn’t quick enough.”
“No,” Eddie says suddenly.
He’s kept quiet up until now, hovering in a corner. Steve had tried to tell him that he didn’t have to come, that it could be dangerous for him to be seen. But even before Nancy started talking, Claudia had never once threatened to call the police.
“It was my fault,” Eddie continues. “I—”
“That’s not true,” Steve says. “Claudia, don’t listen to him, he’s—”
But Claudia is just staring at Eddie.
“You didn’t kill that poor girl,” she says.
“No,” he says, voice hoarse. “No, ma’am.”
“Dustin.” Claudia takes a deep breath. “He was protecting you.”
Eddie’s face crumples. “Yes.”
Claudia smiles sadly. Steve doesn’t know how she’s doing it, how she’s still standing—the strength it must take, for her not to scream.
“You must’ve been worth it,” she tells Eddie.
He has to leave the room, a hand covering his face.
-
There isn’t a funeral.
Claudia insists on putting up missing posters, even though it’s clear from the dullness in her eyes that she understood perfectly well what Nancy meant when she said, we lost him.
“I know it’s—” Claudia breaks off as Steve helps her make more copies. “I just—I just thought. Joyce, she…”
Steve puts up the posters around town. He can’t stand the thought of bystanders pitying the hope of a grieving mother. Not again.
-
Claudia calls, tells him to come over to the house. She says she’s got some of Dustin’s things in a box, not a lot, but just in case—just in case…
“He’d want you to have them,” she says.
Steve has to stand with the phone in his hand long after she’s hung up, breathing heavily. Then he does the round of calls. Nancy, Robin, Eddie.
He needs someone there, he knows it, otherwise he’ll never go back in the house.
He can’t face the kids. Can’t face the fact that he’s failed them.
“I—I can’t, man,” Eddie tells him over the phone, voice brittle. “I can’t go back there. I’m sorry.”
Steve doesn’t blame him.
-
Nancy gets the hint and accompanies Steve as they head into Dustin’s bedroom. Steve tries not to look at the bed, the pillows still rumpled from when Dustin last—
He picks up the small cardboard box left on the floor. He scans the top of it. It’s small things. A book on Morse Code. An almost empty can of Farrah Fawcett spray.
Nancy’s hand’s on his back, not doing anything, just resting there. She reaches into the box and picks up the can.
“You did his hair, right? For the Snow Ball?”
Steve nods. “Yeah.”
She’s smiling. “He looked so—so sweet.” She blinks rapidly, still smiling. Eyes growing wet. “I don’t know if—if he mentioned it, but. I danced with—”
“Are you kidding me?” Steve laughs, and it gets close to dangerous, to the grief spilling out, before he pulls it back at the last second. “Mentioned it? When I picked him up, it’s all he talked about. Nance, you made him feel like the coolest kid in school.”
-
Robin sits in the passenger seat, puts the box in between her knees so the things aren’t rattling about while Steve drives.
And she laughs too, except it fades off into a sob. “I forgot.”
He puts a hand out, and she takes it. “What?”
“He’d taken my library card,” she says. “So he could, um, check—” She clears her throat. “Check out more books.”
Steve’s knuckles turn white as he holds onto her. She never complains.
-
Eddie… drifts.
In some sense, Spring Break feels like a bad dream. The trailer’s back to normal, no gaping hole to another dimension in the ceiling, and the police tape gets removed so quickly that it’s almost laughable. He doesn’t care that the suspicion around him has dropped in the wake of a ‘natural disaster.’
He doesn’t really care about anything.
He keeps in touch just enough to know that Claudia is staying with her sister for a little while, left Steve the keys for watering the houseplants, probably.
And then Steve calls him from the Henderson’s house phone.
“I’m—I’m sorry, no—no-one else was picking up,” he says. “It’s—it’s his cat, I can’t—”
“Missing?” Eddie assumes, because Steve sounds one breath away from a panic attack. “Hurt?”
“No, no, just—please, can you come? Please.”
So Eddie does.
He hates every moment of the drive, but he does it.
He finds Steve in the bedroom, and fuck, it still looks so lived-in, like Dustin’s just stepped out for a moment, the room filled with nerdy teen clutter. Eddie’s sure that if he looked closely, he’d find notes from old campaigns littering the desk, but there’s no way he can remotely handle that, so he doesn’t.
There’s currently a more pressing sight, anyway.
Because Steve’s standing by Dustin’s bed, and he’s not looking at Eddie, because there’s a little Siamese cat blinking up at him.
“He’s gone,” Steve is saying.
The cat mews plaintively.
“He’s gone, okay?” Steve’s words get harsher. “What do you want me to—? He’s gone.”
Eddie steps forward, scoops up the cat—doesn’t flinch when its claws dig into him. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you some food.”
He goes to shut the door behind him, but not quick enough.
Steve’s not once cried throughout all of this—not anywhere that Eddie could see, at least.
He’s crying now. Silent, trembling—sinking down to the bed, a fist clenched around the sheets.
Eddie closes the door.
He gently lets the cat go when he’s in the kitchen, finds a can of wet food soon enough, in a cupboard underneath the sink.
That’s where he finds the notepad, too.
And too late, he realises it’s Dustin’s handwriting, that this was a log he’d made of each time he’d fed his cat, making sure to not repeat the same food twice in a row. ‘TUNA’ he’d scrawled in an obvious rush, like he was heading off somewhere, and then Eddie sees the date.
March 22nd.
He doesn’t know that he’s crying until Steve comes up behind him, puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry,” Eddie gasps, “sorry, I’m sorry, I’m…”
Because this isn’t about him. Shouldn’t be about him.
Steve pulls him close.
I’m sorry, Eddie thinks. He was yours. I’m sorry.
“It’s okay,” Steve whispers. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
It sounds like, You loved him, too. It’s okay.
-
Steve spends the night at the trailer.
It’s late when Eddie wakes up to an empty side of the bed. He gets up, walks slowly, slowly until he can just barely squint into the living room.
Steve doesn’t notice him. He’s standing on a chair, arm outstretched. Fingertips brushing the ceiling.
“Are you there?” he murmurs.
Eddie’s heart sinks like a stone.
Steve waits in the silence. His hand shakes.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here.”
-
They both know what it means—the nights together, sleeping so closely, skin to skin.
One of them will find the other lying awake, and a chaste kiss will be pressed against a shoulder, shh, shh. They don’t talk about it, don’t initiate anything more.
Their world is too heavy for it.
Steve wants to tell Dustin anyway. Wants him to give them both so much shit for it, let his goddamn horrendous ego run wild.
Tell me again, Eddie whispers at two in the morning.
Steve breathes in, out. Starts the story with a ridiculous kid tugging red roses out of his hand.
-
“Come over,” Steve says. It’s nine o’clock at night. His voice is jagged. “My place.”
Eddie finds him just standing in the hall.
“Nancy called,” he says, too matter-of-fact. “‘Bout an hour ago, Holly’s Lite-Brite lit up, almost burned her. The power went off.”
Eddie tries to temper his voice, but when he says, “Steve,” he almost cringes at the pity in it.
“Don’t,” Steve says. “I know. I know. But.” He jerks his head upstairs. “I need you. I need you to—to tell me what I’m looking at.”
The bedside lamp is on in Steve’s room. There’s a book on translating Morse Code left open on the floor.
The light is blinking.
Steve searches Eddie’s face desperately. “That’s the—that’s what you did, right? SOS?”
Eddie picks up the book. Sits on the bed, knees weak.
“Yes,” he says.
Steve closes his eyes, exhales in a shudder. “Oh my god, you can see it. Okay, okay.”
He opens his eyes, and it looks like he’s fighting with himself, caught between wanting to say more and destroying the fragile hope he has.
So Eddie says it for him.
“Dustin?”
YES.
After Eddie translates, Steve stares at the lamp. His hand reaches out. Fingers curl around thin air.
“How do we know?” he asks. “How do we know it’s—”
DUMBASS.
Steve starts to laugh. A tear falls down his cheek.
“I can hear him,” he says. “Jesus Christ, I can hear him.”
And then Eddie can, too—so, so faintly. The tiniest giggle.
He sounds exhausted.
WATERGATE. TEAR. NOT STRONG ENOUGH.
“The—the tear?” Eddie says.
ME.
“We’re coming,” Steve says. His fingertips graze the lightbulb. “We’re coming, Dustin.”
HURRY.
-
They don’t tell anyone. Steve puts his phone off the hook before they leave, because Nancy is bound to call repeatedly.
They get into the boat and push off into Lover’s Lake without a word. It’s an unspoken agreement: they’ll get him back or die trying.
They dive together. Search the river bed, stones slipping through their fingers until…
A smooth ridge of plastic. Eddie’s guitar pick.
They pull.
The gap is small, but they make it—and when they emerge into The Upside Down, there’s no particles floating around, but the air is thin.
The landscape is disappearing. Dying.
Just next to the Gate lies Dustin. His hand is outstretched, like he’d fallen while reaching towards home.
“He’s not breathing,” Eddie says, hushed and terrified.
“Tilt his head back,” Steve says, already on his knees. They don’t have time to panic. “Lift his chin.”
“Okay, okay.”
“You’re gonna do the breaths, okay? One second, then—”
“I know, I know what to—”
“You got him?”
“Y-yeah.”
Steve starts compressions. Shouts, “Now!” to Eddie when it’s time.
One second. Pause. One second.
Repeat.
“Come on, Dustin, you’ve gotta breathe,” Eddie pleads through Steve’s counting. “We’re here, we’re here, you’ve gotta—”
Steve slams on his chest. Once.
“—breathe, we love you so fucking much, just—”
Twice.
“—breathe!”
Dustin launches upwards, into Steve’s arms, coughing, coughing.
Breathing.
“That’s it,” Eddie sobs, “oh my God, that’s it.”
-
They leave when Dustin communicates through shaky hand gestures that he can hold his breath. It’s far from ideal—Steve doesn’t like it at all, but there’s no way they can linger; the hole they’d made to break through the Gate is already threatening to close.
Besides, with both him and Eddie pulling Dustin up, it’s the quickest swim of their lives.
The Gate shuts behind them, as if it had never been.
-
Up to the surface. Clinging to Dustin, hearing him gasp, splutter.
“You with me? Hey, hey, you with me?”
Dustin nods; Steve pulls him on board, Eddie right behind in case he falls.
Silence. Breathing. Dustin up against his chest, shaking.
Eddie mutters, “Here, here,” passing over the towels that they’d brought with what had felt like foolish optimism.
“You—you d-didn’t bring a ch-change of clothes?” Dustin says, with biting, wonderful sarcasm. His teeth chatter, and Eddie wraps him in another towel. “D-do I do all the th-thinking around here?”
Steve’s answering laugh turns into weeping—he runs a towel over Dustin’s hair, sobs through a smile when Dustin whines out a petulant complaint.
“I’ve got you,” Steve says. He kisses his forehead. “I’ve got you.”
“I know,” Dustin says. He shuffles closer, cuddles further into Steve’s chest even though they’re all soaking wet. “Knew… knew you’d come.” His hand reaches to the side, fumbling for Eddie. “Sorry. Think I broke your… your pick.”
Eddie just shakes his head, tearful, a hand covering his mouth.
“Yeah,” Steve says, “I really don’t think he cares, bud.”
“My mom’s gonna freak,” Dustin mumbles. His head is nodding tiredly as he says it.
“Yeah,” Steve echoes. He swallows. “She—she will.”
Eddie picks up the oar. Dustin sighs, lax with sleep. Steve can feel him breathing.
And he’ll have changed in some ways—they all have, it’s inevitable. It would be naive to think otherwise.
But the glimmer of him is still there, in his voice.
He’s back.
Steve holds Dustin tight—keeps him as warm as he can as Eddie rows, taking them home, home, home.
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