i'll keep playing that goddamn song (if it keeps you alive.)
mentions of: blood, upside down flashbacks.
author note: this is the first time i’m posting something that i’ve written so please be nice 😅 i’m nervous.
word count: 823.
read on ao3.
goes with this moodboard
June, 1989
Dustin shouldn't be here.
He should be celebrating. With his friends. In Mike Wheelers stupid basement like he and the party have been planning since they were twelve. He should be there, not trudging through the headstones of Roane Hill Cemetery.
His suit looks good, tailored to fit him perfectly and even though it's longer now, Steve still helped him with his hair, just like he did for the Snow Ball of '84, he doesn't care about any of it now though, just counts the rows. 1...2...3...4... Until he finds what he's looking for.
Edward Munson.
Dustin smirks, he'd hate it, can hear Eddie telling him to scrap it off and write something cooler every time he comes here. He runs his fingers over the engraving, it's not even that old but it's mostly eroded away from all the profanities him and Wayne took turns scrubbing off that first summer after. It's clean now though as he leans back against it, fiddling with one of the rings on his fingers.
The intro to Master of Puppets plays for what feels like the 100th time in an hour—which is about the amount of time it took him to work up the nerve to actually walk here. It isn't as loud as it was that night, coming muffled through the shitty black headphones hanging around his neck—they're Eddie's... or they were Eddie's, they broke last month, sound only coming out of one side, Dustin has new ones now, orange ones hanging on a hook in his room, but he needed these ones tonight. The music is almost loud enough to drown out the sound of gurgling blood he still hears in his head... almost.
He turns the volume up a little higher.
"End of passion play, crumbling away, I'm your source of self-destruction."
It startles him, James Hetfield screaming in his ears, he usually restarts the song before he even has a chance too, forgets that there's still another seven minutes and thirty seconds of the song he’s never heard. Eddie never played him the part that comes after, just the intro over and over while he was learning it. Dustin can still hear him talking about how he'd sweettalked the girl behind the counter at the RadioShack to get him a copy early. If the after sounds anything like how he feels right now he doesn't care for it, as far as he's concerned, the after sucks...
He hits rewind and then play, sparking up the joint he had tucked behind his ear over the first strum of Kirk Hammett's guitar—it's the last of what he could save from Eddie's locker before Principal Higgins had it cleared out, kept it safe all these years, hidden away, special for tonight, doesn't care if it's still good or not. He doesn't cough anymore either, not like the first time, not now that he's used to it, just lets the smoke fill up his lungs and let's the too sharp edges of his mind turn fuzzy.
"Bad—ba..." His voice strains, squeaks and crackles like he's back stumbling through the upside down, ankle broken and throbbing, screaming for Eddie, the sound of bats screeching overhead. He turns the music up a little louder, wipes the clammy sweat from his hands on his fancy slacks and tries again, "Bad news first, right?" The silence of the cemetery tugs at him but he takes it as response enough, "Well, bad news... you weren't there." He blows out a shaky breath, blinks away the tears starting to burn behind his eyes and takes a piece of paper out of his suit jacket—folded, even though his mom told him not too. "Good news," He says, unfolding it, tossing it in front of the tombstone, "Good news, I finally graduated."
Rewind. Play.
Everyone had been there, his mom, Steve, Robin, hell, even Wayne was in the front row, the seat beside him left empty... He stares at it. His diploma, doesn't know why Eddie worked his whole damn life for it, it's just a stupid piece of paper, he thinks.
He leans his head back against the grave, tears rolling steady down his cheeks now, "You should've just ran."
The air in the cemetery seems to change, like something's on the other side of it, listening, feels like it's patting him on the shoulder rather than rustling his hair with the breeze. Or maybe it’s just the weed… making his bones feel like jelly and his eyelids heavy, he's too tired to hit rewind again so he decides to just let the song play, see if there's anything in the after worth listening too. And maybe Eddie's three year old weed still has some kick to it because he thinks that he hears it, something to still keep him playing the song over and over, something to keep him from floating away, something to make the after more bearable, he hears it, between the verses, between the strums of the guitar.
"I love you, man."
tags: @destroya2005
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