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He finds himself standing on the edge of a cliff, staring out over a long and familiar drop. Dustin blinks as the echo of a ghost bounces between the quarry walls, drawing him closer and closer. Unlike the last time he stood over the quarry edge, there’s no water at the bottom of this well.
He scuffs his foot over a rock before sending it over the side. Like last time he watched something go over the cliff edge, there’s no sound that follows. But in the Upside Down, with its constant storm overhead and long drop to dirt and rock below, there wasn’t much chance he’d have heard anything, anyway.
Dustin’s stomach churns, but he can’t pull his eyes away. There’s no water in the Upside Down, either. With no water in the quarry, the drop down looks a lot deeper than it had when—
His breath hitches. Jesus fuck. He glances around once, looking for, well, anything, really. Demogorgan, bat, or, shit, Vecna himself. But it’s just him. Him, and a familiar fall, and the echo of a ghost.
Thing is, he’s sure he should have followed that voice over the edge by now. For a moment, it was like he’d been possessed. One second, he’s trailing behind the world’s most frustrating love triangle, navigating the desolate forest on their way to Hawkin’s Lab, the next, he hears Eddie’s voice and his feet begin running of their own accord, leading him through the clearing to Sattler’s Quarry. But he stopped short just before he could run right over the side, something gnawing at the back of his mind.
What the fuck is going on? Dustin thinks to himself, squinting at the rocky maw.
Whatever this is, whatever’s happening to him, it’s not the same curse Max was under. It’s not the same virus that took over Will. There’s no one coming for him. No monster, no man.
He remembers ghost stories passed around the fire at Camp Know Where; sailors lured to watery graves by siren songs. Could Mike, too, have been lured by Will’s voice, all those years ago? Is that what this is? Will wasn’t ever dead, but maybe the quarry is home to sirens that know what haunts you even before it’s gone. Dustin could just laugh at the theory—it’s almost poetic, if a little on the nose.
He could never leave this world alone. What had he told that librarian? He was on a curiosity voyage. Well, look where his ship led him this time.
“Henderson!”
A new echo overpowers the ghost song in the quarry walls and startles Dustin from his thoughts. And, shit. There’s only one person that could be.
The same person Dustin’s spent months trying to make hate him. All so he might not chase after him when Dustin’s running toward cliff edges. Of course he still chased after him. Dream or no dream, Steve Harrington is one more shadow Dustin can’t seem to shake.
He listens to Steve’s footsteps grow closer and thinks he should respond, or better yet, just go to him. But he’s frozen where he stands. If this is a dream, if Vecna has Dustin under some spell, ready to torment him with images of dying friends, then his only way out may be over the edge.
But there’s something so different about Steve’s voice. Something far more tangible than Eddie’s echo. Almost like it’s real.
Please be real, he thinks.
He knows Steve’s found him when the footsteps break into a sprint. Shit, he thinks. Maybe this is Vecna’s curse. Which means at any second Steve could start morphing into that burned and vine-ridden creep. Dustin does not want to be watching for that.
“What the hell were you thinking, man?” Steve shouts as he approaches. “You can’t just run off on your own and not say anything! You know better than that. Not here—not after… Henderson?”
Dustin can’t help the wet laughter that’s bubbled from his chest as he imagines the frazzled look on Steve’s face. Even here, Dustin can’t escape one of Steve’s worried lectures. Once, that would’ve been a comfort to him. If this is all a dream, Dustin thinks he’d like to revel in his friend’s company one more time, before the nightmare begins.
“I ever tell you ‘bout the time Mike jumped off this cliff to save me?”
“What?” Steve breathes, his footsteps stopping short. Just out of arm’s reach.
If Dustin confesses this unspoken sin first, Vecna can’t use it against him. Right? Rocking on his heels, he takes a breath and recounts, “It was that week Will was missing… Troy Walsh and James Dante came after us. Chased us through the woods. We’d just reached the quarry when Troy grabbed me and put a knife to my neck.”
Behind him, Steve inhales sharply, but stays silent.
“Said if Mike didn’t jump he’d cut me. And I told him not to—I begged him not to.”
Dustin palms at his eyes, trying to stave off the tears that threaten to spill over like waterfalls into the drained quarry.
“Asshole didn’t listen, and I didn’t—I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t break out of Troy’s grip, I couldn’t stop him—either of them.”
“Dustin—”
“If El hadn’t shown up, he would’ve died. And it would’ve been all my fault.”
“Dustin.”
“Can you hear him?” Dustin asks, abruptly. He turns his face toward Steve, but keeps his eyes looking out over the edge.
“Hear who?”
“Eddie.”
Finally, Dustin tears his gaze away from the dark depths to spare a glance behind him. He catches Steve’s face as it freezes and turns ashen. It’s far more emotion than he can imagine Vecna capable of displaying. Or maybe he just knows all of Steve’s reactions like the back of his hand at this point.
Sometimes, the siren’s song would only reach one sailor. Sometimes that one sailor might end up steering his whole ship into a storm.
“I hear him,” Dustin whispers, his voice cracking. He faces the quarry again. “He’s in my head. And he’s calling me. And if all this is a curse, or, I don’t know, or some new game Vecna’s thought up just to fuck with me then just get it over with.”
Steve’s quiet behind him. Then:
“Christ, Henderson.”
It sounds painful when Steve speaks. Like it had 18 months ago after he was strangled by demobats and vines—all rough and raw and exhausted. When he found Dustin crumpled over on the ground with a corpse in his arms. Dustin doesn’t know what to do with that. So he does what he’s best at these days. He lashes out.
“God, shit, just tell me that I fucked up! Tell me it’s my fault, that I’m too cocky—anything! Just stop—stop staring at me like that.”
“Take a step forward, man,” Steve says with a steely voice. Cold and detached. That’s better, Dustin thinks.
But then he looks down, and realizes he’s backed up to the very edge of the cliff. One more step and he’s gone. That’s all it takes. He stares entranced at the void below. So deep, he can’t even see the bottom. He’s so close.
“Dustin,” Steve’s voice breaks. “I need you to walk toward me, right now.”
If there’s no water in the Upside Down, Dustin wonders, then where do the sirens hide? In the rocks or in the deep? It would be so easy, he thinks. The void and its echos grow louder, and Dustin stays still.
“Fuck off,” Dustin spits, though he’s sure Steve notices the way he tremors, even if he can’t hear the song that’s calling. “I don’t need you to save me. You’re not the babysitter anymore, Steve.”
“Henderson, will you just—”
What if it never ends?
“Jesus, are you deaf, now too, or just slow? I don’t fucking want you here.”
What if it just goes on and on forever and ever and it never fucking ends.
Steve scoffed and ran a hand through his hair, “Yeah, good effort, Henderson, but it’s not gonna work. You don’t get to weasel your way into my heart and then back out. I’m done walking away from you.”
Steve’s more worked up than Dustin can ever remember seeing him. Even in the dark, he spots the redness in the older boy’s eyes. Dustin inches away from the edge, a small step forward. Steve takes two.
“You can hate me all you want,” he continues, “and—and wish it were me who got ripped apart by those bats, and I’m sorry that it wasn’t, but I am not leaving here without you, so will you just—please, get away from the edge.”
And, shit, that just about kills him. It kills him because that’s when Dustin realizes it’s not a dream at all. Vecna’s not behind any of this. Dustin’s pipe-dream-siren-theory is somehow more likely at this point. The understanding settles like a pit in his stomach. Only the Real Steve would ever think so low of himself to believe Dustin might actually want him taking Eddie’s place.
Dustin can’t choke down his tears anymore. A sob rips from his chest as the pressure in his head mounts. He hears Eddie’s voice claw through the noise, whisper, “he can’t save us,” only it doesn’t really sound like him anymore, and he just can’t take anymore, he throws himself against his best friend. And Steve catches him, like he always does.
His hands are frantic as they pat down Dustin’s arms and back, looking for injuries he won’t find, least not with the naked eye. Once satisfied that Dustin’s not about to keel over, he settles a hand against the back of his head, and holds the kid against his chest.
“Hey,” he’s saying, his voice a mere hush. “What’s going on? Are you alright, what—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Dustin cries, though it’s muffled by Steve’s shirt.
“Wait—”
Dustin pulls back to look at Steve and tries to shove at his chest, but his movements are weak and tired and more pitiful than effective.
“I don’t want you to take Eddie’s place, I’ve never wanted—Jesus, Steve, you fucking asshole!”
“Okay,” Steve mutters, his face pinched in confusion. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m right here, yeah? I’m not going anywhere.”
A sound of disagreement wrestles out of Dustin’s throat, “God, you of all people should not be making promises like that.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve got the biggest death wish out of all of us!”
“That's not true.”
“You throw yourself onto every threat we come across. You don’t even think about it!”
“What am I supposed to do, let it go after you?!”
“Yes!”
Dustin watches Steve’s face fall. Crumble, more like it. It makes the hair on the back of Dustin’s neck raise. He barrels on anyway.
“Don’t you get it, Steve?!” Dustin shouts, his chest heaving. “I shouldn’t be here. And—and if I can’t—if you don’t stop caring, well… I can’t just wait around for the next thing to come for me and watch you take the fall for it!”
The air around them drops colder, if that’s even possible.
“Dustin,” Steve breathes. Christ, he sounds wrecked.
Dustin’s brain thump, thump, thumps against his skull with the sound of Eddie’s screams. Wailing like sheep at the slaughter. He squeezes his eyes shut against it all, shakes his head in the hope he might cast this ghost from his mind.
“You need to go,” he croaks, shoving Steve backwards with more force than before. “I don’t want you to see this. Please, Steve. Go.”
“How can you say that to me?”
Steve stares at him with wide, teary eyes. But it’s only a second before his gaze shifts to the side, just past Dustin’s shoulder, and something like realization washes over his features. Dustin thinks he’s seen this look on Steve’s face before. Just before facing down a demogorgon or gearing up to tackle a Russian guard. Yeah. Dustin knows that look. But he doesn’t have time to decide what it means for him before those steady hands reach out and grab him, pulling them both away from the edge.
Steve stands between Dustin and the quarry, his body positioned so as to block the kids view of the drop entirely.
“Look at me. Dustin, hey, look at me, okay?” Steve says, hands reaching up to hold Dustin’s face in his hands. “Don’t look back there, just look at me. I’m not going anywhere. You got that? I am not leaving you.”
Dustin chokes on a sob and shuts his eyes. He wants to go back to when he thought this was a dream. It’s real, it’s all real and it’s too real. Too much. He just wants to dream, again.
What if it never ends? What if it never ends? What if it never fucking ends?
“Hey,” Steve chastises softly. “C’mon, bud, look at me.”
Dustin shakes his head. No, no, no.
“Okay,” Steve whispers, his thumb rubbing under Dustin’s eye, and, oh, is he crying?
Steve pulls him forward, one arm around his back, the other pressed against his head. He pushes Dustin’s ear to his chest, just over his heart. It’s beating far faster than it probably should, but the sound stops Dustin’s panic in its tracks. He goes slack against Steve’s body, listens to him hum and feels the way his chest buzzes with the noise. Lets it all drown out the screams.
“You hear that?” Steve says. He breathes deep, and Dustin’s head lifts with the motion. “You’re right, I can’t promise I’m gonna make it out of this. Yeah, we don’t really get any say, huh? But, I’m not gone yet, kid. And as long as I’m here, I’m going to be by your side, doing everything I can to make sure you’re safe.”
He squeezes Dustin just a little tighter.
“You can fight me all you want, but like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“I don’t wanna fight you,” Dustin quietly admits.
Steve pulls back just enough to smile down at him.
“I don’t wanna fight, either,” he says. “You said it best, Henderson: you die, I die.”
This gets an unexpected laugh out of Dustin. He returns Steve’s smile with a wobbly one of his own. Eddie stills howls in his ear, though he’s quieter now. Still, Dustin’s eyes wander toward the edge again.
“I really thought you’d have given up on me by now.”
Steve’s hand cups his face again. “Not a chance, kid.”
“I’ve been horrible to you.”
“You’re my brother.”
Dustin’s head snaps up to look at Steve. He half expects to see Vecna staring back at him, confident that now he must have fallen into his curse. But it’s still Steve “The Hair” Harrington there with him. Looking at him with complete, earnest warmth in his eyes. Something so sure on his face.
“My pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all, little shit brother. But I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
The stinging in his eyes is back.
Never change, Dustin Henderson.
“Yeah?”
Promise me?
“Yeah.”
I promise.
And that familiar ache makes itself at home in Dustin’s heart, but he doesn’t push it away this time. He lets it sit as he slumps forward against his brother’s chest, lets the older boy hold him again in the midst of this hellish landscape. And maybe it never does end, but it also never stays the same forever. Maybe that will have to be enough for now.
“Listen, we gotta get you out of here,” Steve says, though he makes no effort to move. “But, hey, we’re not done talking about this, okay? Do you hear me? And you don’t get to act like what just happened doesn’t matter, alright? Because it does. It matters to me, Dustin. You matter to me.”
Dustin nods, whispers “okay” and lets Steve’s hand grip the back of his neck, ready to lead them back through the woods. He realizes he isn’t quite sure where Nancy and Jonathan are, but he trusts Steve to clue him in on any pertinent information. For once, he lets someone lead him, and follows along willfully.
As they creep back into the desolate forest, Dustin takes one last look out over the quarry and wonders, not for the first time, what Will must have seen while he was trapped here. What he must have heard.
He remembers watching the paramedics pull his lifeless body from the water and he remembers Mike hardly hesitating to join him in a watery grave. He thinks about Eddie refusing to run again, and Eddie taking on a hoard of demo-bats, and Eddie laying in a pool of his own blood, and Eddie with a red stained smile on his face and no light behind his eyes and he thinks of Eddie’s voice like a song calling him to an endless deep. But Steve’s hand sits warm and sturdy on the back of his neck, leads him farther and farther away from the edge.
It’s still there, and maybe it never ends, but the path forward is long and inviting. Maybe it, too, goes on for a long, long time.