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The fourth time they hit the road, it happens in a bit of a rush.
Steve comes to get him on an agreed day, but Dustin falls victim to the chaotic exam season and a spontaneously moved lecture. So, by the time Steve arrives, Dustin isn’t ready yet, and they only manage exchange a few words before one of college parking wardens lets them know that she isn’t impressed with a truck and a camping trailer taking up the space. A rushed explanation that all other groundkeepers already know Steve, and that he actually has an informal permission to park here doesn’t particularly impress her either, so Dustin sprints back to the dorms to get his stuff.
He ends up putting up a bit of a show for his roommate, who watches Dustin practically teleport around the room and throw things into a duffel bag and a backpack.
“Man, I kinda envy you,” he finally announces.
“Oh. That’s good. Why?”
He shrugs.
“I wish my brother was that nice to me. Like, we don’t fight, but we definitely don’t do roadtrips. Bit of a nothing relationship if I’m honest. He’s just there.”
Dustin pauses. Binoculars in one hand, his socks in the other.
“Brother?”
His roommate frowns and points at the window.
Dustin looks and just barely sees Steve’s trailer between the buildings, along with its owner next to it, currently pretending like he doesn’t see the parking warden present some meters away. And seemingly examining the shiny surface of his own truck.
Still a show-off, and not even very deep down.
“I mean, that’s your brother, right? Steve? The one from the photograph?”
It’s Dustin’s turn to shrug: he might have introduced Steve as his brother to about a dozen people just because he could; it’s impossible to tell which classmate this came from at this point. He also doesn’t ever have the time to explain all the intricacies of their joint history and status to each other.
“Yes,” he decides. “Happened to be.”
That’s technically not even a lie.
The roommate nods again, and Dustin resumes packing the bag.
It’s his notebook’s that gets thrown into the bag next, and this one is important. It has The Topics, a list of things they are obligated to talk about but couldn’t over the last months.
Examples include: two new science-backed additions to their ongoing argument about realism in Star Wars, a list of music albums that they will have to find a way to listen to — led by Depeche Mode’s Violator, Suzy’s update on her wild engineering project that is supposed to get her an internship and some new TV show Erica called him about. Twin Peaks? He’ll need to check the name later, that’s why he has the notebook.
“Jack’s never that happy to see me when we meet up. Not to the hugging point, at least. Unless it’s, like, Christmas. And didn’t you see each other in February? You went somewhere back then, for a weekend.”
“I know,” Dustin says. “It’s been ages! We had exams though—"
“No, dude, I meant it’s crazy soon! You act like you haven’t seen each other for a year every time and then go travelling! Most people would be at each other’s throats after several days in a trailer—”
“Uh-huh,” says Dustin.
He’s really got to remember to put his toothpaste last this time. One time he put it between other things and it leaked all over his sweater (which somehow came out of that situation unscathed, however Dustin smelled of menthol every time he wore it for the rest of the journey, and it was winter, so by the time they got to Hawkins for Christmas Steve had very nearly exhausted both the world’s supply of jokes about mint and Dustin’s patience), and another time he forgot it altogether, so they stopped at a half-abandoned gas station to get some. It wasn’t that big of a deal until a guy with semi-cultist leaflets tried chatting up to them in the household appliances aisle, and it was way too soon for more supernatural stuff, so they had to escape the store and the gas station. It was kind of fun, but he felt bad starting Steve’s break with that.
“Were you like that?”
“Huh? Sorry.”
“I asked if you were that type of siblings that are super-close growing up? Because it seems like you were, I’m just surprised you kept at it too, that’s all.”
Dustin pauses over the bags again, this time holding comic books.
Was he even aware of Steve’s existence when he moved to Hawkins? Better yet, was Steve aware of his? Probably not. A concept that’s both funny and a little scary now. But it was probably for the best, looking at the way things turned out.
He doesn’t really want to think about life without Steve for very long, so he doesn’t.
“Not particularly,” he admits. “Just… lots of bonding life experiences.”
That’s true as hell, actually.
He chucks another pair of shorts and his compass into the bag. This should be enough? Three months of waiting for this day, the weather is great, he just wants to go already.
He checks the backpack for the final time, rummaging through shirts and colourful bandanas. There are folding utensils, for when they inevitably get hungry somewhere away from the trailer. His walkie, extra batteries. Because you never know. There is also a portable chess set, because he’s pretty sure the one in the trailer is already missing a rook.
“Just out of curiosity though,” a voice above him says, as he crouches to push the box into the duffel. “How is it?”
“What?”
“Being friends with your brother. Teach me your ways. Jack has a car. Not a trailer, but maybe one day him and I could also… I don’t know. Where did you start?”
The conversation suddenly reminds Dustin of Max. Or, rather, of a conversation with Max they had before their graduation.
Only it was bigger, heavier. It was about how lost Max felt watching Dustin banter with Steve, and how infuriating it was that Dustin accidentally scored a jackpot and then had the gull of taking it for granted for quite some time.
It was about death, about grief. About Eddie. It was mainly about staying friends through it all. Nothing could be helped, but they could listen and, most importantly, understand.
Here, he doesn’t really understand. He doesn’t actually know how to get closer with siblings; him and Steve just happened, Eddie strode into his life and then left, leaving a crater. Lucas, Will or Mike would be much better at answering this, he thinks.
What he knows instead is quality time.
It’s laughter at 2AM, getting kicked out of an arcade, improvised engineering, boardgames. Snowballs first thing in the morning, just because they saw white outside of the trailer.
But then it’s also actively learning how to have fun when your life has been upturned and your town got overrun by military. How to speak about your fears, ask for help without worrying that the answer will be silence.
And while he couldn’t really help Max, aside from giving her space to hang out with Steve and Robin on her own, maybe he can actually say something practical here. This isn’t as big.
Perhaps he could oversimplify.
“With talking,” he says honestly. “It started with talking.”
“About what?”
Dustin turns around.
“Anything, really. Runaway pets, originally.”
His roommate’s interest changes to distrust, but he doesn’t say anything, so Dustin uses this moment to yank the chess box out of his backpack and hold it out.
”You gotta start somewhere.”
“With chess?”
“Why not? Does Jack hate chess?”
There is enough of a pause to mean that Dustin hit the target.
“You and I play all the time,” he notes.
“Yeah, but I don’t know if he—“
“Then why not find out? If you hate spending time together, that’s a different story, but what if you had a shared interest this whole time and just never spoke about it? Maybe it’s not games, maybe it’s detective movies. Rock music. Hairstyling.”
He gets a perplexed look at the last one, but keeps going.
“And if he truly hates fun and doesn’t like any of these things, then—"
Dustin thinks about the underground tunnels, demodogs, deciphering secret messages, creepy laboratories, death pacts and stabbing an alien mega-creature to its demise in a parallel dimension, occasionally turning to check if the other is still alive.
“Uh— check if you like the same— sports? Just maybe make sure it’s something where you can be on the same team.”
Good enough.
His roommate raises eyebrows, now looking more intrigued than convinced, but takes the chess box anyway.
“You’re really making it sound like you just went kayaking one day and bonded through trauma.”
Well.
“Something like that, yeah.”
He’s a family communication expert now. His first client, he should be proud. Steve’s gonna lose his shit.
Speaking of.
He grabs the duffel bag.
“Alright, I’m off,” he declares and turns towards the door.
And it’s like the air changes.
Because that’s it. That’s where the adventure starts. At the exact moment when you take a step out of the door, and not a moment later.
“Have fun in the north,” he hears from the depths of the dorm room. “You’re going to have to tell me more about that pseudo-kayaking story after the break!”
“Sure,” Dustin says. Maybe he’ll just replace demodogs with coyotes again, that worked before. “You’re welcome for all the advice, by the way. Have a nice summer!”
He hears a ‘thank you’ in return, or at least he thinks he does, because he takes off as soon as he is done talking.
Past the rooms of people he knows, past some other rooms, past the elevator, down the stairs.
He dashes into the main dormitory corridor and freezes.
All that’s left now. This hall, then the little alley between the dorms and the library, and then it’s just a direct line across the grass and the campus courtyard. A direct line between him and the trailer.
For a second feels like a dog let off a leash in a field. Actually, no, college is far too enjoyable for it to be a leash. It’s more like he’s one of the Voyagers powered by solar winds and speeding towards the unknown. Earth is good, but they’d never ever see other planets if they didn’t leave it.
Steve and him should talk about Voyagers. It’s kind of unbelievable they still haven’t, given how much sci-fi they consume.
He holds the duffel bag tighter and sprints through the hall towards the sunlit entrance.
“Where’re you off to?!” someone yells. It’s a familiar voice, definitely someone he knows from classes, and it feels rude not to stop and answer, so he does the best version of both and turns around on the move.
“To see the world!” He shouts back.
Then, because it feels wrong to generalize that broadly:
“Or just Minnesota! We’ll see how it goes!”
Out of the dormitory, through the alley, across the grass and into the courtyard.
Steve’s still standing by the truck.
As does the parking warden, that Dustin kind of forgot about.
“Hey!” he yells. “I’m ready, let’s go, let’s go!”
He runs up to the truck, and Steve is already tossing him the keys.
“Bags, trailer!” he commands. “Go, go, go!”
He sounds like a proper coach now, that’s funny.
They circle the truck in the opposite directions, one swinging the driver’s door open and the other fiddling with the keys to do the same with the trailer’s door.
The parking warden lady watches the action from afar, still visibly unimpressed, but Dustin’s pretty sure there is something new in her expression. Something akin to understanding.
Interesting.
He climbs onto his seat, shuts the door and turns to Steve, holding up the keys between them.
“Hi,” he breathes out, grinning.
“Yes, yes, I’ve already seen you, hi, hi, hi,” Steve echoes warmly, snatching the keys and starting the truck. He shoots a nervous smile in the direction of the warden. “She’s cool but a bit scary— Did you run all the way here? Take my thermos.”
“It’s not that far,” Dustin huffs, immediately reaching for flask. “Did you really try to charm Mrs. Evans? She’s the strictest here, probably has been a groundkeeper for longer than you’ve been alive—”
“I had a normal human conversation with her, that’s what I did,” Steve grumbles. They slowly but surely leave the college parking area. “And she actually wished us luck on our journey! Even said she’ll ask about issuing us a proper parking permit of some sorts. No promises though…”
That’s actually impressive.
“You amaze me. Can you chat to my new physics professor next? He keeps thinking me acing his tests is a challenge.”
“No promises here either… Did you get your walkie?”
Dustin doesn’t grace this with an answer for a while, focusing entirely on the water.
“How’s the batteries situation?” Steve clarifies, just as he prepares to answer. “Is it mint?”
“It’s— no, don’t start with this, it’s been half a year. Not on the first day.”
“Okay, but did you get your toothpaste and all that stuff?”
Yeah, no, he knew he forgot something. That was too easy.
“I hate this,” Dustin declares. “I kept telling myself to remember.”
“Well, don’t sweat it. Waiting for you in the trailer. Top right drawer.”
“Aw.”
“No, not ‘aw’, I’m not stopping anywhere around Atlanta for toothpaste ever again, last time was traumatising—“
“You got me toothpaste, you care—“
“Maybe a little…”
Dustin glances in the sideview mirror. The last buildings surrounding his college disappear from the view. The sky above them isn’t cloudless, but that just means there will be a cooler sunset in the evening.
He can’t wait for the rest of the break.
***
“Stu asked if we were close as kids when growing up, by the way.”
“See, that’s an ‘aw’. What’s our story now? Divorced parents?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t think that far.”
“I really think you should, I’ll play along.”
“Yes, I know you will, but I cannot possibly keep track of who knows what, we’ll end up with like five different backstories!”
“Let’s try to keep it to three then. Got to keep the art of rumours alive somehow.”
“True.”