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“You die, I die,” fourteen-year-old Dustin says to eighteen-year-old Harrington. Shuttling down an elevator, cans of radioactive goop tinkling for company.
Steve’s not really an adult, he’s more of a glorified older brother. Dustin’s not going to sit back, get comfy, and watch Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington hurt himself trying to be a hero. Or think too hard. Poor guy needs help.
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Dustin’s fingers ache around the walkie. Nancy was supposed to check in five minutes ago. Five minutes, fifty-five seconds. Six minutes.
Lucas, Erica, and Vickie missed a check-in, ten minutes and counting. They’re in the hospital, body-snatching a comatose Max. But, it’s Lucas and Erica. Dustin’s seen soldiers afraid of Erica Sinclair. He’s kind of afraid of Erica, in like, a good way. And Lucas is the ranger. Good shot. Lucky. Best friend. They’re all lucky. They need to be.
Steve’s watching him watch the walkie.
They heard static from Nancy a few minutes ago, gunshots. That’s fine. She’s at the Big Mac running distraction with an Ak-47. Of course there’s gunshots.
It’s frigid, he can see his breath. He can see Steve’s breath as he leans over Dustin’s shoulder, as if proximity will make the radio respond.
An hour ago: they should have heard from Robin and Will. This hurts Steve. Henderson sees his posture change, hold his bat tighter, after that.
Will is using a demogorgon to find Mike. They’re in the Squawk. Safest place to be out of any of them (Dustin says this to Harrington, to remind him). Robin broadcasting a frequency to attract more monsters, which, yeah, makes it less safe. But Will needs the proximity, the power. He’s only growing stronger. White eyes, blood dripping into his mouth, from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes. It’s a little freaky.
Mike has been missing for twenty-three hours. They think he’s a willing captive; trying to trick Vecna from the inside. But they don’t really know, because Will won’t show them the note Mike left. He says he can’t, he just can’t. And Dustin squares up against Nancy (terrifying) to let Will have his privacy.
But, they’re going to find Mike. Byers isn’t letting him disappear: another body for the Upside Down, vines corroding its throat.
El’s gone dark even longer. Breaking off from the party with the mysterious Kali once Hop died. They assume she’s going after 001, Henry, Vecna, Creel, whatever you want to call him, to retrieve her dad’s body.
Jonathan has been unbearable. So Dustin isn’t bearing it, isn’t even thinking about it; except when it flits into his head like ice. Will holding his brother, numbed-out, not even begging him to come back. Just wiping the blood from Jon’s face. Rising, vision already white. It was like Eddie, not really, he couldn’t say that. Eddie Munson hadn’t been family.
But Jonathan Byers is gone. Joyce before him. She never has to know her boy didn’t made it.
The talkie hurts him. The silence hurts him. He looks at Steve, wishing he’s his brother for real. Harrington is holding fourteen sticks of dynamite in a tote bag.
“Steve?” he asks.
The walkie buzzes. Harrington huddles close. More gunshots. Nancy?
“Hello?” Dustin shouts. “Nance? Nancy Wheeler? Do. You. Copy?”
Stepping back, Steve shaking his head; leaning against the vine-encrusted wall. Dustin wouldn’t. The vines haven’t moved while they’ve been there, but he’s always seeing flitting out of the corner of his eye. He hates it.
They’re the last line. Ideally, they would have heard from the others, but if they don’t. Well, the plan can still go ahead. The pulsing orb above them is the center of the Upside Down. They just need to destroy it.
Puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Ready?”
Steve breathes through his nose. “No,” he laughs. “You?”
“Nope.”
Harrington tugs up his bandana, covering his mouth. Dustin thinks it’s a little late to give a shit about health and safety. Plucks it down again to speak, “Henderson, I can do this alone.”
“You die, I die.”
Closes his eyes, “You die, I die.”
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Dustin feels the tremor of the explosion. The floor of Hawkins Lab ripples under his sneakers. “Fuck,” he breathes, already running. Steve is meeting him at the exit. They’ve mapped out the Lab. There are two paths, and they’ll converge at the doors (Dustin’s panting) to (god, his lungs hurt) the (the screech of demobats) exit.
Skidding around a corner, bouncing off the wall, the vines, yes moving to grab him, little fuckers.
He’s holding a flare. There’s another explosion rigged near the doors. But not too near. He and Steve will be clear of the blast. The detonation eviscerating the demobats, and gorgons, and whatever other monstrosities are following him and Harrington.
He sees the doors.
Panting, running, hurting, (an image of Eddie), arms pumping, (Will holding Jonathan), he’s passed the trip wire. Steve isn’t here. He’s looking behind him. Another ripple, and he covers his eyes, heat flaring and burning the hairs on his arm. The sour electricity of burning flesh. There are bats twitching on the ground. He stares at one, not really understanding, as it hops around without its wings.
There. He sees the wing a foot away. The bat flops towards it, as if it’s going to reattach itself. It can’t. It can’t. The damage is done.
Dustin walks through the carnage, slipping a little on the black fluid (he doesn’t call it blood). He’s got to find Steve.
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Harrington’s missing one of his legs. He’s unconscious: which is good, because then he can’t rib Henderson for dragging him badly, head skidding along the floor. He’s so weak. Or, Steve’s so heavy. His arms are shaking.
He leaves Steve in one of the “classrooms” in the lab. Hides him as best he can. He can’t lock the door, and doesn’t have time for a barricade. He puts the walkie in Steve’s loose grip.
It’s also good Steve’s knocked out, because then he can’t say he loves Dustin while he bleeds. That would break Henderson’s heart. And his heart can’t be broken, not yet.
“Tell me when you wake up,” he whispers. He’s tied a tourniquet around the leg. Now, he wipes viscera from his eyes, his mouth. “You’ll radio me as soon as you do, ok? Ok?” He pretends he hears Harrington agree.
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The red orb, the Upside Down’s pulsing heart. It’s been shattered in Steve’s dynamite-fuelled explosion. No more monsters. Red shards, almost like glass, on the laminate.
In it’s place, eerily clean, so easy to walk into, a door. A red door.
Dustin tries one last time. Raises the walkie talkie. “Nancy? Lucas? Will?” The pauses longer and longer between the names. “Robin?” He sniffs, and hates himself for sniffing. “Erica?” Each words less hopeful. “Mike? El?” Finally, “Steve?”
He shakes himself, wiggling his shoulders, getting the nerves out, walks through the door.
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As Harrington moans, something heavy falls. His vision is blurry. He feels for what he’s dropped, fingers wet on cold tile.
Picking up the heavy rectangle, it sounds like his insides, buzzy and achy and static. He holds the walkie to his ear. Forgets how it works. Then pushes the button. “Hello?” he says as if talking to a telemarketer.
“Hello? Steve?” he can hear the relief in the girl’s voice.
He doesn’t recognize her at first, because it’s been so long. “Max?”
“Steve! I haven’t heard from anyone.”
“Lucas?” he slurs.
“Where are you?”
“Isn’t Lucas with you?”
She doesn’t say, or she won’t say, or she’s crying. He’s cutting in and out, or the radio is. He drops it, and he’s too tired to pick it up.
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Dustin’s in the elevator. Black glassy liquid, like a lake. The elevator has no walls, just the door, and doesn’t seem to be moving; but his stomach is on a rollercoaster without the restraining-belt. There’s a tinkling sound, and he remembers the radioactive goop.
The door pings open. He isn’t aware of it slowing down, stopping, it’s just the doors are opening now. There’s a little boy scout on the other side. A kid. Dustin has the urge to kneel down, but his body like really hurts, so he doesn’t move.
“Hey,” he says to the scout.
The boy nods.
“What’s your name?”
The kid is scared.
“Ok, I’m Dustin. I go to school around here, in Hawkins. Do you know Hawkins?”
He nods.
“Good! Yeah, good. What grade are you in?”
“Eight.” The kid’s voice is high, reedy. “I’m fourteen.”
“Huh, yeah, the elevator, uh.” He was fourteen, then. “What did you say your name was?” Dustin knows. Because he’s remembering more now.
It isn’t a surprise when the boy says, “Henry.”
“I’m looking for my friend, I think, Steve?” He’s not sure if this Henry is bad.
Creel nods, a slow bob of his head, like those water-dipping birds. “Me too. Where did you hide him?”
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There’s scratching outside the door.
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“Do you want to watch?” the boy scout asks.
Dustin says yes.
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Will is floating, body thrumming like a weathervane. There are demos crawling around the Squawk. Mostly twitching, in pieces, but Will is also in pieces; he can’t feel all of himself. If he can just get a look through enough of the monsters, one of them will have smelled-seen-sensed Mike.
At last. There. The dark sweatshirt, the flop of black hair. Will uses the creature to cradle Mike’s body, and loping, brings him to the radio station. When he’s beside Will, he brushes back his friend’s hair. Thumbs the cuts on his cheeks. Tucks both halves of him in.
Will can’t walk by himself anymore, but that’s alright, he’s floating, and his army of monsters, limbs, creatures, sludge can carry him the rest of the way.
Maybe he and Mike didn’t go crazy together.
It might just be him and Henry now, and that twists his stomach dully, burns his eyes. That’s ok. He’s spent his life practicing, rolling dice, taking chances in a game. You don’t succeed on every roll. That doesn’t mean you stop playing.