love is not always a ♥️

drabble 2# : dustin

a/n : tw - use of alcohol + drugs, ptsd, trauma and depression

2nd obsession? Dustin Henderson. Come on he is so fricking loveable. like how can you not like both his and gaten's personality.

also love steve's and dustins (also Joe and Gaten's) friendship. Like fucking #bffgoals.

Dustin Henderson felt weird. It was an all familiar feeling however. One that he had used all his strength to banish away in the past.

And now it was back.

How much he cried when he realised it was back. The feeling of drowning but never sinking. Falling but never landing. Burning but never to a crisp. Dying but painfully by the inches.

The party had just returned from the upside down and the amount of emotional trauma everyone went through was indescribable.

Dustin's however was beyond compare . He watched his best friend getting torn up by demobats and have him nearly die in his arms.

Thankfully they managed to drag Eddie to safety and get help before it was too late.

But, there is something the others didn't know. Something happened to him the the other have never experienced or heard of before. Or he thinks at least. Maybe they were hiding it just like him.

It was a vision if anything. Like Vecna's last wish was to cause pain to him. To cause so much terror and fear that he could get rid of it.

A vision of everything. A vision of Max unconscious in Lucas' arms. A vision of El convulsing and fighting Vecna. A vision of Nancy bravely shooting away at the villains burning figure.

But the worse part was that he was Vecna. Looking at everything through Vecna's eyes and feeling his emotions and pain.

The fire and bullets as it seared through his chest. The rush of air as El threw him across the Upside down. 

Was he the one who crippled Max? Was he the one who caused all his friends this pain this whole time?

Everyday. Every second. Every night.

 He remembered it so vividly.

At first he always covered it up with a smile. Carrying on with life as if nothing happened. Going to Hellfire meetings regularly. Watching all of Lucas' basketball games. Hanging out with Steve every Saturday night. Accompanying Robin to her sole shifts. Contacting Suzie everyday.

But when his mask cracked in front of them one day, he knew he couldn't hold his act much longer. He needed to distance himself. It was just selfish to weigh his problems on the party when they had their own trauma.

So he stopped everything. He quit Hellfire which left Eddie absolutely devastated. He asked Steve to stop picking him up and dropping him. He made excuses instead of hanging out with him and Robin.

 Steve was suffering painfully.

Was he too lame to hang out with now? Was Eddie replacing him? Was Eddie more fun?

But when he payed a visit to the Munson place he was even more heartbroken to find out that Dustin had also cut all contact with Eddie as well.

"I thought he was tired of me. That the Steve Harrington was much cooler." The wild haired boy sighed.

Steve bitterly chuckled, "Something's up with that kid. Something he isn't telling us."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Just a sip.

A tiny sip is okay, right?

Mrs Henderson was away on a 'business trip' again and Dustin was alone in the cellar, surrounded by bottles of wine. A very dangerous scenario.

He popped the cap off one of them and titled it up to his mouth.

The liquid swished in his mouth as he savoured it. 

Red wine was definitely his favourite drink. 

This one tasted a bit different however but he was glad that his mum bought a some sort of stronger version.

As he swallowed it, he gazed at the bottle longingly.

Finally he jerked out of his contemplation.

"Fuck it!" Dustin tipped the bottle upside down and chugged the liquid.

With each bottle he bull dozed through, his sense of the world faded into pure bliss.

Bliss that covered up all memories. That blocked any form of remembrance.

His physical form was out of his control. His mental form was in heaven and his emotional form had blanked out.

Pure bliss.