The Strangest Things (Dustin Henderson x reader)

Cracking the Code

Your POV

I woke up around 8 o'clock. I got up, took a shower since I didn't take one last night. I changed into a pair of overalls and used my f/c scrunchy to put up my hair.  

I ate some food and went to see if my mom was home. She wasn't. I knew Jonathan had already gone to work and Will stayed over at Mike's. I haven't seen him or Lucas for a while. I don't have time to drop by and say hi because I needed to get back to Starcourt to help Robin, Steve, and Dustin with the whole "evil Russians" thing.

I grabbed my inhaler and my knapsack that held my allowance money that contained $25, a water bottle, and my medications.   
I paid my ride on the bus and got to Starcourt. Once I got there, I walked over to Scoops Ahoy where Robin was, listening to something on a CD player. I walked behind the counter and tapped her shoulder to get her attention. She turned to me and took off the headphones.
"Where's Steve?" I asked. "With the other child, looking for an evil Russian,"
"Oh, okay," I replied. "What are you listening to?" I asked.
"The message. I actually need you here with me. I have a book on Russian figurative language for you to look through and translate for me. See if you can find anything that resembles the message," Robin said.
"Okay, cool." I said, walking to the break area. She handed me a book and I sat down at the table and glanced between the message and the book, trying to find phrases that seemed similar. 

After searching through the whole book once, I couldn't find anything. Robin was now on break.
"Did you find anything?" she asked as I closed the book in frustration.
"Nope. Not anything even remotely similar to the phrases on in the message. Not anything that would resemble a secret code, anyway," I sighed, handing Robin the notebook. She read the message aloud.
"The week is long. The silver cat feedswhen blue meets yellow in the west.  A trip to China sounds niceif you tread lightly." she said.
"Tread lightly?" she asked, as she started looking through a Russian handbook. Someone then knocked on the back door. Robin went to go answer it. It was just the delivery man. 
Once Robin signed the sheet for the delivery, the man left. She turned around and mouthed "Follow me" to me. I stood up from my seat and followed Robin out the back door.
Just then I saw the back of his shirt, which had the symbol of a cat on it. 
"Silver cat," Robin and I said in unison. We exchanged looks of shock and realization. 

We then ran out of the shop just as Steve and Dustin were coming back. We slipped passed them and jumped on a plank.
"A trip to China sounds nice," Robin repeated over and over again.
We started to look around until my eyes landed on a Chinese food place called "Imperial Panda". 
"Robin. There!" I exclaimed as I pointed to the place. " A trip to China sounds nice," we said in unison. "If you tread lightly," Robin said as she looked up from the notepad. We started to look around more. "If you tread lightly," Robin pointed to a shoe store called "Kaufman Shoes,"
"When-- When blue and yellowmeet in the west," I said, looking around for some sort of sign. My eyes then laid upon a clock that had a blue and yellow hand. Robin seemed to have her eyes on it too around the same time because we exchanged looks and smirked.

"Robin, Y/N. What're you doing?" Steve asked, grabbing our attention. 
"We cracked it," Robin said. " Cracked what?" Steve asked.
"We  cracked the code," I said as the both of us jumped down from the plank.

Steve and Dustin exchanged looks, then told us the story of who they thought was an evil Russian, which sent me laughing until my sides hurt. 
It was getting late and it was gonna rain, so Steve and Robin had us meet again at the mall tomorrow to dig deeper into the code. 

When I got home it was pouring and I found Will crying by a destroyed"Castle Byers" outback. I approached him with an umbrella. "Will, are you okay?" I asked. 
"-Get away from me!" he snapped. "Will, what has gotten into you? I haven't seen you for days and this is the welcome home I get. You're never like this unless something bad happened. What happened? Why did you do this?" I asked as I put the umbrella over Will's head. 
"It was all so stupid," he sobbed. "What was stupid?" I asked. 
"Everything. D&D, dressing up as the Ghostbusters for Halloween. It was all stupid!" Will exclaimed.
"No...it wasn't. They were the best times of your life. You love playing D&D,"
"You know we haven't played a real campaign since Mike and Lucas, and you went into relationships, leaving me out." Will cried. 
Will, that's not entirely true. I still played campaigns with you. Even when I was sick, don't you remember? You brought the board, dice and everything. You made sure I was entertained the whole time. Mike and Lucas even joined in sometimes,"
"Who cares anymore?" Will asked as he sniffled back a sob. 
"I do. I always did. You know that,"
"It just hasn't been the same like we were kids. Mike and Lucas became jerks. You became distant, I just felt lost and alone,"
"That'll clear out soon, Will. You just need to address the problem to Mike and Lucas properly. Did something happen that caused you to destroy one of the only reasons you were able to smile after mom and dad's divorce?" I asked, concerned for my twin.
"I tried to get Lucas and Mike to play a campaign today. They just weren't into it like they used to. Mike was all depressed because El broke up with him and Lucas was trying to get him to not worry about it and when I tried to lighten things up with a campaign, they seemed to almost make fun of it, which made me mad. I got into a fight with Mike about it and I got so mad, it resulted in this..." Will pointed to the now demolished "Castle Byers" 
"Will, we can fix it if you want..." I suggested. "No...Castle Byers' days are gone. Along with D&D and everything else."
And with that Will walked away, back into the house. I missed so much haven't I?

I walked back into the house after staring at Castle Byers and having a few flashbacks of me and Will's hangouts in Castle Byers after I came back and he was rescued from the Upside Down. The thoughts made me tear up as I made my way back into the house. Everything was falling apart...

Went I went inside, I heard the shower going and realized that Will must've gotten into the shower. I went into my room, changed into PJs, heated some leftover lasagna for dinner and watched "Punky Brewster" until I got tired. I didn't see Will once the rest of the night.