Work Text:
They all see her. In short, elegant glimpses, they see her.
Lucas sees her through the cloud of smoke in the engineering lab, a tuft of brown hair he blinks through to realize it's just his classmate.
Max sees her as she slips on her skateboard, still getting used to her chronic knee problems, watching the board zoom away without her and thinking someone will be there to catch it for her.
Will sees her as his coworker reaches up to change a light bulb, flickering fluorescence giving way to bright light, eyes adjusting only to betray the visage of his sister.
Mike sees her in the snow as it falls over Hawkins, memories of years long past flashing before his eyes as Holly bounds outside in a pink dress he could swear he's seen before.
Dustin sees her everywhere.
He was never that good at moving on.
The fearsome bats crawling up his arms lead to the braided bracelets around his wrist. They had been one of their silly crafts, one of the many they spent their time doing in high school to pass the time. He's got two, each of them six colors. Red for Lucas. Orange for Max. Yellow for Will. Blue for Mike. Green for Dustin. Pink for El.
The bus rattles down a rocky dirt road, past the most stunning landscapes Dustin's ever seen. He has a disposable camera around his neck, a long phone call to Jonathan before the trip to ensure he got the best one he could. He'll take pictures once they stop. Claudia would kill him if he didn't get any.
The village is off the coast, two and half hours from the airport in Akureyri. His head pounds and a flat hostel bed sounds like heaven to him. He ignores the flashes in his peripheral vision that could be anything, could be nothing, people with brown hair walk by flickering lights all the time, Dustin.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Dustin snaps out of his stupor at the sound of his friend, Joni, plopping down in the seat next to him. She's holding out a bag of candy they'd bought at their airport, gummy carrots that tasted like nothing at all. Dustin shakes his head no.
"It's just pretty," Dustin says. "My mom would really love it here. She's never seen the aurora borealis before."
Joni presents Dustin with her map. "Okay, here's the deal. There's a tavern on the cliff side, just near the hostel. The second Doctor Randall gets done with her safety spiel, we're hitting the docks to check out that salt deposit, cause you wanted to see it before we go for study. And then tonight, we're entertaining the locals."
"Sounds like a great plan," Dustin laughs. "Long as we don't get kicked out."
She leaves Dustin alone then, making sure the other members of their little group are aware of the plan. At some point Doctor Randall calls back to tell Joni to sit down, but she keeps crawling about unnoticed. Dustin looks back out the window.
The village is small, with only a few hundred residents. They're there for research and study- this isn't a tourist town. But, sightseeing is research and study when you're a student cooped up in a landlocked college town. Faces pass in a blur. Some smile, some simply watch the bus go by.
Dustin people watches at school, sometimes. He'll have a book in his lap that he's no longer paying attention to and gaze up at the clouds, squirrels in trees, students as they walk by. He looks at the books under their arms, from gen ed Astronomy textbooks to marked up Beckett scripts to mini copies of the DSM-III. The people carrying the books are always different, always varied. People usually are.
The faces change in real time whenever Dustin bothers to study them close enough. They morph into his friends, his family.
He seems them often enough- despite being scattered to the four winds, the party always makes as much time as possible to see each other. Usually in Hawkins, as it just happens to be the midway point between all of them, but they've made the trek up to New York City a few times, four extra people crammed into Will and Jonathan's shoebox apartment like sardines in a tin. Will had dragged them all out to the theater district, a love he'd picked up back in Lenora. The original plan was Phantom of the Opera, but Dustin, the only other person who knew the plot, had reminded Will that they probably didn't want to see a musical about a creepy guy in a basement abducting a girl with this particular group.
They saw Once on This Island instead. That probably wasn't the best choice either.
The bus lurches to a stop in front of a well tended garden of lavender and tulips lining a stone path up to the hostel they'll be staying at for the duration of their trip. It's only a few days out of the whole excursion, they'll be packing up and onto the next spot soon enough, but Dustin intends to bask in the peace for as long as he has it.
"WOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!"
Clamping his hands over his ears, Dustin watches Holden, more of an acquaintance than a friend, barrel his way up to the front of the bus with a pair of goggles swinging around his finger. "Let's start observing those Gasterosteus islandicus, my bros and brodettes!"
Holden is doing an act. Dustin thinks. He's been doing it for the past two years.
"Not so fast!"
The bus erupts in groans as their supervising professor, a tersely spoken woman named Doctor Randall, stands and addresses the denizens of her class.
"We will be respectful. You are all young adults, and I expect you to act as such the entire time we are here. We are visitors, observers of this ecosystem. Both scientifically and socially. I don't want to hear about anyone breaking anything. Capiche?"
"Capiche." Comes a dull round of agreement from the students.
Dustin sits back and lets his classmates get off first, catching a freshman when someone's sleeping bag coming down from the overhead compartment sends her flying into him. He's the last person to get off the bus, the last person to see the glow of the late afternoon over the eternal green and brown swathes in the distance, and the last person to see a face in the window of the tavern across the street.
He only catches her side profile, and she's gone just as soon as she appeared. This is where he sees El most of the time. In window panes, in car bumper reflections, and in the faces of the passersby who aren't present in Dustin's consciousness for long enough to materialize as anyone else.
"Dustin!" he hears.
His friends beckon him back into the realm of the living. He wanders inside, the hostel just as neutral as all the other ones, with a small panel of postcards at the check-in kiosk. He grabs a handful and hands over a few króna to the gentle lady at the front desk, who plucks them up between freshly painted fingernails and directs him to the room.
They've saved him the bottom bunk he requested, where he tosses down his meager travel bag and pillow, immediately fishing for the chewed-up pen stuck in his shirt pocket. Normally, he'd stick it in his hair, but that was harder to do ever since the glasses came into the equation. Turtleshell glasses, dutifully resting on his face and further cementing his place in the Nerd Hall Of Fame (Erica's words) for eons to come.
Turns out, direct prolonged direct eye contact with a giant, flaming ball of exotic matter is dangerous if not properly attended to. At least his prescription was mild- Jonathan and Nancy had a much stranger time explaining things to the doctors than he did.
He writes names and addresses first, making sure he has enough for each person on his list, the people who'd asked to hear from him during the month he was gone.
Claudia Henderson, Hawkins, Indiana.
Will Byers, New York City, New York.
Lucas Sinclair & Max Mayfield, Berkeley, California.
Mike Wheeler, Hawkins, Indiana.
Steve Harrington, Hawkins, Indiana.
Erica Sinclair, Hawkins, Indiana.
Robin Buckley & Nancy Wheeler, Northampton, Massachusetts.
Dustin pauses. He has an eighth postcard. He doesn't know who it was meant for. He sets it at the bottom of the stack and begins writing his brief notes.
Everyone gets a different update- they all get the message that Dustin is doing well and has been making it around safely. Everyone but his mom gets the story of the incident of him dropping his pager in a fountain during their last stop. Only the Party gets the story of his first blackout at a bar in Reykjavík, waking up on his friends' shoulders parading around the few American-friendly locals they'd found all trip.
He leaves out his near-constant hallucinations. He'll wait 'til he's back in the states. Call Nancy. She's the one he talks to about this. He doesn't know why, but she is. It's a good thing, what they have.
They're not always El. Sometimes they're Eddie. Sometimes they're that Russian doctor he stabbed and killed. Or Billy, intestines dragging on the floor behind him. Sometimes they're Mike launching himself into the quarry, or Steve toppled by demodogs in the junkyard, or Erica apprehended by Russian soldiers, or Nancy crushed by the Mind Flayer- the list goes on and on and on and Dustin can't help but swim through the memories and try not to sink beneath them. He is still living. He has to keep doing that.
Dustin picks himself up and stifles a sniffle as he reassembles himself for everyday life, following the voices of his friends outside as they prepare to walk down to the shore together.
The first thing that bleeds into Dustin's mind as they gaze at the ocean's meeting with the cliff's edge is the book. Max's favorite book, she told him all about it. He made sure to go to the bookstore to get it for his flight, he'd been reading it whenever he had down time. Dustin keeps a section of his journal to jot down his thoughts, eager to share them with Max once he was finished.
Bars of yellow and green fell on the shore, gilding the ribs of the eaten-out boat and making the sea-holly and its mailed leaves gleam blue as steel. Light almost pierced the thin swift waves as they raced fan-shaped over the beach. The girl who had shaken her head and made all the jewels, the topaz, the aquamarine, the water-coloured jewels with sparks of fire in them, dance, now bared her brows and with wide-opened eyes drove a straight pathway over the waves.
Six childhood friends with tumultuous relationships as they grow up. Dustin doesn't have to wonder why it's Max's favorite.
"Wow, look at the seashells," Joni coos, picking up a crystalline shell and holding it up to the deep golden peach sky. "Back in Jersey it's usually just glass."
"Yeah, they haven't fucked up their land quite as much as we have over in the States," Dustin comments, hands shoved deep in his khaki pockets. "Probably why we come over here to research their oceans."
Holden scoffs. "Yeah, but I'm here to look at fish. If I really wanted to see another goddamn red drum, I'd have stayed in Charleston."
"They have red drums here too, you know." Joni says.
Dustin nods. "Fifth most popular fish export in the country."
"Pfft, you think I don't know that?" Holden hops along some rocks. "You guys think we can go up to the lighthouse?"
"It's operational, so I'd say probably not." Joni says.
"Boo, boring," Holden trills, trying to skip a stone against the rickety ocean waves and failing miserably. "Aww. My pebble."
The other two roll their eyes.
Dustin gazes out as the sun finally dips below the horizon, gold giving way to muddy purple. In a few hours, the aurora borealis will be striking across the night sky. No layers could stop the shiver that runs down his spine, as it's not from the harsh Icelandic January air.
"Orion." Holden points up at the faintly visible stars.
It's the most easily visible constellation in the night sky, and Dustin takes the time to trace out the shape with his finger anyway. The hunter, with multiple different stories, and no one can safely say which is the truth. They're all the truth, in a way, since the original writer isn't around to show their work. Dustin doesn't know which version he prefers; Artemis shooting him, the scorpion sting, it really doesn't matter. They're all pretty morbid.
"When we come back out here tomorrow we're taking a fishing barge out to the drop line," Joni comments. Dustin knows. He's seen the itinerary. He lets her talk anyway. "Gonna grill our ears off about the seven different types of lure we can use?"
"Maybe," Holden shrugs. "Would you let me?"
"I would." Dustin says.
He laughs. "I know you would, Dustin."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You like learning shit, it's your weird little thing." Holden explains.
Dustin throws his arms up incredulously. "We're in college, dude."
The harsh wind fills their noses with salt, nearly knocking them off their feet in a gust that tells them to move along now, showtime's over.
Joni stands, brushing off her pants and turning to the other two. "Well, boys, I'm off for a drink. You gonna let me go alone?"
"Certainly not." Dustin turns pointedly.
"I wanna try Brennivín," Holden says, horribly mispronouncing the brand name. "The Black Death."
Joni smirks. "Yeah, you have fun with that, I'm sticking with beer. Nothing beats a classic, right?"
"It's also the cheapest thing here usually," Dustin says as they approach the light of the town street. "You know how expensive alcohol is here?"
"Screw you too, Henderson," Joni playfully hits him on the shoulder. "Don't need to remind us that you're rich."
Dustin bursts into laughter. "You are sorely mistaken if you think I'm rich."
He holds the door open for the two.
Holden nods. "Thank you, sir."
"Class is my middle name." Dustin says with a wink.
The tavern is bathed in warm light, the glow of the yellow lampshades bouncing off the deep, dark wood of the bar. The patrons chatter quietly, very aware of the outsiders in the building, but not necessarily shrugging them off- better than the last village they were in.
Joni slides into a bar stool near the end and gestures for the boys to join her. Holden immediately takes a seat, but Dustin is entranced by one of the aforementioned lamps, a short one atop a bookcase next to a locked jewelry box.
It's the etching of a bear that catches his eye, reminiscent of a 19th century art style Will had been studying up on the last time they all got together. After they were sick of their video games and Mike's one shot where they defeated a cave dwelling sand worm that was blighting a local researcher's settlement, they'd all lounged around the room and listened with sleepy eyes as Will read from a thick brown book with yellowing pages about the return to ancient classicism in German architectural history, using his hands to illustrate the weaving designs that they couldn't see in the book while scattered across the floor.
"Excuse me," Dustin calls for the bartender, a woman with graying blonde hair who flings a dish towel over her shoulder. "Uh- oh, fuck. Hvar, this- lampi? From, from-"
"You guys are the students?" she says.
The trio nods.
"Yeah, you don't have to worry about speaking our language," she explains. "Focus on your studies. You're more equipped there."
"Right. Sounds good. Thanks, um…"
"Astrid," The bartender says, wrinkled hands folding paper tabs. "I don't need to wear a name tag around here, usually."
"When was the last time you had new people in town? Besides, like, babies being born?" Joni cuts in to ask.
Astrid puffs, her shoulders dropping as she thinks. "Must've been, uh, 1988? In the spring, was the last time we had new people move to town. We are not a tourist destination."
"Cool," Dustin whispers, obviously thinking of his tiny hometown. "Uh- this lamp, it's cool. I was just wondering if you know where it's from. I got a friend who-"
"Oh, I don't know," Astrid waves a hand dismissively. "Julie, she is out of town, she bought this. Her sister Karina cleans tables here, I can- Karina! Komdu og talaðu við þennan fífl. Þeir vilja vita meira um lampann sem Julie keypti."
A flash of pink and golden brown as a girl appears from across the bar, slinging a towel over her shoulder in the same manner as Astrid.
She brushes long, wavy hair out of her face and slows her roll the second she meets eyes with Dustin.
Oh, God, Dustin thinks.
He blinks it out, the same way he does every time he hallucinates El.
Except…
Except this time, the hallucination doesn't go away.
She stares at him. He stares back. Holden and Joni make funny faces at each other, but Dustin doesn't care.
"The lamp," she stutters out before Dustin can say a word. "My sister bought it in Húsavík. She's good at finding things."
"Right," Dustin breathes, not sure what planet he's even on anymore. "I was wondering cause- my friend, he's an artist a-and he was studying architecture for a project- that's a German piece, I think."
"Your friend has good taste," she replies. "What's his name?"
Dustin fights back a sniffle. "W-Will."
Her eyes go wide. Then she remembers that she's in front of her employer. She breaks eye contact and leans in. "Are you gonna keep staring or buy me a drink?"
"I'm afraid if I look away you'll disappear." Dustin says in a whisper.
She smiles at Astrid, trying to act like it's nonchalant flirty banter and not the earth-shattering revelation she knows it is. "We'll talk later."
"Did you just fall in love or was that you being a weird ass again?" Holden cuts into Dustin's mind fog as she walks away, back to business, but Dustin can see her chest heaving, can see her eyes blinking back tears as she tucks trays under the bar.
Astrid leans in close and they talk quietly.
"Þekkirðu hann?"
"Nei, ég..." El smiles over at Dustin again. He doesn't miss how her lip quivers.
Astrid rolls her eyes. "Já, þú munt verða máttlaus í hnjánum við fyrsta mjúkmælta Bandaríkjamanninn sem veitir þér athygli."
Dustin looks like a duck out of water as his two classmates turn to face him incredulously.
"Um, hello?" Joni waves her hand in front of his face. "Earth to Henderson. The hell was that?"
"That, my friend, was love at first sight." Holden says, holding up a bottle to the sky.
Dustin sighs. "Yeah, you could say that."
He's awfully quiet as they sip on drinks. Joni and Holden each go for a second, while Dustin nurses one glass that only gets about three-fourths drunk. The hours tick by, slower than a mule as he tries to avoid looking at her. Don't look at her. Don't you dare.
The hand on his shoulder sends him crashing into the stratosphere.
"I'm off the clock," she's standing next to him, apron discarded. "Take me for a walk?"
Holden and Joni "oooh" but Dustin simply flips them the bird with the hand that isn't holding someone else's as she leads him out the door.
She stops at the rusty mailbox and produces a flashlight. "We will need this. It gets dark at night."
As they get off the main road, still hand in hand, Dustin has to peel his eyes away to look up at the night sky. The aurora borealis is ethereal, something picturesque he never thought he'd be seeing with the naked eye when he first landed in the country.
His eyes drift back to her anyways.
She leads him up a grassy hill, the stars getting so close Dustin feels he could reach out and touch them. Once they've stopped, under the illumination of the northern lights, she turns the flashlight off. They can see each other just fine.
"Glasses."
"Hm?"
"You wear glasses now."
"Yeah. I do."
A beat.
"…Look, I know you're confused-"
"…So, what the fuck is going-"
They both pause before they run each other over with their words. Dustin reaches out to clasp her arm.
"I need to make sure you're real," Dustin says. "I've spent four years dreaming you up, I need to be sure this isn't just the next step in my descent to total insanity."
She squeezes his hands. "I'm real, Dustin. I promise."
"God."
He breathes it out as a scoff, pulling El into a long, desperate hug. She grasps at his arms, desperate to cling to the first piece of her old life she's had in years. He smells like caramel candy and hairspray.
"One thousand five hundred thirty-one days," El says, breathless. "Old habits die hard."
Dustin laughs through the tears streaming down his face. "Yeah, they do. God, it's really been that long? Four years, El. What the fuck? We always believed. All of us. We never let it out of our heads. The Party, we- we play together whenever we're back in Hawkins and we- we always have the same NPC with us. Your old character, Sunny, the mage. We use the mini Will made you."
El looks down. She only got to play with her once or twice. It was hard to get permission to use the basement at the radio station for games, and there was not nearly enough room for D&D at the cabin.
"So. Karina, huh?" Dustin says with a laugh. "How'd that name come about?"
El shrugs. "The names were in a baby book we found in Norway."
"God you've seen the world, haven't you?" Dustin jokes. "And I thought this trip was gonna impress the folks back home."
In an instant El's face falls. Dustin realizes what he's just said.
"Oh- I'm not gonna tell anyone, I swear. I know I can't say anything, I won't, I promise El, I make that promise so hard right now."
He's extending his pinky. El laughs, matching it. "Okay. Thank you."
They sit on the deep, rich colored grass, close together to protect the other. Instinct at this point. They look up at the dazzling stars, so much closer than they ever were in Hawkins. So much closer than they are in Kentucky.
"What are you…doing here?" El asks after a moment of comfortable silence.
"Studying rocks," Dustin answers. "And salt. Rocks and salt."
El frowns. "Really?"
He nods. "Yeah. I'm majoring in both Computer and Earth Science. Double science, ha. And minoring in History and Theatre, but those aren't as important. At least, not as important as to what I'm doing here. Cause this is a trip with the Science Department. Thus. Us researching rocks."
"So you weren't looking for me?"
Dustin pauses. "…How do you want me to answer that?"
"I didn't want you to be looking for me," El sighs. "But I'm glad you found me. Kali won't be happy, but we've learned to have disagreements by now."
"Kali? She's-" the gears in Dustin's brain turn like a rusty metal left out in the acid rain. "Julie?"
El nods. "I turned Kali into Karina. She turned Jane into Julie. We had to leave behind our old lives, but…we're just a little too sep-sentimental."
"You look like you've picked up Icelandic pretty well. Was it easier than English?"
"No," El shakes her head. "You just learn the easy words when an old barmaid is yelling them at you all day. And the swear words. A lot of them."
Dustin laughs. "You're so verbose now. I love it."
"Yeah?"
"It's like- you always had things to say, because most people do. But you were of so little words back then, and not by choice, that sometimes people just…" Dustin shrugs. "Looked over you. Let your actions speak. Cause you're capable of some pretty big actions, I can't lie."
They laugh together. It's a small, snickering laugh. It's comfortable.
"I know you're dreading this, but…" Dustin trails off. "…How?"
El contemplates the question. There's a lot of different ways she could answer it. In the end, she squeezes Dustin's hand and looks up at him with big, wet eyes. "It would take years, I think. To explain everything to you. But what you need to know is that we're safe."
"Okay." That's alright with Dustin. It has to be.
"And… that immigration is really hard and really easy at the same time when you don't legally exist."
"There it is!" Dustin points through his laughter. El's laughter trickling up under his is like the sweetest little symphony.
They settle into their comfort before another thought pops into El's head.
"Your friends. They think we're going to hook up?"
Dustin chokes on air.
"Um- I mean- yeah, I guess it made the most sense to play that up, considering I, uh- stared at you like a freak, didn't I?" Dustin answers. "That was um, good thinking, on your part."
"I have good ideas sometimes," El says. "But people just…look over me."
She looks down at his arm. Her fingers delicately trace the shapes making up the bats, pausing at the bracelet on his wrist and scrawling back down.
Dustin extends his arm for El to inspect. "You like? They're uh- Steve and I, we got these matching when I was a freshman. You look up here you can see the little E.M. hidden in the wing on this one."
"Pretty," El smiles. "He would've liked them."
She looks up at Dustin, much more comfortable than before. For a second, she flashes, and she's no longer her current self, but the little girl they found in the Benny's t-shirt nine years ago. To El, Dustin is the same- the glasses are gone, replaced by the blue and red hat she thinks has been rotting in a Utah landfill since the fall of '86. he has a little more hair and a lot less teeth, before flashing back into the Dustin she sees before her.
They linger on each other's eyes for a tad longer than most friends would. Maybe it's just the rush of seeing each other again after so long, but something feels good about just…basking in each other's presence. El leans in closer, to feel it more, to feel closer to home. Dustin's eyebrows perk up. She shakes it off.
"So you're- you're in college now?" El asks, adjusting her seating position. "You're all in college?"
"Uh- well, yeah, I am," Dustin says, following her lead. "Lucas and Max, too, in California."
"And Will and Mike?" El can barely stop herself. "And Jonathan? And Nancy? Robin? And Joyce and Hop, are they-"
Dustin puts his hands up to stop her. "Are you sure you wanna know? I wouldn't want you to feel- sad, you know?"
El sits back. She picks at the grass instinctively. It's long, soft grass here. Not like the summery stuff that gets stuck to your skin in the boiling heat back in Hawkins, where she and Max watched the boys roll down the hill in a race and took the best flavor ice pops from the cooler before they could get back up. Dustin would win, he almost always did. So, he got the other cherry pop, the first already taken by El. Max preferred the lemon. The other half of the Party had to scrounge for orange and grape like savages. El would pick at the grass while Lucas tied off the flower crowns she'd given up on in favor of listening to Dustin talk about his latest experimental combination of workshop machinery and aerosol hair products. Watching the shreds flutter to the ground, towards the last wildflower unpicked. Plucking it up and giving it a home behind Will's ear. Lucas handing the girls their freshly finished crowns, fit for the queens, he'd say. Getting a talking to when she and Mike came back to the cabin covered in grass stains and still finding the sticky pieces stuck to her when she showered that night.
In comparison, this grass almost feels sacrilege to pick at. But she does. Because she is sitting atop a hill with Dustin and listening to him talk. And when she is listening to Dustin as they sit atop the hill, El picks the grass. It is just what she does.
"Start slow. If I get too sad, I will tell you to stop," El says slowly, looking up at the sky. "Start with my brothers, please."
"Oh, that's easy- they're still living together. Er- well, they live together, in New York City. Jonathan graduates from NYU this year. Will's working for a magazine. And Jonathan, and- you're gonna love this, Jonathan…I- actually- I don't know if he knows, really, that he and Steve are dating."
El's face goes wide. The shock settles in, like the first time she heard about Suzie, and- well, that was different. This time, it's utter curiosity, not the burning sense of jealousy that had started burying itself in the pit of her stomach, unknown to her why she was so pissed that Dustin was talking about kissing another girl, but that's besides the point-
"Jonathan? and Steve?" El says incredulously, searching Dustin's eyes for any sign of a practical joke. She finds none. "I thought they hated each other. Jonathan wasn't allowed to have a dart board in his room in California because Joyce thought he'd put a picture of Steve on it."
"I dunno what happened," Dustin shrugs. "Steve won't talk about it. He just clicks his tongue any time I ask and trust me, I've asked. A lot. But Will says on the phone that Steve comes to visit more than anyone else. And their apartment is, like, six feet wide, so of course they just have to share Jonathan's bed, and Will just keeps nodding while they don't talk about it."
"Oh my God…" El facepalms.
"But hey, they're getting along. And Steve seems happy," Dustin says with a click. "So I'll let him say something when he wants to."
"That's good, that's- that's great," El smiles. In the in-between months, back in Hawkins, Steve had always seemed kind of…off. Mean and sad. El didn't know him that well before that point, though, so she'll just have to imagine what a happy Steve might look like. "How is Max?"
Dustin looks at the whistle El lets out, how her eyes avert his when she asks about her best friend. What an odd way to act, almost as if-
"Something tells me you know how she is." He says quietly.
El looks down at the grass. "Kali doesn't like it…when I spy. Definitely never on Will. He can see me. Not on Mike, either. He can sense me. I think Max might too, but…her nerves aren't really what they were, are they?"
Dustin shakes his head. "No, they're not. But she sees a physical therapist. She's getting better every day."
El nods. "Good. That's good."
"Let's see…" Dustin trails off. "Mike is still in Hawkins. He's writing. He has to stay close to the good doctor Karen found for him. He got into some trouble. A little while after…you left. But, he's okay. He works and helps Erica plan her Hellfire campaigns. They're making a kit for Holly to take over, cause Erica graduates this year."
"Erica is graduating?" El asks quietly. "And Holly is- she's old enough to be in Hellfire?"
Dustin nods.
El doesn't know why, but this is the thing that stops her in her tracks, her stomach turning with an awful ache. Holly and Erica, they were always…the little ones. Countless nights, during those in-between months, with Mike and Lucas plotting how to keep Erica from getting hurt on nights she insisted she come along, how to keep her from coming on more dangerous nights, and Holly…not even a thought in the realm of danger. Erica, she was too smart for her own good, too involved to be safe, insisting she wasn't afraid of anything but El saw behind those eyes one too many times, saw the same twelve-year-old girl she was all those years ago… and Holly wasn't even considered a player until it was too late. She fought, she led her friends, she grew up, but…El wasn't ready for either of them to actually grow up. Not without her being able to see it.
"Okay, I think that's enough for now."
They're quiet. El leans her head onto Dustin. Dustin wraps an arm around El. The cold, salty air presses onward. El picks at the grass. Even in the freezing cold, she wants a cherry ice pop.
"When do you guys finish?" El asks. The unspoken lingers in the air. When will we say goodbye forever again?
"We get four days here. Then, on Saturday, it's onto the next town. We have one more stop after this, then we go home."
It is Wednesday night. El counts in her head. She gets three more nights and two and a half more days with Dustin.
"What do you have to do?" her voice is small now, innocent.
"A few excursions. A little bit of sample collection but mostly just observation," Dustin explains, trying to assuage any fears about that. "We don't wanna disturb any of the natural life here. We're ferrying out further in the sea tomorrow. Then on Friday, taking samples from the salt deposit up the coast. That won't take long. Then we leave around noon on Saturday."
"And when you're not? On your…excursions?"
Dustin looks down at her, cradled in his arms, desperate for a moment. Just a moment. Of what? Neither of them could say.
"I have to keep up appearances, but…" Dustin leans down close, murmuring into her hair. "I may just have to deal with the teasing from my classmates. I'll be damned if I don't spend every possible second I get with you."
No one would possibly understand the scene if they could see it. From far away it would just look like a couple on a picnic, or something remarkably mundane. Up close, though, the scars persist. The tattoos, the thousand yard stare that El can't help but adopt sometimes- too often when she's washing dishes. Kali has to come and turn the water off so they don't flood the house. Two fire-forged friends, relishing in the day they realized the other still existed.
"Four days," El breathes. She looks up at Dustin. "Do you think we can do that? Four years in four days?"
"We'll get as far as we can."
Before they stand up, Dustin pulls up his pant leg to show off the small black etching of ink on his ankle.
"What is it?" El asks.
This one, he hadn't told anyone about.
"My other one." Dustin answers.
Until now.
"Oh, wow." El smiles. "Dustin…"
A swirl pattern, simple as ever, but El recognizes it: from the black jumpsuit Max had bought for her, a simple pattern with no discernible meaning to anyone other than those lucky enough to have been privy to El's brief, fleeting moment of true girlhood in the summer of 1985. The letters J.E.H. are etched in the corner, tiny enough it could be dots.
"It was always my favorite outfit you guys got that summer," Dustin explains. "I wish you'd worn it more, you were always so happy to show off the big pockets."
She doesn't cry. She simply extends a hand for Dustin to take as they start back down the hill, shoulder to shoulder.
As they walk back to the town street, El points out the little yellow house on the corner. She and Kali live on the first floor. Kali will be back in town tomorrow, sometimes they go to the airport to collect things- mail, supplies for the general store- and apparently, college student researchers. Everyone puts in something here.
Dustin drops her off. Outside, in the cold, he watches the wind whip around her face God, it's so long now illuminated in the lamplight has she always glowed like this? as she looks him in the eyes, unmoving, just…capturing. Capturing him, the fact that he's here, and she can go to bed knowing he's here.
"You have to go back to your hostel," El says matter-of-factly. "Keep up appearances."
"Yeah." Dustin agrees. Dustin and El were no stranger to sleepovers, the whole Party passing out after a few too many sodas in the basement on more than one occasion, but sleeping with Karina on his first night in the village was not a good look for anyone involved.
So, it's maybe even less of a good look that El leans in and kisses him goodnight. Dustin kisses back instinctively.
"Thank you. I'll talk to you tomorrow. After your excursion. I'll be here, okay?" El says, like she's scared he'll forget.
"Of course." How could Dustin forget?
El fiddles with her key, just one small key on a small ring, and Dustin has to avoid the urge to touch his fingers to his tingling lips as he grapples with the fact that El just kissed him. Take it back even further: El is alive after four years of not knowing and she kissed him.
It took a minute for anyone to move on. They all believed, clung to the hope that she was still out there and thinking of them, Mike more than anyone, with his custom campaigns sneakily getting beta-tested by Erica and her herd, even as he healed. As they all healed. As people moved, and did new things, and started going on dates again, and got better jobs and worse haircuts.
Dustin ponders as he reaches the hostel, if this whole incident has torn the wound back open. That after getting closure, closure he could not, under any circumstances, share with the rest of the group, it would haunt him for the worse.
But it doesn't feel that way. Not right now, at least, while he's floating on a cloud. He has seen El. El has seen him. She is alive. Kali is alive. He is going to see her tomorrow. They are safe. They are free. Dustin can spend two nights and two and a half days getting to re-learn them, getting to know Karina and Julie, and can go home and he doesn't have to believe anymore. He will say that he believes, but he doesn't.
Dustin knows.
His train of thought is cut short when he enters the hostel room, lined with bunk beds of college students egging him on, some kid named Andrew who'd helped Dustin to his feet that night in Reykjavík claps him on the back with an "attaboy" that has Dustin rolling his eyes and eyeing Joni in the bunk above his. She shrugs.
She checks her watch. "It's been three hours. You really finish that fast?"
Dustin ignores the urge to shove her and groans at the laughter that fills the room. "For your information, we just talked. Then I walked her to her house. She's a nice girl, 's all."
"Goddamn you, Henderson- y'all, he's taking it slow," Holden chimes in, doing a funny little move to accent his shenanigans. "He's wining-and-dining a village girl. Fuckin-a, man, you really gotta be the knight in shining armor all the time? Can you leave some cred for the rest of us?"
"Some girls like a gentleman, not a pig," The freshman Dustin had caught earlier, who he thinks is named Jess, chimes in. "Wouldn't kill you to try it."
The room devolves into locker room talk as Dustin quickly makes for his night routine, trying to keep his shower as short as possible while also using the break from the noise to contemplate the sudden and inconceivable way his life has changed in a matter of hours.
Sleep doesn't come naturally to Dustin, not usually. Nightmares. The ones he and Nancy talk about. Mind Flayer, Russian soldiers, more and more of the same bullshit he had to put up with at far too young.
Dustin thinks this is the first time in years he hasn't had at least one.
The next morning, fog permeates the ground as Dustin and his small collective of classmates walk out to the dock where the boat will take them further out into the ocean. The walk is short, but he steals glances at the old road leading into town from the airport that they'd taken the day before, in hopes he'll catch a glimpse of the brown car El had told him to look out for. Nothing yet.
He thinks it'll be a nice break, out on the fishing boat, to focus on his studies (the reason why he's here in the first place, he might add) and chat with his classmates, but the reality is anything but.
The current rocks them back and forth, bile rising in Dustin's throat as he not only gets motion sickness for the first time in years, but a new thought comes creeping from his ever-evil subconscious into his fully on Earth in this moment conscious.
Kali won't be happy.
Kali won't be happy… that Dustin is here. That he found El. To an extent, he understands it. After everything…she deserves to be a little wary. The life they've had could be torn apart again if the wrong person were to stumble across them and spill the beans back in the States.
Dustin will just have to convince her that he's the right person.
There's also the matter of the kiss. He's had time to think on it, to ruminate on their closeness- it would make sense, after all, seeing as it's been so long and it was a heated moment and they're friends and friends can kiss each other, especially in such a dramatic moment, right?. He hasn't been with anyone since he broke up with Suzie sophomore year! El and Mike haven't been on the same emotional wavelength since 1984, not to mention the four years they spent separated by El's apparent death and oh, Jesus, why the fuck did she have to kiss him?!
It's not like it would hurt Mike's feelings. It's been years and he's moved on and there's no way he could ever know anyway. So that's not it.
Dustin certainly isn't seeing anyone, so the idea of wanting to keep himself safe isn't the matter when he's concluded that this is a one time lucky break and he can never, ever see El again after this.
Is it El? Is she confined to yet another house, a room, a task, a single family member in this world who knows what her truth is? The seaside is a far cry from the cabin, and she certainly sees more people than just Kali, and she even goes to the airport and other towns and sees other people sometimes (never, ever south, nowhere near Keflavík and the US naval troops stationed there for whatever reason) and yes, it may not be one hundred percent, but this is much more free than she was in Hawkins.
So one of these things is wrong. And Dustin has a hunch that it's him.
Why is he scared? After everything, really, he's scared of El kissing him and him kissing El and he's scared of what Kali's going to do about it.
What a knight in shining armor that is.
Someone keeps a steadying hand on Dustin's shoulder for the rest of the boat trip, steadying him as best as possible as the waves lurch them around this is nothing like Max's book and Holden won't stop fucking talking about fish classifications. He tries to focus on the words, but that doesn't make it any better.
The nausea doesn't stop until they've been back on land for fifteen minutes, the others finalizing notes and trying to keep Dustin from swaying and falling over into the sand.
The walk back up to town is cut short when Dustin sees the brown car parked outside the yellow house. He adjusts his many layers of coat and doesn't explain to his classmates as he peels off from the group.
El stands outside, leaned up against the back wall. Her hair is in a braid today, her coat is green. Dustin takes in the details, making sure he commits them to memory. His shoulders slump when he realizes what she's doing out there.
"Come on, really?" Dustin says. El catches him in the distance as he approaches. "I thought you'd have known better."
She shrugs, tucking the box of Marlboro Reds back into her pocket. "They smell like Hop."
"He quit, you know."
"…I know."
Of course she knows. It's probably the same as it is with Max. She likely knows that Joyce and Hop are out of Hawkins, that they live by a beach and their family photo from Will's high school graduation sits next to a picture of the party on their first day of high school, during the month El and Will went to Hawkins High before moving to Lenora. She likely knows that there are pictures of El and Will on the walls, taken by Jonathan. Jonathan himself is scarcer in appearance on said walls. She likely knows that the house has three bedrooms, but the extra two are rarely used. Dustin can't think of the last time Will mentioned him or Jonathan going to visit. He doesn't blame them.
He can't blame her. It's all El has. He won't press the issue. He also won't kiss her until she's brushed her teeth, but that's a personal thing. If she even wants to do that again.
"Come on, it's cold," El says, heading for the door. "You are just in time for supper."
She holds the door for him.
The back door goes straight into the kitchen, so Dustin doesn't even have time to prepare for seeing Kali in the flesh again. It was fleeting, their last encounter. They spent less than a day in the same stratosphere before she was gone again. But all of that never really mattered. It was a lingering sadness, just knowing she was around, she was a fully realized being, and she died protecting a town that likely would've hated her.
Just knowing that she'd died in El's arms unfairly in the Upside Down.
He knows what that feels like.
She's standing over a simmering pot of kjötsúpa, The smell hitting Dustin and immediately making his mouth water after nearly eight hours on a rickety fishing boat. Her hair falls just past her shoulders, messy and dark. The bags under her eyes have all but vanished. Completely different from the girl Dustin met that day.
"Should we set the table?" El asks.
Kali looks up. She immediately locks onto Dustin. El must have told her, but there's still an air of surprise that lingers in her face. A little bit of recognition, Dustin hopes.
"Hey," Dustin breathes. "I know this is weird, but I can promise you I'm not going to-"
Dustin stops in his tracks because Kali approaches and hugs him. Startled, Dustin hugs her back. It's brief, like greeting an in-law at a family gathering, but the fact that she does it at all must mean something.
"It's been a long time since we've had a visit from an old friend," Kali says quietly. "It is good to see you."
It's like all the breath leaves his body in a wave of relief, like he's gotten her approval or something. He helps set the tiny kitchen table, sitting with the sisters in awed observance of their routine. There's a quiet comfort as they eat- El mentioned that they have a upstairs neighbor, an older gentleman who owns the general store, so Dustin has to stutter through using their assumed names just in case.
"Karina told me you are a student," Kali says, as if this is the first she's heard of him in her entire life. "How long have you been studying?"
"I'm a junior now, so three years." Dustin answers.
"How long will you be in town?"
"We leave around noon on Saturday."
It's a lot of the same questions El had asked the night before. Dustin's not sure just how much Kali had been told, or if she's simply asking again for the sake of conversation.
"Um, Dustin," El sets down her spoon and looks over at him. "There's a campsite, a mile or so off the road. I was wondering if you and your friends wanted to come and have a campfire tomorrow night. A send-off, sort of."
"Oh- yeah, sure. That sounds great, actually. I'll let them know." Dustin answers, excited at the idea of doing something fun and domestic with El, but dreading the fact that his friends are going to be perceiving them together. He doesn't need Steve coming up for any visits only for his friends to drop the bomb about "Dustin's Icelandic girlfriend" and have him connecting the dots.
Kali offers to clean up the food, so El and Dustin can go for another walk. They're on the shore this time, the sunset suddenly taking on a whole new hue when he's viewing it with someone else.
"I wish I could take a picture of you," Dustin murmurs, watching El watch the sun go down. She turns to him with a forlorn look, her lips held taut. "I know I can't, but I don't think that's fair. I need something, anything, to help me remember that this was real. That you're here, and I didn't dream it all up."
El's shoulders drop as she exhales, the seaside air whipping loose strands of hair fallen from her braid around her face. Dustin resists the urge to reach up and tuck them behind her ear.
"I do too," El whispers, turning back to her gaze of the sky. "Everything is beautiful here. But it's also big, and scary. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating through space. But I haven't felt like that since you got here."
"Don't do that."
"What?"
Dustin swallows hard. "Don't make me want to stay."
They turn their faces to each other at the same time. The idea runs through each of their heads, of Dustin leaving his old life, the others, all of it behind, and living with El in the big, scary, beautiful world together.
"You found me on accident," El says. "I do not want you to throw your life away because of that."
"What if it wasn't an accident?" Dustin posits. "I- I don't really believe in a higher power, but…I don't believe in coincidences. None of us do. You really think this wasn't…supposed to happen? In some way?"
"I don't know, Dustin," El breathes exasperatedly. "I don't know."
"Why did you kiss me last night?"
El feels tears brimming up in her eyes. The truth is difficult. Always has been, for her. Ironic, considering. She thinks for a brief moment about lying awake in bed the night before, alone, pondering that same question herself.
Dustin was always there. El wonders if, deep down inside, that's the reason she doesn't want to accept that it was always Dustin.
Because she didn't take that chance when they were teenagers. And now to take that chance will make him think she has different motivations. Things have changed, everything has changed, her feelings have changed; it's not a tiny crush in the back of her head, or the weird feeling in her stomach whenever he talked about Suzie, or the flutter in her heart every time she heard Cerebro crackle through her walkie while she was in California. It's adult, the way they're adults now, how her heart aches in silver, medicinal groans at the idea of him leaving in two nights and one day.
"Because I should've done it when we were twelve."
Is it true? Maybe not. The kissing part, at least. But she should've told him how she felt. Or…something. Like Dustin said, she was of so few words as a child. Not by choice.
"You don't mean that."
The tears break, two identical matching streams down El's face as she takes a shaky breath and holds her stature. "I do. And I'm sorry I didn't realize it before."
El El it was always El you fucking idiot
"I'm sorry, too." Dustin replies, adjusting his glasses that are wet with tears. "I think we both got caught up in…everything."
We were too busy being friends to realize we were falling in love
"Well…" El smiles. "'Everything' is over. We have two nights and one day. Before forever starts back up again."
We used to save the world in that amount of time. What the hell.
"I can work with that."
We never saved each other. We never needed to.
This time, when they kiss, it's like a goddamn movie scene. The romance El dreams about when it's late at night and the whole town is asleep and she's watching her Princess Bride VHS tape on repeat wondering if she'll ever feel like that again.
If she'll ever feel like that at all.
She feels like that right now.
Their arms are wrapped around each other tight, layers be damned, and this time when they're floating it's a good floating, the way their spines jolt with electricity and Dustin truly feels like if he loses his breath and passes out right now it will have been worth it.
They're close, closer than ever, as they gently catch their breath and refuse to let their eyes leave one another.
"Do you think we can do that?" El asks. "Nine years in two nights and one day?"
"We'll do the best we can."
They stay there, kissing until their lips are sore, talking until it's whipping cold night wind around them and the kitchen light in the yellow house flickers back on and they return to find three mugs of American-brand hot chocolate on the table, extra marshmallows and everything.
When El saunters off to her room to put away her overcoat, Kali looks Dustin up and down.
"You doing alright, Prince Charming?"
Dustin stutters. "Uh- yeah, I'm- I'm fine. Of course."
"I'm not…" Kali lowers her voice. "I'm not gonna try to stop you and Jane. If that's what you're wondering."
"Oh! No- I wasn't thinking that at all," Dustin shakes his head. "You're fine. I'm fine. It's okay."
She laughs. Dustin doesn't think he ever heard her laugh in the brief hours he knew her before.
"We're just…taking it in," Dustin says. "Making up for a lot of lost time."
The part about the forever after goes unspoken. Kali knows that Dustin doesn't need to be reminded.
When Dustin gets back to the hostel that night, his friends are already mostly asleep. Good. He's not in the mood for any more teasing.
When they have one day and one night left, they have breakfast together. El serves them, seeing as there's no one else in the tavern. Her hair is in a ponytail today. Her shirt is purple flannel. She's wearing a little bit of eyeliner. Dustin commits these facts to memory.
This morning she's made them hefty bowls of yogurt with fruit and fresh bread with cheese, steaming mugs of strong coffee and a mint for after. "What are you guys studying at the salt deposit today?"
"Tectonics, actually," Dustin says, adjusting himself and taking a sip of his coffee. It's strong. He tries not to wince, but he does just a little bit, and El can't help but stifle a giggle. "Uh- salt layers, they build up, so we can actually study the history of planetary motion, and changes in climate, by studying the, uh, the changes in the salt makeup."
El leans forward. "…That's awesome. What kind of changes do you look for? How do you find them?"
"Oh- uh, well, we look for signs of accelerated evaporation, cause that can tell us if the sea level is gonna rise, or if the soil might harden, which is useful for farmers. And we can also use it to compare to other planets, like that observer they're sending to Mars later this year," Dustin leans back in his seat. "And, uh, I have experience in that regard."
El laughs. "You might be the only person in your group that has actually been to another planet."
"That's what I'm saying!" Dustin chimes. "I should be, like, in charge or something."
"Svo hvað er þetta? Tekurðu bandaríska kærastann þinn með þér í vinnuna núna?"
El drops her spoon as Astrid, the tavern owner, stands in the doorway, the morning light pouring in behind her.
"Við borgum! Enginn er hér." El hits back.
Dustin looks between the two, completely lost.
The old woman rolls her eyes and scoffs through a smile. "Alveg út að aka."
El and Dustin make a face at each other. She points to the food. "Eat. You have work to do today. And so do I."
They're a lot quieter now that Astrid is out and about, getting the restaurant ready for the day. Their preferred topics of conversation are not ones that can be had around other people.
"Did you invite your classmates to the campfire?" El asks, digging into her bread.
"Uh, they were asleep when I got back to the room last night. And I left before any of them woke up this morning. I'll tell them when I get back." Dustin explains. "I'm sure they'll all want to come, though. They never pass up the opportunity to party. We almost got kicked out of a bar in Reykjavík last week."
"You did? A group of science students?"
"Only group crazier is the theatre students. They're all hippies and I have yet to go to a single cast party that doesn't rank of weed. Only place that reeks worse is-" his head darts around the room and he lowers his voice to a whisper. "Your brothers' apartment."
El laughs at that, knowing it to likely be true. Will and Jonathan, they always- well, El wouldn't know what they're like now. But when she knew them.
Dustin produces his wallet, flipping it open to pull out his cash, but El places a hand on his wrist to stop him. "What's that?"
She's pointing to a photo. A flurry of orange that causes the waver in El's voice. Dustin carefully pulls the thing out of its sleeve and hands it to her.
It's the party, minus El, at their high school graduation. Dustin is giving the camera rock and roll fingers and sticking his tongue out, his Hellfire Lives! t-shirt poking past his robe and valedictorian sash. Mike is making a funny face, or perhaps was in the middle of talking to someone off-camera. Will and Lucas are on either side of Max, giving her a funny kiss on the cheek.
"That was when we finished high school," Dustin tells her. "I had to give a speech. I told our principal to fuck off."
El laughs at that, because if she doesn't laugh, she will cry. she runs a finger over her friends' faces. Happy.
She hands the photo back to Dustin before she lets tears get on it. He doesn't bring it up again. Thank God.
The other students are packing up their bags for the trek when Dustin gets back. No one really comments on his absence, too incensed with their nerdy talk about the nerdy stuff they get to do today, and the most important part is that they will be staying on solid land the whole time.
In the moment where Dustin isn't being teased, he curses himself that he's about to invite it back in, but he does it anyway. "So, that girl I was talking to the other night, Karina- she wants to know if you guys wanted to come to a campfire tonight. She invited all of us."
As if like a spell was cast, Holden slaps him on the back. "Dustin, I will party 'til the sun comes up if it aids your quest of courting."
"Fuck off."
"Yeah, I about expected that."
"Will there be booze?" Andrew asks.
Dustin rolls his eyes. "Yes, probably. I will personally supply it myself if that's what you need. Party animals."
He slings his bag over his shoulder, already having packed for the excursion before he left to meet El for breakfast, and leads the charge of students out to the front, the five of them meeting Doctor Randall and getting yet another safety spiel before they head out on the hike for the deposit.
Dustin's classmate, Jess, knocks him on the shoulder. "Dude. Is Doctor Randall invited to the campfire?"
"Probably not," Dustin says quietly. "She'd probably bust us for burning it and disturbing the local trees."
"I know that!" she sneers. "I was making sure you knew that!"
God. Freshmen.
El walks to the general store on her lunch break, finding Kali and their neighbor, Mr. Jonnson, rearranging the homemade goods around the meager boxed things that came in the last order.
"How was breakfast?" Kali asks, a smug little smile on her face.
El shrugs. "It was fine. It was…it was great."
"Is he alright? With leaving you here?"
There's a small, but noticeable, completely dead pause. El nods after a second. "Yes, I think so. But either way…it's what's going to happen."
Kali frowns, reaching a reassuring hand out to rub El's arm. "I'm sorry. I wish…I wish it could be different."
"I know."
They're not remiss. Both of them will have to spend the rest of their lives missing their friends, the lives they once had. El has the added challenge of knowing her friends are still alive, still with each other, and she's not allowed to be a part of it. It's almost worse.
"Look, I'll be at the campfire tonight," Kali says. "Be a host. So you can have your peace with him."
"Are you sure that's okay with you?" El asks, reaching for her sister's hand.
She nods, then looks around the room. "I'm not the one who has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here."
They hug. El presses a kiss into Kali's cheek and whispers. "You'll get one. I know it."
"I think you're chronically optimistic."
"So, like, what are you gonna do?" Joni asks, sitting down next to Dustin as they swab the outer edges of a large, flat layer of salt. "This girl, Karina, are you gonna- like- just write to her, knowing it'll take three months for anything to go back and forth?"
"…What the fuck are you talking about?" Dustin leans back, incredulous. He shakes his head and returns to his work.
Joni throws it right back at him. "Dude. You've spent the last two days with her. None of the other girls who tried to flirt with you have ever gotten more than a look. Callie Chapman spent the Hair cast party crying because she thought you didn't know she existed."
"What? We were Claude and Sheila, of course I knew she existed."
"Dustin."
"Yeah?"
"You don't do flings," Joni persists. "I know I'm not your little rat pack from back home, but I've known you long enough to know that."
"It's not a fling," Dustin asserts. "We just get along. I know it's hard for you to imagine but I do contain complexities."
"Long as you know what you're doing."
"Henderson! Matthews!"
The two look up to see their classmates gathered around a large pool of loose granules, inspecting the phenomenon and beckoning them over to join.
El lays out the kindling in a circular shape, dry leaves and paper stuffed under the big log to get things going. The sun is just starting to set. There is one night left.
Kali sets a cooler down on a rickety bench and looks off into the distance, where Dustin once again leads the charge of his classmates over the hill.
"Welcome," Kali greets, louder than Dustin thinks he's ever heard her speak before. "Thought we'd offer you a bit of hospitality, some thanks for treating our village so kindly while you were here."
"Guys, this is- uh- Karina, and her sister Julie."
The other four introduce themselves, not missing the way Dustin immediately goes to help El get the fire started. The group gathers, flashlights ticking off as the flames go up, cheering when the first bottle is cracked open.
"They'll ignore us once they have their drinks, don't worry," Dustin assures her. "I know they're annoying."
"I think they're funny," El says. "And they're not wrong, when they said we were flirting."
"Don't tell them that, they'll get an ego."
El and Kali teach them a drinking song, one that the men all sing when they come in to the tavern to watch the English Premier League on the big TV. The students share the story of their first night in Akureyri, how they'd gone to find groceries and somehow ended up on the docks, berated by the large variety of birds that dwell there, how Holden had to explain a scratch on his eye from throwing rocks the next day at the University Center. Kali tells a story, very vaguely, with different names than the ones El remembers, about getting chased out of an abandoned warehouse after setting off firecrackers and nearly cracking a structural support beam.
"When I was in middle school, my friend got a job at an ice cream shop in the mall," Dustin starts. He feels El stiffen up next to him. "He used to let us use the utilidors to sneak into the movie theater for R rated movies. I think we got caught twice? Maybe three times? But for some reason they never banned us outright, so we just spent most of that summer getting chased through the mall by security guards."
Before the elevator and the Mind Flayer and the Russians and Billy and everything that came after, neither of them say.
The fire crackles, the drinks flow, the chatter erupts to a point where Dustin is glad they had to hike a mile away from town to get here, because they would certainly be disrupting the locals if they were anywhere near close. Andrew sticks a cigarette in the fire to light it and nearly catches his coat sleeve, and all the others can do is laugh at it.
More stories from home are flung around. El also has to redact, the same way as Dustin and Kali, when she tells the story of her first time trick-or-treating and how she and a "classmate, a boy with a bowl cut" got pranked and doused in corn syrupy fake blood and had to be hosed off outside by his brother.
"So you guys are American, then?" Holden asks.
The sisters nod.
"I was born in London, actually," Kali clarifies. "But I moved to Chicago when I was five, so I don't particularly count it."
"We moved around a lot," El adds. "But I like it here."
"Yeah," Kali breathes. "I don't know if I see us going anytime soon."
Huh. Dustin wasn't expecting there to be so much truth in these fake identities. Then again, there wasn't really any way they could fake the accents, so of course they'd have to be American. El, at least. After learning to speak from a gaggle of Midwesterners.
At around ten, the two get their lucky break. Kali entertains the inquisitive minds with talk of her childhood dream to study entomology, while Dustin and El sneak off for air.
"You'd better take in the sights," El says, looking up at the green streaks in the sky. "One night left."
"It went by too fast."
"It always does."
El looks at Dustin. He's already looking at her.
"Just taking in the sights."
El lets Dustin kiss the smile off of her face. She glances over at the campfire, where conversation is still bright. She turns back to him. "You know what?"
Dustin smiles. "What?"
El sighs. "Take me for a walk?"
They start to wander. El nods to Kali and they head back down the long path towards the town, El leading Dustin by the hand.
Dustin trips over his own feet. "Oh- wait, I should tell the others I'm leaving-"
"You really want them to know about this?" El asks, looking confused.
"Well- yeah, right?" Dustin persists, oblivious. "Cause I'm just kind of walking off. Not safe, sometimes."
El leans in closer. “Dustin, I’m walking you to my bedroom.”
“Oh, okay. That’s fine, I don’t really…”
El raises her eyebrows at him.
“Oh. Oh.”
“Are you…okay with that?” El inquires.
“Yes! Yeah, yes, I am. Absolutely.” Dustin worries that his hands are sweaty now, hoping El doesn’t notice.
“Good! We can talk on the way,” El pulls him along. “Out of earshot.”
“Good call.”
Arm in arm, hands clasped, the two walk a little faster than before to get back to the little yellow house at the edge of the street.
They take their coats and shoes off at the door. El waits to hear if her neighbor is home, which he is decidedly not. He's usually at Astrid's tavern on Friday nights. El's room is on the right. There's a fuzzy yellow carpet on the floor. Her wardrobe is gray wood. Her bed has a big purple and pink quilt. The room is low lit in glowing warm orange yellow. It's perfect for her.
As if she can sense the pit of anticipatory dread shoveling its way into his heart, El plants a hand on Dustin's chest. "You okay?"
He nods. "Never better."
Satisfied, El's hand threads itself in Dustin's hair and pulls him closer, his hand snaking their way around her waist, and they kiss. They kiss again and again and again, deep, languid, full of the past nine years and every year after, breathless and desperate, even as they become entangled in the clothes they're trying and failing to shrug off while still attached to each other and their legs start to melt like butter from standing so long.
Dustin's glasses end up on the nightstand, but he doesn't need them to take in the sights.
El is beautiful. Her hair, cascading in messy waves; her skin, left with goosebumps on every inch of it that Dustin touches, every scar accented with a kiss; her voice, as she makes known her every intention; her soul, permeating everything from sea to sky. Dustin commits her to memory.
It's the same for El. She basks in this time, in the feeling of Dustin's hands, of his curls as she flails for something to hold onto, choking back tears because if she starts crying he'll want to stop and ask if she's okay and he cannot stop, his deep voice rumbling against her skin, making marks that don't look too bad up against the scars from a life she no longer lives. Always caring. Always laughing. Always wanting to learn; oh, how they could've learned from each other.
She loves him, she's sure of it.
The moon is nearing the end of its shift. Their last night is coming to an end. El would start counting the hours if it mattered. But the less time they spend thinking about that, the more time they have to bask in afterglow. The more time she has to cradle her head in Dustin's chest and pretend that this is forever.
The darkness sings them to sleep, and the sun rouses them. When Dustin realizes that El is still in his arms, he realizes that he can't let her go.
Her warmth is intoxicating, as she stirs and her eyes flutter open.
El's heart could give way.
"Morning." Dustin whispers.
"You're still here." El says with wonder.
Dustin brushes a hair out of her face, the way he wanted to before. "You are too."
They lay there like that, comfortably quiet, listening to the crashing of the waves as the sky starts to burn gray to orange to blue, and the earth starts to catch up with them.
After what seems like a blissful eternity, Dustin breaks the silence.
"We'd have to go somewhere else. A new town, like this one. If I came back here people would get suspicious."
El slowly looks up at him. "…What are you saying?"
Dustin takes a deep breath. "…If I came back for you guys. If the three of us, we went somewhere together. Got away again. But it's just a thought."
El sits up, looking down at him incredulously. "You're going home, Dustin. You have to."
"Why?" Dustin follows her. She sits on the edge of the bed. "El, tell me. If it had been anybody else, if anyone else found you, would you have done all of this? If Lucas, or Max, or Mike, had been the one, would you have done everything we just did?"
"No."
"Then why?" his eyes follow her as she plucks his green university t-shirt off the floor and tosses it over her head. "El, if it were safe, if there were no possibility that anything bad could happen, that no one would follow me. Why couldn't I come back for you?"
"Because you have a life, Dustin. Friends, and family- what, you think I'm going to encourage you to just leave everyone behind?" she kneels back down on the bed. "Your mom, Dustin. Think about it. And Steve, and the rest of the party. Your school, your job. Don't throw away all those good things."
He reaches a hand up to her cheek. "I wouldn't be throwing the good things away. I'd be trading them, for the best thing."
El has to bite back tears again. It's not like she and Kali are married to this town for any particular reason. It's just safe. In a world where they're very, very lucky, Dustin could come back. The three of them could move, just like he says. But El is not a lucky girl. Not typically.
He backs down. She looks at the analog clock on her desk table.
"It's nine," El says. "We have three hours left."
"What do you want to do with them?"
Neither of them posits an answer. El silently climbs back under the covers, back into Dustin's arms.
"I just want to be on Earth with you," El says. "No more floating."
Dustin nods solemnly. "Okay. No more floating."
They settle again, but with a new thought meandering through each of their minds.
How would it work?
Rationalization is a bad idea. But it's the only thing they have. At least, until they have an hour left. Thirty minutes left. Twenty.
El watches Dustin retrieve his scattered clothes from around the room, minus his t-shirt. He puts himself back together rather nicely.
"You're keeping that," Dustin asserts. "Looks good on you."
El throws on a pair of sweatpants and walks Dustin to the door. "I should stay. I wouldn't want your friends getting all up in your business."
"No, I don't think I would either," Dustin approaches her closer, pressing two things into her hand. "Also for you."
El opens her hand. It's the photo, of her friends at their high school graduation, along with one of the friendship bracelets Dustin had been wearing on his wrists. They're the Party's favorite colors. El knows this because the rainbow ends in her pink instead of the usual purple.
"I wish I had a picture of all of us as kids," Dustin says. "I should get some printed. I hope that one doesn't make you too sad."
She shakes her head. "It won't. Thank you. I never have, but…sometimes I'm afraid that I'll forget what you all look like. One day, when I'm older."
"Spy on me," Dustin says, holding onto her hand. "I can't in good conscience tell you to spy on the others but, this is me giving you permission, telling you, to spy on me. One way communication is better than nothing at all."
"I can try." El brings a hand to his cheek. "You should get going, you're going to be late."
"I can't promise I won't try to come back. I won't tell anyone a thing. I'll chalk it up to the beauty of the village or the fascination in the salt deposit. But I don't think I can just go home and never try."
El kisses him. Dustin kisses back. It's long, slow, and sad.
"I'll be here."
"Okay," Dustin says with a laugh. He opens the door. On second thought he turns back. "El. I love you."
El nods. "I know."
Dustin pauses. He drops his hand off the doorknob and turns back. El starts to laugh, unable to keep it in.
"Six years."
"H- what?" El asks through her giggling.
"Six years, we tried to get you to watch those movies, and you and Max always brushed us off," Dustin points. "And you're tellin' me you finally watched them without us?!"
"I didn't say that!" El looks off into the distance, totally innocent, for sure. "…I love you too, Dustin."
He finally opens the door. Neither of them wants him to go. They both know he has to.
When the door finally shuts behind Dustin, El knows she's going to cry at some point. Dustin has just had the greatest trip of his life- learning that El is alive, finally getting to be with each other in the way they always meant to, but never did. It's far, far more bittersweet for El.
Dustin can try to come back. She won't stop him. It's foolish, she knows. But she won't know when he's coming. She can feign innocence. She can always search for him. Be reassured by his presence in a different place.
Maybe then it won't feel so much like she's waiting.
Maybe she'll cry into Kali's arms later. Maybe she'll have to leave work early and get yelled at by her boss. But for now, she smiles as her love leaves to pursue the life he was always meant to live.
Dustin packs his things quickly and makes it to the bus with minutes to spare. He gets funny jokes, elbow nudges and "hubba-hubba" noises sent his way, but he ignores them. He makes his way to his seat on the middle of the bus and pulls out his postcards, specifically the ones for Lucas, Max, Will, and Mike. He adds two new sentences to each of them:
I always believed in the beauty of science, but this village proved it to me a million times over. It was like living nine years in four days.