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“Do you,” says Dustin, conversationally, “ever feel lonely?”
Steve’s fork hesitates, mid-twirl above his spaghetti. His face falls into the expression Dustin’s come to know as thinking hard, which is rare for Steve. His eyebrows twist together, and underneath his eyes do a little flick to the ceiling above, as if the curling water stain is suddenly going to change shape and spell out the answer to Dustin’s question. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again.
Dustin stares. “Blink twice if I broke you.”
Steve blinks twice. Dustin snorts. Steve huffs a laugh. “Lonely,” he says, corners of his mouth twisting up. He drops his forkful of pasta back onto his plate and stabs a couple stray pieces of bacon. It’s carbonara tonight, which is steadily becoming a regular on Steve-and-Dustin days, which are… steadily becoming most nights and some weekends, now that his mom’s back at work. It’s probably the second most common food Dustin eats at Steve’s – just behind steamed vegetables, because Steve’s a fucking mom down to the core. Eat your vegetables, he says, and then serves up three different types. Don’t get angry when you find mushed peas down the side of your couch, then, Dustin’ll say, every time he makes them, which never works, because Steve’s a parent and a teenage rebel: good, leave some carrots for my mom to find too, yeah? Jeez. “Like… in what context?”
“Oh, big word,” Dustin snarks. He drops his cutlery and throws his hands up. “In the lonely context, Steve, jeez. What other context is there?”
Steve bites the bacon on the end of his fork, sticks the thing in his mouth, and raises his own hands above his head in mock-surrender. “Woah, sorry,” he says, but it comes out more like ho, lorry. Despite living in Loch Nora, Steve has no manners or grace whatsoever. He puts the fork down. Dustin stares harder. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
“You didn’t think I was—”
“Hey.” Steve’s eyes go dinner-plate wide. He drops his plate to the edge of the glass coffee table – the Harringtons are wankers – and scooches a little closer to Dustin’s side of the couch. “Calm down, dude. I’m sorry. Are you—are you okay? Is everything okay?”
Yeah. Total mom.
Dustin shrugs half-heartedly, ducking his head automatically at the attention. Steve flicks his knee, and when Dustin throws him a glare, Steve grins in that stupidly comforting way of his. He makes Dustin want to tell him everything. He’s stupidly parental and stupidly loving, Steve Harrington. It’s stupid and disgusting and stupid how much Dustin appreciates it.
Still, he bites his lip – because he can do that now – and shrugs again. “Promise not to laugh?”
“Promise,” says Steve, without missing a beat. He sticks his hand forward. “What happens in mi casa stays in mi casa.”
“Mrs. Perez would fail you immediately if you pronounced mi casa like that in her classroom,” Dustin returns, but shakes his hand. “It’s—it’s The Party.”
Steve nods. “Ah,” he says, squeezing Dustin’s hand. “Yeah?”
That’s all Dustin needs: Steve says okay, I’m here, I’m listening, and Dustin’s off. He sits on Steve’s stupid pea-encrusted couch with his plate of pasta in his lap and he talks – talks about Max and Lucas and Mike and El, how they’ve partnered off and are too busy with each other. He talks about the old Party – Will and Mike and Lucas, long night D&D in Mike’s basement, giggling and laughing about the stupidest things into the early hours of the morning. He talks about AV Club and when costume decisions for Halloween were their biggest problem. He talks Will and how distant he is all the time, about El and Mike and Lucas and Max, about how they’ve partnered off and how they’re running around, about how he feels totally and utterly isolated – a stranger in his own group. He talks and he talks and he talks and Steve listens the entire time, head bobbling, mhming and aahing at the right moments.
“So, yeah,” he finishes, a little limply. “I just—I feel a little lonely, I guess.” He elbows Steve. “Like, I’ve got you, but…”
“I get it,” says Steve, shaking his head. “They’re The Party – your best friends since, like, diapers.”
“Third grade.”
“Yeah, alright, whatever.” Steve smirks. His smile softens. “Have you talked to them?”
Dustin snorts. “What am I supposed to say? Hi, Lucas. Hi, Mike. Can you stop sucking face and talk to me, your lonely best friend? Hi, El, Max. You guys are cool, but I never see you because my friends think girls are more concerned with girls than actually being friends.”
Steve shrugs. “You could try—in, y’know, nicer words.” He jerks his head up. “You could, like, invite them to do something? All together, so they can’t refuse – like camping, or something.” He pauses. Dustin watches his eyebrows re-knit together. “Not in the woods, though. Indoor… camping?”
“Indoor camping,” Dustin deadpans.
Steve narrows his eyes. “It’s safer.”
“Oh, shut up, Mom.”
“Henderson.”
Dustin sighs. “Yeah, yeah.” He swallows. “But—camping indoors? You mean a sleepover? Because the Wheelers’ have the most space, and The Party’s banned from sleeping over there because apparently we kept Holly up all night, and Mrs. Wheeler was pissed, and we couldn’t have El or Max over there anyway, so—”
“Henderson,” Steve repeats, somewhat emphatically. He runs a hand through his hair. “Calm your tits, dude. You all can sleep here, if you want.” Dustin raises his eyebrows. Steve raises his hands. “I’ve got like, three spare mattresses no-one uses, and blankets. You need that for a sleepover, right? I can stay in my room, or—or sit in the corner and make sure they actually talk to you.”
“Parental.”
“Eat shit, Dusty-bun. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I know, dipshit.” Dustin nudges him. “I’m just—” he cuts off, biting his lip. “I’m good, I think. Just—talking? You think that’d actually work?”
“For sure,” says Steve. “Diplomacy first, violence later.”
“Dude, are you reading the dictionary now?”
Steve roars, and dives across the remaining few centimetres of couch. His half-finished plate goes forgotten, and Dustin screams in grief for both the pasta and his clean pair of pants, which ruin as Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders and ruffles his curls, knocking his camp hat over the back of the couch. “You dick!” Dustin all-but squeals. He throws diplomacy out the window, grappling for Steve’s own probably-insured hair, and then they’re giggling and laughing, and Dustin’s the lightest he's felt in weeks.
The least alone, despite it all.
He radios in the next day. Turns on the walkie at and asks, as politely as he can force himself, if everyone is free tomorrow, say yes or say nothing at all, over. He gets a begrudging yes from Max and a since when do you even ask but an affirmative from Lucas.
“What for?” Will asks meekly, an hour or two after Dustin first proposes it. “Over.”
“A sleepover at Steve’s, five pee-em,” Dustin announces, and then winces as the line breaks out in shouts and questions. “Shut up—quiet! You’re all invited, that’s the goddamn point! Mike, don’t tell your mom Max and El’ll be there, and you’ll be fine.”
“Five-oh-oh?” comes El’s timid voice. “I will ask Hopper.”
Somehow, Mrs. Wheeler says yes, and even more confusingly, so does Hopper. Maybe because it’s Steve’s place, and Hopper’s seen him with a spiked bat. Probably because it’s Steve’s. When tomorrow rolls around, Steve sets them up in his stupidly expansive living room – picks up Dustin and drags him over an hour before the thing starts to shift the dinner-table-pea-rebellion couch back and roll up the ugly ass carpet to shove a haphazard mess of mattresses and blankets and pillows and shit down. When The Party arrives, they make a blanket fort – which Mike dismisses as childish for a solid five seconds before El starts hanging sheets from the Harrington’s chandelier. It’s fun, truly, and for a long moment Dustin actually forgets the purpose of the whole evening. It’s only when Steve pops in to bring them slices of pizza on paper plates that Dustin remembers.
“Guys,” he says, after they’ve all polished off the pepperoni and El’s learnt what a capsicum is and tried, for the first time, the godsend that is a supreme pizza, “I—kind of wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay,” says Will, sitting up kindly, at the same time Max spits out a “go on, then.” Dustin pauses to send her a glare and Will a grateful, teethy – or half teethy smile – and then holds his breath.
“I was just… I miss hanging out as a party,” he tells them. “I feel kinda lonely, sometimes – y’know, with you and El—” he points at Mike – “—and Max and Lucas always like, making out, or whatever. Which I totally understand,” he adds in a rush at Mike’s darkening expression, “I just—hanging out like this is nice, right? Just The Party?”
“Absolutely,” says Will immediately, nodding so hard Dustin thinks his head might snap off and start rolling out the door of the pillow fort and down the hill back into east Hawkins. “I agree.”
“No, what the hell?” comes Mike’s indignant answer. “Dustin, come on. We hang out. We’re just… growing up. Getting girlfriends. It’s normal.”
“The girlfriends can talk,” Max snarks, crossing her arms. Her cheeks go a little red. “It’s a cool idea, nerd. Like, I like Lucas, or whatever, but it’s fun to just hang out.”
Lucas opens his mouth, seems to think the better of it, and then closes it.
“Yeah,” El echoes, grinning at Max. “Fun.”
Dustin can’t fight down his excitement. “So, we agree, then? We’ll hang out more? I’ll make you all shake on it.”
Mike groans, but falters under the terrifying glare El sends him. “I guess,” he mutters, and, well. Specific wording isn’t a hill Dustin’s going to die on – this time. “Whatever. Sure.”
“Awesome.” Dustin gives them all a blinding smile with all of his teeth, eyes scrunched up gleefully. Sue him, okay? He’s happy.
“Yeah, whatever,” says Lucas, but when Dustin opens his eyes and calms down a bit, he’s smiling too. “You guys wanna play monopoly, or something?”
“Monopoly?” El asks, confused, and the blanket fort fills with screaming.
Dustin doesn’t stop smiling for the rest of the night. In the morning, when they pack everything up and The Party runs out to score shotgun in Steve’s car, Dustin lingers in the doorway as Steve tries to find his keys.
“Thanks, by the way,” he says, while Steve’s abusing the cushions of the armchair by the faux fireplace, peeling them back from their wood base to find his shit.
Steve’s head snaps up. His eyebrows are furrowed again, and Dustin sighs. “Dude, do I have to spell it out for you? Thank you for listening and helping and for being a total dick—”
“Language, Henderson,” Steve taunts, but the deep-thinking face is gone. In its place is an expression of… happiness, Dustin guesses. He looks relaxed. Okay. “It’s no problem, man. Any time.”
He means it, Dustin realises. “Oh,” he says. “Um. Thanks?”
Steve rolls his eyes. He opens his arms. “Come here, Dusty-bun,” he grins. Dustin rolls his eyes, but everyone’s outside still squabbling, and – fuck it. He doesn’t quite run, but it’s close. Steve’s still annoyingly taller than Dustin – and probably will be for life, not that Dustin wants to think about that; Steve’ll forever hold that over his head, literally – but the hug isn’t awkward. Steve wraps his arms around Dustin’s shoulders and Dustin grabs onto Steve’s middle and they fit, just like that.
“Hey,” he finds himself saying, after a long moment. “You know when I asked you if you ever felt lonely?”
In their embrace, Steve stills. “Yeah?”
“If you—if you ever feel the same, you know you can radio, right? We didn’t buy you that walkie-talkie for nothing.”
Steve pulls back from the hug. Dustin’s arms fall, and for a second, he thinks Steve might be about to say something – his thinking expression comes back, and his eyes grow just a bit dimmer. “I know,” is all he says eventually. In the weird almost-afternoon light, Dustin thinks he sees his eyes glimmer. “I—I know, dingus. Thanks.”
“Eat shit,” Dustin tells him, which he’s pretty sure even Steve is smart enough to know means I love you, or some variation. And then, because now is the perfect time to try: “can you make the others give me the front seat?”