𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗲, steve harrington

25. DAZED AND CONFUSED

She made her way to the end of the hall, coming to a stop in front of the door. "Dustin?" Sadie called, hand raised in a fist and her knuckles rapped against the painted wood. "I'm-"

But before she could even announce her intentions to enter the room or push the door open, Dustin had exited and pulled it to a sharp close behind him. "Dustin?" Sadie repeated; forever the skeptic and already growing in suspicion. "What are you hiding."

"Nothing." The curly-haired boy replied. "It's just... a mess. And it kinda stinks." He shrugged, before the worried look she had seen only momentarily in passing as he rushed into the house the evening before.

"Fine." Sadie shrugged. If he really didn't want her to see it then she wouldn't push it. "So, how was Halloween? Everything on your costume work okay? And how about that girl you asked about, Billy's sister. Did she come with? I was thinking about it after you left - she wouldn't have anyone to go with."

"Yeah - er - we met up with her before we hit up Loch Nora." Dustin nodded, fiddling with the door handle behind his back until it clicked. "It was totally tubular." He swallowed. "Um.. until Will had an episode. And then he had another on the field yesterday after school."

Sadie felt the words punch at her stomach. It wasn't that she didn't know WIll had these visions of the world he was trapped in. He had confided in her during the evening spent together in the new year, when both Jonathan and Joyce were too busy working or spending time with a new boyfriend (Joyce had begun to see Bob Newby, something the Henderson was overjoyed to find out when she next took a visit to Family Video) to look after him, and he had told her about him washing his hands when suddenly everything was thrust back into the dark blue, vine-covered environment of the Upside Down.

Joyce had found out not long after, when Sadie decided that she couldn't keep it a secret - although the woman was tactful in how she approached it... meaning that before she could ask her youngest son about what Sadie had told him, she had caught him frozen in place, cowering, terrified of something only he could see. And she had experienced them herself and found Will in that way. It was only on Monday evening when she last managed to break him out of one, but he had never had them that frequently, and it terrified her.

"How bad?"

"The one of Halloween we found him hiding... like he was back in there. But yesterday... yesterday was different." All thoughts of Sadie's suspicions on her brother's actions had flown out of the window; she had never seen Dustin look this worried - not since Will initially went missing anyway. "He was.... frozen. And his eyes were closed but you could see them. Mrs Byers was there... and she couldn't even wake him up. And when he did... they just left, and I have no idea how he is."

"Shit." Sadie let out a sigh, fingers knotting through the ends of her hair. It sounded horrifying, the sight of his best friend stood in the middle of the field in the midst of the episode nobody was able to wake up from. "It could be the anniversary effect, seeing as we're so close to the 6th again." She hurried to blurt out the first excuse to come to her mind - Dustin needed it, they both needed the reassurance. "He'll probably be fine."  She added.

"Yeah." Dustin looked more confident even though it was hardly a good explanation for things. "Yeah, he'll be fine. He's been fine before. I'll go check - at school - I'll go check at school."

And still confused by his constant rushing off, Sadie watched as he darted forward and left the house with barely a goodbye to their mom. Her eyes flickered back to his door for just a moment - she was curious, she couldn't deny it - but she didn't have the time to search his room for whatever he had hidden in there.