✓ Her Mixtape, Stranger Things

liii. the fallen angel

　　Lying was an ugly trait that came from anyone and everyone. It never ends up the way you want to, maybe at first, but after a while, all of your lies will be unravelled, and you will have to suffer from the truth. And the truth shall always be your curse.

Dustin Henderson has never been a good liar.

He knows he stumbles over his words when he lies, and his face slowly starts to turn three shades darker while heat crawls up from his neck. His lisp becomes harder to understand, his voice cracks, and he rushes over his sentences.

What he does instead of lying is to avoid the question.

Dustin sits at the table in the Wheeler's basement with Lucas and Ricky. It's been hours since their excursion to The Creel House, where they discovered Vecna's whereabouts and the remnants of Hawkins' ten missing people. Nancy allowed everyone to pick up clothes from their homes and use her showers. They began to fall asleep one by one after cleaning up and regrouping.

Dustin can't take his gaze away from Rue, who is sleeping on the couch. She lies there peacefully, clutching Max close to her while the music from her Walkman continues to play. He swallows the lump in his throat as he tries to look away from the grim taste of bile in his mouth.

He couldn't take his mind off the carnage. Dustin sees it every time he blinks, and when he thinks about the broken bones and shredded limbs, his gut twists and his insides whirl around, and he understands why Robin Bucky had thrown up.

Dustin considers himself naive and stupid because he ignored all of Rue's concerns. She'd been bawling her eyes out the night before because she'd injured somebody, and all he could think of was that one of his best friends was a Celestial.

But he also suspected that his denial was keeping him from believing her. Only in his nightmares would he have encountered a Celestial fallen from grace, leading to his inescapable death.

But she's real.

And she's his friend.

And like the good-hearted person, she's always been, she's tried to warn him.

"Are we just going to leave them there?" Lucas' voice is softer than usual.

He speaks quietly, not wanting to wake anyone while clutching the mug of hot chocolate Nancy and Ricky made for him, faint steam rising into the air.

Lucas stares at the table, his eyes glazed with terror.

Dustin was not the only one who couldn't shake the imagery. But Lucas knew one of the victims—the effects were stronger on him than on anybody else in the room.

Lilah Amerdelda.

Dustin had heard about her from Lucas weeks ago, the pretty girl he was lucky enough to share a lab with in his third period. She was a cheerleader who talked to Lucas and flirted with him while he sat on the bench during his games, leaving the boy a flustered mess. Lilah was bright. And for the first two weeks of the second semester, Lucas was envious of her intelligence. For weeks, he's been working up the guts to ask her out.

Dustin had spotted Lucas' face fall as he heard Nancy mention her name while identifying the first four missing people yesterday.

"We can't just leave them there, right?" Lucas looks up at Ricky, "We have to tell someone. Their families deserve to know. Then they can be buried. Properly. They shouldn't be left there to rot in that... house. We can't... we can't leave them."

Ricky looks like he wants to agree.

Dustin has never seen him with a look like this before. Ricky Maguire was recognized as a burnout who couldn't get into college and was often in trouble with the cops, and his only redeeming trait was his rockstar girlfriend, Dani Patel. At least, that's what Nancy Wheeler said whenever Alex brought up his older brother whenever she'd drop them off at the library.