Always Be There For You ~ Dustin Henderson x Reader

Chapter 12: The Pollywog

 Inside Dustin's trash can, there was a small, slimy, green creature that looked almost like a pollywog. Dustin and I looked at each other, then back at the creature. I snatched his ghost trap out of Dustin's hands and gently placed the creature inside.

"Act natural," I instructed as I walked up to Dustin's front door. I pushed the door open and entered the house, Dustin trailing behind me.

"Y/n! Dusty! How was it?" Ms. Henderson asked. We tried to quickly get into Dustin's room, but we couldn't just ignore his mom.

"Oh uh, it was..." Dustin trailed off.

"Totally tubular!" I awkwardly finished. We began to shuffle over to his room again.

"What's wrong with you guys?"

"Nothing!" Dustin and I responded in unison.

"Did something happen?"

"No!" Suddenly, the creature began to move in the trap. Ms. Henderson jumped back in shock, placing her hand over her heart.

"Awesome, right? I uh, rigged the trap with a motor to make it seem like I caught an actual ghost," Dustin covered. Ms. Henderson and Dustin started to awkwardly laugh and I joined in. This whole situation was so uncomfortable. We took the break for laughter as an opportunity to sneak into Dustin's room. I looked around his room, searching for a place to put this strange creature. Dustin darted over to his turtle's tank and carefully removed him.

"Sorry, Yertle. Temporary eviction, buddy," Dustin apologized. I opened up the trap and placed the creature inside. It quickly ran and hid underneath a rock.

"What are you, little guy?" I questioned, closely leaning into the tank.

"You hungry?" Dustin asked, pulling out a 3 Musketeers from his bag of candy, "Nougat." He broke a piece off of the candy bar and placed it inside the tank. The creature slowly left the safe space of the rock and headed towards the candy, but hissed and slinked back once it came into contact with the light from the heat lamp. I turned off the heat lamp and smiled at the creature as it gleefully dashed over to the pile of nougat.

"You like nougat too, huh?" Dustin inquired.

"You're actually pretty cute," I chuckled to the creature, "I'm glad we found you."

"D'Artagnan," Dustin said, seemingly out of nowhere. I turned around and gave him a quizzical look.

"We should call him D'Artagnan," Dustin clarified, holding out the 3 Musketeers bar, "Dart for short." Oh my god, that was such a cute suggestion, D'Artagnan like from the book The Three Musketeers. I blushed and nodded in agreement. I spotted Dustin's bookshelf in the corner of his room and headed over to it. I managed to find two books on reptiles and passed him one.

Dustin and I sat side by side on his bed. We were both reading books on reptiles and sharing our findings, trying to figure out what Dart was. At some point during the night, I began to doze off. I leaned my head on Dustin's shoulder, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

Dustin and I woke up to the sound of his alarm clock blaring. I blinked a couple of times before I realized how we had fallen asleep. My face went bright red as I quickly stood up.

"Good morning," Dustin awkwardly stuttered, his face bright red as well.

"Good morning to you too," I replied. I found the extra bag I brought for the sleepover, grabbed it, and quickly ducked into Dustin's bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror, holy shit. Had I really just fallen asleep with my head on his shoulder? No way! Oh my god, oh my god. A knock at the door broke me out of my thoughts.