Always Be There For You ~ Dustin Henderson x Reader

Chapter 32: The Nina Project

 My eyes shot open early the next morning. Something was... off. Dustin was asleep next to me in bed, maybe that was it? Everyone was taking shifts watching me throughout the night and Dustin must've fallen asleep during his shift; he was still in his clothes and everything. I carefully climbed out of bed and glanced around my room. Something still felt different.

I quietly grabbed my walkman and left my room. I left the door cracked open just a hair and stood out in the hallway. That's when I realized what it was. I didn't have the sickening feeling in my stomach that I had before. I wasn't being watched.

I tip-toed down the stairs and into the kitchen. I opened a junk drawer and found an old package of crayons along with some paper. There were a few things I couldn't wrap my mind around about what I had just been through. Some things just didn't make sense. I thought that drawing what I saw might make things easier to comprehend. So, I sat down and began to draw.

"Y/n! Y/n!" Dustin shouted as he and Nancy scrambled down the stairs. I looked up from my drawing and shot them both quizzical looks.

"Yeah?" I stated questioningly.

"Oh... Hi," Nancy awkwardly greeted. I gave them both a small wave and went back to drawing. Dustin stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind.

"You okay?" Dustin asked.

"Yeah. I just... I had some trouble sleeping and I didn't want to wake you up," I answered. He planted a kiss on my cheek and then looked down at my drawings with confusion.

"What are these?" Dustin questioned. Nancy sat down in the seat across from me and grabbed one of the finished drawings.

"Sometimes when I can't get something out of my mind, I like to draw it," I explained, "And in this case, I'm just incredibly confused." I went back to working on the last drawing. The drawing of Fred and Chrissy.

"Is that..." Nancy trailed off.

"Yeah. It was weird, he like... he had them on full display," I responded, "And there was a weird red mist everywhere. It was like I was in some sort of nightmare." Dustin sat down in the seat next to me and grabbed my hand.

"Do you think Vecna was just trying to scare you?" Dustin inquired.

"When he made himself look like you? One hundred percent. But when I got here..." I paused, trying to make sense of my thoughts, "Something changed. It was like I wasn't supposed to be there or something."

"Maybe you infiltrated his mind," Nancy theorized, "He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?"

"Like Freddy Krueger's boiler room," Dustin remarked.

"Just... think about it. What if you unlocked a backdoor into Vecna's world?" Nancy grabbed one of my drawings, "Like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing."

"God, we need Will," Dustin huffed. Max turned the corner with my house phone in hand.

"No shit," Max replied, placing my phone back on the receiver, "It's just the same busy signal." Nancy squinted her eyes at one of my drawings. I saw a lightbulb go off in her mind as she set it back down on the counter and turned it towards me.

"Is this a window?" Nancy pointed at a floating window in the middle of a sea of red mist.

"Yeah. Come on Nancy, give me a little credit I'm not that bad of an artist," I teased.

"Stained glass with roses?" Nancy questioned, ignoring my comment.

"Yep."

"I've seen this before." Nancy began to fold my drawings into very specific shapes, as though she was fitting pieces of a puzzle together. Max stood behind Nancy, looming over her shoulder as she worked her Nancy Wheeler magic.