welcome home, dustin!

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    Dustin Henderson, in a way, held their party together. When they were twelve, and splitting apart, getting unnecessarily jealous, Dustin had been the one to remedy that. He'd been the one to let them know when they were being jerks, and helped them get back together just in time to become fugitives. When they were thirteen, he'd messed up with Dart, sure, but he'd also been the one to find Steve, someone that they'd needed in order to successfully make their way through the tunnels. Even without parallel universes and Demogorgons, Dustin was always there, always laughing, smiling, using his brains to help them through any problem that arose.

It was for this very reason that the party had been planning a Welcome Home Dustin party for the past few days. He'd been at science camp for a month, and they'd all felt the loss of him as they went about their days. The party simply wasn't complete without him, and they wanted this party to show him exactly that.

So this was why Alina woke up early the night after the movie—and the blackout. Well, early for her, anyway, which meant before nine o'clock. She and Will both got out of bed at the same time, Will, as usual, just slipping out from under the covers, and Alina dropping down from the top bunk and landing in a crouch, and moved to their dresser to find their clothes. From the kitchen, Alina could smell pancakes, and grinned, knowing this was going to be a good day.

"Morning, dad." As usual, she spoke to the framed photo she had of Brandon Fairgrieves on her desk, who was, as usual, beaming brightly at her, before moving on to another one that rested on her desk, of a different man she'd grown to care about as much. "Good morning, Bob."

It helped, in a way, to speak to the dead. Seeing their glazed smiles locked under glass and picture frame made her heart twinge a little, but it also made them feel a lot closer. Like they weren't just bodies stuffed into coffins and buried deep, deep, underground. Like they were constantly watching over her.

Brandon Fairgrieves and Bob Newby were both heroes—sure, Alina's dad had made mistakes, but he'd fought all of her life for her to be safe and out of the lab's clutches. Bob had been the one to save everyone's lives from the Demodogs, and therefore help them purge the Mind Flayer out from Will. To both of them, she was eternally grateful.

She got dressed, pulling on a long-sleeved blue shirt—being one for sentimentality, she'd decided to wear the same shirt she had worn on the first day she'd really spoken to Dustin—and shorts. After running a comb through her hair, Alina knotted her unruly curls up into a ponytail, made her bed, brushed her teeth, and then slid right into the kitchen, where Joyce smiled at her.

"Hey, Al," she said brightly, flipping a sizzling pancake before sliding it onto a plate. "You're right on time for breakfast. Are you still going to Dustin's today? For the Welcome Home party?"

"Aye-aye, captain," said Alina, moving to the cupboard to get food for Skywalker. "Lucas and I made signs. I think it's going to be a superb day. We've all really missed him."

"I know, I know," said Joyce, just as Will came into the kitchen, his hair combed, looking excited. He sat down at the table just as Alina shook some food into Skywalker's bowl, who came running at the rattle of the container, immediately immersing himself into his breakfast. "I'm sure he missed you too. Morning, munchkin."

Will rolled his eyes at the nickname as Joyce set the pancakes onto the table. Alina washed her hands and joined her brother, her stomach growling. She'd always loved pancakes.

Just then, the final member of the Byers household came into the room. Jonathan, a smear of lipstick on his cheek, frantically buttoning up his shirt. He was late for work—he'd been working at the Post for the whole summer, a job that, apparently, was Gabe's dream job—probably because of the power outage last night, and he barely paid his family any mind as he began to hustle for the door. But, of course, Joyce stopped him. "Hey, hey, hey!"

Jonathan halted in his tracks. "Huh?"

"Wait up."

"Oh, no, I'll eat at work," Jonathan reassured her. "I'm late." He didn't seem to notice the lipstick, and Alina snorted into her glass of milk. Nancy had spent the night here—something that was happening more and more frequently these days. Alina didn't know if they were just sleeping in the bed together, or sleeping together, but judging by Jonathan's dishevelled state, she assumed it was the latter. Yuck.

"No. Your cheek." Joyce reached out, cleaning off the smudge, and Alina let out another laugh.

"All right, all right," said Jonathan, embarrassed, shrugging her off "I gotta run. See you later."

"Bye, Jonathan!" Alina called. Jonathan turned back, raising his hand in a wave, before making his way out the door. As soon as he was gone, Will let out a groan.

"Gross."

Joyce returned to the table, and Alina squirted maple syrup onto her pancakes, watching, from the corner of her eye, Skywalker, who was going to town with the milk she'd left for him. "Well, I don't think you're going to think it's gross when you fall in love," their mother said, digging into her own breakfast.

Will furrowed his eyebrows at the thought, and Alina frowned slightly. She couldn't picture her brother ever like that with anyone, not even when he was older.

"I'm not gonna fall in love," Will said, taking the maple syrup from his sister and drizzling it on his own pancakes. He looked almost disgusted by the thought, and his cheeks turned pink.

"I have a boyfriend," Alina pointed out, her mouth bulging with food, "and I still think it's gross. If they're going to do it, why don't they just do it at Nancy's house instead of ours? It's revolting."

Will let out a laugh. "You know," he said, "if they get married, that'll make us and Mike siblings in law. How weird would that be?"

"Ugh, I don't want to be related to Mike," Alina groaned, "not even by marriage."

After Joyce picked up some things that had fallen off the fridge—including a picture Will had drawn of Bob—she sat back down with them. "All right," she said, "I guess you have to go. Have fun, you two."

"Thanks, Mom," said Will, and Alina nodded, picking up her sign—it was on white poster board, and just said Welcome Home! in glittery writing—and followed him outside, where they hopped on their bikes, Alina holding her sign under one arm. And with that, the Byers' made their way into yet another hot summer day, ready to welcome Gold Leader back to home base.

"All right," said Mike. They were all crowded outside of Dustin's house, about to go in—his mom, who was in on it, had lent them a key. Gabe stood beside Lucas, who had brought one of the signs, and Max, who was holding the party horns. "Does everybody know the plan?"

Alina rolled her eyes. "It's not that complicated," she said.

"Yeah," Gabe piped up, "we got it, Mike. We go in, hide, Dustin comes home, El makes all of his toys come to life, he follows them into the hall, boom, we surprise him. Cue happy music and tearful hugs or whatever. It's not a bad plan, Mike, but you really have to stop treating this like we're going back into the tunnels."

Max laughed. "Exactly," she said.

"Whatever," Mike grumbled. El was gripping her boyfriend's arm, pressing herself as close to him as possible. Even though Gabe was glad to see her—they'd become pretty good friends after the night she'd closed the gate—it got kind of annoying that she always had to be near Mike. Like, Alina wasn't constantly beside Lucas (right now she was standing beside her brother, shielding her eyes from the sun). So why was El so clingy?

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Will asked, holding up the key. "Let's go!"

Everyone nodded, Mike a little grouchily, and made their way into Dustin's house, where they set themselves up behind the wall, listening to Dustin's frantic messages coming through the walkie-talkie at Mike's hip. His voice kept getting more distressed every moment without response, until he finally cut off. A twinge of guilt went through Gabe. Even though they were doing this for a good reason, he felt bad that they were leaving Dustin in such a state that he didn't think anybody was listening for him.

Maybe he thought they'd really forgotten about them.

He didn't have time to dwell on these things, however, as just then the door to the house opened, and Dustin made his way inside. Everyone tensed, expecting to be caught, but he moved his way down the hall past them and into his room. Muffled muttering came from inside, and then Mike nodded at El. She closed her eyes.

It had been a pretty simple process of deciding how they were going to lure Dustin over. Alina had suggested her own abilities, but, by now, everyone knew the telltale deep red glow of her energy, including Dustin. So that was a no-go. It had actually been El herself who'd come up with the plan to make Dustin's toys 'come to life'. It was quite impressive, actually, that she could manage to move so many things—without looking at them, too—and it was definitely something she couldn't have done a year ago. But now Alina and El were experimenting, and they were finding themselves much more powerful than they'd originally thought.

A trickle of blood began to drip down El's nose, and that was when they all heard it—the toys beginning to move. Monkeys clapped their cymbals, robots whirring, tanks lighting up with gunfire—it was every child's dream came alive. At the blow of a train whistle, El squeezed her eyes shut tighter, and Gabe knew it was at this point she was beginning to make the toys lead Dustin out of his room.

Sure enough, soon came the footsteps. Dustin wasn't exactly quiet, as his steps were accompanied by his tense murmurs. "It's just a dream," he told himself, causing Alina to nearly burst out laughing and blow the whole thing. "You're dreaming." He then walked right past them, and Gabe prepared himself.

"Now!" Mike whispered, and as El's eyes opened, the toys fell silent. Max passed out the party horns and lead everyone out into the living room, where Dustin, clad in a Camp Know Where shirt and hat, was crouched, examining his R2D2. Alina and Lucas held up their signs, and Max counted to three with her fingers.

One, two, three!

Everyone blew the party horns, and instead of the good old scare leading into the happy reunion everyone expected, Dustin dropped his toys, letting out the loudest scream Gabe had ever heard. Whirling around, he bared his weapon at his attackers—which turned out to be a can of Farrah Fawcett spray—and sprayed, still screaming. Unfortunately, that turned out to be right in Lucas Sinclair's face, and then he was screaming, too, as the hair spray got right into his eyes.

Finally, Dustin seemed to snap out of his funk and lowered the can, but by then, he'd probably nearly blinded Lucas. While the boy let out a whimper, his hands going to his hairspray-drenched face, and Alina comforted him, Gabe whirled to face Dustin, smiling sheepishly.

"Uh, welcome back?"

Dustin Henderson, the link that brought the party together, dropped the can of Farrah Fawcett hairspray, looking guiltily at the boy he'd basically just pepper-sprayed. "Shit."

Well, that wasn't what anybody had expected.

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a/n: okay, i feel like you can kind of tell that this was the chapter i started to lose interest in lmfao. like, at the beginning, i got so bored of this book, right up until chapter seven, because for some reason it felt like such a drag lol. it ended up taking me three weeks to write one chapter, when i can usually write two in one day lmfao. luckily, after chapter seven, things get better again. 

anyway, i'm trying to figure out what to do with my life now that i'm not writing this book, and i'm beginning another st 3 book called verdensrommet. idk if i'll be able to finish it, but it was supposed to be both the scoops ahoy and adults plot, but i honestly don't want to write the adults so i think it might just be scoops troop. i'm excited for it, though! i just miss these characters.

sorry, off topic. anyway, i hope you enjoyed! i'm honestly so excited to get into the more exciting bits, like some of these chapters are my favourite out of the entire series. there are bits that are super original and i'm honestly hyped just thinking about them. :)

'till next time!