#henderhop mini fanfiction

[will80sbyers]

« So, are you ditching me too? » Dustin asked her, while continuing to set up the telescope.

« I want to see the stars, before ditching you and disappearing forever. » She was trying it out, the "sarcasm" thing. Max told her she was very proud of her.

Dustin smiled at her, and rearranged his new purple hat that she had gifted him on his birthday a week before.

« That would be annoying because I would have to look for you all my life after. »

She found herself blushing slightly, it was a strange phenomenon that had been happening to her for a few weeks every time she was with Dustin. She hadn't felt like this for Mike.

She wasn't nervous all the time, usually she felt relaxed with Dustin, but at the same time it was like an electric current was seizing her whole body in these moments. It felt right to joke together like this, but sometimes her heart would start running too fast if she caught him looking at her for too long, or when he said something that El was not sure if it was just a "friendship" something or...well...more.

She didn't know how to approach all of this. She was a bit worried to hurt Mike if she confessed her feelings for Dustin, and she was also scared that Dustin wouldn't feel the same as her. El knew that, after all she went through, being scared of a romantic rejection was a bit stupid, but Nancy had told her once that love does that–wait. She surprised herself with that thought... Love?

The warmth in her cheeks increased, and she imagined her face was probably super red by now. Mentally thanking God that it was night, she tried to avoid looking at Dustin. He was still setting up everything, unaware of her thoughts.

El took her place sitting over the old plaid they had recovered from the cabin, they always used it when all of her friend group decided to have dinner together on the hill. Those days were El's favourites, since her and Mike had broken up the year before, and the Upside Down was just a haunting memory in her brain, she had been enjoying her time with her friends. She knew that at one point the others were going to go away to college, leaving her alone in Hawkins, so she wanted to spend all her time with them when she could. She would have loved to go with them, and was studying really hard to catch up, but for how things were now she was going to have to wait for it a bit longer, so that she could learn all that she didn't know.

Mike was the one currently tutoring her for physics, Dustin was teaching her math, Max and Lucas helped her with English sometimes, but she found out she liked that subject more than the others. Reading was actually one of her favourite things to do now that she had the time, she could just get lost in the lives of other people all around the world, and even though she had her own incredible adventure herself, she didn't want to spend her time thinking about it like she did for the stories in the books. The nightmares about that last battle against Henry were still tormenting her... so the romance books that Max had gifted her were definitely a nice way to kill time when she couldn't fall back asleep.

«Boom! Found you. » Dustin screamed, an eye glued to the eyepiece of the telescope. He leaned back, grinning at her with joy.

« I found Venus. Come here quick. »

El got up and joined him, excited to see for herself. They had spent yesterday night looking for the planet without success because of the clouds, and now she could finally see the blurry figure of Venus with her eyes. She had seen so many strange things in her life, and had often felt like she didn't know the most basic information about the world because of how Brenner had kept her a recluse during her childhood, but learning about the universe and how many things were still unknown to everybody had brought her a kind of comfort.

«You know, there are a lot of people that don't know things, and they don't care about trying to learn them either. » Dustin had said to her one time, when they were studying together and she had a meltdown after not understanding how to solve a problem. « I'm proud of you for trying so hard, and you should be proud too. »

At those words she had hugged him without thinking, just because it was Dustin and she loved him and wanted him to know she was so thankful to have him in her life. El knew she had so many people that believed in her but Dustin had a way of making her feel safe that was different from everyone else. She didn't feel pity from him, or any type of judgement, when she reacted with anger because of her trauma. He usually ended up reinforcing the idea she had all the reasons to be angry and he understood why she did something, while proposing alternatives for the future at the same time. She liked that a lot about him.

« Beautiful. » She said after a while, pulling away from watching the planet and turning to smile at Dustin on her side. He seemed caught off guard by her smile, and awkwardly smiled back before getting up and going back to lay on the blanket. El could feel the shift of his mood in the air, he seemed worried, or even a little sad. She went to lay near him on the blanket, looking at the stars and trying to ignore the familiar jolts of excitement that being this near to him gave her.

« I don't want to go to college. » He said suddenly. El turned her head towards him and he did the same, looking at her with a look that said he was afraid that she would judge him for that confession. She was just confused. « Why? »

« It's just... everybody was always expecting me to do great things in my future, my mom, Suzie, Steve, even the others are always talking about how I'm going to get into every college I want to... and maybe they are right or maybe they aren't, but I'm feeling this pressure to be perfect when they act like that's a given and I don't... I don't want to feel like that, and I'm afraid that if I go to college I will feel like that all my life unless I do something amazing that people write books about, but what if I'm not really that smart as others think I am... and I go and fail all my classes. I'm already having a hard time focusing sometimes, and my grades went down. I feel like I'm gonna disappoint everybody. »

El stayed in silence for a bit, thinking about what the best thing to say would be. She understood what he was talking about, she had felt something similar when the faith of the world seemed to be on her shoulders. She had felt like she had to prove herself to others, and sometimes that pressure was too much.

« And there's another reason, too. » Dustin whispered, like it was difficult for him to admit this to her. « I hate the idea of not seeing you every day. »

El reached out and took his hand.

« You know we all love you no matter what, we love you because you're you, and that's not conditional to you going to college or not. But I think you always wanted to go, and you're saying this because you're scared... and it's okay. It's okay to be scared of the future... » She said. «...but we can't just stop time because we don't like for things to change, we can't stop change from happening. It's part of life. »

Dustin smiled at her and took her hand near him to give her a small kiss that made El catch her breath from the surprise.

« I really think you're the smartest of the group. » he said. Their eyes were locked together and they were still holding hands while lying really close. El couldn't stop thinking about what he said... about not wanting to leave her in particular.

« I will miss you too. » She whispered.

« El... can I kiss you? »