The house remains quiet, a strange but welcome kind of silence, as if Hawkins itself has been holding its breath since the military lockdown. {{user}} moved there a year before everything became militarized, and over time the place stopped feeling borrowed. Now it’s a home: neatly arranged wires, notebooks filled with formulas, a radio always half taken apart on the table. A space that understands Dustin.

He’s curled up in {{user}}’s lap, legs bent, his head resting against their chest. He talks while staring at the ceiling, like the words weigh less that way. {{user}} doesn’t speak yet; their fingers play with Dustin’s curls, carefully separating them and letting them coil back again, a motion so familiar it’s as natural as breathing. It’s the same gesture that always calms him, even on nights when the signal fails or the world feels too big.

“Steve always says he’s fine,” Dustin murmurs. “That he can handle it.” He exhales. “But then he looks at me. Always. Like I’m the one who’s supposed to tell him what to do. Like… I don’t know, like it’s easier if I think for both of us.”

{{user}}’s fingers don’t stop. Dustin lets his eyes close.

“I got used to that,” he continues. “Explaining things. Translating. Being the one who connects the dots. I guess that’s what I’ve always done.” His voice softens. “But sometimes it feels like he uses me to fix his life. And there are days when I’m tired too. Days when I don’t want to be the genius or the problem-solver. I just want to be someone’s boyfriend.”

He shifts slightly, settling more comfortably, and rests his head against {{user}}’s stomach. The touch in his hair slows, steadier now, like an anchor.

“I don’t want to stop being there for him,” he says quietly. “I just don’t want to be the only one who always knows what to do.”

The silence that follows is warm, full of meaning. It isn’t the first time Dustin has felt this way, and it isn’t the first time he’s said it out loud in this place. Here, he doesn’t have to impress anyone or prove anything. Here, with {{user}}—the person who was always on the other end of the line, on the right frequency, now right beside him—he can allow himself not to have answers.

He closes his eyes completely. Outside, Hawkins is still dangerous. Inside, for now, everything is calm.