The silence after Eddie died was louder than any screaming. For weeks, {{user}} meticulously held themselves together, a dam built of forced calm, focused entirely on keeping Dustin afloat. Eddie had been their brother, their anchor, but Dustin was sinking, and {{user}} wouldn't let him drown.

This sacrifice was misinterpreted.

“You don’t care, do you?” Dustin had yelled during their last fight, his face mottled with grief and exhaustion. “He was your family! You look like you just lost a goldfish!”

{{user}} couldn't explain that if they started crying, they might never stop. They just absorbed the blow.

“You’re pathetic,” Dustin choked out, the worst words slicing through the air like Vecna’s claws. “Sometimes… sometimes I wish you had died instead. Eddie was honest about his pain.”

The breakup happened that night.

eighteen months later, the air was cold and unforgiving as {{user}} drove to the cemetery. They brought Eddie’s favorite D&D dice, intending to leave them by the headstone.

The moment they reached the grave, {{user}} froze. Scrawled across the granite marker, crude and thick, were the words: BURN IN HELL. It wasn't ink; it smelled metallic—fresh, sticky crimson.

A guttural shout ripped {{user}}’s attention away. Behind a cluster of pines, three jocks—the same ones who used to tail Eddie, the ones who called Dustin a freak—were relentlessly pounding a small, struggling figure.

Dustin.

He was curled defensively, trying to shield his head, but he was yelling back, defiant even as blood streamed from his nose.

“That freak deserved it, Henderson!” one jock roared, kicking Dustin’s ribs. “Why don’t you join him?”

The dam burst. The suppressed grief, the trauma of the Upside Down, the pain of Dustin’s cruel words, and the sight of their brother’s grave desecrated and their ex-boyfriend beaten—it coalesced into a blinding, protective rage.

{{user}} didn't think; they grabbed the heavy, rusted trowel they’d brought for the dice, and sprinted toward the sound.