So an important thing about all those times some conservative paper is writing about how "SOME MOVIE/SHOW IS ANTI-CHRISTIAN LGBT PROPAGANDA!" and then it turns out the thing has, like, one scene where it's implied one character is trans or a high school guy mentions his offscreen boyfriend... This isn't an overreaction, exactly, though it often gets called that.
Because it's never as "bad" as you'd expect from all that. The new peanuts film doesn't star "Chelsea Brown", a transfemme lesbian who uses neopronouns and is in a polycule with three (possibly weed-smoking) girlfriends. As amusing as that'd be... It's always just one lesbian who had a chaste kiss with her wife at a birthday party.
Instead the correct takeaway is that they are telling on themselves exactly how much LGBT content they think is too much:
Any.
The amount of LGBT representation they think is correct is none. It doesn't matter how respectable it is, if they're married, if it's just the most sexless thing you've ever seen, if it's just hinted at and not stated outright or shown... It's too much.
And that's important because it's not exactly what they are saying. They are saying "this has gone too far, this is too much", which might cause people in the middle to agree with them. Someone might go "maybe there is a bunch of naked gay men in the new episode of The Candy Bunch Kids, that doesn't seem appropriate for my 4 year old".
But that's never the case (with the possible exception of the original unpatched SimCopter). It's how they're arguing, yes, but they're arguing it based on the most basic of representation.
And that's an important thing to remember when it comes to things like the "kink at pride" debate. Even if they're saying "this has gone too far, this is too much", there's no amount that you can restrict yourself to that'll make them happy.
You can't win this game; They're lying about the rules. So be yourself proudly and loudly. They'll complain just as much, don't listen to them.
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Part 1
Dustin half-expects the phone to ring in the evening—that maybe Eddie will have said something to Steve about how he’s been a dick to him—but no such call ever comes.
So he pretends like he’s busy with homework, times heading to dinner carefully, so that his mom’s got her back to the stove when he limps over to his seat.
At night, he waits until he hears the click of her lamp going off, then manages to smuggle a bag of peas out of the freezer without being noticed. He wraps it up in a dish towel and places it on his ankle, under the bed covers.
He doesn’t sleep.
-
If the weather’s not bad, he usually rides his bike to school, but he pretends to oversleep and gets the bus instead.
The day drags, but it’s fine.
It’s fine until he decides to go to the bathroom during the tail end of last period—reasons that so long as the receptionist doesn’t catch him, he can head to the bus stop early afterwards.
He thinks he’s alone.
But then as he’s drying his hands, he hears a stall door open lightning fast, and he’s suddenly pinned up against the wall, so close that he can see Aaron’s nostrils flare.
“The thing is, Henderson,” he says, as if they’re just picking up from where they left off; he’s got that tone, Dustin thinks, that ‘good people of Hawkins’ tone. Hiding behind a mask of respectability. “Folks seem to think that the buck stopped with Munson, huh? But I know he would’ve passed his sick shit on.”
It takes a moment for the penny to drop.
“You think I’m leading Hellfire,” Dustin says. He almost laughs. A surge of adrenaline briefly overtakes the fear, and maybe he feels like he’s borrowed a little of Steve’s daring, a little of Eddie’s sharp tongue when he says, “Oh, you’re fucking stupid.”
It happens very quickly.
Cold metal pressed to his throat.
He freezes. Thinks of Sattler Quarry again, of a switchblade, a threat to cut his teeth out.
“They say he took Chrissy’s eyes first,” Aaron says. “Gouged them out.” He presses a little harder. “I could do the same to you.”
Dustin grits his teeth, tries to hold his breath. Feels the ridge of uneven grouting digging into his back.
The school bell shrieks.
And he’s falling.
He only just stops himself from hitting the ground, bangs his knee against a sink. Left alone, he coughs and coughs as the stampede of people leaving class rumbles on outside.
Saved by the bell, says a wry voice in his head. It sounds a bit like Eddie.
Eventually he manages to look in the mirror. There’s a line across his neck, almost touching his Adam’s apple; tiny beads of blood from where the knife was pushed hard against his skin. He cleans it up with paper towels, tries not to gag.
Steve had a mark like this, he thinks; he remembers seeing it when they first discovered the gate in Eddie’s trailer.
Steve never flinched.
-
His mom’s packing for a wedding out of town, which means he’ll be spending an ‘extra long weekend’ at Steve’s, Thursday through to Monday—something he’d ordinarily be looking forward to.
But right now he can only focus on hiding his neck. He keeps his coat zipped up when he enters his house, all casual, then changes into an old sweater that covers the mark if he folds the turtle neck just so.
As his mom triple checks her case, he relies on her distraction and steals an old tube of foundation.
He dabs it on his neck, wincing at the abrasion.
Another sleepless night.
Why is this so hard? After everything that’s happened, this is nothing.
It should be nothing.
-
He almost misses Eddie’s van completely, even though it’s parked obnoxiously at the very front of the parking lot. It takes Eddie honking the horn for an embarrassingly long time until Dustin notices him.
“Steve’s picking me up,” he mumbles.
“He took Robin’s shift, she’s sick. So you get me,” Eddie says, complete with the world’s most passive-aggressive jazz hands. “You know, if that’s okay with you and all.”
Dustin doesn’t have the energy to bite back—sure, Eddie’s snippy, whatever—so he just huffs in acknowledgement and gets in the van. His head aches with fatigue; he can barely even feel relief that the day passed without incident.
Lucas had passed him a piece of paper with a comical stick figure during History: ‘Are you okay? You look like your brain is melting through your ears.’ He didn’t even have time to enjoy the stupid drawing, because the teacher busted them for passing notes soon after.
“What’s up with you?”
Dustin starts at the question—only then realises that he’s been pressing his forehead hard against the window as Eddie makes a turning for Steve’s house.
“Nothing. What’s up with you?”
And it should land on just the right side of petty for Eddie to give him shit about it.
But instead, all he hears is the uneasy drumming of rings against a steering wheel, a soft, “Right, right.”
Eddie isn’t angry anymore; he’s worried. Guilt twists Dustin’s insides.
He heads straight upstairs for the bathroom when they reach Steve’s, uncaring of the fact that Eddie can probably see him limp up every step.
The problem is that he doesn’t think—he just does.
Throws off his coat. Turns on the faucet. Splashes cold water in his face.
It helps, but his eyes still itch. Maybe he can pull out the mountains of homework card again, camp out in the guest room and sleep until Steve—
A faint knock on the other side of the door.
“Hey, uh. Just checking you haven’t died, man.”
And Dustin hates that he’s made Eddie sound hesitant.
“Yeah, I’m so dead. Oooo.”
Eddie chuckles slightly. But then he says, “Listen, did I do something? Like, tell me to fuck off, if so.”
“Fuck off,” Dustin says, not convincing in the slightest.
In the silence, he can practically hear the cogs in Eddie’s brain turning.
“You didn’t run track.”
It’s not a question.
Dustin rubs at his eyes. “I got tripped.”
“…Tripped,” Eddie echoes. “Dustin. Come on.”
“Fine. I… got in a fight.”
“You?”
“What, is that hard to believe?” Dustin snaps.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is, actually.”
There’s something in Eddie’s tone that makes Dustin’s eyes threaten to burn. It sounds like I know you.
“Well, go on. Gimme the details. What, did you place bets in the cafeteria about who would—”
“No-one else saw,” Dustin says, then immediately cringes at the fact that he’s walked right into Eddie’s trap and given answers.
“Oh, well fucking done,” Eddie says, and maybe it’s meant to sound sharp, but Dustin can only hear how it’s tight with anxiety. “So someone started shit, and you decided, in your infinite wisdom, to settle it alone, when anything could’ve—”
“What the fuck was I supposed to do? Just let them keep saying—”
“You run,” Eddie says. “Jesus Christ, Henderson, I don’t give a flying fuck what they were saying. You run like hell out of there, and you don’t look back, do you fucking hear—”
“You didn’t run!” Dustin says.
He hadn’t planned on saying it at all; the words feel like they’ve been ripped out of him, his voice wrecked.
Silence.
The door opens. Eddie looks completely floored.
“Was this about me?” he asks very quietly.
Dustin looks away. “He—he just—you didn’t hear what he was saying. Eddie, it was. Bad.”
And I’ll never repeat it, he thinks. I’m never using that fucking awful word.
“Hey, what’s that on your…?”
Eddie’s eyes narrow, and Dustin realises too late that he’s staring at his neck.
“Are you wearing make-up?” Eddie says, faintly baffled, and Dustin sees the exact moment that he recognises the mark for what it is, because his eyes widen. “Oh, Jesus.”
Dustin uselessly tries to cover it up with his hand. “It’s—it’s fine, it didn’t even—”
But his words die away at the sight of Eddie’s rapidly paling face.
Stop it, Dustin almost wants to say. Between everything that Eddie and Steve have… this is nothing.
He doesn’t expect Eddie bursting into tears.
“Oh God,” Eddie’s saying, and his breathing’s all wrong, “Dustin, please, please don’t—” But it’s like the words are choking him, like he can only stare at Dustin’s neck as if the world is ending.
The front door opening. Steve’s voice echoing, calling out a questioning greeting.
“Hey? You in the kitchen?”
Dustin moves quickly, shoves past Eddie.
“Dustin,” Eddie says again, loud in his panic, “d-don’t go, come on—”
He knows precisely when Steve can hear the fact that Eddie is crying, because his footsteps are rapid on the stairs, speech just as quick and frantic, “What happened, what happened?”
Dustin briefly feels Steve’s hand close around his elbow, “Hey, hey, what’s—?”, but he wrenches himself free. Runs down the stairs as fast as he can, stumbles on the last step.
He feels his ankle give way, and his heart is suddenly pounding like he’s back in The Upside Down—and he lies there, guilt and embarrassment in every heaving breath he takes.
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