61- One Safe, One Hurt
Summary: Dustin almost gets attacked by a demo dog. El saves him, but she gets hurt doing it.
Requested by: Random
They shouldn't have been surprised.
Of course, the Upside-Down would shove itself back into their lives again.
Dustin and El had been climbing the hill to talk to Suzie. The others were lagging behind, talking to Eddie about the next DND campaign.
Normally, Dustin would be right there with them. But he hadn't talked to Suzie in over a week, and he couldn't wait to tell her about the new robot he had built.
El decided to join him, partly because she didn't want him to be lonely and partly because she still didn't have a great understanding of DND.
"Would you like me to sit farther away for privacy?" El asked when they reached the top of the hill.
"Uh, sure. Just for a couple minutes if that's okay." Dustin told her, feeling bad that he was making her do this.
But she just nodded and plopped on the grass a couple of feet away from where Dustin was setting up.
Dustin finally got the radio set up. "Suziepoo? You there?"
"Dustybun! How are you?"
"Pretty good, I just started to build this robot-"
A low growl cut Dustin off.
"Dusty? You still there?" Suzie asked.
"Uh, yeah, just one sec Suzie." Dustin told her, eyeing El, but she didn't seem to notice the sound.
Dustin slowly turned around.
He didn't see anything.
Suddenly, Dustin was on his back, looking up at a demo dog. It stretched it's long flowered like face and screeched loudly.
Dustin screamed in terror and closed his eyes, waiting for the pain.
But it never came.
The weight on his chest was lifted off of him.
Dustin peeled his eyes open and saw that the demo dog was no longer hovering over him.
Then he saw El, hand extended and blood dripping from her nose.
Oh right, he had the super powered girl with him. How could he have forgotten?
The demo dog flew backwards in the air until the slammed against a tree and collapsed.
Dustin let out a sigh of relieve.
"Are you okay?" El asked, jogging up to him.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Dustin assured. "Thanks for that. That was so awesome!"
El just grinned at him.
But then, she was suddenly thrown back and tackled by the demo dog.
Dustin cursed; they should have known he wasn't fully knocked out!
El flung the demo dog off of her quickly but not quickly enough.
She let out a shout of pain and Dustin saw why.
The demo dog had managed to bite down on her arm.
Dustin saw a orange glowing circle down towards the bottom of the hill.
"There! There's the gate!" he shouted, alerting El.
She pushed the demo dog back and shut the gate.
Then, she collapsed.
"El! El!" Dustin ran over.
El was cradling her arm, blood pooling out of a gash right above the crease of her elbow.
"I'll go grab the others. Will you be alright alone?" Dustin asked.
El didn't respond, so Dustin took that as a yes.
He turned and started running down the hill.
Dustin just got to the base of the hill when the group rounded the corner.
"Dustin! What's going on? We heard screaming." Steve shouted.
"It's El! There was a demo dog and it tried to attack me, then El saved me. And we thought we were safe. But we weren't. The demo dog attacked again and we weren't prepared so El got injured and-"
"Dustin!" Lucas yelled. "Breathe."
Dustin took a couple of deep breaths.
"Now," Lucas said. "What happened."
"El got hurt."
Dustin sat with his head in his hands.
It had been three hours since El got attacked by the demo dog.
Steve had carried her back to the car. She was passed out by the time they got there.
Eddie, Robin, and Lucas stayed back with Dustin making sure he was alright while Max, Mike, and Will ran to catch Steve and El.
They'd all raced to the hospital where they told the doctors that El had gotten bitten by a dog and told them to contact Dr. Owens.
El was then whisked away and hasn't been seen since, except for Hopper, who'd dashed to the hospital after Robin had called him.
"Hey." someone sat down next to him, but he didn't bother to look up, knowing it was Steve. "Do you need to get checked out?"
"No." Dustin rasped out.
Steve looked to Eddie who was peering through the vending machine window. He got his glance and nodded, plopping in the other seat besides Dustin.
Dustin sighed and sat up, leaning against the wall.
"It's my fault." he whispered.
"Don't say that." Eddie told him, right as Steve said, "No it's not."
"It's not your fault." Eddie spoke after him and Steve silently decided that he would go first. "You said El saved you right? She made that choice. It's not your fault or her fault. It's nobody's fault."
Steve nodded in agreement.
"I should have known better. That the demo dog wasn't down." Dustin argued.
"That could have happened to anybody." Steve told him. "And besides, El thought it was down."
Dustin opened his mouth to argue more but Hopper appeared.
"How is she?" Mike asked.
"She's going to be fine. You can see her, but only one person at a time. And I know that you want to see her Wheeler, but she asked to see Henderson." Hopper responded.
Mike hesitantly sat down as Dustin got up.
Dustin silently walked down the hall, following the directions Hopper gave him.
Dustin stopped right in front of the door. Tentatively he opened the door.
El's head turned and she smiled when she saw Dustin. She was laying in her hospital bed and her arm was in a sling.
"Hey El," Dustin greeted. "How are you feeling?"
El shrugged with one arm. "I've had worse." she told him, referring to her leg in the Battle of Starcourt.
Dustin nodded and sat in a chair.
"Are you okay?" El rushed out. "I wasn't sure if you were safe when I passed out."
Dustin winced at how easy El had said that sentence.
"I'm fine, not a scratch on me because of you." Dustin assured her. "I'm sorry, El."
El's eyebrows furrowed. "Why are you sorry?"
"I should have known the demo dog wasn't down. If I did then you wouldn't have gotten hurt."
"Don't apologize for that! I thought it was down too. Besides what was I going to do? Just sit there and let it eat you?" El exclaimed.
Dustin slowly shook his head.
"Good. Now, come here and give me a hug you dork." El stretched her one good arm out towards him.
Dustin stood and swept El in a big yet gentle hug.
"I love you." El said into his shoulder.
"Love you too."
AN: Hope you liked it Random! Requests are open everyone!