#because she's worried about her relationship with jonathan and jonathan in general | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stevie-petey · 10 months

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episode five: the flea and the acrobat

“Steve, what-” He pushes past you in a frenzied hurry to get to his car, but you grab his jacket and force him to stop. “Answer me! Is Nancy okay? Was Jonathan with her?” Steve whips around and sneers at you. “Why do you even care about them? About him?” “Because we’re friends,” you say, and for the first time you really mean it. Nancy has become someone you’d call a friend. Another cruel laugh escapes Steve’s lips. “Friends, huh? Yeah, those two looked real fucking cozy in her bed.”

summary: you and dustin have a long overdue Sibling Moment, at will's funeral you and jonathan exchange information and surprise ! it's all horrible news ! nancy has awful timing and when you leave her alone with jonathan one damn time you and steve end up trauma bonded on her front porch #bffs.

rating: general, though there's the use of guns in here for plot point sake, as well as cursing

warnings: use of guns, cursing, fem!reader, and use of y/n.

words: 14.4k (whew)

before you swing in: i'm back gang ! fall semester is almost done and i am in the trenches, so i leave y'all with this monster of a chapter before hell week (i have three finals in one day next week, no i don't want to talk about it). please enjoy this beauty, i had so much fun messing with character relationships in this and it was very ;)

With how many times you’ve knocked on the Wheeler’s door this week, you’d think that Mrs. Wheeler would stop looking so surprised when she answers.

“Y/N?”

You give the woman a small smile. “Hi, Mrs. Wheeler. Is, uh, Mike home?”

“Yes… he stayed home today because of Will. Is there something you need?” The usually friendly woman seems beaten down from this week’s events as well, which you’re understanding of.

“I was wondering if I could come in and see how he’s doing? Dustin is really shaken up about it, so I figured…” You shrug, trying to come across as a concerned older sister figure rather than a worried and horrible babysitter who should really retire.

Mrs. Wheeler places a hand over her heart. “Oh, Y/N. You’ve always been so good with the boys, of course you can check on him. It means a lot that you care.”

Oh, no problem, but if we’re being honest I’m here because I’m scared I accidentally let your son get involved with the supernatural and dangerous monster men thingies that I honestly can’t wrap my head around!

Of course you can’t tell the woman this, so instead you thank her and let yourself in. Immediately you head towards the basement and fling the door open. You like Mrs. Wheeler, but the amount of times her son has snuck out of the house without her noticing honestly concerns you, so you’re a bit unsure if Mike even is home.

You get deja-vu from a few days ago as you head down the basement steps, once again hearing the three boys panicking as they try to hide El. Unlike last time, which had only annoyed you, seeing them scramble to hide the girl makes you relieved.

They’re here, alive and well. You’d let Steve distract you from your worrying on the drive over, so the relief hits you like a damn truck.

“Oh god not again!” Dustin groans when he sees you, worried that he’s once again going to get yelled at for being at the Wheeler’s with El.

You ignore his theatrics and walk over to the girl, who is laying face down on the couch. You notice that she’s dressed in one of Nancy’s old costumes and a blonde wig that suits her well. What the hell did the kids get up to today?

“Do I want to know why El is dressed like a doll and almost passed out on the couch?”

“That depends on if you’re going to yell at us again,” Mike says.

You shoot him a glare, but you guess he has a point. The last few times you’ve been with the kids you’ve ended up yelling at them one way or another. You feel bad about that, but then again: they won’t stop getting into trouble.

El manages to raise her head from the couch, “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi, sweetie,” you approach the couch and gently nudge her to the side so that you can sit down and place her head on your lap. She nuzzles into your warmth and lets out a sleepy sigh. “And to answer your question, Mike: I’m not here to yell at you guys. I just… Please tell me what’s been going on. I know I haven’t been here for you guys like I should’ve, but-”

“Your boyfriend needed you more,” Mike quips, though there’s some resentment in his voice that causes you to feel even worse.

Dustin hits his shoulder against the boy. “He isn’t her boyfriend, but she couldn’t just abandon him; he needed her. Besides, we have been sneaking off without telling her anything.”

You cast an appreciative smile at your brother, thankful that even though he’s a pain in your ass, he always has your back like you do his. It’s something he’s always done with you and Mike; being so similar, you and him are constantly butting heads, yet Dustin has always been the first to defend you against his friend (even if you’ve never needed it in the first place).

“I’m sorry, okay? I messed up, but I’m here now and I really, really need to know if I’m being paranoid. What mess did you dweebs manage to get into?”

The three boys suddenly can’t look at you. Their heads turn in different directions, Lucas scratches the back of his neck, Mike kicks at a board piece on the ground, and Dustin whistles a tune.

Your shoulders slump. “Is it that bad?”

“It started this morning,”

“Lucas!”

“Mike, she could help us! The weirdo clearly likes her,” he gestures over to El practically asleep in your lap, “plus, she’s the only sane one left in this group. I need backup.”

“Backup?” You ask.

Mike throws his head back in annoyance and lets out a groan as if he’s dying. Truly, this kid is the most dramatic person you’ve ever met. “Fine, we’ll tell you everything if you agree to stop hounding us for sneaking around. Will is missing, he’s our friend, and no one in the party gets left behind.”

You think this over for a moment, weighing the pros and cons in your head. “I will agree to those terms if you guys agree to keep me updated on everything at all times.”

The boys try to argue, but you don’t let them.

“I mean it, another person is missing. Nancy’s friend, Barb, was in the same woods that Will was, the same woods that you guys keep insisting on trekking through without supervision. This is serious, guys. Whatever, or whoever, is out there… it’s dangerous, and I-” You swallow down some tears that claw against your throat. “I can’t lose anyone else, okay?”

The mood in the room is solemn, the three boys silent as your words hang in the air. Naturally, you try to lighten things up. “I’ll deny this if anyone asks, but unfortunately I love you boys.”

As expected, they immediately begin to gag and pretend that they’ve been impaled with something as they all scream “ew” and “yuck” at your words. You laugh, which causes El to laugh as well, and for a moment it feels like nothing has changed.

“So?” You ask after the boys have finished their gross theatrics.

Dustin is the one who makes the decision for them. “We promise to keep you updated, for real this time.”

“Good, now again I ask: why is El dressed like a doll and half asleep on my lap as we speak?”

Lucas, Dustin, and Mike begin to talk all at once.

“Mike radioed for me to head over, claiming he heard Will on the walkie.”

“Yeah, and then they radioed me to join. Sorry, by the way. I would’ve woken you up, but you and Jonathan looked so cozy in your bed so-”

“I thought you said they weren’t dating?”

“Not now, Mike.”

It continues like this for a while as they explain everything they did today. Sneaking El into the school, having to to talk to Mr. Clark, attending the assembly for Will, Mike fighting some idiotic kids for making fun of him before El made the head bully pee himself.

You look down at the girl in your lap. “You can really make people pee themselves?”

“Sometimes,” she shrugs.

“Lovely.”

“That’s what you focus on, Y/N?” Mike asks you, and you simply shrug your shoulders in response. Sue you for still having doubts about Will being alive, you’ve gotten your hopes up one too many times.

“Are you suggesting I believe that you heard Will through your cheap little walkies?”

Dustin puts his head in his hands in defeat while Lucas gestures over to you. “See, she’s the sane backup I need.”

Mike groans at you once more. “No, that’s why we snuck El into the radio room and used the heathkit that Mr. Clark got us. Keep up!”

“What, did you tell the guy that El was a new student?”

“Don’t be stupid, we told Mr. Clark that she’s my cousin.”

“Uhh, Y/N,” Dustin laughs nervously, motioning for you to stop talking. “You promised you’d be cool about everything if we told you.”

Knowing that your brother is right, you deflate a bit against the couch and start playing with El’s hair. “I am being cool, I just have so many questions.”

“Oh, just wait.” Lucas snorts.

Mike now crosses the room to stand in front of you, as if he’s gearing up to tell you some major news. “We heard Will on the heathkit. El, she managed to use her powers to communicate with him.”

Like always, the seriousness in his voice concerns yet intrigues you. “Lucas, do you really believe that it was Will?”

The boy nods at you, his face grim. You don’t like how scared he looks, because out of the entire group he’s the one who is always the most reasonable. If he’s willingly telling you that he thinks it was Will, then you have to start taking the situation at hand seriously.

“Okay, tell me exactly what you guys heard.”

And they do. One by one they tell you about Will’s pleading for his mom, telling her that it’s like home but cold and dark, the banging that followed after his words, how El had used so much of her energy trying to maintain the communication before the radio caught fire and she was too exhausted to do much else.

“So, you believe us now?” Mike asks after you’re silent for a moment.

You look down at the girl in your lap, in awe that someone so small and shy could hold so much power. This time you believe what the boys tell you without much conviction. Now that you know that Barb is missing as well, lost in the same woods as Will, the same woods where you found El, the photos from Nancy and the figure she claims she saw… It’s all starting to come together.

You’re not sure exactly what you’re caught up in, but you know it’s too late to back out. Whatever is going on, whatever thing took Will and transported him to some unknown place with possibly the same powers that El has, you know it’s your responsibility to handle it.

“Yes,” you respond, and the boys all sigh with relief. “Just one question though,”

Dustin sighs. “Yes, Y/N?”

“How did it take you guys so long to set fire to the school? Honestly, Jonathan and I thought it’d happen sooner.”

“You’re hilarious.” Mike deadpans, which only causes you and El to giggle together again.

“I hate to ruin the good mood, but we seriously need to figure out what Will meant when he said that wherever he is ‘is like home’.” Your brother interrupts.

Mike spins to face him. “He said, ‘like home, but dark’, right?”

“And ‘empty’.” Lucas adds.

“‘Empty’ and ‘cold’. Wait, did he say cold?” Dustin asks the group.

You nod your head. “You mentioned cold earlier.”

Lucas throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “The stupid radio kept going in and out!”

“It’s like riddles in the dark…” Your brother sighs, which you hum in agreement to.

Will’s words were pretty vague, but you wish you had been there at the middle school as well. Maybe if you had heard the tone of Will’s voice, you’d be of more help.

Mike continues to mumble about “like home” and “dark” for a few more seconds, now pacing around the room. You watch from the couch, El still resting with her head in your lap, and as you’re playing with her hair she finally speaks up after having been silent for a while.

“Upside down.”

“What’d she say?” Lucas asks.

“Upside down? I guess?” Is all you can tell him.

“What?”

While you, Dustin, and Lucas are confused by El’s words, Mike rushes over to the forgotten board from a few days ago and sits down. He frantically flips it over and motions for you to come and join him. You hesitate for a second, but he only doubles down on his waving you over, so you gently lift El’s head up and walk over.

“God, took you long enough.”

“I was literally three feet away from you on the couch, why did I have to move?”

Mike ignores your question and begins to explain the thirty million thoughts flying through his head at the moment, “When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?”

You nod, slowly understanding where he’s going with this. “She flipped it upside down.”

“Exactly! Dark. Empty.”

Lucas looks over at you and Dustin, unamused. “Do you understand what he’s talking about?”

“No,” your brother says at the same time as you saying “the upside down part? Yes. The dark and empty part? No.”

Mike tries to explain further. “Guys, come on, think about it. When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?”

“You mean last night when they found Will’s body in the water?” You ask, not really understanding where Mike is going with all this.

“Like Y/N said, he wasn’t there.” Lucas reminds everyone, but Mike still tries to get his point across.

“But what if he was there? What if we just couldn’t see him, what if he was on the other side?”

You think about Jonathan’s words from earlier today in the car while on the way to the funeral home, trying to calm down from his fight with his mom. He had told you about how Joyce was convinced that Will was in the walls within their home, that the body they saw in the morgue hadn’t been his.

“Hold on,” you interrupt Mike, “you guys said that there was some, like, banging where Will was, right? And that he had been begging his mom to come get him?”

“Yeah, it was like some sick sci-fi movie!”

You glare at your brother. “Ignoring you. Anyways, did you guys hear Mrs. Byers on the radio as well?”

Mike shakes his head. “No, all we could hear was the banging and something... Growling, I guess.”

Knowing Joyce, you’d bet money that the banging had been her. You know that the next time you go over to their house, the walls might actually be destroyed, but she’d been right all along. Will is alive, he has to be. The pieces that you’ve slowly been collecting this past week fall together one by one.

“That explains the walls and the weird monster thing in Jonathan’s picture,” you mumble to yourself, but Lucas hears you.

“Do I wanna know?”

You purse your lips. “Let’s focus on figuring out where Will is, then I’ll tell you guys what I’ve been up to this week.”

“Okay, so,” Mike begins again, now grabbing the board game and flipping it onto its normal, light side. “What if this is Hawkins,” he flips it upside down onto its dark side, “and this is where Will is?”

“The Upside Down.” You finish for him.

“The Upside Down.” Mike confirms.

Slowly Dustin follows along. “Like the Vale of Shadows.”

Somehow you always end up the one confused when it comes to these damn kids. “The Vale of Shadows? What the hell is that?”

Dustin runs over to the bookshelf and pulls out a thick binder full of paper, but as he flips through it you realize it’s a rulebook for Dungeons and Dragons. He lands on the page he’s looking for, and you feel your shoulders drop. Great. More confusing terminology ahead.

“‘The Vale of Shadows’,” he begins to read, “‘is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters’.”

“Wait, didn’t you say something about a monster, Y/N?” Lucas asks, but you shush him so you don't miss whatever else Dustin will say next.

“‘It is right next to you, and you don’t even see it’.” He finishes.

His words hang in the air for a moment, but Mike, always somehow three steps ahead, pieces it together. “An alternate dimension.”

Lucas finally accepts what’s happening. “But how do we get there?”

“I’m sorry, we?” You look between all three boys, their faces still young and holding the childish innocence that you once had yourself. “No, there’s no ‘we’ in this. I may not know much about alternate dimensions, but there’s no way I’m letting you guys try to find and go to one.”

Mike rolls his eyes at you. “Well what choice do we have? Do you want to tell that mean police chief about this?”

“I…well… I mean-no.” You sink down in the seat, annoyed that Mike is right. No way Hopper believes any of this, you hardly believe any of it.

“Can we cast shadow walk?” Dustin focuses back on the conversation at hand.

You don’t bother to ask what that means.

“In real life, dummy.” Lucas reminds him.

“We can’t shadow walk, but…” Your brother’s eyes land on El, who is still laying on the couch, silent and unmoving. “Maybe she can.”

The four of you turn towards the girl, and Mike voices his own question. “Do you know how we get there? To the Upside Down?”

El meets your eyes, and you can see that she’s hesitant about something. She’s been quieter than usual, almost suspiciously so, and you know that the more Mike figures things out, the more hesitant she becomes. She shakes her head at you, and you give her a sad smile.

Lucas flings his head back and groans. “Oh my god!”

Mike and Dustin seem to be thinking the same thing, disappointed by El’s lack of help. You don’t blame them, also frustrated by the fact that it feels like you guys are so close to discovering something big. You can feel hope reignite in your chest; you haven’t been this close to an explanation about Will all week. This has to be it. It’s the only way you can explain everything that’s been happening lately.

Speaking of which:

“Remember how I mentioned Barb and a possible monster?”

You tell them everything, about Jonathan’s worry for his mom, how their phone got charred by lightning, Hopper’s theory that Will had been running from something, Nancy and Barb attending Steve’s party and how Barb had been on her own near the woods. You tell them about how Barb has been missing ever since and the photos Jonathan took (leaving out the horrible ones of Nancy) that Nancy brought to your attention at the funeral home. The figure in the background, looming over Barb, how it didn’t seem to have a face.

Then you tell them about Joyce and her spiral, though now you know she actually wasn’t crazy. You tell them about the Christmas lights and Will communicating with her through them. How she claimed that she could hear him through the wall and that the body in the quarry hadn’t been him.

When you’re finally done catching them up, they stare at you with their jaws open.

“Dustin,” Mike says, “remind me to never leave your sister out ever again.”

“Noted.”

–

The events from the day had left El exhausted and she refuses to say anything else after you explain everything to the boys. Her eyes droop while Mike interrogates you for answers you can’t give him, so finally you take pity on the poor girl and tell him that you’ll talk more in the morning.

Mike isn’t too happy about being shut down, but when you point towards a half asleep El he reluctantly gives in. “Fine, but as soon as the funeral is over we’re discussing this further.”

Right. Will’s funeral is tomorrow.

“Yeah, sure,” you tuck your hair behind your ears and motion over to Dustin. “We need to go, it’s late and mom will be wondering where we are.”

He tries to argue with you but you just gather your things and head for the stairs. There’s still a lot you need to think about and a million things you need to sort before the funeral tomorrow. Did Jonathan even buy the coffin? Who had made the arrangements after you and him left the funeral home with Nancy?

There’s a lot you need to talk about when you call him tonight.

The bike ride home with Lucas and Dustin is a quiet one, both boys understanding that you need some time to think about everything you learned tonight.

You make a list in your head of what you do know, but it’s a frustratingly short list.

1) El, one way or another, has powers that enable her to communicate with Will in some weird upside down universe that you can’t actually get to (can you even count this as something you know?)

2) Hopper was right: Will went missing because he was running from something (probably the same faceless thing that’s in Jonathan’s photo).

3) Whatever took Will also took Barb, bringing Nancy into this wonderfully confusing mess (you still don’t know if her involvement is a good or bad thing).

Everything else? You have no fucking clue what’s going on.

When you get home with Dustin, it’s late; the two of you have to sneak past your mom, who fell asleep with Mews on her lap in the living room. Dustin heads straight for his room but you stop him, motioning for him to come into yours for a second.

“What-”

“Shh!” You quickly shut your door to ensure that your mom won’t hear anything.

Dustin groans. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna yell at me?”

You roll your eyes at him. “I yell at you guys twice after years of patience, now suddenly I’m a screaming monster,” he doesn’t say anything and flings himself onto the bean bag by your bed. “Anyways, we’re long overdue for a code blue.”

Your brother shoots up from the bean bag, eyes wide. “No.”

“Yes,” you join him on the bean bag. “Code blue time, we’re going to talk about our feelings after the hellish week we’ve had. C’mon, you know the drill.”

Code blue was something the two of you came up with when your dad left. You had been twelve when it happened, Dustin had been nine. It’d been a really rough few months for you guys, dealing with the betrayal of your dad while also moving away from your hometown in Virginia all within a year. Neither of you had adjusted well to the sudden changes, and though you were angry and bitter about what had happened, the moment you saw that it was affecting your brother you decided to implement code blue.

It’s simple, really. Whoever calls for a code blue gets to talk about or ask whatever they want while the other is required to answer. Originally it was so that you could force Dustin into telling you his feelings, but over the years it’s become a way to bond with each other and know that no matter what you’ll be there for one another. No half truths or a vague “I’m fine”; it’s a time for you guys to be vulnerable with one another without using it as leverage against the other.

Dustin plops his head back down. “Fine, but I’m tired so can this be quick?”

“Hey, no complaining during code blue. That’s like, rule number one.”

“Y/N.” His tone is one of annoyance and you know that if you don’t start talking soon then you’ll lose his interest.

“Right, sorry. Okay,” you clear your throat and face your brother. “Today’s code blue topic is this: I’m worried about you getting your hopes up about Will. We don’t know that he’s alive just yet.”

As expected, Dustin is unhappy with what you’ve said. “We do know that he’s alive, I heard him on the heathkit. He’s alive, Y/N.” He sees the uncertainty on your face and doubles down on what he’s saying. “He is.”

You bite your lip, scared that you’ll say the wrong thing. “Dustin, nothing is certain. Even though we’re definitely onto something, and while I believe that you heard Will on the radio, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s something else out there that wants to hurt him. I mean, he’s trapped in some weird alternate dimension that we have no idea how to even get into. I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

You think about the way your brother’s face fell when they pulled Will’s body out of the water. How the hope that had been in his eyes immediately died alongside his childhood naivety. He had built all of his hope upon a shaky foundation; the moment it collapsed he fell apart.

“Look I know you’re trying to look out for me, but Will is a part of the party. He’s our friend, we can’t just lose hope and leave him behind. He needs us.” Dustin speaks with so much certainty and an aura of maturity that almost makes you forget that he’s twelve.

“I’m not saying it’s dangerous to have hope, but I need you to promise me that you’ll protect yourself from whatever happens next. How’s that sound?”

Dustin thinks for a moment, tapping a finger against his chin. “Hmm, I think I can make that deal if you promise the same thing. I mean, c’mon, it’s obvious that you’re the sensitive one out of the two of us. You and hope? Doomed.”

You laugh, knowing he’s right. You’ve always been branded by hope; hopeful for love, for dreams, and for those who may not always deserve it. You and hope haven’t always gotten along, but she’s become a familiar friend.

“I think you’ve got yourself a deal. Now, it’s late and I have to call Jonathan and catch him up on everything, so let’s conclude code blue with its mandatory hug.”

“Woah woah woah, I don’t think we gotta-”

Dustin’s words become muffled as you throw yourself on top of him and squish him into a hug. He squirms against you for a second, claiming he can’t breathe, but you shush him and force him to accept the hug. Though you won’t ever tell him this, losing Will has only made you more appreciative of having a wonderfully annoying little brother.

After code blue, Dustin goes to his room claiming that “alternate dimensions are super draining”, and before he leaves you tell him to be ready tomorrow by nine for the funeral and that your mom will take him. You’ll be at the Byers’ helping Jonathan.

Once he’s gone you give yourself a few moments to sit in silence, letting the events from today settle over you. It seems like all you’ve felt this week is exhaustion and hurt and at the rate everything is going, there’s no telling how long you’ll feel this way.

The moment you’re done wallowing you roll off the bean bag and walk over to your desk to call Jonathan. You’re honestly not sure what you’ll even tell him tonight, there’s no way you’ll be able to cover everything before the night ends. The two of you have a long day tomorrow, so you figure you’ll have to make do with the limited time you have and summarize.

Jonathan answers after a few rings. “How’d your little secret mission go?”

You make a face. “Is it even a secret mission if I told you I was going on it?”

“It is if you refuse to tell me what you did during it.”

“Touche, bee.”

He laughs, which sends a cascading warmth throughout your body. You can envision him perfectly on the other end of the line, leaning against his kitchen wall with the phone wire wrapped around his finger as he absent mindedly fiddles with it while he talks to you.

You clear your throat and shake the thought from your mind, you called him for a reason. “Anyways… we need to talk.”

Jonathan is silent for a moment and you can feel the playfulness fade away. “Yeah, you first though. You already know what Nance and I were up to.”

Nance?

Awesome. Cool. Totally not going to be consumed by that later.

“Right. Uh, well. I went looking for Dustin because the other night when I was with the boys we stumbled upon this, well, this little girl.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah, she’s bald.”

“Okay… is that important or…?”

“Unsure, but it felt important to tell you. Sorry,” you take a deep breath, “I’m not sure why I’m so nervous right now.”

“It’s okay, bug. It’s me, you can tell me anything.”

No I can’t.

“Sure, yeah, totally. Um, so anyways we found her, her name is El, and she’s our only connection to Will right now.”

A beat of silence. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she kinda has… powers?”

“Powers,”

“Powers.”

You hear Jonathan sigh on the other end of the call. “Bug, you’re not seriously telling me that the boys have somehow dragged you into one of their little schemes, right?”

Yeah, he’s reacting exactly how you figured he would.

“I know what it sounds like, but Jonathan… How else would you explain everything going on? Will disappeared, Barb did too, your mom and her lights. Now that thing Nancy saw in the woods, which I know you definitely have an update that will only further prove how weird this all is.”

Again Jonathan is quiet, and this time you envision him pacing little circles in the kitchen as he carefully thinks through your words, trying to piece it all together. “We developed the photo again and you’re right, there’s something behind Barb in it.”

You close your eyes and exhale. “So, you believe me now?”

“Guess I don’t really have a choice.”

“You don’t.”

“Then we’ll talk about it after the funeral tomorrow.” He concedes.

“Yeah,” you let out a shaky breath, “the funeral. I’ll make my way over the second I wake up tomorrow to help with everything.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I know.”

More silence settles over the two of you. It’s still hard to wrap your head around the fact that it was only a week ago where everything was normal. No disappearances, no weird feelings, no heartbreak and confusion.

“Bug?” Jonathan is practically whispering.

“Yeah?”

“Lonnie is here.”

The words hit you hard. Why the fuck is Lonnie back in Hawkins? “Do you need to spend the night? I can finally bake those cookies for your mom and we can watch whatever you want.”

“No,” he sounds exhausted. “He hasn’t been a problem yet, and I can’t…”

“Leave your mom with him?” You finish.

“He thinks she’s crazy and her axing down one of our walls doesn’t help-”

So you were right, Joyce did indeed break down her wall to try and get to Will.

“Jonathan, it’s okay. I understand, stay with her and get some rest. Sleep, that’s an order.”

He lets out a weak laugh. “I love you, bug.”

Like how I love you?

“I love you too, bee.” The words burn your tongue.

“Goodnight,”

“Sleep well.”

–

You’re up before the sun this morning.

You spent hours tossing and turning last night, hardly getting any sleep. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t seem to turn your mind off. All you could think about was Jonathan, his smile and his voice and the way he kisses your forehead whenever you’ve done something especially endearing to him. You were surrounded by him last night.

Now you stand outside his front door holding a tin of cookies, dressed in a simple knitted black dress and tights with mary janes that used to belong to your mom for Will’s funeral. The shoes are your favorite, but now you’re afraid they’re tainted by the occasion you’re wearing them for.

It’s Lonnie who opens the door. “Well if it isn’t little miss Henderson. I missed ya, sweetheart.”

You haven’t seen the man in two years, having been fourteen when he left Joyce and the kids. Since then he’s only aged horribly, his eyes slightly yellowed and his beer gut now more prominent. Clearly he still prefers alcohol over human company. Figures.

“Can’t say the same about you.” Your shoulder hits his as you walk in and he lets out an annoyed huff.

The man follows you but you pay him no attention. Instead you head straight towards Joyce and the second she sees you she runs into your arms; you only have a few seconds to place down the cookies before she’s in your arms.

“Y/N! You’re here!” She squeezes you tight and you melt into her embrace. She’s always given the best hugs whenever you’ve needed the comfort, but now it’s your turn to be the one offering the support.

“Of course, Mrs. Byers. Who else will make sure Jonathan is ready on time?” You mean for it to be a joke, but the way that Joyce’s eyes harden tells you that the funeral is a sore topic for her. She still doesn’t believe that Will is dead and it breaks your fucking heart that you can’t tell her she’s right.

Joyce wipes away a tear before pulling away. She goes to say something before seeing the tin of cookies on the counter; she immediately pulls you into another hug. “Oatmeal raisin,”

“They’re your favorite.”

“And Will’s.”

“And Will’s favorite. You know I gotta take care of my Byers.” You whisper into her ear, feeling Lonnie’s eyes on you during the exchange. You have to bite back your tongue, though his presence always makes you feel a type of anger that’s normally foreign to you.

Joyce pulls away and you know it’s taking everything in her to give you a smile. “You’re too good, sweetie,” she tucks a loose strand of hair that came out of its braid. “Jonathan’s in his room.”

You grab her hand and give it a squeeze, trying to convey just how much you love and admire her into a simple gesture, before letting go and walking over to Jonathan’s door.

He’s struggling with his tie when you let yourself in. He’s dressed in the only nice white button down he owns, something he bought for his aunt’s funeral a few years ago that now hardly fits. You can tell that he’s getting frustrated with the tie, so you walk over and help.

“Here, let me,” you wrap your fingers around the piece of cloth and quickly fashion it into a tie. The two of you don’t talk while you fix the clothing and you know that today will be a wordless day with Jonathan.

When you’ve finished, you begin to pull away before he places his hands around yours. He cups your hands at the base of his neck as they rest against his collarbones; your fingers are still wrapped around his tie. He squeezes your hands and brings them to his lips and kisses your knuckles so softly that you feel all the love within you simmer.

You know he’s only trying to express his gratitude for you but the butterflies in your stomach make you feel faint.

You’d do anything for him.

–

The funeral has a surprising turnout, not because you ever doubted Will’s incredible ability to be loved by anyone he meets, but because you see faces in the crowd who you’ve never seen before.

You stand behind Jonathan during the funeral with your hand on his shoulder as he sits with his family in a weak attempt to provide comfort during the service. It’s really fucking bleak. Your other hand is on Dustin’s shoulder as he stands next to you while Mike and Lucas are to the right of him.

Your mother is in the back of the crowd having known she’d cry the entire service, and faintly you can hear her blow her nose into a tissue and sniffle.

The pastor drones on for a while about how a tragedy like this won’t separate everyone from God’s love, but if attending the funeral for a twelve year old boy is how God shows his love then you want no part in it. Joyce sits stoic alongside Lonnie, Jonathan hasn’t moved at all since the service began; they’re a family brought together by grief. This isn’t love.

“Just wait until we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral,” Dustin snickers, effectively breaking you from your thoughts. You hit his shoulder and shush him as Mrs. Wheeler reminds the boys to be quiet. You flash her an apologetic smile for your brother’s actions.

You know how firmly the boys believe Will is alive and you honestly can’t say you don’t think so as well, but nothing is certain. Even if he’s alive there’s no way you guys can get to wherever he is; you wish the boys would use some caution with how quickly they’re building their hopes up.

After the service you walk up to Will’s grave and bend down. You bring one of the yellow roses from the funeral director up to your lips and whisper, “If you’re out there little bee, please, come home.”

Before dropping the rose in you give it a gentle kiss, inhaling its sweet scent and watching as it falls down onto his coffin. Jonathan finds you there crouched down and sees the rose right as it lands. He doesn’t say anything, he just grabs your hand and helps you stand up to bring you over to where Nancy is waiting a couple yards away.

“Hey, Y/N.”

You don’t have it in you to do anything other than wave at the girl, but she seems to understand and gives you a sympathetic smile.

Soon the three of you are settled on the ground with your backs against an old rickety fence behind some tombstones. Jonathan is in the middle of you and Nancy and you rest your head against his shoulder, already exhausted from the day. It’s not the coziest spot to be sitting, but at least you’re away from prying eyes.

Once you’re seated, Jonathan finally talks for the first time today. “Alright, I already told you this over the phone last night bug, but Nancy was right. After we redeveloped the photo there’s definitely some kind of figure behind Barb, and we thought maybe if my mom has been right all along about some monster-”

“Then she’s right about Will being alive.” You finish for him, having already come to the same conclusion yourself.

“And Barb has to be alive if Will is.” Nancy says, and there’s a spark of hope in her voice that surprises you. You’re ashamed to admit that you didn’t think her and Barb were that close, but seeing how worried she’s been for the girl makes you realize that you’d been a fool not to have seen it sooner. Barb was Nancy’s closest friend. You don’t know what you’d do if Jonathan ever disappeared like Barb did.

Jonathan pushes your head with his shoulder. “Anything you want to share with the class?”

You look between him and Nancy and try to decide how much you should tell them. While you’ve already told Jonathan a little bit about El, you’re not sure if you can trust the information with Nancy. However, seeing her urgency to find her friend leaves you feeling a bit safer disclosing the information to her.

“It started the night after Will disappeared…”

It takes a while to tell them everything, and while Jonathan butts in a few times to ask questions, Nancy remains silent and eagerly listens. She nods when she’s supposed to, engages with the story as if her life depends on it. You’re incredibly impressed by her intelligence and openness to the situation at hand. Had it been anyone else they would’ve scoffed at you and called you insane. But Nancy? She holds onto every word and trusts that what you’re saying is true.

You’re starting to admire her, as painful as it is to admit. But Nancy Wheeler is fucking brilliant, there’s no denying that.

When you’re finally done explaining El and the Upside Down, Nancy finally speaks. “Let me make sure I’m understanding correctly, you’ve been helping my brother harbor a girl with superpowers in my basement?”

Huh.

You hadn’t thought of it that way.

“Ya know, you make a good point.”

Thankfully she laughs and doesn’t seem too upset, which relieves you. You reassure her that they’re fine and that El is someone you trust, and Nancy seems to take comfort in your words. It’s not that you purposely hid the situation from her, but looking back you definitely could’ve used her help now that you know how cool she is.

As the two of you are laughing, Jonathan pulls out a piece of paper.

“What’s that?” You ask.

He shows you. “I printed out a map of Hawkins and drew x’s on every place we know for sure the monster has been.”

“Two questions: one, so we’re officially calling it the monster now? And two, why don’t you ever put in this much effort for school projects we do together?”

Jonathan flicks the paper in your face. “Funny. And yes, we’re calling it the monster now. Can you pay attention please?”

“Sorry,”

Nancy shuffles in closer and her head is practically on Jonathan’s shoulder as well (you’re choosing to ignore that) and she studies the paper and points to one of the x’s. “So that’s-”

“Steve’s house,” Jonathan points to another x, “and that’s the woods where they found Will’s bike and where Y/N last saw him,” the familiar feeling of guilt washes over you, “and that’s my house.”

Nancy reaches over Jonathan and grabs your hand, surprising you both. “You saw Will last?”

“Yeah,” you swallow, your mouth now suddenly dry.

“I’m sorry,” her tone is sincere.

“We should get back to the map…” You dodge, highly uncomfortable with Nancy’s comfort. You appreciate it, but you’ve never been good at accepting help from others.

“Right, sorry,” Nancy clears her throat. “The x’s, they’re all so close.”

Jonathan observes the interaction with slight confusion but decides not to say anything besides, “Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is, it’s not traveling far.”

There’s a look in his eyes as he speaks, one of determination and disdain for whatever that thing is, and before you can tell him no, it’s Nancy who voices your concern first. “You want to go out there.”

Jonathan nods and you feel uneasy. “I trust you won’t try going alone again, right?” It’s a question, but he hears the underlying try and I’ll kill you hidden beneath your words.

“No, not this time… but we might not find anything.”

“I found something,” Nancy reminds him, which you nod at. She’s the only one out of the three of you who has seen the monster in person, and if you had to place any bets, she’s the one who will be able to figure out what the fuck to do with it.

Actually, what are you guys going to do?

“Do we, like, have a plan for after we’re done monster sightseeing? Or are we just going to take a look at it and call it a night?” You ask the two of them.

Nancy bites her lip and looks down, also unsure what exactly the three of you are supposed to do. It’s Jonathan who remains stone faced, and there’s a newfound sense of confidence within him that you’ve never seen when he boldly states, “We kill it.”

“Alright there tough guy,” you hit his chest with your hand and snort. “Sure, we kill it. Obviously.”

“Well, do you have any other ideas? For all we know, Mike and the others will be out there in those woods later looking for Will.”

“We don’t know that-”

“Bug, humor me, how did they find El again?”

You’re silent. He’s right, if you guys don’t go and find this monster before tonight then there’s a high chance the boys and El will find it themselves. Fuck.

“Nancy,” you say to the girl, “it seems like we’re now officially monster hunters.”

–

Of course Lonnie has a goddamn handgun just casually stored in his glove box.

You’re not entirely on board with this whole gun situation and apparently Nancy isn’t either, immediately questioning Jonathan when he picks the lock to get the gun.

“What, you want to find this thing and take another photo? Yell at it? Better yet, why doesn’t Y/N just round up the boys and El and have them take it down.”

“Okay, hey,” you point at Jonathan. “Out of line.”

He mumbles an apology under his breath while Nancy claims that this is all a terrible idea. You’re not sure where you fall in regards to what’s happening, but you’d say at the moment you’re a solid mix between Jonathan’s no time for nonsense mood and Nancy’s hey let’s slow down hesitation.

You kick a rock and watch as it dings against Lonnie’s car, which pleases you. “Oh it’s definitely a terrible idea, Nancy. Unfortunately it’s all we have going for us at the moment.”

Jonathan nods at your words. “She’s right, no one’s going to believe us if we tell them. You know that.”

“Your mom would.” Nancy responds, jutting her jaw out in defiance.

You cringe, unsure how Jonathan will respond to what she’s said. Joyce is a sore topic for him, he’s always been so protective of her.

“She’s been through enough,” he sighs, and you hum in agreement.

Nancy grows more frustrated. “She deserves to know!”

You step in between them. “Look, you’re right. Mrs. Byers deserves to know, but right now she isn’t well enough to handle the idea of her only remaining son actively seeking out a monster that may have taken her other son who could possibly be alive. If we’re wrong or Jonathan gets hurt, it might actually kill her.”

“Yeah, we’ll tell her when this thing is dead.” You note Jonathan’s word choice, saying “when” instead of “if”. In the four years you’ve been his friend, you’ve never seen him so self-assured before. You’d be proud of him if the circumstances weren’t so damn grim.

“What about the kids?” Nancy finally says after a few seconds of silence.

“They can’t get involved, I won’t let them.” You tell her and she nods as if expecting you’d say that.

She gestures over to the funeral home where the crowd of attendees are now gathered for the post burial service. “I know my brother, so you better go and tell him that they need to stay at our house while we deal with the monster. They like you better than they like me, they’ll listen to you if you explain what we’re doing.”

You’re flattered by her words, honestly. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas listening to you about staying put while you guys go monster hunting? They’d be out the door before you’d be even able to finish saying the phrase “monster hunting”. No way they’ll listen, and you’re about to say exactly that before catching the look Jonathan is giving you.

You groan at him. “You don’t actually believe they’ll listen to me, right? C’mon, you know those boys as well as I do. This is just a giant DnD game for them at this point.”

He shrugs, “It doesn’t hurt to try?”

Nancy gives you a hopeful look and bats her eyelashes at you, which, okay, shouldn’t work on you but does. Jonathan does the same, except instead of batting his eyelashes he winks at you and suddenly you’re very confused by the onslaught of emotions that wash over you.

“Ugh, fine. But when they show up in the woods later you guys are on your own!”

–

When you step inside the service hall, everyone is gathered into small groups talking amongst themselves. You scan the room for the kids and spot them across the room sitting at a table with Mr. Clark. He’s talking to them about something while holding a paper plate up. You’re not sure what exactly he’s saying to the boys, but they’re leaning in close to him and are listening intently.

This worries you.

You try to make your way over as quickly as you can, but being Jonathan’s best friend has some challenges. Every few steps you take you’re stopped by an extended family member of the Byers to ask how you are or a stranger stops to offer you their condolences because you’re close with the family. You do your best to make small talk and thank the people, but you don’t have time to say much else besides, “thank you” or “you were Will’s favorite great aunt”.

By the time you finally get to the table with Mr. Clark and the boys, the man has folded up the paper plate and stabs it with a pen. You really, really don’t want to know whatever the hell this man is explaining to the kids.

“You create a doorway,” he explains, holding up the plate and smiling at the boys.

Dustin looks enthralled. “Like a gate?”

“Sure, like a gate. But again, this is all-”

“Theoretical.” Lucas says, nodding his head.

A gate?

What are the odds the boys are talking about a gate to Disneyland?

You sigh, not liking the odds at all.

You slide yourself into Dustin’s chair and force your brother to share with you. He squeaks in surprise and you flash him a tight lipped smile, which causes him to gulp. He knows he’s been busted.

Mike scoffs at your arrival. “Gee, wonder why you’re here Y/N.”

“Go on, continue this conversation with Mr. Clark here. I wanna hear it.”

Mr. Clark looks at you uncertainly but Mike simply carries on with the conversation as if you aren’t even here. “But what if this gate already existed?”

“Well, if it did I think we’d know.”

You snort. “Wanna bet?”

Again the man looks at you uncertainly and clears his throat, uncomfortable by your presence. “What I mean to say is that it would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment.”

“So if there is a gate, it’d be really bad?” You ask, but you already know the answer.

“Oh, definitely. It might even swallow us up whole!”

You and the boys look around the table at one another, not at all liking what Mr. Clark is saying. Swallow you guys up whole? That’s not really something you’re interested in.

Mr. Clark sees your nervousness and shrugs. “Science is neat, but it’s not very forgiving.”

Silence falls upon the table.

Mr. Clark is such a peachy person.

“Well!” You throw your hands upon the table and the loud noise causes everyone to flinch. “Thank you so much for that lovely information, Mr. Clark. It was truly riveting, but would you mind giving me and the boys a second alone? I just, I want to make sure they’re doing okay after today.”

You bat your eyes at the man, something you never do, and he clears his throat and excuses himself. The second he’s gone you snap your finger in the boys’ faces. “Hey, listen up. Whatever you guys are planning? Don’t.”

As usual, Mike is the one who argues. “But-”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what we’re-”

“No.”

“Can you at least let me-”

“Sure,”

“Really?”

“No.”

Lucas and Dustin watch the interaction with slight pleasure, amused by your ability to shut Mike up, but when he turns to them for help they reluctantly give in.

“Y/N,” Dustin sighs, “honestly, how many times are we gonna do this whole ‘we’re not allowed but we’re going to do it anyways’ bit?”

You glare at your brother. “However many times it takes for you guys to finally listen.”

“Cool. Then we’ll expect you to bust down Mike’s door later tonight.”

“I’m not kidding,” you face all the kids and make sure they’re listening. “Whatever you’re trying to do, don’t. Jonathan and I-”

“You told Jonathan?” Mike exclaims but Lucas shushes him.

“We’re going to handle it, we already have a plan but whatever you do: stay out of the woods from here on out. We think… We think there’s a monster out there hiding. I just want to make sure you guys are safe.”

“Monster hunting?” Dustin’s eyes light up and you silently curse Jonathan and Nancy for even suggesting you do this in the first place.

“Technically… yes, but you guys absolutely have to stay put.”

They stare at you as if you’re insane.

“You do realize who you’re talking to, right?” Dustin asks.

You flick his head. “Yes, and I’m putting a lot of trust in you guys right now. I’ll let you guys do whatever you want so long as it doesn’t include the woods. Until you get an all clear from me, it’s off limits.”

Mike thinks this over. “Can we look for the gate then?”

You sigh. There’s no other way to appease them. “If you don’t go near the woods… then fine.”

The boys begin to cheer, which causes several funeral guests to stare at you with judgment. You realize now that this probably hadn’t been the right setting to have this conversation in. Oh well.

You don’t let the boys cheer for long. “However-”

“There she goes,” Lucas sinks into his seat and squeezes his eyes shut.

“I get full updates whenever I please. I don’t care if I have to track you guys down from the gates of hell itself, but I will find you and you will tell me everything. Deal?”

Lucas, Dustin, and Mike gather close together and duck their heads down so whisper to one another. You roll your eyes but wait for them to finish. When they’ve reached a decision, Mike interlocks his fingers and places his hands on the table. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

–

As soon as you’ve changed out of your funeral clothes and into a simple pair of jeans and a sweater, Jonathan arrives at your house. You kiss your mom’s cheek before leaving and shout over your shoulder, “Remember the deal, Dustin!”

You don’t quite catch what your brother responds with but you honestly don’t care enough as you run over to Jonathan’s car and hop into the passenger seat.

“You certainly didn’t waste any time getting here,” you say in lieu of a hello.

Jonathan shrugs. “No time to waste when it comes to monster hunting.”

“You do realize that we’re only scouting out the woods tonight, right?”

You, Jonathan, and Nancy had decided earlier to simply go and explore the woods for any clues of the monster and then figure out how, or even if, you can kill it.

“I know, but monster hunting sounds cooler.”

“Bless you, bee.”

The two of you get to the field in no time. Jonathan had been the one to suggest the spot a few yards behind his house for target practice and Nancy had agreed to bring a bat just in case you needed more protection.

And you?

You’re bringing the cans to serve as targets for shooting. Your family has never owned a gun and last time you checked, Dustin doesn’t play any sports, so all you can offer is your emptied recycling bin contents.

It doesn’t take long for you and Jonathan to set up the cans on top of the tree trunks before he begins shooting. Jonathan takes a deep breath and holds the gun up so it’s eye level and looks over at you. “Ready?”

You take a deep breath as well and prepare yourself, knowing it’s about to become loud. “Yeah, start shootin cowboy.”

The first shot hits a tree behind the can, nowhere near its intended target, and you wince. It’s looking like the monster might actually win at the rate Jonathan’s aim is going.

“It’s okay,” you tell your friend. “The tree looked at me funny, he had it coming.”

Jonathan snorts. “You’re laughing now, but I can’t exactly hunt a monster if I can’t even shoot it.”

“Maybe you could talk nicely to it?”

“And say what, exactly? ‘Hey, Mr. Monster, where are you hiding my brother?’”

You step closer to him so that you’re now side by side and you nudge his shoulder. “Hey, you never know. It could work.”

Jonathan readjusts his grip on the gun and aims it once more. He takes another shot, this time it lands a bit closer to the can, but not by much. He lets out an agitated, “Fuck!”

He tries shooting again and again but each shot is as unpredictable as the last. After his sixth round of firing you can see how tense his shoulders are and the way he’s clenching his fists against the weapon. You remember how he acted earlier today, the newfound anger and resentment within Jonathan that had originally impressed you. Now it only frightens you.

When he goes to re-aim the gun for the seventh time, you grab at his hand and stop him.

“Bug, what are you-”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Jonathan looks at you like you’re crazy but you simply take the gun from his hands, click the safety back on, and then walk over to the tree stumps to rest it against one of them. When you’re done you walk back over to the boy and interlock your fingers with his to drag him along.

There’s not a whole bunch of room in the clearing for a walk per say, but there’s enough to go a few laps around for Jonathan to take a breather. You’re not sure exactly what’s going on with him but a walk has never hurt anyone.

Jonathan’s silent the first lap around. You’re content with this and you admire the fall weather and enjoy the slight warmth from the sun as it kisses your face. When you’re on the third lap you decide to ask a question that’s been on your mind since yesterday when Nancy showed up at the funeral home.

“Do you really believe Will is alive?”

Jonathan thinks the question over for a moment, and as he’s lost in thought you notice that he begins gently swinging your hands back and forth absentmindedly. “I can still feel him.”

“Feel him?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy but…”

“No, I think I get it. I mean, I’d be able to feel if something bad happened to Dustin. I know I’d be able to, even if there’s not necessarily a science behind it. It’s like there’s a lifeline connecting us, like some unspoken sibling thread that neither one of us can sever.”

“A sibling thread?” Jonathan asks, a slight laugh accompanying his question.

“Oh, you know what I mean, bee.”

“No, no. I wanna hear all about this thread theory of yours.”

Jonathan’s bright mood is back, reminiscent of the boy you once believed you knew better than you knew yourself, so you entertain his teasing if only to sustain his light a little longer. “If I explain this theory you have to promise not to laugh at me.”

“I promise,” he says and he gives your hand a light squeeze.

“Alright, but if you decide I’m insane after this, just know that you legally cannot leave me. You signed a contract.”

“Oh, did I?”

“You sure did, bee. Anyways, back to me,” a slight breeze surrounds you for a moment and you let the crisp air fill your lungs. “I have this theory that we’re all connected to each other in some way by different threads. Some threads are older than others, stronger, or maybe even more rigid, but they’re there. Whether it’s a thread between you and your family, the love of your life, or a stranger you happen to pass on the street one day, none of it happens by accident.”

“The threads are the reason it all happens?”

“Not necessarily, but yeah. To put it simply, I guess you could say that.”

“So, for our thread,” Jonathan stops walking and tugs at you to stop as well. “After everything we’ve been through, all that we’ve done for one another, what thread would you say our’s is?”

His question catches you off guard; you can hear your heart beating within your chest. There’s so many things you wish you could tell him.

Our thread is one of romance, of lovers, of soulmates, even.

The feelings build within you and the words threaten to spill out. The November sun is beginning to set and everything is golden in its light and Jonathan is a part of it all. His brown eyes are like warm honey on a cold winter morning and his hair is slightly ruffled from the wind that leaves his cheeks flushed and rosy.

“Our thread,” your voice catches in your throat for a moment. “You know what our thread is, bee.”

He pulls you closer to him and in this moment all you can focus on are the slight freckles that dot across his face and neck. “Do I?”

Jonathan has never, ever looked at you like this before. There’s an intensity within his eyes that frightens you and leaves you feeling bare before him. Does he know? Has he figured it all out?

“I…” You can’t form the words you want to say; the three words that have been weighing upon you feel even heavier than before. They’re thick on your tongue, syrupy and dense and you feel as if you can’t breathe.

“Y/N?” He whispers, but you can only shake your head.

It’s too much. It’s all too much.

And then suddenly Jonathan leans in.

Maybe you’re imagining it.

Maybe you’re delirious after almost a week of sleepless nights and exhausting encounters.

Or maybe, just maybe, he feels the same way about you.

You lean in as well and allow yourself to close your eyes; you believe that just this once you can be selfish and accept more than you may deserve.

“Hey! Guys!”

Nancy’s shout causes you and Jonathan to spring apart.

You want to scream.

Of course it’s Nancy fucking Wheeler.

Jonathan drops your hand and waves the girl over while you stand there, trying to collect yourself. As she walks over, you have just enough pride left over to say, “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

The question is one Jonathan isn’t expecting. He steps back a bit, now even more aware of the close proximity the two of you had only seconds ago. “Of course I do, bug. You’re my best friend.”

Best friend.

The words hurt more than they should, really.

“Right. Best friend, ha.” You step even further away from Jonathan, which he raises his eyebrows at.

“Did I miss something or…?”

If you had the time, you’d ask him why he wanted to know about the thread between the two of you. Why he looks at you like you’re the most precious thing in the entire room. Why, just minutes ago, he leaned in as if to kiss you.

But Nancy is now only a couple feet away and it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to give the two of you some privacy. You spot the bat in her hand and it serves as a reminder of what the three of you are here for in the first place.

Will, Barb, the monster.

“No, of course not,” you clear your throat and greet Nancy as she arrives. “Hey, Nancy.”

She smiles at you and then says hello to Jonathan. “Hey, where’s the gun?”

You point over to the cans and the tree stumps. “Over there, we just wanted to go for a little walk after shooting a few rounds.”

Nancy nods and walks over to inspect the undamaged cans. “You said you already shot a few rounds?”

Jonathan ducks his head down. “Yeah, well. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies.”

“Y/N, did you try shooting?”

“Pfft, I’m definitely not a weapons kind of girl. I prefer to use my crippling good looks instead.”

While you and Nancy talk, Jonathan walks back over to the gun and reloads it. He motions for the two of you to step back and he shoots a few more times. Not once does he hit the can. You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh.

“You’re awful at this, bee.”

“Yeah,” Nancy agrees.

Jonathan looks over at her. “Have you ever shot a gun before?”

She scoffs. “Have you met my parents?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Wheeler seems like the type to have a hidden gun.” You say, and Nancy waves you off.

“Well, I haven’t shot one since I was ten. My dad took me hunting on my birthday and made me kill a rabbit.” Jonathan’s words make you frown. Every day he gives you another reason to hate Lonnie.

Nancy sympathizes with Jonathan and the two of them fall into an easy banter that you’ve never seen before with him. He’s comfortable around her in a way that makes your stomach twist. He tells her about his parents and how they may have loved each other at one point but now no longer do. He’s opening up to her after only a few days of really knowing her.

Lovely.

Nancy shares some details about her own family and how she believes her parents never loved each other, which you can relate to. You watch as Jonathan hands her the gun as she explains how her mom had been younger than her father. “He had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So, they bought a nice house at the end of a cul-de-sac and started their nuclear family.”

“Isn’t it funny how the fathers never seem to suffer the same fate as the mothers?” You ask, and Nancy looks over at you in confusion, so you explain further. “My own parents, they were like yours except the moment my mom was no longer young, my dad left. Found a newer and cheaper model back home in Virginia.”

“I didn’t know that, I’m sorry Y/N.”

You shrug. “It’s not like I go and advertise it. Besides, he was an asshole anyways and my mom is better off without him. She’s the sweetest woman in the world who was forced to run back to her family in Hawkins. Nuclear families aren’t all they’re cracked out to be.”

Jonathan ruffles your hair to get you to laugh, which he succeeds in doing. “Screw that.”

Nancy raises the gun to eye level and closes one of her eyes, her beautiful face now scrunched in concentration. “Yeah, screw that.”

And with that, she shoots a perfectly aimed shot and knocks the can off the stump. You and Jonathan look at her, stunned, but she can only laugh.

“Damn, Jonathan. Remind me to never piss Nancy off.” You say, still staring at the fallen can.

Only he doesn’t hear what you’ve said because he’s too busy staring at Nancy. You can tell he’s impressed by her hidden shooting talent and the way she holds herself with such confidence. His eyes shine as he stares at her and he almost seems to come to life whenever she looks back at him.

Jonathan looks at Nancy and you know he sees what everyone in Hawkins sees: a beautiful, fierce, and incredible girl.

Nancy Wheeler, the perfect enigma.

Suddenly it clicks.

Jonathan is in love with her, or at least he’s beginning to fall in love with her.

You want to hate her. Afterall, she already has Harrington head over heels for her, and yet you can’t blame either one of the boys. She’s perfect and brilliant and everything you’re not. You’d fall in love with her too if you weren’t already in love with someone else.

You watch as Nancy and Jonathan become lost in their own little world, him helping her reload the gun as she flashes him a shy smile, and you no longer exist near their presence. It feels like a fucking stab to your already open wound of a heart. You watch the way he ducks his head down whenever she looks at him and the way she stares at him when he isn’t looking.

Nancy shoots a few more rounds and each shot feels like a hammer coming down onto your own coffin. Each time Jonathan looks at her you feel another nail enter.

Clearly there’s no room for you here.

Which is fucking ironic given that you’re in a giant field outside.

You reach for Jonathan’s hand and tug him forward. He gives you a look as if asking is everything okay? and you wish more than ever that things were different between the two of you. You give him a soft shake of the head. “I can feel a headache coming on and I just remembered that I have a shift tonight, so I should get going.”

He frowns. “But what about the monster? We can’t look for him without you.”

“You’ll be fine without me,” to your horror you can feel tears forming, which you quickly wipe away before Jonathan can notice. “I doubt I’d be any help, anyways. I suck with guns. Nancy’s the professional here.”

“I mean, I guess, but…” He looks over at Nancy, who is busy firing the gun and hitting every target she aims for, before pulling you even closer to him. “Are we okay? I feel like, I don’t know… like I’m losing you.”

Your breath catches in your throat. He could never, ever lose you, but if you don’t leave now then you’re afraid that maybe you’ll lose yourself.

“Don’t be silly, bee. You’re not losing me, no matter how much you may want me to.” You try to tease him, but your heart isn’t in it.

“You didn’t answer my question, Y/N. Are we okay?” He’s looking at you with so much adoration and concern in his eyes that it almost makes you sick.

“Of course we are. I promise. I think it’s all just catching up to me, if I’m being honest. Between finding Will and tracking down my own brother, I think this monster hunting business may break me.”

Jonathan eyes you for a moment as if to try and catch you in a lie, but while you’re only telling him this as an excuse to get away from him and Nancy, it’s not technically a lie. You are exhausted. Plus, you really do have a shift.

The boy scans your face once more before deciding that you’re telling the truth. You know he suspects there’s something else behind your words, but thankfully he doesn’t pry. “Let me tell Nance that I’m driving you home,”

And there it is again.

Nance.

The nickname is like a punch to your gut and only solidifies that you should go. “It’s okay, bee. It’s still nice out, figured I’d walk home and get some sun before winter officially takes over Hawkins.”

“You can’t expect me to let you walk alone now that we know there’s a monster out there taking people, bug.”

You kiss his cheek, letting your lips linger for a little longer than necessary. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Stay with Nancy and call me tonight after you guys are done scouting around. We’ll figure out where to go from there. Okay?”

You don’t give Jonathan time to argue because you pull away and inform Nancy of your departure. She also frowns at the idea but has already learned that you’re not one to be told what to do. She understands this aspect of you, and you understand it within her as well, so she wishes you goodbye and tells you to stay safe before going back to shooting.

As you leave, you feel Jonathan’s eyes follow after you.

–

The walk ends up being more than enough to clear your head. You haven’t had any time to be alone in god knows how long, so it’s nice to have some time to just think and enjoy the quiet. There’s a lot you need to think about, but at the very forefront of your concerns are Will and El. You still have no idea how they’re connected or how the monster comes into play.

Then there’s Steve, oddly enough.

You’re not really sure why he’s in the midst of your thoughts, but there he is. Smiling at you and laughing at your jokes and telling you that you’re pretty as he instills a carefree sense within you that feels foreign to enjoy.

As his words ring through your head, you find your thoughts drifting towards Jonathan and the way he holds your hand every time you’re worried about something and the way he kisses your hair after a particularly hard day.

You’re not sure why the two boys almost seem to clash within your mind, but you don’t have time to look into it. Your shift starts soon and god knows how long your coworker Alex can survive on his own if you’re late.

Work is slow as usual tonight, but you find the downtime a pleasant relief. It gives you the opportunity to skim some new books that shipped in and catch up on some Spidey storylines. In between stocking books and arranging comic displays you find yourself wondering just how true to his word Dustin stayed earlier.

Like hell those kids really stayed out of the woods.

Your question is answered as soon as you get home and find your brother crying in his room. Panic immediately swells within your chest and you run over to him.

“What’s wrong?” You check Dustin’s body for any sign of injury and he lets you as he cries, too upset to wave you away. When you’re assured that he’s okay, you feel your heartbeat calm down again.

Christ, everytime you see this kid he takes ten damn years off of your life.

You pull a chair from his desk and sit in front of him. “Dustin, do we need to have another code blue?”

“Maybe,” Dustin sniffles, wiping away a few tears.

“Okay, then code blue. What happened? Is everyone okay? Is it El?” At the mention of the girl’s name, Dustin flinches. Your blood runs cold. “Dustin, what happened with El?”

“You won’t yell at me?”

You smooth down his always wild hair. “Never during code blue. Please talk to me, bud.”

Dustin explains how he and the group had gone looking for the gate like they told you they would. He explained how they’d followed the train tracks throughout Hawkins for what seemed like hours.

“The train tracks that go through the same woods I told you not to go in?”

“Like hell we were gonna listen to you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

This gets Dustin to laugh a bit, which you’re relieved to see, before he continues his story. When he reveals El’s weird behavior and the way she seemed to be hiding something from them, you feel dread creep in. “Did she… Did she do something to prevent you guys from finding the gate?”

“She used her powers to mess with the compass. Lucas found the blood on her jacket.”

You sense that there’s more. “And then?”

“Mike and Lucas… they-they started fighting.” Dustin’s voice breaks, “they started really going at it, and I tried to stop them. I swear I tried, Y/N!”

“Shh,” you reach for his hand to try and calm him down. “I know you did, but I also know how Mike can get when he’s protective of someone and I know that Lucas isn’t El’s biggest fan. It was a recipe for disaster.”

Dustin snorts, “No kidding.” Then his face darkens once more, “but they wouldn’t listen, and that’s when El screamed.”

“She screamed?”

“I think she was overwhelmed, but she used her powers on Lucas and flung him across the yard and he hit his head pretty hard…”

“She what-”

“She didn’t mean to! She looked really upset after, and Lucas was fine after he woke up-”

“He was knocked unconscious?”

“And then he stormed off and El ran off. We searched for her, but…”

You stare at your brother in shock. That definitely hadn’t been what you were expecting. El never struck you as a violent girl, but she knocked Lucas out with her mind. Sure, she may have been trying to break up the fight, but you’re willing to bet that she lost control for a moment and Lucas ended up getting hurt as a result.

Maybe you don’t want superpowers.

“Y/N, have I lost all my friends?” Dustin asks.

You shush him once more. “No, of course not. You three boys have always been so drastically different from one another, and this week has been one from pure hell. It makes sense that Lucas and Mike finally snapped, but I promise you that they’ll bounce back eventually.”

“And El?”

“I’m not sure what to make of her,” you admit. “She isn’t violent, I know she’s not. But we also clearly don’t know her as well as we think we do. I just, I need you to be careful around her, okay? Fight for her, defend her like you would for the boys, but be cautious as well.”

“Cautious, got it.” He cocks his head at you, “but what about Lucas and Mike? They’re still friends, right?”

“Of course they are. Just… sometimes friendship can be hard, but it’s almost always worth fighting for. It’s rare to find friends as loyal as Mike or as brave as Lucas or even as sincere as Will. Yet look at you guys, all together; you’re all incredibly lucky to have one another.”

“Lucky like you and Jonathan?” Dustin asks, a sly glint in his eyes.

You smile, even if he’s teasing you. “Yeah, like me and Jonathan.”

Dustin returns your smile and you squeeze his hand. “Anyways, I say give Lucas some time to calm down. I think he was scared, more than anything. Tomorrow you can try to talk to him again.”

Your brother nods at your words and he seems better than he did when you first started the conversation, so you open your arms wide and engulf him into a hug.

“Code blue concluded, I guess.” Dustin mumbles against your chest, which causes the two of you to laugh.

–

After your talk with Dustin, you head back to your room and wait for Jonathan to call. You glance at the clock and figure that maybe him and Nancy were still out scouting for clues, so you busy yourself with some homework.

When it nears ten at night and the phone still hasn’t rung, you sigh and reach over for the phone on your desk. You dial Jonathan’s number and hope he simply forgot to call, but when no one answers after your fifth time calling: you begin to worry.

Ya know, maybe it wasn’t your best idea letting him and Nancy go off alone with a monster on the loose.

You find yourself frantically biking to the Wheeler’s house before you can even think about it. The night blurs past you and as you walk up their driveway and try to rest your bike against their mailbox, a familiar BMW parks next to you.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this, Henderson.” Steve says as he sends you a wink.

You almost greet the boy before Tommy’s head pops out from the passenger side window. “Hey good lookin.”

You hear Carol berate him and the two begin to bicker as Steve gets out of the car.

Great. He brought the idiots.

Steve walks over and takes your bike from your hands. After a couple seconds of repositioning and balancing, he finally manages to get the bike to stay upright. “Tada!”

“I almost had it,” you glare at him.

“Sure ya did.”

Steve’s presence is frustrating as always, but you spot Jonathan’s car parked down the street and Carol’s shrill voice becomes increasingly irritating. You don’t have time for this right now. “What are you doing here, Harrington?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” When you glare at him, he finally says, “Nancy promised she’d call me but hasn’t, so I wanted to check on her.”

His sincerity is why you say, “I’m here for…” You realize you can’t necessarily tell Steve about Jonathan possibly being here. You have a feeling it wouldn’t end well, but you’re also not keen on lying to the boy. You’re already keeping secrets from practically everyone in your life; you don’t want to add Steve to the list. Not when he doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m looking for Jonathan,” you confess, worried about Steve’s reaction.

He frowns. “Why would Byers be here?”

“Him and Nancy have this… thing for english. Due tomorrow. A big thing. Like, huge. So they’re working on it together. In the house. Where Nancy lives. Here.” You stumble over your words, more nervous than usual, but you weren’t expecting Steve to be here or that you’d need a cover story.

“Uh huh,” something almost aggressive flickers across Steve’s face and you silently curse to yourself. You said the wrong thing.

“Funny, Nancy told me she was only helping Byers for the funeral.”

Shit.

Tommy and Carol watch from the car, obviously amused by the whole situation.

“Right! She was, now she’s working on an assignment with him.” Technically not a lie, you’re just omitting the fact that the assignment in question is monster hunting.

“You’re really bad at lying, Henderson.” Steve walks past you, now over the conversation, and you struggle to keep up. You try to block his path, assuming that he’ll use the front door, but as you near the front step he side steps you and starts heading towards the bushes.

“What are you doing?” You whisper loudly, trying not to draw too much attention to yourself.

Steve ignores your whispered yelling and jumps on top of the radiator. Once he’s up, he begins to pull himself over the overhang and up onto the roof. There’s a window just above the ledge with a light on, which you presume to be Nancy’s room due to the practiced ease in which Steve scaled the house.

You don’t try to climb up after him in fear that you’ll only end up embarrassing yourself. “Ya know, Mrs. Wheeler loves me, I could’ve just knocked on the door.”

Steve peers down at you, an easygoing smile now back on his face. “Relax, this is quicker. Besides, you gotta admit it was impressive to watch.”

Again he winks at you and you feel your cheeks flush. He’s right, it had been impressive to watch; he had made it look so easy. While you struggle to come up with a witty retort, Steve almost knocks on Nancy’s window before his smile drops.

You notice the way his face hardens. “Steve?”

He doesn’t respond, which only concerns you more. You begin to think about the millions of possibilities surrounding Nancy, Jonathan, and monster hunting; fear creeps in. “Is Nancy there? Is she okay?”

“Of course you’d be worried about Nancy right now,” Steve laughs bitterly. You frown at his words, unsure what they mean, but before you can ask anything else Steve angrily climbs back down.

“Steve, what-” He pushes past you in a frenzied hurry to get to his car, but you grab his jacket and force him to stop. “Answer me! Is Nancy okay? Was Jonathan with her?”

Steve whips around and sneers at you. “Why do you even care about them? About him?”

“Because we’re friends,” you say, and for the first time you really mean it. Nancy has become someone you’d call a friend.

Another cruel laugh escapes Steve’s lips. “Friends, huh? Yeah, those two looked real fucking cozy in her bed.”

A wave of nausea hits you.

“W-what?” You drop your hand and release his jacket.

“It’s incredible, really. Byers has some fucking nerve.” Steve runs a hand through his hair in agitation and begins to pace. You’re too numb to stop him. “I mean, look at you! He has everything he could possibly want, but he decides to go after my girlfriend.”

“It’s not like that-”

“Did he tell you they’d be in her room, alone in her bed, underneath her blanket?”

More nausea hits you. “No,”

They were supposed to look for any signs of the monster in the woods. That’s all he told me, you think.

“So he’s a liar, too.” Steve scoffs, “you deserve better, Y/N.”

And with that, he heads back to his car and drives away, leaving you standing alone once more in the Wheeler’s driveway. You get a sense of deja-vu, watching Steve’s BMW descend down the street, but only this time there’s no warmth fluttering within your stomach as he leaves.

All you feel is nausea.

You don’t remember the bike ride home; you’re not sure how you even made it back safely without crashing into anything. All you remember is that you cried the entire way.

You’ve lost Jonathan, there’s no denying that now. He’s Nancy’s, wholly and truly, he’s hers.

He was never yours in the first place, you remind yourself.

But if he was never yours in the first place, then why does it feel like you were almost something?

No.

You don’t want to think about it that way.

Yours or not, you can’t afford to lose Jonathan.

Something or everything, you’ll take whatever you can when it comes to him.

Everything, anything, nothing. Whatever he gives you, you know you’ll cling onto it with all that’s within you.

But your friendship with Jonathan is too precious to lose, too meaningful to let stupid feelings ruin it. You refuse to let anything come between your friendship with him, and you swear to yourself to shove everything down. Every hurt feeling, all the pain stabbing within your chest, you force it all down to focus on finding Will.

He’s all that matters right now, even if it feels like the thread connecting you to Jonathan has begun to wither.

Will has to come first.

You have to find him, something good and lovely has to come from this. You can’t let this all be for nothing.

⌑ series masterlist

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#steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things rewrite #slowburn #angst #wdtai #m's writing #jonathan the man that u are ....#and steve my beloved #cannot wait to see how yall react to the field scene i feel like an evil villain

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a-little-unsteddie · 6 months

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under the weather || steddie

this is for @rogueddie’s bday! i’m sorry it’s late but i fell ill and am only just starting to feel better. i thought a sickfic was fitting for the situation :b. hope you like it, eddie! and i hope your bday was good <3

sickfic, pre-relationship, technically post-s4

No one had seen or heard from Steve in three days.

Eddie knew he didn’t really have any right to be as worried as he was, seeing as even after spring break the two of them hadn’t gotten close. Eddie hadn't wanted to push his luck, knowing exactly how he acted during the apocalypse. There was no way that Steve didn't know that Eddie was gay, and despite Robin’s vague assurances, Eddie didn't want to press his luck much farther. But he was. Worried, that is.

Despite not being that close, Eddie still knew that Steve would never intentionally miss picking up the kids from Hellfire—now hosted at the new Munson house, government provided. He was even less likely to miss picking up Robin from work, which was what really caused Eddie to worry.

Robin had called Eddie and asked him to check on Steve, because in spite of their adamant denial, her mother still thought she and Steve were dating, and refused to let her go over to his house alone.

“Just…check on him, please,” Robin had asked him quietly, her voice tinny on the receiver.

“Of course, birdie,” Eddie replied, frowning at the counter. “I’m not sure if he’ll want to see me, though. Wouldn’t it be better to send Nancy or Jonathan?”

“No,” came Robin’s hasty reply, “no, he’d rather see you than either of them.”

That had confused him enough into agreeing and hanging up to get ready to go to the Harrington’s to check on Steve. He didn’t know what to expect, so he just grabbed a can of soup and shoved it into his bag, along with some weed, and just in case, he grabbed his pocket knife.

Unable to think of any more scenarios right at that moment, Eddie left before he could overthink it.

Fifteen minutes and a few ignored stop signs later, Eddie stood at the front door to Steve’s house. He knocked first, and then a few minutes later, rang the doorbell. When there was still no response, Eddie grabbed his knife and checked to see if the door would open. Fortunately,—or unfortunately, it did.

Eddie crept around, listening for any signs of danger and life in general, as he peered into the kitchen from the living room. He passed the stairs and heard coughing coming from somewhere upstairs and frowned. He put the knife away, and made his way slowly up the stairs.

“Harrington?” Eddie called, poking his head into the door that led to his room. The sight that greeted him was heartbreaking, Steve was under a bunch of blankets, the only part of him that was visible was his hair, which looked uncharacteristically greasy.

“Steve?” he called again when it didn’t look like Steve was moving.

Just as he was about to panic, he heard Steve groan in response, what could have been “Munson”, but sounded closer to “m’ns’n”. Steve pulled the blanket down and squinted in Eddie’s direction and whined when his eyes were greeted with light.

“Oh, Steve,” he breathed, glad that he was just sick and not in mortal danger. Eddie rushed over to him and felt his forehead, which was burning up.

“M’fine,” Steve croaked, trying to weakly push away Eddie’s hand. “Was jus’ gon’ get up,” he breathed, trying to sit up.

“Oh, no you don’t, big boy,” Eddie said firmly, pushing him back into bed. “You’re sick, sweetheart. Stay in bed.”

“M’not sick,” he protested, and then immediately started coughing. Once the coughing fit was done, Steve mumbled, “Maybe m’sick.”

“You think so, sweetheart?” Eddie teased gently as he helped Steve lay back down.

“W’d,” Steve started, but a coughing fit took over the sentence before he could even try to complete it. Eddie’s heart went out to him, aching as he watched Steve shiver once the fit was done. “Wh’d’r’you do’n’ere?”

Steve’s words were so slurred that Eddie had to make an educated guess as to what he meant, “Robin was worried about you,” he explained, “wanted me to check on you.”

“‘bin?” Steve breathed, eyelashes fluttering as he struggled to stay awake.

“Yeah, Robin. She’s really worried. Rest now, I’ll get some things to help you feel better, okay?” Eddie murmured and didn’t wait for Steve to respond before he made his way out of the room.

The next two days were spent with Eddie nursing Steve back to health. Steve slept through most of the first day and a half, but seemed to be getting more lucid on the third day. Instead of being completely disoriented from reality, he seemed to be embarrassed that Eddie had to help him, which he was quick to shoot down.

“I’m sure you have better things to do than take care of me,” Steve insisted, probably for the third time. “I can take care of myself from here.”

“I’m sure you can, Stevie,” Eddie said, just as patient the third time as he was the first. “But you don’t have to, I want to take care of you, I like taking care of you.”

Steve’s face turned red, and Eddie bit back a smile as he handed over the fresh bowl of soup. He wanted to say that it was the fever causing Steve’s face to be so red, but his fever had broken the day before. The only thing that Eddie could think of that he’d be blushing right now was something he didn’t even want to consider, in case he had it wrong. He’d spent so long avoiding the jock because he was scared he’d some how sense his big gay crush on him, he didn’t want to jump to conclusions off of a few days taking care of him.

It was a nice thought, though.

“Thank you,” Steve said quietly as he held the bowl in stable hands. The first day Steve had tried to hold it himself, but was shaking so much that it was impossible, so Eddie had fed him then. It’d taken every ounce of self-control to not get overwhelmed with the closeness, instead he focused on the task.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Eddie said, sitting back in the armchair that Steve had in his room.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” Steve asked with a frown.

“I ate downstairs while making your food,” and it wasn’t a lie, he’d made himself a sandwich.

He didn’t look pleased at the answer, but accepted it nontheless.

“What day is it?” Steve asked after he finished his soup.

Eddie hummed, “Uhh, Thursday, I think. Yeah, Thursday.”

“I was supposed to pick up Dustin from school today,” Steve exclaimed, and immediately tried to get out of bed.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Eddie stopped him, forcing him back into his bed. “The Sinclairs took care of it. Robin also took care of your shift yesterday and Keith is working your shift today, unwillingly, but doing it.”

Steve deflated, but sidn’t lean back. “Can I at least go to the living room?” he asked with a pout. Eddie staunchly refused to acknowledge the way his heart fluttered.

Maybe he was catching whatever cold Steve had.

Eddie sighed, pretending at being exasperated. “I suppose I can let you do that,” he said, standing to help Steve up. The jock was still shaky on his legs, but much more stable than he had been.

Together they worked their way downstairs slowly, taking it one step at a time. Eventually Eddie helped Steve ease onto the couch, and then went over to the tv and VCR.

“What movie do you want?” he asked, looking back at Steve, catching him blushing and looking away. He raised his eyebrows, bewildered as to what he could have been doing that warranted that reaction.

“Uh..” Steve slowly grinned, “Grease.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, groaning. “Of course you want to watch Grease,” he sighed, grabbing the tape and putting it in. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, Stevie.”

Steve blushed, and grinned widely at Eddie as the metalhead made his way back to the couch. He lifted the blanket and Eddie smiled softly, settling into the couch next to him.

“It’s a good movie,” Steve protested. He must have still been loopy from being sick, because he curled into Eddie’s side, and forced him to wrap his arm around Steve.

Eddie tried to keep his heart steady, but found himself unable to.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steve/eddie #steddie #steve x eddie #unsteddie writing #under the weather

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rae-raewrites · 10 months

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Hi! I saw you did Riddler finding out he had a teenage daughter he never knew about and meeting her so can you do it with all the Scarecrow's too? I dunno the limit to how many charachters can be in a post so just take your time and thank you!

Hell ya Jon being a dad!

Scarecrows with a teenage daughter

Tw:death,fear toxin

Arkham

A man already dealing with quite the past Jonathan crane was of the opinion nothing could surprise him at this point

Oh boy how wrong he was

williamina was the result of a relationship long since dead that he never considered becoming a variable in the future

Mina only being 16 was told repeatedly to avoid any possible contact with her father after the Halloween incident.

Just like her dear old dad,she was quite the rebellious one

Jonathan can’t exactly ignore the resemblance especially the look from the eyes

Turns out with mom mostly being rather on the negligent side Mina needed someone to be there with her during the big years of her life

Jonathan starts finding out he has some rather ingrained parenting instincts

His old teaching habits really come back to him!

Teaching such a young mind his years of well earned knowledge really invigorates his spirit

He certainly doesn’t intend to turn the little prodigy into a lab rat. He’s the master of fear but he’s not a heartless monster

He’s definitely one of those dad’s who sits down and has heart to hearts with his kids over something like tea.

“Come have seat a young one,tell me what clings to your soul.”

He more than anyone knows the kind of someone so young around someone like him needs to be checked on here and there.

She’s definitely going to inherit her father’s more theatrical side let’s be honest with ourselves here.

She’s getting taught every little bit of chemistry he knows,both out of a way to expand his child’s intelligence but also to keep her safe.

Mina helps him when his leg acts up. According to her it’s the least she can do for him

He greatly appreciates it though he’s not always vocal about it

Btas

Very similar to Arkham Jon btas jon is a man who is surprised by such a thing

He was never a ladies man, his previous partners be dammed but that certainly won’t stop him from being apart of Jenna’s life

Especially when Jenna reaches out actually wanting to meet her old man

15 and yet very clingy of her old man,understandable seeing as she doesn’t exactly have a lot of people to turn to

Is definitely the kinda dad who enacts curfew because he’s so damm worried about where his daughter is

Overprotective as hell

“No jenna I don’t want you on the streets after 8! I may be the master of feet but I know Gotham.”

Helping this girl with her homework constantly.

Doesn’t exactly want her involved with his criminal work directly,last thing he wants her is going to Arkham

Kids don’t belong in a place like that

Edward and jervis easily become her “uncles” Incase something happens to her hold man

Jenna has giggle at one of his master of fear rants

He was grumpy for hours after it

BTAA

Let’s be completely honest here,this man is the most likely to end up accidentally getting bun in the oven,risk is his territory.

The fact he’s even surprised when Lilith shows up to the office of one dr Jonathan crane is a joke in itself.

He doesn’t initially think she’s telling the truth.

Gets corrected almost immediately when he recognizes her mothers name and really takes a good look at the kid

A little apprehensive about even having a kid around.

His general customers are indeed kids around her age range

Lilith however for good or bad inherited daddy’s charisma and charm

He doesn’t immediately tell her about his……….culinary behaviors

Would probably never forgive himself if something happened to her

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t slowly put together whats going on

“You scare people……with drugs?” “I’m providing a service kiddo! Why I’m basically paying for your college education!”

Girl is gonna get spoiled with the amount of drug money he’s pulling in.

Miss autumn ATTEMPTS to help Jonathan navigate the turmoil that comes with one so young

Extremely “your parent is your best friend” relationship

Movie nights are a weekly tradition

Year one

He certainly hasn’t had a lot if healthy relationships in his existence

It wasn’t long ago he went on that hunt to find his own father,Vera was just another who had too.

Genuinely a guilt ridden soul when he finds out.

He may not have known about her but that still doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel like a fool

It’s not out of obligation by blood he takes Vera in but more so because he understands what it’s like to be alone at such a young age .

Definitely a relationship based upon slowly warming up to one another

He’s definitely the over protective type always making sure she isn’t bullied

Lord forbid if they’re ever were they’d be dead within an hour of finding out

Absolutely fosters an adoration for reading

#batman #batman rouges #asks #headcanon #arkhamverse #batman the animated series #batman arkham series #arkham scarecrow #btas scarecrow #btaa scarecrow #year one scarecrow #batman the audio adventures

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iennoganan-aha · 9 months

Text

I thought I was done being disappointed in stranger things. Falling out of love with a hyperfixation that brought me so much joy already sucked, but the whole Noah Shnapp shit really ruined it for me. I wasn't planning on watching or supporting season 5 anyways, but finding out Argyle won't be in s5 has really stripped away any want still buried deep in my brain man, like I'm not even slightly interested in watching illegally now. (I wasn't planning on it but curiosity is strong sometimes)

Jonathan was my favorite character, and Argyle is SO important for his character. Like putting aside how important Argyle was to the plot of s4, his importance to Jonathan was reason enough for him being there since Jonathan NEEDED him.

Argyle was the ONLY relationship he had that didn't have expectations. He could be free and loose and himself around Argyle. This isn't hate towards Will or Joyce or Nancy because he loves them and the story likes to ignore it but those relationships all come with expectations that the story has hinted at being hard for Jonathan to manage.

He loves his brother and his mom but the role he was forced into so young has really damaged him and how he views himself. The expectation to be a fatherly figure, an authority figure, a protector. I know Jonathan doesn't mind doing it because he loves his family but it's a lot of pressure and if s4 told us anything (again, even if the story likes to gloss over it for some reason) that pressure was too much for him.

And I LOVE Jancy, I love Nancy, but again s4 told us directly that in some way he feels a lot of pressure with her. He feels the need to give up on his dreams in one way or another, because it's either he goes to college with Nancy doing something he doesn't exactly wanna do, or he doesn't and he loses his girlfriend. He fears communication with her because she might get upset, at the end of s4 you can see that while he trusts Nancy and doesn't think anything is going on with Steve because he also trusts Steve, we can't deny the writers might do some lame ass love triangle bullshit this next season which will put even more pressure on Jonathan because now he might lose his girlfriend to his previous bully 🧍‍♀️

Argyle was SO healthy for Jonathan's character! He helped get Jonathan out of his comfort zone in some ways, in all 4 seasons with Argyle Jonathan was the most free and silly and acted like a teenager! He could just be a teenager with Argyle. He wasn't a supportive big brother or boyfriend or oldest son or any of the stigmatizations from his home town with Argyle, he was just Jonathan. Instead of worrying about taking care of Will, or getting a job to help pay bills or (at the time) fighting monsters, he was playing golf in the middle of a car dump with his best friend, getting high in their pizza van and having fun. I dunno, I just think it's a shame we're taking away his only friend that he isn't dating or related to.

I also fear that the did it for a reason of pushing the love triangle because let's be real if Argyle was there Jancy would just communicate. Argyle wouldn't stand for them dancing around each other and Steve being an issue he'd be like 'talk it out 👏🏼👏🏼'

Again this isn't even MENTIONING how important he is to the plot of s4 in general? Some people say he was just the comic relief and while he definitely played that role, he also is the reason half the main cast are alive?? Without Argyle; will, Mike and Jonathan would be dead! They would have no escape from the government SHOOTING THEIR HOUSE AND TRYING TO KILL THEM. they would have no transportation to find El, they'd have never even found El! They'd never have found a place to make a bathtub so El could save max, they'd never have made it back to Hawkins! He is an important character not just to Jonathan (because while I adore their friendship and this post may make it seem that way) HE IS NOT AN ACCESSORY TO JONATHAN! He was a fun character, a relavent character!

They could have done so much with him, imagine how he could have interacted with other characters? Character pair ups that could have been awesome? Steve and Argyle would be SO FUNNY! Argyle and Dustin, Argyle and Lucas bonding over neither being fucking white, Argyle and Robin being a comedy duo, Argyle and fucking Nancy having a conversation as Jonathan best friend and girlfriend respectively, or Argyle finally just meeting the girl he's heard about for a year- i dunno the possibilities are endless and the duffers are lame for not doing ANYTHING with the potential of these characters.

Oh well, I lost respect for Stranger Things a while ago, but a part of me is still passionate about the story being told and it really is a shame for Jonathan's character. But I shouldn't be surprised the writers have always kind of hated Jonathan. Those stonathan moments better be great I guess, I dunno I won't be watching it 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

#argyle stranger things #stranger things thoughts #anti stranger things #support palestine #boycott stranger things #jonathan byers #stranger things season 5

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xoxoladyaz · 1 year

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AU-gust, Day 9: Cleaning Crew

A/N: Avengers Crossover and allusions to smut, ahoy!

This ended up way hurt/comfort/fluff than I anticipated and there were almost no sexy times? And it was definitely the Avengers cockblocking Eddie and not the other way around so if there's still interest in that, I could see me writing THAT AU in the future! I just wanted Steve to be properly appreciated, you know? Anyways, happy AU-gust Day 9!

“This is the weirdest NDA I’ve ever seen.”

“Question, how many NDAs have you seen?”

Nancy Wheeler’s pinched face glared at Steve through his Starkphone. “Enough.” She rolled her eyes at Steve and restarted her perusal of the hefty contract Steve had emailed over to her (that she’d insisted on printing and making notes on, because even ten years removed from high school, Nancy Wheeler was thorough.) “There’s some things here regarding interpersonal relationships that seem a little unprecedented.”

“But?” Steve Harrington echoed, his eyebrows near his hairline.

“But you are dealing with the world’s first literal superhero team so these probably aren’t unreasonable requests,” she finished between gritted teeth.

“Great, so I can sign it then.”

“Steve,” Nancy sighed, and she pinched her nose between her eyes, “are you sure you want to do this? If it’s a matter of money - ”

“It’s not, Nance. Neither one of us has to work,” Steve argued back and hey, he wasn’t wrong. The government had been obscenely generous in their payouts after they’d finally defeated Vecna. And, okay, was it a little weird that instead of going to a fancy school or kickstarting his musical career or buying a weed farm that Steve rented a normal apartment and put the rest away into an investment fund? Maybe. Did he need to work, let alone work as a glorified cleaning service for the one percent? No, not at all.

But maintaining one of his (recently-divorced) mother’s properties had turned into a prosperous career because hey, it turns out all of those years spent cleaning up after the kids (and the interdimensional monsters they kept as pets) meant that he was, like, really good at cleaning. (And he was still incredibly insecure about his intelligence, or lack-thereof, and he didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t get into the dream school he applied for.)

And now he’d been personally asked – by Pepper Potts herself, of all people (who apparently played bridge with his mom?) – to take over the general care and upkeep of the personnel apartments at the newly re-christened Avengers Tower in New York City.

(Thank God he’d been out of town at one of Lucas’ basketball games when the whole attack happened; not that he wouldn’t have been willing to help but man, fighting monsters takes a toll when you’re not a superhuman. And he was only thirty.)

“This just feels like a cry for help, Steve. Do you really want to look after the world’s most difficult group of people?”

Steve stared at Nancy without blinking. “I babysat Henderson for years. I feel like I’m still babysitting Henderson.”

“I know, it’s just – I’m just worried that you’re not moving on, Steve.”

And, well, that hurt. Because sure, he didn’t have a doctorate like Robin or Dustin and he wasn’t playing professional sports like Lucas or spearheading global disability rights campaigns like Max or running a prosperous weed farm like Argyle or was part of the reporting and photography duo that was Nancy and Jonathan, nor was he part of a Grammy-winning rock band or a retired superhero or –

(It’s just, at the end of the day, Steve didn’t have really big dreams. After years spent fighting interdimensional monsters that liked to crawl their way out of walls, all of the other stuff – fame, fortune, money, a legacy – it didn’t really feel important anymore. All Steve wanted now, and truthfully, all he really wanted then, was a place to call home and people to belong to.

So honestly, it was really fucking rude of Nancy to judge him for just wanting that. And he was going to be working in close proximity with the Avengers of all people, like, how was that not success? Sure, he’d essentially be a live-in maid, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t doing important work.)

Steve didn’t say any of this to Nancy, of course; he didn’t need to. The looks on her face – shock, and then guilt – said enough.

“Steve - ”

“Thanks for your help, Nance,” he replied quickly, and then he hung up the phone.

(They were all split up now, they had been for years. And keeping them all together, staying together, being a family? That had been his dream for years.

But maybe it was time for a new dream now.

And maybe the Avengers Tower was the perfect place to start.)

/////

Working at the Tower meant that sometimes Steve felt like he was cleaning a frat house, mainly because the communal kitchen was usually covered in junk food wrappers and empty beer bottles and days’ old coffee mugs.

(“Trust me,” Pepper Potts had said drily the first time they’d had a check-in meeting, “this doesn’t come closeto a Tony Stark frat house party.”)

Still, he was on time every day, kept to himself, and most importantly didn’t sell out any information to any of the many, many media outlets that sent him offers. That, along with the fact that apparently Steve had an obscenely high security clearance (thanks, Hawkins!) meant that he was asked to officially move into the staff quarters of Avengers Tower within his first month of work.

(Which had the added effect of him actually meeting the Avengers and, well, it was a little weird.

Because if Steve didn’t know any better, he’d say that they were flirting with him. Or, even worse, that they were staking some sort of claim, and that didn’t make sense, right?

Right?)

/////

1. Tony Stark

“Hey honeybun, how’s it hanging?”

“To the left,” Steve replied absentmindedly as he disinfected the industrial-grade espresso machine.

Someone choked behind him and – shit.

He’d just said that to his BOSS.

(His incredibly hot, incredibly wealthy, incredibly smart and powerful boss.

SHIT.)

“Mr. Stark!” Steve exclaimed as he spun to face his employer. “Mr. Stark, I am so, so sorry, that was so inappropriate - ”

“First of all, please for the love of god call me Tony,” Mr. Stark – Tony – ordered with a smirk as he leaned on the kitchen’s island. He was dressed in an old AC/DC tee that sent a pang through Steve’s heart because wowit reminded him so much of Eddie (although that’s where their style similarities ended, because Eddie always wore loose bottoms and Tony’s pants were always fitted to accentuate his ass.

NOT THAT STEVE HAD BEEN LOOKING.)

“And second of all,” Tony purred as he leaned further across the island, getting right up into Steve’s space, “don’t tease me if you aren’t going to follow through, sweetheart.”

Steve didn’t need a mirror to tell him that he was flushing bright red. “I – I - ”

“Mister Harrington, sir,” JARVIS spoke – which was a fully functional AI that Dustin would die to know about – “there is a call waiting for you on your personal line, a Mister Edward Munson.”

Speak of the devil.

“Oh,” Steve murmured, his face cooling off as quickly as it had heated and he spun around, hands shaking as he looked for a towel. “Yeah, let me just get a towel - ”

“JARVIS, put the call on my line,” he heard Tony order, and then a warm hand was at his back. “I’ve got this, handsome.”

Steve turned just in time to see Tony shoot him a wink and pick up his phone. “Eddie Munson, huh? I’ve heard a lot about you,” Tony started and then he was gone, disappearing out of the kitchen and towards his lab.

“I – JARVIS?”

“Mister Stark is a mystery to behold,” the AI replied with a sigh. “How about a glass of champagne?”

You know what? Fuck it.

“That sounds great, J.”

2. Steve Rogers

“ – and I said, ‘excuse me, but only one of us outsmarted some leftover commie bastards at the age of ten and it wasn’t you, Professor.’”

Steve snorted, listening as Erica detailed her most recent argument – and victory – with her prick of an international relations professor. (A few days after his weird interaction with Tony in the kitchen, he’d been granted access to accept personal calls in the main Avengers spaces, which meant that he had more time to catch up with his friends while cleaning which was a blessing because some of the dusting in this place? Took hours.)

“Doesn’t that break your NDA?”

“Please,” Erica snorted over the living room’s loudspeakers, “I’ve got Owens wrapped around my finger, just like you with a certain member of the one percent.”

“Sorry, what?” Steve paused mid-wipe, looking confusedly at the now-gleaming metallic coffee table in front of him. “What are you talking about?”

“Tony Stark, your knight in iron armor?” Erica replied in her best I’m-talking-to-an-idiot-right-now voice. “Or did you forget that he’s screening your calls?”

“He’s screening my what?”

“Please, we all heard about his little talk with the Nerd King,” she scoffed and oh yeah, he’d forgotten about that. (Honestly, he had no idea what those two had even talked about; when he asked Tony, the older man had changed the subject and ordered super fancy sushi instead.) “Now, if you had a bodyguard like that back at Starcourt, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten your ass kicked by the Russians.”

“What Russians?”

Steve didn’t scream, but he might have let out a high-pitched noise of surprise at the sound of Captain America’s voice. He turned around to find Steve Rogers standing at attention in the living room, his eyes glaring at the speakers overhead.

“Steve,” Erica’s voice echoed slowly, “am I hearing Captain America right now?”

“Just Steve Rogers, ma’am,” the tall blonde replied automatically.

“And just how long have you been there, Just Steve Rogers?”

“Long enough. Now, what is this about the Russians?” He asked, and his piercing blue eyes dropped onto Steve’s face and his heart was beating fast because he was nervous and for no other reason.

“Seriously? How do you not know? Haven’t you read Steve’s file?” Erica asked incredulously and okay, this conversation needed to be done immediately.

Piercing blue eyes grew shocked and Captain Rogers looked, well, sick to his stomach. “You have a file?”

“Okay!” Steve jumped up before this could spiral any further out of hand. “Erica, it was great talking to you, I’ll call you later, uh, Captain Rogers - ”

“Please, call me Steve.”

“Right, Steve, there’s nothing to be, uh, worried about - ”

“She said Russians,” Cap pointed to the ceiling, “so there’s definitely something to be worried about. Does Tony know about the Russians?”

“I’m sorry, did somebody say my name?” Tony popped his head into the room because of course he was also nearby.

“Did you know about this?”

“I know a lot of things, Cap, you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Did you know that Steve was attacked by Russians?”

“Steve was what?!”

(Steve was then treated to the sight of Iron Man and Captain America reading his security file, staring at him in shock, and then stomping off to do something about their fury? The last part of that entire thing didn’t make sense, but JARVIS sent him some whiskey so hey, it could have been worse.

And if he let Captain Rogers tuck an extra blanket around him during movie night, well, that was just his business.)

3. Natasha Romanoff (and Clint Barton)

“I heard you lost a fight with some Russians.”

“JESUS!” Steve startled, barely stopping himself from dropping Tony’s mother’s expensive China all over the floor. (The porcelain set hadn’t been looked at in years and Pepper wanted to use it for the next investors meeting, so of course this is when the infamous Black Widow approached him.)

“Okay, first of all,” he said after he had set down the dishware and turned to face the smirking redhead, “I didn’t lose the fight, I knocked one out.”

“And then you got surrounded, captured, and were tortured for a total of two hours in a hidden bunker,” she finished. (How did she get her eyebrow to quirk like that? And why did he feel like she was flirting with him but also being mean?)

(And how could he get that skill?)

“I – yeah, you’re not wrong about that,” Steve muttered, glancing away from Natasha. “At least we all made it out alive. And we survived the whole Hawkins earthquake thing.”

Natasha snorted and murmured something under her breath that sounded like Russian but also sounded like metal and frankly didn’t make a lot of sense. She cleared her throat and spoke up and, well, whatever she said before must not have been important. “It’s a good thing you have us to train you.”

“Yeah,” he murmured absentmindedly. Then –

“Wait, what?”

Which is how Steve started spending two hours out of every afternoon “training” with Natasha in the official Avengers’ sparring room. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how much good it was doing, given that “training” mainly consisted of Natasha throwing him around the room and giving him bruises.

(Okay, that he was into, and she knew it too, judging by the wink she’d send him every time he headed off to the showers.)

After a few weeks, when she’d deemed him “competent” enough, she had Clint Barton start “assisting” as well, meaning there were two of them beating him up now which meant twice the embarrassment and twice the bruises.

(And twice the amount of time jerking off in the shower.)

(This was really starting to get out of hand.)

4. Thor and Bruce Banner

“This is really starting to get out of hand.”

“What is?” Robin asked as she poured the last of her Flaming Hot Cheeto dust into her mouth. She was the first person Steve had been able to secure a visitor’s pass for; Dustin was next on the list, followed by Max and Erica and then the rest of the gang (although according to JARVIS they were running into some sort of problem with Eddie’s pass, which could take up to an additional two months? He didn’t fully understand it, JARVIS had told him during breakfast a few days ago and he’d gotten distracted by Natasha throwing knives at Clint’s apple strudel and Steve accidentally breaking the toaster again.)

Steve grimaced as he watched her lick her fingers. “You mean aside from your Cheeto addiction?”

“Hey, this isn’t an addiction, I can stop any time,” she replied with a snort before tossing her empty bag at Steve.

(Gross.)

“Sorry, what were you saying dingus? Something about things getting out of hand?”

“I don’t know, I just,” Steve set down his feather-duster (that he hadn’t even been using, he’d just been tossing it around like his old ice cream scooper) and got close enough to Robin so she could hear his whisper, “I might be reading things wrong, but I’m almost getting the feeling that they’re into me or something?”

Robin frowned. “Who, Eddie?”

“Eddie?” Now it was Steve’s turn to be confused. “No, the Avengers.”

“The AVENGERS?” Robin squeaked just as the door to the elevator banks opened. Steve and Robin whipped around to see Thor enter the main atrium with Dr. Banner on his heels.

“Steve!” Thor shot him a blinding smile and strutted over. Upon reaching Steve he wrapped him up in a hug and lifted him off the ground.

“Hey Thor!” Steve wheezed, trying to pat what he could of Thor’s back.

“How I have missed your countenance, my friend,” Thor boomed, and then he was setting Steve back on the ground –

And kissing him on the lips.

Thor leaned back and beamed, ignoring the fact that Steve was openly gaping at him. “It is good to be home.”

“Yeah? Yeah,” Steve breathed before shooting a quick look at Robin who looked completely and totally dumbfounded.

“And you must be the Lady Robin!” Thor said, turning his mega-watt smile upon Robin who flushed bright red. “Steve has told us of your exploits and your intellect. You would do well amongst the heroes of Asgard.”

“Thank you? I mean, thank you,” Robin squeaked.

(If Steve wasn’t in a state of complete and utter shock, he might have laughed at her, but he couldn’t move.)

“I have also seen the flag of your people,” Thor continued, like he didn’t notice Robin’s utter embarrassment, “and I have a lovely friend named Val who is searching for a paramour of her own. Do you think you would be interested? I could arrange a meeting.”

“Val. Val? As in - ”

“Valkyrie, yes,” Dr. Banner finally cut in sheepishly. “Also, hi, I’m Dr. Banner.”

Robin could only muster up a wave.

“Uh, hi, hi Bruce,” Steve shook his head, forcing himself to get it together it was only a kiss.

“Hi Steve, good to see you,” Bruce replied, and now he was bright red and well apparently Thor was the only person who wasn’t blushing right now and Steve needed to get a handle on this stat.

“That would be great, Thor!” Steve cut in, saving Robin from having to respond. “Robin’s going to be in town for a few more days.”

“Wonderful!” Thor said, turning back to beam at Steve. “I shall invite Val for dinner tomorrow but for now, I shall allow you to return to your revelry. Lady Robin,” he said with a bow towards Robin and then, turning to face Steve, he shot Steve a smug wink. “Steve.” And with that Thor was gone, headed towards Tony’s lab with a still-blushing Bruce Banner hot on his heels.

Steve turned to stare at Robin.

Robin stared back at Steve.

“Holy shit.”

5. The Team

Surprisingly – or unsurprisingly – Robin’s date with Val had gone really, really well; in fact, it had gone so well that Robin transferred her graduate credits to NYU in a matter of days and moved into the Tower as well.

(“Steve. Steve. She’s a literal alien warrior goddess. Who cares where I work? I don’t even need to work.”

Still, the NYU transfer went incredibly smoothly, so smoothly that Steve confronted a certain genius billionaire playboy philanthropist about it. Tony had denied any input and distracted him with more sushi and a thorough tour of his sportscars which had ended up lasting for hours.)

Anyways, with Robin now living as an occupant of the Tower and the rest of the Avengers fully settled in and in agreement on a chore chart, Steve was starting to wonder just why he was still employed; like, what purpose was he serving? He really did try to stay on top of the cleaning, but the others were pitching in almost constantly, and it was a miracle if he was responsible for cooking even one meal a day.

“I just don’t get it,” he finally said to Robin on a particularly hot day in July. They were the sole occupants of the Tower’s rooftop infinity pool (as the Avengers proper were spending the day in a series of meetings), so this was the closest Steve was going to get to having a private conversation with Robin.

(Like, he was really, really glad that Val was so obviously head over heels for his best friend, but it definitely cut down on his and Robin’s cuddle time.)

“Don’t get what, dingus?”

Steve shrugged and ran a wet hand through his drying hair. “I don’t know, why I’m still here? I mean, they aren’t really using me as a cleaner anymore, and I mean, Bruce is a way better cook than me and he’s pretty much taken over so, like, what am I even doing here?”

Robin turned and pushed up her sunglasses so they were making eye contact. “Seriously? You’re serious right now.”

Steve nodded.

“You really don’t see it?”

“See what?”

Groaning, Robin slid her sunglasses back onto her face and turned back towards the horizon. “I’m not going to be the one to spell it out for you, dingus. You’re going to have to do this on your own. Or, better yet, why do you just ask?”

“Uh, maybe because I don’t want to get fired?”

(Robin shoved his head underwater at that which, frankly? Was incredibly rude.

He got his revenge later by knocking her into the pool after she’d finally dried off.)

+ 1 Bucky Barnes

Being fresh off of a highly-advanced plane-ship-thing from Wakanda meant that Steve hadn’t seen a whole lot of James “Bucky” Barnes. He’d sat next to him at dinner a few times, shared a couch during their re-watch of Game of Thrones, even sparred a bit at Natasha’s direction during Steve’s “training,” but they hadn’t really talked, which made the fact that after Steve’s un-helpful swim with Robin, he found said super soldier waiting for him in the hallway outside of his bedroom.

“Bucky, hi,” Steve nodded, rubbing his towel across the back of his neck. “Sorry, did you need something? Is there a problem with - ”

“No problems, doll, I just wanted to have a chat,” the dark-haired man purred, and Steve?

He felt his stomach tangle up in knots.

“A-about what, exactly?”

Bucky hummed and uncrossed his arms, the vibranium arm shimmering under the light. “Well, a little birdie told me you had some questions about what your place is here,” he said, a playful sparkle in his eye. “And,” Bucky stepped closer and backed Steve up until Steve was leaning against the door to his own apartment, “since it seems that my teammates haven’t made your position entirely clear, I thought I would take matters into my own hands.”

Steve didn’t even get a sound out before Bucky was surging forward, planting the sort of kiss on Steve that he knew he’d never recover from because for as forceful and passionate as it was, it was gentle too: the way Bucky’s cybernetic arm wrapped around Steve’s back and help him up; the way his other hand cupped the side of Steve’s face; the way Bucky hummed, like Steve’s lips were the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted;

The way he lifted Steve up and kicked open the door.

“I – I - ” Steve panted out as the door swung shut behind them. “I still - ”

“You’re home, doll,” Bucky murmured against Steve’s lips. “That’s what you are.”

And, well.

Steve couldn’t not kiss him then.

(And he couldn’t not give him every piece of himself in return underneath his silken sheets.)

Four Months Later

“Okay, now this is the weirdest NDA I’ve ever seen.”

Jonathan snorted from across the room as he fiddled with his camera.

“Hey, you were the one that wanted the exclusive,” Steve replied. “I could have told you it would be more intensive.”

“Yeah, yeah, and who’s fault is that?” Nancy teased with a glimmer in her eye. “I’m not the househusband here.”

“Umm excuse me, that’s my job?” Robin piped up from her spot on Val’s lap. “Steve is obviously the trophy wife.”

“Hey!” Steve exclaimed, but then a pair of godly arms wrapped around his waist, a cybernetic arm wrapped around his shoulders, and a pair of expensive lips pressed a hot kiss to his cheek.

“Best trophy wife a guy could ask for,” Tony crooned in his ear and then laughed at Steve’s blush.

(His partners weren’t the good guys, they were evil.)

“Dude, Eddie would shit a brick if he saw this,” Jonathan said with another snort.

“Oh, how is - ”

“Who do you speak of? I am not familiar,” Thor cut Robin’s question off loudly, his thundering voice vibrating up and down Steve’s back.

“I think he said Freddie - ”

“Oh, like Freddy Krueger – Cap, we need you to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street - ”

“ – after the shoot! Do you think Tony will order us sushi again?”

“ – Steve first, Steve, are you in the mood for sushi?”

Steve felt Nancy nudge him, and he turned to see her smiling. “Hey. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, Nance,” Steve smiled back.

“It’s good to finally be home.”

#steve harrington #steddie #stranger things #steve harrington my beloved #avengers #tony stark #thor #steve rogers #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #bruce banner #stobin #stobin friendship #valkyrie #sorry eddie you snooze you lose #and now it is time for me to snooze because this is way too fucking long my god #august fanfic challenge

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quinns-shadowy-arts · 7 months

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Coming Out of the BBQ

Day 12 of @steddielovemonth‘s Steddie Love Month Event! Rating: General CW: Tiny Reference to Period Accurate Homophobia (It’s only a couple of words) Tags: Established Relationship, Coming Out, Fluff, Dumb Punny Title. WC: 931 Prompt: “Love is having hope for the future together”; Submitted by @acasualcrossfade

As the faces around them lit up with happiness and understanding, instead of hate and disgust, Steve and Eddie knew they were going to be ok.

They had finally decided to tell everyone about their relationship. They knew that the kids were going to be ok with it; you don’t go through some of the worst trauma a group of people could face and not be with them for life. The fact that Eddie and Steve kissed each other instead of some random girls wasn’t going to change the fact that they had risked their lives for these kids. So they knew the kids were going to be ok.

The adults in their lives is what really worried them. Steve knew that Joyce was going to be accepting; she was kind, loving, and vocal about not caring about the differences that made up their little rag-tag group of friends turned family. Hopper is who really scared them.

Eddie was and probably will always be on edge around cops. They weren’t very friendly to him before the murder accusations, and they sure as hell were not getting any better. Steve thought he knew Hopper’s type; a gruff, macho man who didn’t accept people like them for god knows why. But Steve and Eddie decided that they should still come out to their family at the next Hopper-Byers’ summer BBQ.

The BBQ started off well. The kids were throwing water balloons at each other and running around in the sprinkler set out by Joyce. Nancy, Jonathan, and Argyle looked happy and relaxed as they chatted in the corner of the yard. Joyce was staying in Hopper’s space, and even though he faked annoyance, Hopper was happy with how things were going. Robin was hanging out with Vicky on the back deck, watching the kids play as they sipped on lemonade. Steve and Eddie felt good about this.

As the night began to wrap up, Steve stood on the wooden deck where Robin and Vicky had previously been sitting. He cleared his voice and waited for everyone to look over at him. Eddie stood by his side. Eddie twisted his rings around his fingers, trying to rid his nerves.

“Um, Everyone, Eddie and I have something we would like to tell you all.” Steve looked over the faces of the people he loved, many of them held faces of confusion. He took a deep breath before he continued,

“Eddie and I have been wanting to tell you guys this for a while, And before we tell you what’s going on, we want you to know that this doesn't change anything about us. We’re still the same Steve and Eddie you’ve known for the past couple of years. So, um, here goes nothing I guess.” Steve reached over and grabbed Eddie’s hand, he looked into Eddie’s eyes for reassurance. Eddie looked back at him with a determined look, his smile was soft despite the fire in his eyes. Eddie nodded at Steve before they looked back to the party.

“Steve and I have been dating for the past year. We really see this as a forever thing. We love each other and plan on staying by each other’s sides for the rest of our lives, we’re hoping that our family is right there, by our sides, too.” Eddie smiled.

The kids all looked at them and smiled. Erica looked at them with a sassy, but happy look.

“Of course we’re by your sides, you idiots. We love you, that’s not going to change because your boy kissers.” Erica said. Lucas turned towards her, mouth agape,

“Erica!” Lucas borderline shouted, he turned back to Steve and Eddie quickly,

“She didn’t say it in the best way, necessarily, but I agree. We all love you guys and you guys being in a relationship doesn’t change that. We’re happy that you’re happy.” Lucas said. Eddie and Steve smile back at him as the rest of the kids nod along in agreement. Joyce spoke up next,

“They’re right. We love you boys so much. You two are so smart and so kind. Thank you for sharing this with us” She held onto Hopper’s shoulder as she spoke. Hopper gave a curt nod, he was never all that good with words, but he seemed to agree with what Joyce said.

The teens all agreed with what the others had said. Steve looked over to Robin. He saw that she was smiley and teary eyed. She held onto Vicky’s hand and she looked back at Steve.

Steve and Eddie looked back towards each other. Eddie leaned his head against Steve’s shoulder, tired from being nervous all day. Steve kissed the top of his head as conversation broke back out between the little groups in the yard.

Both Steve and Eddie felt happy and hopeful. The most important people in their lives still loved them. They were accepted here, and maybe in the future, they’ll be accepted by the general populace as well. Maybe they’ll be able to hold each other’s hands in public, maybe they’ll be able to go on date nights to fancy restaurants without fearing violence or disgust from those around them, and maybe they’ll be able to marry each other. Eddie didn’t really care for the legal mumbo jumbo of marriage, or the conformity that came with it. But for Steve, he would pull out all of the traditions to make him happy.

They may not be able to do these things right now, but they’re family loves and accepts them; and that’s more than enough for now.

#steddie ficlet #steddielovemonth #fluff #coming out #established relationship #steddie #unedited

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lebylershipper · 11 months

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Jancy-Byler parallel

I’m on a late rewatch for Bylerween right now, and I’ve just gotten to the scene in S2 where Jancy’s sitting on Jonathan’s car after Nancy’s fight with Steve. Jonathan lies about Steve asking him to take her home after the party (when the truth is Steve stormed off without a word and Jon found her all by himself) and lies again by saying Steve loves her and they can work things out. And Nancy looks even sadder when he lies about Steve being worried about her – she knows he wasn’t. Jonathan’s doing all this because he loves Nancy but thinks she doesn’t love him back and she’ll be happier with Steve. Yet Nancy looks anything but happy or reassured, because she’s realising the reason she couldn’t tell Steve that she loves him is very simple: she doesn’t. She’s realising she loves Jonathan instead, and he’s busy trying to convince her she can work patch things up with Steve.

Flash-forward to Mike and Will in the van scene. Mike’s feeling dejected about the state of his relationship with El. She called him out on never saying he loves her, and even then he couldn’t say it. And then she was snatched away by the cops and Dr Owen’s agents and left him with a sarcastic letter. Enter Will. He loves Mike more than life itself but thinks he doesn’t love him back, and Will wants Mike to be happy, and he thinks Mike’s better off with “She’s my girlfriend!” El, and that’s why he tries his best to convince Mike things will work out with her, going as far as to lie and pretend his feeling’s for Mike are El’s, and say El commissioned the painting. And does Mike seem at all happy about this? Hell no – when he’s looking at the paining, his smile literally dies when Will says El commissioned it. Why? Because he’s realising he couldn’t say ‘I love you’ to El because he doesn’t love her, not romantically at least, and the one who he does love, who makes him feel so special and needed and cherished, is the boy sitting right there next to him. And that boy’s babbling on about why he should stay with El and try and work things out with her.

There’re so similar, the two scenes.

“You don’t love me?” = “You never say it … You can’t even write it, Mike.”

‘Steve asked me to take you home, he was worried about you’ = ‘El commissioned the painting, she loves you’

She’s better off with Steve = He’s better off with El

Stop telling me to stay with Steve, I love you = Stop telling me to stay with El, I love you

And finally there’s Jonathan’s glance in the van scene. I don’t think he’s just picking up on Will’s feelings for Mike generally. No, he’s noticing Will’s doing the same thing he did with his Wheeler – pretending he doesn’t love them and trying to keep their hopeless relationship alive because he loves them and wants them to be happy and doesn’t get that they’ll be happier with him than the other person.

Two clueless Byers sweethearts, two madly in love Wheelers.

#byler #byler proof #byler parallels #byler endgame #jancy

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starry-eyed-steve · 1 year

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I wish S4 explored Nancy and her tendency to isolate. It feels weird to keep yourself apart from the only other people who know about the Upside Down, yet we know that she never hangs out with the others (excluding Jonathan) outside of world ending scenarios. I wish we saw that reflected in her interactions with the group; have her fumble interactions with the kids and have no idea how to approach Robin and Steve. Have her know how to plan but not where she stands with anyone anymore.

I don't think it is weird for Nancy not to hang out with the majority of the people who know about the Upside Down.

If you look at the group, we have 3 people her age. One is her ex she had a very messy breakup with, next we have her ex's bff who seemingly comes as a package deal with Steve and then we have her current boyfriend who also has negative emotions towards her ex. If I were Nancy I would also only hang out with my boyfriend.

And then we have Mike and his friends, which are younger than her and she doesn't share the same interests with them. I doubt she sees her younger brother and the party as mature enough to hang out or discuss problems with. Which is fine btw, I have a younger brother and never in a million years would I want to hang out with his friends. It's no secret that the Wheeler siblings aren't close and I'm fine with that tbh it seems like a realistic depiction of a sibling relationship, or at least I can relate to it so it seems realistic to me personally.

So there are no other people that she could hang out with. After s1, she had both Steve and Jonathan because there was no weird history between them, but after her breakup with Steve, she only had Jonathan. Both Nancy and Steve are barely friends, like they weren't friends before they dated, and after the relationship, both were hurt by the other person, which made staying in contact difficult. And idk if Nancy would love to hang out with Robin if she would bring Steve back into her life, when she showed no interest to be friends with him before s4. Nancy never went out of her way to get to know Robin because idk it seems messy to befriend your ex's bff.

But in general, I don't think Nancy only had Jonathan. She seems to be the kinda girl who can keep school friendships. Like she was fairly popular in the school paper. She had two off-screen friends that were mentioned in s2 who she was close enough to have sleepovers with, without Karen being surprised by it. So, to me, she can make surface-level friendships, but as soon as school is done, she won't contact them anymore.

I also think after her split with Steve and her getting together with Jonathan, her reputation greatly suffered. Like dumping the popular guy to get together with the school creep just looks bad. On top of that, Tommy and Carol would spread the nastiest rumors about her and Jonathan, like it was already teased a bit in s2. I would have liked to see the aftermath of it. What do her friends say? How does she feel about that? Does she develop an even stronger us against them mindset with Jonathan and thus isolate herself further?

But again the reason why she doesn't hang out with the people in the UD group is the messy history she has with her ex and in extension with her ex' bff who are together 24/7.

I agree with you. I would have loved to see Nancy struggling with finding her place within the teen group at least. That would mean to acknowledge the complicated feelings she has towards Steve and Robin and vice versa. But we don't have time and there are bigger things to worry about. But if she were the driving force to befriend Robin, the pay-off would have definitely been better than what we got. It would have ensured that Robin didn't act out of character, and it would give Nancy more depth and room to grow as a person.

I don't think she would fumble her interactions with the kids, like they hung out when she was younger and the kids like having her around in s3. I think if they would question her authority because she sees herself in charge, then I think there would be problems, but the kids mostly listen to everything she has to say. They admire and respect her, so really, I don't think the kids are the problem. And because she sees herself as the older sibling, she doesn't expect them to check up on her between seasons. She doesn't see them as her equal because they are younger and she wants to protect them, but that doesn't mean she would love spending time with them outside world ending scenarios. Only if she truly has to. She has her own life and interests.

#sorry this took me so long to answer #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #steve harrington #jonathan byers #mike wheeler #the party #stranger things #sandra says stuff #anon #answered

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destinyc1020 · 19 days

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Finally watched the bachelorette finale.. why am i shocked that the Pete Davidson lookalike love bombed her n then broke up with her 🙃 so many issies with this season:

- why did they only have 2 asian men the whole season? 1 being more worried about the male drama then the relationship he had with her

- the Jack lookalike having the audacity to mention Maria then Devin started following her right afte he broke up with Jenn 😒 we get it, sum of yall wanted Maria. For sum of the contestants to mention a white contestant when yr a whole LEAD of a franchise, disrespextful af. And even more awkward cuz i dnt think Jenn n Maria are even friends anymore. And even if Maria was the lead i still think a lot of these men wuldv fucked it up with her

-The whole Devin situation... was he acting the whole time? So sad

-They shuldve given Jenn a choice to watch the proposal and made Devin watch it. She said "do i have a choice?" and no, she didnt. How sadistic of the producers.

-Nt Jenn related bt the way they annouced Grant was the lead was lame. Shuldv been announced live where we can hear ppl cheer for him instead of it being in a prerecorded video.

Girl! All of this!! 👏🏾

I agree with everything you said.

Girl, I thought the same thing. You're telling me that they couldn't find any eligible Asian men? 🥴 There was a really cute one on someone's season prior. I think his name was John. I just can't recall who's season it was. 😭

Ugh I'm so sick and tired of all the guys wanting Daisy and Maria. 🙄 I'm actually shocked ABC didn't make Maria the next Bachelorette, but maybe they saw greater potential with her for BIP. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Either way, it was disrespectful as idk what of Sam to tell Jenn on a national radio show that he was actually thinking the Bachelorette was going to be Daisy or Maria. See, this is the problem with ABC. They just build a cast, but don't tell them who the lead will be until it's way late. 🙄 That's not fair to woc imo. It also isn't fair just in general because you don't know if the person was really there for you.

I clocked Devin early on. I never liked him for Jenn. I was starting to warm up to him towards the end, only because he seemed like he was so into Jenn, which was smthg that was refreshing compared to indecisive Marcus 🙄. But still, he wasn't my first pick. And sure enough, my gut was right! Always go with your gut ladies!! It almost never fails you. My top two picks were Grant and Jonathan. Why Jenn chose such homely-looking, and indecisive men when she had both fiiiine Jonathan and Grant (who were seriously into her btw) standing RIGHT THERE is totally beyond me. 😒

I agree. They should have aired the proposal and the show the whole way through, and THEN brought Jenn out to explain what happened AFTER the show ended. The way they just kept her on stage and had the camera on her the entire time while she's crying and re-living her pain on air, LIVE, for all of America to see, was just sadistic and very low of ABC. 😠 That was uncalled for.

I thought his phone call to his mom was cute 🥰, but I agree, I would have preferred to have heard the live reaction from the audience. But hey, they said they already had the most applicants for a bachelor ever soooo rofl 🤣 😂

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corgiplays · 2 years

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@ronanceisintheair

Me and Nancy had to sit through the little nuggets speech so now st*ve should have to sit through Nancy's speech of why he left her during her darkest time. Why he ignored her trauma. Why he thinks it's okay to tell her this when she's with Jonathan.

Robin should be there. And Nancy should look at Robin, the most painful tears and disgust in her eyes "do you even know why we broke up. Did he tell you?"

Enough time has not gone by for the writers to act like this girl isn't still crying regularly over losing her best friend. (And yall know she still blames herself😭)

^This post is what sparked this

————

Thoughts so many thoughts

TW: mentions of attempted suicide and past self harm

————

Nancy felt her skin crawl as Steve told her his dream of her having his six kids, how they would end up exactly like her parents in a loveless relationship in that cul-de-sac on the corner. She wanted to run, hide somewhere so far away that she could forget about Steve and his nightmare of a dream, she wants to forget that this conversation ever existed in the first place that Steve still dreamed about her.

But there was Robin, Robin who somehow always knew how to save her from awkward situations where she wasn't in control. And she pushed away the whole conversation with Steve, pushed it far back into her mind and locked it in a box hoping that the key is lost somewhere in the ocean of her mind never to be found again. There were more important things to think about like killing Henry Creel once and for all.

——4 days after the fight——

Somehow in the middle of the world ending the party still wanted a movie night hosted generously by the Wheelers basement, and as the only one with a car Nancy had to get the movie, but for the past eight minutes she's been sitting here in the Family Video parking lot hyping herself up so she could walk in and face Steve. She hasn't seen much of him since the final battle and whenever she did she made sure to keep their interactions short but now going into where Steve works was like walking into a lion's den. Seven more minutes passed before she left her car and made her way to the front entrance, the glass doors revealing Steve and Robin inside lounging around the counter as a movie played on the tv behind them.

The bell above the door rang as Nancy slipped in hastily making her way to the sci-fi section without muttering out a hello. In and out that's all she needed to remind herself, go in, pick a movie, pay to Robin and leave, and all without interacting with Steve. But nothing went to plan as heavy steps came up too loud and close to her making her panic as she hazardously skimmed through grabbing a random movie and moving around the one half on the store to the cash register. Nancy watched as Robin gave a confused glance to her side thinking Steve would be with her.

"Hey Nance...you getting a movie for the kids tonight? Because I never took you for someone who would watch 'Back To The Future'" Robin's rambling was a welcomed sound to Nancy's all too tense body. She let her shoulders drop from her ears and unclenched her jaw letting her body relax before speaking.

"Yeah, who would've thought that even as the world is ending the kids really are just kids." Nancy suddenly remembers that even though her brother and his friends are in high school they lost four years of their childhood to this, El never had a childhood to begin with. Nancy looked at Robin and suddenly she saw the worry lines, the deep purple circles under her eyes that were a stark contrast to the sickly pale skin on Robin's face, the jagged pink lines and dark purple and yellow bruises from where vines tried to kill the girl. They all were too young to have known and dealt with this. And as Robin opened her mouth a worried look passed her eyes as she looked at Nancy. The same heavy steps from before were coming up to her and Nancy's body went ridge.

"Nance," A shiver of disgust racked her body as she turned around unwillingly to see Steve too close to her with a soft smile and even softer eyes, "I hope you're not avoiding me, because that would make everything really weird." Steve didn't seem to notice or he was just ignorant to how Nancy was reacting to him being around her. A retort of "It's already been weird when you told me you dreamed about me carrying your six children and traveling in a Winnebago." but all she could manage was an awkward chuckle.

"Hey Nance, you're all checked out so you can go, the movie is on the house." Nancy could kiss Robin for her impeccable timing as she once again saved Nancy from getting second hand embarrassment from Steve.

"Thanks Robbie." Nancy watched as a light dusting of pink found its way onto Robin's cheeks from the nickname, but as her hand reached for the bag it was suddenly taken out of Robin's hand and into Steve's.

"Robin, hold down the fort I'm going to walk Nancy to her car." Steve looked so happy with himself as the white bag with the Family Video logo on the side, that Nancy wanted to smack out of his hand so much.

"No Steve, it's okay, I can walk to my car by myself." Nancy had to physically bite her tongue from saying anything more, a metallic taste filled her mouth from the force of the bite.

"No, no, Nance, what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't walk you to your car." Nancy couldn't stop the eye roll that would probably give her a headache later, could Steve really not take the hint. Nancy lunged for the bag but Steve moved it above his head making Nancy run into his chest making it easier for him to slip his arm around her waist to 'steady' her. In an instant Nancy was thrashing against Steve, not fighting for too long as Steve let go with a hurt expression settling on his face.

"Seriously Steve, give Nancy the bag." Robin's sudden intervention let Nancy take a breath as Steve took his gaze off her and onto Robin who moved to the two of them.

"Come on Robin Nancy doesn't mind, it's just how she flirts with me all hit and cold." If Nancy could get whiplash from that sentence she would have suffered severely. Steve spoke so confidently that Nancy was flirting with him that bile rose up Nancy's throat before she swallowed, feeling the burning after taste.

"Steve I am not flirting with you nor have I ever since we broke up." Nancy felt suffocated under Steve's look of confusion and hurt all on his face.

"But I thought you shared my dream?" And god Nancy was about to really punch Steve Harrington.

"Steve I never said I shared your dream, in fact I actually hate your dream Steve it's my own personal nightmare. Everything about it makes me feel like I'm always going to be stuck here, forced to be what everyone expects me to be just how you expected me to be okay after barely a month after Barb's death." Nancy couldn't stop herself as words tumbled out of her mouth, a fire burned brightly behind her eyes, and Steve had the audacity to look wounded.

"Come on Nance I've changed, you've changed. You got over Barb's death, I'm not a douche bag and you can't deny that you weren't obviously flirting with me over spring break." Steve's words burned Nancy like hell fire.

You got over Barb's death

"No Steve, I never did get over my best friend's death. But how would you know that when all you wanted to do was forget about everything as if Will wasn't traumatized, as if I didn't lose someone close to me...you were so eager to just forget-" Nancy's throat closed up on her as tears stung at her eyes and fell down her cheeks leaving wet trails. Her gaze lands on Robin who looks shocked standing there letting her eyes flicker from the two of them. "Do you even know why we broke up? Did he tell you how when Barb went missing all he cared about was to not let his dad find out he was drinking. He couldn't even act as if he cared even a little bit, and when Jonathan stayed over after I saw the demogorgon he decided that instead of talking to me I deserved to be shamed publicly as a slut. I broke down crying in the Holland's bathroom and when I left you didn't even fucking ask me anything, even a stupid fucking 'are you okay?' nothing, you never cared about how I felt, you never did because it was all about you. I suffered, I had to live with the fact that my best friend is dead and I was the reason she died because I tried so hard to be your perfect girlfriend. I tried killing myself Steve, I tried to reach out to you but all you wanted was to pretend like nothing happened and I was so fucking stupid to have tried to pretend like you that I wasn't sleeping because of nightmares, that the scars lining my thighs aren't self made, that I didn't put my gun to my head because I deserved her same faith. We were toxic Steve, we were never good for each other. And after years and you claiming you've changed it's not true. Because your fucked up dream is all about you, I don't want to make six kids and live with an atomic family and you would have known that if you but some effort and listened or talked to me but you never did. And for Christ's sake Steve I'm with Jonathan, I'm dating someone and you think I would have flirted with you. Maybe if you looked past your fucking hair you would see how uncomfortable I've been, how anything you took as flirting was just me being concerned because if you haven't fucking noticed THE WORLD IS FUCKING ENDING." Nancy was hysterical by the time she finished, tears fell faster from her eyes as a lump in her throat kept her from speaking anymore. Steve's face was unreadable as she stared at the ground unable to make eye contact with Nancy but Robin, she was looking at Nancy like she was fragile glass. The hurt and concern in Robin's eyes made Nancy feel exposed so she did the one thing she does best, Nancy ran. Out the story and into her car starting it and diving away with blurry vision.

————

Nancy came back red eyed and without a movie for the kids, really teens, downstairs. Mike didn't even have the heart to banter with his sister when he saw the state she was in. She was now laying in her bed in sweats and an oversized hoodie Robin gave her after being vecna'd with a plush highland cow pressed tightly to her chest. Nancy hated the fact that she had an outburst in Family Video and now she had a headache from crying which made her just want to sleep till her body had no more fight left in it. A knock at her door made her sit up causing her headache to worsen from her quick movement.

"It's open." Her voice came out hoarse as she waited under the covers for whoever to come in. Nancy wasn't expecting Robin of all people to have come in with a bag in her hand. She instantly moved over to Nancy placing the back on the bed before plopping herself next to it.

"Okay so I'm not sure if you want to talk about what happened and if you don't that's completely fine with me but if you do I'll listen. I stopped by a 7/11 on my way here so I have gatorade, skittles, heresy's, some sour candy and mozzarella sticks. I'm not sure which one would give you more comfort so I just grabbed everything. Drink some of the gatorade first because crying dehydrates you and you would probably lose nutrients from that, then the mozzarella sticks because I'm worried you haven't eaten anything yet today and then we can cuddle if you want and eat comfort food. And I want to apologize, I never knew the whole story between you and Steve and I should have talked to you before saying stupid remarks like old flames being snuffed out, but I will try my hardest to make sure I'm there for you. I will always have time for you Nance." Robin's speech made Nancy start sobbing again, never has she gotten this much love and understanding from anyone. Robin was holding her in a matter of seconds letting Nancy burrow her head into Robin's chest as the plush got trapped between the two of them.

"Thank you, so much Robin." Nancy's voice was barely heard but Robin could tell what Nancy muttered against her.

"Always, belle, always." Robin spoke back into Nancy's hair as her fingers gently combed through the curls.

————

Wow…

Belle is french for beautiful

I had to hype myself up with my own experience of having and dealing with suicidal ideation so I could get Nancy's outburst down and Robin is the best person to help like she went to a 7/11 just to get stuff for Nancy

Hope you enjoy the angst :)

#nancy wheeler #robin buckley #steve harrington #to the people who saw this before i just changed it so it's not a reblog #it's so more people see it #hints of #ronance #but nancy is still with jonathan #but they don't love each other #but their still together #steve never cared about nancy or her trauma he cared about their apparence #anti stancy #nancy wheeler angst #i need a robin but i am robin

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heavencasteel420 · 4 months

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Some thoughts on Will in The Sin-Eater’s Prom Date:

He never got stuck in the UD, so he was spared that trauma, but he had to grow up really fast in alternate S1. He had some conflict with Joyce (because she believed Jonathan to be dead for a while and Will only doubted briefly) and a kind of confrontation with Lonnie (who tried to act interested in his only surviving son but was still. You know. Himself). He emerges from the season with some new confidence in himself but also with a lot of worries and a more coherent grudge against his father.

Will is kind and sweet and obviously glad to have his brother back, but it’s scary to see Jonathan so sick and weird to be in a position where he’s supposed to look after himself more. He has his friends and his schoolwork and his hobbies, though, and throws himself into them. He’s proud, in a way, of being so independent and low-maintenance.

But he’s stressed out. He knows he’s gay, and his family doesn’t need one more thing to worry about. He’s not entirely in the loop re: Jonathan or general household matters, which is frustrating. He’s still being bullied. And, because he actually got to know El along with Mike, he’s both sad that she’s gone and jealous that Mike might feel a certain way about her.

He’s slower to warm up to Bob, because Bob’s well-meaning attention clashes with his desire to be independent (but at the same time isn’t a substitute for having things go back to normal). Jonathan likes Bob better, because he’s capable of feeling bad for Jonathan without bringing a bunch of guilt/revulsion/morbid curiosity into it, plus he gives him a job at RadioShack when he’s not super-employable elsewhere.

Will actually starts dating the Snow Ball girl after S2. It’s not a great situation—she’s pretty insecure and feels like she got a cute guy at a markdown because of his messed-up family—but he is really deterred to be normal after [redacted Jonathan misfortune] and Mike’s reunion with El.

Bob survives alternate S2, by the way. He’s dating Joyce and Hopper is their mutual friend. There’s some sexual energy floating around but no one’s acknowledging it.

Will starts doing some under-the-table jobs between S2 and S3. They kind of need the money, but Will’s anxiety and desire to prove himself also play a role.

By alternate S3, he thinks of himself as more mature than all his friends, not totally unfairly. His girlfriend doesn’t really like his friends, so he spends more time with her. His relationship with everyone at home is polite but distant. Joyce doesn’t pay much attention to him, Bob tries too hard, and he’d rather die than admit it but he sometimes resents Jonathan for so out of it. And he also knows everyone’s expecting him to shepherd El, his mom’s friend’s daughter as well as his own friend, through going to a new school. And also he’s supposed to keep an eye on his (older!) brother. And his girlfriend wants him to avoid his geeky friends and weird family so they can be Yearbook Popular. It’s too much.

The Party drifts apart somewhat in freshman year. Will does become Yearbook Popular, Lucas does basketball, Dustin gets in with the really competitive nerds, Mike joins Hellfire, Max is depressed (either Billy still died or something else happened), and El, having broken up with Mike because middle school romances generally don’t last forever, goes out for cheerleading. Will manages but internally he’s still very lonely and frustrated. But that will be resolved at some point.

#Tiffany (the girlfriend) is kind of an unpleasant version of Megan (Will’s gf in the no UD AU)#Megan is out to lunch but she never means to give offense #Tiffany has absorbed a lot of awful opinions #the sin-eater’s prom date

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brucbannr · 2 years

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Joyce and Jonathan

A while ago someone wanted me to share my thoughts about Joyce and Jonathan's relationship and I wanted to do that now. I kind of take it scene by scene especially season one since that's the most we have with them. (Note it's been like a month since I've watched the show all the way through, so if I miss something or get something wrong, feel free to add or correct politely). This ended up way longer than I thought, so I'll be shocked if people read this.

Also, just a disclaimer, I know that she's a working single Mom and as someone with a working single Mom, I know how hard it can be. I'm not blaming her for the Byer's financial status or judging any life choices because it's mostly out of her control. This is just my opinion on how her actions in general affect Jonathan. Joyce overall is a great mom and a great character I love her. I'm also just looking at their family life. The Upside Down and supernatural are barely relevant.

Starting with season one, the first scene she's in, she's already displaying the responsibility she puts on Jonathan in their household. He's up early, making breakfast for presumably everyone. It also appears she woke up late because she was frantically looking for her keys. She also scolds Jonathan for not waking up Will, giving me the impression that he's expected to get his brother up and ready for school every morning. When he doesn't know where Will is, she scolds him again for taking the infamous extra shift.

The conversation about the shift he took the night before, obviously tells us that he's a working teenager. Which is fine/expected given that the Byers don't have a lot of money. Jonathan having a job isn't an issue, but I wanted to make a point of this to emphasize what role he has in the household.

Jonathan willingly took an unexpected shift because he thinks they could use the extra money. To me, this says that he wanted to get a job to help his family. Which makes sense, but this means Joyce didn't make him get one. This also means that he's aware of the family finances. It's a huge possibility that Joyce includes him in conversations about the bills unless he just gives her part of his paycheck without question. (I say part because he has things like records and the camera that I'm assuming he got himself.)

Jonathan is sixteen in season one. While I don't believe he's too young to learn about responsibility, it's another thing to be stressed and worried about family money. The family's financial troubles truly have an effect on Jonathan, not because they don't have a good life (supernatural aside), but because he's responsible for helping his mother.

Will never seems concerned about money. He doesn't seem worried about how they're paying the bills or where money is coming from. This is expected since he's young but even poor kids are aware they're poor. His friends live in nicer houses, and from what we see he's the only one that isn't expected to bring quarters to the arcade. Will knows he's not rich, but it seems like both Jonathan and Joyce hide how much they're struggling from him. This is a luxury that Jonathan doesn't have.

This leads to the next scene, we see them together making the missing posters. Joyce is looking at pictures that Jonathan has taken in the past. It appears like she's never seen his photography before because she seems amazed by her son's talent. She then immediately states that she has not been there for him. Joyce says she's been working so much that she's not around, and as a result, she doesn't know what's going on in his life. Jonathan looks uncomfortable during this, avoiding eye contact and putting his hands together. At first, it seems like Jonathan was trying to hide his upset state from her, I'm assuming to avoid hurting her feelings. He takes a deep breath, trying to suppress the tears he knows are coming. When she asks what's wrong, he shrugs and says nothing, though it's obvious he's about to cry. When she insists, he shakes his head and says no, until it breaks to the surface. He knows he can't hide the fact that he's crying, so he confesses that he feels guilty for not being there for Will.

I think it's really hard as a kid who has a mom that's not there for you. But he doesn't get upset about his mom not being there for him. He gets upset because I think Joyce reminded him that he wasn't there. He chose work over being there for Will because he assumed Will would be okay. Which is exactly what Joyce does. She chooses extra shifts over being there with the boys because they need the money, and she expects Jonathan to be okay and to take care of Will. The fact that the one time he thought Will would be okay by himself for a few hours is the time he went missing, obviously, he feels guilt.

What I find interesting about it is that he's never upset with her for not knowing anything about him. She pointed out the fact that she has no idea what's going on in his life, but that doesn't bother him. It's not important to the plot of the show, but it would make sense for Jonathan to have a little resentment over the fact that she treats him like another adult in the house when he's still a kid. Throughout the seasons we never see them talk to each other all that much, Joyce is always worried about Will and only Will. It would make sense for Jonathan to be upset that his mother doesn't seem to notice him unless he's sitting right next to her.

When Joyce goes to buy a new phone she mentions that for the past ten years she's worked on Christmas and Thanksgiving (two major holidays in America where people spend time with family). So since Jonathan was six years old, he was with Will on these holidays. For two years they had Lonnie, then he left and Jonathan was left alone with his brother. I don't think an eight-year-old can cook an entire Thanksgiving meal so I imagine he did the best he could with whatever they had. Unless she was taking them to work with her which seems unlikely to me.

The next day, Joyce's anxiety is obviously heightened. Jonathan is making breakfast again and encouraging her to eat. It's clear that he's taken care of her like this before, especially when later in the morgue, he tells Hopper that she's had anxiety problems in the past. So, he's the caretaker for everyone, not just Will. This also applies to the scene where she tries showing him the lights, but since nothing happens, he believes it's her anxiety. He encourages her to get sleep since it's evident that she hasn't slept and says "can you do that for me?" Almost begging her to take care of herself. Then he of course says he's going to make breakfast so she eats something too.

For the rest of the season, he was pretty much on his own. He puts himself in danger by going to Lonnies, and not telling her. Jonathan didn't gain the responsibility of the house when he was sixteen. It's assumed that he's been responsible for his brother since even before Lonnie left. (Since nothing is confirmed, we're entering my headcanon.) Lonnie is known to get physically aggressive with Jonathan and what I know about Jonathan is that he would protect Will against anything. I believe that if Lonnie tried to be aggressive toward Will, Jonathan would step up. We see in a flashback that Jonathan would protect Will from hearing their parents fight by closing the door. Also, Will's attitude toward Lonnie, when alone with someone safe, is indifferent. Lonnie was supposed to take Will to a baseball game and he's disappointed that he's not showing up. It's obvious Lonnie bails on his plans with Will often because he can guess what the fight is about. Jonathan sees that Will is deflated about not being able to hang out with their Dad. He asks if Will even likes baseball. Will responds, "No, but I don't know, it's fun to go with him sometimes." Jonathan has to point out that he hasn't done anything that Will likes. Will seems unsure about dismissing his Dad's efforts to spend time with him. While Jonathan is making a point to tell Will that Lonnie isn't a good guy. To me, this says that Jonathan has tried his best to shield Will from how bad he can be until he sees that Lonnie not coming is upsetting for Will. So, while Lonnie isn't close to Will and definitely degrades him by using verbal slurs, for me, there's nothing showing that Will saw how physically violent Lonnie really is. We don't really know if the slurs against Will were to his face or not, but even then, when Lonnie left, Will would be too young to know what he meant. I'm not defending his actions, I don't think it's so extreme that the abuse he inflicted was constant. It seems like Jonathan hates him while Will just seems unsure about him. So in my mind, Jonathan took on most of Lonnies' physical and no doubt verbal abuse while he was still living with them. After he left, it's said Jonathan is about eight years old and this is when he becomes almost like a co-parent for Joyce.

When Will's body is found, he believes his brother is dead. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. Joyce doesn't seem to notice that Jonathan is mourning his little brother when talking to Hopper about the lights. In the background you see Jonathan watching her. It's like he was expecting to mourn the loss of Will together and support each other, but he realizes that she's not accepting that he's dead. Jonathan storms off to his room and you can hear his door slam. He's obviously going to expect comfort from his Mom after something like this happens, but she's not being helpful.

For me, with this specifically, it doesn't matter if Joyce is right or wrong. Jonathan helped raise Will. He sacrificed his social life to work and take care of his brother. He saw Will as a best friend. He believes that Will is dead. Even if Joyce is right about him being alive, she should talk to Jonathan. It just hurts that she's not in the right headspace to comfort her own son who is now crying alone in his room after thinking he lost someone so important.

This gets especially hard on him when they're at the morgue he sees "the body" for the first time and he almost (or does) throw up. He gives Joyce a minute alone with the body since he knows it's probably hard on her and he can't handle it. When she storms out, claiming it's not Will, this is when he gets frustrated.

The scene where he confronts her on the street is a build-up of not feeling supported when he's going through a hard time. When he gets out of the car, you can see him almost roll his eyes because he's becoming annoyed that she's dismissing him. Even as he runs after her, she doesn't even look at him until he grabs her shoulder and she yells at him to leave. Since he doesn't know that the upside-down is real yet, he doesn't understand what she's talking about. From his perspective, his brother is dead and now his mom is pushing him away and he doesn't understand why. He's fed up with being ignored, especially because he now knows they have to plan a funeral. He's telling her directly that he needs her and she dismisses him again. While I understand her frustration about being called crazy by literally everyone, instead of offering to show him proof again, she yells at him. Jonathan listens to her with tears in his eyes because he realizes that his mom isn't going to be supporting him through this at all. That he has to plan his little brother's funeral by himself.

Please remember that I'm talking about the effect Joyce's actions have on Jonathan and his perspective. While she's doing a great job fighting for Will, her other son is now feeling neglected and almost abandoned by the only family he has during a difficult time for him. He's already an outsider to the rest of the town with no friends and people judging his public outburst.

At the funeral home, he's disassociated from the conversation. He's not focused on looking for a coffin and you can see in his eyes that he's still thinking about the fight with his mom earlier. When the funeral home director mentions a budget, Jonathan's attention is brought back. Even though he's been there for a while looking at options, he doesn't seem ready to think about a coffin now. (And the obvious, it's hard to pick a coffin for your brother). When Nancy mentions that Joyce said he would be there, his jaw tightens because he's clearly still upset with her.

Talking with Nancy on the bench, when she mentions the "weird man" that she saw, Jonathan seems to make the connection. As Nancy goes to leave, he quickly stops her because she's the only other person who's seen something similar to Joyce. Nancy is even reluctant to believe what she saw, but since now he has two people telling him the same thing, he understands what his mom was talking about a little more. In the red room (after he apologizes to Nancy just fyi), he sees the Demogorgon in the photo and he mentions that Joyce was right. It effectively ends their argument, but I still think it's upsetting to see Jonathan get dismissed by his mom. With the fight on the street, she really didn't consider his side, even making him cry without caring and storming off.

He then goes home, seemingly determined to tell Joyce that he believes her until he sees her with Lonnie on the couch. When Jonathan sees the hole in the wall, I think he knew the Demogorgon came back. When asks, you can see Joyce's face looking hopeful that someone else believes her, until Lonnie speaks before she can. Jonathan asks to talk to him alone and she kind of rolls her eyes knowing they're going to fight which to me means that Jonathan always fights back with Lonnie (Bringing back my point that Jonathan probably received most of his abuse).

When he is talking to Lonnie and Lonnie says "I'm going to make things better around here for all of us." Jonathan laughs for obvious reasons, but just to point out the irony, Jonathan has been "man of the household" since he was eight. The man who forced him into this caretaker role just told him he would fix things...yeah.

Also just something I think is cool. The Evil Dead poster that Lonnie tells him to take down was a smart choice. Given that it's a horror movie about friends reading an old book, they accidentally release evil and have to fight for their lives. It's not exactly like the show, but given that they use things from the D&D book to describe the things from the accidental opening of the Upside Down, it seems like a little nod. Which is cool to me. Anyway.

In the fight Joyce has with Lonnie when he mentions Jonathan going to college, she knows he doesn't actually care. She mentions that he's wanted to go to NYU since he was six. This to me, shows that they were close at one point because Jonathan told her this when he was a kid, but not Lonnie. Now though, they don't seem that close because she said she doesn't know about what's going on in his life anymore.

After this Jonathan goes off with Nancy and the only thing I can really say about this is like how was Joyce not worried when he didn't come home? One of your sons is already missing.

At the police station, she went like full Momma Bear mode, yelling at the cop to take the handcuffs off of him. I love that sense, it's just nice seeing her be protective of Jonathan when we never see that again. She ends up scolding him again when she finds out what he was doing. Joyce seems confused as to why he would risk his life to kill the monster that took Will but knowing he takes the blame for the disappearance and the pressure he's always under to take care of his brother, it's obvious why he would. This is Joyce not realizing what kind of pressure she puts on Jonathan to be the responsible one, forgetting that he's still a kid. She insists to him that he's not alone in this, but I'm not sure what else he's supposed to think. He was alone when he thought his brother died and he was alone planning a funeral. I don't think Joyce sees how much she seems to alienate him. Even after this, she leaves him alone again, expecting him to watch over the kids in the gym. Which he doesn't do because, well he can't say no to Nancy.

Starting season 2.

We see that Joyce is now dating Bob, who Jonathan does not like. As someone who's been "man of the house" for basically his whole life, I think Jonathan feels threatened? By that I mean, if Bob married Joyce, he wouldn't be needed as the man of the house anymore. This is his family that he's taken care of for almost a decade, I can see him being uncomfortable with a stranger replacing him in that role. Don't misunderstand me and make it like a romantic thing because that has nothing to do with the point. Taking care of Will has been like his whole life (His hobby is hanging out with Will, seriously), and if a new father figure comes into the picture, he'll probably feel lost and without a purpose in the family. It sounds dramatic, but with no social life outside of his family, what else does he have? (I'm not including Nancy because, despite her efforts, he's still not social.)

In the second episode when he's taking a picture of Will, I can't help but notice how he and Joyce are standing next to each other like proud parents.

In the car with Will, he comments that he doesn't get what Joyce sees in Bob. It seems like he's trying to get Will's opinion on the new male figure in their life, but Will seems to appreciate that Bob treats him normally. Will thinks it's lame that Jonathan is going trick-or-treating with them, treating him like a child. This goes to the decision Jonathan has to let Will go on his own. Jonathan feels like he needs to prove to Will that he can treat him normally too, so he lets him go alone to make Will feel better. After Will leaves to join his friends, Jonathan watches him for a moment because of course he's still worried about his brother. Even when he pulls the invitation out of his pocket, he seems unsure.

The next morning, when Bob comes out of Joyce's bedroom, he whispers a comment about him staying over. For Jonathan, he knows this means their relationship is getting more serious. It doesn't seem like Joyce is really thinking about how this relationship is affecting her son she tells him to take Will to school in a scolding tone. Later, Bob comments that Jonathan still doesn't like him and Joyce rolls her eyes in an apologetic way. As if she's apologizing to him on behalf of her son, dismissing the way Jonathan feels

While in a situation like this, where a single mom starts dating, maybe her kid's opinions aren't everything. However, I do think it's important to at least listen to what their concerns are. Just because Jonathan is older and maybe not looking for a father figure, I think dismissing his feelings altogether is the wrong move. Especially when his fear is being kicked out of his caretaker role, kicking him to the side is just going to make him feel worse.

This entire season, Joyce is again, focused on Will. When Jonathan comes home from Nancy's house to find her asleep with Will, he doesn't know of anything that happened earlier. It's possible I'm overthinking this, but when he's watching them, he looks sad and almost disappointed. The day before Will complains to him that everyone treats him differently or like he's a baby. He tries to give Will the freedom he asks for by letting him go with his friends. Now he's walking into his Mom holding Will and treating him like he's fragile. (Again he doesn't know Will is possessed at this time). This is also possibly something she never did for Jonathan when he was younger, given that she doesn't seem to view him as a kid, even when he needs help.

When Jonathan leaves with Nancy, he mentions he left a note, but we never see her acknowledging the note. This is definitely a writer's thing, but it would have been better to include something showing that she saw it. Like reading it before Will walks in or even having the actual note on the fridge. The way they did it, it looks like he left for the weekend, and Joyce doesn't notice or care that he's gone.

The rest of the season they're together helping Will either with getting exorcised or getting ready for the dance. This season their relationship is so separated there's not a lot to say.

Season 3

In season three their relationship is almost non-existent. There's the beginning when Jonathan is leaving for work. Joyce obviously knows that he is failing to hide his sex life with Nancy, but chooses not to comment on it. It's a wise choice, no one wants to talk to their mom about that stuff.

I go into this in my rant about his fight with Nancy, but Jonathan in season three is stressed. He's taken an internship to help his mom with money and since I talked about this burden a lot in season one, I won't reiterate. I will say that I feel bad for him when he gets fired. Given that he does have this much stress about finances, he probably gets even more stressed when he's fired. When he gets back home there is no one there to talk to him about it. He probably spent all night trying to come up with other ways to make money or possibly wallowing in self-pity. In a perfect world, it would be nice to have Joyce tell him that everything will be okay, but he does not live in a two-story house on maple street and his dad doesn't earn six figures, so he doesn't get that luxury :)

Edit: I'm rewatching season 3 and before the big battle when they're all at the mall Joyce is talking to Will and telling him to be safe. She gives him this pep talk that she's going to be okay and that he needs to be safe. The whole time I'm watching Jonathan in the background, away from the conversation. Why is he not there getting this same reassurance? I don't understand why they exclude Jonathan from family moments like this one. Another thing Joyce does in season 3 is call Karen to check on Will but doesn't call her own house to check on Jonathan. When she calls, she believes Will is just with his friends and she's double checking on his safety. She doesn't know of anything that's going on with them so I don't get why she never even attempts to call Jonathan. Please someone explain that to me.

At the end of the battle, I thought it was a weird choice for only Will to check on his Mom. The camera like zooms in on him and they hug, very cute, but neither she nor Jonathan moves to check on each other. Stranger Things really likes pretending Will is her only son.

Season 4.

In this last season, Jonathan is depressed. He seems to have lost his only passion in photography and with the government money, it seems like he doesn't need a job anymore. Which is fine, but he secluded himself away from his family. He meets Argyle, who I love to death, but he doesn't seem to be a good influence? But also he is. Argyle introducing weed to Jonathan was a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion. I'm glad he has his first-ever friend and I'm glad he found a way to cope, but it's not a healthy way to cope. Argyle, while with good intentions, gave Jonathan a way to hide from his stress. He hides from everyone and smokes instead which I get, I just feel bad for him. He seems so distant from his family and his smoking was played off as a joke and not the serious thing that it is. We only see him high once, I don't understand why people say he was high the entire time because he wasn't. Anyway, this isn't about the season 4 characterization. My point is, Joyce doesn't notice anything wrong with him. She never really does. Every teenager that smokes hides it from their parents generally so I get that, but I don't understand how she doesn't notice that something is wrong with him. In past seasons, she had a sixth sense of knowing if Will was upset, but she doesn't seem to even notice that he's upset in season 4. Everyone was so upset at the dinner table and she's like confused as to why Jonathan is so out of it or why the other kids are pouting. Also, Joyce used to smoke weed, you can't tell me she didn't know.

Conclusion.

I love Joyce. I think in general she's a good mom. I think she's the best mom to Will and now El. It's hard to definitively say this because, without the supernatural, things would be different. However, in my opinion, she doesn't pay attention to Jonathan enough as a mother to her son. He needs help. He needs a mom. He needs direction in his life. Especially now. The college thing is hard. He's staying with his family because he believes that they need him, but I don't think they do. With Hopper dating Joyce, he could feel the same way that he did with Bob. Hopper can take care of the Byers so Jonathan isn't really needed there as a caretaker like he believes they do. Which leads to why I don't think Jancy can break up because if they do, what does he have? He has a family who doesn't need his help anymore and nowhere to go? He needs to go to a college for himself. I doubt they're moving back to California tbh so he probably won't go there because he's only going there to be close to the family that isn't there anymore. He needs his mom to talk him through this shit. He needs Joyce to sit and listen to what he's feeling without being dismissive or scolding. He needs support. He missed his whole childhood and teen years because he's been a responsible adult since the age of eight. Lonnie leaving definitely put Jonathan in a new role. He wasn't just Joyce's son anymore he was the person taking care of the house, her son, and her. She always expects him to be okay, but he's not. He almost got murdered in a hospital, eaten by a Demogrogan, and almost shot by the military more than once. He's never okay and she's not there for him like she is for Will.

I understand that Jonathan isn't the main character like Will is, but as a viewer, she doesn't treat them equally. Even her showing a little concern for his well-being would be nice.

#jonathan byers #joyce byers #stranger things #character study #lonnie byers

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superblysubpar · 2 years

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Rocking around the Christmas tree. Secret Santa gift exchange with the fruity four (potentially jargyle too if you're feeling feisty!) Eddie pulled Steve's name and got him something that's totally going to embarass him in front of everyone but leads to fun once their alone!!

The spots have all been taken - here’s the masterlist of what’s been posted and what’s to come. The playlist is linked at the end of the story. Let me know what you think, any interaction is so appreciated and loved!

Summary: The older kids celebrate Christmas together. Steve and Eddie get each other for Secret Santa - are they on the same page when it comes to the gifts they want to share with each other? | Mentions of sex, Steddie kissing, Ronance and Jargyle mentions, Steve POV and Eddie POV, swearing

A/N: I apologize for getting this out so late and I appreciate the patience, I hope it was worth the wait! This is only my second time writing Steddie, so I didn’t dive fully into what “would lead to fun later”, but I hope it’s just enough for ya. Also, I’m so sorry this is so long…when inspiration strikes I guess?

3.1k words

Day 08 | Track 08: “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee

When Nancy suggested Secret Santa and Robin suggested that gifts had to be homemade or under a certain amount of money, Steve watched the relief wash over Eddie's face.

Then he watched his eyebrows knit together under his slightly parted bangs as he stared at his slip of paper and licked his lips.

Steve tried not to smirk because he was fairly certain Eddie and he pulled each other. Which worked for Steve because there was no way he wasn't getting his boyfriend a gift for their first Christmas together. However, he could see the wheels of worry turning in Eddie's head. No matter what Steve did to reassure Eddie in their relationship, he could feel that seed of doubt, that worry about not being enough just under the surface.

Steve slid up next to him and Eddie quickly crumpled the paper in his hand as Steve leaned, trying to peek at the paper, "Who'd you get?"

Eddie flicked his ear and stared at something behind Steve’s shoulder, "None of your business nosy."

Steve hummed and kissed his nose, "Mmm, so me?"

Eddie rolled his eyes, and walked away, "Nice try."

He watched Eddie's ears turn red as his cheeks blossomed pink and his lip pulled in between his teeth. Steve didn't think he'd ever get tired of making Eddie nervous around him. It was always his favorite part of the start of a relationship. The butterflies, the blushing, the absolute goo he could turn someone into with a touch of his hand or a certain look. And it felt like it was even more intense with Eddie. It was a thrill to see what got Eddie worked up and what normally worked for other people didn’t necessarily have the same affect on him. He watched Eddie laugh with Argyle and Jonathan, heart beating harder as he watched the way Eddie’s nose scrunched up when he smiled.

He needed to do something special, something sweet, something to wrap up everything he was feeling for Eddie into a gift. Something to tell Eddie once and for all he wasn't going anywhere, and he wanted Eddie to be sure of their relationship.

Nancy walked by and he snagged her, "Hey, were there any gifts I got you that like," he waved his hands out, searching for the right words and she smirked, already reading his mind like she had seemed to always be able to do.

She patted his hand, "Just don't overthink it and don't go over the top. Something you love doing together or something he loves. Remember when we got Jonathan the camera?"

Steve's stomach clenched and he watched Argyle draped over him now. Times were definitely different, but he'd always regret the person he used to be.

He nodded, clearing his throat, "Yeah."

Nancy nodded, understanding his pain and she smiled shortly, "Find something like that. Something that means more to him, a grand gesture towards his interests or him. Not something generic from the mall."

She walked away and he started to form a plan. He had the kids help, he worked on it in the back room at Family Video when he got a chance, and he was sure that once Eddie opened these gifts he would have to know how much Steve cared about him. He would have to know he was his. And he didn’t have doubts when it came to Eddie, but suddenly he started to worry about what if it was over the top? What if it was too much affection or romance? He was a nervous wreck come Christmas Eve as they walked up the snowy steps to Nancy and Robin's.

Eddie tugged at his hand, thumb brushing over his knuckles, "You okay over there? You've been pretty quiet all day..."

Steve nodded and before they could head inside, he turned to Eddie, caging him in against the railing. Eddie's bangs were pushed down from his winter hat, nose a little pink and brown eyes wide and blinking at him. He was really cute. Maybe if he kissed him enough, Eddie would want to leave and they could forget about the presents. He could figure something else out to get him, have a back up plan and make Eddie go first.

Steve smiled at him, ignoring the thoughts bouncing around inside his head, "I'm just ready to exchange gifts, but I'm not too thrilled to share you all night."

Eddie laughed like it was a joke and rolled his eyes. Steve leaned in closer and nudged his nose against Eddie's and watched as his cheeks turned maroon, how his lips parted slightly, a small noise coming from the back of his throat that told Steve he was already worked up.

Steve closed the small distance between their mouths, lips parting over his, hand reaching up to cradle his jaw. Eddie fell back against the railing, a surprised gasp falling into Steve's mouth as he deepened the kiss.

It took him a second but Eddie started to kiss him back, his hands reaching up and tugging Steve closer by the lapels of his coat, moaning into his mouth. It was always like that. Steve initiating, Eddie surprised - like every time Steve kissed him was a shock, but eventually Steve would feel Eddie’s shoulders relax, feel him start to take control just a little, feel him giving back everything Steve was giving him.

When he pulled away, he took in Eddie's swollen lips and dazed eyes - his favorite thing to do, make Eddie a little lovestruck (well, he hoped). Steve’s thumb brushed Eddie’s cheek and he pressed his lips to his again, mouths parting around each other slowly, noses brushing against the other's. He loved kissing, but kissing Eddie was something he’d never grow tired of, and he’d do it all hours of the day if he didn’t have to stop to breathe.

He had never taken his time in past relationships. The kissing was always just what got him into someone's pants. But he wanted to move slower with Eddie, he wanted Eddie to be the one to initiate, he didn't want him to feel like he was just some conquest on ‘King Steve’s’ list. But the months had passed and the make out sessions leading to wandering hands was pushing Steve to his limit. He didn't just want Eddie anymore. He needed him.

So, he was pleasantly surprised when Eddie rocked his hips against him, hands moving down to his waist and it was Steve's turn to gasp a little. Eddie groaned into his mouth, hands moving back up and into his hair and tugging a little as he pushed his hips into him harder. Eddie's lips moved over his frantically, pulling at his bottom lip and sucking. He pulled away, releasing his lip with a small pop. Blinking his eyes open slowly he saw the normally warm brown eyes blown out and darker, a smirk on Eddie's lips.

He knew right then and there, with the presents he had tucked in his jacket and the way Eddie Munson was looking at him that he was a fucking goner.

Drunk off of Steve's kisses, he watched the look that was normally on his face fall onto Steve's. Steve was blinking his eyes open slowly, mouth still parted, his cheeks were even a little pink. Eddie would never get tired of Steve kissing him, but after finally testing the waters of his own confidence, he knew getting that look out of Steve was going to be his new favorite thing to do.

Hands still in his hair he tugged Steve a little sharply towards him, Steve's hands gripping his jaw and waist a little tighter as his eyes widened. Eddie laughed as he kissed him once more quickly, pushing against his waist harder, "Come on big boy, the rest of Mystery Inc. is waiting."

He kissed Steve's cheek and spun past him, relishing in the image of Steve staring off into space, hands still raised to clutch at him.

Eddie was even more excited to give Steve his gift now.

He was so grateful to have an expense limit or the homemade stipulation for secret santa. He had already been panicking about what to get people, especially Steve. And when he had pulled his name, he had to stop himself from groaning audibly.

He had no idea what to get a boyfriend. What do you get a guy who makes you melt into a puddle when he kisses your freaking nose? Hell, half the time he was still shocked when Steve kissed him on the lips. And that made trying to figure out what to get him for a gift even harder. Was Eddie falling for him harder than he was? Did Steve even want to take their relationship to the next step? Sure they had some pretty hot make out sessions, but Steve never pushed it further, and it wasn't like Eddie didn't know his reputation. It had to be Eddie, something Steve didn't want to do with him.

He didn't want to embarrass himself and get Steve something super mushy or romantic if he didn't feel that way about him. So, he went to the only source he knew he could absolutely trust when it came to Steve intel - Robin.

Eddie had mentioned all of this to Robin while Steve was in the back room at Family Video one day and she blinked at him slowly. She twirled a pen around her fingers, leaning on the counter, a frown on her face, "You guys haven't...?"

Eddie shook his head, popping the 'p' as he said, "Nope."

She hummed a little, pen tapping her nose and then stopped, "Not even a blow job?"

Eddie grimaced, shaking his head no.

She raised her eyebrows, "Huh."

Eddie scuffed his shoe against the carpet, hands finding his pockets, "So, he hates me right?"

She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed, "No. Don't be an idiot. Anyone who sees the way he looks at you could tell you that he's totally head over heels for you."

Eddie tried to contain his blush and then his stomach churned as she mused, "The no sex thing is weird though. For Steve, I mean."

She looked at him, "Have you tried to initiate it? Like has he told you no?"

Eddie blinked at her, opened his mouth, and then closed it. He cleared his throat, "He always kisses me first."

Robin hummed again, a small smile on her lips, and she tugged at Eddie's wrist and squeezed, "He really likes you, you know that right? He's not one for wasting his time anymore, and if he hasn't initiated sex, it's probably because he wants you to feel more special - he wants it to be different with you. Does that make sense?"

Eddie could feel the lump in his throat, because if Steve's best friend - basically his second brain, was telling him how much Steve liked him, if Steve was always the one kissing him first, what the hell was he so afraid of?

So, to show Steve he wanted him just as much as Steve hopefully wanted him, he thought of the perfect gift. A simple and small gesture to show Steve he was ready when he was.

After testing the waters with the front porch kiss, he was giddy, ready for Steve to open his gift and race home and put it to good use.

Steve followed him inside slowly, Nancy took their coats and when they were alone in the hallway again, Steve grabbed his hand, tugged Eddie towards him and cupped his jaw in another passionate and slow kiss. Eddie’s stomach was somersaulting and his body was prickling with heat from the top of his head down to his sneakers. He wanted Steve Harrington bad.

"Well, well, well, looks like you two are in the holiday spirit, my dudes."

They broke apart, and Eddie turned to see Argyle grinning, eating out of a tin of popcorn as Jonathan saluted with a beer in his hand, a dorky smile on his face as well. Steve rolled his eyes and cleared his throat, his cheeks returning to his normal color as he pointed at the beer, "Where can I get one of those?"

Eddie bit his lip as he watched Steve try to subtly adjust his pants as he pushed past him. Eddie couldn't help himself and tugged on Steve's back jeans pocket, batting his eyelashes at him, "One for me too, handsome?"

Steve stumbled a little, nodding and Eddie had to suppress a laugh as Steve looked over his shoulder at him, blushing and smiling like an idiot right before he smacked right into Robin who dropped a bowl of chips and shouted, “Way to go Dingus!”

Making Steve Harrington frazzled and embarrassed was definitely his new favorite game.

And so, sitting around the fireplace, everyone giggling as Argyle put on a Santa hat and dropped the secretly labeled gifts into people's laps, he couldn't wait to see the blush form on Steve's face, the way his eyebrows might raise a little, how he'd clear his throat and quickly tuck the present away and shoot Eddie a look when he opened his gift.

Steve sat next to him on the floor, their backs against the couch and he bumped his knee against his, smiling as their fingers brushed together next to their bodies, Steve’s drumming aimlessly on the back of Eddie’s knuckles. He watched as Steve tugged at the collar of his shirt, adjusted his sitting position and cleared his throat as Argyle dropped three brown paper wrapped gifts, tied together with twine into Eddie’s lap.

He glanced at Steve, because only he would figure out a way to give him three gifts instead of one. Steve was staring intently at the carpet, biting the inside of his lip and he glanced up and over at Eddie with a small smile.

He slowly unwrapped the first gift and grinned wider than he ever had. A character sheet for Dungeons and Dragons, a hand drawn and colored character, lists of facts and a story fairly similar to Steve’s in real life - it was a character for Steve to play as. No doubt getting help from the kids he glanced up at Steve who now had his thumb to his lips, biting anxiously.

Eddie unwrapped the second gift, a small mixtape and he cleared his throat trying not to think of the other one somewhere in the pile from him as he looked at the title and tracklist "songs to listen to together" with each other's favorites.

The third gift was a small box and he heard Steve let out a shaky breath as he pulled the lid off, revealing a small chain attached to a guitar pick, similar to the one around his neck currently. His eyebrows furrowed together as he picked it up and as the lights of the tree caught it he smiled. A tiny small silver 'S' etched into the pick.

He grinned and started to unclasp it hurriedly, ready to put it on himself when Steve shimmied next to him, facing him a little more on his knees and whispered, “Can I do it? Please?”

Eddie's heartbeat in his ears as Steve brushed the hair away from his neck, eyes trained on the necklace as he clasped it. Blinking wide eyes up at Eddie as his fingers brushed down the chain before resting on the pick, “You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. It's cheesy and like I'm not trying to claim you or something, I mean I do want, but no what I mean is like if you think it's weird I understand and-"

Eddie interrupted Steve with a kiss, another gasp coming from him and Eddie smiled into his lips pulling away when the others cleared their throats loudly.

He fiddled with it, and gestured to the presents, "Thank you."

Steve's cheeks were a darker pink than he’d ever seen and he grinned as he listened to him clear his throat and Robin clapped her hands, "Who’s next?”

Steve shuffled backwards and glanced up at Argyle rummaging around in the makeshift santa bag, spinning in a circle.

Eddie pressed his fingers to the necklace, looked down at the meaningful and thoughtful gifts and watched as Argyle pulled the cassette tape and handed it to Steve. What if he thought Eddie wasn't taking their relationship seriously? He had meant it to be sort of a grand gesture, while slightly hoping Steve got a tiny bit embarrassed, but after the heartfelt gifts Steve had got him, he hated it now.

He leaned over, "Wait! Steve don't-"

It was too late, as Steve unwrapped the mixtape Eddie watched his neck turn red, his hand ruffled in his hair and he cleared his throat, tucking it into his back pocket.

Robin frowned, "What was it?"

Steve glanced at Eddie, and then at everyone else, "None of your business. Who's next?"

They all threw wrappings and bows at Steve, booing and trying to guess and peer pressure him into telling. He just shook his head, face still pink as he looked at Eddie through all the chaos. The smirk on his face and a glint in his eye as he looked down at the necklace around Eddie’s neck went straight to Eddie’s dick and he had to look away. He focused on a spot on the carpet in front of him, feeling himself heat up from the tension he could feel between Steve and his arms next to each other. Steve’s pinky brushed against his as Steve slid his legs up, hiding his lap from the rest of the group.

Eddie bit his lip and brushed Steve’s wrist, murmuring something about being right back. He took several deep breaths of fresh un-Steve scented air and tried to clear his head. No going back now, and it’s not like Steve would do anything again until they left. He slipped into the bathroom and started to close the door when Steve’s foot stopped it.

Steve pushed into the room quietly, spinning so he was pushing Eddie against the closing door, hands over his shoulders as he leaned in and hissed, “Songs to have Sex to? Really?”

Eddie bit his lip and shrugged, gesturing to the necklace, "If I'm gonna walk around with your initials wrapped around me, I think I should at least get to have sex with you. First track is Cover Me, in case you were curious.”

Steve grinned, lips ghosting over his, "You put Springsteen on our sex mixtape? You're a menace."

A loud crackle from the record player being turned on and Rockin Around the Christmas Tree echoed down the hallway.

Steve's lips parted Eddie's slowly, hand on over the necklace on his chest and he sighed into him as Eddie wrapped his arms around his waist.

Steve grinned into the kiss as Eddie reached down and clicked the door locked.

Twelve Days of Christmas Playlist:

tagging my own little menace's who lovingly yell at me to tag them: @boomhauer @loveshotzz @myobmaya @sweetsweetjellybean

#steddie #steddie one shot #steddie fanfic #steddie fluff #stranger things fanfiction #steddie christmas #twelve days of christmas

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