#jonathan byers best brother in the world

[messrsbyler]

no because i bet jonathan never forgave himself for taking that extra shift

[bylertruther]

oh fack.... just had my biweekly reminder that jonathan has only ever wanted to protect will from harm, offer him a safe space, and encourage him to love what he loves without shame, and it's all of that which literally saves will's life and keeps him safe when he's in the upside down and later in the shed scene.... will singing "should i stay or should i go" his favorite song which jonathan first showed him... will hiding out in castle byers which jonathan built with/for him.... the song then helping to give will an opening to take back enough control for him to speak to his family in morse code... the shadow monster + vecna + lonnie all symbolizing forced conformity vs jonathan protecting will from that time and time again by being there for him, seeing him, and loving him as he is... jonathan carries so much guilt because he feels like he's never there when will needs it most, but it's his love for will that kept will alive.... he feels like it's his fault that will was kidnapped, that he should've been there for him that night and onward, but he was there for him! he was with him the whole time, helping and protecting him as he always has!!! when stranded alone in a world so dark and so cold and full of monsters, will used the tools his brother had given him to protect himself... i just... they're so... 🥺 THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUUUUUCH 😭😭😭😭

[thingsarenotgoinhwell]

bro if mike and jonathan dont have a conversation about will in s5 where jonathan is mad a mike for treating will like shit and mike does a ramble about how he feels so bad and how important will is to him and it kinda turns into a confession and then its dead quiet and jonathan goes

“you really love him huh” in really soft voice but like still protective big brother

and mike start tearing up and he cant really talk because hes cying and a little in shock

and jonathan gives him big big hug

then what is even the point?

[unfinishedslurs]

Jonathan Byers This Is An Intervention

“You’re not happy here.”

Jonathan looks up, startled. Will stands in the doorway with his arms crossed. They’re alone in the house, El hanging out with Max and their mom on a date with Hopper. They had to practically shove her out the door before she’d leave, rambling a list of phone numbers and where to find them, as well as reminding them where the leftovers were. 

“We know, Mom,” he and Will had chorused, and permitted her to pull them down for one last kiss on the cheek before closing the door on her. Hopper just watched in amusement. 

He and Will had eaten dinner before separating to work on their projects, Will with a dnd campaign idea and Jonathan cleaning his camera out. It has more dust than it should, having been sitting in his closet unused for too long. It makes something in him ache, but he can’t make himself pick it up again. There’s something blocking him. 

“What?” 

“You’re not happy here,” Will repeats. “In Hawkins.”

“It’s Hawkins,” he points out. Being unhappy is a given. He’s always known it sucks here, from the way people treated his mom to the rumors that always flew around when he made his way through the halls. The way they’ve treated Will. He hated this town long before interdimensional monsters factored in. 

Will’s frown gets deeper. “I’m happy,” he points out. “Mom’s happy. El and Hopper are happy. We actually have friends here.”

“I have friends,” Jonathan protests, slightly offended. He and Argyle call multiple times a week. He and Nancy are still good friends, and Steve and Robin are slowly growing on him. In a surprising turn of events, Eddie is the person his age he talks to the least, but it makes sense when he thinks about it. Eddie’s brand of freak has always been loud and dramatic, half relying on shock value. Jonathan prefers the quiet. 

“When was the last time you actually hung out with someone that wasn’t me?”

Is that what this is about? Something in his heart sinks at the idea that Will doesn’t think he’s enough. “I like hanging out with you. You’re the coolest person I know,” he says, shifting over and patting the bed next to him. 

Will sits down with a huff that sounds very fifteen-year-old of him. He’s glad he’s getting to be a kid. “You’re not listening to me,” he complains. 

“Then what are you trying to say?”

Will won’t meet his eye, suddenly nervous. “Everyone your age here is leaving,” he says quietly. “Nancy is going to Emerson soon, Steve and Robin are going to Chicago, and Eddie…uh, I don’t know his plans, exactly, he might be going with them. He’s not staying here, anyway. And Argyle is on the other side of the country. So all the people you’re friends with are leaving.”

“They are,” he agrees, laying what he hopes is a soothing hand on Will’s shoulder, “but you know I’m not leaving you, right? I’m not leaving you and Mom.”

Will squeezes his eyes shut. “Maybe you should.”

It feels like ice water being poured over his head. 

Something in his stomach twists uncomfortably at the idea of calling Hopper his dad. He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to. He doesn’t even know if Hopper would want him to. But “dad” is always a word he’s associated with bruises and yelling, the stink of whiskey and a gun in his small, shaking hands. Jim Hopper, with his gruff, fumbling way affection and sweet smiles at his daughter will never fit his version of the word. 

“You’re not my dad,” Will says. “You’re my older brother, you should be my brother. You should be moving away and going to college and living your life! You shouldn’t be stuck here because of me.” He seems near tears now, and Jonathan flounders. He’s always been pretty good at making Will feel better, but now it’s different. Now it’s him making his little brother upset.

Will takes a deep, stabilizing breath.

“You’re not my dad,” he says again. “You shouldn’t have to be my dad.”

“I wasn’t trying to be,” he says weakly.

“You’re doing a better job than he ever did.”

“Okay, then how should we start?”

“You could tell me why we’re always running out of tylenol.”

He didn’t even realize anyone noticed that. He’s been replacing it before it was even empty.

The words stick in his throat, reluctant to come out. But he promised. He promised he’d tell him, and he hates to break a promise to Will.

“It’s my back,” he admits. “My boss hit me with a chair, and it hurts all the time now. I used to smoke it away, but…”

He smoked a little too much. He was too reliant on it. He was being neglectful. The reasons stay on the tip of his tongue, unable to admit his shortcomings. 

Unfortunately, Will takes it another way. “You stopped because of me.”

“No!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Or Mom? We can go to the doctor now, we have insurance.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you go? Why can’t you just take care of yourself?”

“It’s just a little back pain,” he defends, “it’s not a big deal.”

It’s really not. It’s practically nothing compared to what some of their friends ended up with. Will has respiratory problems, Eddie uses a cane now, Max is in a wheelchair and her eyes might never work again. Not to mention Steve’s mix of migraines, glasses, hearing loss, and scars he’s accumulated over the years that put Jonathan’s to shame. His issues pale in comparison.

“It is when you take as many painkillers as you do! You’re going to eat holes in your stomach.”

“If I get an ulcer, it’ll be because I know there’s another world out there full of things that want to kill us,” he says, poking Will in the stomach. He giggles, and then looks mad about it. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you actually happy. I feel like it’s my fault.”

What does he say to that? It can’t be your fault, because I don’t remember the last time I was happy like that? I felt like this long before you went missing? Anything he says will make him worry more. 

“It’s not your fault,” he finally settles on. 

“But if I hadn’t disappeared—“

“I would still feel like this,” he says, because he has to. He can’t stand the idea of Will thinking it’s his fault when the truth is that something has been wrong with Jonathan for a long, long time. “It’s not because of the Upside-Down, bud. It’s not something you can fix. I’m pretty sure I’m just…like this.”

He’s had moments of happiness, obviously. Sometimes he’ll get days, or even weeks, where he genuinely looks forward to the future. When he was in California with Argyle, he felt even better. But eventually, the heaviness in his chest always comes back. It’s just something he knows how to live with now. 

Will sits up, glaring at him. “That’s bullshit!”

“It’s just how it is.”

He squares his shoulders, a telltale sign that Jonathan isn’t going to like whatever he says next. “Mom and I think you should see a therapist.”

Jonathan really doesn’t like that. “You’ve been talking to Mom about this?”

“She’s worried about you!”

“She shouldn’t be!” He’s almost offended. He’s been taking care of himself for years. He was taking care of her for years. “I’m fine! I know how to live with it!” 

“I haven’t seen you smile for real in two months!”

“I’m fine!” He snaps again, and immediately regrets it. Will’s lower lip trembles. 

“You’re not fine,” he says. “You’re not. Don’t lie to me, Jonathan. You just said you weren’t going to lie to me.”

[erikiara80]

My favorite scene of S4 and one of my favorite scenes of the entire show. Such a beautiful, touching moment. I love these brothers so much. They will always be my favorite.

[c4nnibalbyler]

why r there so many Jonathan haters out there I hope they all die. horrifically maybe.

[merlinsblackbatcat]

DEEP DOWN JONATHAN KNOWS, HE KNOWS, AND I KNOW HE KNOOOOOOOOWS AND I KNOW HE KNOOOOOOOWS 

[ice-sculptures]

Do you really think Jonathan thought that being like Lonnie would help Will? I don't think he'd ever want to be like Lonnie or think he should be like Lonnie.

i don't think that he wants to be like lonnie either. i think he despises lonnie and everything he stands for, and that being anything like that POS is his worst nightmare scenario. i am just saying that a younger jonathan might have believed that keeping his father's focus on him by being the son that lonnie wanted him to be would have kept his attention away from will so that maybe will wouldn't be subjected to the same horrors that jonathan was in his childhood.

that being said, he is canonically scared of becoming like lonnie and he thinks that it's something that is going to happen to him, sooner or later, no matter what he does which is why he pushes the people in his life away from him. he doesn't want nancy around him in the future because he thinks he's destined to be a shitty husband and father — remember, in his mind, he believes he's failed will over and over again. he doesn't see all of the ways that he's made will feel loved, he just sees the ways that he couldn't protect his brother.

so i think it's a possibility that jonathan could have looked at what will was going through in s4 and could have had a split-second thought of, hey, well, if i'm going to turn out like him anyway, why couldn't it have happened earlier so that you could have been left alone, and so he wouldn't have made you feel as horrible as you do right now? i don't think that's too farfetched of an idea.

the important thing, though, is that he pushes that away. he realizes that nothing in the past can be changed, and that the only thing he can do is break free of that cycle and be there for will now. he figures out that maybe he can't fix will's problems, and he's not going to be some magic cure-all no matter what he does, but he can help will through it just by being there for him and letting him know how loved he is. and that worrying about whatever may happen to him in the future isn't nearly as important as caring about his brother now.

[tirednerd2012]

This is my reminder that when looking for his brother at his father's house, Jonathan looked in the trunk of Lonnies car. What the actual fuck happened in the Byers house that Jonathan believed Lonnie would be capable of hurting/killing Will?

Also a reminder that Jonathan faced Lonnie, his abuser, alone for a small chance at finding Will, fought a demogorgon for him, got into a fight with Steve when he said Will deserved what happened to him, and planned his little brother, his best friend in the entire world and the person he loved most funeral alone because he couldn't stand the idea of letting Will down again and letting Will sit in a freezer. And carried the blame of what happened to Will without ever letting Will know because he didn't want his brother to worry about him.

[luveline]

Hi Jade! First of all thank you for bringing back the zombie au, it is my absolute fave! Second, if you are taking requests for it currently, maybe r (with Robin maybe?) goes and finds a gift for Steve just to make him smile (which may or may not make him break into tears with how vulnerable and emotional he's been with all the stuff he's been through?) Thank you for all your lovely writing!

thank you anon! fem!reader, 8k —You, Steve and Robin make a risky trip for non-essentials to improve your quality of life at the camp. Steve's feeling stressed, you try to make it better, and Robin finds a cat in the display section of the mattress store. 

tw for zombie apocalypse typical implied violence and gore, food insecurity, injury

"We'll call it something really cool," Robin says, "like Y/N and Robin's ultimate quest for cleanliness." 

Robin is a little dirty today. She's scraped her hair back into a tiny ponytail, and it flicks out at the back of her head like a feather duster. You think it's adorable, and you lean around her shoulders to try and touch it. Steve pulls you back bodily. 

"Stop touching her," he says. 

"Just her hair," you say. 

"No, because you know how ansty she is, it's like poking a sleeping dragon." 

"Shut up! Shut up, loser, I haven't been antsy at all, I'm planning a girl's trip as we speak." 

You laugh and fall back into Steve's arms, the kind of laugh that makes your chest feel tight and your eyes scrunch closed. A girl's trip is definitely one way to put it. 

"I'm just saying," Steve says, not just saying at all, "that you're dangerous right now. Next time I'll let her touch your hair and you can bite her hand off." 

"She can touch my hair. I don't know if you've noticed, Harrington, but that right there is my very best friend."

And okay, it's not true, Steve and Robin have the strongest friendship you've ever seen, but there is a truth behind it —you and Robin get along well. It would be difficult not to love her, she's a gem, and she cares about the person you care about most in the world at the same level (though in a different calibre). 

You worm out of Steve's arms to give her a quick hug. Steve steals you away again and you laugh as you go, flopping your weight onto him and almost knocking him flat onto his back. 

You, Robin and Steve are sitting around the campfire in the centre of camp. It's rather big and blissfully hot, the sky a velvet black that hides the smoke. Children sit with droopy eyes to the left, some with parents and most without, though the community is full of good people with great hearts who've swooped in to help look after them. Already, an older woman named Matildhe seems to have gathered a brood of six children, all young, and all wanting cuddles. To the right, Jeremy Livingstone and Joyce Byers plan the unplannable, a map of Michigan at their feet held down by stones. Jonathan sits by his mother's legs with a baby in his lap, her sleeping face pressed to his chest. He taps her back absent-mindedly. "What about here?" he asks, drawing a circle with his finger. Will, his younger brother, moves the flashlight beam to follow his direction. 

Despite the fire, the wind bites at your backs, a nippy chill. Steve has solved this by becoming your windbreaker, or so he claims. 

"She loves me," you murmur. 

"I love her," Robin agrees. 

"That's why you can't come on our girl's trip," you say. 

"Girls," Steve says, measured, "I'm unsure, but I'm starting to think that you think you're going somewhere without me." 

"No, we know you'll crash the party. But we're going to pretend you aren't there," Robin says. 

Her chipper attitude makes you laugh for the millionth time tonight. Steve laughs in tandem behind you, his breath fanning warmly over the shell of your ear. 

It smells like woodsmoke and pine needles meshed together here, two smells that alone are nice but together give you a headache. You wrinkle your nose and sit up properly, worried about squashing Steve or hurting his bad knee. "The smell is so strong out here," you say. 

"Shit, this guy bothering you?" Steve asks, pointing his thumb at the fire. 

"Kick his ass, Steve," Robin says. 

"Are you losers drunk?" Dustin asks. 

You twist on your butt to face him, Steve's favourite sixteen year old standing in the dark wearing two coats and three scarfs. 

"Are you cold?" Steve asks. "Come and sit with us." 

"We aren't drunk, just happy," you say, gesturing for him to do as Steve said. 

Dustin sits by the fire with you, groaning. "What is there to be happy about?" 

You bite your top lip. Dustin is so young, and he's lost a lot. More than he ever should've had to lose, twice, his sense of normalcy destroyed. You don't blame him for being depressed over what is possibly the most traumatic thing he will ever have to experience. You don't want to offer him empty platitudes or tell him how to feel, and Steve doesn't want to either, but he can't watch him mope. He loves him too much. 

"Dusty," he teases, "don't be so down. Haven't you seen this glorious and ridiculously enormous bonfire we have going on?" 

"I see it," Dustin says from behind gritted teeth. 

"Hey, do you want to sleep in our tent tonight?" Steve asks, a tad more seriously. "It's warmer with more people, and it's not as crowded as you think it'll be." 

"No, thanks." 

"You could drag your tent closer," you say, quieter, trying not to smother him or embarrass him with parenting he never asked for. 

"I don't like being near the boundary. You guys might be okay with ending up as geek chow but the rest of us have common sense." 

"Well, we didn't really have a choice there," Robin says. 

Which is true. The kids all get to sleep in tents close to the fire, and the adults are a row behind. You guys aged out of the kids category a long time ago, so you're the ones who'll be eaten first, but you're also the ones who'll hear the can alarms when they ring on the tripwires first. 

Steve sleeps with his baseball bat anyhow. 

You disentangle yourself from Steve's grips and meet his eyes. He doesn't need you to tell him, but you give him a look that hopefully says, Maybe you should talk to him. Eyebrows raised gently, lips pursed. 

Steve sighs like he's preparing himself and shuffles around you. He doesn't begrudge Dustin needing cheering up, you know that. He probably just wishes he could offer Dustin more than, "We have food and water and a place to pee." 

Robin crawls right to your side and sets back on her haunches. "Here's what I think we should do." 

"Wait, you don't wanna wait for Steve to explain?" 

"Nope, he'll say no. Me and you have to find the best way to sell it so we can actually go."

"You aren't kidding about the girl's trip?" 

"Nope. Look, the situation is dire. We know where the mall is, we've been there tons of times. The whole group can't go and we don't trust most people to keep us alive anyways, so me, you and Steve will go. We'll sleep there or something too, so there's no pressure on us to rush back and stress out Steve." 

"Wouldn't it be safer to hurry back?" you ask. 

Robin hums. "Maybe. Uh, if we travel at night like I've been thinking about doing I don't think we could hurry back." 

"At night?" 

"We're basically nocturnal at this point." You dip your head toward her mildly. She drops the slight facade she'd had, "I would feel better. If we went at night." 

The College, the community you and your group had inhabited until recently, was attacked and destroyed by raiders. They were likely drawn by the black smoke of the small bonfire in the quad of the campus, lit to celebrate a quasi-thanksgiving. It wasn't supposed to end up the way it had. 

Robin got attacked. Steve was there to help her get away uninjured, earning himself a black eye. She can't sleep if she's by herself anymore. You hate yourself for not being there to protect them. 

She's afraid of being attacked by people rather than geeks now. Travelling at night increases the likelihood of dying via geek (you can't see them, they can smell you), but it vastly decreases the chance of meeting other people. It makes sense that a night time excursion is her preference. 

You just don't know how you feel about it, and you have no clue how you might convince Steve to go along with it.  

"So you want us to hike to the mall at night. Is it on the map? Where even is it?" 

"I don't remember the name, Steve'll know it 'cos we've been there, but what matters is that I know for a fact there's a fancy soap store. I need soap, Y/N. I can't take this anymore. And if I don't brush my teeth soon I'm going to scream, my finger can only do so much." 

Occasionally three of you take a pea sized dollop of paste and rub it over your teeth in an effort to feel less disgusting, the same way that you wash with a rag and cold water behind the treeline, and dunk your clothes in the river without detergent. Water is a good cleaner, but eventually there's a funk in the clothes that can't be washed out without soap, or Robin's current issue: oily hair.

Without soap and toothbrushes, you feel about as disgusting as a person can feel. If you don't make this trip soon, you'll be in the exact same boat as Robin, one bad stain away from screaming. 

"And the fancy soap shop definitely has soap?" 

"Definitely. And there's a department store with blankets, too. We could really improve the quality of our miserable lives." 

"You don't have to convince me," you say, though it might not hurt in actuality. You're hesitant to leave the camp, but if Robin's leaving she can't go without Steve (who would never let her go alone), or you, because you refuse to be separated from Steve (or her, honestly). "It's Grim Fandango who needs greasing." Grim being Steve. 

Steve has managed to wrap an arm around Dustin. You're half-expecting Dustin to be wriggling under his touch, desperate for an escape, a teenage boy allergic to both sincerity and affection, but Dustin's dissolved like jello powder in boiling water, totally slouched into Steve's side. Steve's hand runs the younger boy's upper arm briskly.

"It'll be okay, dude, I promise. We've come this far," Steve says. 

"I'm just tired," Dustin says quietly. 

"Maybe we should sell it, as uh, an enrichment trip," you suggest to Robin. "We can get stuff for the kids, some board games or something." They need an escape. 

"I miss my books," Robin says. 

"Holy shit, me too. Steve says you can tell the plot of every Agatha Christie novel from memory, is that true?" you ask. 

"Only the good ones. Can I lie down on you?" 

You let Robin lie down with her head on your thigh. It can't be comfortable but maybe it's better than the floor, or maybe it's just nice to be close to someone. You like having Robin with you. You'd been so apprehensive of her when you met, not because she was Steve's best friend —though that did worry you to some extent— but because you had trust issues to the neck and she was the first person beside Steve to be nice to you without motivation. In this world, that doesn't check out. 

"What ones do you know?" 

"Murder on the Orient Express?" she offers. 

"Okay. Set the scene, Buckley." 

Steve returns just after the detective finds out that Ratchet has been murdered. "I love this part," he says. 

"Then let me tell it." 

Robin spins for a while, but you peel away from the fire before you're too tired to stand and retreat to your makeshift tent. It's a tarp held up by two sticks and a blanket on the floor, but it works to keep away the rain and most bugs. There's not quite enough room for you three, but there's also literally no other option, and none of you mind. You squeeze in like tinned sardines, sleeping in your coats and shoes. 

In the morning, you and Robin attempt to sell your idea to Steve over lukewarm oxtail soup. You and Steve share. Robin had to tip half into a bowl for someone else. The rationing is going okay. 

You could've ended up with a can of garden peas, or chopped tomatoes.

"It's actually better if it's only us, you see, because we can sneak around and it'll be much quieter. And they don't need us here right now, everything's settled. And me and Y/N want to so we should." 

Steve wraps your hand around the can of soup so you don't touch the hot bottom. He doesn't look like he's even remotely listening to Robin, his eyes on your face and his hands not far behind. He neatens you up, so to speak, scratching a little dirt speck from your cheek and folding the rolled collar of your shirt. "This," he says finally, his hand curling behind your neck, "sounds like a very bad idea." 

You shudder happily as he starts to scratch your neck down to your shoulders. "Steve, what's bad about it? We'll be like the Three Musketeers, travelling in darkness, a mission for the people." 

"Did you ever read that book?" Steve asks, his hand dropping to your shoulder, where it stays for a reverent second. You look gross and he still wants to squeeze you. 

"No," you admit, lips on the sharp edge of your soup. You take a careful sip. 

"We get there quickly, spend a night on the mattresses at the department store, and… Hey, why don't we go live in the mall?" Robin asks. 

The idea of a real mattress is seductive, but not that much. 

"Because we don't want to paint a huge target on our backs?" you ask. 

"I'm kidding." Robin peers down at her soup unhappily. "I really hate oxtail." 

Steve noticeably flickers. He meets your eyes, and you think he's speaking to you in his head. Fucking hell, I can't believe what I'm about to agree to. 

"If you can convince Mrs. Byers to delegate us an actual weapon, then okay, fine, we can go to the mall." He stretches out his mostly healed knee and rubs it with both hands. "Fuck. A knife. Actually, I want each of us to have a weapon. So if you can somehow magic that into being, we can go." 

"I don't see why we even had to ask permission," Robin jokes, "like it's the sixties or something." She springs up to her feet, forces her oxtail soup into the hands of one of the preteens by the fire, and beelines for the small crowd of kids surrounding one much taller Joyce. 

"You'd still come with us even if you didn't want to," you say. 

"Yeah, obviously. Robin's right, this isn't the sixties. That being said, if it was a worse plan, I'd tie you to a tree." 

"I could be into that," you tease, pleased when he scoffs through a laugh. His elbow drives into your side. "Stop, fiend." 

"No, fiend. Take the force of my elbow." He nudges you. 

You elbow back. He elbows harder. You potentially give him a bruise and feel extremely bad when he "Oofs," aloud. 

"Sorry," you say, climbing up on your knees to put your arms on his shoulders. "Sorry, sorry, sorry." 

He shoves you away from him and you're evil, you're selfish, you want him to dote. You fall flat on your back in the dirt and grass, covering your smile with the crook of your elbow so he doesn't immediately know you're fine. 

"Shit," he cusses, kneeling between your legs, moving to hover over you. "I didn't mean to knock you down…" He sees your smile. "You lying conniving trickster." 

You smile harder, lips pressed together and your chest light as a feather for the first time in days, until suddenly he's squished on top of you and pressing down. "Ow," you fake, wriggling away from him. "I think there's a twig in my brain." 

He wriggles with you. "You suck, you made me think I hurt you." 

"Don't be a wuss, I get hurt all the time, how do you even know I'm not hurt?" 

He sighs all quiet and lifts your head off of the grass. "I can't see through your hair," he says, "did it actually hurt?" 

You take his face into your hands. Your fingers are very cold, but he doesn't flinch. 

"I'm messing with you, H." 

"When did that nickname catch on?" 

You rub his cheeks with your thumbs. Fingers behind his ears, you smooth over his short scratchy stubble affectionately. Quick, you lift your chin and touch your lips to his. It's hardly a kiss. 

He leans down slowly and makes it a better one. 

"Stop," Robin says, kicking you in the ribs. She isn't cruel about it, more of a toe touch. 

"Oh, hi, that was a quick rejection," you say, frowning. 

Robin beams. "Actually, we've been approved. One knife apiece and a request for children's clothes. Get packing!" 

She whizzes off in another direction, seemingly to pack and gather the allocated weaponry. 

Steve drops his chin back down to you. 

"Does she have secret things we don't know about?" he asks. 

You scratch his scalp, "Mm… I'm not supposed to tell you." 

He sits up. You frown.

"She really has a secret stash?"

"No, Steve," you laugh. "No, of course she doesn't. Where would she hide them?" 

Steve yanks you up by the arm playfully. You pretend to fight him, but it's no use. You'll do anything he wants you to. 

—

Steve didn't necessarily think that a hike through the outskirts of an infested city would be easy, but he also hadn't realised it would be this boring. Especially a trip he's already made in the past. Boring and kind of hard. 

It's not because you aren't capable —you might've taken a hit when The College collapsed, but you've mostly recovered, and your endurance is good. You have the best survival skills you've ever had, and Robin is similarly ready for whatever it is that might get thrown at you. Too bad preparation doesn't make you a ninja. 

He isn't at his peak and he was no man of steel beforehand, and although he was good enough to keep you both alive, he's not sure if it's still true. Plus, he wasn't expecting to feel so moody. 

You're marching on like a true warrior next to him, your hand around his wrist and swinging gently, your eyes on the ground. Steve's flashlight carves a weak path through the dusk. Soon, it'll be completely dark, and that's when he imagines his worrying will reach a fever pitch. 

For now, he tries to be chill. 

"Is my hand not good enough for you?" he asks. 

"I figure you can pull away from me quicker if you need to if we're not, like, sewed together." 

"You have weird hands," Robin interjects. "They're big. I wouldn’t hold them either.” 

"That's why they're nice hands, Robin," you say. "Well, maybe they're just nice because I love him."

"I love him. Mostly. He still has weird hands," she says. 

"You don't get it," you say. 

You wrap your arms around his bicep and hug it quickly before backing away again. He thinks you kiss his coat, but he really can't tell. 

"I don't think I want to get it," Robin says.

You're quieter when you ask, "Is that really true? You don't want to be in love?" 

In the dark, and at night, it's quiet. It's nearly always quiet everywhere you go nowadays, but it feels immense this far from the camp. Steve is on edge. Too distracted for heart to hearts. But he wants to know the answer too, so he stays nice and quiet. 

"I love that you're in love," Robin says lightly. "And I love you both. But I've seen you guys when you think you're going to lose each other, and surviving is hard enough without… that." 

You let your hand slide down to his hand, your palm flat to the top, not holding it but holding him. 

Steve clears his throat. "It's worth losing my mind every time she decides to wander off because of the peace she gives me when we're together." 

"The peace?" Robin asks. She sounds like she wants to be incredulous but his sincerity has tripped her up. 

"I'm with her and…" He can see the side of your face in the flashlight. You're smiling shyly, your gaze on the grass beneath your shoes. Footsteps rustle in the gap of his words. "I don't want to be anywhere else as long as she's there." 

"It sounds like a toothache," Robin says. 

"You know, I used to get bad toothaches all the time before we found you, and Steve made me a teeth guard out of a leather armchair with a pen knife and a needle and thread." 

"Did you just make that up? Trying to convince me about the magic of love?" Robin asks. 

"No, he really made it for me, I used to keep it in my nightstand," you say. He can hear your smile.

He made it because watching you cry from toothache left him feeling powerless. A guy who'd never even held a needle and thread before bent over his lap with a flashlight in the hours while you slept until his eyes burned because watching you sniffle made him feel sick. He can't describe the ache of it, loving you but not having kissed you, or even really told you, his girl so stressed at night your jaw had locked tight and you were reduced to whimpers each morning. Having to watch you pretend it wasn't happening until you couldn't, until you broke down crying with your hand wrapped around his wrist like it is now. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Steve, I just– I want– I don't know– I can't– 

He was useless. He was stupid. He could barely bring himself to rub your back because he thought another touch might knock you over. 

Calm down, honey, he'd murmured. Just calm down.

He never could've imagined seeing you cry like that before he did. You couldn't move. You explained it like a headache when words became feasible again, which, Steve's had headaches; concussive migraines that were white hot and everywhere. So he could imagine it even if he'd never felt it, and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it. Willing to try anything, he'd even wondered if he could pull your tooth out himself. Mouth surgery is prone to infection, and he couldn't face levelling that amount of pain onto you personally. So rather than fix the tooth, he'd have to fix the stress. He couldn't fix the stress, so he looked for anything at all to ease the pain. Ibuprofen, codeine, even a course of antibiotics. And then, finally, the leather mouth guard. Leather stacked and sewed with sanitised, loving hands. 

"It's weird what that kind of love can bring out of you," Steve says quietly, matching the surroundings. "I did a great job. I'm a seamstress." 

Robin pretends to throw up generously and noisily. Steve shushes her. You, in a very good mood with no signs of calming down, laugh behind your hand. 

"I can make you another one," he offers. He hadn't thought about it yet, but of course you don't have it anymore. Anything in your nightstand is lost forever. 

"You might need to. I'll be a stressed mess all over again if we don't find some socks, I can feel my ankle bone piercing the back of my shoes," you say. No socks either. 

Robin's flashlight turns quickly to the right. You and Steve flinch at the same time to guard the other, peering in the exposed direction. There aren't many trees around here, so all to be seen is yellow-green grass and empty air. 

"Sorry, I got the heebies," Robin says. "Maybe it was your disgusting declarations of love." 

"Hardy-har. Where the fuck do you think we are right now?" Steve asks. 

"Wait, you don't know?" you ask. 

"You have the map," he says back. 

"Oh, right. But how do we navigate in the dark? We don't have a compass." 

"I have the compass!" Robin announces. 

"From where?" you ask. 

"How did you think we'd get there in the dark, angel?" Steve asks you genuinely. 

He doesn't have time to wonder if it's okay to call you angel. He's never done it before, but it felt right in the moment. You're kind of like an angel, protective and sweet and a symbol for goodness. 

"I thought because you guys already knew where it was– we– we set off while it was still light! I assumed we'd just walk straight." 

Steve and Robin laugh at you, but not without love. 

You pretend to sulk for a while, though you shine your flashlight at the map when he asks, your arm threaded through his and face leaning on his shoulder. "I'm so confused," you mumble. 

"Don't worry. I know where we are now," he says.

"No, I know where we are too, but I'm confused as to why I thought this was a good idea." 

"This is a good idea because I've had greasy hair for two weeks and I feel like a worm," Robin says. "And we need blankets, and moisturiser, and to feel like real people."

Steve has a better list than that. He needs moisturisers for your cracked hands, antiseptic for the healing cut on your thigh. He needs shaving foam or at the least a goddamn razor, a new shirt, you both need underwear and you're in dire need of shoes that fit. He wouldn't mind a compression support for his knee, a pair of scissors, and most of all a box of cigarettes —a quick trip to the pharmacy would fix a lot of problems. 

"I feel pretty real." 

"You're real pretty," Steve says quickly. 

"Yes! Oh, yes! Kiss?" you cheer, delighted at his swift wit. 

Steve knows —he knows— you're putting on a brave face for him. He cried on your shoulder and you haven't cried since. You're being the strong one. You're trying to make it work. 

You've always been the strong one. Steve has taken care of you so many times; held your hand in torrential rain when you were too tired to go on; scrambled through rotten floorboards to find you on your back and unconscious, fed you water in your sleep half-worried you were dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He's fought for you, the dead and the living —he would do worse for you. But you've done the impossible, surviving every ache and pain, coming back from things he didn't think you would. You crawled through glass for him. You stumbled in the dark bleeding and exhausted to do as he asked, to meet him at the end of an endless day. 

He gives you the kiss you asked for. There's only one clue that you aren't as happy as you seem. Your breath catches as he leans down, like you thought he might not give you one after all. 

It takes you hours to get there and way longer than you thought. You don't realise you're upon it until the grass turns to roads under your feet, and the road turns to parking lot. There's a shattering of glass spread over the floor like a spilled bag of salt that crunches under your shoes. Steve grips your elbow and the three of you creep inside past the doors. They're open, which is bad and good. Bad because someone's been here since the last time, and might still be inside. Good, because Steve's not sure any of you have the energy to open them. 

"I don't think I have to say this, but please, let's whisper from here," Steve suggests. 

"Damn, do we have to?" Robin whispers. "I was just about to start my rendition of Singing in the Rain." 

You laugh through your nose. 

"We'll go up to the bedding store, okay? And we'll grab some blankets, and then we'll find a storage room and barricade ourselves in."

"Steve, I wanna sleep on a mattress," Robin whines. 

"But we don't know who's here," he says. "Buckley, I swear, I'll carry a mattress back to camp for you if that's what you want, but we have to live to see the morning first." 

"It's not like we haven't done it before," you say, nudging her gently. "Can we go back to whispering? I'm really nervous. I don't want to attract anything." 

"Sorry," Robin whispers. 

Being outside in the dark had felt horrifying but mostly manageable. Being inside is terrifying too, and though your flashlights make it easy to navigate now that there's walls for the light to reflect off of, it's scarier knowing this is an enclosed space. You can only run so far in either direction. 

Your fingers twist in the corner of his hoodie. He doesn't say anything. For a split second, he remembers you doing it in the past, before he'd even thought about kissing you, when you were scared and he was more angry than anything else (though not usually at you). He'd pretend he didn't feel it. He was a bitch but he was never cruel, and if you needed to scrunch the hem of his jacket in your hand to feel better then that was alright. 

"You okay?" he murmurs. 

"I'm okay. I think my cut is weeping." 

"What?" he asks, head clicking as he turns to you. "Since when?"

"Not sure, it just feels weird, like it's wet." 

"This is the kind of thing I'd love to know." Steve sighs. "The bedding place is up here somewhere. You can let me take a look at it." 

You, Steve and Robin walk up the frozen escalators, your footsteps making banging metal sounds that echo through what feels like the entire mall. Hackles raised, Steve ushers you both into the bedding store, pulling Robin by the sleeve before she can stop to deliberate over blankets to the very back of the store where a door demarcates the Staff Only room. 

"Listen," he whispers, "we are going to go in there back to back, just like we always do. Robs, I promise, as soon as I've checked her leg, I'll help you do whatever you want. Cool?" 

"My leg is fine." 

"If it gets infected, I know for a fact there aren't any antibiotics here," he says. They've looked. "We have to stay in front of it. Are you ready?" 

"Steve, we're not amateurs," Robin says. She hums. "Okay, I might be, but you owe Y/N some respect." 

"No, I'm an amateur." 

"You're not an amateur," Steve says. "Girls, please." 

"Can we veto 'girls'? I want to be dudes," Robin says. 

"Robin–" 

"Okay, okay! Let's do it." 

—

You wake up with the driest mouth in the world, your head bumping from hunger and bad sleep —the floor still feels like the floor, no matter how many pillows you have— to sounds just outside of the door. 

You hike up on elbows and feel your heart climb into your mouth. Steve's hand is on your neck, and Robin's foot is over your calf, and this is a very bad time to be locked in, especially weighed down as you are by fleece blankets. 

"Steve," you whisper, blindly reaching out with your own hand. You accidentally smack him in the face with the base of your thumb. "Oh, shit, sorry. Steve, there's something outside." 

He's impressively alert when he opens his eyes. He couldn't have been sleeping deeply. "What kind of something?" he whispers back, sitting up. 

He pushes the blankets away and climbs onto his knees. The noise happens again, quickly followed by a smash and a third sound like a thump. 

Robin flinches awake next to you. You put your hand on her shoulder, hoping it says, Hey, it's fine, you're fine.

"Where's your bag?" Steve asks you, standing up tall.

It's disgusting, but you're holed up in the employee bathroom. As far from the toilet and sinks as physically possible but with a buffer from the door. Staying in a storage closet hadn't been possible, the staff room door hanging off the hinges enough to not close, and the storage room a medium space crammed to bursting with mattresses and shelves of sheets that wobbled threateningly when touched. 

Your bag is somewhere under the blankets. You scramble onto your knees and search for it. You'd put your things away for the sake of neatness. Silly move.  

"Here," you say, pulling out a flashlight for Steve. He takes it into one hand, pen knife in the other unsheathed. "It's probably a geek." 

"Yeah. Can you put your shoes on?" he asks, not unkindly. 

You shake yourself and do as he asks you to. Robin helps you up. Steve creeps to the door, waiting for you both before he opens it into the main floor. 

"I don't think we need the torch," Robin says. 

Daylight illuminates the room through the windows set in the west wall. You all squint and step out, arms in defensive positions, treading softly so as not to be heard. 

Another thump. You can't hear footsteps, exactly, just the occasional, irregular thump. Geeks are usually noisier. Dragging steps. They'll walk into walls if they're following a specific scent. 

Steve turns to you both and raises his eyebrows. Brace yourselves. 

He hits the butt of the knife into the wall three times. 

Nothing shows itself. You stand frozen for a few minutes anyways, even when Steve and Robin decide they want to venture further into the room and scope out the place. You watch their backs, heart still pounding and with no signs of stopping. 

“Oh, fuck,” Steve curses. 

“What?” you and Robin hiss at the same time. 

“Come here. Y/N, come over here,” he says, like you aren’t already half-way across the floor to meet them. 

Steve gestures at a showcase bed with velvet purple sheets. They’re not even dusty, no signs of time or wear, nothing to speak of a different age. Nothing, that is, beside the dead bird on the pillowcases, and the carpeting of fur surrounding it. It's odd for Steve to point you towards any gore, and you're a tad shocked, until he takes your forearm in his hand and pulls you in front of him. "See?" he murmurs. 

He points to the pillow. You follow his finger. 

Robin speaks first. Correction, Robin squeaks first. 

"Is that a cat?" she asks, all the excitement of her discovery squashed tightly into a frankly impressive whisper-shout. 

Robin refuses to move after that. She begs Steve for some of the dried jerky (of unknown origin and animal) from the rucksack and lays down on her stomach when the tugged tabby you've found flees beneath the bed frame. "Here, kitty," she murmurs, her gentlest tones. "Come on, killer, I need your help." 

Steve nudges you.

"Oh, you're talking to me?" you ask Robin.

"I need your help," Robin insists, looking at you from over her shoulder. Her hair is limp around her face, her cheeks flushed red with excitement. "She has to know we're all friends."

"Watch my back?" you ask Steve. 

He sits on the end of the bed, "Don't have to ask." 

You set down carefully next to Robin and peer under the bed for the tabby. Your arrival has scared her half to death. 

"Maybe she's only used to seeing geeks," you say. 

"Maybe she thinks we're geeks," Robin says agreeably. 

"Me and Steve found a dog once, but he wouldn't let us touch. He begged for food and then he ran away," you say. 

"The dog wouldn't let you touch him, or Steve wouldn't let you touch the dog?" Robin asks, waving the jerky around.

"A bit of both." 

"Kitty," Robin sings. 

"Oh, god, this is comfy as fuck," Steve mumbles, laying down in bed. "Robin, you have to get up and watch your six, babe." 

You and Robin laugh in sync and aloud at his 'babe'. It's you who stands and continues taking mild guard. You're not worried about intruders anymore, thinking that any company would have presented itself already, but you like keeping them safe. You take check of every corner of the room, spinning in the world's slowest circle. Robin baby talks to the cat under the bed while offering scraps of jerky. Steve, having curled away from the bird, lets his fingertips brush your thigh each time you turn. 

"Getting dizzy?" he asks. 

"Yes. And hungry, too, which is a weird feeling together. Can I have some of the jerky?" 

Steve offers the bag. "If you're hungry, eat what you want, but if you can keep it to a little portion just in case we can't find anything else, honey…" 

You stop spinning so much to eat jerky. You eat more than you should, you hunger a cruel, sharpened thing that jabs from your stomach and up into your diaphragm. You hand Steve back the bag before you can eat someone else's share and decide to focus on the other negatives in your life, like your shoes. 

"Can we look for shoes soon?" you ask. 

"Yeah, honey," Steve says. Honey, honey. His voice is soft with an ever-present fatigue. 

"I don't think this cat likes me very much," Robin says, still singing. 

"She's just scared. Maybe if we leave and come back again she'll realise we're friendly," Steve says. 

"Yes sir." Robin stands, brushing herself down. "Oh, ew, Steven, how can you lie there? You know the cat's probably spayed all over that bed, right?" 

Steve springs up. "Okay, ew." 

“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s go get some new clothes.”

It’s harder than it should be. The three of you move from store to store on high alert for what has to be an hour, searching for practical, fitting clothes. The time for modesty is over, and you take turns changing in front of one another while the others make sure you aren’t about to become naked geek feed. You’re so unclean that putting clean clothes on feels wrong, but you do it anyhow. You double back to the store with suitcases and bags and fill a suitcase to bursting point with the clothes that Joyce requested for the children. You sit yourselves down at some point, always exhausted, to try on sneakers. The relief of finding and changing into a pair that fits cannot be understated. When you’re sure there’s at least pants and a sweater for every child, you pack up and head for the fancy soap shop. 

Robin is ecstatic. Ideally, you can all carry one bag on your shoulders and pull one suitcase, so you each fill a bag with soaps and brushes and powders, figuring that if you find food or medication worth carrying you can empty one of the bags rather than double back. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t actually sleep on a mattress,” Steve says. 

Robin shrugs nonchalantly, kicking aside an empty helium tank with her foot as you pass by a card and gift store. She’s grown less happy as time goes on, unsatisfied with the day's events. Finding nice soap hadn’t felt important with no water around to use it. The cat was rabid, you’re all living off of jerky and river water, and now you have to hike home again in the dark, hours of fear and tenseness. 

“I miss your car,” Robin says. 

You hadn’t ever been in Steve’s car, but you say, “Me too.”

“Maybe we should find a real tent,” Steve says, apparently not listening. 

“Isn’t that kind of mean?” Robin asks. 

“I mean, if the others wanted a tent, they could’ve come.”

“I don’t think it's mean,” you say. “But I don’t see how we can carry it.”

“I can carry it,” Steve says. “Just a small one. Big enough for us.”

“Does us include me?” Robin asks. 

Steve laughs. “Duh, it includes you. It’s Y/N that’s gonna have to sleep outside.”

“Or me and her can have the tent and you can be our watchdog.”

“We can’t, um, stay outside forever, right?” you ask quietly. 

Steve puts his arm over your shoulder for a quick squeeze. “No, we can’t. We’ll find somewhere permanent soon. There’s barely any geeks the more we get into Michigan, who knows. Maybe there's none at all up top. But…" He lets you go. "I'll find somewhere." 

"Steve, you sound ridiculous," Robin says. "'I'll find somewhere,'" she quotes, voice deepened. 

Robin might joke, but you feel reassured by Steve's promise. You keep your head up for the rest of the day. 

— 

Later, much later, when you've travelled back to the camp with aching everythings and taken the world's coldest bath in the river nearby, you, Robin and Steve pitch your brand new tent and near collapse. It was night when you finally reached the camp that day, and so it was morning by the time you laid down. Steve has to admit that bathing and building a tent in the dark had been fun, annoying and indicative of the situation but a pleasure anyhow, to hear his favourite people in the whole world trying not to shriek at the cold water, overjoyed and laughing as you finally washed your face with real soap, and terrified that the river would knock you down. 

You're shaking with the cold now in his arms, practically sitting on his thigh as you brush his still damp hair back from his eyes. 

"I can't believe you're still cold," he says, kissing the line of your jaw affectionately. 

Robin, despite hours without sleep, had volunteered to help Sarah corral the younger kids for some early breakfast. Steve thinks it's because she likes Sarah. Your theory was that she's generous enough to give you a half hour of privacy. She's good like that. 

Whatever it is, you're alone for the first time in days. It's no different than when you're with friends, only you're touchier and Steve's an honest fool. 

You wrap one of your new blankets tighter around your shoulders and shift. "Am I hurting you?" 

"Nope." He squeezes you tightly to his front. "You're shivering. Put your hands under my shirt." 

You do it quickly, smiling like he's given you the world. "'Member when you'd let me do this? Even when we weren't really dating?" 

"We were dating," he says. 

"What, before or after the taco truck incident?" 

"Before," he says sharply. He pauses. "Alright, maybe not then. But we were definitely dating when you'd put your hands in my shirt. You don't do that for just anyone, I'm not a run around." 

"Steve, you used to let me sleep in your lap. Like, a month after we met." 

"'Cos you get so damn cold," he says. You're still shivering. He rests his cheek against your neck. "If I didn't let you, you'd spend the whole night shivering and making these really sad sounds." 

He's not even teasing. Just being honest. 

"I'm sensitive," you say. 

"You're used to sleeping indoors like a normal person." 

You ease off of his lap. He doesn't want you to; he'd keep you close forever. Plus, he feels guilty cuddling you in front of Robin because he knows public displays are uncomfortable, so he wants to really take you in while he can. 

"I have something to tell you," you say. 

"Oh?" 

"Or, something to give you. But I can tell you something if that matters." 

"Tell me anything." Everything. He wants to know everything you have to say. 

"Well… well, before this happened…" You rummage through the bag you'd brought home with you, the tip of your tongue peaking out. "You know, before the world half ended, I wasn't– I don't know if I can say it." 

"Please?" he asks. 

You pull something into your hand. "Alright. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love. And then the world ended, and I really didn't think I would, but you found me and I love you, so it wasn't true." 

He thinks about it. You, years ago, when he'd see you in the halls at school or walking home. He doesn't have much recollection of you beyond that, but it aches in a weird way to think you'd been walking around feeling like you wouldn't be loved. 

Steve licks his lips. "I get it, because I kind of worried the same thing. Like I'd keep loving people more than they loved me." 

"And then you met Robin?" 

"Exactly. She taught me more about love as my best friend than any of the girlfriends I had." 

"Well, I didn't get a Robin back then, but I have you now, and I guess I want you to know it's important to me," you say. "I know things are so hard right now, I know," —you clear your throat as emotion creeps in to your tone— "you put on a brave face for me. I know you're tired. But I keep going for you, and you keep going for me, and I want you to have something so you remember that even if I'm… not around." 

Steve sits up straight. "Hey, you're not going anywhere." 

You blink rapidly.

"Where is it that you think you're going without me?" he asks, softer. 

"Nowhere. But I just need you to know how much I loved you." 

"Love," he corrects. 

"How much I love you," you agree, sniffling. You look around at the tent floor, your shoulders raised just so. "Sorry, I'm not gonna cry or anything, I just hate thinking about it." 

You hand him something wrapped in a new sock. He bites his lip to stop from laughing at the wrapping and unpeels his gift. 

It's a watch. Silver, heavy, glass unscathed and hands tick tick ticking. Steve doesn't know if the time is accurate. His old watch broke a long time ago, but this one looks vaguely similar. 

"You gave me a necklace, once, with a little diamond. I know I don't have it anymore, I shouldn't have taken it off. But you gave it to me when I was miserable, and I know you're not miserable, but–" 

"I am," he says, rubbing his thumb over the watch. There's a tiny diamond set at the bottom of the clock face. He has no idea why, but the idea that you saw it and remembered his gift that long ago, that you wanted him to know you love him, that pays for some truth. "I'm miserable. I'm so scared for us." He breathes out hard. "Sorry." 

Steve's eyes tear up. He tries not to let it show, but he's looking down at the watch and his vision is blurring, and he's thinking Fuck, fuck, I'm crying in front of her again. 

You shuffle across the plastic floor toward him and clutch his hand. He's shaking minutely. You must feel it.

"It's okay, baby," you murmur. 

He ducks his head. 

"It's okay. I know," you say. 

"I know that you know," he says. 

"But it's hard," you prompt. 

"Yeah." 

You needle your arm behind his neck and him close. He can't hold back anymore, throwing his arms around your waist because why would you say that stuff to him? You're so evil, you're horrible, you're the very best thing that's ever happened to him and he loves you and what if you do die? Nobody will ever, ever be like you. There's no one out there with your smile, nobody who turns at the sound of his voice as you do, happy before you've set eyes on him and ecstatic when you have. 

And if you live (please, God, if you live), Steve wants to give you a better life than this. He's constantly panicking because he doesn't know how. 

But you don't mind. You don't love him less for the situation. 

"I don't even know what to tell you," you say, stroking the hair at the back of his neck tenderly, "cos I tell you I love you so much it doesn't feel like what I mean. I love you. I love you, Steve." 

He hugs you until he's not crying, wishing his cheeks would dry themselves when he finally raises his head and kisses your cheek. "Thank you," he says roughly. 

Steve sits back and wipes his nose. You offer the sock. He laughs and bats it away. 

"I love you, too," he says. He thrusts his wrist at you. "Strap me in?" 

You fasten Steve's watch and, in what's becoming a theme, you kiss his pulse. 

"Sorry things have been so hard," you say, adjusting the watch until it's sat comfortably.

"You make it easier." 

"Guys!" Robin says, forcing her way into the tent with an exuberant smile on her face. There's something in her arms, a wriggling mass of matted fur. "Look! The cat followed us home! I'm gonna name him Stinkyboy! Or Shark. Get up, I need help catching a fish!" She waves the cat's paw at you both. "I knew he liked me!" 

—-

the Steve zombie au

[alisaint]

guys, i have good news for once. i've found proof of intelligent life out here in these wastelands:

my favorite excerpts:

Will, Jonathan, and Joyce Formed a Special Trio

If Eleven is the main character in Stranger Things, the Byers family is the conduit through which she flickers. Will’s disappearance in the first season spurred the Hawkins community to rush to his aid. The tight-knit camaraderie between Will, Jonathan, and Joyce juxtaposes the stereotypical family composed of kids and teenagers. Parents and children are supposed to fight and bicker in television and other media, often to build the main conflict of the story, but the Byers family already underwent that trauma offscreen.  Lonnie Byers (Ross Partridge) makes a brief cameo in the first season, flexing his standoffish demeanor and abusive nature. It’s clear that the Byers patriarch doesn’t possess much empathy for his ex-wife or his sons. Jonathan valiantly steps into the father, husband, and big brother role, amalgamating into a combination of responsibilities that no other character on the show could dream of emulating. 

Jonathan Binds the Byers Family Together

Jonathan’s multifaceted arc in the first two seasons made him one of the series’ most easily dissectable characters. Stranger Things often differentiates itself from other shows by keeping the antagonists separate from the main characters. There are no Walter White or Tony Soprano-style antiheroes in which fans must compromise one part of their moral compass to appreciate the character. One might think this makes the series boring, but it’s the opposite. Jonathan was proof that a nearly perfect brother and son can still be fascinating to watch. After Will was found in season 1’s climax, he was taken over by the Mind Flayer in season 2. Jonathan again stood by Will’s side as his little brother felt outcasted by friends and society at large. Schnapp and Heaton’s chemistry often leads to tender, humorous exchanges like this one in which the boys remind the audience that being weird can be a human superpower in its own right.  These moments became few and far between in seasons 3 and 4. Will and Jonathan were relegated to minor supporting characters as the aforementioned new additions took center stage. Will at least gets to tag along with Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and the other younger friends. Jonathan often only appears in a few small scenes with his girlfriend Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and the writers even flirted with pushing Nancy back into Steve’s arms in the most recent season. Jonathan spent the majority of season 4 high on marijuana and frolicking around in a faux buddy-comedy routine with the one-off character Argyle (Eduardo Franco).  The decision to waste Heaton’s work from the first two seasons with a 180-degree personality change made no sense. Jonathan suddenly seemed careless, distant, and uninspired, but not in a dense way that could be unlocked by further character development. Little-to-no time was spent on him. While some fans might concur it is a necessary evil to take screen time away from older characters when expanding the world of Hawkins, it certainly transforms Stranger Things from a show about family into a show just about monsters and romances. 

Jonathan’s Enhanced Role in Season 5?

Many theories point to Will being one of the critical pieces to defeating Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in the fifth and final season. His connection to the Upside Down and the evils underneath the surface should open up opportunities for Jonathan to lend his ears and counseling once again. Jonathan grows on an individual level when he aids others. When locked out of his family’s life, it stunts his ability to shine as a listener and an empathizer.  Jonathan’s best scene from season 4 again features a tear-jerking moment with Will. On the cusp of coming out of the closet, Will needs Jonathan more than ever before, and his brother responds supremely to the task at hand. The poignant conversation validates that the Duffers haven’t completely forgotten how to flesh out the Byers family. When the world gets too enormous for the characters and the audience, Jonathan serves as a connector to the most human elements of the series’ thematic thesis. He may not be as funny as Steve or as neurotic as Robin, but Jonathan symbolizes the good in all of us. In a show shrouded in darkness, Jonathan’s presence will be instrumental to forming a satisfying, optimistic conclusion in Hawkins, Indiana.

[bookshelf-dust]

how people can change

steve harrington x gn!byers!reader

word count: 4,427

warnings: swearing, like one use of y/n, mentions of season one steve's bullshit, mentions of death, enemies to friends to more type beat

a/n: my very first *full* steve fic. look at us. who woulda thought? not me. i've been working on this since february. don't look at me, i know. i know. but i think i've gotten some sort of hold on how i'd like to write steve. some of the dialogue (season 2) isn’t mine. (also the title is a lyric from strange by celeste!) let me know what you think, okay? i love you. steve loves you. don't tell me if it's bad.

————

November 1984

The door slams behind you with a deafening thud, and you take the extra five seconds to lock it. You know, that action no one else in your family seems to be capable of performing. 

The house is quiet, and you step over the map of Hawkins sprawling over the hardwoods, careful not to damage Will’s work.

Your keys clang against the table, knocking into your mother’s ashtray. It’s dead quiet again, and you freeze at a subtle interruption in the silence. There’s a muffled sound coming from somewhere else in your home, and frankly you’ve had enough of everything the last couple of days. Which is why Joyce sent you home to get some sleep, to clear your head. 

There’s no denying that you have a soft spot for Will. He’s always been your buddy. And you love Jonathan, you do, and he’s got this sick ability to know what you’re thinking or feeling before you do, but he doesn’t need your protection like Will does. 

Will is your best friend. And he’s got one hell of a support system with you, Jonathan and your mom behind him. He deserves the world. You’ve always thought that. 

You quickly infer that it’s a walkie making the sound, based on the staticky crackle, the slightly muffled voice of whoever’s trying to get through from the other side.

Yours is off—you know it is—so it has to be Will’s. Jonathan was too good for a walkie-talkie.

You step down the hallway, pushing your younger brother’s bedroom door the rest of the way open. You scan the small area for it, listening.

“Code red! This is a code red! I repeat, this is a good red! Shit, is anyone there?”

You snatch up the device, extending the antenna.

“Dustin? Is that you?”

“Jesus christ! Where have you been?” Dustin exclaims, and you swear you can hear someone else interfering with his words.

“Sorry! I wasn’t home. What’s wrong?” You sit on the edge of Will’s bed. It’s so much comfier than yours. 

“It’s Dart! He’s, he’s just…you know what? It’s a long story. Where are you right now?”

This time you definitely hear another voice, and maybe even music.

“Dart? You kept him, right? I fucking knew it, Henderson! You’re so not a good liar.”

“That’s for sure.” You can’t place the voice, not over the walkie and over Dustin’s rambling, but you do catch that and it’s enough to leave you curious. 

The boy starts to argue back, but you cut him off. “Dustin, who are you with?”

“Uh,” he coughs, “Well you see, um…Steve Harrington. I’m with Steve Harrington.”

Dustin gets a severe eye roll from said partner-in-crime, but he brushes it off. 

“What?” You’re so confused. How did that even happen?

“I know! But everyone’s been MIA!”

“Oh my god,” you say, and Dustin can practically see you face-palming.

“Look,” he shoves a handful of rogue curls back under the brim of his hat. “Can you just meet up with us? The old junkyard?”

You push off of Will’s bed, and start walking through the house again, retrieving your things. So much for a nap or eating anything other than hospital Jell-O. What are you gonna say? Fuck no? 

“Yeah, yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank god,” Dustin breathes. “See you then. Over.”

You make sure to check the batteries in Will’s walkie before you go, and then you’re back in your car again, backing out just as aggressively as your mother (something you said you’d never do). 

————

“Yeah, Farrah Fawcett. You tell anyone I just told you that, and your ass is grass you’re dead, Henderson. Do you understand?” 

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

Dustin goes quiet for a minute, watching each step he takes. The train tracks are old, and there are one too many loose nails for his liking. “So what’s Y/N got against you, man?”

Steve adjusts one of the gloves he’s wearing, trying not to think about the fact that he’s gonna smell like raw meat for who knows how long. “Uh, I don’t know, exactly. Never really talked to them before. But I’d assume it’s the–”

“The assholery?” Dustin interrupts. 

“Dude.”

“What? It’s true.”

“No, yeah, you’re right.” 

Dustin catches the slip in Steve’s attitude almost immediately. “Hey, they’re good, okay? I don’t think you’re a total dick, if that means anything. You’re trying and that’s what matters, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, we will. Thanks, Henderson.”

Dustin gives Steve a winning smile. This kid could rule the world, he thinks. 

“Anytime,” Harrington. He lifts his hand up, awaiting a fist bump that Steve returns without a second thought. 

————

You wander down the trail of raw meat you’ve found, not bothering to even question what's happening or where the meat came from. Frankly, you don’t really want to know. 

At the end of your path, you catch a glimpse of familiar curls, even if they are crushed under the red brim of a hat. 

“Dustin?”

The boy practically gives himself whiplash turning around to face you. 

“Holy shit, I’m so glad you’re here. It’ll be nice to have someone older than me who’s not a total pain in the ass.”

“Hey, I heard that.” 

The voice pulls your attention away from Dustin. When you look up, Steve Harrington is walking out of the biggest vehicle in this abandoned lot: a school bus. He’s wiping his hands on his jeans and pushing the ends of his sleeves up.

Dustin looks at you. “You guys have to be acquaintances at the least, right?”

You nod at him, feeling your face burn. If there’s a word for a less-than-acquaintance, you don’t know it. But that’s probably where your relationship with this boy lies. King Steve isn’t really someone you just miss. 

But yeah, you know him. You know he’s a dick. 

“Hi.” Steve pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and crosses his arms. 

“Hi.”

You only look at him for a moment before your eyes are back on Dustin. The younger boy notices the tension radiating from you, and honestly, he gets it. Steve Harrington wasn’t exactly the person he’d planned on spending his day with, but here he was. Desperate times call for desperate measures or whatever.

“So what are we doing?” You ask.

Dustin puts his thumbs underneath the straps of his backpack, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. “It’s a long story. Best if we talk while we work.”

You roll your eyes at him, but follow the thirteen-year-old wherever he wants to go. You’re not sure you could deny Dustin Henderson anything. 

————

You watch as Max, a young girl you’ve just met, stomps up the steps of the ladder you’ve rigged inside the mess of a bus that you’re camped out in. 

Your chest aches because what Dustin just said to her was rude, it was rude, and you can’t believe the two of them. You sit, arms crossed and leg shaking up and down, glaring at Steve.

You find it hard to believe that after everything you’ve learned tonight, about Dart, about Mews—which you’re never going to get over because you only visit Dustin’s house for his cat, never him—that this is what they’re doing now.

“That’s good,” Steve says. “Just show her you don’t care.” 

Dustin is pacing, hands deep in his pockets. “I don’t,” he breathes.

Steve winks. Watching the two of them is like watching a tennis match. You don’t even like tennis.

“Why are you winking, Steve?” 

You drag your hand down your face, sick of hearing this stupid ass conversation. When Dustin sits, the constant clink of metal where Steve keeps flicking his lighter open over and over starts to give you a headache. 

“Fuck, Steve, would you quit it already?” 

He scoffs, snapping the lid to his Zippo closed harder than he had been before. “What’s your problem?”

“You’re pissing me off, that’s my problem.”

Steve’s brow furrows. He doesn’t really understand the sudden need for aggression. 

“Is this really the time for you to be yelling at me?”

“Is this really the time for you to be a dick?”

Dustin jerks the antenna on his walkie down, clearly sick of the two of you. “Would you children stop bickering? This is a life or death situation we have going on here.”

“I’d prefer death,” you proclaim. 

Dustin glares at you. “I can arrange that if you’d really rather die, than act civil for one evening.”

“I think all of the civility,” you gesture vaguely with your hands, “went out the window when you asked me to come help fight demo-dogs.”

Steve snorts at your words, and you glare at him, an “oh, is that funny?” look on your face. 

Dustin rearranges the hat on his head, stuffing his curls underneath it once again. “Alright. I’m gonna go check on our status, you two…work shit out, okay?”

“Dude,” Steve starts, “I’m older than you. I don’t have to listen to your instructions.” He gestures vaguely with his hands.

Dustin flips him off, and that’s the only response Steve receives, leaving the two of you alone in the bus.

You remain quiet, hoping that if you do you might just disappear or dissolve into the cracked leather of the seat you're sitting on. Then there really wouldn’t be any form of confrontation.

Steve starts flipping the lid to his Zippo open and shut repeatedly again, but this time it doesn’t annoy you. In fact, it gives you something to focus on, and you know that if you had one you’d be doing the same exact thing. 

You wonder if he’s nervous. Or just bored. 

Your knee begins to bounce when you realize that he’s looking at you, that he’s stopped messing with the lighter. But you refuse to look back, staring instead at the way the moonlight glints off of the metal in between his fingers. 

“So what’s your problem with me?”

The way Steve says those words is so unlike the way he’s spoken the rest of the day, the way he’s behaved with Dustin, that you feel a pang in your chest. 

He sounds like he used to. 

“Did you even hear that? How conceded you just sounded? Like it’s funny that I might have a problem with you, king Steve?”

Obviously the use of his nickname hits a nerve. He shoves the lighter back into his pocket and sits up, tucking his hands under his knees. 

“Would you just cut the shit and tell me what your problem is then?”

You sit up, matching his stance. There’s a part of you that wants to piss him off. You ache for it. 

“You’re a dick, that’s my problem.”

Steve scoffs. 

“That’s it? Like I don’t already know that?”

You roll your eyes, oblivious to the fact that all three of the younger kids you’re with have their heads hung over the escape latch in the top of the bus, listening eagerly. 

“You think I’m just gonna put up with you, Harrington? I’m sorry, did you forget the slut shaming you and your shitty friends did publicly last fall? Because I sure as hell didn’t. I didn’t forget that you walk around like you fucking own the entirety of Hawkins because you’re swimming in daddy’s money. I didn’t forget that your girlfriend took my best friend away from me.”

You stop, and Steve just looks at you. You realize how heavy you’re breathing and subconsciously watch the steady movement of his chest, trying to match the pace and calm down. You hadn’t meant to get worked up like that. But sometimes…sometimes shit just happens. 

Steve sighs. Honestly he feels a little sick. And he could argue with you some more, say that you don’t know what you’re talking about, that that’s the past, that he’s getting better. But that feels shallow. It feels meaningless. Because he knows it’s true. That in worrying about only himself or getting the girl or impressing whoever, he hurt loads more people than he realized. 

It’s such bullshit, he thinks. This life he’s been living.

“You know, I’ve gotten plenty of earfuls about my actions from Dustin, I promise you that much. He can be very mean.” 

You snort, considering there’s absolutely no denying that. “He’s a smart kid.” 

Steve nods. He’s trying to think of a way to respond. He’s not good with words. 

“Look, I-I know I’m a dick, okay?” he starts. You decide to be brave and look at him. He seems to like that. The eye contact. It’s like it lets him know you’re paying attention. He doesn’t get a lot of that, not away from school. 

“The thing with Nancy,” he gestures with his hands, looking away from you and at the wall of the bus, like it hurts him to talk about or something. “I don’t know. My solution to not getting what I wanted was apparently to take it out on her. Tommy H. proposed the idea, and I didn’t stop it.”

“You know I cleaned it off, right?” he continues. 

You uncross your arms and sit up, criss crossing your legs instead. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I broadcasted the information across Hawkins. Tommy and Carol don’t even know.”

Oh. The fact that they didn’t know tells you that he did it without needed recognition. He did it because he wanted to.

“I just—she saw it. And then there was the whole thing…”

You start to grin before you catch yourself, but he sees it. 

“It’s okay, you can laugh. I got the shit beat out of me.”

“You deserved it.”

He can’t argue with that. He won’t argue with it. “You’re right. I did. I said and did a lot that day that I regret.”

You nod, and then you’re both just looking at one another. It’s quiet out here, the same quiet you get at home, where you can hear the crickets, where you know there will be lightning bugs in the warmer months, free to roam uninterrupted by human activity. 

Steve pushes his hair from his forehead, and though he sees you track the movement of his hand, he doesn’t point it out.

“What did you mean about your friend?”

If you’re being honest with yourself, you hadn’t intended for that to come out, but being in such close proximity to Steve in this moment had just made everything spill out. 

You try to wave him off. “That was a whole thing. I didn’t mean to spill my guts like that.”

“No, it’s okay, I want to know. If you want to tell me, that is.”

You nod, chewing at your thumb nail now. Steve has the urge to reach forward and pull it free so you won’t hurt yourself, but he doesn’t. Instead he stays still and quiet, watching you contemplate a while. 

Eventually he decides to keep going. 

“I’m trying, you know,” he tells you. You look up and it gives him that little push to continue speaking. “To be better. I know you think I’m a total dick, and you’re not wrong, I know that, but I really am trying to be better. To be a good influence on those little shits.” He quirks his head upwards where he knows all three of his charges are eavesdropping, without a doubt. 

You take a second and look at him. Really look at him. He seems to carry himself differently, though it’s not something you’d notice if you weren’t looking. He’s not dressed like his mommy picked out his outfit. He looks messy. The mess draws you in. 

“I believe you. And I-I know I shouldn’t stereotype you, but it’s just—”

“I am a walking stereotype,” Steve grins. So do you.

“Yeah. I guess so. But I believe that you’re working on it. I suppose some people don’t remain assholes forever.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, though a little distracted. You still haven’t told you what you meant, but that’s not what’s really bugging him. 

There’s this pull inside him. This longing for a friend. A real friend. Not someone he knows just because their dads were up each other's asses, or someone he just sits with at lunch because they’re of the same status quo. 

And he just feels so alone right now. What with Nancy, this girl he thought he was in love with and everything, but clearly she doesn’t feel the same. What’s he even supposed to do with that? Did he ever actually know anything about her? 

It doesn’t matter. 

What matters is that he’s sitting here with you, hanging out with thirteen-year-olds and hiding from creatures Steve’s brain can’t even begin to decipher. 

“Barb,” you say. Steve panicked a little internally at the mention of her name, considering. But he keeps his eyes on you, focused on each word that leaves your mouth. “She was my best friend, in middle school that is.”

He nods. Oh. Oh. 

“We were still close when we got to high school, had a little group and everything, right? And even though high school kinda fucks everything up, I didn’t want to believe that would happen to our little partnership, you know?” 

He nods again, trying his best to pay attention. He’s trying harder than he ever has in school. He probably shouldn’t ever say that out loud.

“Anyways, she was my best friend. She was all I knew, and then we got to lovely Hawkins High, and she met Nancy. Nancy and I never really clicked, even when we tried. I guess it’s because I’ve always thought she was a pretentious bitch—sorry, Steve—but I don’t know. We just fell apart after that.”

“So Barb had Nancy and I had…no one. And the way my brain saw it was Nancy took my best friend from me, and then Nancy started seeing you, and so I saw those two from across the cafeteria, lounging with the popular kids. With you. And then she died.”

Steve is looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. Like he’s in awe of you. And it’s not anything negative. It’s warm. Understanding. Like something you’ve said has straightened something out in his brain, sorted something he couldn’t figure out on his own. 

“S-so it was like we took her from you, in a way?” he asks. 

“Yeah. And you didn’t. God, you didn’t. But it just felt like this…” you trail off, searching for the right words.

“Domino effect?”

“Yeah! Yeah. Exactly. And it’s not your fault, not at all. But I guess I already saw you as some dickish rich kid and that gave me another reason to stay the fuck away from you. And now that I’m saying it out loud I realize how awful it sounds because people change, you know?”

“No, I get it. I’ve been an asshole, and I’m sure I still am—Dustin can attest to that—but there are rich assholes that don’t change or probably won’t ever change. I know a few of them.”

You go quiet again. Steve doesn’t want you to stop talking. He’s starting to think he likes the sound of your voice. 

“It’s good that you’re changing, Steve. I’m sorry I said you were such a dick.”

A breathy laugh leaves his throat. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m sorry for…everything.”

“Maybe we can make a truce or something. Start over. It’s not like we really know each other that well anyhow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. Whatever you want.” He means that. He thinks he’d do whatever you wanted him to. 

“Okay. Maybe we can just try and figure it out.”

“I’d like that,” Steve says. He stops himself from proclaiming that he wants to try and fix this with you. Because you’re listening to him. You’re not mad. He doesn’t want you to disappear on him after this. 

You give him a small smile and he swears he might cry. Not that that feeling lasts. 

“Hey!” Dustin is leaning down into the bus, hands clasped together. “I’m so glad we’ve got this handled, but we’ve got a code red, so let’s get this show on the road, yeah?”

————

June 1985

The door to the back room swings open, a frazzled boy rushing in. You drop your candy wrapper on the table, and Robin keeps talking about the girl that you missed coming in this morning. She was “such a babe.”  

“Hello?” Steve stands in front of the both of you, hands on his hips. You have to fight back a laugh. 

Your eyes find Steve’s immediately, and you swear they soften, but maybe you’re imagining it. You nudge Robin’s leg where your foot is propped up on one of the supports under her chair. 

She stops flailing and looks up, seeing Steve’s hand raised where he’d been about to snap to get her attention. She quirks a brow. “Don’t you snap at me, Harrington! This is important shit.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Could you two come and help me? I’m dying out here!”

It’s one of the hottest days of the year, and Scoops has had a line since it opened at ten. 

You look at your watch. “My shift doesn’t start for…fifteen minutes.” He rolls his eyes at you, though the gesture is void of any malice it could possibly hold. 

“Yeah, well this is supposed to be my break, so get out there, Buckley!”

She stands, though she’s pouting. “Come on.”

“You took the job,” he says, shoving her through the door. Robin gives him a look that you can’t see, but you can practically feel it from across the small room. 

Steve lets out an exaggerated sigh, ripping off the hat he’s been wearing and throwing it on the table in front of you. 

You watch him rummage through a bag before he emerges from its depths with a banana and throws himself down in the chair across from you, lifting your leg up from where you’d moved it to occupy the seat Robin had abandoned. His hand is warm on the bare skin of your calf, and he shifts the chair some, laying your leg across both of his. 

“Steve.”

“Huh?” He peels the banana, aggressively fast actually, and rips off a chunk, popping it into his mouth. 

“Why do you have a banana?” 

He meets your eyes. “Snack, duh.” He chews, and then gestures at the closed window. “Been working up a sweat out there I think I deserve a break.”

You grin at him, and he feels like he might hit the floor. 

“Want some?” Steve pulls off a chunk and holds it out to you. 

“Did you wash your hands?”

He gasps, mid-chew, and forces himself to swallow. “D-did I—yes, I washed my hands, mom, I’m not four.”

“Eh,” Robin’s voice breaks your little bubble. She’s pulled the window open–that way she can eavesdrop– propping herself up on her elbows. 

That makes you laugh, and when you smile your cheek is full of banana and Steve swears something is breaking inside of him. 

“Gang up on me then why don’t you,” he says, handing you the last piece he’s got left. He tosses the peel in the trash, “what do you want anyhow, Robin?” 

“Your break is up, and her shift has started. Let’s get to slinging ice cream, shitheads!”

You wipe your hands on your shorts and hop up. Steve doesn’t move, just looks at you. 

“C’mon, Steven. It’ll be lunch sooner than later.”

He grins. His eyes look tired and you wonder if he slept any last night. He told you once recently that he doesn’t always sleep well, that sometimes he has to listen to tapes in order to keep his head from being so busy, to keep the thoughts from being so loud. 

Steve has told you a lot since last fall. There’s a significant bit more that you know that’s more than what he’s given Robin, but you know he’ll let her in. He just needs the time. 

Though sometimes you think he might be giving you everything. The parts of himself he’s never shown anyone else. Because you’ve been such a good listener, and Steve’s never really had that before. 

He wishes he had the balls to tell you more. But he can’t fuck it up this time. Not with you. You’re too good.

Steve is your best friend now. You know that. He knows it.

If yourself from a year ago could see you now, she’d probably knock your fucking teeth in. But he’s just so much more than you thought. You’re not sure you’ll ever forgive yourself for not thinking there could be more in him, though he’s told you not to be upset. You’ve told him the same when he berates himself for not having paid you more attention in school.

It’s the past. You can’t live there. And today, you’re scooping ice cream for pre-sticky kids, for shitty pay, but it doesn’t matter because you have him. You have Robin. 

You stick out your hand, and Steve takes it without a second thought. His palm engulfs yours, skin warm and a little calloused. 

“We can watch whatever you want tonight.”

He squeezes your hand. You and Robin are supposed to have a sleepover with him tonight. He suggested he sleep in a guest room and you two have his bed, but Robin said she needs to be cuddled. You said you’re not letting him sleep anywhere but his bed. 

“I thought you wanted to watch Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“I always wanna watch that. But you can pick first, Stevie.”

Stevie. His stomach flips at that. You don’t let it out often, but when you do it’s like Steve might just die right there. 

He straightens, deal clearly made, and you pull him up–not that you need to. 

You push through the door with him, and immediately regret it. It’s like the soccer moms can smell your fear, and you know it. 

“Breathe,” Steve says. “Dustin’s here.”

He is. The entire party. That you can deal with. 

You think you could deal with an absurd line and angry mothers for the rest of your life if it meant assembling Dustin and Lucas’ weird orders. Even if you have to endure Will’s questioning looks and his pleas that you bring some ice cream home. If you have to listen to Robin’s word vomit.

If it meant spending time with Steve, you’d do it. 

God, how shit changes.

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

[mimi-saurio]

Jonathan, Chrissy, and Eddie - Childhood friends AU <3 Jonathan Byers: He's thirteen and living the last (worst) moments of his parent's marriage at home, protecting his little brother from their fights and trying to keep his innocence as much as he can. Everyone at school gossips about his family, so he prefers isolating himself from his classmates. The only friends he has are Chrissy Cunningham, and Eddie Munson, whose lives can be more similar to his than everyone might think. Chrissy Cunningham: At thirteen, Chrissy's mom is near to remarrying a nice man and moving to a better neighborhood in Hawkings. To get her goal she convinces Chrissy to be "the perfect daughter" pressuring her to be pretty, intelligent, and obedient. Chrissy wants her mom to be happy because she loves her, so she is determined to follow every "suggestion" her mom makes, even the ones she feels are wrong. Whenever she feels overwhelmed, she finds comfort in her two best friends. Jonathan whose angry thoughts about her mom might confuse her, still gives her support and a pack of cookies when she needs it, and Eddie who always knows what to say to make her cheer up...and to blush, a little. Eddie Munson: He moved to Hawkings after his mom passed, so he could be taken care of by his uncle and dad, although this seems to not happen because he is always alone at home. His uncle has to work till midnight to earn money and pay for every mess-up Eddie's father makes throughout the week. At school, similar to Jonathan, all the kids speak behind his back about his poor life and his drug-addicted father. Unlike Jonathan, he tends to get into fights and claim attention with his rude attitude. Even though, his two friends Jonathan and Chrissy are convinced he's one of the kindest, most creative with a huge heart from all the kids in the world. They might be right about his heart, cause it aches whenever he sees his friends sad, or it races as Chrissy smiles. Sorry for my poor grammar English is not my main language.

[emblazons]

So I know I said I was tired (I am lmfao), but:

As I was thinking about that ask regarding Jonathan and Mike both trying to fill "fatherly" roles for Will and Eleven because they've been parentified, I realized that the fight mlvn get into and the talk JonWill have in MADMAX in S2 are reflections of each other—both proving that JonMike are trying to soothe their charges with a familial type of love (given the mlvn fight also parallels an El/Hopper argument in S2)...but also proving that the Byers Brothers love and trust each other in a way El and Mike just don't.

Let's see if I can explain.

In both of these conversations, we get a “charge" (aka the 'child' in the relationship—El and Will, in each case) who is isolating themselves after something painful/traumatic. Both of them are making art in their room as an expression relating to what's going on in their hearts/minds...which is when Jonathan and Mike come into their room, notice the art and then something is wrong, and invite Will/El to connect emotionally by talking.

From there, we get Jonathan and Mike pushing just hard enough to get something out of Will and Eleven—getting them to get just close enough to the heart of the problem to get defensive, and admit that they feel outcasted and different (in will's case like a "freak," and in El's that she's a "monster").

Both Jonathan and Mike try to comfort Will and El by leveling with them about the way they too feel different, trying to make them see that they are valuable in their difference and lack of normalcy as outcasts/freaks in the wake of "nobodies—"

But, as we know from the actual fights themselves, Jonathan succeeds in soothing Will and making him feel valuable despite how others make him feel for being "Zombie Boy," while Mike pretty much (forgive the reference) rolls a one on persuasion trying to convince El that she is inherently valuable to him in her difference.

Basically: these fights intentionally mirror each other, and through that show us that both Jonathan and Mike are trying to have a "replacement father" moment for Will and El...while also showing us that one of these parentified figures (Jonathan) is mature enough to step into an older brother/father role...whereas the other one (Mike) certainly is not.

Even just in these scenes, we can see that Jonathan and Will have a depth of bond and trust between them that Mike and El absolutely do not—down to little context clues that show us why Will is open to relating and repairing with Jonathan (because Jonathan knows Will well + Will believes he’s loved) where El is not. Ex:

Jonathan offers Will options when he comes in to talk about movie night, showing that he's open to what Will wants and desires without projection or expectation—where Mike simply assumes El is the same as she always has been (in this case food-wise), despite her not a day before saying directly to him she was open to something new and different (El Rodeo for burritos...which Mike even says aloud to her is 'weird').

Jonathan builds an "us v the world" moment with Will by both saying they are best friends (leaning into their closeness) while showing he knows Will by making a reference to an artist he likes...where Mike, despite admitting to also being bullied, immediately alienates El by reiterating how she's different from him and everyone else.

Jonathan even says something similar to Mike by saying it's better to be different—Jonathan just frames being different as the power (with emphasis on the humanity of the difference), whereas Mike frames the power as central to being different.

TL;DR: this is just one of the many moments that show Jonathan and Mike have taken on similar roles in Will and El's lives (emotional father replacement), though both the maturity of the "parentified" figure and the depth of the relationship between each pair is put into stark relief when you compare them.

The effects of parentification are clear in the way both Jonathan and Mike interact with Will and El in a way similar to a fully adult male/fatherly figure (see: the Hopper/El scene parallel)—both of them are trying to comfort/console from a place of (somewhat) authority/experience over Will and El...Jonathan is just equipped to speak into Will's life in a way Mike never could be with El.

also, a bonus if you made it through this: the real kicker proving these scenes are intentionally written & edited as parallels on some level comes in the very next shots after these...when we cut to the exact same setup shot of a TV, followed by a shot of Jonathan and Will. :)

anyway. more parentified byler in-law commentary to come lol

[willbyersbff]

jonathan byers if being the best brother in the world was a sport

[loveinhawkins]

For the made up fic title game "1983 is Calling" bc 1983 by Neon Trees randomly came up on my Spotify lol

god i love this title so much. i think 1983 is calling has a Steve Harrington character study written all over it.

-

In the November of 1983, Steve Harrington’s world falls out from underneath him. When his feet finally find solid ground again, everything looks a little different, like he’s an Alice who’s grown just slightly too tall for his surroundings.

And maybe most people in his shoes would chalk that up to finding out that monsters are real, that a kid can come back from the dead. But Steve knows that’s not the whole truth.

What’s really tripping him up is the dangerously quiet anger he didn’t really know he was capable of; he spends many sleepless nights staring up at the ceiling, hearing his father’s words come out in his voice, slipping through clenched teeth, finish the sentence.

It’d be easy to brush it off after the quite frankly insane series of events he’s lived through, to claim that wasn’t me.

But it was. It was.

It’s not a dramatic transformation. If anyone was really looking out for it, maybe they’d notice him being just a touch more reserved in school. Slower to react, more careful with his words.

He doesn’t sit with Tommy and Carol in the cafeteria—and while there’s an ache in that decision which he steadfastly ignores, he finds that he doesn���t really mind sitting alone sometimes.

In the quiet, he has more time to think. He tries to keep his assumptions in check, finds that he cares less and less about cliques—does his best to ensure that his first thought about someone isn’t a judgement.

He remembers the casual indifference he had when watching Jonathan Byers put up a poster for his missing brother. His unbothered drawl, God, that’s depressing.

Never again, he decides.

Above all, he doesn’t want to be cruel.

One lunch, he sits with Jonathan, and they swap pudding cups, Steve trading chocolate for butterscotch.

“I… listen, Jonathan, I shouldn’t… shouldn’t have said what—what I said,” he starts, awkwardly, inadequately. “About. About your mom, and your family, and…”

It horrifies him still, the words that came out so easily, never mind if they were echoes of things he heard.

Joyce Byers is one of the strongest people he knows.

“Thanks,” Jonathan says, delayed. He smiles tightly, but Steve knows it’s not personal, that the guy’s still on edge from… everything.

Steve smiles back.

But there’s still a thorn that he hasn’t quite prised out.

“And I…” He lowers his voice. “I shouldn’t have called you that. Y’know.”

Jonathan’s eyebrows go up. “No,” he says mildly. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I…” Steve rubs a hand over his mouth. “I hate that… there’s nothing bad about…”

Jesus, what’s wrong with him?

Jonathan’s expression softens. He blinks, and he has that pensive look on his face, like he’s seeing the world through a camera lens—like the flash has lit up something unknown.

“I agree,” he says quietly, and then he digs into his pudding and asks genuinely about Steve’s holiday plans, talks about getting Will an Atari for Christmas.

At New Year, Steve is abruptly conscious of the fact that he really, really needs to look like he’s having a good time. He doesn’t want to analyse who the performance is for. If it’s for himself, he’s not convinced.

But drink dulls the anxiety; he laughs a lot, sways with Nancy in his arms because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Even in the euphoria of the midnight countdown, he can see Nancy smiling too brightly, like her face might crack with the strain.

Do you feel it, too? he almost asks. Are we always gonna be back there? Are we always gonna be running from it?

The semester after winter break starts off reluctantly.

There’s a few classes with mixed year groups: they get an absolute horror of a substitute teacher in second period, one who insists on them copying things word for word from the blackboard. She makes her funeral march down the desks and shouts at a student for mis-spelling ‘January.’

“Psst,” comes a voice, before she reaches Steve.

He looks over to see Eddie Munson in the seat next to him, handing over an eraser.

“Wrong year, Harrington,” he whispers.

Steve glances down at his paper. Sure enough, 1983 stares back at him from the top margin.

Steve scoffs. “Figures.” He uses the eraser and passes it back to Eddie. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I wish we were still on vacation, too.”

“Eddie Munson.” The teacher slams a ruler down on Eddie’s desk so hard that Steve flinches. “Shall I send you outside for talking?”

“Oh, no, ma’am,” Eddie says, without missing a beat, “I’ll surely cry. Profusely.”

As other students stifle giggles, Steve manages to write the date down correctly before the teacher peers over his shoulder.

He can’t help noticing that even with the eraser, there’s still an imprint: 1983 faintly engraved on the page.

Well, Steve thinks wryly, so it goes.