Chapter Text
One summer, Jonathan picked up shifts washing dishes at a tiny cafe down the street from Melvald’s. One of his coworkers, a chatty chainsmoking waitress, graduated from Hawkins High a year after his mom. He’d been a bit wary the first time she’d asked for his last name — if someone somehow didn’t recognize him, he usually stuck to his first name during introductions. The answer Byers was only ever followed by Oh, you’re Lonnie’s kid, in a tone of voice that suggested Jonathan must equally be a fuck-up, or that the person regarded Lonnie fondly, neither of which Jonathan wanted to hear.
The waitress, who went by DeeDee, had instead hummed thoughtfully. A puff later, she offered, “Yeah. I guess I can see it. She was quiet like you. Nice, too.”
And from that day on, Jonathan privately regarded DeeDee as his favorite coworker. It wasn’t often that the townsfolk of Hawkins had anything kind to say about his mother.
DeeDee liked reminiscing on her days at Hawkins High. She’d ask Jonathan if a fogey teacher she despised was still around (long dead), if kids still snuck into the boiler room off the cafeteria to make out (asking the wrong person), or if the basketball team was going to be any good this year (again, wrong person). Sometimes she’d tell stories involving Jonathan’s parents. He didn’t really want to hear them, but he always listened closely. Maybe DeeDee held the missing bit of information that would suddenly make his parents’ relationship make sense, but the way she made it sound, Lonnie was never worth the trouble.
“I’d always see him in the parking lot during lunchtime,” DeeDee recalled. “He graduated a few years before us, of course. But he was always there to pick up his sixteen year-old sweetie. No one really batted an eye back then. Full grown man, waiting for a little teeny bopper. And guess what? I was jealous. I wanted an older boyfriend with a Camaro, so he could drive me out to Lover’s Lake and we could mess around until I had to get back to Mr. Cooper’s.”
Her stories often put images in Jonathan’s head that made him wince, but something about this one made Jonathan pause what he was doing — silently listening while picking at his fingernails and kicking dirt in the alleyway, waiting for his boss to call him back in with work to do — and he spoke up.
“Did they look like they were in love?” he asked.
“Huh?” DeeDee replied, as she always did when Jonathan turned the conversation into a mutual affair. She seemed on the young side to be so hard of hearing, but Jonathan’s always been a chronic mumbler.
“Did they ever seem like they actually liked each other?” He rephrased the question, the former sounding too intense. A little desperate, maybe. He wasn’t a sinner seeking absolution, just a curious extra in a film unearthing exposition on the audience’s behalf.
“When they’re mouths were together, yeah.”
Which only made Jonathan wince again, before he went back to scuffing his shoes. He wasn’t sure what he expected.
But then DeeDee’s posture shifted in his periphery. “Y’know…” she started, like Jonathan provided a clever bit of insight. “I did always see them arguing when they pulled out of the parking lot.”
And, yeah, somehow that was even worse.
As he waits, Jonathan’s tapping his hand against the steering wheel in time with the Talking Heads playing through the car’s stereo. He’d swiped a random mixtape before asking his mom for the keys so he’d have something to listen to that wasn’t the various hick stations of Central Indiana. Even the Squawk’s selections could be hit or miss, especially when Jonathan isn’t at the station to complain to Robin.
This particular mixtape he’d meant to give to Nancy. He made it in Lenora and he had planned to send it in the mail as a Valentine’s gift. He never got around to going to the post office. So, it’s stuck in Jonathan’s collection, maybe until next Valentine’s, or maybe forever.
It’s a good one, at least. A good choice for this afternoon. Will loves the Talking Heads, Jonathan knows. Will probably loves every song on the tracklist as much as Jonathan.
Jonathan’s running through the tracklist in his head when he finally hears the final bell of Hawkins High ringing out, the sound sneaking into the open car window where Jonathan’s letting some of the fresh autumn air in. Moments later, students come rushing out of all exits. Jonathan searches the crowd for his brother or his brother’s friends. Eventually he spots them, and they’re all heading for the bike rack — Dustin, Lucas and Mike engrossed in a lively conversation, while Will’s trailing behind, lost in thought.
He doesn’t know Jonathan’s waiting for him, so Jonathan opens the car door and slides out of the driver’s seat, calling out over the hood, “Hey, Will!”
Will hears him, head snapping to where Jonathan’s parked in the rows of cars. His brows furrow minutely, before he grabs hold of his bike and begins wheeling it over.
“What’re you doing here?” Will asks, bewildered at his brother.
Jonathan moves to meet him half way. He takes control of Will’s bike, moving to put it in the back of the car. “I was thinking about what you said last night,” he explains. “I thought we could see if there’s anything at that office supply store by Family Video. They might not have any full canvases, but they’ve got to have some decent paint. If they have anything you want, I’ll buy it.”
Will doesn’t make any move to follow Jonathan to the car. “There’s a crawl tonight,” he states.
Jonathan deflates as he adjusts Will’s bike. “Yeah, no, I know.” He ducks out of the back seat to meet Will’s questioning gaze. “We can head to the station after, yeah?” It’s not like either of them are essential mission components, which is something he doesn’t say aloud, because he knows it’ll only worsen Will’s frown.
Will considers this for a moment. Jonathan rounds the car back to the driver’s side, doing his best to swallow back any uncertainty as he waits for an answer.
“Sure,” Will finally says. “Fine.”
He looks over his shoulder at his friends, who all seem to be waiting for him, and he waves them off before reaching for the handle to the front passenger door.
Jonathan relaxes into the driver’s seat. As they’re buckling their seat belts, he asks, “How was school?”
“Fine,” Will says again. He doesn’t offer any further elaboration, and his face is flat as Jonathan puts the gearshift into reverse. Jonathan keeps glancing his way as he looks over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t run over any teens milling around the parking lot. He catches the moment Will realizes what song’s playing — the way his eyes light up and a smile breaks out on his face as he leans forward to turn up the volume.
They’re both smiling to themselves as Jonathan turns onto the main road.
Several of the shelves at the office supply store are completely bare — most businesses are the same way, inside quarantined Hawkins. As they search the dusty rows, they don’t find much that would be useful to Will. There’s a cheap art kit with tiny paint brushes, little discs of watercolor paint that won’t have any pigment, according to Will.
As Will looks over some notebooks — testing the pages inside for anything thick enough to hold paint, or even markers — Jonathan discovers a set of pens in various deep colors. They’re meant for note taking, nothing artistic, but the range of colors brings to mind something stark and sharp, like some of Will’s old crayon drawings of monsters. When he tries to suggest such a project to Will, and asks if he wants to buy them, all he gets in response from Will is a Sure, followed up with a shrug.
Jonathan’s face falls down to the pack of pens in his grasp. “Well, it’s up to you, bud,” he says. “It’s your project.”
“Yeah,” Will replies, back turned and gaze still pointed at an open notebook. “I said we should get them.”
There isn’t an ounce of enthusiasm in Will’s voice — the kid that used to get so excited at the special occasion they went out to dinner and the paper children’s menu came with a little packet of crayons (red, blue, yellow, green, that’s all Will needed to make a mini masterpiece). And they had real art supply stores in California; Jonathan took Will to one shortly after they moved, because morale in the new house was low and they needed something to do. Will spent hours roaming around, taking it all in with bright eyes, and they went home with a proper easel and an empty canvas, the sort a real artist would have, not a shoebox of broken crayons and lined paper.
That easel had to be left behind. Jonathan would gladly buy Will a new one if he could, but they’re stuck in Hawkins. He thought this would be the next best thing. It doesn’t seem to be good enough.
Jonathan ditches the pens, moving to Will’s side to study the notebook he’s flipping through. “That looks nice for sketching,” he comments.
“I guess,” Will says.
Jonathan hesitates, looking Will’s apathetic expression over. Time for Plan B, then. “If we could get anything you want, and I mean anything, what would you want?” he asks. “We could ask Murray.”
“I don’t think art supplies are going to be high on the priority list.”
“I know. We could still ask?”
Will shakes his head. “He’s got more important things to smuggle.” He turns away, starting to move down the aisle.
Jonathan purses his lips, scrambling for a solution. “Well, hey, at least tell me what kind of project you want to make. The Wheelers might have something lying around that could work.”
“I don’t know,” Will breathes.
Jonathan’s shoulders drop. He almost rolls his eyes at the back of Will’s head. Will’s giving him nothing to work with, and just seems annoyed at Jonathan for daring to take interest in his college prospects. “Last night, you said—”
“Jonathan,” Will cuts in, looking over his shoulder for a brief moment. “Mrs. Wheeler asked a question. I answered politely. That’s all.” Once he’s finished talking, he continues to walk away.
Jonathan’s forced to press a mental pause button, then he rewinds to last night’s events. The Byers and the Wheelers all around the dinner table, everyone taking turns on how their days went. When they got on the topic of Will and Mike’s day at high school, Mike mentioned a cool drawing Will was working on in his art class. Karen asked if Will was planning to go to art school after he graduated, which led to Joyce asking about scholarships, and then Nancy suggested Will started working on a portfolio. Will had nodded along — but Jonathan had been a little distracted as he thought about the easel they left behind, the one Will had been so thrilled to buy. Maybe Jonathan didn’t notice Will wasn’t as thrilled by the idea as their Mom.
“Oh,” Jonathan sighs. Ever since he picked up Will, he’s felt a little lost. It’s rare that he can’t recognize what’s bothering Will, but he thinks he has the full picture now. He paces forward to walk alongside Will. “Are you nervous about applying to college?”
Will doesn’t reply right away. He turns into the next aisle and stops in front of several boxes of paperclips. “Kinda.”
“That’s normal,” Jonathan assures. “I was too.” Nervous isn’t the half of it, when it comes to how Jonathan felt about applying to college, but he’ll leave it at that for now. This conversation, this whole little trip to the store, isn’t about Jonathan, it’s about Will.
“Yeah,” Will agrees. His head ducks to a lower shelf before he appends, “I don’t really want to think about it, right now. S’all…”
“Okay,” Jonathan says. “Well, I’m here if you ever do.”
Will looks at him sideways for a moment, and then it’s like Will’s been holding back so many words, and he doesn’t need to anymore. “It’s just— I don’t want to think about leaving my friends, y’know? And Lenora was so…”
“Shitty,” Jonathan supplies, in complete agreement on that front.
“Yeah. I couldn’t make new friends there. I tried, but… It wasn’t the same. I’ve grown up with Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. After everything we’ve all been through together… I don’t think I could ever find a group of friends that understands me like they do.”
Jonathan frowns. “It won’t be the same. But you will make new friends. And you can go wherever you want, I know it.”
“What if I want to stay here?” Will asks.
Something twists in Jonathan’s chest at the question. He shudders at the idea of it — Will stuck in this town that hates him, working a bullshit job just to make ends meet. He deserves so much more than that. Still, he’ll support Will in any ventures, even if they don’t match Jonathan’s vision for his brother’s future. It isn’t Jonathan’s decision to make, he knows. “If… If that’s what you want, that’s fine. No one is going to force you to do anything. I want you to be happy, wherever and however that is. And I know Mom feels the same,” he answers, trying to come across as sincere as he can manage. “But I think you could do better. You’ve got real, raw talent. You could go far with the right connections, the sort you’re not gonna find in Hawkins.”
Will nods, a sad little smile on his face. “I know. I just wish there was a way I could stay with my friends, and also go off and learn and one day get my paintings in the MOMA.”
Jonathan hums. “Funny how everything goes back to that question.”
“What?” Will’s head tilts.
“Should I stay or should I go?” Jonathan answers with a grin.
Will rolls his eyes and huffs.
“Oh, c’mon. It’s the truth!”
“Stupid,” Will comments, but soon after he breaks into a smile.
At the sight of it, Jonathan can only think mission accomplished. He glances down at his watch. “We can head to the station now, if you want? Unless there’s anything you want to get?”
“Yeah, actually…” Will starts walking again. “That notebook, I could use a new sketchbook.”
Jonathan jogs to catch up with him. He pats Will’s back once he’s at his side. “Of course, buddy. Whatever you want.”
A few months after the Byers returned to Hawkins, and subsequently called the spare spaces of the Wheelers’ house home — Jonathan and Nancy had the Wheelers’ station wagon to themselves. Ted and Karen aren’t the same sort of forgiving free spirit that Joyce had been whenever Nancy slept over at the old Byers home. In the first few weeks after the Byers returned from California, Nancy had hatched a plan to get Jonathan into her room for the night — “You could sneak through my window, just like Steve used to!” — and, well, the mention of Steve soured the idea for Jonathan.
So, they have to make do with the station wagon. And admittedly, they’re little one-on-one drives late at night are becoming more sporadic. They have bigger things to worry about.
Still, Jonathan doesn’t have much means to supplement through other methods. Showers have to be quick in the busy Wheeler home. And he doesn’t have a bedroom to himself, he’s sharing the basement with Will.
Which is fine. Totally fine. There’s no reason that wouldn’t be totally and completely fine. And normal. And…
“Hey,” Nancy says, pulling away from Jonathan’s mouth. Jonathan has a hand up her sweater, fingers snuck beneath her bra as they warmed each other up with some lax kisses. “Do you, um… Do you think you could turn that down?”
Jonathan’s attention is fuzzed over, blood rushing to his pants with one of his girlfriend’s perky nipples under his touch. It takes him a moment to realize what she’s asking for. He looks over to the dashboard, to the black of the night through the windshield, and to the stereo, where one of his mixtapes is playing.
“Sure,” he mumbles, retracting his hand to crawl to the front of the car. He reaches for the volume knob, bringing The Cure song playing to half its previous volume. He turns back to Nancy with a raised brow.
“A little more?”
Jonathan turns the knob again.
“More?”
Jonathan keeps turning it until the car is silent.
“Yeah, like that. I think I just need some quiet.”
Jonathan hates when it’s quiet. He hates having to fill the void. And he really liked the song that had been playing, but he isn’t going to put up a fight while his dick is aching.
He returns to Nancy’s side, and she connects their mouths into a more eager kiss, and Jonathan tries not to let his thoughts wander without the music as a distraction.
With the school year in full swing, one topic of conversation that was frequently brought up by Karen at the dining table was whether Mike and Will had dates for the upcoming homecoming dance. No, in Will’s case. And a more complicated no, in Mike’s.
Well, Will’s was complicated too. But that was a fact only Jonathan was aware of, other than Will himself.
Mike explained to his parents that his friends were having their own little get together for homecoming. Lucas’ presumed date was in a coma, and Dustin’s lived in Utah, though Jonathan wasn’t quite sure on the status of that relationship.
And there is a get together in the works, but it didn’t involve any campaigns in the Wheeler’s basement. Instead, Mike was teaming up with Nancy and Robin to surprise El with a mini homecoming dance at the Squawk.
When the day finally arrived, the whole crew filed into the station to hang decorations and set out plates of snacks, everyone doing their best to give El some semblance of the night she recalls quite fondly: the night of the Snowball.
Jonathan remembers that night fondly too. He remembers Nancy’s checkered dress, the looks they exchanged over all the tiny beings. Everything was so new, then. Exciting. It was the sort of thing Jonathan never expected to have.
Nowadays, he just wonders if it was ever something he really wanted.
“Wow,” El says when she makes her grand entrance, pure awe at the scenery around her. Nancy had loaned her a dress and helped her curl her hair before the two made their way downstairs for the big reveal. The dress is a deep purple satin, with plenty of ruffles and puffed sleeves. Mike greets her at the end of the staircase, equally polished for the occasion, wearing a tie that matched El’s dress, and Jonathan assumes Nancy had given him a heads up on that front.
The walls of the hidden basement were dotted with butterflies made out of tissue paper, in all sorts of colors, but predominately purple and yellow. And there were white Christmas lights strung up everywhere Steve could reach with the ladder, all wrapped around and dangling from the fluorescent ceiling lights. The couch and chairs had all been shoved aside, and the tables were against the walls with a fruit punch bowl and tiny treats that Nancy roped Holly into baking. The makeshift dance floor wasn’t impressive in size or looks — the same dull concrete it always is, dusted with confetti and an occasional balloon — but it would work for their small gathering.
Jonathan’s on photography duty for the night, so when El gives a big, lipglossed grin at Mike, he’s ready with his camera. Robin starts a Cory Hart song Mike requested (with the promise she’d have free reign as DJ for the rest of the night), and the dance has begun.
While the night was mostly intended for El and Mike, everyone still gets in on the fun. After the first song, Robin plays a boppy mix that has Dustin, Lucas and Will on the floor with the couple. Steve even manages to get Robin on the floor for a bit.
Nancy watches from the sidelines, standing next to Jonathan and his camera with a cup of punch in her grasp. She seems content to watch her brother and his girlfriend have a nice night, until—
“Hey, Nance!” Steve calls over the music. He waves at her, his hair flopping in time with his jumping. “Get on out here!”
Jonathan and Nancy exchange a look. She doesn’t seem disgusted at the idea of joining Steve on the dancefloor, and even if he’s surrounded by a gaggle of younger teens, Jonathan’s stomach still drops at her hesitation.
Eventually, she shakes her head with a polite close-lipped smile.
“Oh, c’mon!” Steve groans. He claps Dustin on the back. “Henderson, don’t you think Nance should dance with us?”
Dustin’s all smiles at this idea, and the pair end up scampering up to Nancy, each grabbing her by one hand as they try to pull her onto the dancefloor. Nancy tries to shake them off, but she’s grinning from ear-to-ear and laughing at their shenanigans.
“I owe you a dance!” Dustin exclaims, and Nancy finally gives in, allowing herself to be tugged into the small crowd.
Jonathan watches on silently. He doesn’t have any real urge to join them — and it’s not like anyone’s going to ask. Jonathan can’t dance anyway, that’s not why he likes music. He likes music because it pushes all of the thoughts in his head to the side. The only sort of dancing Jonathan ever did was in the safety of his old room. Not when he was alone, either. When there was a small figure sat next to him, one in desperate need of cheering up, or a distraction, so Jonathan turned up his stereo and bobbed his head wildly, tapped his toes, and maybe mimed playing the drums to some semblance of the song’s beat.
Nancy doesn’t stay out on the dancefloor for long. She was never much of a dancer either. But she looks so bright and alive when she returns to Jonathan’s side, that Jonathan almost wonders if that assumption had been a projection on his part.
He never asked, after all.
Robin plays another slow song just for El and Mike. Everyone else scatters around the room. Jonathan refocuses on his task, the whole reason for his presence. He lifts his camera to his gaze.
El has her head on Mike’s chest, their bodies tucked together, eyes closed and at peace as they sway. It’s nice to see the young couple untroubled. Their lives rarely afforded them that luxury.
Jonathan moves his position to get a better view of the soft smile on Mike’s face, but as he takes a look at the full picture through the camera’s lens, he now sees three forms in the background. Lucas and Dustin are chatting enthusiastically between sips of punch, and Will’s standing at their side, silent as he gazes at the couple all wrapped up in each other’s arms.
Jonathan can’t help the frown that forms behind his camera.
Will looks so alone. Jonathan can’t imagine how he feels.
Jonathan does his best to concentrate on the foreground, at the happy couple on their deserved night, but his eyes keep sliding back to Will. And Jonathan can’t focus on anything when his brother is looking so miserable. Not when he can try to make it better.
Story of his life, really.
As the slow ballad winds down, Jonathan approaches Robin at her makeshift DJ booth.
“Hey, Robin,” Jonathan greets. “I need a favor.”
“Oh, no, if you think I’m going to let you DJ my dance for even one second, Byers—” she fires off, dismissively waving at him.
“Just one song?” Jonathan pleads, cursing his past self for his comments around the Squawk. “Please, it’s not even for me, it’s for—”
“What song?” Robin huffs.
Jonathan’s rarely asked questions he’s eager to answer.
As The Clash begins to play over the speakers, Will perks up. It isn’t Should I Stay or Should I Go, that would be too obvious. Instead, Jonathan went with a track that always had their uncoordinated bodies wiggling to the groove of the bass inside his bedroom, both enjoying shouting along to words and themes that went over their heads, at times.
Will smiles as he bounds back onto the dance floor, looking eager to enjoy a song he loves with his friends at his side. Mike and El, now untangled, no longer have matching expressions. El, for her part, seems to fondly recognize the song from the lazy days in Lenora. And Mike, well—
He scowls, throwing a glare Robin’s way, before he shuffles off the dancefloor and joins Dustin and Lucas by the punch bowl. El and Will are left bouncing all on their own.
El doesn’t seem to mind. She grabs Will’s hand and keeps on dancing.
Will looks like he’s trying very hard to hold onto his enthusiasm for the music playing, but he’s back to the same kicked puppy expression that made Jonathan request the song in the first place.
Jonathan doesn’t take a photo of El and Will together. He’d hate to have to see his brother’s expression again when he develops the film, and be reminded of another failure among a long list in Jonathan’s life.
As it inches closer to the curfew Hopper set for El, the party begins to die down. After Lucas and Dustin head out, Will gives Jonathan an urgent look, so Jonathan says his goodbyes to Robin and Nancy, and tells El he hopes she had a good night, and then the brothers find themselves in their respective seats in Mom’s car.
Will’s visibly moping in the front passenger seat as Jonathan pulls onto the road. Jonathan presses play on the car’s stereo, and it’s one of their Mom’s George Strait tapes that starts playing; There's an old love in his heart that he can't lose, he tried forgetting, but he knows that it's no use, croons from the speakers. Jonathan winces as he jams the stop button as the chorus begins, and then there’s nothing but a tense silence once again.
Jonathan swallows before he says, “Nancy said you helped with the decorations. They looked great.”
Will doesn’t even turn to look at him, gazing out the passenger window. “It was mostly Nancy.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know El’s favorite colors,” Jonathan continues. “And El looked really happy.”
“Yeah…” Will barely bothers with making the syllable audible.
Maybe it was the wrong person to bring up, Jonathan realizes a beat later. “You had fun with your friends, yeah?”
Will nods jerkily.
“And Robin’s a decent DJ.”
At this, Will finally turns his head. “Jonathan, I’m tired.”
Jonathan stares down the road in front of them. He remembers, so vividly, all those same dejected looks in Will’s face in Lenora, then Nevada. In that stupid Surfer Boy kitchen that Jonathan promised he’d always love Will, and offered a shoulder to cry on that Will so readily took.
And Jonathan had said they needed to talk.
Complicated, he said.
It’s starting to feel like complicated doesn’t begin to cover it.
Because Will and Jonathan still aren’t talking. Not like they used to. Every night, they’ve slept in the same basement for months, and it feels like there’s more distance between them now than ever. Will’s with his friends and Jonathan’s with Nancy all day long, up until the very last minute and they shuffle down the stairs and say they’re goodnights.
What will it be like when they don’t even live in the same town? How often will they call? How often will they visit?
When Will’s feeling brokenhearted in the big city, in the too-near future, will he ever reach out for another shoulder?
Jonathan hopes he will. He hopes Will will always look to his brother when he needs a reminder of all the good in him.
“Listen,” Jonathan starts, fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “I know it’s hard… And, if you ever need to talk—”
“Stop,” Will cuts in.
Jonathan falters. “I want you to remember I’m here—”
“Jonathan.” Will says his name all ugly and dark, like everything awful about the day, and about Will’s whole life is hidden within it.
And maybe it is. But Jonathan’s still going to try to make things right. “I’m just saying, Will, I’ve been there. And it sucks. But you’ll find—”
“You don’t understand!” Will exclaims. His sad eyes are wide and angry now, and Jonathan thinks he’d rather see just about any other emotion on his brother’s face. “You never will. Stop pretending that you do.”
Jonathan does understand. He remembers what it was like to follow around Nancy and Steve at school, to sit with them at lunch in the cafeteria, to watch them dance together at a Halloween party he didn’t even want to go to.
He remembers the anger. Nancy deserved better, and surely Jonathan could give that to her. Because Steve’s a jerk, and he doesn’t deserve Nancy—
And, y’know what? Maybe Jonathan doesn’t understand after all.
“Fine. You’re right. I don’t understand,” Jonathan relents, only to push even further. “I don’t understand the point of being hung up on someone who’s dating your step-sister.”
Because Will loves El. In Lenora, Will protected her, Will laughed with her. When Will gave Mike the painting, Jonathan could see in his brother’s eyes that he wanted Mike and El to be happy. And when Will cried into his hand, he thought Will was beginning to let go.
Or how did he put it? Ripping off the bandaid.
But Will’s back to the old habits. Hawkins had a funny way of drawing that out of people.
Will reels back like Jonathan dealt him a physical blow, hurt etching into his features. At the sight, Jonathan regrets what he said immediately. Not that he doesn’t believe it, but he should’ve swallowed it down, like everything else he wants to say to so many people. Will especially.
Will’s brows furrow before he shoots back, “At least I’m not dating a girl who’s obviously in love with her ex!”
And maybe Jonathan should have expected that, but he still finds himself wincing. “Me and Nancy are fine,” he insists awkwardly.
“You didn’t dance with her once!”
“We don’t dance… That’s not—” Jonathan’s lips flatten. There’s a righteousness boiling up inside of him now, the sort he can never swallow down. Not with Dad, or Mom, or Nancy. He’s very rarely ever felt like this opposite of Will. “You know, me and Nancy, sometimes we have a hard time really seeing each other. Understanding the other’s point of view. And it would be the same for you and Mike.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will sounds so bitter and confused.
Jonathan doesn’t know how Will doesn’t see what’s right in front of him. Jonathan’s a perfect harbinger of all things to come in his brother’s life, just like their parents walked the same path Jonathan and Nancy will one day stumble through. That’s all life ever is, the same miserable loop, in the same miserable town.
He should suppress the urge to voice it all aloud, what’s the point in crushing hopeless dreams?
“You really think Mike waking up one day, magically in love with you and ditching El, would… would suddenly make everything perfect?” Jonathan starts. It’s one of those rare moments in his life where he’s talking and just can’t get himself to stop. “He lives in a two story house, his Dad makes enough money to feed eight mouths every day without a fuss, and Mike can go to whatever college he wants to without even having to consider scholarships. Do you really think he could ever understand you? He doesn’t even like The Clash!”
“The Clash, really?” Will echoes, voice hollow. “You’re ridiculous. It’s always the same Bowie or Kenny Rogers bullshit with you. This is my best friend you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, well I was your best friend first. And I know you better than him,” Jonathan affirms. The righteousness is still there, glowing redhot, but this time it isn’t hopeless, all of a sudden Jonathan’s filled with so much fucking hope. Will doesn’t have to make the same mistakes that Jonathan’s made. He can learn from them, the same way Jonathan told Will which teachers to avoid at Hawkins High, if he could help it. One day, Will can run away. Will can escape the miserable loop. “And I know that one day, you’re going to move on and move away and find people that do understand you. People you can really be yourself around, and you’ll finally be happy.”
When Jonathan tries to meet his brother’s gaze, he finds Will teary-eyed. Will turns away to look out the passenger’s seat window. “Yeah, maybe I will be happy when I’m away from here,” Will says. “When I don’t have you breathing down my neck for once.”
It’s like a punch to the gut, Jonathan’s mouth falls open. He should say— something. All the free-flowing sentences have come to an abrupt halt. He’s at a loss, nothing he's saying is making Will’s mood any better. He’s making everything so much worse. “Forget it,” Jonathan exhales and keeps on driving.
They have a basement to get to; where they can sleep and pretend the other doesn’t exist.