Work Text:
Day two of repairing Hopper’s cabin is a little more on the make-work end of the scale. Not as false as sending Will into the yard to replant the empty Easter eggs so the Easter Bunny could recycle them, the real aim to get Will out of the house for a bit while Lonnie used his day off to get drunk, but closer than not. Plywood is already up on anything gaping open, and the pipes are running clear, both sink and toilet. Do they really need to wash the filthy curtains? No. But would it be nice to cover the plywood with the illusion of normalcy? Would it make it feel a little less like a bunker they’re imprisoned in? Maybe. Worth it to try.
The one legitimately important task on the list is outdoors. A good point was made that if they have to do any emergency running from vines, it’s probably smart to not have jagged debris around the cabin. So here they are in the spring sunshine, cleaning.
Well, some of them. Lucas, Erica, and Dustin are at the hospital by Max and Eddie’s bedsides, praying at least one of them will wake up again. El, Mike, and Will are out exploring how big the invasion ring of dead plants has gotten, the spore storm intermittent since beginning yesterday. And then there’s the job only Hopper and Mom can do with their middle aged appeal; try to explain reality to Mr and Mrs Sinclair so they don’t leave Hawkins and force their children to run away. Jonathan hopes it goes well, for their kids sakes. Lucas and Erica are resolute they’re staying in the Party, even if they need to squat in an abandoned house. Jonathan knows how much it hurts Nancy to have such blindered, useless parents, knows even now she and Mike can’t tell them why she has choking bruises and he can’t stand to be in a room without two exits. It’ll be better for Lucas and Erica if the Sinclairs accept their children as warriors.
Argyle started off on Team Cleanup but he quickly peeled off, citing manual labour as boring while sober. Given that he’s on thin rations until they find another dealer, and needs it to help still his shaking nerves, they’ve allowed him to beg off. He’s an acquired taste anyway, and Nancy’s not quite there yet. Better for him to nap in the van he and Jonathan slept in last night, avoid friction until he proves himself in one way or another, and earns her respect.
Scanning the immediate vicinity of land - Jonathan has no doubts that boobytrapping the acres is coming up shortly, but it’s an in to out method of problem solving- finds Jonathan an obvious first target. One of the biggest discarded pieces of wreckage is a window frame first lost last summer. The shards of shattered glass are half covered by the foliage under their feet, but Steve’s sporadically bandaged back is a testament to how scratchy things dig in when being winched across the ground. They’ll definitely have to rake it to the surface to be collected. Beyond that, the frame itself is at a great lean for getting a foot caught and tripping when speed would be a saving grace.
The frame is heavy. Jonathan gives it an experimental kick, but the winter of being in the elements hasn’t done much to rot the wood, and it doesn’t collapse into more easily transported planks. Hopper’s grandpa built tough, apparently. Good for the rest of the cabin, bad for this.
Nancy knows he’s had back issues since Bruce nearly crippled him. She used to give him massages on the nights when a hot water bottle wasn’t quite enough to soothe the pain. Despite the unease that’s followed from their phone calls to seeing each other face to face, Jonathan’s still in her circle of responsibility. It doesn’t take her long to notice him struggling to lift it, never mind carry the whole fucking thing to the forepit. And Nancy, she’s as kind as she is efficient, and she drops what she’s doing, literally drops it, to come over to him and heft up a corner.
And because she comes, naturally Steve follows in her wake. Up until yesterday Jonathan’s understood conceptually that Steve’s probably still in love with his girlfriend. The breakup wasn’t his choice, after all, even if he actively chose to not be creepy and controlling in letting her go simply. How could Jonathan blame him for still liking her? He and Nancy are about to be exes, and Jonathan still likes her. And then yesterday, the look on her face when she talked about Steve, and Robin, and the kids, and all the things that happened in Hawkins while they were on their epic road trip to save El? Now Jonathan’s not so sure it’s not mutual. Not acted on, at least until they officially break up. Nancy wouldn’t cheat twice, she learns from her mistakes. But palpable, in the way Steve so desperately wants to assist her, and the way Nancy allows him to.
The moment they’re all touching the demolished window, it happens. White hot searing pain, like he just touched the element while making breakfast for everyone, like he has since he was eight. Except it’s not in his fingertips. It’s the middle of his left leg that suddenly hurts so much it’s almost numbing. It’s like a reverse phantom limb, pain so strong Jonathan knows he doesn’t dare take a step because he’ll have nothing to land on, leg gone. Except it’s not just him. At the same moment that pain obliterates Jonathan’s leg, Nancy curses and drops her corner of the window so she can grab her bicep. And in the direction Jonathan’s barely looking in, because he’s always been a tertiary concern at best -except if this is what it has to be, Steve’s about to become far more important- Steve is bent over, hands bracing on his knees like he’s catching his breath or trying not to throw up.
Nancy came ready to work in the muggy spring heat. She’s in jeans and a tank top, with good shoes for running. It’s how, when Nancy drops her hand to check her palm for blood, a source of her own equal pain, that Jonathan gets a full view of the massive window tattoo that wasn’t there before. It’s a sort of stained glass piece, though nothing like the church downtown, or the stupid rose Jonathan only knows from Max’s drawing. It’s ornate swirls of wrought iron, only it’s wrought copper, and the glass mountain scene is in ambers and browns and burgundies. It’s not the biggest diptych tattoo Jonathan’s ever heard of, but it runs the oval length of her upper arm, from just under where a cap sleeve would land to just above the fold of her elbow.
“Uh,” Steve says, standing up once again.
That’s enough to get Jonathan bolting inside to the sole bathroom. He doesn’t know quite what comes over him, just that he’s running out of sight, because he has to. Maybe it’s leftover nerves from the government recently raiding his house, maybe it’s a lifetime’s worth of knowing when to hide, but Nancy and Steve are about to look at him, and he just can’t. Not yet. Not until he’s gathered his own facts. They’re both very strongly opinionated, both bulldozers in their own ways. Jonathan wants to know what his stance is before he lets them sway him.
Door firmly locked behind him, an action that actually means something when his sister isn’t around, Jonathan takes a few fortifying breaths. If what he thinks is about to be confirmed is confirmed, it throws a lot of the last few years directly into their faces. Not only the mismanagement of all their troubled relationships, but Jonathan’s decision to stay closeted based on irrelevance, and all the times he worked to be a teen Lonnie would hate when turns out he had a core of repulsion deep down. It’d be nice to brace himself with some sweet herbal smoke, but there’s just no way he’s getting to Argyle’s emergency stash without encountering them again, and he has to know before he charges into that minefield.
Knowing is always better than not knowing. It was the truth when he interrogated Mom about her reasons for divorcing Lonnie, it was the truth when he forced himself into the coroner's office, and it’s true now. With one last deep breath, Jonathan unbuckles the belt keeping his donated jeans up and drops trou. And there it is, just low enough on his left thigh that his boxers won’t cover it. A nine pane window with a pointed arch rendered in thick black lines. The only colour appears in the leaves of a philodendron dangling in from the upper right.
The wide variation from Nancy’s makes sense. It would be weird if both halves of a diptych were the same. Narcissistic, to be perfectly made for someone exactly like you. Might as well go Grecian with it and kiss the water. And of course Nancy’s would be bold, in hot, powerful colours that neatly avoid the blustering temper tantrum red of One’s creation, while his own is calm and green. One of many realisations Jonathan came to in Lenora is that he likes seasons. That it feels just as unnatural as the Upside Down to live in a place where nature doesn’t have a living cycle, and everything is sand and dust. Even the Garcia house full of macrame hanging plants wasn’t enough, though it helped.
It’s not the distance in the art of their souls that’s throwing him off, it’s that they’re diptyches at all. Every couple tries it on their first date, and when grasping the same butterknife or bag of popcorn or bowling ball doesn’t do it, they move on. Jonathan’s long since known that he and Nancy aren’t spiritually fated, and he hasn’t let that stop him from loving her. They’re trauma bonded, after all. It’s just a different type of eternal than the burning bloom of a diptych. Except they’ve been wrong all along, and it’s not just actively chosen love, struggling in the face of obstacles. They truly are fated. It is a hell of a lot to place on top of an apocalypse that only they can save billions from. It’s the exact opposite of a slow motion break up. They’re supposed to be together forever. Not to mention, fuckin’ Steve. What the hell.
Jonathan’s never been one to bury his head in the sand. Playing music to drown out Lonnie’s screaming doesn’t make it not exist. Not looking at the bills on the table doesn’t leave them not in the red. There’s no arguing the window on his thigh, and Nancy deserves to see what it looks like. Frankly, he’s surprised she isn’t already knocking on the door.
His uninterrupted peace makes sense once he makes it to the back porch. He doesn’t want to join them on the land for fear of stepping on any of the half buried glass. It seemed a bit stuoid to put his shoes back on after taking off the thripping hazard of his jeans around his ankles. Call it high school trauma, but it’s better to walk outside in boxers semi like shorts to reveal his tattoo than pants himself in front of the valedictorian and the once lead jock. But neither of them are looking up at him, because they’re examining each other. Steve’s eyes are drinking in the artistic rendition of pure achievement, the core of her displayed, and Nancy’s are hard, staring at Steve’s chest. They’re both shirtless now, fabric discarded to the ground. Nancy being in her bra is unnecessary, beyond proving to Steve she’s not afraid to do anything he does. His toplessness is crucial, on the other hand, to witness the window on his left pec.
Like Nancy’s, it has multiple colours. It’s a more realistic style than hers though, more like Jonathan’s in that regard. The edges are two white shutters opening towards the viewer, farfalle shaped without the ripples. The square of presumed glass in the middle is looking on to a blue sky with scattered clouds, green grass underneath it. Small and distant are the shapes of people, too tiny to be gendered or aged.
Seeing it resonates. Jonathan’s been informed from every angle, in mission report and in action, that Steve is a guardian type now, and the art of his soul is witnessing people having a safe, good day. How can Jonathan deny it any longer, when fate burned it onto Steve’s skin? All the tattoos resonate. as they should. Only individuals suffering from Diptych Dysmorphic Disorder believe their soul art is a lie. Steve’s is open like a hug, Nancy’s is as momentous as she is, and Jonathan’s contentedly solitary. None of this is a lie. It’d be easier if it was.
It’s hard to say who to blame when Nancy bolts. The easy answer is Jonathan, whether it’s because Nancy’s only copying what he just did, or because he should have given them their moment of seeing each other’s art before throwing himself back into the mix. But Nancy’s always been reactionary, as much as she aims to have a plan. If she wants to make a move, whatever it is, there’s nobody that’s going to stop her. Right now she wants out, and Jonathan knows she’s not coming back even before he hears the slam of the car door around the front of the cabin, and the wheels rolling on gravel. And then there’s Steve. Sweet, sweet, Steve, whose wide hopeful eyes dim as he hears the same. Sweet, loving Steve, who’s optimism must feel like a tether to the ground to Nancy.
Unfortunately for Steve and his romantic eyes, Jonathan going to snuff it out altogether. There’s no denying the truth fatefully branded onto them, but that doesn’t mean any of them are ready for it.
“You should probably get going too, huh.”
“But-”
“Go pick Robin up, or something.” Jonathan can’t imagine this is something Steve wants Dustin to hear about. “Talk to her about stuff.”
“But-” Steve whines, plaintively. Like based on sad eyes alone, Jonathan is going to suddenly give in. And then, when no softening comes from his target audience, Steve adjusts.
“You know what? You’re both cowards,” Steve jabs, voice no less frustrated than it was in the alley behind the movie theatre. Jonathan wonders if it was covering up sorrow that time too. “I’ve spent years learning how to listen, but neither of you bothered to learn how to talk. Fuck it. Whatever. The hell was I expecting, anyway? A week of the most ridiculous sexual tension and she runs directly into your arms when you pull up to the house. And you weren’t even speaking, because trust me, the chauffeur knows all the stats of how often Mike was talking to El vs how often Nancy talked to you.”
Jonathan stands there and takes it. No sense in throwing a punch, it’ll only end with him ostracized by all the Party members that adore him. And it wouldn’t be fair in bruising Steve over something he’s right about. Jonathan is a coward. He’d rather be alone than set up a loved one for misery, and just like Nancy deserves better than community college and a small career, Mr Affable deserves better than outing himself as something that most of society hates. Jonathan’s not giving anyone a lifetime of resentment. He can’t be that man. He just can’t.
Time blurs, after that. He thinks Owens would probably call it disassociation, not that Jonathan’s ever going to talk to him, or burden his family further by implying he needs to. His leg doesn’t feel real. His body doesn’t feel real, nor does the patched up cabin he’s standing in, or the monsters on the other side of an onion skin thin barrier. Everything is bullshit, and everything is tragic, and everything is insane, and if he had to fight something or escape someone he’d be as sharp as glass and do his goddamn best to take it on, but this is a more passive stressor, and for an untold time Jonathan’s whole self just slides a foot away from his brain so he doesn’t have to think.
Eventually Jonathan lands back in his body. He does an about face and cuts through the cabin to the front, making only a brief detour for shoes. The only car left in the makeshift driveway is the Surfer Pizza van. Ever since first making his acquaintanceship, it’s been a sight for sore eyes. Argyle is soothing in a way no other teenager in Hawkins or Lenora has ever been. Today is no exception. The moment he takes in the van rattling with comforting, someone is there snores, Jonathan has his first hint of relief. He’s going to wake up someone, and they’re going to care enough to contemplate what he’s saying, while making no effort to consciously or unconsciously compare problems and anxiety levels. Unlike all the other very stressed out people in Jonathan’s life, Argyle doesn’t do oneupmanship.
It’s a matter of a few strides to get his hand on the trunk. Jonathan pops the door to where he slept last night, aided by donated blankets and a lack of angsty freshmen. Argyle’s a heavy enough sleeper that that alone doesn’t wake him. For a brief minute, Jonathan considers climbing in and trying to sleep all of this away. Mom never had the chance to cuddle him when he was sick or nightmarish, Lonnie didn’t like her coddling him, but he knows if Argyle woke up the big spoon he wouldn’t care. He’d probably just adjust the blanket to fit them both and toss an arm around him. Stoned or sober, rolling to be back to back or even foot to head wouldn’t occur to him.
He can’t, though. He needs to talk to someone about this who’s only stakes in this are supporting him. Jonathan can’t handle Nancy’s anger or Steve’s crushed hopes, he just wants Argyle’s slow exclamations over the particularly shocking bits.
“What, man,” Argyle whines, finally waking up when Jonathan bends into the van to shake his shoulder. “I told you cleaning sucks sober.”
“Check this fuckin out,” Jonathan snaps, putting his knee up on the floor of the van. It’s in Argyle’s line of sight, and it’s not long before he’s sitting up to engage himself in the situation. It’s all the directness Jonathan loves in Nancy, without any of the urgency to lead. He’s not dictating the conversation, he opens with a question.
“Oh! With who? Can’t be Nancy. There’s no way you never touched the same condom when you were together.”
“And a dozen other things.” How perfect would it have been to both have a camera bloom onto their skin from Christmas ‘83? Or even before that, stylized versions of the demogorgon spotting map passed in the cemetery, or a shared knife from bloodletting their palms. Hell, hadn’t they touched things together a dozen times over the years, passing their brothers back and forth for hangouts and after school babysitting?
“So who, then? Did someone come over while I was taking my siesta?”
“Nancy and Steve both.”
“Woah,” Argyle says, blinking sleepy eyes at him.
“I know.”
“Everyone’s heard of a triptych, but no one’s ever met one.”
“I know!” Jonathan’s barely been able to think the word. It exists, but it’s not what happens. It’s slightly more of the population than the even rarer and unmentioned polyptych, but it’s not normal.
“Guess it makes sense though.”
Point made, Jonathan takes his thigh out of Argyle’s face by climbing into the van. He gladly slips his crossed legs under the lifted up edge of Argyle’s blankets. Kneecap to hip contact soothing him as much as any other moment of his best friend’s casual contact, Jonathan feels safe enough to crack open the can of worms that is Argyle thinking he and Nancy and Steve make sense. As a- a- triptych. “How so?
“Well, they broke up because he was prioritizing the safety of the living over the honour of the dead, right?”
“Yeah, sort of.” Nancy was furious about being under the thumb of the government, while Steve accepted the thumb. Better to let the Hollands spend their last dime than get their families targeted and tangled up. Jonathan hadn’t had the luxury of that being a worry, his brother already a biweekly visitor to the lab.
“But that’s what you prioritize too.”
“Yeah, I guess?” Jonathan likes to think he honours the dead. Bob’s memorial art was still on the fridge in Lenora, and he talked to Nancy for hours on Barb’s birthday. Plus he did actually take on the lab, while Steve looked the other way in ‘84.
“Yeah for sure, considering you’re blowing off Emerson for your Mom and Will,” Argyle counters. He’s a very live and let live guy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have opinions. He just doesn’t care if he gets any converts. It’s relaxing, after a lifetime of being told what to do and how to think from society, family, and his girlfriend.
“Okay. So we’re a little more alike than I would have claimed. So?”
“It’s just good. Good for you all, man,” Argyle says, smiling as his stance solidifies. He’s always so optimistic, but never in a way that grates the way most of the moronic happy shiny public does. “It gives Nancy more space to handle the plan, if she has two boyfriends to manage the manpower and get shit done. And you can stick up for each other if she gets crazy-eyes, so you don’t get railroaded.”
Honestly, Jonathan doubts any number of men telling Nancy what to do and how to change her plans will get her to obey. But it’ll give him someone to commiserate with, when they’re in the middle of a hostile freeze out. And to bounce the concept of backing down around with, when they eventually decide to just do what she originally proposed.
And Argyle’s right in another way, one he might not even realise yet. Jonathan’s about to disappoint Nancy with the truth, but Steve did everything she needed him to this week. If Nancy thinks Steve is the competent one, the one worthy of being her successor, the one who gets things done, then she might be willing to leave everything in his hands as she goes off to fulfill her dreams. Jonathan’s need wouldn’t be the thing ruining them now, leading her to a future of resentment and divorce.
“Plus, I mean, you like men. And he’s a great looking man.”
The bitch of it is Argyle’s not wrong. It was terrifying to come out as bisexual to Argyle, except for the parts where it wasn’t, because after three months of exposure to his best friend Jonathan knew he’d take it with the standard easy poise. He’d taken it even better than that, hitting the bong and admitting there were attractive qualities about guys too. Leave it to Argyle to return coming out in the most placid way possible. “He took off his shirt to show off his dip- triptych. My god. It’s not fair.”
Steve was hot in high school too. But he was a jerk, until he wasn’t, and still an idiot then, and a jock. Jonathan swayed between disliking him and trying not to think about him with Nancy. And then he got her, and felt guilty thinking about him for too long. There was never a point for sexiness. If he’d ever thought about a threesome with Nancy, it was much later, with Argyle, and only as a wildest dreams jerk off fantasy kind of thing, nothing he was likely to bring up. But if they’re a triptych, Jonathan’s supposed to be attracted to his partners, and even scraped up with bruises on his throat, Steve has turned into a hell of a man.
“If it’s not fair, you’re on the winning side of the uneven bargain, my dude,” Argyle points out. “What have I been telling you for a month now, man? You deserve to give your wrist a break. If it’s not gonna be Nancy, hey, Mother Love plopped a second option in your lap. Gratitude to Gaia, man.”
It was equal parts crushing and a relief, the day Jonathan realised they wouldn’t be meeting for spring break. Grateful for not having to have the college conversation and set up the ruin of their relationship, yes, but sad for the lack of Nancy cuddled up next to him, or across the room with her hands on her hips. He’s missed her, her smell and her body language and her whimpering orgasms. He hates the idea that even if they don’t break up she’ll feel betrayed enough to still not want him, but Argyle’s not wrong. Steve is ruggedly hot and a known lothario and as a soulmate Jonathan has every right to get into bed with him.
“I don’t know if he’s bi.”
“He has to be,” Argyle blows off the concern like dust floating in a sunbeam. “You’re a triptych.”
“I don’t know if he knows he’s bi,” Jonathan clarifies. Less than three years ago Steve was attempting to beat him in a back alley for being queer, among other reasons. Nancy insists he’s changed, and Jonathan would like to believe Will’s friends are smarter than to hang out with bigots, but he just doesn’t know.
“Maybe he’ll only know once you kiss him. Some people prefer actions over words, man.”
That’s all well and good but it’s not like in Murray’s bunker, when all Jonathan had to do was cross two rooms to get the girl of his dreams. Steve’s not even here to push against a wall and kiss, to put him on the other side of all the times he pinned Nancy against a locker. “I kinda told him to leave though.”
“Of course you did, my prickly little porcupine.” Argyle pats Jonathan’s chest like he wouldn’t care about stabbing himself on Jonathan’s roughness. “But that’s okay. we’ll get through it.”
“God,” Jonathan groans. This whole situation is bullshit. There’s a slim chance they actually work it out as a triptych, one world in a thousand, and that’s probably the world where One kills them all.
After a minute of contemplation, Argyle offers his wisdom. “What you gotta do is chase him down. Guy likes to be wanted, right? From what you’ve told me, he let go of Nancy as soon as he realized the desire wasn’t there. I’m ciento on this now, he’s a man of gestures. He’ll know you regret your hasty departure when you find him, and he’ll know you want him when you play tonsil hockey.”
“So you think I should just go track him down?”
“Yeah.”
“Now?”
‘Yeah!”
Literally yesterday Jonathan was trying to do the bridge mending of an easy laugh, a joke about Steve’s incompetence for Nancy to smirk at. And now he’s scooping up his jeans from the bathroom floor while Argyle relocates to El’s temporarily empty bed, so he can extend the olive branch of caring enough to find him. It’s insane how quickly things can change.
First he goes to the notorious Harrington party house. As Jonathan pretty much figured, the lights are off and the expensive BMW is nowhere to be seen. Sometime between graduation and now Steve became the kind of guy who doesn’t like crowds adoring him and his wealth. It’s a lot of house for just one person, and Jonathan’s been told he doesn’t stay there much. He’ll be around to host Lucas and Erica if Mom’s talk with Sue and Charles goes poorly, but until then Jonathan didn’t really think he’d find Steve there.
Lucky for him and his reconciliation, Jonathan’s got a much better idea in mind. He doesn’t actually know where Robin lives, but Buckley isn’t an overly common name, and the phone booth off Watts Ave didn’t get destroyed by the Fred part of the fault line only a few blocks away. One quick rifle through the white pages and Jonathan knows where to go.
Steve’s car isn’t on the street, but that doesn’t mean much. There’s a garage on the other side of the property, facing the back lane. For all Jonathan knows Steve might have a space in it, if he’s over often enough. Robin doesn’t have her own car to fill the space, Jonathan knows that.
It doesn’t occur to Jonathan until he’s knocking on the door -the tape on top of the doorbell signifying don’t use it- that it might not be Steve or Robin answering it. Honestly, Steve got lucky in ‘83, that when he came to apologise he didn’t have to deal with Will or Mom. Will might not question others or stand up for himself much, but he learned a brutal stare from Mike at a very early age, and high school Steve didn’t take judgement well. If Robin’s got some sibling Jonathan doesn’t know about, or her parents are home, this could get even more awkward. Jonathan doesn’t ingratiate himself well.
It’s a rare lucky break that has Robin on the other side of the doorframe. Not that she looks particularly welcoming either. Her layering isn’t as vivid as Argyle’s combinations always are, the emerald green overshirt doesn’t contrast at all with the hunter green shirt underneath, or the basic jeans. But it’s all clean, unmarred by sweat or blood or Upside Down gunk. And it’s hers, unlike half of them having to borrow or accept donations. You’d never guess she’s comfortable by the sour expression on her face though.
“Wow. Three outta three stamps collected. Do I get a free milkshake now?”
“What?” Jonathan asks, truly baffled. He knows through his limited interactions with her that she’s kind of a weirdo, but that was incomprehensible.
Robin frowns. “I thought you were supposed to be an elitist critic of the masses, not an idiot.”
Jonafhan wouldn’t classify himself as any of those, but if Robin is Steve’s best friend she’s had a long time to hear about their situation and side purely with Steve. Almost a year now, since the Fourth of July. In Steve’s mind he probably is pretentious. Even Nancy’s accused him of it, and she knows him. Or did.
“After everyone’s complete meltdown, critical failure to communicate, Nancy came to vent. Girl talk, I guess. And then Steve got here like half an hour later. They’re not ready to talk yet. He’s in my bedroom, and she’s in the basement. You want my parents room to brood in? Or are you more a back porch kind of guy?”
“They’re both here?” And how did Nancy get here so much earlier than Steve? They left Hoppers within minutes of each other. Was spite the only thing keeping him away, not wanting to follow Jonathan’s suggestion?
“Nancy doesn’t have other female friends capable of navigating this.”
Yeah, Jonathan remembers Allie struggling with Nancy dating him just because he was the outcast. He can’t imagine an honest to god triptych would go over any better, nevermind one with all the baggage they carry.
“And sorry, but I don’t give a shit about your triptych,” Robin continues bluntly. “Steve and I will always be soulmates. He’s upset. Of course he’s here.”
That adds another level of complexity to everything. “You’re in love with him?”
“Oh my god-” Robin mutters furiously to herself. “Why do they always-” her voice gets louder as she pins him with a stern look. “No. What Steve and I have is more important than who we want to bone.”
“Okay?” Jonathan understands that they’re best friends, and best friends are important. He totally agrees. But he’d never call Argyle his soulmate. It’s a very specific term, one traditionalists probably wouldn’t appreciate her trying to co-opt.
Robin crosses her arms, thin fabric rippling in the breeze the movement creates. “Look. I wasn’t kidding. You can hang out until one of them is ready to talk. You know you are not my favourite person. You’ve been a jerk to both of them, and I’m too bad at social niceties to pretend to stay out of it. But I want them both to be happy. Steve deserves his triptych. If that means you eating some complimentary peanuts in the lounge while you wait, I’ll host.”
It’s not quite fair. If he’s been a jerk, so have they. It’s not like Nancy came out to Lenora either. And Steve has a reputation, even if he’s working away from it now. But an invitation in is what Jonathan needs, and he doesn’t want her to rescind it if he argues too much.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Save the manners for people you owe them to,” Robin suggests, backing up to let him into the house.
The Buckley home is a different version of slightly above the poverty line. Tidier than he and Mom and Will ever managed, but Jonathan can’t imagine a poor two parent household agreeing to a homemaker mom just for morality’s sake. Maybe punishment is cleaning, over grounding or lack of privileges. The floral wallpaper in the living room has clearly never been replaced, it’s a little torn at some of the seams, and the carpet is a constellation of stains. There’s a crocheted blanket over the back of the couch Jonathan bets gets deployed to a bedroom once the cold weather hits, so they don’t have to crank up the heating. Fiddling with the corner of it gives his hands something to do as Robin tosses the tv remote at him and goes to leave. He can’t imagine there’s anything good on, or that he’d be able to concentrate if there were, but at least it’ll be better than silence.
“Robs, do you have those cookies with-”
Steve cuts off as he enters the room and sees him. “What’s he doing here.”
Jonathan came here to apologise and show that they can like each other, that it’d be okay. That Argyle’s right, and there is something there, if they get over all the surface stuff. But smug, kingly Steve attempting to refuse his very existence has Jonathan’s hackles up once again. “For the record, Nancy’s here too.”
“Yeah. I know. Robin told me. You think Robin wouldn’t tell me?” Steve asks, arms crossed. If he was shirtless his wrist would be framing his window, but that’s not for Jonathan to see. Steve got undressed for Nancy, not him. Who the fuck was he kidding? This isn’t going to work. Argyle’s logic only works in situations that he’s directly involved in. Outside those scenes, it all falls apart.
Robin smirks at him. “Told you.”
So they’re ‘tell each other everything’ best friends. That’s not really Jonathan’s concern right now. He can warm things up with Robin when and if Steve ever bonds with Argyle.
“Look, maybe you should just work things out with her. Maybe the us part isn’t really relevant.” The words coming out his mouth are the exact opposite of what he vowed to Argyle he’d do, but they seem more realistic. Even if they’re sexually compatible, with surprisingly similar core values, he’s still Jonathan Byers and he’s still Steve Harrington. It just doesn’t fit.
If there’s anything worse than Steve calling him -and Nancy- a coward to his face, it’s Steve and Robin coming at him from left and right with the same disgusted body language. Shit, maybe they are meant for each other, screw Nancy and himself both.
The double annoyed silences spur Jonathan into speaking once again. “What. You really think it’s all of us, not just me-Nancy and you-Nancy?”
“If it was v shaped, wouldn’t Nancy have two tattoos?” Steve retorts.
“You don’t even like me!” Jonathan shouts.
“Not when you’re being a martyrizing loner, I don’t,” Steve shouts back.
“Okay, she definitely heard that, so,” Robin interjects. She claps her hands together and nods awkwardly. “I’m going to go warm Nancy up for the emotional confrontation you’re about to have. You two keep communicating, and neither of you run away like big dumb dipshits. Capisce?”
Despite Robin’s instructions to carry on, she somehow takes the heat with her. When Steve speaks next, it’s much quieter, and far more mournful.
“You know, I didn’t even get to see it. I don’t even know where it is. I can guess somewhere on your leg, because you did this weird limp-run into the house. But where, actually? Who knows.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan answers. What’s he supposed to do, apologise for having seen Steve’s? He came out in his boxers, it’s not his fault Steve was too busy looking him in the face to notice.
Steve slumps to sit on the rusty sunset coloured couch beside him. “You know, my parents rejected their diptyches. They were already married to each other. Twice they weighed their pros and cons and looked their soulmates in the eye and decided it was more beneficial to stay together. Not out of love, of course. Precious fucking little of that in the Harrington house. Better for far more important factors. Financially. For arm candy. For their reputations. I’ve spent my whole life determined that that wouldn’t happen to me. That I’d be cool enough that he or she would pick me over anyone they were already entangled with. And then Nancy smacked some sense into me, and Dustin and Robin, and I decided popularity wouldn’t be my lure, that genuineness would be. And somehow I still end up unwanted. God, it’s even worse than my parents. I’m in a triptych, and both don’t want me.”
“Nancy wants you. She wouldn’t be this upset if she didn’t.” Nancy can’t stand the idea of being tied down by anything, love included. Having not one, but two chains must be tormenting her.
“It seemed like it. But she’s a woman who knows what she wants, and she went right back to you, the minute the van pulled up.”
“Not like I’m some crazy prize. I’m going nowhere with my life, and I don’t think I really want to,” Jonathan admits.
“What are you talking about, man? Out of state college is a big deal.”
“It is when you accept it. But I’m not going, at least until Will graduates, and maybe not even then.” There’s bound to be trauma coming up, One doing his best to drive them all insane enough to be weak when he comes to murder them. Will’s the weakest of the teens left, unless Max or Eddie doesn’t make it and Lucas or Dustin go off the deep end. If Will cracks in some significant way, or if Hopper dies for keeps and Mom spirals again, Jonathan will stay forever to support them.
“I’d like to play noble and say ‘same, except for Dustin and Lucas’, but I just didn’t get in anywhere. I am noooot a brain, like most of you.”
“We have enough brains. The Party needs people like you too.”
“A legal license?” Steve jokes.
“Protectors,” Jonathan shoots back.
Steve doesn’t have anything to say to that. The silence they sit in shouldn’t be as loose as it is. They were fighting five minutes ago. They’ve never not been fighting, for as long as they’ve known each other. And yet Jonathn barely wants to run away and sequester himself somewhere alone. It’s not a feeling he gets often. With Argyle, with Will, with Toby at The Hawk, in the past with Nancy.
Maybe it’s the startling neutrality that has him offering, “it has a philodendron.”
“What?”
“My window. And it’s on my thigh. You were right.”
“If you’re going to show me, we need to go see Nance. I don’t think she’d forgive being left out of the loop.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Nancy says, coming into the room. Much like Will, Nancy doesn’t like being cold and damp. She can’t help but associate it with that despicable place. After the stress of this morning, and the background extreme stress of having tromped through the dimension yet again, Jonathan’s not surprised at all that she’s gone from a tanktop and jeans to a borrowed hoodie of Robin’s. A pair of sweats too. Thankfully the quirky girl doesn’t tower over Nancy too much, they way Will one day will. She can walk without swimming in fabric, so she comes over to join them. Not on the free cushion on Jonathan’s left, but perched on the arm on Steve’s side. Jonathan tries to not take that as a subconscious declaration.
“I’m not saying that it needs to decide anything?” Jonathan proclaims, standing and hovering his hand over his zipper. “I just-”
“Just show us,” Nancy says, slicing through.
He was right earlier. It feels extremely vulnerable to pull his pants off in front of two gorgeous extroverted people. But he pushes through it, because it’s not valedictorian and varsity vs loner anymore. It’s two beautiful complicated people he has some deep things in common with. And if they want to see the conservatory window on his thigh, he sort of owes them the view, if he wants anything to progress.
“It suits you,” Steve speaks up first. “I know that’s dumb. Of course it does, it’s your soul. But it does. It’s nice.”
“Can I see yours?” He’s seen it, but Steve didn’t mean it for him, then, in the backyard.
Steve doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t stand up, but he doesn’t take more than a second to sit up straight and pull on a sleeve to get his arm inside his shirt. Normally he’d probably do the typical manly move of dragging the fabric up from a grip at the nape of his neck, but his back is still covered in bandaged wounds. The last thing he needs is for friction to make a bandage rip off.
And with the shirt on the coffee table, there it is. A window asking for the safety and happiness of unknown figures, pleasant colours and a shape that can’t help but beckon people in. Like he told Argyle, thorny interpersonal issues or not, the man looks good shirtless. It’s not much of an extrapolation to guess he’d look good in nothing at all, but they’re really not there yet. It’s wild enough that twenty four hours ago it would have been unthinkable to want to sit on his lap and touch the saturated colours under the thick hair, and now Jonathan has that option. It’s probably moving too fast, something he’d rebuff immediately if Argyle suggested it, but he could.
Maybe it’s the two sets of staring eyes. Maybe he has his own vulnerabilities about stripping down, something about the dichotomy of established relationship vs the single guy. Or maybe it’s just that he’s a little vain, and is feeling not being at his personal best. Whatever the reason -and one day Jonathan might know him well enough to assume, like Robin could if she was still in the room- Steve’s voice is different, shy and provoking both, when he asks, “you gonna take your shirt off too?”
Well, what the fuck? In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Steve is hairy and manly and gorgeous, but he’s currently bruised and torn up, nothing generally portrayed as hot. If he’s feeling in any way ashamed, might as well show him he’s still the pinnacle of the skin show, compared to Jonathan’s pale, lanky form.
Steve’s jaw drops a little as Jonathan’s shirt hits the floor. His eyes dart from Jonathan to Nancy, like they’re both equally baffling, despite her not having moved a muscle on the armrest. “That’s the second time I’ve said that, and the second time you all’ve done it.”
“Don’t ask if you don’t want an answer. And you should know better than to think we won’t step up to a challenge. What’s the point of having a dip- triptych that doesn’t challenge you?” For Nancy, it’s practically devastating that Karen’s diptych truly is Ted, despite how miserable their marriage is. It’s a core wound for her. If Nancy’s going to be at all comfortable with the idea of being soulmates, it’ll have to be her fighting and pushing and never settling.
“Okay, then. You want to take your shirt off too? Again? Do you want to? Because if you do, Nance, please. Please, just stop bottling everything up, and say what you want.” With each word Steve gets more vulnerable, eyes wider and wetter, until he’s the junior who’s getting his heart ripped out in Tina’s bathroom because he wasn’t a mind reader.
A cynic could say Sleep Around Harrington is getting what he really wants when Nancy sighs, determined, and pulls off Robin’s hoodie. It’s a great view, after all. It’s been too long since Jonathan’s seen her in her bra. He’s got memories and a single picture of her naked, which she observed him develop before she burned the negative. He returns to both as frequently as any teenage boy might, but it’s been nothing new since the night before they moved away. But he and Steve both know it’s not the partial nudity, and the sudden leveling up of sexual expectations that matters. It’s that by taking her shirt off, Nancy is admitting that this, the two of them, is something that she wants. He and she have been drifting, and she and Steve have been nothing for years now, but here and now, they’re all arranged with their triptych art out, allowing the bond.
She’s just so pretty. Jonathan’s always thought so, for years and years before he got his first moment with her. Separating from her was never about not liking her, not for a moment. Her lips call him home, her bared soul calls him home, and he draws her half off the armrest to glide his mouth onto hers. Something he’d never thought he’d say; Nancy’s hand braced on Steve’s shoulder as they kiss doesn’t make her any less attractive.
There’s a reunion in their kiss. It’s lustful, her warm exhalations making his Cupid’s bow tingle, and the shape of her tongue against his, and her perky little breasts against his chest. But it’s bigger than that too, redeclaring their want of each other. And it’s something Jonathan is certain Steve wants too, so when he finally takes a single step back, he’s expecting something like Steve grabbing Nancy by the knee to drop her into his lap. It’s the kind of bold move Steve’s known for.
Instead he gets Nancy looking between him and Steve. “Well, come on.”
“Uh,” Jonathan gets out, approximately the same tone and volume that Steve says, “um.”
“Come on. This can’t just be about you both getting me. Winning me.”
“I mean, hopefully you get us too? Like, you want to,” Steve baits. And Jonathan gets what he’s saying, he really does. It would be nice to have confirmation that Nancy wants them both as much as they both still love her. But being a trophy is smack dab in the middle of Nancy’s trauma, and Jonathan can see where she’s coming from. A V relationship, as much as it makes sense on the heterosexual surface, might wreck her.
“Can you just show me that this isn’t all about me?” Nancy asks, plea in the edge of her voice. And what kind of triptych are they, if they refuse to give her something she needs this early into their relationship?
When push comes to shove, Jonathan can’t actually let himself sit in Steve’s lap. It’s less comfortable but far more of a relief to return to the middle couch cushion, and twist to face Steve, who’s turned to face him. It’s the first time that Jonathan’s ever kissed a guy. He’d like to ask Steve if he has, but yes and no are both bad answers. Either Steve’s more experienced and Jonathan feels like a loser dating out of his league, or it’s never occurred to Steve to do this and Jonathan has to fret that a panic could be oncoming. Whatever the truth is, Steve kisses like Jonathan always disdainfully thought he did, like it’s a show for others. It’s only now Jonafhan realises the intention behind it. It’s not that he doesn’t care about his participant, only the flattering jealous opinions of his peers. It’s that he believes the person he’s attracted to is worthy of being the centre of attention. Steve kisses Jonathan like he wants the world to see, not just Nancy, and it’s immediately addicting. He has no interest in society in general, full of idiots as it is, but he loves Steve’s arm curved low on his back, encouraging him to scramble into a straddle. It’s probably a patented move by him, a way to get any girl crawling on top of him for a panty wetting grind, but Steve uses it for a reason. It works. Jonathan wants on him.
“That is… incredibly hot,” Nancy affirms once they part. “But is Robin’s living room a weird place to do this?”
“At home is a pretty common place,” Steve shrugs with the vast experience of a moderate slut. “And It’s more of a home than my house. There are no bad memories here, only good ones. And I’d like to make another.”
“We should make a lot before you go to Emerson,” Jonathan finally dares to say. He knows it’s going to derail them, get them away from third base and multiplied reunion sex, but if it didn’t feel right to buy a ticket to visit Nancy without telling her the truth, it certainly doesn’t feel right to attempt intimacy.
“Before ‘I’,” Nancy repeats, voice as sharp as a shard of glass.
“Um. Yeah.”
“Big decision since yesterday? Or have you been lying to me?” Nancy interrogates, a reporter with a razor in hand.
“I didn’t know how to tell you our plans were changing. I didn’t want you to hate me,” Jonathan confesses. Mom and Lonnie were a fucking nightmare, his whole childhood. He hurt her so much. He can even objectively allow for her hurting him too, though the alcoholism and homophobia and abuse makes Jonathan not particularly care. He stands by his stance of he and Nancy deserving a better outcome.
“Wow,” Nancy snaps out. “That is incredibly arrogant.”
“What?”
“And sexist,” she continues, jumping to her feet to let her get the distance of the living room away from the person who’s let her down.
“What?” How’s it sexist to be worried about her happiness?
“I’m early decision, Jonathan,” Nancy says, each word stressed. “Both parts of my triptych staying in their hometown isn’t going to stop me from getting the hell out of here.”
“Vecna might,” Steve mutters.
“Then we have five months to get Henry to fuck off, don’t we. I’m getting my bachelors,” she says, voice pure determination. Jonathan’s had the rundown of how Nancy’s prompting got the Party back into the Upside Down. If her tone was anything like this, Jonathan can see how everybody fell in line.
“I’m sorry, okay? Not for my priorities, but the way I went about it.” If he’d said something on the phone, he could have avoided months of worry about her following him and hating him for it. Knowing that she doesn’t care enough to follow him is a little sad, but can he truly be surprised? Everyone’s priorities are different, and Argyle wasn’t wrong when he said Nancy will always be the one planning for more.
Nancy doesn’t accept the apology. Her voice is a machete when she replies, “went’s a strong word for it, isn’t it? All you did was nothing.”
Before Jonathan can let the growing hardness in his stomach make him say something he has to grovel for in the coming days, Steve steps in. “The lying was shitty, I’m not saying it’s not. But he was just scared to tell you he’s not ambitious. I get that. I’m not either. I think I could work at Family Video for the rest of my life, as long as Robin was there. And even if she was up for moving to Boston, Dustin is here. And the Sinclairs, and Max. I’m not going anywhere for six years. Three, maybe, if Lucas stays for Erica. I can’t.”
Shit. Argyle’s going to sagely nod when Jonathan tells him he was completely right about his assessment. Steve, too, has family to watch over, and is doing the exact thing that Jonathan is, minus being out a five hundred dollar deposit towards Lenora Community College.
“So is it a dealbreaker? Our roots?” Steve prods.
It’s a different angle to take on their complacency. A way that makes sense from someone with a view from a warm suburban house as their soul art.
“Don’t be an asshole, Steve. You both wouldn’t be who you are if you didn’t love like that. I’m not goddamn surprised you’re staying in Hawkins with the Party. But I’m allowed to be pissed that Jonathan honestly thought I’d throw my life away for someone else’s dream. All you had to say was ‘I can’t go, let’s save up money for Thanksgiving’. Instead you’ve been pulling away, doing these, these, mind games-”
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan repeats. He knew this would hurt. This is exactly the conversation he didn’t buy a flight for to avoid.
“But he won’t, anymore. Right?” Steve asks of Jonathan without letting him reply. “We’re all gonna be honest, now. Say how we feel, when we feel it. No hiding shit, no bottling things up until we explode, no public veneers that are nothing but bullshit. We’re gonna be open doors, god, open fucking windows, and we’re going to be together. We’re going to be the generals, and save the fucking world. Right?”
If Steve’s motivational jock speeches were anything like this, no wonder he was top of the heap. Jonathan could care about putting a ball into a basket if it made his heart pound like this.
“I don’t think our happily ever afters look the same,” Nancy replies. “But I’d like to go through the middles with you, Steve, and you, Jonathan. Is that enough? Can we commit to the middle game, and promise to avoid any end traps?”
“All I’ve ever wanted is for the people I love to be happy. Things don’t make a habit of turning out well, in my life.” Fucking understatement. “But if we can do like Steve says, and be honest about it before it gets ugly, I can do this.” He swallows and rephrases. “I want to do this. I want things better with you,” he tells her, “and I want to make something good with you,” he twists to Steve to say.
Steve says beseechingly, “I think we could have a happily ever after. I have to believe that, after my parents. But of course I don’t want to trap you, Nance. I never have. Maybe we just keep going through the middle, and more and more middle, see if anyone’s outlook changes in ten years. Happy endings can change.”
It’s going to be a bumpy road, weaving through Nancy’s ambition and pessimism, and Steve’s determined optimistic loyalty. Jonathan anticipates years of not knowing who to side with. But for the first time in a long time, he has hope that there will be years. Sure they have to destroy One, and an antagonistic military branch, but if there’s anyone Jonathan trusts with the troops, it’s Steve and Nancy. And once they get through it, gates closed and monsters a smear of blood and ichor on the pavement, they’ll be on the other side, holding hands, or making nightly long distance phone calls on Steve’s dime. Broadly, it’s a happily ever after. No need to demand anything more narrow.