Chapter Text
“You act like you're all alone out there in the world, but you're not.”
Jonathan looks at Steve, who’d grabbed his elbow on the way into school and echoed words so similar to his mother’s that he couldn’t help but stare.
“What did you say?”
“I said,” Steve clacks his teeth together on the last syllable. It looks painful. “You act all lonely, but you’ve got friends now, man. Me and Nance, you can talk to us. You don’t have to eat lunch alone. Or whatever it is you do during school.”
Jonathan laughs. “We’re not friends, Steve.”
That may have been...blunt. But beyond a slight wrinkling at the bridge of his nose, Steve looks unruffled.
Jonathan plays with the fabric of his jeans. “I look at you, and all I can think about is-”
“Say no more.” Steve holds up his hands. “I said...a lot of nasty things before you, ehm, turned my face into a steak.” He lifts a finger to his cheek, traces invisible wounds. “I never got to apologize, officially. I am sorry.”
“I know.” Jonathan can feel his own face scrunch unevenly, lip curling against his will. “I still can’t.”
Steve makes an aborted motion with his hand. Maybe he was reaching out to shake? Jonathan doesn’t know; he can’t raise his eyes. He hears an irritated sigh.
“Can you help me out? A hint?”
“Honestly?” He manages to look up, then, and catches Steve’s eyes as he nods with far too much eagerness. “You remind me of my dad. Always saying just what you think people need to hear.”
Steve’s face falls for just a second before his lips thin into a line. Tch, small towns. Steve knows about Lonnie. Everyone in town does.
“I remind you of your dad?”
“Yeah.”
And then Steve can’t meet his face, kicking the dirt near his tire. “Sorry but you'll still have to see me. Nancy, you know?”
As though speaking her name drew her, Nancy appears from between two nearby cars, hair pulled back high and tight.
“Hey, Nance! Walk you to class?”
Nancy rolls her eyes because an overly charming Steve Harrington usually wants something. Still, she’s smiling, and her color is better than it’s been the last few weeks.
Certainly better than Will’s, and that worries Jonathan more than he wants to think about.
He snaps a picture of their retreating backs, fingers twined and resting on Nancy’s hip.
Later that day, Nancy storms into the darkroom.
“You told him he reminds you of your father?”
Great.
Jonathan had very purposefully decided to only produce a few family photos and still lifes. Experience was a novel thing, and he wasn’t expecting a second Christmas gift, after all.
“What happened to not caring if I liked him?”
“That was before!”
“Before you started dating again?” Jonathan smiles. Nancy does not.
“Before he saved your life,” she hisses.
“And I saved his!”
Jonathan can’t believe they’re talking about this. They don’t talk about this, it’s...like a rule. She seems to realize it at the same time and clamps her mouth shut.
“He asked me to be honest,” he points out, taking pity on her, redirecting the conversation.
“That's just a thing people say!” She waves a hand in front of her face. “You don't go around telling people they're awful for it!”
“He had no problem saying that stuff about my family!”
“He apologized! It was wrong, but he apologized.”
“So I should?” He crosses his arms, a challenge.
“No.” She bites her lips. “Not if you don't mean it.”
Jonathan thinks. He had mostly said what he did to hurt Steve, get a rise out of him, but...the thought of Lonnie and Steve side by side made something in his brain short circuit.
He doesn’t think his dad’s ever apologized for anything in his life.
“Are you done berating me now? Because I kind of have to concentrate on these.”
He knows he’s pouting. Nancy isn’t his mother or his girlfriend. They’re barely friends. He doesn’t have to…
A stack of papers are slammed onto the tabletop next to him.
“Notes from chem class. We missed a good number of days, and you missed more.” She coughs. “With Will.”
His fingers clench around the edge of the table. “Thanks, Nancy.”
“Whatever, Jonathan.” She must be at the door now, her voice sounds farther away. He thinks he’s broken it again, the gentle string that held whatever passed for kinship between them, but then she adds, much more gently, “There’s a test on Thursday. Let me know if you want to study.”
Steve had said Jonathan would have to see him, but two weeks pass, and it’s as though the two of them go to different schools. If it weren’t for the gossip in the hallways that always follows him now (and more and more carries Steve and Nancy’s names with it), he’d assume Steve had dropped out entirely. Studying was never Steve’s deal, but even Jonathan can tell the other boy is going out of his way to make sure their paths don’t cross.
Nancy doesn't bother with such niceties. The few times Jonathan asks after Steve, her anger ignites between breaths, the pinched expression returning to her face and staying until they’re done studying. Jonathan understands. Her loyalties are torn.
Nancy doesn’t understand (says so loudly and often). She’s not as company-hungry as Steve Harrington, but he knows about the things they don’t talk about. The closeness she misses with her own best friend. The late night conversations she’ll never get back. How could Jonathan not want to grasp at that when she’s lost it?
She doesn’t know the difference between isolation and solitude.
When he does, finally, see them together it’s at the first football game of spring. Steve seems...fine. Happy, even.
Jonathan takes a picture of them, then Nancy, then Steve. When they’re developed, it’s easier to see they’re none of them happy, really.
Even Steve Harrington.
He doesn’t apologize, exactly. But he works up the nerve to sit with them at lunch that Friday, and Steve takes it for the olive branch it is.
They don't become a group of friends the way Will’s group is. In fact from what Jonathan can see, Steve and Nancy only ever hang out with one another, but he gathers that’s a normal fare for couples. Some things become habitual. Steve comes around the library when Nancy and Jonathan are studying, and no one tenses. Nancy visits the darkroom if Jonathan skips lunch, and Steve only shows up there when he skips class. They both treat it like church, going silent and still and watching Jonathan work. The gossip eventually moves on to newer, fresher targets.
It’s all very ordinary.
“Nice day for pictures.”
“...sure.”
It’s starting to rain, and maybe Steve’s suggesting they should take their conversation, if it is that, inside. Jonathan lets it die instead and raises his lens to snap another picture of some crushed cigarette butts behind the bleachers.
Steve runs a hand through his hair. It flattens for a moment before springing back to its full height. It’s just long enough for Jonathan to catch it in his fisheye. Steve glares down the lens, half-insulted, half-amused.
“Worried all the product will bleed out?” Jonathan snorts a laugh, lowering his camera.
“Haha.” Steve’s glare dims into something different, edging into concern. The thought of feelings and Steve make the hair on the back of Jonathan’s neck prick anxiously. Steve’s so...friendly sometimes, so open and honest, that it’s a near pain talking to him. Talking, just the two of them, rarely happened for a reason. “I'm worried about Nancy.”
Oh good. Nancy’s a safe topic.
“Her mom and mine, they talk. Said her grades were dropping.”
“Nancy?”
“Yeah,” Steve scoffs, sounds equally incredulous. “And I know she's not sleeping well. Would you just...talk to her for me?”
“She's your girlfriend, you talk to her.” Jonathan ducks under a beam of the stands, heading towards the side door of the library. The rain is getting heavy enough for him to worry about his equipment.
A hand on his wrist stops him.
“What you two went through,” Steve’s hand slips on his jacket’s material, but it just leaves him holding Jonathan’s fingers instead, and Jonathan transfers the camera to his other hand looking a little shocked. “I mean I was there, but...hey, hey!”
Whatever hopes Jonathan had that this is an accident are dashed as Steve grabs at him more firmly, turning his hand skyward. He knows exactly what Steve’s looking at.
“Just talk to her please?”
Jonathan stares at the scar on his hand underneath Steve's fingertips and knows he’s lost. “All right.”
Steve’s smile is blinding. “Thanks, man.”
“Steve, can you...please let go of my hand now?”
“Oh, sorry, sorry!”
Nancy seems fine to Jonathan.
Granted, he’s not the gold standard in that regard, but Steve had asked his opinion, so here he was...observing. And there Nancy was studying and looking, for all intents and purposes, fine.
“Steve isn't my boyfriend,” Nancy says when Jonathan comes right out and asks if she’s okay. That her boyfriend is worried about her. He leaves out her mother because by all appearances the girl was smothered enough without needing to know about it. “Did he tell you we were dating?”
No, Jonathan reflects, Steve hadn’t. But neither were jumping to correct anyone on that point until now so….
“I just thought…” Jonathan lets the sentence wander with his thoughts. Maybe Nancy would pick up on both.
“I’m...I broke up with him because I'm leaving at the end of this year.” She blinks a little harder than usual. “I can't stay here anymore...” She sets her jaw, and Jonathan feels guilty at how glad he is that she’s the kind of girl who shouts at the world instead of cries. He’s not had to deal with a crying Nancy Wheeler as of yet, but he privately thinks that may be more in Steve’s wheelhouse.
“God I don't want to leave Mike alone, but,” she lets out a long breath, “it's too much you know?”
He did. He was having the same inner conflict regarding Will and his upcoming move to NYU. No matter how excited his mother and brother are for their so-called exciting escape to New York (that is the eleven hour drive to drop him off and get a bit of exploring in), his gut twists when he thinks of Will, alone for hours at the house. Or his mother forgetting to eat again.
But he had worked for that scholarship. And higher education means more money later. It means Will not having to work so hard to go to college himself.
Maybe, an insidious voice whispers, maybe...
What if something happens to Will or mom while you’re away, it says. Would it be worth it to leave? What if...what if...
Best not to think about it.
"Where are you going?" he asks her.
"Caltech. I think."
Caltech. She’s practically thrown herself on the other side of America from him.
"With your new grades?" He tsks, mock stern.
"I got a C in Honors History." She gives him a look that says, don’t scold me, Jonathan Byers, these eyes have seen monsters, and these hands have slain them. It was a look he had seen before she had done either, but of course, neither of them recognized it.
With her mouth, she says, "That's the trouble with being a perfect student. The C may as well stand for calamitous.”
He smiles and, surprisingly, finds he means it. "Good luck, Nancy Wheeler."
"Thanks.” She looks confused. “Hey, Jonathan, it's not like it'll be goodbye. I'll be back to visit. Holidays and stuff."
"Of course." He couldn't make the same promise. Eleven hours was a drive, and flights are an expense he can't afford, even two hour ones.
She points at his camera. "Picture for the road?"
“You’re not leaving now, are you?” he teases. “I’m pretty sure it’s lunch time in the Sunshine State.”
“Well it’s supper time here.” She smiled, picking up the books she had scattered around her. “And Mom’s making breakfast foods.”
Jonathan laughs. “Yum.”
Jonathan gets his acceptance letter a week after Nancy. Steve is accidentally the first person he tells.
He would have told his mom or Will if he had the choice, but suddenly Steve is on his doorstep with a box of stuff from Nancy’s house.
“I think half of this is Will’s, but I know some of this is yours.” Steve digs through, pulling out a beaten sweater wrapped inside a jacket. “Hey, that’s mine…”
“She could have kept them.”
“Not much room in a dorm.” Steve leans against the box on the hightop counter. “And her mom’s suburban, you know?” He grins unrepentant. “Likes to keep things tidy.”
“You mean she’d burn our clothes?”
“I do mean she would burn our clothes, yes.”
“Well, we can keep it in my closet, I guess. I’m pretty sure Mom hasn’t looked in there since I was afraid of a monster.”
And how recent was that, he considers? They both politely ignore each other’s twin shudder, and Steve says, almost offhandedly, “I love your mom.”
Jonathan purposefully doesn't think about the memory of Steve shouting abuses about her at his back.
“Is it hard staying here?” Steve asks, settling the box at the back of the closet.
He's looking around now, remembering the last time he was here probably, when all the Christmas lights were up, and Jonathan was dragging him by the hand over a bear trap and away from monstrous jaws.
Jonathan thinks about the spot in the hallway where the bear trap had been, where they’d watched a monster burn. “Good memories outweigh the bad I guess.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to get morbid.” Steve sits on the edge of the bed, silent for a beat. Jonathan wonders frequently if that’s as long as he’s capable of maintaining. “Nancy won't come to my house after what happened.”
After Barb, Jonathan silently fills in, sitting on the floor next to Steve’s feet. He thinks he understands. She tries not to come here, either. How uncomfortable does this place make her, he wonders? How uncomfortable is Steve now?
“How are you?”
Steve looks shocked. "Um good, man. Yeah, I'm good. I applied for college but I’ll probably end up working for my old man. You?"
"Got into NYU." Jonathan says it out loud for the first time and feels warmth climb from his stomach to his chest.
He feels proud.
"What?!” He can’t see Steve’s face, but his voice is awestruck. He coughs and starts again. “I mean what? That's awesome!"
Steve slides to the floor to join him, their knees bumping in the process. Jonathan smiles despite himself.
“Everyone's leaving, huh?” Jonathan doesn’t think Steve’s expecting an answer. “I feel like everything that happened was a dream.”
"A nightmare," Jonathan grunts, and Steve laughs.
"Yeah,” he nods, “I'll look out for Will while you're gone. And your mom."
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I'm not going anywhere. I told Nance, you know, I’d take care of Mike where I could. What’s one more kid?” Steve shrugs, and his ears are red (what part Jonathan can see behind his ridiculously large hair). “Just don't forget to send a postcard from your fancy learnin' school.”
Jonathan stares at him and thinks, not for the first time since he heard it, you're an idiot, Steve Harrington.