angelstate

Steve is extremely tired. He can feel his eyelids fighting the heavy weight of his sleepiness with every blink, trying to keep himself from dosing off every few minutes. Where he is right now doesn't help his situation in any way. In fact, it's only making it worse. 

He's not complaining though, he couldn’t possibly come up with something even if he tried.

Your room is extremely warm, and during the evening of a winter day it seems like the perfect place to be. Heaven on earth, definitely.  And you're the angel keeping him company while he tries so very hard to not fall asleep by the sweet, soft sound of your voice.

It's cruel, he thinks. You're being cruel by doing this to him, making him choose between the most amazing sleep he'll ever get, and the privilege of hearing you speak with love coating every letter of every word you mutter.

“Are you listening to me, Stevie?” you murmur from beside him, your fingertips softly scratching against his scalp.

He hums non-committally. This deep, comfortable sigh leaves him, like a content dog in front of the fireplace.

His puppy eyes certainly do justice to that description. Though with his eyes now fully closed and him not even attempting to re-open them, you can't appreciate the full picture of his puppy-like beauty.

“Stevie” you whine softly in the shell of his ear, the smallest of pouts on your lips as you wait for him to open his eyes.

He responds with a small huff of faux-annoyance. peeling his eyes open and immediately being greeted with the most beautiful sight. Your face is insanely close to his, every speck of color on your eyes and the faint happy lines on your skin.

You look beautiful, you always do. But with the warmth light shining from behind you, making it appear as if you are wearing a halo and this soft feeling on his chest, like his heart might just burst because of the amount of love he feels for you.

Yeah, this is the most beautiful thing he’ll ever be able to witness.

“What?” He mumbles, rolling to lay on his back instead of his side. He’s not even embarrassed as he wipes the small bit of drool on the corner of his mouth, simply doing it with a lazy movement of his hand.

“You’ve slept the entire day” You tell him with an equal part of annoyance and amusement. “Wouldn’t you prefer to, I don't know, actually spend time with your girlfriend?” A sigh leaves your lips.

Steve huffs amusedly at your words, rubbing his eyes with his fists and yawning. “I was sleeping next to you the entire time” He finally says, voiced raspy with the last remains of sleep in his body.

“You had your back turned towards me almost the entire time. I was basically non-existent to you” You argue, moving your hands away from his hair and laying them on your lap. Looking away from him with growing indignation.

He groans the moment your hands aren’t touching him, his arm reaching over your lap and grabbing a hold of your hands, tightening his grip when you try to shrug off his touch. “Hey” he says, tone warm yet warning.

His eyes are giving you a look that is flickering this tiny amount of hurt at your attempt to escape his touch. It’s quickly snuffed out when he sees how you're still pouting, clearly upset at the fact you spend the entire day next to him, waiting for him to wake up and pay you even a modicum of attention. 

“I’m sorry, baby” Steve mumbles, moving closer to you till the side of your side is pressed against the side of his torso. His hand still in your lap, refusing to let go of your hand even if you aren’t reciprocating the action. 

“I didn’t mean to sleep the entire day” Steve murmurs. eyes analyzing your face while you still refuse to look at him. He is the one getting ignored this time. “I didn’t even notice I did” He adds a second later.

You look down at your lap, staring at his hand and how it is much bigger than yours, his skin warm and comforting. “I missed you the entire day” You whisper so quietly he almost didn’t hear what you said. 

Steve gets this funny, awful feeling on his chest at your words. He’s always been the one begging for love, to be noticed, for the people he loves to give him the time of  day and make him feel like he actually matters.

So to have you here, entirely sad at the wasted time you won't ever get back, at how he chose to doze off the entire day instead of doing things with you. Hell, even dragging you to fall asleep with him would’ve sufficed. That breaks his heart.

His heart hurts because yours do. 

Steve sits up on the bed, arms reaching for you and dragging you to his lap, sitting you sideways on him and hiding your face on the crook of his neck. His hand is in the back of your head, holding you in place while the other sneaks around your waist and pulls you flush against him. 

“I’m really sorry” He apologizes again, his words muffled by his lips pressed into your temple. Leaving small, sweet kisses in whatever part of you he can reach.

You simply curl up into him, humming at his apologeticness and wrapping your arms around his waist. Your nose nuzzling his pulse point before dropping a small kiss in that place, followed by more kisses on his beauty marks. 

“It’s okay” You reply a moment later. 

You know you’re being dramatic. Steve spends all his free time in your room or you in his, there isn’t a second of the day he doesn’t spend it thinking about the next time he’ll see you, hold you, kiss you.

He doesn’t do things on purpose. He never means to make you sad, and maybe that’s why you’re milking this slightly annoying situation, because when Steve is sorry, when he feels bad about something that isn’t even wrong. He gets so…so loving and caring

Maybe it’s his natural instinct to comfort you this way, maybe you’re kind of weird for enjoying being treated like the most fragile of people if it means to get Steve to hold you like this.

“Yeah?” He murmurs, resenting his chin on the top of your head and rocking your back and forth unconsciously. He always does this, it’s cute.

You hum once more, breathing out a content little sigh while shifting in his lap. Getting comfortable in his hold. 

The calming effect he has on you acts far too well though, or maybe he does it on purpose, you don’t know. What you do know is that you can feel the sleepiness cementing into your bones, like lava slowly spreading through a forest.

Steve notices you getting sleepy before you do. His body is intune with you and comprehends you far better than even you do. You don’t know what that says about either of you, but you don’t care right now.

“Are you falling asleep on me?” He asks after feeling your heartbeat matching his one and your breathing getting deeper and even in this lazy way your body has always done.

You don’t even hear half of his question, his voice simply edging you further into a state of rest that you had fought off the entire day in hopes that Steve would wake up and take you to a diner or to the movies.

“shh” You complain, eyebrows furrowing. “It’s my turn to sleep” Your words are a weak attempt at sounding serious. Steve simply finds it cute. He finds you cute.

Your voice had been not louder than the faintest of sound humans are possibly able to make, your expression – although he hadn’t seen it – had been one of pure annoyance. He knows it.

“wow, you’re mean” He teases in a whisper and shakes his head with amusement and love, no matter what you say or do, he finds himself loving you for it.

Steve’s hand soothing down your head while his fingers fixing each little knot that had formed during the day. He sees you huffing at his words, and he just knows you’re trying not to fall asleep so he doesn’t call you out for doing the exact same thing as him later.

You’re petty, but you're lovely. His pretty girlfriend who holds a grudge like nobody else yet still chose not to wake him up because you knew he was tired from his shift at the squawk and worrying about crawls and Dustin pushing everyone away.

Even though you wanted to spend time with him, You still acted selflessly and let him doze off in your bed for far longer than he should've.

“You can sleep” His voice is raspy as he tilts his head down and looks at you. “I won’t make a comment about it later. I promise” He mumbles. his hand moving its way up from your waist till he grabs a soft hold of your chin.

Steve knows immediately that you fell asleep before he even made the promise because you didn’t hold out your pinky finger to make him swear. And he’s double sure of it when you don’t attempt to hide your face the moment he grabbed a hold of it.

He can’t help the smile that forms on his lips when he moves your face from the crook of his neck. His eyes filled with your relaxed expression, mouth slightly parted and your eyelashes kissing your cheeks.

“God” Steve sighs, resting his forehead against yours. “I love you so much” He murmurs before pressing his lips against yours in a chaste kiss.

His heart hurts again, but this time is with all the love he has for you. He’s sure he’ll never feel anything even close to this for someone else, he is sure there won’t ever be someone else.

Steve is going to put a ring on your finger soon, he just has to figure out how to make it happen while hunting down Vecna and being in a quarantined town.

In the meantime, he’s entirely happy holding you in his arms while you sleep. And who knows, maybe one day there will be a baby with the same expression and sleepy stubbornness on his arms that you have.

It’s a cold morning, harsh autumn weather seeping into Jonathan’s room because of the poor isolation of the house and the window being slightly cracked open. He had forgotten to close it in the morning, and continued to forget when you both showed up late at night.

His mind had been filled with all variations of thoughts to remember, ranging from Will’s well being, what happened to your head, and the supposed weird animal you saw last night in the woods. 

Now he is knocked out cold on his bed, laying on his stomach, all soft snores and deep breathing  while you’re equally asleep, laying sideways on the bed, legs thrown over his waist and body tangled with blankets. 

He hadn’t planned on sharing the bed with you, despite his best efforts of trying to be a good friend, and letting go of the prejudice he has about you and simply seeing your request as something entirely innocent, he still has doubts about you.

Jonathan isn’t that good of a person, he has built opinions about people with only rumors and other people's perception into consideration. He didn’t need much more to form his thoughts on you, especially since you have almost the entire population of Hawkins High red with rage and hatred. 

He only stayed with you during the night because of that terrified look you gave him when he said he would leave you alone in the room and go sleep on the couch. In his opinion, your eyes had looked like something out of a horror film, wide open, pupils so big your eyes looked completely black and tears were gathering at the waterline.

You couldn’t bear the thought of being alone apparently, and Jonathan let himself accept that he was feeling the same way as you. He also had to force himself to forget all the things he had heard people whisper about you.

Like your tendency to get around with most guys, jumping at the smallest chance to crawl onto their bed just for some fun. How you’re a freak and do wild things in bed that if the Mayor found out, he would go and kick you out of Hawkins himself.

All this to say, your reputation is a horrible one and Jonathan Byres had never been the type of person to try and see if people were right about someone, simply accepting the so-called truth and running with it.

Not that it meant he treated people badly, he never spoke to anyone really. Busy life, shitty life, complicated life. Yeah, there was no free time to talk to people.

Jonathan doesn’t want to wake up, he would rather keep sleeping and pretending his life isn't falling apart in front of him. That his mom isn’t slowly going insane with sorrow and fear of where her little boy is, her precious boy.

God has a funny way of doing things in his life. One second Jonathan finds himself dreaming about his life as a film maker, you’re his muse in it, smiling big and pretty at the camera, and the next second, he wakes up by the sound of Joyce's voice across the hallway.

“Will? Will?” Joyce says softly "Sweetheart, can you hear me?” she mutters, voice shaky and unstable, tethering into the possibility of a sob.

Jonathan uses his arms to lift his torso from the bed, your legs sliding down to his thighs. The movement wakes you up too, a dull headache forming in the back of your head, still extremely sensitive after moving in your sleep.

“Will…Please…” You hear Joyce’s voice. Your eyes snap open, also sitting up in the bed with a small gasp of air, looking at the closed door of Jonathan’s room then at him.

His bed hair is cute, you doubt yours evokes the same feeling. Dried blood still on your hair and slightly matted over, nothing showering couldn’t fix though.

“Will…” Joyce mutters once more, this time the sound is concerning enough that Jonathan grabs his shirt from the dresser and stands on the bed, your legs falling into the mattress. He only grunts before he lifts his legs over you and leaves the room.

Jonathan opens the door of Will’s room as he puts on his shirt, that’s where the sound of his mom’s voice is coming from, muffled and broken in a way only people who had something they adore get taken from them can speak.

“It's me. Just talk to me. Talk to me. Just say…” her words turn into a stammered mess, rocking her softly as she’s sitting at the end of the bed of her youngest son. 

There’s a semi circle of lamps surrounding her, all of them taken from different rooms and brought here for some weird reason. The sight is strange, and Jonathan can already feel his patience and heart breaking and reaching the limit of how much anguish they can handle.

“Mom?” He says, tone unsure and groggy. His eyebrows are furrowed as he looks at the sight in front of him.

Joyce snaps her gaze towards the door at the sound of his voice. Her face is wet with tears and her bottom lip quivers in aftershocks of how much she must’ve been sobbing during the night since he doubts she had slept at all.

“Jonathan!” she sounds surprised and relieved before stammering. “Come here. Come here” signaling him with her arms to get closer and sit on the bed next to her.

“Mom, what is this?” He asks, doubling down in confusion every second that passes, even more when he looks at his mom and sees how truly disheveled he is. 

“Come here” she sniffles and Jonathan approaches, sitting down beside her as Joyce grabs a hold of his hand. “What’s going on?” He asks her once again, a bit afraid at the way she is behaving and how fragile and drained she looks right now.

“It’s Will. It’s Will, he’s…he’s trying to talk to me” Joyce explains, moving her bangs away from her eyes. He can’t help  but look at his mom like she’s grown a second head, maybe she has gone crazy, maybe disappearing the whole day yesterday was a terrible idea if being alone did this to his mom.

Her breathing shakes, eyes looking around the room at the different lamps. “He’s trying to talk to you?” Jonathan questions her, incredibly confused by her behaviour.

Joyce looks at the ceiling for a second before dropping her gaze to the lamps again, pointing at them with her trembling right hand. “Yes, through…through the lights.” She stutters out, eyes wide.

“Mom–” She interrupts Jonathan. Raising a hand to signal him to be quiet, eyes dancing around the room like she can’t stare at a spot for more than two seconds “I know.”

“I know” she repeats. “Just…just watch.” she takes a shaky breath. “Will… your brother’s here.”

Jonathan looks down teary eyed, not knowing what to say or do. His heart aches at the state of his mother, at the way she is so sure of something that sounds completely made up. God, he fears she has gone crazy.

“Can you show him what you showed me, baby?” Joyce asks at nobody in the room, her eyes moving once again over the room. Like Will is part of the air and not just a boy. Human, visible, someone that can be held.

“Please…”She whispers, and in that exact moment, one of the lightbulbs flickers for a second, glowing yellow before dimming into nothing once again. Joyce gasps, pointing at it.

“Did you see that?” She asks Jonathan. He’s exasperated at this point, not willing to feed into her delusions. He is only a kid-

“It’s electricity, Mom.” He tells her, turning her head to the side and holding both of her hands on the bed. “It’s acting up.” He adds a second later, trying to make eye contact with Joyce while she keeps on looking away from him.

“No-” She tries to say. "It's the same thing that fried the phone.” He tries to convince Joyce, but she only rips her hands away from his hold, shaking her head and resuming on crying softly while denying his words. 

“No! It is not the electricity, Jonathan.” She sobs, moving her hands up and down like she is clawing at something. “Something is going on here!”

“Yesterday, the wall–”

“What? What about the wall?” Jonathan says frustrated, raising his voice, looking at the with his eyebrows furrowed before snapping his gaze towards his mom again.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Joyce exclaims, as frustrated as her son.

“Mom, first the light, then the wall?” He points at the wall.

“I-I just know that Will is here.” Joyce says, voice growing softer at the end.

Jonathan's eyes fill with tears, looking deep into her mother’s while saying. “No, Mom.”

For a second he feels as if she’ll snap back into herself, but then she looks away from him, lost in her thoughts before stammering. “Maybe if I get more lamps–” as she stands up from the bed, looking out the hallway.

“No, Mom. You don’t need more lamps” He grabs a hold of her face, also standing up to stop her from whatever she wants to do. “You need to stop this, okay?” 

“He is just lost.” He tries to reassure her. “People are looking for him, and they’re going to find him.”Jonathan knows that those words can only calm her to a certain extent, because the truth keeps remaining. Will is not home.

Joyce nods at his words with a shaky breath. “Okay” She mumbles, lowering herself down on the bed again.

“This isn’t helping” Jonathan tells her, sitting beside his mom while gripping her arms softly.

“Okay, okay.” She replies, looking down. “Okay, I’m sorry” Joyce whispers to him, rubbing his knee, trying to comfort her son while she is the one breaking down. She knows she is being a terrible mom, knows that her rants don’t help him feel any better.

But how can she not tell him these things when she believes them wholeheartedly? She knows she is right, she can feel it in her bones, in this room, in the flickering lights and the weird thing she saw last night trying to escape through the wall of  Will’s room.

She has no evidence however, and she knows she isn’t credible when she is so broken down by the disappearance of her little boy. She just wants his son home.

“I’m sorry” She sniffles.

“Can you do me a favour, Mom?” Jonathan looks at her with sadness. “Can you just try and get some sleep?” He pleads with her with a soft tone.

More sniffling from Joyce. “Yeah…” She says unsure. “Huh? Can you do that for me?” Jonathan asks her again, needing the reassurance that his mom will take care of herself. 

“I promise. I will” Joyce says while he rubs her son rubs her back, trying to calm her down. 

“Yeah” He says , relieved.

“I just need to sit here for a minute.” Joyce mumbles, looking down and then at his oldest son, putting on a brave smile.

“All right, I’ll go make breakfast.” Jonathan tells her, looking at the tears stains on her cheeks. His heart breaks a little at the sight of how truly distraught his mom is about the whole situation, but also because he could never fall apart like this in front of her.

“Okay?”

“Yeah” Joyce responds. 

With that, Jonathan gets up with a sigh leaving the room while Joyce looks back at him, heartbroken at doing this to him, but also knowing that if she wants to find her son, she can’t let this go.

He returns to his room with a gloomy expression, clearly bothered by the conversation he just had with his mom.

He knows he has to put on a brave face to mask his pain from you because he doesn't want a pity party, especially about something he knows is horrible but he can't change.

Can't pray the evil away when there is no evil, just the terrifyingly sad aspects of the human experience. Life. A very, shitty life.

You don't look much better – that's soothes his aches a bit, finally someone who looks just as tired as he is – 

Your eyes are half closed, every muscle in your face tense by what he can only guess to be a headache.

“Are you okay?” He asks, already knowing the answer but figuring that he should ask anyway.

“Yeah” You mumble with gritted teeth, trying – and failing – to blink the pain away.

“There's Tylenol in the bathroom, do you want some for the pain?” Jonathan suggests, eyes not looking away from your pitiful state.

He truly was wrong about the opinion he had of you all this time. You're like him, and that is extremely sad.

“I'd love that” You answer after a few seconds. Nodding your head and then wincing at the harsh movement.

Jonathan nods once and then leaves the room just as quickly as he came. 

You don't attempt to even move from your spot, closing your eyes and replaying the conversation Jonathan had with his mom.

It sounded so odd. Flickering lights? Something in the wall? Part of you feels like it knows the first detail from somewhere, buried deep down into your memories.

You can't make sense of it though, no matter how hard you try to remember where you know that piece of information from. Where it manifested in your life. Perhaps two years ago? Perhaps when the most valuable thing you had got taken from you and nothing made sense about it.

Jonathan comes back sooner than expected, or maybe you were too deep in thought to notice how much time had passed. Either way, he entered the room again, glass of water in one hand, and two white pills in the other.

You sit up in bed and he hands you everything he brought. Jonathan's eyes are glassy, something is clearly eating him up alive but he doesn’t bring himself to tell you anything just yet.

You swallow the pills with a little water but drink the whole glass – dehydrated from bleeding into his pillow apparently – as you look at the blood stains in his pillow cover from where your head was laying seconds ago.

It's a bit of a gnarly sight. “I'm sorry about that, I can wash it. I know how to get blood out of anything” You say with a small, weak smile.

He only shakes his head, taking a half a step closer before sitting on the edge of the bed. His mouth parts like he is about to ask a question but unsure how to phrase himself.

“Look” He starts, slapping his hands against his thighs and rubbing the sting away. “I don't want-” He furrows his eyebrows. “I don't want to force you to tell me anything, but that wound in your head” he points at it like you can’t feel the way it still throbs in pain.

“That's serious shit and you should get it checked out. Talk to Hopper too” Jonathan trails off at the last part shrugging. He isn't the biggest fan of Hopper at the moment. 

He knows the chief has more information about Will than what he has shared with Joyce and him. But he also knows that you can’t live the way you have all these years.

Even though that merely a day ago he was unaware of how much you actually are probably going through at home, he’s still worried. Worried that he’ll go to more funerals at his young age than he wants to.

Scared that yours will be one of them if you don’t do anything about whatever it is that has you bleeding from your head yet afraid to speak up about it. 

“You know, get help?” He adds a few seconds later. Your silence makes him uncomfortable, you're not even looking at him, eyes closed and mouth parted as you sigh.

“Jonathan” You say with a soft tone. “I appreciate you worrying about me, but i’m fine” You open your eyes and turn to look at him, the faintest of smiles appearing on your lips.

“I fell down and hit myself with the corner of a coffee table” Lie. “but I’m totally fine” Lie again.

“I just need to wash off the blood and be careful for a couple of days” You reassure him, patting one of his hands for a second before standing up. Stretching your limbs till you hear the soft pop of your joints.

Jonathan simply stares at you. He doesn’t believe what you told him, but he knows that there’s nothing he can do about it. You’re lying, and it’s your decision if you want help from whatever it is that is hurting you.

But you don’t want help, do you? You don’t want to tell an officer what your dad does to you when the doors are locked and the lights are turned off. You don’t want to explain anything about the way you are raised.

Because it’s shameful, it’s taboo. It is so deviant and immoral that even thinking of saying it out loud makes you choke and feel like dying. It’s a truth you’d rather be buried with, Hawkins doesn’t deserve another piece of information to tear you down.

“Alright” He sighs, standing up too.

“I’ll go make breakfast” He turns to look at the hallway “You can shower and borrow some of my mom's clothes. She won’t mind” Jonathan takes a few steps towards his small closet, pulling out two towels before walking and handing them to you.

“I’ll leave the clothes outside of the bathroom door” He hesitated for a second, like he wanted to say something more but ultimately decided not to, simply walking out of the room and going to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

“He’s really weird” you think for a second before immediately scolding yourself for judging, as if you're in a much better position in life.

It is maybe the first time you’re wearing clothes that are close to something you’d wear. The earthy tones are pretty, and the softness of the long sleeved shirt is comforting in the strangest of ways. Something familiar about it.

Jonathan was kind enough to help you blow dry your hair. Or you were kind enough to allow him to help. He had such a worried expression when he saw you all dressed but hair still very much wet.

Still, the warm air had made your wound pretty happy. The pain decreased till it became dull and almost unnoticeable, though the area where the bottle had hit your head remained very tender and sensitive to even a soft tug of your hair.

Sadly, the enjoyment of the first somewhat normal yet calm morning you had every experienced, ended quicker than what you wished. You still had to go to school and resume your life as best as you could while swimming in all kinds of thoughts.

Jonathan drove the both of you but said goodbye in the parking lot. He had an urgency to his tone as he spoke that you didn’t bother to hold him up any longer. Letting him walk away while you took a bit longer to reach the building.

Classes passed by quickly because you couldn’t focus on anything other than the words Joyce had said during the morning. 

Flickering lights. It had reminded you of something but you couldn’t quite picture the memory, just the feeling of it.

It’s a familiar one, something you can’t quite remember but you know it’s there. Your heart aches every time your brain tries to picture the  missing memory and you know that must mean that it is important, you just blocked it out.

Flickering lights. Hawkins electricity is shitty, you know it better than anyone because the trailer always has the lights shut off. Not by lack of payment, you always make sure to pay the light and water bill. 

The wiring is old, years of use and mice chewing on the cords and making the electricity shut down. Flickering lights, though, that’s different. The lights don’t usually flicker, they just turn off immediately, something to do with a voltage sensor that makes the lamps so they don’t deteriorate as quickly.

However, you don’t have any clue about what Joyce meant about the wall. Maybe she saw a spirit or a ghost, something paranormal that scared her into thinking Will is trapped in the house or something like that.

It’s sad to think about it that way. That she is so struck by despair and grief that she will believe anything she can to not shatter the thought that Will Byres is still alive. Maybe for now he is, though you think he doesn’t have much time left.

God, you might just be an awful person.

Not as awful as Steve Harrington apparently, who is leaning against Jonathan’s car like he owns it, Tommy, Carol and Nicole by his side. They look stupid, but that’s nothing new.

“What are you doing leaning on Jonathan’s car?” You ask Steve as you walk towards him. Your eyebrows furrowed and gaze curious yet cold, people like him don’t deserve any warmth.

Steve looks at you with confusion, not understanding why you’re approaching him and  Jonathan’s car. His heart flutters with an emotion that is far too complicated for him to accept. He is King Steve after all, he has a reputation to maintain.

“What? you’re talkin’ to me?” He questions, pointing at himself with a raised eyebrow and this amused smile, like he can’t believe you actually have the guts to approach him.

Steve never expects people to question what he does, the only things he gets are pats on the back or cheers whenever he makes a stupid decision, whenever he flaunts and uses his popularity to get what he wants.

“Is there anyone else doing the shit I just said?” Your tone is harsher than what you meant to say. Coming to a stop a few feet in front of him, backpack hanging from one shoulder. “I guess the rumours are true, there really isn’t much going on in that head of yours, Steve” 

“It’s a sad sight, really. My heart goes out to you” You mock him, pressing your hands to your chest like your heart does indeed ache at his lack of intelligence.

“Are you always such a bitch?” Carol asks exasperated, clearly still hurt about what you told her yesterday. 

You don’t give her the pleasure of an answer, simply smiling at her sarcastically before turning your head towards Steve again. 

“Is it the idiots club meeting here or something? That's why you are standing here?” You mock them again, tilting your head with faux curiosity.

“It’s none of your business.” Steve replies, tone suddenly going cold. 

“Oh but it is.” You reply. “See, I don’t like when people like you get too close because of your condition” you pause, looking him up and down. “Might be contagious.” Your expression is one of clear disgust.

Not directed at him, not really. Just at the sight of him leaning on Jonathan’s car, acting like he owns everything that is inside of Hawkins High. Like just because he considers himself royalty, it makes him be so.

“Wow, a skank and a bitch?” Tommy says amused. Carol elbows him in the ribs, scoffing at his words before smiling. She clearly can’t choose between which emotions to feel, so she just goes through all of them.

“Answer the question, Steve.” You say. crossing your arms.

He stares at you for a moment. Steve feels sick to his stomach by the way you’re acting so worried about what he wants with Jonathan, like you care about what he has going on and don’t want King Steve to bother who apparently seems to be your new boyfriend.

He’s always stupidly wrong about everything.

“I just gotta ask him a few questions about his…work” He replies, shrugging like it’s no big deal. 

It’s clear he plans on doing something, he isn’t that stupid to think you don’t notice. That’s why he brought Tommy with him, because Steve knows he might need to be backed up. He knows he is about to do something that is wrong. 

Then, as if he was summoned by magic, Jonathan appears in the parking lot, coming to a stop beside you with his eyebrows furrowed and a cold expression clearly bothered by Steve and his friends resting against his car.

The people that have everything can’t seem to respect what little Jonathan has.

“Hey, man” Steve says casually, straightening up with his hands on his hips.

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asks, looking at them and then at you, his eyes softening just a fraction  of a second when his gaze falls on the crown of your head again.

He is a good friend.

“Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work.” Steve replies. Nicole’s red hair moving as she nods at Steve’s words, staring at him like he’d never spare her a glance if it wasn’t because of something like this.

“We’ve heard great things.” Carol says with a sarcastic tone. “Yeah, sounds cool.” Tommy adds, same tone of amusement he always has when something isn’t affecting him.

“And we’d just love to take a look.” Steve jumps in, a mean smirk forming on his lips. “You know, as…connoisseurs of art.”

“The pictures?” you think with confusion. Did he develop them?

Your mouth parts, the question forming on your lips. But before you can ask him, Jonathan is already speaking.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says, trying to push past them but Tommy grabs his bag and takes it from him.

 “Oh no?” Steve asks, and an ‘oh’ sound falls from his mouth when Tommy takes the bag and throws it at his arms for him to go through it.

“Please, give me my bag.” Jonathan says, trying to grab it but failing. 

You just stand there, looking at the interaction and trying to understand why Jonathan would develop the photos. You understood his need – not really – his need for taking them, but it’s another step to develop them and to do what exactly with them?

“Man, he is totally trembling” Steve mocks with a monotone tone, acting like this is no big deal. “He must really have something to hide.”

Steve begins digging through the bag, “Ah…” He says a few seconds after, pulling out the pictures Jonathan had taken. “Here we go.” He mutters before starting to look at each one of them.

Tommy is by his side, looking too with his stupid smile of someone who just saw the funniest thing happen but can’t allow himself to laugh. All while Nicole stands there with this bored expression. 

“Dude” Tommy suddenly says when he takes some of the picture from Steve’s hands, his face full of surprise when he notices Jonathan also took pictures of him.

“Yeah, this isn’t creepy at all.” Carol scoffs, taking some of the pictures from her boyfriend. Her expression is full of disgust and annoyance.

“Jonathan…” You say his name softly but he doesn’t turn to look at you.

“I was looking for my brother” He says with a hesitant voice.

“No, this is called stalking.” Steve corrects him, squinting his eyes like he is teaching Jonathan a lesson.

Then, because this situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. Nancy Wheeler shows up, face full of confusion and a bit of worry as she stares at everyone, her eyes stopping on you for a second too long, like she can’t understand why you're there.

“What’s going on?” She asks, turning to look at Steve again.

“Here’s the starring lady.” Tommy jokes, a stupid smile on his lips while staring at her.

“What?” Nancy sounds even more confused.

“This creep was spying on us last night.” Carol replies, looking at Jonathan and then at the pictures.

“He was probably gonna save this one for later” Carol stretches out her hand with one of the pictures towards Nancy. Nicole grabs it and hands it to her with the tiniest bit of smugness.

The picture is the one you told Jonathan not to take but he did so anyway. It’s one of Nancy, or her back to be more precise, she’s just beginning to pull off her shirt but only her lower back is showing.

Nancy stares at the picture for a second, her head tilting towards Jonathan and looking at him with disbelief, her mouth parted but no words coming out. She doesn’t know what to say.

“That’s not even the worst one.” Tommy suddenly says, his head snapping towards you. It’s a startling motion and it makes you jump a little, face contouring into one of confusion.

“Why are you looking at me?” You ask him, eyebrows furrowed once more.

“Oh” Tommy says with curiosity, his grin spreading. 

“Oh…She doesn’t know either.” Steve amuses, his monotone breaking slowly at the end with something bitter and harsh. Sounding far more offended on your behalf than he should.

“I don’t know?” You ask again, taking one hesitant step before deciding to simply approach Steve, standing with your feet almost touching his and taking the pictures out of his hands.

The first one you see is of broken branches, a tire in the background of it. The next one is of the pool party, Tommy and Carol in the pool, playing around. The next one however, isn’t one of Steve’s backyard or of the window where Nancy was standing. 

This picture is of you. You’re sleeping on Jonathan’s bed, laying on your side with your back facing the camera, completely unaware of being photographed.

“Why did you take this?” You ask Jonathan even though you don’t turn around. 

He keeps quiet. Instead, Steve speaks again. “Keep looking.” He tells you, but not a second after his hands grab the photos without taking them from you and showing you another one.

You’re still on his bed, this time laying flat on your back, clearly asleep. Your chest caught on the position of you inhaling,  You look pretty at first glance, but then you start to notice the details.

Where the crown of your head must’ve been resting there’s a clear stain of blood. Larger than the one you saw during the morning. This one in the picture was dark and surrounding your head, almost like a halo of hell.

You don’t want to see any of the other pictures.

“Why did you take this?” You ask Jonathan again, turning around this time. Your eyes clearly teary as you stare at him with an expression of pure betrayal.

He simply looks away, ashamed at being found out perhaps. Embarrassed that you saw the pictures before he had the opportunity to explain to you later that his intention was a good one. That when you decided to tell Hopper about what happened to your head, you would have proof.

“See, you can tell he knows it was wrong, but…” Steve suddenly starts speaking, placing his hands on your forearms and softly moving you out of the way and taking the pictures from you, before he steps towards Jonathan. 

“Man, that’s the thing about perverts…It’s hardwired into ‘em” He grabs the collar of Jonathan’s black flannel, straightening it before brushing with far too much force, dirt from his shoulder. “You know, they just can’t help themselves.”

He tears apart the pictures multiple times so that they no longer make sense. Tommy laughs from beside you, enjoying the show, like what happened was funny and not something terribly serious.

“So.. We’ll just have to take away his toy.” Steve says, like a parent deciding on what punishment he’ll give his child for misbehaving. 

He’s by your side again in no time, reaching on Jonathan’s bag and pulling out his camera.

“Steve…” Nancy mutters.

“No, please, not the camera” Jonathan pleads, trying to grab the object but Tommy stops him from getting closer, pressing his hand on his chest and pushing him away.

“No, no, wait, wait…Tommy, Tommy.” Steve interjects and his friend chuckles, looking back at him. “It’s okay.” He says with a calm expression, extending his hand for Jonathan to grab the camera.

“Here you go, man.” He offered. 

Jonathan let out a sigh of relief, but just as he was about to take it. Steve let the camera slip, causing it to smash against the concrete and break. The lens was clearly shattered. Jonathan looks down but doesn’t say anything, simply stares at what might’ve been the only nice thing he had ever owned.

“Come on, let’s go. The game’s about to start.” Steve states not even a few seconds after, walking past Nancy while his friends follow him.

You stay behind, staring at the torn apart picture on the ground. “Why would you do that to me?” You whisper softly, the tears finally falling from your eyes. “I told you it was nothing. I trusted you.” 

Jonathan keeps quiet yet again, dropping to the floor and picking up his broken camera. Nancy kneels down to grab a handful of the pieces of the pictures and shoving them into her back before standing up again.

For the second time this evening she looks at you. Her eyes are full of sympathy and when Steve shouts her name for her to come along she doesn’t answer, she just tilts her head to you, like she can’t understand why you seem so devastated.

After that she leaves and so do you.

Will Byres is dead. His body was found on the Quarry. The poor, innocent child fell from the cliff and drowned to death, scared and alone.

You find out about his death on the night of November 9th, 1983. Along with everyone in Hawkins because the news channel doesn’t know about respect, broadcasting the news as soon as they found out in the early hours of the morning that same day.

The same feelings you experienced two years ago come rushing back. This deep ache in your heart that makes you unable to breathe every time you think about the horrible news.

Will Byres is dead. He died and now he can’t go home anymore. He will never return home.

You’re worried about Jonathan, though you doubt he wants people to call or show up at his house to bring support. He is a reserved person.

Still, your heart is weak and you really want to be there for him. You want him to know that despite the pictures and everything that happened the last few days, you’re still there for him, you can understand him and his pain.

So, you call  his house. He isn’t the one that picks up the phone, Joyce is, her voice entirely unstable and shaky but she answers your questions with a sort of kindness you wouldn’t expect from someone who found out her son died.

She told you Jonathan was probably at the funeral home, arranging everything for Will. She didn’t sound like she cared about those details, and you didn’t blame her for it. You had been the exact same way with your mother’s funeral.

The city council had to take care of everything for you. You simply attended.

Now you’re parked outside of the building, taking a deep breath and debating what to tell him. How to make him feel better about something that can’t be fixed nor forgotten. 

There is no answer, or you can’t come up with one. So, after conjuring up whatever confidence and strength you have. You got out of the car and entered the funeral home.

It’s an elegant building, the carpet seems well kept, every corner is decorated in a tasteful and peace inducing way. You don’t think about it for more than a second though, you’re focused on finding Jonathan.

Though it seems that someone else had been looking for him too. Nancy Wheeler is sitting beside him, one of the pictures that had been ripped apart was in her hands, glued back together with tape.

Then she stands up abruptly, looking into your direction and your eyes meeting.

“Jonathan? Nancy?” You call out their names, looking at them with confusion.

“what’d he look like?” Jonathan asks Nancy and she turns around. He is looking at you, though. His eyes are red like he's holding back tears but it doesn’t seem to be about Will, it is about something else.

“What?” Nancy mutters. 

You approach both of them slowly. 

“This man you saw in the woods. What’d he look like?” Jonathan asks her.

“You saw a man in the woods?” You ask, even more confused.

Nancy looks between you and Jonathan, shaking her head. Her thoughts are all scattered and she can’t make sense of any of them. You hope that what you’re thinking isn’t true.

“I don’t know.” She whispers. “It was almost like he…he didn’t have–”

“He didn’t have a face?” Jonanthan and you say at the same time. Looking at Nancy because she confirmed something terrible. really, really terrible.

“How did you know that?” She says with hesitation, eyes widening when the reality starts sinking in. This is far worse than any of you had thought. There is something in the woods.

“I saw it too” You tell her, the words struggling to come out as you wrap your head around what all of this means. It wasn’t an animal, and it wasn’t a man. It was something else.

You don’t dare to say that conclusion out loud, because raising hopes about something you could be wrong about feels evil. Especially when this would dictate what really happened to Will. 

God, you hope he is okay. That he is alive somewhere in the woods.

“There’s one way to know for sure what it is” Jonathan breaks the silence. Standing up from the chair and taking a few steps towards you, grabbing your forearm in what you think is meant to be a comforting action.

It falls short, you’re still hurt about what he did. Though that doesn’t really matter right now, there’s much bigger things to worry about.

“So, Barb is missing now too?” You ask Nancy while entering the darkroom with her and Jonathan, both are oddly quiet now that you’re joining them for this. Though most people do this to you whenever you get close or join a conversation.

You really aren’t accepted in the majority of places you go. It’s tragic, you love to talk. You love people. You’d love to be loved.

“Yeah…She disappeared at Steve’s party” She replies, giving you this polite smile that you know means she doesn’t want to talk to you about it. 

“I know that…I just thought she had gone home” You shrug and Nancy furrows her shoulders.

“You were there?” She sounds perplexed. Had Jonathan not told her? Wasn’t it obvious you were with him after you told her you also saw the monster?

“Yeah? I was with Jonathan that night. He found me in the woods after running away from that weird thing” You say, tone definitely not kind nor soft. The distaste will be mutual if Nancy Wheeler doesn’t start to consider your presence something that some people might want.

“So…When he took the pictures–” 

“I told him not to do it” You cut her off.

“Right” She sighs, once again that fake polite smile forming on her lips.

You decide you hate Nancy Wheeler. Her dismissive attitude is far too big for someone who abandoned her friend at a party and now because of it the girl is missing. She needs an ego check, quickly.

You won’t be the one to give her that rude awakening though. You’re petty enough to let her wander life being a terrible woman to those who have never done anything to harm her.

God knows you have never once even shared a class together. There is no reason for her hostility masked as politeness.

“Did your mom say anything else?” Nancy asks Jonathan. “Like, um, where it might have gone to, or…” She trails off, staring at him while he does something in a machine to enlarge the picture.

“No, just that it came out of the wall.” Jonathan responds. Focus on what he is doing.

“She saw it too?” You question him with a raised eyebrow. “That’s what Joyce saw the other day?”

“Yeah, um, last night she saw it again” He turns to look at you for a second, eyebrows furrowing for a second before he realized you had heard the conversation he had with his mom that morning.

Grabbing a hold the new enlarger picture and placing it in the developer, moving the tray slightly to coat it completely.

“How long does this take?” Nancy says curiously, looking at him. 

“Not long.” You tell her. Standing next to Jonathan while she moves to his other side.

“Have you been…doing this a while?” She asks Jonathan, looking at the tray where the picture is developing.

“What?” He asks distractedly. His eyes shifted between the tray and Nancy.

“Photography?” She clarifies.

“Yeah…” He replies simply. “I guess I’d rather observe people than, you know…” Jonathan slows down his words, hesitating.

“Talk to them” You finish his sentence, it’s not louder than a whisper but he still turns his head to look at you. You can almost see how he almost smiles at your words, but he decides not to.

“It’s just sometimes…people don’t really say what they’re really thinking.” He’s still staring at you. Voice raspy and warm.

“But you capture the right moment…” He looks down at the tray again, the picture slowly developing. “It says more.” He sighs, tilting his head to the side.

“What was I saying?” Nancy asks him. Looking into his eyes when Jonathan looks at her confused.

“When you took my picture” She adds, tilting her head like it was obvious. Which it was, Jonathan is just distracted.

“I shouldn’t have taken that.” He replies, rubbing his chin with his hand. “I’m uh…I’m sorry” He apologizes to her. 

It would be nice if he said sorry to you too, but it’s not the time nor the place to demand an apology from him. Especially if he isn’t sorry about yours.

Nancy's eyes fall to the tray once more. The picture is fully developed, you follow her gaze and there it is.

The monster.

“That’s what I saw” She says, her big eyes snapping towards you. “Is that what you saw too?” She asks you, leaning closer.

“Yeah…” You whisper, nodding your head, not able to look away.

“My mom…I thought she was crazy.” Jonathan says, voice shaky while pointing at the picture. “ ‘cause she said…that’s not Will’s body. That he’s alive” He’s breathing shortens, turning to look at Nancy once more.

“Holy shit” You think.

“And if he’s alive–”

“Then Barbara” Jonathan replies.

“My mom…” You murmur to yourself. 

Her body had claw marks and looked like it had been attacked before her death. The doctors had said it probably had been a bear but you know there’s no bears in the entire state of Indiana since the 1800’s.

Could it have been this thing that attacked her? Did this monster kill your mom and then left her body hanging on a tree? 

Your dad hasn’t been home. The trailer was in the exact condition as you left it days ago, there’s still glass shattered on the floor, cigarette butts in the same place your dad dropped them on the floor the other night.

You cleaned everything the moment you returned home after developing the picture of the monster with Jonathan and Nancy. It took the entire evening and you fell asleep in your room the moment the job was finished. 

Now is morning again, far too early for your liking but you have to be there. You have to go to Will Byres funeral.

Which is horribly nostalgic to what you lived two years ago. The cemetery isn’t a place you step inside of willingly, your mother isn’t there, just her bones. And that doesn’t mean anything to you, the parts of her you loved left this earth.

The sound of her laughter doesn’t exist anymore, the sound of her murmuring I love you has no proof of having ever happened, and the warmth of her eyes has rotted a long time ago.

Still, you want to. For Jonathan, for Joyce and for yourself. That’s why you take out the funeral dress you bought when your mother died and put it on. Combing your head and putting on a bit of makeup to look presentable.

To show that you care about what happened. Even if some people will surely twist your presence into something ugly a few days from now.

The entire seventh grade class of Hawkins Middle School along with their parents and some teachers are present. Nancy and Jonathan’s dad too.

“It’s times like these that our faith is challenged.” The pastor speaks while holding a bible. You recognize his face, you recognize those words.

“How, if He is truly benevolent, could God take from us someone so young, so innocent?” He continues speaking and you feel yourself getting sick at his words. “It would be easy to turn away from God…” It is indeed very easy.

“But we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love” That isn’t love.

The death of Will Byres isn’t love in any shape and God shouldn’t have the right to harm someone who had only ever been good and kind. Even if that fragile, beautiful boy isn’t dead, if he’s truly out there like some believe.

Then it still isn’t fair to make him suffer alone, to send monsters after him, and see if he’s worth saving.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Byres and Mr. Byres” You say after approaching the second the funeral ended. A soft smile on your lips that you hope reflects what you can’t bring yourself to say.

Lonnie smiles back at you, his head tilting to the side while he studies your face, his eyes trailing up and down before he looks into your eyes again. “Thank you for coming today…Do I recognize your face from somewhere?” He asks, grabbing your hand and placing his other one on top of it.

“I don’t think so” You reply, your smile faltering for a second. 

“Your face looks familiar to me, do I know your parents?” He questions, looking behind you as if they could be around here. 

“Maybe…They didn’t come here though…My dad wasn’t, um, feeling well” You answer him, the excuse coming out totally unbelievable but nobody questions anything in settings like this. Nobody ever challenges what’s said in a funeral.

“That’s a shame.” Lonnie says, dropping your hand before smiling. “I’m glad you were able to come to support Jonathan” he finishes speaking, patting your shoulder softly before turning towards Joyce.

“He’s fucking weird.” You think the moment you walk away from him.

Jonathan approaches you later on, his jacket clearly holding a box of something inside, the rectangular shape gives it away almost immediately. 

“What exactly do you have there?” You ask him, poking at his chest where one of the boxes is on the inside pocket.

“Bullets” He replies, shaking his head right after. “I took the gun from my dad’s glovebox” He explains quickly.

“Look, Nancy and me…We want to come out and kill that thing tonight” Jonanthan says, a sigh escaping his lips, like he can’t quite believe his words either. 

There’s a silence that follows after he speaks, you are waiting to hear in which part of the plan you’re included but it seems Jonathan doesn’t have a role for you, nor is he asking for your help.

“Okay…” You clear your throat, shoving your hand on the pockets of your jacket. “What do you want me to do?” You ask hesitantly, already feeling how he is going to dismiss you.

“I dont…” He cuts himself off. “You shouldn’t involve yourself more, I already made it enough of your problem and you don’t have anything to do with what happened.” He explains himself, wincing at his one words.

“And Nancy Wheeler does?” You scoff. 

“Barbara went missing because of that thing” He defends her.

“Yeah…and that thing almost had me as a meal before I ran away” You argue, sounding more harsh than you meant to. “I want to kill it too” You say after a few seconds, voice almost entirely quiet.

You don’t add the fact that if something were to happen, you’d be willing to be the one that dies.

Jonathan has a family that loves him, a mother whose heart is already wrecked by the loss of one of her sons. He can’t risk leaving his mother alone in this world if something were to happen, There’s only so much a heart can take.

It’s the same thing with Nancy Wheeler, she has a family too. People who love her, siblings to see grow up, and a mother that looks entirely beautiful and understanding. She has something to return to, has reasons to stay alive and flee if something went wrong.

You…you can risk it all and still come out the same way you entered that fight, empty handed. There’s nothing that stops you from doing whatever it takes to get rid of that horrible monster that has taken so much from Hawkins.

Furthermore, if it is true what you think and it had something to do with the way your mother died, then you want to spill it’s guts on the floor and see it die by your hands. You want any amount of justice you can get, even though it won’t bring her back.

“It’s probably going to be really dangerous” Jonathan insists. 

“We have to kill it Jonathan” You insist back. “We know it took Will and Barb, but what if he’s out there killing other people too? You need all the backup you can have to make sure this thing dies” 

Jonathan looks at you for a moment. He’s scared for you, he’s worried this means something entirely different for you, that the limits that most people have when encountering danger aren’t the ones you have.

He also knows you’re right. If he truly wants to kill that thing then he’ll need help. Him and Nancy isn’t enough, but with you there might be a bigger chance to make this thing pay for what it did.

“Fine.” He agrees.

You don’t show up into the woods till it’s entirely dark out. Mainly because Jonathan clearly wasn’t thrilled at the idea of having you join and you were sure Nancy probably feels the same way about it.

You don’t care enough about it to not show up, though. They also make it far too easy to find them even with the massive size of the Hawkins woods. They’re not too far into the forest from Steve’s house, maybe three miles north east.

Their flashlights make them visible from afar and you're quick to approach them, walking completely empty handed, only a stupid smile on your face as you notice how uncomfortable and silent they are next to each other.

“Miss me?” You say when you're only ten feet away from them.

Nancy turns to stare at you, a sigh that sounds close to relief leaves her mouth. She starts approaching you too, cutting the distance even more until she’s walking back alongside you.

“I’m glad you showed up.” She says with a soft tone.

Jonathan simply stays quiet moving forwards too. He’s clearly in an awful mood and you can only make up scenarios in your head about what they talked about that has him so mad at her. It’s very funny to you.

There can’t have passed more than ten minutes of peace and silence till Nancy stops walking, looking around with a confused expression.

“What, you're tired?” Jonathan asks, tone frustrated and condescending towards her.

You scrunch up your face and look at him weirdly because of the harshness of his tone. Even though you’re not the biggest fan of Nancy, you would rather die than side with a man whose being mean to a girl who has – as far as you know – done nothing to him.

“Shut up” She simply says then falls into a whisper. “I hear something.”

As if on cue, somewhere in the distance a whimper is heard. You recognize the sound almost instantly, it’s the same one the deer you saw die made when it was agonizing. This awful high pitched shriek that breaks into a whimper in the end.

None the wiser, Nancy pulls you by the arm towards the sound and Jonathan follows from behind. Their flashlights illuminate the way till you find a deer laying on the ground, clearly in pain.

It doesn’t have bite marks. “Oh God. It’s been hit by a car.” Nancy says with sadness. kneeling in front of it. Jonathan and you doing the same thing. “We can’t just leave it” She adds with the gun already in her hand.

Before anything can be done about it, the dying animal is suddenly dragged away with force by something. Starling all of you into scrambling backwards.

“Where did it go?” You ask confused and afraid. Looking around frantically.

“I don’t know.” One of them answers. You're too distracted to notice which one it was, already moving towards the direction in which you saw the deer be dragged away.

“It has to have gone somewhere” Nancy says from beside you, handing you the gun and walking further in front of you with the light pointing deeper into the woods. 

You don’t say anything else, moving another direction in search of the deer laying close by. The wood is very silent now, eerily so. There is no sight of any other animal close, just leaves and small droplets of what you think is blood around you.

“Jonathan?” You call out to him, is there blood over there too?” You ask him, kneeling on the floor and touching the liquid slowly. It is far too viscous to be blood – you realize quickly – Like the slimy layer of mucus river frogs are covered by to protect their skin.

That seems awfully familiar right now. Almost as if you had the exact same thought recently.

“Jonathan?” You ask, turning around to see him calling out Nancy’s name in front of a tree, his light pointed at the lowest part of the trunk.

“Nancy?” He says once more, his expression one of pure worry and confusion.

“Where’s Nancy?” You mutter while walking towards him, the gun in your hand shaking slightly because of how scared you are right now.

Part of you wished you had listened to him and stayed out of it. It’s too late now.

When you get close again you see it. There in the tree is this layer of the same viscous thing you touched, but it goes deep into the inside of the tree trunk, like it’s rotting from the inside out. It moves as if it were breathing, live tissue of sorts that glows a soft red.

“What the fuck is that?” You reach out your hand slowly, touching the slimy veil with your fingers, making them wet and sticky. Jonathan winces from beside you, calling out Nancy’s name once more, sounding a bit more desperate.

“Nancy?” He stutters.

Her hands rips apart the layers of tissue in one second, immediately grasping at your wrist with enough force to cause a bruise and crying out Jonathan’s name with horrible panic.

You scream too, before Jonathan grabs a hold of Nancy’s arms and begins to tug to pull her out. You start doing the same thing a second later. The poor girl straining and groaning in pain while she slowly comes out.

With one final pull she falls on top of both of you, making your back slam against the wet floor. She doesn’t care about it though, her arms wrapping about both of you and bringing you into one of the tightest hugs anybody has ever given you, her sobs right next to your ear.

“It’s okay, it’s okay” You say in a rush, sitting up and your arm wrapping around her with the same amount of strength and your face hiding in her neck. 

“You’re okay. We got you” Jonathan adds, his arm also wrapping around Nancy while the other grabs a hold of your jacket from behind. All while staring as the hole in the tree closes itself shut.

What the fuck is going on in Hawkins? 

@stydiaforeverbitchezz @4ria790 @kamisama1kiss @multifandombliss @aerissblog @oliveoil422 @scaramou @slut4rafee @transparentbreadtac @mlt2000 @arilevinsonwifey @cciessuzi @strawberry1e @dreamerjj @littleemissperfecttt @archxve @tofeartheunknown @leclercdream @counterstr1ke @keepdrlving @accioboobear-blog

You don’t normally let people go inside your room. You have had reservations about it since you were a little girl, refusing to have friends come over because you didn’t want them to see your safe space, ashamed of something, though you didn’t know what it was.

With time it got better, not fully, not in a way your mother was completely happy about, but better. Then, you got worse all together. 

Somewhere around your tenth birthday, a pool party with all your friends to fight the horribly high temperatures July brought to Hawkins. It had been so nice at first, eating junk food and drinking soda, buzzing on sugar while jumping on the trampoline.

Then it came time to get in the pool, and that meant wearing a swimsuit in front of all your other friends and their parents, judging eyes wherever you looked. Not that you had looked, blissfully unaware of how weight looked on your bones.

Until someone did say something. Hannah’s Compton dad. “She’ll need bigger clothes if she keeps up the good appetite” It had been meant as a joke probably, a lighthearted comment that wasn’t intended to make you feel bad, but it did.

That moment, being put under this light where your body is something people can comment on, to discuss it with others like it’s the weather. It broke you, it made food a punishment and a reward, and you were the judge. 

Now, many tears and years later, the habit is still there. You don’t normally notice it, if ever. You’re used to your reality, choking down food like it’s the last meal you’re ever going to have and then going hungry for days.

You don’t even think about the calories half the time, because it often isn’t about that, it isn’t about how bad or good it is for your body. It’s about how the weight looks, where the fat forms when you’ve binged eat for a few days and it starts showing up.

It's about if your collarbone is visible or not, how skinny your neck and thighs are, how prominent your cheekbones are after starving yourself the week before the winter dance just so you could feel pretty in the dress your mother bought you.

One size too small. “A goal for you to put in the effort” Your mom had said, this genuine smile on her lips, like she was doing you a favour. 

All this to say, you’ve gotten better at your bad habits, at letting go of some and not noticing others.

Like right now.  Mike, your beautiful, awesome, nerdy boyfriend is sitting on the floor of your room, dnd related papers scattered all over your wooden floor. It has something to do with the new campaign he had been making  for the party to play this Saturday.

He is visibly stressed, eyebrows furrowed with this annoyed expression that not being able to come up with something for the story so that it could expand and last at least two more weeks, since then is when school is starting and he doesn’t have half the imagination at the moment to come up with something new in those future weeks.

You, on the other side, find yourself stressed about something completely different.

School starts in two weeks, marked down on your calendar with a big, red circle that brings you anxiety every time you look at the date, getting closer and closer while you remain looking like, well, you.

You’ve had a bad few weeks of binge eating at the start of summer, you can admit that to yourself, since you refused to go swimming at Lover’s lake Mike that whole entire month. Now you’re not binge eating anymore.

You are purging, not eating meals, simply snacking small bits of food so that nobody can notice your aversion to eating. Using that time to go on walks mostly to Weathertop, climbing all the way up and using Dustin’s cerebro to listen to Indianapolis radio stations, their music selection being a lot better than the one of Hawkins.

It’s been almost three weeks since you started avoiding food. Most times you’re happy with your body, and you can allow yourself to eat something, a reward for having self control despite how hungry you are all the time.

However, you also think it is important to check your progress, keep mental images of you at different weights to gauge in the future how you look, if it could be better or if it could be worse. 

With that reminder popping into your brain you sit up in bed, placing the book you had been reading beside you and slowly sliding yourself down the bed till you were at the foot of it, avoiding Mike's disaster of papers on the floor and standing in front of the mirror.

Grabbing a hold of your t-shirt and lifting it up just below your chest, revealing the soft skin of your stomach and the way it had clearly gotten flatter by your borderline starvation. It looks pretty, up to your stupid standards, which surprises you.

It almost feels like maybe you went a little too hard this time, losing more weight than normally. You could tell by the way your ribs are more prominent, easy to notice even with a brief look at the stretch of skin covering it.

“I think i really lost weight this time” you mumble to yourself, busy staring down at your reflection in the mirror, inspecting every detail that wasn’t covered by clothes.

your eyes trail down your hips and thighs, skin mostly exposed and their shape clear by the skin-tight fit of your shorts. Your lower body is significantly smaller under your judging eye, another thing you can congratulate yourself about despite how horrible your weeks have been because of the constant hunger and stomach pain.

“might be too skinny for most of my jeans” you say, again not louder than whisper. It’s supposed to be a comment for your ears only, a set of words that only you get to discuss with yourself about. 

Instead, Mike decides he also has an opinion to share.

“not with how much you eat” He mutters under his breath, not even lifting his head to look at you. Eyes still transfixed in the pieces of paper in front of him, reading over and over again the one where he has the plot points of the campaign.

The comment floats in the air for a few seconds, the room going completely silent and filling with tension that wasn’t there moments ago.

Your hands let go of your t-shirt, falling back in place and covering your stomach. Still, you feel this sudden urge to cover yourself completely, to crawl into a cage and hide there till the shame dies down and so does your hunger.

You can’t even conjure up the strength to turn around and face Mike. Part of you thinks like him, God, almost three weeks ago you would’ve told yourself the same thing. That you’re not skinny because you eat like a pig, that you’re disgusting, and horrible and undesirable.

It’s hard to breathe.

You can feel your heart hammering against your ribcage and trying to escape, probably to slap your boyfriend in the face and tell him he should be kind to you, that no matter how frustrated he is, he shouldn’t make such comments, especially when they are not true at all.

Mike comes to that conclusion himself though, a whole minute after the words escaped his mouth without thinking them through. His head snaps forwards and to the side, eyes wide and mouth agape like he had been the one receiving such horrendous words.

“I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that” He says, pushing himself up with his hands and standing there, trapped between his mess of papers and looking at you with guilt.

“I didn’t even realize what I was saying” He adds, hands lifting his arms up to his shoulders before dropping them, seemingly at a loss of words and completely empty of ideas on how to fix the situation. 

You stare at him through the mirror, clearly teary eyed and deeply hurt, your lower lip quivering with a barely contained need to cry at his harsh comments. You try to remind yourself that you know Mike, that he truly didn’t mean it in a bad way or in any way at all.

It’s a sensitive subject, that’s all. It hurts because you’ve said those words to yourself multiple times, and it had been okay because it had been you the one to comment on how much you ate, but to have your boyfriend be the one to say something, that stung.

Correction, that broke your heart.

“That was mean” You mutter, lip quivering once more before a tear falls from your eye, followed by another and another till you're basically sobbing in front of the mirror while staring at him like he killed a puppy in front of you.

This crushes his heart too. It shatters it in fact, and all the broken pieces fall to his gut and turn melted lead, hot and heavy with shame of his stupid mouth and his inability to shut up when he has to.

He doesn’t even know why he said those words, he can’t find another reason other than being stressed and taking it out on you the moment you showed even the slightest sign of vulnerability in what he knows is your only safe space, your room.

Mike knows he fucked it up double time. He made you feel bad about your body, and he did it in your room, a place he had only been allowed to since only three months ago, at the end of freshman year after he had begged you for almost six months to even be given access to peer through the window for ten seconds.

He is ashamed about his words, he truly is. 

Mike has a problem with not being able to keep comments to himself, always wanting to have the last word even in conversations that don’t involve him at all. Even if he doesn’t mean the words he says at all.

Now this is a true testament to what his running mouth is capable of doing when he is stressed and wanting an outlet to deposit those emotions into. It just had never been you the one on the receiving end, he had never wanted it to be you.

“I’m sorry” He says, your name falling from his lips seconds after. Stepping over his dnd papers with socked feet, not caring about how some of them crumble or tear slightly. He can always write it again, this is more important.

“I swear I didn’t mean it. I was just frustrated and took it out on you” Mike looks at you, those puppy dog eyes of his holding guilt and shame, even embarrassment is trapped between his mess of emotions.

He approaches, slowly. Clearly unsure if you want him close or if you’d prefer he picks up his things and leaves you alone for the rest of the day, or if you want a hug. Some show of physical affection so that his apologeticness can seep into your broken heart and glue the pieces together once again.

“I know” You reply meekly, looking away from him and shrugging, pretending it didn’t bother you as much as it did. Sensitive in soul and mind, that’s who you are, and mike wheeler had forgotten all about it minutes ago.

He takes it as an opening, Mike is selfish when it comes to these things, using every opportunity, no matter how small, to hold you. He is starving for affection, always clinging to the idea of closeness because he never got it from anyone, anyone except you.

Mike wraps his arms around your shoulders, bringing your body closer till is pressed against his. Your face fits snuggly on the crook of his neck, one of his hands on your back and the other behind your head, holding you in place.

“I’m really, really sorry about saying that stupid comment” He mumbles, lips pressed on your temple, his breathing fawning on your ears, each of his words half muffled because of it. You understand him anyhow, always have. Always will.

“You’re really pretty. The most beautiful and awesome girl of all Hawkins” he compliments you, pulling your head slightly away so your eyes meet. 

There’s a smile on his lips, this tender, small one that is meant only for you. Something that holds all the words he never has the strength and confidence to tell you, fearing that you’ll one day realize he is only a loser and that you deserve far much better than he can ever give or be for you.

“You mean it?” You whisper, the skin of your cheeks shinny with tears and eyes glassy. Small specks of sadness still clinging to the color of your irises.

“I do” Mike answers immediately, nodding his head. “I was just being a jerk earlier, like Jason and his gang of mouthbreathers” He says, disgust clinging to his words and making his nose scrunch in annoyance.

That makes you laugh, the absurdity of his comment and the venom on his tone while he said it is by far funnier than any joke you’ve heard recently. Seeing you happy makes Mike smile once more, softer, genuine and happy about your happiness.

“Does that sound mean I’m forgiven?” He asks, sounding hopeful and fearful all in the same breath. His eyebrows raised like he is waiting for the ball to drop and receive a mouthful of insults.

You stay quiet for a moment, looking at his and his earnest apology still fresh in your mind. You don’t think it is fair to make him suffer, to dangle in front of him for any longer the fact he made you cry. 

You’re too softhearted to make him feel as sad as he made you feel. Instead you take a deep breath and nod your head once.

“Yeah, you’re forgiven Mike Wheeler” you state, a matter of fact tone on your voice that slowly breaks into a small giggle at the way his face melts into this expression of relief and thankfulness.

A kiss is soon pressed against your lips, followed by a few more before he moves his kisses around, pressing one on your cheek, your jaw, your forehead till he kisses your nose, moving his face away to look at your pretty face once more.

“Thank you so much” Mike mutters halfway through his lips, slotting against yours before he fully finishes speaking.

This is awfully reminiscent of that horrible time in your life two years ago. Walking down this same woods, desperation clinging to every fiber of your body as you tried to look for your mother. Hoping that by the grace of God? The Universe? Something? she would be somewhere around here, alive.

Being in the woods never gets easier. Every step you take is followed by a damp thud because of the wet leaves underneath your shoes, the water seeping slowly into them and the smell of petrichor turns almost dizzying at times.

It is still awful to think about. You know it will probably never feel any different, especially now that there is another person you care for missing in this same place. Will Byres, Jonathan’s brother, a  painstakingly similar kid to how you were as a child. 

You imagine your mom would’ve probably helped with the search parties if she was still alive, maybe even the first to volunteer because of her soft nature and need of an escape from the house. 

Maybe if she were here, you wouldn’t have attacked your father. 

He wouldn’t be bleeding from his leg, probably at the hospital giving some bulshit excuse about his injury. For the first time experiencing what he puts you through, a routine of lies so that nobody knows what happens behind closed doors. 

Well kept secrets, like how the sheets of your bed are scratched and stained with droplets of blood that he won’t let you wash off no matter how much you want them gone. How there’s tear stains on your pillows and extra-strength tylenol pills on your night stand for you to take every morning after horrible things happen.

Your mom wouldn’t have allowed that either. She was a good woman, deeply misunderstood, but beautiful and crazy despite the horrible life that she was trapped in, with no way out other than a casket. 

Nothing could save her but a rope around her neck.

She was a deeply sad woman, a tragic story about the poor families of Hawkins that are trapped in these cycles of conservative abuse, the one wives can’t do anything about but bear the weight of, till it crushes their lungs and steals their last breath.

The way she decided to take her life, the misery behind bruises that didn’t make sense on her body, the way it didn’t look as much of a willing action as the officers tried to convince you it was, an attempt to soothe the heartache of the loss.

There was nothing that could’ve been said to you, no words that would fill in the gaps between the  details that didn’t quite align with the autopsy. 

She was a sad woman, yes, and her life was indeed miserable, but she had you. 

She. Had. You.

How could anyone convince you that she wanted to leave you here? alone with your dad and his sadistic rage and alcoholism. Your mom knew better than leaving you at twelve years old to bear the weight of the belt and punches on your skin.

You always clung to the details that didn’t make sense. The cracks in the walls of grief that felt close to evilness at times, like someone else had pulled the strings and taken her from you because of a reason you weren’t given the privilege of knowing.

Other times you accepted the things people around you said. How she probably saw no other escape from her troubled mind, how she loved you so much and knew you’d be alright without her  

God, that part you never once believe in, but you can accept things and know they are a lie.

And everything about her death was all a big lie, and you would never know the truth.

Thinking of her always hurts. But now that you’re here, after an awfully long time not being able to enter this woods without crying, you can slightly appreciate her choice of scenery. 

Hawkins woods have a feeling about them, a way of carrying the wind in this soft lullaby only people who grew up in between the trees can hear. It’s nice, it’s pretty and it's quiet.

But it is no longer a safe place.

You heard it on the radio while driving to school yesterday. The radio host called Jimmy ‘fast hands’ Lee warning parents to keep their children out of the woods and not allow them to go out after dark. That they should be more careful, keep an eye on their kids so another tragedy doesn’t happen.

The sound of those words still danced around in your mind, somewhat drowned out by the soft sound filling your ears of your walkman playing Faith by The cure. The only song that could ever come close to how you felt when she died.

You could never make yourself fully believe in God. Sometimes the faith you conjure up would escape from your hands like water through your fingers, impossible to hold on to, no matter how  much you wanted it to stick around and soothe the ache of your soul.

After she died, after the pastor told you that suicide is a mortal sin and she – although driven by the pain of a terrible life and soul crushing desperation – would sadly not go to heaven, the sanctifying grace didn’t fall upon her anymore because of her act.

Those words, those murmurs of praying you didn’t fall into the same actions of your mother, how she should’ve known better than to condemn her soul, that broke something within you.

You tried to argue back then, that God is closest to the broken, that he saves those with crushed spirits,that your mother was definitely somewhere in heaven, happy and free from her pain, but the words meant nothing.

It all meant nothing in the end. The stares of pity and the words of the gospel that they twisted until it no longer was about helping the broken soothe their pains, it meant nothing to you.

The echo of prayers that filled the church, the speaking to the sky without receiving an answer, every word going unheard and ignored by the God that was supposed to be all kind and loving to his creation.

You were stripped from the ability to believe in him. To find comfort in the gospel and community within its followers. It was all so empty, nothing filled the hole in your chest and you grew tired of pretending something you didn’t believe ever would.

The cassette stops playing and your steps come to a halt in the middle of the woods. Suddenly becoming aware of how the sun is gone, the last bits of orange coating the sky that quickly go away in a matter of minutes.

Instead, the moon begins to shine brightly, creating shadows and making it harder to see in between the trees. The soft melody of birds calling out to each other and the rustle of the last few dry leaves moving with the wind filling in the silence.

It is peaceful, almost like a lullaby. There is this feeling though, deep in your gut, that tells you something is watching you, or closer than what animals normally would get close to humans. It’s not worrying, or you try to convince yourself not to worry about it.

The woods are notorious for the deers this time of year, it is deer season after all. They often walk in so many directions, even get close to homes sometimes looking for a doe to try and mate with.

You breathe in, taking in your surroundings the best you can with the lack of sunlight. If there is an animal close, they will make some sort of noise, that annoying grunt that many types have woken you up at night when a Buck gets too close to the trailer park.

Rationalizing is easy, so easy in fact that you start walking again, getting even deeper into the woods till you find yourself somewhere close to the woods behind the fancy neighbourhood of Loch Nora.

You know so because of  the bigger amount of leaves on the ground. Rich people and their big fancy trees they plant for privacy, throwing the leaves behind the woods so that their backyards look nice and clean.

A sigh leaves your lips. “Maybe I should go home” you murmur to yourself, looking at your surroundings and debating which is worse, sleeping in the woods and risking pneumonia or going home and risking…something else.

There it is again, the rustle of leaves and the sound of an animal grunting. 

“Is it grunting in pain?” you ask yourself mentally, eyes looking at the direction the sound came from. 

It’s an agonizing sound, like they are being ripped apart still alive instead of being shot in the heart like hunters normally do. Maybe it’s being eaten by a coyote, though they rarely take down bucks, harder to kill and chase.

A new noise fills your ears, it’s like something wet and fleshy, visceral even. Like a dog tearing apart a piece of meat but worse, almost like every bite it’s made with this malice intent to make the animal suffer more.

You know you shouldn’t try to get close, the harmony of the animal life is something your biology teacher repeatedly said should be respected and to not intervene even if you think you’re helping.

You would normally respect it. Keep yourself away from it because it’s better not to risk being attacked, but the fresh memory of your dad attacking you, of you attacking him back to save yourself another traumatic experience.

That tugs at your heart and forces you to care about his injured deer. Because in some sort of logic that would be you, trapped in the trailer with your dad while ravishes your body, hurts you beyond what any person should experience and then leaves you to rot in your bed.

So, you walk towards the sound, the grunts and whimpers of the injured deer get closer and so do the slurping and rendering of flesh, that wet, disgusting sound that makes you want to vomit.

“That poor deer must be suffering” you think.

You move further into the woods, trying to find where the noise is coming from exactly while keeping an eye out for any sort of wild animal that might be close to the injured animal, it's not uncommon for coyotes to share their big prey.

Luckily there are no wild coyotes, or any animal close, not even birds. The quietness on this part of the woods is eerie, something must have really scared the smaller animals for them to not be making any sort of noise.

You can see it now, almost fifty yards in front of you. There’s a deer laying on the soil, grunting and whimpering in pain, his tongue lolling out from between his teeth like it’s trying to catch his breath but is unable to.

Your eyes follow along the length of his body till it lands on the…animal? feeding from him. 

What the fuck is that?

It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before. This weird animal is crouching in front of the deer’s torso, its skin is mostly pale, some parts covered by dirt and it looks wet, maybe? like the way river frogs are always slimy,

It has arms, really long arms. You can guess it probably has claws by the way a few chunks of meat fly around every time it slashes another spot in the deer’s body. You can’t see its face from your spot, too far away to really notice a lot of details.

Only that it lucks disturbingly human, even though it’s crouched it is really easy to tell that its height is probably around six to seven feet tall.

You try to will yourself into not being scared, there’s hundreds of species you know nothing about. Maybe you didn’t pay enough attention in the class about Hawkins wild life to remember that this weird thing lives in the woods.

There’s a thousand thoughts on your mind as you stare at the creature eating the agonizing deer.

Your mind goes blank with fear the moment it makes a sound. A terrifying high-pitched screech that makes your ears ring, followed by a low growl that sends the birds resting on the trees flying somewhere else.

“Oh my God” you mutter quietly, the words escaping your lips without realizing.

The creature had tilted his head to the side but…It has no face.

It. Has. No. Face.

Why doesn’t it have a face? What the fuck is that thing eating that poor deer?

It’s too much, it’s too violent and it’s too confusing. The adrenaline in your body reacts for your frightened mind and sends you running away from the horrifying scene, dirty converse shoes hitting the wet soil like your life depends on it.

The mud makes you slip and fall a couple of times but you don’t let it stop you for more than a second, picking yourself up and running further and further till you see white patio lights shining somewhere in close distance.

You’re behind Loch Nora, you’re close to being out of the woods but just as you are about to breathe a sound of relief, you hear a girl yelling.

Jonathan Byres gave up a long time ago on being normal. Some time between protecting his younger brother from their parents' relentless fights and having to pick up a job after Lonnie finally ran off to Indianapolis in ‘79.

He wasn’t upset then when he left. He can’t remember why but it didn’t hurt him to watch his dad go and abandon him, it is perhaps the biggest question Jonathan has about that time, and why did the wound of being left behind only started to burn when Will wanted to visit Lonnie.

Sometimes it feels like there is a piece of memories he lost somewhere along the way, it’s a time in his life when Will was just a baby, he knows that because Jonathan has no recollection of his little brother babbling away around the house.

Instead he remembers the stages of knowing a few words, of trying Will trying to get his point across using his hands and – because he was born an artist – trying to draw it, tired of making himself heard and being misunderstood instead.

It is a very clear jump in time, one that doesn’t make sense to him because he knows that children become aware of themselves at the age his memory is cut short in ‘73 before that big jump in time to ‘76.

He probably hadn’t ever been normal.

It stings far less to have lost his potential of a good life than never have been granted the chance of one to begin with. So he sticks with his internalized story that Lonnie Byres is the source of all evil in his life.

The one Jonathan is going through right now, too. Will is missing, he has been for almost two days now and – he hates himself for thinking this – he probably will for more days than anybody in his family can handle. 

The guilt is eating him alive. 

If he hadn’t picked up a stupid shift for some extra money, Jonathan would’ve been home and noticed Will never coming back from the Wheeler’s house. His brother wouldn’t be missing in god knows where, probably cold and hungry and hopefully, still alive despite it all.

Jonathan knows that visiting his Father in Indianapolis is probably just another dead end in the search of his brother. Lonnie never cared about Will, not truly, not the way Joyce and he have done since the moment that small, fragile boy was born March 22, 1971. 

During the middle of a spring day, when all beautiful and complex things gain life. Will Byres was born with the flowers and the sun shining, but now he is lost in the autumn days, the flowers having died a long time ago, the trees shedding their colours and weight, burying on the soil the things that don’t want to be found. 

The rain is awful to drive in, especially for Jonathan’s car, the roof of it is rusting and he can guess that by winter it will start leaking water whenever there is a storm. He can’t handle another worry though, it’s enough with Will missing, his mom going crazy and...You.

Does Will Byres want to be found? for who he is and not for who he pretends to be?

God. He’s awful – Jonathan tells himself while parking the car in front of Lonnie’s house – He is a terrible person, friend? He doesn't know, for simply walking out of the building and not telling you where he was going or anything after asking for your help. 

The moment he steps out of the car he gets the familiar sense of pressure on his chest. The same one he had when Lonnie forced him to kill a rabbit when he was only ten years old, is this rush of adrenaline, the one that tells him he is walking into something unpleasant. 

He is going to apologize later, though. When he finds the time to call you and asks you to help him search the woods minutes after saying sorry. 

Right now he has things to do. 

Jonathan walks to the door, looking through the vision panel and scanning the parts of the living room his eyes can see. The TV is on, playing a music channel that fills the house with the sound of whatever song is playing. 

There’s also a couple beer cans in the end table that’s shoved into the corner next to the sofa. It’s none of his business how Lonnie decides to drink his days away, but the sight still sends a jolt of uncomfortable nostalgia to his heart.

He slaps his hand against the door a few times. “Hello?” Jonathan says loudly, still peering into the house and knocking again. He's not sure if anyone is home, but for Lonnie’s window sake there better be someone inside.

Jonathan is not past the idea of breaking into his dad’s house through a busted window if it means being able to check whether Will is here or somewhere else. 

The plan he formed in his head comes to a screeching halt however, the moment his eyes set on the women approaching the door. His dad’s new…whatever the woman is to Lonnie. He isn’t sure if that piece of shit is desperate enough to hire someone for company nor does he want to know.

The woman opens the door, chewing gum with her mouth open and staring at Jonathan like his presence is interrupting something. “Can I help you?” She asks, holding the door with one hand and looking him up and down. 

“Yeah, is Lonnie around?” Jonathan asks, staring at her with the same disdain she is giving him, eyebrows furrowed and mouth slightly open. Ready to fire back if she makes his day even harder by opposing him from seeing his dad.

“Yeah, he’s out back. What do you want?” she says rudely, looking down at him and seemingly ready to close the door on his face. 

“To look around” Jonathan replies coldly, not waiting for an answer before walking into the house, pushing his way past the annoying woman and moving forward, eyes set on the hallway that leads to the rooms and into the backyard.

“Hey, what do you think you're doing?” The woman says with a bewildered tone, turning around and watching as Jonathan lets himself further into the house. “Hey!” she shouts, throwing her arms up and following him. 

“I’ll be fast” He murmurs haphazardly out of pure habit of excusing his actions and not actually warranting her that he will leave the house soon, he doesn’t own the bitchy woman anything after all.

He turns to the right, walking down the small hallway and trying to open a closed door, shouting Will’s name as he peers over at the master bedroom, finding it empty, bed unmade and more beer cans set on the night side tables. 

This reminds him too much of his childhood. The alcohol laying around and all parts of the house, becoming a staple of decoration instead of being a clear tale of Lonnie’s dirty habits. Used to women taking care of everything to ever pick up the slack around the house.

Clearly coming here was of no use. Will Byres wouldn’t come here if he got lost and somehow found its way again. He would show up to the house of any of the people that do love and care for him. He would go to his home, whether it is Mike’s basement with the comfort of warm lights and his favorite person’s company or the comfort of his own room, filled with his drawings and toys to soothe the anxiety he inherited from Joyce.

Jonathan decides to leave. He doesn’t want to spend another second miles away from home, with no way of being contacted if his mom finds out something more about where Will is and how his missing case is progressing. 

He is stopped by the brute force of someone grabbing him by the jacket and slamming him against the wall. groaning at the sudden pain on his shoulder. 

Lonnie Byres, always eager to push and shove at the people that do not like violence. 

He grabs his oldest son by the collar, holding him against the wall as if Jonathan was some sort of home intruder and not his own flesh and blood, a more rational and sensitive version of the old man standing with a guarded look on his eyes, pretending to be a protector in front of his new girlfriend. 

It’s a meaningless act, a cliche done in the wrong light with a very wrong past to go alongside it, truly something only Lonnie Byres would do and think he looks good while doing it. 

Jonathan doesn’t allow himself to stand there stunt for more than two seconds, looking at his dad up and down before shoving him away. “Get off!” he complained through gritted teeth, eyebrows furrowed and eyes glazed over, if there had ever been any love between them, it was long since been gone. 

His dad smiles, this half amused and half surprised smile at the sight in front of him. His son standing right here, in front of him with nothing but a mean expression on his face and a book bag he could have left in the car. “Damn, you’ve gotten stronger” Lonnie says, tone between mocking and amused. 

Those same mixed signals he used all the time when he was still with Joyce. Something mocking and condescending that made sure nobody in the house ever felt like they were better than him, like they could make it out of his claws of his reckless behaviour if it wasn’t on his terms.

Lonnie pats Jonathan on the chest, far too much force, yet it's the closest thing he’ll ever show of affection to his boy. 

“Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?” She asks confusedly, waving one of her hands up and down while staring down at both men with her big downturned eyes, still chewing her gum with her mouth open. 

Lonnie looks at her for a second before turning back to face his son. “Joanthan, Cynthia” he introduces them. “Cynthia, Jonathan.” he amuses himself with those words, a small smirk ghosted over his lips. “My oldest.”

Jonathan looks at Cynthia, mouth parted like he is about to comment on the way she is clearly much younger than his dad. However, he is cut short by Lonnie approaching once again.

“Come here” he grumbles, trying to wrap his arm around Jonathan’s neck and bringing him into a hug. something that he never once had attempted to do while he was still a kid, with a fresh mind and hungry for his dad’s approval.  

“Get off me, man” Jonathan moves away after half a second, eyes full of mistrust, this wounded feeling sitting heavy on his chest. No matter how many years have passed and will continue to pass in his life, the wound of an absent father will always bleed.

He doesn’t waste much time after that interaction. Walking out with Lonnie to the back of the house. It’s still raining, in this soft but constant mist that soaks up his hair in a matter of minutes. 

Jonathan doesn’t care, though. walking towards Lonnie’s car and opening the trunk, ignoring his dad’s words about how the car was in bad shape when he initially got it almost a year ago, but now it’s a “beauty” whatever the hell that means. 

“Really?” He scoffs. “You want to check up my ass, too?” He asks in this condescending tone, hands shoved inside his front pockets, standing with a relaxed posture like his youngest kid hasn’t been missing since November 6th. 

“Told you the same thing as i told those cops, he’s not here and he never has been” Lonnie repeats once again to Jonathan, like being told the same information would somehow make his dad less guilty of helping or doing anything beyond responding to the cops.

“Then why didn’t you call Mom back?” Jonathan questions him after closing the trunk, walking towards his dad, his frustrated expression born out of the exhaustion of being told the same things over and over again and seeing no result from it.

“I don’t know, I just…” Lonnie trails off, shrugging his shoulders. “I assumed she just forgot where he was.” He states, like a parent not knowing where their kid is for almost two days is something natural and completely sane to experience. 

“You know, he was lost or something. That boy never was very good at taking care of himself” He comments even further, sounding less serious every passing second. Is twelve year old Will supposed to know how to take care of himself? Has any small, fragile child ever been good at protecting themselves when society keeps on trying to ruin them?

“This isn’t some joke, all right? There are search parties, reporters…” Jonathan explains something he shouldn’t even have to say if Lonnie truly cared and worried about the family he left behind in Hawkins. 

It makes him so mad, so…sad. Having to drive all the way to Indianapolis just to check his father didn’t do something to his little brother because the stupid, irresponsible, alcoholic piece of shit couldn’t bother calling back and saying something to ease the worries of his Mom and him. 

Jonathan knows better than to expect care and love from Lonnie Byres, but this is something entirely different, this the life of a kid who has never done wrong. Will, who agreed to go to baseball games despite not liking sports because he wanted to spend time with his dad, no matter what setting he was thrown into.

Lonnie doesn’t deserve the information Jonathan and the cops that came to visit gave him. Yet here he is, explaining to this grown man how Will is missing and everyone is looking for him, even people that never met him before, while he sits in his house drinking beer.

“Hopper’s not still chief, is he?”

Jonathan doesn’t answer, frowning at his dad and staring at him with a look of resignation. Because he can’t bring himself to care anymore about the dumb shit Lonnie says. 

“Tell your mother she’s gotta get you out of that hellhole” He tilts his head to the side, staring down at the view of green grass and bushes in his backyard. “Come out here to the city. People are more real here, you know?” Stupid fucking words. “And then I could see you more.”

Truly Lonnie is only capable of spewing bullshit words and half assed attempts of maturity and self growth that everyone who knows him for more than two days, would be able to declare to be completely false.

Jonathan doesn’t even bother entertaining his dad, he doesn’t have the time for a sarcastic answer where he ends up sounding coldhearted and mean. He simply shakes his head, this humorless, disgusted half smirk forming on his lips while he stares down at the man he shares DNA with.

“What, you think I don't want to see you?” Lonnie asks while raising his eyebrows at the way his son doesn’t seem to buy into his words. He never expects it, always surprised when people call him out on his bullshit. 

“I know you don’t” he replies, jutting his head and staring at his dad in disbelief, how could he propose such a stupid idea and then act surprised when the kid he left behind doesn’t want to see him and act like nothing happened. 

Jonathan Byres spent years trying to come to terms with the fact his dad doesn’t love him, even more trying to understand why he left, and now he is suddenly confronted about his feelings when he has every right to think of his father this way. 

“See, that’s your mother talkin’ right there.” Lonnie throws the accusation, like his two kids had ever needed someone to tell them how awful their dad is, instead coming to that conclusion in a natural way, after far too many promises of weekend visits being broken through a one minute phone call.

“She even know you’re here?” Jonathan stays quiet, looking away.  “Oh, Great. So one kid goes missing, the other one runs wild?” Lonnie nods his head, looking away for a second too. “Some real fine parenting right there” he says like he has the right to be disappointed.

“Look, all I’m saying is, maybe I’m not the asshole, all right?” Those words break him. 

Jonathan can hear his heart cracking and breaking further into these tiny, sharp pieces that every time he attempts to pick up, he only ends up cutting his fingers. Even though he doesn’t admit it to anyone – not even to himself – he does miss having a dad.

Or the idea of it. The one where that old man is there, present and loving him despite the weirdness he was born with. Love, appreciation, attention, approval, any of those things he has spent every waking moment for the last six years trying to make himself believe that he doesn’t need in order to know that he is enough.

Jonathan Byres has gone through hell and back these last two days, trying to keep his mom from having a mental breakdown and focusing on what he can do to find Will faster. He can’t take any second for granted, because the more time passes, the more he gets this sinking feeling that he won’t find his little brother.

That is a terrifying reality he can’t bear the weight of. He doesn’t want to turn into an only child, he doesn’t want to have his mom fall apart, he doesn’t want any of it. And it makes him so angry to look at Lonnie and see how he doesn’t care about it at all.

Jonathan opens his book bag and takes a piece of paper out of it, walking forward and slamming it against his dad’s chest. It’s a copy of the missing poster he made of Will, one with all the information that Lonnie has no clue about. Children do a lot of growing up even if their dad isn’t present.

“In case you forgot what he looks like.” He says before walking out, not caring to see his dad’s reaction and certainly not sticking around another second to hear whatever Cynthia has to say about the whole situation.

How can someone be so terrible to a child and still expect to be loved? Jonathan will never know. Instead, he will be buried with resentment cemented into his bones, the weight of something he never had, but he could’ve. Perhaps that is why he has to hold back tears all the way to his car.

Or perhaps it is because he feels the forgotten memories coming back to life, and he knows the moment he remembers what his mind fought so hard to get rid of, there will be no coming back.

Jonathan’s car comes to a slow stop in the intersection of Cornwallis and Kerlley, or the nickname Will had said he and his friends gave it, Mirkwood. The same place Hopper found his bike abandoned on the side of the road. 

There are barriers connected with red and white warning tape so that people can’t enter the woods from this spot, treating it as part of the evidence of Will’s disappearance and a reminder to the people that drive by, to not enter that part of the woods.

Jonathan steps out of the car and he opens the trunk of his car, putting the keys in one of the pockets of his jacket while  fishing out his camera. Closing the trunk with a little bit of force , he walks towards the warning tape.

Putting the camera strap around his neck before crouching down and walking past the red and white warning tape, entering the woods with confident steps and looking around.

His eyes scanning the zone where Will’s bike was laying around before brings his camera closer to his face and drops to one knee. He places his eye on the viewfinder and snaps a picture of broken branches on the floor that are next to a tree.

“Where are you?” Jonathan murmurs to himself while standing up and looking deeper into the woods, pacing slightly in place while his right hand rubs his chin and mouth. 

He is in deep thought, he has been since the drive home from Indianapolis. His mind had been filled with so many things the moment he left his dad’s house, mainly about will and his mom.

He hadn’t heard from Joyce all day and she hadn’t been there when he stopped by to pick up the hammer head flash for his camera. She is probably home by now, sitting on the couch or standing next to the broken phone, maybe even drinking.

There had also been another person on his mind, You. Jonathan had completely forgotten that the house phone was fried because of the storm, or in his mom’s opinion something to do with the call where she heard Will’s breathing.

Jonathan doesn’t know how true it is anymore, he can’t even give himself the space to think about the weird details because he is sure he’ll go insane if he does.

He snaps another picture, the camera shutter clicking. This time is one of  a branch with a few leaves still clinging onto it, in the background there is a discarded tire, slightly rusted because of the rain. 

Jonathan steps closer to the road and snaps another picture, another set of broken branches, like someone had fallen on them and they snapped by the force and weight. 

Then, he hears a loud scream, he gasps and turns around before running towards the sound, quick on his feet while he pants. The screaming continues once more, Jonathan takes a few turns, trying to figure out where the screams are coming from till he comes across someone.

You.

Your panting too, eyes wide with fear, your  jeans and sneakers covered in the mud you fell in, but what worries him the most isn’t that, not even close. What truly worries him is the dried blood on your face and the way it appears to have trailed down from the crown of your head.

You look like an attempted murder victim.

“J-Jonathan?” You stutter out, voice not louder than a whisper while staring at him like he is the one that looks injured and afraid.

He takes a look at you once more, still panting with adrenaline. “Are you okay? What happened to you?” He asks worriedly, stepping towards you and grabbing you by the elbow with one hand, the other still holding the camera.

“Why are you out here so late?” Jonathan asks another question, his eyes focused on the crown of your head, that’s where the blood came from, he assumes by the sight of  dried blood that is starting to mat your hair.

It doesn’t look that bad up close, but maybe that is because of the lack of light. 

You don’t answer him, or you’re about to give him a bulshit response but there’s the sound of another shriek, this time is high pitched, clearly from a girl.

Both of you snap your head towards the sound, immediately moving to the direction it comes from. You don’t make it very far, in between one of the last few trees that still hold green leaves, you are greeted with the sight of Harrington's backyard.

The shriek both of you heard is coming from Carol Perkins, as Tommy H. has his arms wrapped around her waist and is pretending like he is going to drop her in the heated pool. From afar it looks almost sweet.

Laying in the sunloungers close to the pool are Barb Holland and Nancy Wheeler, next to them is Steve ‘The King’ Harrington, beer can in hand as he pokes a hole at the bottom of it with a pocket knife before shotgunning it.

It’s a terribly cliche action and you can’t help but look away, embarrassed on his behalf at the way his attempt to look cool falls flat, at least in your eyes. 

Instead you look at Jonathan, who seems to be thinking the same by the way his face turns into a grimace before turning to look at you too.

“He looks like a douchebag doing that” Jonathan says with a tone of disgust, furrowing his eyebrows like the sight is worsening his vision.

“He is a douchebag” You reply, shrugging your shoulders. “That’s been like his whole thing since he became King Steve during his Sophomore year” Now is your turn to sound disgusted, you weren’t even in Highschool yet when he got the stupid title.

Jonathan thinks for a moment, back to what happened earlier in the day, when both of you were standing by the bulletin board and Nancy approached. He remembers how Steve looked away the moment Nancy and him looked back at him and his friends.

Yeah, Steve Harrington has been a douchebag since a while back, Jonathan had just never allowed himself to process the information, too busy with his own private problems to worry about what happened in the ecosystem of Hawkins High.

“I didn’t realize how cliche he truly is till now, though” you comment, trying to get rid of the silence. 

Jonathan chuckles, shaking his head. “I think it is in his dna. My mom told me awhile ago that his dad was the exact same in highschool” he replies with a shake of his head, a soft, barely there smile forming on his lips.

“Definitely. Nobody decides to become a douchebag, you’re born one” You joke, laughing softly.

Then you hear a wince, your head turning towards Steve’s backyard and seeing how Barb is walking towards the house. Nancy, Carol and Tommy standing there with blank expressions while Steve points at the house with his eyebrows furrowed.

Jonathan takes the opportunity to take a picture, camera shutter clicking against your ear.

“Why are you taking pictures?” you ask confused, arms crossed against your chest.

You know Jonathan is a bit weird, everyone is in some way. You also know that he likes photography, to take pictures of things and give them a meaning that sometimes is difficult for you to understand, or it’s just too pretentious at times.

It’s self expression though, something genuine that you support him doing. This just isn’t the right moment, and his subjects aren’t aware of the pictures. Is extremely invasive, in other words.

Jonathan doesn’t answer you, instead he takes another picture. This time of Tommy and Carol, seconds before he pushes her inside the pool, you can hear her complain moments later, but instead of receiving an answer, Tommy jumps in the pool too.

After that Steve does the same thing, throws Nancy in the pool before jumping himself. 

“This is the true cliche” You hear Jonathan speak.

“You shouldn’t be taking pictures” You reply, Jonathan doesn’t stop, his camera shutter a few more times before you put your hand over it and push it down, away from his face.

“Don’t take pictures of this” You repeat yourself. 

Jonathan turns to look at you, a sigh leaving his lips. “What happened to your jeans? they are covered in dry mud” He asks, looking down at your legs.

You swallow at his question, looking down at your dirty clothes too. 

You debate on what to tell him, you’ll probably sound crazy if you tell him what you saw in the woods. You can barely believe it yourself after all, it was too strange for your mind to be able to process the creature and its strange features.

“I fell.” you reply shortly, sounding too unsure for your answer to be fully believable. 

“That’s obvious, but why did you fall? You see something?” Jonathan asks, interest becoming stronger at the idea that maybe you saw something related to what happened to Will, a new piece of information maybe.

It takes you a minute to answer, avoiding his curious gaze before ultimately realizing that what you saw could be of use for finding Will, no matter what horrible thing it could mean if he was attacked by the strange creature.

“Yeah, I saw something.” you sigh, looking up at him. your eyes once again painted with the fear they had when he found you a few minutes ago.

“I saw an animal eating a deer” You tell him. “At first I heard the grunt of the deer and I thought it got injured running away from hunters or something like that so I went to check just to make sure, you know?” You smile, a small unsure one.

“But then I heard this, like a wet, fleshy sound and when I got close and I finally saw the deer-” you choke up for a moment, eyes getting teary just remembering it “the deer was agonizing and there was this weird animal feeding from it. But it’s an animal I've never seen before in the woods” you shake your head.

“It was crouched but I could tell that it’s really tall, it had arms that were very long and I think it had claws, I'm not sure about that. But when it turned its head to the side” you pause for a second, knowing that it would probably sound unbelievable.

“It had no face” You tell him, eyes closing and bracing for his answer.

“No face?” Jonathan asks, eyebrows furrowed.

You peel your eyes open and look down. “I think so. I was like a hundred feet away but I'm almost sure of it. It had pale skin too and it was wet or slimy because its skin was shining by the moonlight” You sigh again, a shiver running down your neck just thinking about it.

Jonathan doesn’t answer you right away, his eyes are focused on your head. There was mostly dried blood but he could see a wound in between your hair, it wasn’t a deep one by any means and it probably wouldn’t need stitches but it still looked bad.

“Did you hit your head with something?” He asks, hesitating for a second before using one of his hands to softly feel around the wound, a small hiss leaving your lips at the shot of throbbing pain.

“Something like that” you reply, softly pushing his hand away. Your head is still too tender because of the wound to want anything to touch it, you just needed a shower and it would be okay tomorrow.

a soft ‘huh’ leaves his lips, his tongue pressing against the side of his cheek. “Do you think-” He stops to rephrase himself. “Are you sure you didn’t hallucinate?” Jonathan questions you with a soft tone, more so out of worry than not believing you.

“I’m sure” you nod your head. “It looked far too real and I didn't see anything weird before or after that so, i didn’t imagine it” you reassure him.

You hear the soft splash of water again but it isn’t followed by laughter or anything of the sort. 

You turn your head to look at the pool again and see Barb, sitting on the viding board with her feet on the water, you can see her holding her thumb finger, it’s wrapped around with a blue and white striped hand towel.

She looks sad. How could she not? She had been clearly left out, Nancy and Steve were probably having sex, the same thing with Carol and Tommy, all while Barb waited around to take her friend home. You feel bad for her.

Jonathan picks up his camera again, snapping a picture of the window? before taking one of the lonely girl. You don’t say anything this time, letting him take the picture because this one you can understand, even if they feel invasive of the private sad moment.

Barbara Holland is beautiful and kind. Softhearted in the way most teenage girls of Hawkins aren’t, even though you hadn’t spoken to her since eighth grade, she still sometimes waves at you in the halls, mostly when they are empty and nobody will notice her doing it.

“She looks so sad” you murmur to Jonathan, turning to look at him while he winds the film of his camera.

Suddenly you hear the same growl the weird creature you saw had made, followed by a shriek. Your head snaps towards the pool again and so does Jonathan’s.

The pools is empty, Barb isn’t there anymore.

“She probably went inside” Jonathan says to you.

“Yeah, she had a cut on her finger again, maybe it started bleeding” you reply with a shrug, taking a few steps back and looking down at the woods again.

“We should leave.” you tell Jonathan. It’s late, really late and you know that both of you need sleep for tomorrow because of how horrible your day has been.

He replies with a simple “Yeah” before turning away towards the woods again, pressing softly one hand on the small of your back to make you walk beside him, dropping his touch a few seconds after and grabbing a hold of his camera, this time not taking any pictures and just keeping his hands busy.

“Hey?” you call out to him. “Can I sleep in your house?” You ask him. 

“Yeah, of course” He agrees, voice soft and kind. 

Jonathan looks at you, and he can feel himself ready to ask why you would want that but he stops himself. His eyes once again looking at the crown of your head and guessing that you did not fall by accident.

He figures that whatever happened to make you have that wound on your head is probably the reason you don't want to be home. 

You know he probably figured out what happened to you but isn’t saying anything about it to not make you feel even worse and to not make the situation awkward. You’re grateful about it, because if you have to explain how your father attacked you to a single person, you might just die.

“Thank you” You murmur back at him squeezing his forearm before letting go.

Jonathan doesn’t know much about you, hardly allows himself to know anything about anyone, really. But if he is honest with himself right now, the idea of helping you, of giving you a safe place to stay despite the mess his life is, that makes his heart clench a bit with something close to fondness.

He isn’t sure where the feelings are born from but they are there, this tender, soft thing that tells him he is doing far more than he realizes, giving you far more than anyone has ever given you and how much he will come to thank you for it.

Even if everything tonight is covered by the ache of his missing brother and your horrible encounter with something you don’t understand, you know that Jonathan Byres is going to be here now, this time a friendship that goes beyond school projects and silent lunches.

This time there is something gluing you to each other, something that can’t be shaken off so easily and that is the trauma of Hawkins woods, a place that isn’t forgiving nor kind to the people inside of it. You’ll come out the other side, though, you know you will.

Even if you have to risk your lives for Will to come back.

Tonight however, you are able to lay down on Jonathan’s bed, an old but comfy mattress with  even older and softer blankets for the cold temperature inside his room. 

Jonathan is laying down beside you, his hands on his stomach while he breathes softly, staring at the ceiling like it holds all the answers he needs to fix the situation he is trapped in.

“Do you think Will is cold?” He murmurs, eyes teary but not allowing the tears to fall.

“I hope not” You whisper back softly, staring at his side profile with sadness.

“He is a smart kid, I'm sure wherever he is, he is doing an amazing job taking care of himself” You tell him, because hearing encouraging words might not help the situation, but they help calm down the ache of missing someone.

Jonathan goes quiet again and closes his eyes, for a second you think he is falling asleep, but he replies a few seconds later. 

“Goodnight” He whispers, your name trailing off his lips while his breathing evens out. In a matter of seconds Jonathan Byres has fallen asleep thanks to the company of someone that knows his pain and doesn’t shy away from his hurt.

“Goodnight Byres” you reply softly, eyes closing too. Falling into a quiet, deep sleep.