SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?

independent & private blog for jonathan byers of netflix’s stranger things portrayed by charles. 18+ only. 

rules.

    the  question  arises  out  of  curiosity.  dan  doesn’t  count  on  jonathan  being  a  believer  in  truth,  he’s  never  …  got  that  vibe  from  him  specifically.  but  sometimes  it’s  nice,  he  thinks ;  to  ask,  to  just  get  that  confirmation.  he  answers  in  shrug  at  first,  taking  the  bowl  of  popcorn  and  filling  that  SILENCE  with  a  handful  in  his  mouth.  sure,  if  dan  were  to  tell  anyone  it’d  be  the  guy  he  considers  his  closest  friend  at  least.  but  still,  he’ll  swallow  the  popcorn,  and  rest  the  bowl  on  his  knee.

“ when  i  was  a  kid,  i  thought  i  saw  one. ”  past - tense,   because  it  …  it  doesn’t  happen  anymore.  yeah,  right.  and  that  ghost  just  so  happened  to  find  it’s  sopping,  rotted  hands  around  his  neck  –  “ i’ve  kinda  believed  in  them  since  then.  but  not  really…  you  know. ”

       jonathan’s right food finds the coffee table, and his eyebrows lift curiously at dan’s answer. “really?” he asks, and he smiles a little. he’s curious, so he asks more questions, reaching over for a handful of popcorn as he does. “what did it look like? i know some people just see shadows and say they’re ghosts, but i don’t know. i think your mind can make a shadow look really scary if you’re already nervous.”

          she  feels  her  blood  begin  to  run  cold,  goosebumps  raising  along  her  arms,  along  the  back  of  her  neck.   she  feels  her  stomach  drop.   she  —  she  had  thought  barb  had  run  away.   had  been  so  sure  of  it.   she  had  believed  what  everyone  was  saying,  but  this  —  she  could  feel  her  stomach  turning  at  the  realization  of  just  how  wrong  she  had  been.

          ❛  jonathan  —  ❜   her  voice  is  hardly  above  a  whisper.   her  thoughts  seem  to  be  moving  a  mile  a  minute,  struggling  to  even  process  what  the  other  boy  is  implying,  what  could  very  well  be  the  truth.   ❛  are  you  saying  you  think  this  —  thing  —  took  barb?  ❜   or  worse?   she  doesn’t  voice  it,  but  she  knows  the  thought  had  to  have  crossed  both  of  their  minds.   she  had  been  so  wrong  and  now  barb  might  be  dead.   that  guilt  would  continue  to  creep  up  her  spine  for  a  while  yet.   ❛  but  —  you  were  there  that  night.   i  mean,  you  have  these  pictures.   didn’t  you  see  anything?  ❜

       “i’m saying... i don’t think that’s out of the question,” jonathan replies quietly, and he feels grateful that she hasn’t jumped down his throat yet. he can tell she’s uncomfortable--- who wouldn’t be right now, for one reason or another?--- but she doesn’t seem angry. 

It’s funny how literally a few weeks ago, Nancy didn’t really have any idea really about Jonathan, and now here she was, in his living room, his mother out.  She doesn’t even think about telling Steve where she is, if he should ask later, but instead, she takes the stack of photos.  It’s the ones that Nancy has seen already from the night before, she, Steve, Tommy H. and Carol- and Barbara.  Nothing strikes her as being anything really out of the ordinary, but as Jonathan speaks, and Nancy continues to shuffle through the photos, she then understands his choice of words.

She stops, blue eyes remaining fixed onto the photos of her, Nancy taking a step to put distance between the two of them.  It’s a feeling of violation, confusion, and anger that all blend together and course through her body as she finally looks up towards Jonathan, the photos of her both peering outside and undressing still in her hand.  The ones of Barb she keeps tucked with her other hand almost with a protective nature

“What the hell is this?  Why… Why did you take these?”  The question comes out scathing, her brows coming together to crease, adding in as she then holds them up, as if Jonathan isn’t aware of what the photos are of.  “Not trying to be creepy, Jonathan?  That’s bullshit, and you know it!”

       jonathan keeps himself from flinching at her words, but barely. steve’s words from earlier ring in his head, you can tell he knows it was wrong, and he feels his insides twisting up. he does know it was wrong. he should never have taken any of those photos and he feels bad about it. but how do you say that to the person who’s pissed off and already has it in her head that you’ve done something awful? he opens his mouth, almost defends himself again by saying he’d been looking for will, and feels wrong about it just in time to shut his mouth again. 

       he had been looking for will, that wasn’t a lie. but to say he’d taken photos of steve, nancy, carol, tommy, and barb because he’d been looking for will? that was a bit of a stretch. 

Nancy supposes, for half a second, that perhaps her parents marriage could be way worse than what she suspects it is.  When she was younger, she used to think it was perfect, but as the years drudged on and she became more observant, she noticed more, but… At least they’re still together, right?  

Still though, she looks at Jonathan with something of sympathy -not pity, not judgement- and before she can even address it, he’s changing the subject.  It’s weird kind of, actually trying to befriend someone like him, someone she never in a million years expected to talk to even (which in hindsight is ridiculous), but with his brother and her best friend both missing- it’s nice to have someone who gets it in a way.  The smile that he wears causes Nancy to don one of her own, a hand moving to adjust the strap of her messenger bag on a shoulder, autumn breeze blowing through chestnut locks.  

“Not really.  Steve has practice still, and I had some studying to do and when I saw you outside… I don’t know.  I thought I should come over.” she admits, shrugging loosely, before eyeing the camera that hangs around the boy’s neck.  Tone shifts as the gears in Nancy’s brain begin to turn.  “Hey, you don’t have any negatives in there left from that night, do you?”

       jonathan doesn’t think steve would really approve of nancy coming to his house, not after he saw the pictures from that night, but he doesn’t say so. he doesn’t believe that anyone should have a say in what nancy can or can’t do and it’s not his problem anyway; if steve gets mad, that’s on steve. he’s caught off guard by her next question, not expecting her to really want to see them, but he doesn’t deny that he has them. instead he reaches into his bag, shuffles around for a moment, then pulls out a stack of photos.

          her  expression  is  nothing  short  of  sympathetic.   she  can’t  imagine  how  it  must  feel.   to  have  gone  through  all  that  jonathan  had  been  through.   but  on  the  other  hand,  she  can’t  begin  to  imagine  what  will  has  been  through  either.   seriously,  everyone  had  thought  he’d  be  dead.   and  she  had  seen  the  looks  the  other  kids  gave  him  as  he  walked  down  the  hall.   she  had  seen  the  way  he  seemed  to  cave  in  on  himself  when  their  stares  infiltrated  any  amount  of  confidence  he  possessed.   and  if  she  felt  all  that  much  about  will  byers,  there’s  no  way  she  could  ever  know  exactly  how  that  made  jonathan  feel.

          ❛  i’m  actually  an  only  child.  ❜   she  says,  knowing  that  it  might  very  well  discredit  anything  she  says  thereafter  in  jonathan’s  eyes.   ❛  but  for  what  it’s  worth  —  i  don’t  think  you’re  doing  anything  wrong.  ❜   she  says,  blue  eyes  drifting  down  toward  the  table  in  front  of  her  before  moving  back  to  jonathan’s  tired  features.   ❛  maybe  he  just  —  needs  some  time.   or  space.   or  both,  even.   i  know  it’s  probably  really  hard  to  watch  someone  you  love  go  through  something  and  feel  like  you  can’t  do  anything  to  help  them,  but  maybe  he  just  needs  to  work  out  some  things  on  his  own.  ❜   she  offers  this  advice,  completely  unknowing  whether  it’s  even  helpful  in  the  slightest.   but  it’s  all  she  has  to  give.   ❛  have  you  tried  talking  to  him  about  how  you’re  feeling?  ❜

       before he realizes he’s doing it, jonathan is laughing. it’s a short, almost coughed out sound, and as soon as he makes it he seems to deflate a little, chin dropping and eyes resting on his knees. “no,” he says, a little firmly. “no way. he’s my little brother, he doesn’t need to worry about what i’m feeling about all this. not right now, not when it’s all still so... raw, i guess.” what he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t like to burden people with his feelings, especially if they’re experiencing a lot of their own. the times he’d snapped at joyce while will was missing, he’d regretted at the time. he knows now, if he thinks about it, that it had probably been best for him to get his feelings out somehow, but he can’t imagine putting any more pressure on will right now. will isn’t his mom; it’s different.

          blue  eyes  gaze  down  at  the  photo  that  the  other  boy  has  placed  on  her  desk.   her  hand  moves,  fingers  gently  grazing  the  spot  where  some  —  creature  seems  to  be  lurking.   grazing  the  spot  where  a  girl  sits  lonely  upon  a  diving  board.   ❛  what  the  hell…  ❜   words  are  spoken  under  her  breath,  eyebrows  furrowing  in  deep  concern  and  concentration,  eyes  only  leaving  the  photograph  to  meet  jonathan’s  own.

           ❛  i  have  no  idea.  —  i’ve  never  seen  anything  like  that  before.  ❜   her  head  shakes  gently,  unknowingly.   ❛  maybe  —  it’s  some  kind  of  wild  animal  or  something?  ❜   that  would  be  the  rational  side  of  her  speaking.   but  the  less  rational  side  is  telling  her  that  there’s  no  way  that  thing  is  any  kind  of  wild  animal.   she  pauses  a  moment,  swallowing  hard,  trying  to  find  the  courage  to  bring  up  what’s  been  on  her  mind  since  she  had  first  laid  eyes  on  the  picture.   ❛  is  that  —  barb?   barbara  holland?  ❜   she  asks,  her  voice  barely  above  a  whisper,  traces  of  anxiety  seeping  through  her  tone.   

       he feels his heart sinking a little at the mention of barb’s name--- he’d known he wasn’t going to get through this without it, but he’d hoped maybe the thing in the corner was distracting enough to put it off for a moment--- and he offers robin a slow nod. “yeah,” he replies quietly, gaze lifting to her face. “yeah, and this thing---” he presses his fingertip against the photo. “it might be... i mean, i think it’s not a coincidence that it’s is in this picture when this is the night she went missing.”

       his brain feels like a carnival ride he desperately wants to get off of. it’s spinning and spinning and spinning and it feels like it’s taking every ounce of strength he has just to remember to put one foot in front of the other and keep going through his day. in his arms is a stack of paper that looks like it’s been carelessly carried around or sorted through, pages sticking out and folding in on each other. he’s still pretty early in his goal of posting all of these missing posters around town, and already he feels like he’s going to be sick each time he puts one up. the sound of dan’s voice breaks through the fog of his mind and he looks at him with especially tired eyes.

       jonathan likes the idea of ghosts.  scary movies about ghosts are some of the more interesting ones in his opinion; he likes that they tend to delve into the human psyche and feel more emotionally charged than your typical monster flick. part of why he likes them, however, is because they don’t really scare him. most horror movies don’t. it’s easy to enjoy them when they don’t give you nightmares, when you’re not worried about what’s going to get you once you turn the lights off after watching.