Monster Hunting Soulmates

Narrating Jancy’s Silent Conversations 

fic prompt me: touching

35. kissing their bruises and scars

 He sleeps, hard, but she doesn’t.

Every time she closes her eyes she hears wet stomping – thwump, thwump - , sing-song taunting, smells rank, rotting breath. Beside her, Jonathan is still a death. She has to check, more than once, that he’s breathing.

for the record, i don’t think i can top this little ditty for the “run, jump, knock the wind out of someone with a hug and kissing” prompt, so i offer it up again: telephone line

43.  A kiss pressed to the top of the head. (jonathan byers/nancy wheeler)

It’s the little pleasures he didn’t anticipate, at all, when thought about what it would be like to have a girlfriend.

Holding hands, sure, and the ridge of her scar against his palm, but not what it would feel like to be tugged in a direction, down a hall, across a street, down a driveway, up a set of stairs. That jerk in his shoulder socket, another being exerting force on his orbit. 

Or notes; he’d thought about love letters, sweated cold bullets at the pressure to write ones worth hanging onto, but he hadn’t thought about notes from desk to desk during a boring physics problem set, or inside jokes and tempting invitations slipped between the grates of his locker between bells.

Dates, oh god dates, he’d stayed up night after night imagining how he could ever afford to take her out to a nice dinner, somewhere with a white table cloth where they’d have to look nice and order something with a name in a foreign language. He hadn’t realize free tickets from his last job at the Hawk would be more than enough, or that sometimes the best thing they could do was drive out to a field, park, climb onto the hood of his car and law back against the windshield, searching for constellations and talking for hours about everything and nothing.

Or “talking” for hours about everything and nothing. The kind of conversations you have with lips but, perhaps, not quite with words.

Or that, for all Mr. Wheeler’s steady, carefully judgmental gaze made him slightly itchy under the collar, the Wheelers’ family room and basement sofas were quite comfortable places to relax after a family dinner, Nancy tucked into his side as they watch Wheel of Fortune, listening to her father try to guess the answers.

Wrong, mostly.

That for as much as he likes trailing kisses down her neck, her chest, her stomach and more, or the way she shivers when his fingers slide under her sweater in the quiet dark of their bedrooms, the nicest part is the way her hair tickles his chin when she’s got her head in the crook of his shoulder, or the way her fingers drum lightly on his stomach, following a rhythm he cannot hear, as she tries to puzzle out the answer for herself.

That it would make him feel warm in the pit of his stomach to listen to the two of them throw out wrong answer after wrong answer in an attempt to be right first, that that would be what makes him feel most at home.

She guesses wrong again, huffing in annoyance when the contestant moves to solve, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

#20: Kissing in a stairwell, giving them an artificial height difference

Anon, I really like the way you think.

This gets moderately nsfw. Prompt me in my ask box for more dirty things like this, or maybe something not-so-dirty. Whatever wish you put in that box is my command, as long as I get to write about my two favs.

______

Attention is a currency she’s never had problems with paying. Even when she was a little kid, with her lace trim socks and vintage hair bows and two parents who spoiled her, she defined herself by her ability to concentrate. On school, on ballet, on the elementary social circles and how they shifted. As she went into high school, she discovered that most people didn’t care about paying attention. They wanted to attract it. Steve attracted a lot of attention and gave little. When he began to show interest in her, she was shocked. Awed, actually. The notes he passed to her, the things he whispered in her ear, the inappropriate games he suggested they play when studying: all conscious distractions that she mostly welcomed because she believed dating him was a privilege. A serious one.

But while he distracted her on purpose, Jonathan does so without meaning to.

Like now, in English class, with thirty minutes left until the bell. They’ve been given reading time, but the room is filled with an inescapable sort of white noise from the overlap in conversations of their peers. When she tires of scanning the same paragraph over and over, she lifts her eyes. Eagerly, they follow the sharp angle of his jaw and fall down the arrowlike slant of his nose, straight and short. Move round the differing curves of his lips, currently stuck in a pout, and crest the sweeping waves in his hair. There are some pieces hanging in his eyes, some curling upward at the nape of his neck. Sunlight coming in from the window threads gold through their pale brown. Makes him look like an angel, or something.

He is sideways in his chair, leaning back against the wall to the left of their row. One of his legs is up as his foot taps on his knee, and though the grey jeans he has on fit him loosely, the material is taut at his thigh. Just like how his t-shirt clings to his shoulders but sways over his abdomen. She feels compelled to reach out, to touch. Wants to grind on denim and make fists in cotton. Wow is it not the time for these cravings.

But—she has a plan. One that’s either good or too tempting for her to see its flaws.

Getting up cautiously, she walks to the front, book nestled under her arm.

“Mrs. Feliz?”

The woman looks up from her work with a kind albeit tired expression, annoyed by her students. “What can I do for you, Nancy?” she sighs.

“Um,” she gestures toward the door, “I was wondering if you would let me go to the stairwell right outside? It is really hard to focus in here.”

Her face relaxes, and she uncaps her pen. “Yes, you’re welcome to. Let me write you a pass.”

Nancy tilts her head, watches her teacher scribble on the slip of paper. “And do you think Jonathan could come, too? We’ve been thinking about getting a head start on the partner assignment.”

“Of course,” she gives her their hall pass, “just be quiet for the other teachers please.”

She smiles. Ms. Feliz has always favored the two of them, given them special treatment. Especially Jonathan and especially after he missed all those days in November while Will had “pneumonia” and his family was dealing with “personal problems.”

When she turns around, he’s standing (fortunately he heard his name and will play along) yet his brows have knit together. He’s suspicious of her intentions, she can tell. She nods in the direction of the door and walks out of the small room, hearing him shyly thank Feliz behind her.

In the hall, she checks for students, teachers, administrators. No one’s around. Just empty space and closed white lockers.

“Hi,” she says innocently as he joins her and shuts the door.

“I told you I’m not gonna skip class with you anymore,” he insists, “so you can go wherever you want but I’m not going past this stairwell.”

She grins. “Okay.” As she walks over with him, she has to bite back a giggle.

She drops her book onto one of the steps and then yanks his away to do the same. “What…” He laughs gently through his nose at the fact that her face is bright pink. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“I didn’t want to skip class,” she holds both of his hands, “I wanted to take a break from it. I couldn’t focus.”

Directing him with the force of her arms, she gets him to sit on the second stair and then sits herself down on the first one. Between his spread legs, her upper body is twisted toward him. “It’s always loud in there,” he mumbles and his slender fingers squeeze hers, “how are you not used to it?”

“That’s not really what I was distracted by,” she says. Next, she’s kissing him.

As she expected, he hesitates. Freezes up for a second while she presses her lips into his a few times. He cares about privacy, cares too much about it. Only ever wants to do this kind of thing when alone with her in his bedroom, or hers, or in the middle of nowhere on the hood of his car. But even though they’re in school, they’re free from observation for now. Nobody should bother them. (If they’re lucky.) He must remind himself of this, because she feels him start to kiss her back. So softly, already passionate somehow.

“You know you’re not the only one who gets distracted,” he whispers into her mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She tips back her head, adjusting to the exaggerated height difference between them. He leans his forehead down on hers for the same reason. Fluffy hair brushes against her skin and flattens, tickling her. As the corners of her mouth lift, his tongue accidentally grazes her teeth. In a weird way, she thinks it feels good. To correct his mistake, he licks lightly on her lip, her tongue, and kisses each separately. It makes her heart pound. She tries to replicate the actions and gets an adorably shaky breath from him in return; he must like this as much as she does, him being high above her while she cranes to reach him. She hasn’t figured out why, but she loves to feel desperate for him. Helplessly so. Maybe because she knows he loves teasing her. Loves to slow her down and draw things out and show her his patience.

But she doesn’t just get desperate for her own pleasure. She gets so desperate for his. Considering his lack of self-indulgence, she finds it addictive to get him off. With this in mind, she bites down carefully on his tongue. And, quietly, he moans.

She moves her hand to his knee, and his comes up to her throat, hovering. He touches her neck but doesn’t choke, his thumb applying light pressure to the flesh under her right ear while his index finger rests under her left. He tenderly tilts up her chin with the back of his hand.

And she’s burning up. It feels like her blood has gone hot and gooey.

Because something (everything) about this—the position they’re in, the idea of turning him on during reading time—is wrecking her in a way she didn’t imagine when she decided to sneak him out of class. His kiss is noticeably possessive under the illusion of his tallness, and she’s obsessed. It’s not often that he lets her see how much he actually wants her. Even if she enjoys being the forward one in their relationship (which, trust her, she does), she will never complain about him getting a little forceful. Under all that dramatic pessimism is a seriously passionate person.

They continue to touch and play on the stairs for a couple more minutes. Once he pulls away from her lips, slick and sensitive, she looks up at him. Almond eyes take her in hungrily, pupils dilated. She looks down and sees his hardness.

“Nancy…”

She clutches the hem of his shirt. Bunches it up to expose his flat stomach.

“Sit back some,” she murmurs before ducking down to kiss his abdomen. The skin is smooth and warm against her busy mouth, arousing her further. They sigh in pleasure simultaneously. Nuzzling him, inhaling his scent, she tucks the tips of her fingers into the top of his pants and his boxers. Tugs both down below his v-line and then kisses it. She sucks on the bone there, he whimpers, and—

A harsh voice comes over the intercom, shocking them. His hips stutter, and she jolts. The principal calls all Debate members to go to the auditorium.

“Oh my god,” she says, “I forgot where we were.”

He immediately sits up straight, breathing hard. “So did I.”

Desirous and somewhat amused, she combs out the bruise she left on his hip. Smooths out the wrinkles in his shirt. “Nance, can you not…”

She pauses with her hand on his thigh. “What?”

“Please stop touching me. You’re gonna kill me.”

All the heat rushes back into her body. “Oh, right.” She stands up and tries to compose herself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go that far. It’s just, sometimes when we’re doing that, I kinda forget about everything besides you.”

His eyes fall shut, and he gives a crooked smile. “Same here.”

“If it makes you feel better: I’m uncomfortable, too. My underwear is so wet right—”

“Okay, the-the darkroom,” he stammers. “Come with me. Now. The darkroom.”

So, yeah. Her attention span isn’t what it used to be.

Sorry it took so long for me to answer this

- Okay so neither of them are very into pet names, it’s mostly just “Jon” and “Nance”

- Jonathan’s love language is receiving gifts, and he’s constantly collecting things to give to Nancy

- Ribbons, photos, cool looking rocks, feathers, fall leaves, you name it

- That boy is like a goddamn magpie

- He sends her a ton of care packages after they move

- Nancy’s love language is physical touch

- She’s always got an arm around Jonathan, or at least a hand on his back

- Jonathan hates PDA, which takes Nancy a while to get used to

- The most he’ll do it public is hold her hand or kiss her forehead

- But in private? Oh boy can he kiss

- He was little unsure about it at first, after all Nancy is his first girlfriend, but he’s a quick learner.

- And honestly? She likes it better that way. With Steve it felt like he was always trying to make a show of their relationship, whereas intimacy with Jonathan felt a lot more special.

- Nancy borrows Jonathan’s jacket a lot

- He actually gave it to her right before the Byers moved

- She sleeps with it whenever she misses him, so basically every single night

- Jonathan is always making Nancy mixtapes

- She made him one once, and he pretended to hate her taste in girly pop music, but he secretly has a soft spot for Madonna

- Joyce and Will adore Nancy

jancy ockscreens ⊱┊ reblog or like if you save ♡

rating: light teen

jancy week 2020, day 3: reunion and/or “dor”

dor— the heartbreak and sense of longing you feel because you’re separated from your love

post season 3

Jonathan,

I wrote “Dear Jonathan” like four times and threw out each piece of paper after. That doesn’t feel right, does it? Too formal. Something I’d send my grandmother. You’re not my grandmother.

You’re not here, either. You’re somewhere on the road right now and I’m sitting in my room, feeling you get farther and farther away. I don’t even know where to send this. I think you told me last night, or maybe before that, I don’t even remember. I also don’t remember the numbers or the street name or anything else, just the drop in my stomach when I realized just how far that is and how much Mom would totally notice if I took the car in the middle of the night, because it would be too long to go there and back.

watch out now, take care, beware of the thoughts that linger, winding up inside your head, the hopelessness around you, in the dead of night

beware of sadness; it can hit you, it can hurt you, make you sore and what is more, that is not what you are here for

post-starcourt, pre-finale. jancy week 2020 day 1: family

Read it on AO3

It is stifling in the house.

There is no exhale of relief this time, no confidence that it is over. Wounds may heal but this time Jonathan feels certain this will happen again, and again, and again, until it wins and they are all dead.

And so the air does not lift. It stays weighted.