#jancy fics

darling speak to me (but don't you say a word) by backonyou: Only the first chapter has been posted so far but it is sooooo damn delicious and I am super excited for more. post s5 getting back together via drunk/high phone calls between them in college. Bonus: Argyle mention!

you know what I mean by @somepomegranatetea: Lonnie shows back up at the Byers' house after s5 and only Nancy and Jonathan are home

the various oddities of Jonathan Byers by @somepomegranatetea: early relationship jancy ft. Nancy taking note of all of Jonathan's little oddities. It is so sweet.

stars in the ceiling by @wanderleave: I didn't realize chapter 2 had been posted so now I know what I'm reading tonight! chapter 1 was so fun. Another getting back together post s5 wip where Nancy ends up in snowed in with Jonathan in NYC after they haven'r talked in a while.

color correction by @throttlegainwell: this one is only 195 so you can read it SO FAST. A (perfect) fix it for that damn pink sweater confession because actually wtf was that

the landslide will bring you down and we'll be a fine line, we'll be alright by @jonathanbyersphd: Post s2 early relationship Jancy, Jonathan is trying to keep it together with his family while Joyce is struggling while also navigating his new relationship with Nancy. Landslide is the more recent work and is more jancy focused if that's what you're looking for; we'll be a fine line is the same timeline but from Joyce's POV

Looking Through Windows by inthemorninglight: This is such a good Jancy + Byers family fic. It's about Nancy's first time over for dinner after s2 and her supporting Jonathan when his family is having a very hard time.

a love supreme by @stoprobbers: Truthfully i haven't read this one YET (but it is top of the list)...HOWEVER I know it's good because everything stoprobbers writes is amazing. This is her latest post s5 getting back together fic!! Also do yourself a favor and go read all her older works while you're at it.

shut-eyed firebirds by @leslie057: Another one that I haven't finished YET but I have started and it is sooo fantastic!! future jancy navigating their relationship and getting married and starting a family.

These are just the ones I've discovered since s5 but there are also a lot of excellent older jancy fics if you are willing to deep dive in the tags!!! definitely check out the other fics written by all the aforementioned authors, lots of gems in there. Some other authors I recommend are @maddie-grove (AO3), @jancys-blue-bayou (AO3), and VerityR (AO3; Note that this author last wrote for jancy in 2019 so all of the fics are older, but they are like ship classics to me. banger after banger coming from VerityR back in the day)

[A fic for day 5 of @jancyweek2020. The theme is ‘one difference’ - and I’ve written about Karen finding Jonathan in Nancy’s room back in 1x06!]

Karen Wheeler pinned the final wave of her brown hair into place and stood back from the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically. Smoothing a barely visible crease in her shirtdress, she nodded to herself. Perfect.

She knew some people thought she was vain, but she just saw it as being sensible. Why wouldn’t she want to look as good as she could? At her age, especially after three kids, she was lucky to still have her figure and a relatively unlined face. Lucky too to have the money to buy nice clothes and visit the salon every week, courtesy of Ted. (And she knew maintaining a certain look was an important part of keeping him, even if he didn’t show much interest in her these days.)

Yesterday had been rough. Funerals always were, but a child’s funeral – her son’s best friend – that was too much. She’d worked so hard to build a safe, happy, prosperous life, but seeing Joyce’s dazed and broken face had made her realise how quickly things could be taken away from you. All you could do right now was enjoy what you had, and try to hold your children a little closer.

Maybe she’d see if Nancy wanted to help her make breakfast. They could do blueberry pancakes, her favourite. They used to cook together all the time, her little girl standing at her elbow and solemnly watching as she measured out the ingredients. Her Aunt Janine had even made them matching aprons the Christmas Nancy was eleven, with their names embroidered on them. The two of them had drifted apart over the past year, but this seemed like a good moment to try to get back to a simpler time.

Her older daughter had been out last night – a movie with Ally, or maybe it was Stacey. She’d heard her come in just after Karen had gone to bed, so it wasn’t too early to wake her. She didn’t bother knocking, and was already opening the door as she asked, ‘Nancy, sweetheart, are you up?’

Nancy was up. She was sitting on her bed, books scattered around her. And next to her, asleep in her bed was – a boy.

Karen stared, agape. Nancy was momentarily frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Then she carefully jumped up off the bed and walked towards her mother, glancing back at the boy, whoever he was. (Presumably this was the mysterious Steve Harrington, but his face was buried in a pillow.)

‘Nancy, what…’

Her daughter shushed her (actually shushed her!), and led her by the arm out into the hallway.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Karen asked in a loud whisper. The last thing she needed was for Ted to hear this conversation.

‘It’s not what you think!’ her daughter replied, her blue eyes looking at her mother pleadingly. ‘Jonathan and I were just—talking, about Will and Barb, and everything that’s been happening, and…and neither of us wanted to be alone.’

Wait, that was Jonathan Byers in there? She’d seen the two of them spending time together at Will’s funeral, and thought it was sweet of her daughter to reach out to the boy, but this was definitely not sweet.

‘Oh really?’ said Karen. ‘What am I supposed to think? A couple of days ago I found out you’d spent the night with some boy I’ve never even met, and now I find a different boy in your bed. It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore, Nancy.’

Nancy looked genuinely hurt by that, and Karen felt a stab of guilt. But honestly, what was her daughter thinking? If she didn’t want to be alone, her whole family was right there. But apparently Nancy would rather confide in a boy she hardly knew than her own mother.

‘It’s not like that,’ Nancy said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Jonathan and I are just—We’re friends. We were just talking. Oh my god, Mom, we were at his brother’s funeral yesterday. Do you really think we’d be…doing anything after that?’ Karen tried to read her daughters expression, but found it hard to parse. She looked exhausted, for one thing, and full of anxiety. Barb’s disappearance was taking a toll. It was plausible, she realised, that Nancy and Jonathan had just connected in their shared grief.

But she didn’t quite believe her daughter’s statement. The way she’d glanced back at Jonathan as she’d pushed her mother out of the room wasn’t just about trying to avoid a scene. She’d been genuinely concerned; she’d wanted to let him sleep. And Jonathan was a sweet boy, he took good care of Will and seemed very responsible. He was someone she’d have been happy for Nancy to go on a date with. But the kind of boy she was happy to find in her daughter’s bed was no boy ever.

Karen took a deep breath. She didn’t want to drive her daughter away even further, but she didn’t want to be a pushover either. ‘Nancy, I’m not interested in excuses or explanations. But I never, ever want you to have a boy sleep over in this house again, do you understand?’

Nancy nodded.

‘Right now I really need you to get Jonathan out of this house before your father realises he’s here.’

‘It’s okay, he can climb out my window.’

That answer came way too easily. Was this not the first time Nancy had snuck a boy in or out of the house? Karen didn’t want to think about it, but there were a lot of things she was suddenly having to face up to.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes. And then I expect to see you at breakfast, alone.’ With that, she turned and headed downstairs to cook breakfast on her own, wondering where her little girl had gone, and if she’d ever get her back.

“You make me feel safe.”set in 1983

She’s stuffing her feet into sneakers without tying the laces before she can think rationally. It’s biting cold and the wind is whipping back her hair and she wishes to herself sourly that winter would be over already despite it only being the beginning of December.

Her feet crunch in the dry snow, shoving her face behind her scarf and her hands into pockets that don’t really feel like they’re helping and she knows what she’s asking for her birthday (an even thicker winter coat. one that doesn’t reminisce of being covered in monster goo). She understands why the boys opt for rides to each other’s houses over biking in any season.

The Byers’ house isn’t that far, actually, but she wishes it was closer. She wishes it was next door, hell, that she lived there. She tries to think of anything else until she’s finally trekking up their driveway but she knows she looks like a broken wreck when she rings the doorbell.

She knows her face is red - and not just from the cold - and that her hairs a mess from being blown by the wind. She knows she has dried tears on her cheeks and in her eyes and the tip of her nose is also red and embarrassing and she has nothing to say for herself when the boy she came all the way over to see answers the door.

“Nancy?” He asks, obviously worried but his respectfulness beats him out as he doesn’t approach her. Just waits.

“I-” She starts, making no movement to come inside. She stands there like an idiot with her hands in her pockets and her lower lip quivering ‘cause she’s so stupid for even coming here when there’s nothing even wrong. All she’s got to tell him is the truth. “The light bulb went out.”

[My contribution for @jancyweek2020 day 2. There were two possible themes: Dor (the heartbreak and sense of longing you feel because you’re separated from your love) and Reunion (an instance of two or more people coming together again after a period of separation). I started writing this as a reunion story, but a lot of dor crept in there. Reunions can be very sweet when you know they are only temporary! 

NB: Greenville is one of the most common town names in the US. I haven’t attempted to guess where the Byers now live – all I know is it’s a long way away!]

Nancy really wished she’d had a second coffee at that diner.

Yes, the first one had been disgusting – it tasted burnt, left a gritty residue coating her teeth and tongue, and was served in a chipped, ancient mug. But coffee meant caffeine, which meant energy. And she was feeling a severe lack of energy now, two hours after leaving that roadside diner and following the highway through indistinguishable, nondescript towns and fields. Her eyeballs were starting to hurt.

Jonathan was right about this being the maximum any sane person would want to drive in a day. When he’d told her how far away he was moving, she’d been full of confidence that she could tackle any distance if he was at the other end of it. But the reality of hours and hours behind the wheel was proving her wrong. Her leg kept cramping, the tape deck had eaten the roadtrip mixtape Jonathan had sent her, and she desperately needed to pee (another coffee would only have made that worse, so maybe it was just as well she’d stopped at one).

But she was nearly there. She only had to keep it together for another twenty minutes or so and it would all be worth it. She’d arrive in Greenville, a town that was just as nondescript as all the ones she’d driven through en route, but which had one very important thing going for it: it was roughly halfway between Hawkins and the town where Jonathan now lived.

The Byers had stopped at a motel there when they left Hawkins back in October. Joyce had taken a book of matches from the front desk, and seeing it sitting by an ashtray in their new kitchen sparked a plan in Jonathan’s mind. They were too far apart for study sessions, or going to each other’s proms, or any normal teenage date. But what if they could each get away from their families and schools and jobs for one weekend? A motel halfway between two small towns could be their little oasis. So Nancy had hit the road early on a Saturday morning, her mother pressing Tupperware full of chocolate chip cookies into her hands (Jonathan’s favourites) and her father sternly warning her about road safety.

When you factored in all the time spent driving there today, and the time it would take to drive home tomorrow, they wouldn’t actually have that long together. It was going to be worth it though, to see him. She needed to be with him, a longing so intense that it still shocked her, even though she’d been living with it for months. It was a need to have sex with him, obviously (they definitely weren’t getting a double room this time), but it wasn’t only that. More than anything, she just needed to be near him. She felt safe and comfortable with him in ways that were impossible when they were apart.

There was so much that she wanted to talk to him about, but also a few topics that she knew they would just skirt around. The biggest one, of course, was that graduation was around the corner, and they hadn’t decided what came next. That Nancy was desperate to get away to college, to start a new life completely free of interdimensional monster and government conspiracies and small-town small-mindedness. That Jonathan wanted all that too but couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t leave his family, who were dependent on him. (Didn’t want to leave his family, who he was dependent on. Neither of them had ever said that part out loud.)

Nancy didn’t want any of that to impinge on these few hours that they were going to have together. So she would bite her tongue, choose different topics, or just make sure that their lips were otherwise occupied. Reality could wait for a little bit longer.

A faded billboard announced Rest Easy Motel next left – colour tv, ice, kitchenette. She glanced at her eyes in the visor mirror, relieved to see that her eye makeup had largely survived the journey. Not that Jonathan would care; she could have rolled straight out of bed into the car and he’d still be happy to see her.

The car park was fuller than she’d expected, but she managed to manoeuvre her mom’s station wagon into a space. She got out of the car, and was still scanning the lot for a rusted LTD when she heard his voice. ‘Nancy!’

She turned to see Jonathan emerging from reception, room key in one hand. Her heart quickened as he jogged towards her. His hair was longer, he was wearing a jacket she didn’t recognise, and he was beaming at her, looking more relaxed and happy than she’d ever see him before.

Meeting him halfway across the car park, she launched herself at him, and he kissed her with an intensity that rivalled that night at Murray’s. When they stopped to catch their breath, he stroked her face gently and gave that familiar half-smile that took her breath away.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

***

Less than twenty-four hours later, Nancy was back behind the wheel of her mom’s Mercury and on her way back to Hawkins.

Their one night together had been perfect. It was exactly what she needed. She’d spent the night in Jonathan’s arms, she’d vented to him about everything from the annoying jocks in her homeroom to how much her mom was drinking, and he’d made her laugh and believe that everything would be okay.

So why was there an ache in her chest that grew more intense with each mile that ticked over on the odometer? It was as though this lightning-fast reunion with Jonathan had just reminded her how much she missed him. She’d been in a desert for months, parched and dehydrated. Now she’d had a few drops of water – and instead of quenching her thirst, they’d made her whole body cry out for more.