Chapter Text
Jonathan knows more than he lets on. About a lot of things. An absent father and a turbulent mother, a family subjected to suffering continuously makes for tremendous empathy and, subsequently great, reading between the lines. But there is still a lot Jonathan doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why Nancy stayed with Steve, nor why El and Mike feel like they must be in love, or why his mother lies about things that he and Will have always known. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to impress Nancy again, or if that really matters at all. And he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be courageous enough to be the brother Will deserves.
Jonathan smokes weed, he’s not ignorant. And Will has needed someone, anyone, for a long time now. Because ever since he’s been thrown into this, quite literally, upside-down world he’s been tossed around and Jonathan can see how beginning to tear at the seams. And his friends, if they can be called that, have left him to stitch himself back together for the past three years, and maybe Jonathan gets that because they’re kids, and they’re trying so hard to fix themselves at the same time. And maybe it should have been Jonathan carrying the needle and thread— because Joyce is an entire sewing machine but her needle is jammed, so he’s all that’s left. He’s all Will has left.
It's 1986 and Will is different. Jonathan knows, first-hand, that the world isn’t kind to boys who are different, to boys who don’t walk with their chests out and their tongues on fire. The world isn’t kind to boys who are sensitive. The world isn’t kind to Will. And Jonathan can’t change that, no matter how much he wants to create and destroy everything all at once.
So when he watches Will through the Pizza Boy van’s front mirror, and he sees the way his dusty cheeks stain with wet tears his heart breaks because even now Will is the only one putting water in the desert and he’s saving the world but killing himself. When he reminds Will that he loves him, no matter what, it’s a promise about things heavier than DnD and painting. When he hugs Will he digs his fingers into his back and mumbles an apology into his hair about not holding him enough, not holding him together. He keeps Will in his peripheral as they prepare El’s ice bath, and watches Will wipe the suffering from his face like it’s dirt before he faces Mike again. When the van pulls up to the Wheelers' driveway he sees how Will throws himself into the arms of his friends and watches his hands grapple for a grip on something real and tangible.
When Jonathan thinks back at the painting he remembers Joyce replenishing Will’s paints and brushes for his birthday, which was celebrated prematurely because Jonathan wanted Will to have a day that belonged to him, not Mike. Because every day from the pick up at the airport all the way to their return to Hawkins has belonged to Mike. The painting goes hand in hand with the spiel that Will made up about El, a monologue he projected on her to protect Mike from the truth and the thought alone makes Jonathan’s mouth go dry. Because Will lied faster than imaginable, he formulated a reality in seconds. Maybe the reason Mike didn’t realise he had lied or cried not a minute later, was because Will’s always been seamless with fixing up the edges of his words and, subsequently, himself.
Jonathan knows, when he sees Will suck in his breath when his mother mentions girls at school or clench his fists around his cutlery when Mike laughs at one of Argyle's jokes, that even if he’s never been great at helping Will, he’ll be even worse at helping with this. Jonathan knows that this time he can’t even bother to play the role of the brave older brother because he doesn’t know anything about this or how to talk about this , or how to make this okay.
—
But then he drives them to the hospital a few days later while Argyle naps on the Wheelers’ couch and waits in the hallway as Lucas and Will read to Max. The chairs are plastic and creak under his body weight as he shifts, a measly attempt at reaching comfort. Hospitals have put him on edge ever since his last visit to one, he checks the closest exists, once, twice, like they’ll disappear and then once again. He can’t help when he jumps as another door in the hallway bangs open, his eyes are red with irritation already and the entrance of Steve Harrington doesn’t help.
In toll follows Robin, who Jonathan only remembers briefly from Starcourt and then once more from Nancy’s stories of the Hawkins side of Vecna. And then, with a dramatic flair that Jonathan recognises as an attempt to seem more okay than he is, comes Eddie Munson— far from unscathed. The cast around his arm is already scribbled on and the tension in his core tells Jonathan that Eddie’s had to have gone through surgery.
The three look rather like an ensemble together; tall, dark, and clumsy. The three musketeers. The Bee Gees.
“Byers?” Steve asks, looking somewhere surprised and perturbed. As per usual.
“Yeah. Hey.” He stands, smiling thinly at Robin and Eddie to acknowledge them too. His eyes rest on Eddie longer.
“You here with Will?” Steve continues his interview, and Jonathan nods, still staring at Eddie.
“Oh this,” Steve says suddenly, “Robin, you remember, and uh— Munson. Eddie.”
“Yeah. Robin. Good to see you. Eddie, I,” Jonathan thinks, “We had biology together one year, I think.”
Eddie laughs, it's a deep sound but Jonathan recognises the crackle in his lungs, “Yeah man, yeah. Jonathan Byers. Good to see you,” Eddie pauses, “Alive.”
“We should probably get this guy to his bed, or what’s left of it,” Robin interjects. Jonathan rocks on the balls of his heels.
“Of course. Uh, do you need a ride or?” Jonathan asks, swinging his keys before he can stop himself.
Steve shakes his head, moving to support Eddie so he’s no longer leaning on the wall, using Steve’s side instead, “Nah man, thanks for the offer though. See you around yeah?”
Jonathan steps aside and gives the group a curt wave. As he watches them walk away his eyes fall on the ratty black jeans Eddie is wearing and the black handkerchief sticking out of his back pocket.
—
A day later when Will is too tired, too sad Jonathan realises, to stay in the hospital he drives him and Lucas home. He watches Lucas writhe in the backseat, clearly far less willing to leave Max’s side. But they’re kids, Jonathan reminds himself, and they need food and rest and to grow. And sometimes they need help to stop them from prematurely destroying their own bodies.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Will asks as Jonathan makes no move to exit the driver's seat.
“I need to go to the store. Are you okay to be alone for a bit?”
The answer, truthfully, is no.
“Of course.” Will smiles, small, hesitant.
Jonathan swallows the bile that reaches the top of his throat when he reverses out of the driveway and makes sure Will is inside before he drives off.
Jonathan still remembers Steve's home address, it’s a small town and there are only so many people he really knows. Remembering one address isn’t hard. Especially not when so much of the town frequent it. As he suspected, Steve’s car is there, the lights in the house are on, and call it intuition (or just deductive thinking) but he knows that he’ll find just who he’s looking for here.
Knocking on the door would be more nerve-wracking if Jonathan wasn’t here with intention, and the adrenaline of the situation plus the speech he’s got prepared in his head keeps his anxieties occupied.
“Well. This is unexpected.”
Jonathan stills. He came for Eddie, sure, but didn’t expect him to open the door. As if the house is his own.
“I need to talk to you,” Jonathan says, quick before he forgets what he’s here for, “About that.”
Using the props to his advantage, Jonathan points his finger at the bandana on Eddie’s head which is pushing his hair back. Jonathan wonders for a moment what the point is, considering Eddie’s fringe and some tufts of hair are still hanging in his face.
“Is there a problem?” Steve's voice interrupts, opening the door wider and stepping up next to Eddie.
Jonathan watches the way Steve pushes his shoulder so it’s just a little bit in front of Eddie’s, and the way his hand overlaps Eddie’s on the door.
“Woah, calm down Harrington. He didn’t threaten my honour. Off your high horse.” Eddie rolls his eyes, elbowing Steve in the stomach lightly before turning his attention back to Jonathan, “What your deal with my bandana? Looking for fashion tips?”
Jonathan pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue, mild annoyance seeping into his posture, “I know what it means.”
A familiar flicker of fear crosses Eddie’s face for a second, Jonathan sees it because he’s looking for it. But when the same expression crosses Steve he frowns.
“And I need your help.” Jonathan clarifies, “Both of you, maybe.”
“Is this your freaky way of asking for a threesome or something?” Eddie bites, mouth splitting into a grin and Jonathan stops himself from huffing in irritation.
“Are you trying to get your ass beat Byers, I thought you were better than this,” Steve speaks again, body squaring in defence and Jonathan almost laughs.
“Don’t be dense. Either of you. Let me in?”
—
Steve is everything to these kids. And so is Eddie. Jonathan hates it a little bit.
He thinks about them all, and he sees Steve in Dustin's habitual scheming, in Lucas’ ability to ease tensions. He sees Eddie in Mike’s closet, in his dark jeans and growing hair. He sees Will, untouched by Steve’s charm and uncorrupted by Eddie’s passion and he wonders.
“I know being quiet is like your, schtick or whatever, but mind enlightening us on what exactly you need our help with.” Eddie taps his fingertips together, elbows resting on his knees. Jonathan watches him from the couch he’s sitting on, opposite the two of them. This feels like a reverse interrogation. Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington are in the room, demon freak and alpha male, and yet it's Jonathan who’s leading the conversation.
“You’re…” Jonathan hesitates, “Queer.”
Eddie’s face contorts for a split second. “That’s one word to use.”
Steve’s arms are crossed over his chest and his left leg is bouncing, the movement keeps catching Jonathan’s eye. If it were just him and Steve, Jonathan knows this conversation would not have been nearly this patient. Eddie bumps their thighs together and Jonathan guesses that he’s what's keeping Steve shut up.
“You don’t know Will,” Jonathan says, he knows this is true.
Eddie nods, “I know
of
Will. The party won’t shut up about him. Wheeler especially.”
Jonathan swallows his anger at the mention of Mike. The densest person in Hawkins (Harrington excluded.) The realisation settles into Jonathan that now is not the moment to be prideful or hesitant. There’s no time for that. “I need you to talk to him. I need you to help him.”
Both Steve and Eddie look perplexed by Jonathan's vagueness.
“He’s so,” Jonathan breaths out a shallow breath, “Alone. And he doesn’t know anything and I can’t, I can’t help. I don’t know enough about … this but he can’t be alone again.”
Steve sucks his teeth, “Byers I swear if you don’t start making sense right now—”
“How do you know?” Eddie cuts him off, “If you don’t know enough, how can you know you’re right about this?”
Jonathan drops his head to his hands; “Because Will has always been different and he’s, he’s struggling right now because he loves too much but he’s scared of himself. And I can see him recoiling into himself.”
Steve comes to, “You think Will is…?”
“I can’t let him go through another thing, thinking he’s some kind of monster. Something wrong, broken, in need of change. Not another thing. Not this too. And I know this is awful because we’re in fucking Hawkins Indiana and because it's 19— fucking— 86 and no one is on your side right now but I need someone to be on his.”
Jonathan watches their faces carefully and wallows in the silence that envelops them. Eddie looks distraught as if some part of his own life was just torn from his chest and laid bare in front of him.
“We are on his side,” Steve says then, genuine. “And clearly so are you.”