Work Text:
May 28, 1989
1:27 AM
The line rings.
Jonathan doesn’t pick up, because of course he doesn’t. It’s well-past one o’clock in the morning and Jonathan’s been in the thick of trying to finish this damn end-of-the-semester short film before his deadline for weeks. Will thinks he’s probably got those big, ugly headphones on over his head, tuning out the whole world around him that isn’t sound-syncing and re-splicing together the same dozen film strips a thousand different ways.
But Will tries again.
He misses his big brother, and he tries the line again.
Jonathan picks up on the third ring. He’s exasperated and heaves a, “hello? Look, I’m not interested. It’s not a—”
“—Jon?”
And then it’s like Jonathan’s tone does a complete tonal shift; Will hears him shuffling around through the crackly receiver. “Oh, Will? Shit, sorry. I thought you were a telemarketer or something. I’ve been getting these weird calls… not important. Are you okay? It’s late.”
“Yeah,” Will sighs. “I’m okay. Are you busy?”
Jonathan twists the phone cord around his finger as he settles into a kitchen chair. His apartment isn’t big — it’s a tiny studio layout, big enough for him, a bed, a kitchen table, a desk, and a loveseat, but not much else — but it does the job, and it’s cheap for New York. Either way, it’s not Hawkins — and that’s more than enough for him. “Kind of,” Jonathan admits, letting out a big, deep exhale, “but I’m never too busy for you. I should take a break anyway.”
Will doesn’t answer. This is stupid to call about anyway, isn’t it?
Jonathan got out — he isn’t being haunted and bogged down by the lingering ghosts and broken shards of Hawkins, Indiana anymore. He left Will behind to deal with it alone, even though they promised they’d always be there for each other. Will tries not to hold it against his brother too much — he thinks he’d have probably done the same thing if he was the big brother here.
Leave without looking back.
Doesn’t make it hurt less, though.
“Will? What’s the matter?”
Finally, Will explodes. “Jonathan, I can’t stand this place anymore.”
The line crackles. Jonathan’s knee bounces. “Huh?”
“I can’t stand this place. School. Everything.”
Jonathan sighs through the line. “Will, we’ve been over this. It’s already almost June. You’ve only got another, what, less than a month of school left?” A pause. “Man, you’ve been through hell since middle school. You’re really going to let a little bit of senioritis break you, right at the end? C’mon. We both know you’re better than that.”
Will groans. “Jon, I can’t—“
“You can, dude. Less than a month and then you’re free from that hellhole forever. And you know I’m coming down for your graduation as soon as I’m done with finals — I’ve had my plane ticket booked for months. Where’s this coming from?”
It’s stupid. It’s all so stupid. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Will hesitates. “It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you say is stupid.”
“You’re going to laugh at me,” Will frowns. He swallows down some bitter concoction of shame and indignation. “I’d laugh at me.”
“I don’t laugh at my baby brother,” Jonathan huffs. “Out with it. C’mon. We don’t hide things from each other any more, remember?”
Which is true — which is why Will can’t believe he’s still been hiding from Jonathan for so long. Shit, he thought the gay thing would be the end of his secrets years ago, except now he’s eighteen, and he’s been through fighting interdimential monsters and saving the world from mass destruction before he could legally drink, and he still keeps secrets from his big brother.
Jonathan seemed to know everything at eighteen years old.
Why is he still so behind? Is it going to be like this forever?
Will inhales shakily. “He doesn’t love her,” he spits.
“Who?”
Will doesn’t respond.
“Are you — do you mean mom? And Jim? Is something—”
“—no, no, I don’t mean them.”
“Then I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Will.”
The name is bitter on his tongue. “Mike.”
Jonathan hesitates. Fuck. “You’re treading some real murky waters here, dude.”
Will sniffles through the line. The last year and a half — it’s been…
Sad? Lonely? Broken? Empty?
And Will’s not the writer here, Mike is, but he has no idea what goes on inside Mike’s head anymore, because Mike doesn’t let anybody in. He’s become all but a total recluse — reticent, he just buries his head in books and hunches over his typewriter for hours on end, writing stories nobody’s been allowed to read for months and getting lost in made-up paracosms to fulfill the gaping hole that El has left in his life — in their lives.
But it’s not fair, because act as he might, Mike wasn’t the only one who lost El.
They all did.
Mike lost a girlfriend he couldn’t even say he loved to her face, not even in her last moments, but Will lost his sister. Joyce lost her daughter, Hop lost another, Max lost the only sisterhood she had ever known.
Will wishes he wasn’t so selfish, but he doesn’t even think it’s about Mike at all for him anymore — maybe it was back then, and maybe the feelings are going to linger somewhere inside him forever; some dull, achy scar tissue that was once cavernous, an abyss, but it’s not about him. It’s about the fact that Mike promised him, atop that radio tower at the end of the world that they’d remain best friends no matter what, and they haven’t.
And Will misses his best friend. He misses his brother, he misses the party, he misses El, he misses DnD, he misses—
He just misses, and he can’t stand being haunted by this town any longer.
“It’s not about that,” Will finally supplies, “he did, once, but I know he doesn’t anymore. I don’t know when it — when it stopped? But it’s — it’s become more… um, like, a fantasy, I guess, some version of her… than anything actually about El. It’s not grief anymore, it’s… I don’t know. He’s so scared to move on.”
“What is this about, then? I thought you were — y’know, over him?”
Will groans. “I am,” he sighs. “I mean, as over him while still living in Hawkins with him as I ever will be.”
“So, then?”
“I’m just worried about him,” Will finally admits.
Jonathan kicks his feet up on the kitchen table. God, he doesn’t seem to get it. “Why? Look, grief looks different for everybody. The best you can do is—”
“—be there for him, listen to him, I know. And I am. But he hardly talks anymore, he doesn’t care about… about anything. He just writes and writes and writes, these stories and campaigns we don’t do and letters he’ll never send and drafts, and — and El, it’s all just made up nonsense now, I don’t even know what he thinks is real anymore, I just—”
“—Will?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re definitely not over him,” Jonathan suggests.
A pause. “But I—”
“—I know. I know, okay? Look, you wanna hear something bad?”
Will sniffles again. Pathetic, isn’t he? And selfish. God. Even now… “what is it?”
“I’m not over Nancy,” Jonathan admits. “Not by a long shot. If she called me and asked me to — to whatever, I’d say yes in a heartbeat, you hear me? That girl’s always going to be my first love even if it’s over. It’s always going to be there, y’know? Always stings. Aches right under the surface of — of everything I do.”
“You sound just as pathetic as I do,” Will finally supplies.
“It’s — it’s not pathetic, Will,” Jonathan frowns. “It’s… I don’t know. It’s just… growing up. And grief. You’re all graduating soon. Big changes. He was your first love. You’re allowed to feel any sort of way about it, okay? I think you’ve earned it.”
Something cracks open in Will’s hollowing chest, and he lets out a deep bellow of a cry. “Jonathan, when is it going to stop hurting this much?”
Jonathan can’t even answer. He’s getting choked up too — it’s finals season and he misses Nancy, misses his brother, regrets leaving but not for himself. He regrets having to leave his whole life behind to pick up all those ugly, broken pieces of the remainder of their world. “I don’t know, Will,” he whispers finally. “I wish I had a better answer for you. If I knew how to make it stop hurting so much, I’d have done it already.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“I know it’s not,” Jonathan sighs. “Nothing about that damn place is comforting anymore.”
“I know,” Will whispers.
Jonathan pauses. The elephant in the room that’s been lingering since last fall. “Have you thought about…”
“Yeah, I have,” Will admits. “That’s, um, that’s why I called, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“If I… if I did apply somewhere, um, out there with you,” Will says carefully, like he’s testing these words on his tongue to see if they’ll break, “would that be stupid?”
“You… want to move to New York?”
“I don’t — Jesus, don’t say it like that. You don’t think it’d be a good idea?”
“No — no, I didn’t say it like anything, I think it’s a great idea, Will,” Jonathan reassures. “It’s late for the big schools but, y’know, we could look around to colleges, try to put together a portfolio for you when I’m home. Maybe I could fly you home — er, to New York — for the summer, see how you like it out here?”
Will exhales. “I, um, no, that’s okay.”
“You don’t want to keep doing school? That’s — that’s fine too, hey, we can—”
“No, I do,” Will sighs. “I didn’t tell you before, but I… I already applied to SVA. In the winter. I worked on a portfolio for… for forever, the whole year before, channeled everything into my — into painting, and I was — um, waitlisted, but then I… got a letter. The letter.”
“What the hell?” Jonathan’s phone nearly clatters to the floor. “Are you serious?!”
“Dead,” Will says.
“Holy shit, Will,” Jonathan exclaims, “God, I wish I could hug you. I’m so proud of you, are you kidding? You’re not kidding. Jesus. My talented baby brother, holy shit. Did you just get it today?”
“Stop it,” Will groans. “I — no.”
“What?”
“I got it a month or so ago,” Will admits.
“And you just told me? Dude!”
Another pause. A sniffle if Jonathan really picks it out. “I don’t know if… if I’m ready? I’m — I’m terrified.”
“Can I be honest?”
“Please.”
“You’re never going to be ready.”
“Excuse—”
“No, really. Were you ready to — to be kidnapped as a kid? Were you ready to — to die and come back to life? Huh? Were you ready to have your friends grow up around you? To move to California even though you hate the beach? To — to come out? No, okay? Life’s been unfair as hell to you, but life’s going to happen around you whether you want it to or not, okay, and you’re finally eighteen. Once you walk that stage, you get to choose how your life goes from now on. You get to choose — and you need to choose. Or else you…”
Will feels his head rush. “Or else?”
Or else you turn out like Mike, Jonathan wants to say, but he bites his tongue. “Or else you end up taking the passenger seat in your own life.”
“So it, um, coming out to New York…?”
“Will, you’re going to love it here.”
Something kickstarts Will’s heart. “Really?”
“There’s people like you here,” Jonathan says, and Will can hear the smile in Jonathan’s voice through the receiver. “It’s so — vibrant. You’ll find — people who love you like you do.”
Will goes quiet. And then, “I didn’t tell anybody ‘cause I was so — so scared I was never going to get out of this place.”
“Oh, Will.”
“I thought I’d be stuck here forever. Somewhere that haunts me, that doesn’t… love me. Accept me. I love my friends, but the party… they’re all splitting up in the fall anyway. Dustin will be in Massachussets, for God’s sake, and Lucas is taking Max for a scholarship in Washington, they’re all getting out. Like you and Nancy and Robin. It’s not going to be the same either way, y’know? It hasn’t been the same.”
“I sense a but?”
Will hesitates, “but I can’t…”
Finally it clicks. “You can’t leave Mike behind?”
Will squeaks a little. “Is that stupid?”
Jonathan breathes. “No, it’s not stupid. He doesn’t have…”
“I don’t think he even wants to leave. Probably ever. I think he wants to stay, ‘cause he feels close to… to El here, writing his stories,” Will finally admits. It feels like a weight is being lifted off his chest. Letting somebody know, finally, all the fear. Letting it go. “But I can’t stay here with him anymore. So long as he can’t move on from her, I can’t stay here with him. I loved — Jon, I love him so much. I…”
“It’s not your job to — to fix him, or make him move on, Will. His — look, this grief isn’t — it’s not about forgetting her, just… she’ll take up less space someday. Or… that’s how it should be. But you can’t force him to… cope. Even if you want to. At some point, you have to put yourself first and let him go — let yourself heal.”
Will chokes. “I don’t want to,” he says. “But I can’t stay. I can’t.”
“Will,” Jonathan hunches over his table, “I love you. I love you. And Mike loves you, alright? You’re always going to be his best friend, even if he’s… he’s struggling. Maybe with more than you think he is.”
Staring up at the ceiling with moonlight streaming in through the cabin’s crack in the window, what used to be El’s room, Will frowns. It’s not fair. None of this will ever be fair. Not for El, not for him, not for Mike. “I just wanted to help him. But he pushes me out, the whole last year and a half.”
“You can’t save him,” Jonathan sighs. “I couldn’t save Nancy. You can’t save Mike. You and your bleeding heart, Will. You need to put yourself first now.”
Everything Will’s known for months.
Hearing it out loud is… different, though. Mike’s always gotten him, but Jonathan’s his own flesh and blood. His big brother. His best friend, even when Mike refuses to be.
“I’m sorry I took so much of your time tonight,” Will apologizes softly. “What are you… you’re working on your film, right? The… uh…”
“Yeah, this is my final film for the year,” Jonathan says. “It’s a silent film, actually. The Unspoken. So it’s — y’know, it’s a couple who are — are together, but couldn’t be further apart, and their, I don’t know, communication, it all has to happen without words. It’s… a work in progress. I’m trying to figure out how to cut some of these scenes together. It’s due on… the ninth. Next week.”
Will laughs wetly, “that sounds so boring, Jonathan.”
“It’s — it’s art! It’s contemporary!”
“A silent film? That’s — that’s not contemporary! That’s practically medieval!”
“It was part of the requirement, idiot.”
“You think you’ll get it done on time?”
“I sure hope so,” Jonathan sighs. “Next year, though, I’ll be a junior, hey, I get to start my real ideas. The Consumer.”
Will chuckles a little. “That sounds even worse.”
“It’s a critique on capitalism through metaphors of cannibalism and hunger, okay, it’s — it’s going to be dark and deep and raunchy and enlightening, and—”
“—okay, Jon, that’s enough, I—”
“—you asked!”
Will grins, “whatever.”
“I can’t believe my baby’s moving out to the big city with me in a couple of months.”
“I… can’t either. God, I need to figure out loans. No wonder I didn’t want to grow up, God, this is—”
“It’s going to be perfect, Will,” Jonathan reassures. “I’ll help you through everything. I’ll even — shit, I’ll brave a gay bar for you. Y’know, help you find a guy or whatever.”
Will hesitates, like he didn’t quite hear that right. “You’ll — you’ll what?”
“Everybody’s got fake ID’s here,” Jonathan shrugs like it’s nothing. “There’s a place that just opened called Townhouse a couple blocks away from school, everyone’s been asking me to come. I’ll bring you during the summer, huh?”
“You… who’s everybody? You’ve got — new… you made gay friends? I don’t…”
“Will,” Jonathan says, but his voice is so light, so bright, “this’ll be the new start of the rest of your life, isn’t it? Move away from shitty Hawkins where everybody knows you to somewhere nobody does? You can just — you’ll get to be yourself for the first time. Find people like you, more than just Robin for a couple months. No more hiding. No shame. No… no more Upside Down and ghosts and scars haunting you.”
Will finally lets himself smile. He finally lays back in his bed, cord from his desk outstretched across the room. “How am I supposed to tell Mom I’m leaving? And…”
“Mom’s going to be so happy the house will be quiet for once,” Jonathan grins, “plus, she’ll have so much time for her and Hop to—”
“—shut the hell up, oh my—”
“—what did you think I was going to say? To go out for dinners and dates! No more kids to look after!” Jonathan subverts, laughs under his breath. “Maybe take a vacation, I don’t know!”
“As if,” Will groans. “You’re gross.”
Jonathan grins. “Not my fault you took it that way.”
Sighing through the line, Will curls up under his blanket a little further. “And… and Mike?”
“You’ll figure out a way to tell him,” Jonathan shrugs. “You always do. You got the hardest part over with two years ago, right? And you lived. Plus, you can always visit. Christmas breaks and during the spring and — and all summer if you want to go back home to spend time with Mom and Hop. I’ll even pay your rent.”
Will lets out a breath. “We get to live together?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I didn’t—”
“Obviously I want to live with you. You’re my best friend, Will. I wouldn’t make you brave NYC alone, c’mon. I’m in your corner.”
A silent tear slips from Will’s eye and drips onto his pillow. His chest aches, but it’s not quite as hollow as before. It’s aching and full and all twisted up. “You’re my — you’re my best friend too, Jon.”
“I love you, Will,” Jonathan whispers. “It’s way late. I’ll — I’ll try to call again, okay? And I get to see you in — in thirteen days. Can you wait that long?”
“Uh huh,” Will agrees. “Yeah, I — yeah. I love you, too, I — thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being there for me. For… for everything.”
“Always, bud,” Jonathan sighs. “Get some sleep. You’ve got finals to study for soon and school in the morning. I’ll see you before you know it.”
“Before I know it,” Will repeats. “G’night, Jon.”
“G’night, Will.”
Jonathan tips his head back, wipes his wet cheeks, and puts the phone back onto the receiver. The clock on his stove blinks 2:13.
Thirteen days. Thirteen days 'till he sees Will again, 'till he can hug his baby again. Damn it. Thirteen days. He can do this.
Back to The Unspoken it is.