Chapter Text
The weirdest part wasn't even that they battled a monster from another dimension and lived to tell about it. No, Jonathan thought, the weirdest part was what happened afterward.
He and Steve became friends. And he and Nancy barely spoke to one another.
He wasn't sure how it happened, but it started the night that Steve came over to apologize, and when he returned to attack the monster. When he saved his life. Something changed between them then, and the broken camera and their fistfight and getting arrested didn’t seem to matter anymore. If Will’s disappearance had taught him anything, it was that he couldn't have brought back his little brother by himself. It just wasn’t worth it to spend his time pushing everyone away.
On the other hand, when Will woke up, and his friends gathered around him in the hospital room, he had already sensed Nancy slipping away for good.
He had gotten his brother back, but she had failed to rescue her best friend.
Everything had been too hectic after that to worry about his complicated feelings for a girl he had known for all of one week, even if it did feel like they had grown so close in that time. Will stayed in the hospital for a few days, and the rest of them went to work rebuilding the war zone that was their house. The police chief came over to help him fix the carpet and patch the hole in the wall, while his mom painted over the giant Ouija board in the living room.
“Maybe I should keep the lights up,” she had mused. “It’s almost December.”
Fortunately, Hopper convinced her to take them down.
Meanwhile, Jonathan volunteered for as many extra shifts at the theater as he could to pay for all the repairs and hospital bills, and he passed the hours sitting through The Big Chill for the umpteenth time by catching up on some of the schoolwork he had missed. That part felt especially trivial, but it also made him feel like life was returning to normal.
The first time, Steve nodded at him from across the street as he emerged from the hardware store, his arms full of supplies. Jonathan just nodded back, but that interaction alone hinted at their newfound shared understanding.
The Saturday after Will’s return, Steve stopped by the ticket booth. “Hey, how’s your brother doing?”
“He’s alright.” He didn't feel the need to mention that Will still looked so pale, or that he often woke up the whole house with his coughing fits in the middle of the night.
“And you?”
“Fine,” came his automatic reply, as if he could say anything else. He wondered why Steve was even bothering. But he was still standing there, so he felt obligated to ask, “You?”
“I’m okay, aside from the fact that I’ve been sleeping with a baseball bat for the past week,” he admitted, and it shouldn’t have been funny, but they laughed at the absurdity of it all.
After a pause, Steve shot him a grave look. “She’s been having a lot of nightmares. I’m not really sure how to help her.”
“I don’t know either,” he answered.
“I just thought…maybe it would help if we all talked about it.” Jonathan could read the skepticism on his face, this conversation proving that he was not much of a talker.
“Yeah, maybe.”
A group of middle school girls had formed a line behind him, so Steve turned to go. “See you later, man.”
“Later, Steve.”
He thought about her more after that. His difficulty sleeping since Will went missing had intensified after they lured the monster to his house, and he couldn’t imagine how his brother or his mom was coping. Sometimes, Jonathan laid at the foot of Will’s bed; other nights, Will stayed in their mom’s room. Whenever Jonathan was alone, he thought of the time he slept over at Nancy’s, when she asked him to join her on the bed, and when they grabbed one another’s hands in fear the next morning. It had crossed his mind that he should be jealous of Steve, but he was just glad that she had someone there to protect her.
Another thing that had changed was that he had to drive Will everywhere. Their mom wouldn't let him bike alone, and he wondered if his younger brother was feeling suffocated, but they avoided discussing anything serious. Instead, he just listened while Will rambled on about Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and he kept the latest mixtape with The Clash in his car to rock out to as they rode to school or back home and, of course, to the Wheelers' house.
It only happened once, but when Jonathan rang the doorbell on a Friday night, Nancy answered.
“About ti– oh, hi!” Her narrowed eyes grew wide. “Sorry, I thought you were…um, I’ll go get Will.”
“It’s okay, I can go down there–”
Mrs. Wheeler was standing in the kitchen, observing this exchange. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him,” she offered with a kind nod, but he noticed Nancy’s mortification for a split-second before she turned back to him. He wasn’t sure what dynamic he had expected when they were finally alone together again, but it wasn’t this.
“So…” she said, fiddling with a button on her coat.
“How’s it going?” It was a half-hearted attempt, spared by the fact that Nancy spoke at the same time, “Sorry I haven’t seen you around much.”
His breath hitched in his throat. “Yeah?”
“I mean…you’ve seemed pretty busy since Will got back. I didn’t want to bother you.”
He opened his mouth but the honking of a car outside interrupted them.
“That’s Steve,” she stammered, as Mrs. Wheeler arrived in the entrance hall with his little brother. Nancy’s face seemed conflicted between several emotions before she slipped outside without another word.
His eyes remained on the door until he collected himself to grin at Will. “How’d it go?” He had always tried to be a good older brother, but he couldn't help but tune out as Will started explaining something about thieving goblins, preoccupied with Nancy's words replaying in his mind.
- - -
When Will was rescued from what her brother and his friends called “The Upside Down,” of course she was happy for them. But that didn't change what Eleven had said. Barb was dead, and she was never coming back. To make matters worse, her relationship with her brother had deteriorated even further as he reeled from the loss of his first love. She knew how Mike was feeling, in more ways than she cared to admit.
But she couldn't bring herself to go back to the Byers’ house, even when her mom asked if she wanted to come with her when she dropped off a casserole. She already paid nightly visits in her dreams, holding a handgun or a kitchen knife or a baseball bat with nails sticking out. It didn't matter what it was. In her nightmares, just like in real life, it never worked. And she knew deep down that it wouldn't have even mattered, because none of these things could have brought back Barb.
Yet life moved on, and everyone – per the police chief’s agreement or their own coping mechanisms– was trying so hard to act like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Nancy played along.
Steve surprised her with his loyalty, by how much he was trying to be a good boyfriend (they made it official sometime in late November). Sometimes, she shared Barbara’s initial doubts, that he wasn't interested in getting to know the real her. Other times, it helped when he snuck over, and she could think about something else, feel something else besides emptiness.
He wasn’t kidding about ditching Tommy and Carol. They still said terrible things when they passed in the halls, asked her what it was like having a threesome with the psycho, but she ignored them.
She felt like he was ignoring her too, until she came to the realization that he had so much going on that he probably wasn’t thinking about her at all. She prevented herself from unpacking why that bothered her even more.
Jonathan returned to school the Monday after Thanksgiving, and Steve somehow convinced him to sit with them at lunch. They didn't talk about anything of importance, so she tuned them out. It just seemed like such a huge weight had been lifted from him now that his younger brother was back, and she couldn’t recognize him, couldn’t relate. Whenever their eyes happened to meet, they fell back down to the table or strayed off into the distance.
She tried not to think about the events from that week. The cut on her hand was healing, and soon the thin, raised scar would be the only tangible reminder that any of it was ever real. After all, she hadn’t turned into a full-time monster hunter or a ruthless killer who had avenged her best friend’s death. She was Nancy Wheeler, just another suburban girl.
So she continued to bury herself in her schoolwork, and when Steve asked her to the Winter Formal, of course she said yes, because it gave her something else to focus on – even if it felt a lot less important than buying bear traps with Jonathan Byers.
Steve offered to drive her to the mall a few weeks before the dance. He wanted to get a tie to match her dress, but she hadn't even decided what color it should be.
Blue was the first color that came to her mind, and it wasn't until a few nights later that she understood why, when she woke up in a cold sweat from believing that she had been unable to escape from the Upside Down.
Blue was the first color she saw when he yanked her back through the portal, when she clung to him until their frantic breathing slowed, in sync with one another. It was the color of the striped sweater he had wrapped around her shoulders later that night, back in the safety of her bedroom.
Maybe she should have chosen red, she thought the next day.
“Hey,” Steve said, snapping her out of her reverie. They were passing by an electronics store, and he paused by the window display. “I was thinking. I want to get Byers a new camera.”
“You do?” Her neutral expression belied the thoughts racing through her mind.
“Yeah. I feel like a jerk for breaking his, especially with everything going on then.”
It was a nice gesture, she knew, but she couldn't help but think how long Jonathan must have saved up to buy that camera and how Steve could afford it without having worked a day in his life.
“That’s a good idea,” was all she said.
Steve moved to the counter to ask the clerk some questions while Nancy wandered through the aisles, flashing back to that afternoon in the darkroom. She remembered observing him, bathed in the crimson glow, and noting how focused and sure of himself he seemed as he developed the print. Red would have been a bad choice too, she decided.
As Steve settled on the newest model, she volunteered to chip in, mentioning that she had money left over from babysitting this past summer, but he waved her off. "It's not your fault I broke his camera."
Isn't it? she thought.
But he let her hold onto it until the next time Jonathan came by her house to pick up Will. Every now and then, she would take the camera out of the box and analyze the objects in her room through the viewfinder. It was stupid, but it felt like she was seeing herself through his eyes. The Tom Cruise poster was the first item to go.
"Did you give it to him?" Steve asked her again, and she shook her head.
"I haven't seen him.” It wasn't a lie. He had dropped by a few times, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to go downstairs.
Somehow, the weeks flew by, the Winter Formal came and went, and she studied for and aced all her final exams before the semester ended for winter break. In light of all the recent tragedies, the entire town embraced the Christmas spirit that year. It felt like Nancy’s life consisted of buying and wrapping gifts, baking cookies, and putting up decorations, so there was plenty to distract them from ever having to talk about what they all went through last month.
On Christmas Eve, her parents invited Steve over for dinner, and they were sitting on the couch when Jonathan came by to pick up Will. As he stepped into the basement, Steve asked, "Where's the camera? I'll go give it to him.” He took inventory of the gifts under the tree as Nancy felt the flush creeping onto her cheeks.
“Oh! It's, um, it's in my room. I'll go get it." She ran up the stairs and hoped that Steve wouldn't say anything about her reaction. He wasn't an idiot – he must have grown suspicious of her for holding onto the camera all this time, but they didn't talk about that either.
She made it to the front door right as he was about to leave.
"I didn't get you anything. I feel bad," he added as a courtesy, but he seemed more confused than anything else.
"It's not–" She didn't know what to tell him. It's not from me? She settled with telling him that it wasn’t really a present, and that he should just open it. And then, without thinking about it, she leaned over, pressed her hand to his chest, and kissed him on the cheek.
His surprise was evident, but she glanced down at her feet, trying to hide her own emotions before arranging her features into a friendly smile.
“Merry Christmas,” seemed to be the only thing to say right then, and he and Will walked out.
When she shuffled back into the living room, Steve started talking about his parents’ trip to the Caribbean for New Year's, and how they would have his house all to themselves for a few days. Her dad was passed out in his recliner and didn't hear a thing, as always. And she had leaned her head against Steve's shoulder, but she wasn't listening either.
She was working out whether Jonathan was home and if he was using his replacement camera already. She wondered what he was thinking about it, and – with an unexpected pang somewhere behind her ribcage – she allowed herself to wonder if he was thinking about her too.
- - -
Will helped him clear the table while his mom scooped the leftovers into Tupperware. He didn’t have time to reflect on it during dinner, but once he was by himself, doing the dishes, there was nothing else to distract him.
Of course, he was happy to have a camera again. Happy wasn't even the right word. It felt like the final piece of himself that had gone missing that week in November had been restored.
Except now there was something new missing.
He had the impression that the camera wasn’t her idea. Something about the way she described the present tipped him off, and he recalled when Steve came by their house the day before Thanksgiving.
His mom was at the store, and Will was playing games at the Wheelers’ place, so he was laying in bed listening to music when he heard a loud knock at the front door. At the sound, his hands balled into fists, but he took a deep breath as he walked over and peered through the peephole.
“Hey, Byers,” Steve looked tense, as though he was ready to launch into a prepared speech.
“Uh, hey. Wanna come in?” He gestured toward the couch, and Steve followed, but his head was whipping around at the house’s transformation since the last time he dropped by unannounced. As if he believed that the Byers were so weird they always kept dozens of Christmas lights strung up inside and makeshift weapons laying on their coffee table. Jonathan stayed standing. “What’s up?"
“I never got to apologize that night,” he began.
“It’s fine–"
“It’s not fine,” he cut him off. “I said some really…some really fucked up things to you. About your family."
Jonathan crossed his arms. “Yeah.”
“I know, it was totally out of line. I was just trying to impress Tommy and Carol, or something. They’re assholes. I haven’t talked to either of them since then."
He nodded, and Steve lowered his voice.
“Look, I was just…jealous, okay?"
He could picture Steve’s BMW parked next to his beat up Ford out front, and he found it hard to believe that Steve Harrington would ever be jealous of anything about him.
“It’s true,” he continued. “Nancy blew me off, and I knew that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I still don’t. But I saw you two together in her room, and–"
“Nothing happened,” he blurted out, unsure if it was for Steve’s benefit or for his.
“I know. But you can understand why I was upset, right?"
“Yeah. I’m sorry too,” he acknowledged. He hadn’t forgotten the insults and the graffiti in the alley where they had brawled. “For taking those pictures of your party. It was a pretty…pervy thing to do."
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, what the hell was that?"
“I wasn’t… It’s not like I went to the woods to spy on all of you. I really was looking for my brother, and I heard a scream and…” He still didn't know how he was supposed to justify this.
“I get it, you were going through a lot of shit. I shouldn’t have broken your camera."
The awkwardness was becoming too much to bear, so Jonathan said the first thing that came into his mind. “Do you want a drink or something?"
He found a half-empty fifth of vodka in the cabinet, and he and Steve took turns downing swigs straight from the bottle. Jonathan made a face as the first sip burned his throat. The taste of alcohol reminded him of the times his dad took him on fishing trips or to sporting events or pretty much any activity intended to make him a "real man." But in situations like these, it helped.
Steve’s eyes drifted to some family portraits on the shelf, and he gestured at them with the bottle. “Did you take those?"
“Uh, some of them. There’s more here.” He rummaged through the cluttered bookcase and produced a few albums and a floral memory box filled with unsorted prints.
Steve flipped through the first photobook. “You guys look really happy here.” He pointed to a picture of Will, a few years younger, and his mom roasting marshmallows over a campfire.
“That was after my dad left, for good. I think…she didn’t want to sleep in their bed that night, so we pitched a tent in our backyard."
He was quiet for a few moments, studying the photograph, and then he shook his head. “Jesus, Jonathan. I still can’t believe what I said–"
“Just don’t worry about it, okay? You saved me from a monster. I think that makes us even.” It didn't escape his notice that Steve referred to him by his first name.
His face lit up before he had the sense to conceal it. “Yeah, that was–”
“It was pretty badass,” Jonathan conceded, figuring that it was what he wanted to hear. Steve’s laughter proved his instincts correct. “Like, when you twirled that bat around–"
“It’s all thanks to Little League.” His look of pride turned pensive, accessing a long lost memory, “Didn’t you play back then too?"
He snorted, glad that was well before he started documenting his life on film and there was no photographic evidence of him in that uniform. “Yeah, my dad made me. I wasn’t very good."
“Well, you’re not bad at taking pictures.” Steve shut the album and checked his watch. “Hey, I should probably get going–"
Jonathan stood up and led him to the front door. “Well, uh. Thanks for stopping by."
“I have to meet Nancy – we’re going to watch the game,” he explained. “You can come, if you want.” He couldn’t expect Jonathan to accept, and he had zero desire to join, so he couldn't comprehend why people felt compelled to do this.
“No, thanks. You okay to drive?"
“Yeah. But you should have lunch with us when you get back,” Steve suggested.
He gave an noncommittal nod. “See you, Steve."
He figured that would be the end of it, but if Steve Harrington was anything, it was persistent. The following Monday, as he was passing by the lunch line, Steve spotted him. "Hey, Byers!" He handed a fistful of bills to the bemused lunch lady and dragged him to their table.
Nancy’s eyes flew up at him, and then she stared back down at her tray. The chair clanged as Steve settled next to her, and Jonathan set down the packed lunch his mom prepared for the first time since he was in elementary school.
“Hey, Nancy."
“Jonathan!” she said, her voice sounding somehow bright and brittle at the same time. “I didn’t know you were coming back to school today."
“Will wanted to go back as soon as possible, so…”
“How is he?"
“He’s good. He got out of the hospital a few days after, and he’s been recovering at home."
“That’s great.” Nancy was smiling, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. There were dark purple circles underneath, and he remembered what Steve said about her nightmares.
Jonathan wanted to ask how she had been holding up, but he anticipated that she would lie and say, “Fine,” and that would be the end of it. Instead, he asked, “How’s Mike doing?"
“Oh, he’s…um.” He could see her trying to work out a response, and after a few moments, she settled for, “Well, he’s happy that Will is back."
Steve was looking between the two of them in bewilderment, and Jonathan tried to understand what the hell he thought would happen. He could see other people in the cafeteria watching their table without making any effort to hide it as they exchanged whispered gossip. No one else knew that they had fought a monster together, and no one would believe it anyway. He almost wished that Tommy and Carol would come by to give him a reason to escape, but Steve must have warned them in advance.
So they were trapped. If Steve left (even though he wouldn’t), it would validate everyone’s beliefs that Nancy was dating Jonathan Byers. If Nancy left, people would think that the two boys she supposedly slept with dumped her. And if Jonathan left, it confirmed that Steve won, and Nancy chose him. The last interpretation wasn’t too far from the truth, but he found himself unwilling to perpetuate that narrative.
Screw them. Let them all try to figure out what this meant.
It felt like an eternity, but at most twenty seconds passed before Steve spoke in a hushed tone, “I still never found out. How did you guys find out about that – that thing?"
Nancy looked like a deer frozen in headlights, so it was up to Jonathan to respond. "Nancy saw it in the woods, and it was in the picture with Barbara, so we went back to look for it."
His condensed version left out all of the terror they experienced as well as the meaningful moments they shared.
“But the – the lights, and the blood–” He blinked back his crazed look, and Jonathan was beginning to understand why Steve had sought him out. His eyes darted between the scab on his left palm and over to Nancy’s matching wound. She seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because she closed her hand into a loose fist before wincing slightly.
“Maybe we should talk about this some other time.” It was about as convincing as the time he tried to kick Steve out of his house before the monster appeared, but he acquiesced.
They spent the rest of lunch suffering through inane small talk – what they had been doing in class, movies that had come out during the holiday season. Nancy didn't say anything.
But when the bell rang and they were leaving the cafeteria, she lingered while he deposited his trash. “It’s good to have you back,” she said in such a small whisper that he later assumed he had imagined it.
It got a little easier after that, but it still never felt right. Steve talked to Nancy, and Steve talked to Jonathan, but neither of them initiated the conversation, with him or with one another. Sometimes, Nancy used the excuse that she needed to work on school projects, and Jonathan jumped at any opportunity to develop prints for the introductory photography class, but for the most part, they settled into this strange little routine. Over time, the chatter died down as people got bored and discovered new scandals to discuss.
All those memories were running through Jonathan’s mind as he scrubbed at the pots and pans. Only when he was laying in bed did he permit himself to dwell on the events from tonight. He placed his hand over his heart where her palm had rested, could almost still feel the brush of her lips against his cheek.
He had lied.
Last weekend, he was driving home from a long shift when it crossed his mind that it was the night of the Winter Formal. He wondered what she wearing. If she was having a good time. How she was dancing with Steve.
For a while, he had fooled himself into thinking that he could get an accurate read on the people around him without ever speaking to them, but spending that week with Nancy had changed that.
He had never been that close to anyone before, either physically or emotionally. People didn’t always try to hide what they meant, at least not with friends. When they trusted each other enough to be vulnerable, they said more than a passing expression captured in a photograph ever could.
It felt like they were starting to understand each other. That if they continued spending time together, they could even be more than friends. He almost told her all of this, how glad he was that she had been by his side during the hardest week of his life, before Steve banged on the front door and ruined the moment.
In the end, it wasn’t even friendship. It had been a partnership forged in desperation to achieve a common goal, and that was all.
When Will came back, he redoubled his focus on his family, and he was even trying to put more effort into his schoolwork and talking to other classmates. He smiled more.
But a light seemed to have been extinguished behind Nancy’s eyes when it became clear that Barbara was never coming back. That they hadn’t even managed to kill the monster without a young girl sacrificing her life for them.
He longed to reassure her, to remind her that none of it was her fault. He wanted to lay on her bed again, facing her, and this time he would stay awake and make sure that she fell asleep first.
Except that was Steve’s role. So Jonathan settled for the only thing he was allowed to do, and what he always did when he was struggling to process his emotions or communicate them to someone else.
He made her a mixtape.
“Heroes” seemed like the perfect opener, even though the second verse about lovers was too presumptuous. He made it a point not to include any songs with the word “love” in the title or the chorus. But as he rifled through his favorite albums, the thought crossed his mind that Nancy wouldn't like any of them. She had a Blondie calendar in her room, for God’s sake.
It was a stupid gift, he decided, but he had already recorded half of it, and he wasn't going to let a perfectly good tape go to waste.
For half a second, he considered “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for the closing track, but it seemed too pathetic, and he realized that it had been stuck in his head because of The Big Chill. As he debated over another song, which was less embarrassing but more honest than he thought he should be, he reminded himself that he wasn't going to give this to her anyway. He added it.
- - -
Dear Barb,
You know how I told you that Steve decided to replace Jonathan’s camera? Well, today I gave it to him, and I don't even know why, but I kissed him on the cheek. He gave me one of those little half-smiles and left to drive Will home. Then I went back to the living room with Steve, but all I wanted to do was run up to my room and call you.
I can't believe I did it. I’m dating Steve, and Jonathan and I haven’t even really talked since you disappeared.
Obviously, it was sweet of Steve, and I know he's been trying to get Jonathan and me to talk about everything we went through together. Why doesn’t he understand that I don’t want to talk about it? I’m sure Jonathan doesn't either. I just wish everything could go back to the way it used to be.
Steve doesn’t get it. He was only there for one night, and then it was over. I bet he thinks it was kind of cool. Like he’s dying to brag about it to anyone who will believe him. Now he just wants us all to be friends, but I haven’t been able to do that.
So, you’d probably ask, why did I kiss Jonathan?
I keep saying I don't know, but you wouldn't let me get away with that. I know.
I guess I wanted to give him something just from me.
She paused, reread her last sentence.
Does that sound crazy?
And then she snickered to herself and put down her pen. She's been writing letters to her dead best friend. That was crazy.
The diary snapped shut as she rubbed her eyes and left to climb into bed.
That night, she dreamt that she was falling into the Upside Down, the crack in the tree swallowing her whole. She landed not with a thud but with an odd squelch into the substance that felt slimy, sticky, and somehow like it was pulsing. It enveloped her entire body, preventing her from moving. All she could do was stare at the decaying surroundings and mysterious particles floating in the chill air.
When she heard the familiar creaking sound, her eyes darted to the source. She could just make out the silhouette of the monster a few feet away, peeling open its petals.
It spat out something that landed in front of her face.
Barb’s glasses, stained with blood.
As Nancy stared at her reflection in horror, the creature lunged right at her.