Chapter Text
Thursday, September 1, 1988
His mother's voice wakes him.
"Jonathan." She says once, and waits for a response.
"Jonathan," She says again, suddenly pulling him out of the darkness and back into the light, into the real world, not the primordial womb.
He blinks his eyes open and realizes he wasn't just seeing darkness.
He was seeing a dark room in a long-gone and alternate dimension.
A dark dimension, one where the memories and very being of Hawkins had been twisted and warped into a pitch-black mirror.
Where the atmosphere had been caked in fear, and red lightning streaked across the sky.
Monsters had roamed in this other world, and a shadowy spider creature had ruled over it all.
He blinks again and sees himself right back in that dark room.
Its cold walls trapping them as the room itself slowly melted into the floor, moisture dripping onto them.
His skin was prickled, and his hair wet, with every single one of them standing on end.
It was the room where he thought it’d all end.
The steady drops slowly counting down to the moment.
The steel of the table below chilling him to the bone.
His lungs were heavy, his breathing even more so.
He sees it lit in sharp blues, like her eyes, with a thick white liquid surrounding them.
He’s seeing a once familiar face, with sadness in its eyes, guilt too, and pain, and love, so much love.
Not enough to save them, but enough to save their lives.
He's seeing her curls, having lost some of their bounce in the goop, as he now calls it, whenever it comes up.
It doesn't, though-or at least not often. He's been deeply grateful for that.
A small kindness.
He blinks again, and tries to blink away her face, and her sad smile, as they'd embraced before the end.
The end that wasn't the end.
He blinks a third time, and it's gone.
Like it is most mornings.
All that's in front of him now is the floor of his mother's car, and the speeding landscape around him as he raises his head.
All he hears is Billy Joel softly playing from the car's radio.
"You're already a New Yorker." His mother is laughing, a bit sadly, but there's also a warmth to it- a love.
"What?" He shakes his head, to try and wake himself up.
"I had Dylan on before. Times They Are' Changin, because they are, and it felt fitting. But you slept right through it. Put on Billy though, and you're up right away." She's smiling as the hills roll by them.
Not just hills, but outlet malls, and strip malls and cars and trucks, and he feels them going down a steep hill.
"I guess I am." He smiles too.
It's better to think of himself as one anyway.
It's his new home.
He doesn't know if he'll ever be back to his old one.
He takes a moment to listen to the music and recognizes it.
New York State of Mind.
It's a sad yearning song beneath the pop tune: a song of midnight stakeouts, of missed connections, and of loneliness.
But as a New York song, and with all his hopes and dreams, it feels fitting.
"Now, I didn't just wake you up to listen to the music of your new home's idol." His mother laughs.
"I also wanted you to see this, after so many years of fighting for it, after everything we both went, that I put you through last year, I wanted to make sure you didn't miss it."
He ignores part of that and focuses on the end of it instead.
Though he doubts he'll get out of this car without fully talking about it.
He appreciates it, though, that she's making this effort to reach out again.
Well, not again per se, as they've still been mother and son, still been Joyce and Jonathan, but making an effort, after they've spent a year dancing around it, he really takes to heart.
Even with a heavy weight pressing down on him that this could change things for good, that if this is not done right, it could drive him and his mom apart again, when all he wants is the opposite.
The fear of what could happen needles him, the memories fresh in front of him:
His mom rushing in from work and slamming the door, leaving Jonathan to fend for food for him and Will.
Arguments that would simmer until one big fight.
Her vacant stare and glassy eyes when Will went missing, and a true fear that his mother was next.
It’s a chilled fear inside of him that could come flooding back in an instant.
What he really wants is for them to start healing from it all for real.
Even if he’s very wary that saying the wrong things now could threaten the fragile progress that they have made.
Even if the ache hurts deeper than just words, with the relief, acknowledgment, and guilt of needing it, or of even wanting it, twisting instantly inside him, almost festering.
He starts to feel something burning behind his eyes that he quickly tries to blink away.
He feels dread too, at having to have the talk now, no more possible escapes or delays.
He presses his hands against the dashboard, trying not to let it overwhelm him, not yet at least.
He smells the familiar scents of the car instead, listens to the music, and forces himself to breathe, for now.
"Miss what?" He asks, distracting his mom.
"This.”
She gestures toward the window, and he sees it; his heart instantly bursting, and tears suddenly starting to flow.
It's New York City.
It's New York City.
He's looking at the iconic New York City skyline, and he's on the highway about to enter it.
Be consumed by it.
Until it'll be all he's ever known.
He's seeing the World Trade Center towers, standing high in the sky.
The Chrysler Building, obvious even from the road, towering above its neighbors.
And then, his heart is soaring.
There's the Empire State Building itself.
Billy Joel is playing in the car, as he looks at the Empire State Building, and suddenly it's all real.
From King Kong climbing it, or Spider-Man swinging off it in comics that he'd pawned off to Will once he was done with them, the rare chances that he got.
From late nights spent flipping through those battered issues in his bedroom, or even reading them with his brother’s friends and watching them debate it or just watching them all crammed together in amusement on a movie night.
Ghostbusters with The Party, with Will and Mike picking apart the ghosts and how New York could map onto Hawkins.
The special movie nights too with Will and his mom.
Even late nights with her, talking about escape, dreams, and vowing to meet each other on the other side.
Even when done over a crinkly phone line.
He’s seeing NYU brochures, and every cultural thing he's ever watched or read about New York, honestly.
It's the shimmering emblem of New York City, and it's about to welcome him in.
"Welcome to your new home, Jonathan. I hope it lives up to every dream and hope you’ve ever had of it." His mom says softly, with wonder in her voice too.
"I'm in a New York State of Mind" blares from the cassette player, and Jonathan Byers buys in fully.
So he lets the song wrap, hearing the fading piano notes and instruments, and Billy's voice diffusing into the car.
Then, he leans over, finds the Dylan tape, and pops it in.
"Jonathan." His mom is a bit surprised and a bit proud.
"As you said, it's fitting. The times are a changin'." He says, without another thought, as the soft guitar of Bob Dylan now fills the car.
They sit in the music for a minute. Just to let it soak in.
Jonathan's so ready for the times to change.
To make something of himself, and finally leave the past behind.
His mother breaks the silence first.
"I am so proud of you, Jonathan Byers. I know that I've said it a million times over the last year, when we sat and finished the application together, when we wrote that essay about our lives.... I am glad that I could be the one to help you with that; I truly am. I know..."
His mother pauses, and his heart rate starts to race, and he wishes that she wouldn't.
Something heavy is quickly threatening to reform in his chest.
Something that he dances with in the dark of the night, but prefers not to in the bright of the day.
Something that she's normally had the grace to not say.
"I wasn't, I wouldn't have been your first choice. But I am glad that we got to do that together." She finishes.
Jonathan’s heart rate drops, and he exhales a deep, deep breath.
The wooziness is gone, and he's just hearing Dylan again, and it’s no longer distorted; there's no more ringing in his ears, and the knot in his chest is quickly unwinding.
"I am too. I really am."
It's not a lie at all.
He had been glad to write it with his mother and his brother.
His family.
His family who had been through so much, now taking their fight to something else.
To getting him out.
"I am glad to hear that. I really think it helped you, you know. Helped you, helped us as a family. Helped us as mother and son."
And there's the conversation starter.
He feels very constricted very quickly, and it's not just because of the very packed car.
It's not just because he can no longer see the New York skyline, and all it represents, going down the hill again.
But because this is the rail that they haven't touched since January.
Since ever.
"I know...I know I wasn't fair to you at..during the quarantine." She begins, catching the word before she says it.
She can say their name, but he appreciates it.
"I know things were hard, that I prioritized Will way too much, and left you to your own devices far too often. At home, at the Squawk, on the crawls. That I forced you to go on that final one, that some part of me figured you could handle it, could handle being with Steve, alone too, back then. Now, I'd let the two of you run wild for the day, but back then, I know it was bad. I am deeply sorry for that. Every part of me is.
Or that I thought that I only had to protect Will, even. That you…I've... I've done a lot of thinking about it with Hop, after El's..."
Neither of them has ever called it what it was.
"After the end. And then not just about the war, not just about those awful months in California for you, and not all that great for me either, not just about who I became after Bob's death, not...not just how I have always failed you."
"Mom." He cuts her off, the pain in his voice clear.
"You were my first, Jonathan. My firstborn, my boy. I...I love you so much, in a way that will always be special. I know you think the worst about yourself. That Lonnie used you to trap me. And maybe he did. He probably meant it that way. Maybe I’d have been able to escape otherwise. But it also meant I had you."
They're at a traffic light, and her eyes are as red as his feel when she looks at him.
"But what about?" He asks, trying to deflect.
She shakes her head.
"When he was awful, I had you. I had you to look after, to worry about, to be the brightest light in my life. To be the reason to pull through the shitty days he enforced on us. On us.” She re-emphasizes as she turns back, the light turning green.
“Since I know I don't know everything he did to you, to Will. Will, I love him too, with a fierceness and protectiveness that I didn't know I had. But I should've, because I always had it for you.
God, Jonathan, I really hope you can... no, this day isn't about me. This day is about you.
Just..I want you to know that I love you so fucking much, and I am so sorry for making you feel so alone all these years. I know you weren't always... But I should've been there for that too. Never mind right after. I am so sorry, Jonathan. You and I, we should be so much better off than we are. I shouldn’t have lost sight of the fact that you were my son, not my co-parent."
Well, he was already emotional, but now he's openly sobbing.
He's shaking, and... it's rattling him a bit that it has taken this long for them to try, for her to try and reconcile or acknowledge any of it.
"Mom, you did what you had to do to survive Lonnie. To survive Henry. You.." He starts.
That is true; that is safe.
"It doesn't excuse it. It doesn't excuse all the years in between those two. Now, I have needed to get that off my chest the whole drive. Since we...But also, I have one request for you, Jonathan Byers."
"Yes? Anything." He means it.
"Don't rush back to us. Don't rush back to Hawkins. Live fully in New York City. Try and fail.
It's cost you too, and I don't want you to make it not worth it. Honestly, if you come home before Thanksgiving, I will be disappointed. And so will Will. He wants you to live for yourself too. We both do. So please, go and don't look back." Her gaze is trained on the future.
"I won't." He's vowing, and she's wiping her eyes, and he is too, and suddenly it doesn't feel quite as tight.
He's just feeling fear, adrenaline, and the possibility of a new beginning rapidly approaching, his pulse racing at the idea of it all.
This new hope is electrifying.
It's something he hasn't felt in a long, long time.
It's time, he knows, as much as it's nerve-wracking, to leave the trapped state his life has been in since March of 1986.
The hunger that he used to feel, at his best, that he felt buzzing under his skin in times long gone, is roaring back in him as they drive into the future.
He wants something new. A new world.
A city that's big, alive, and mean in ways that Hawkins could never be.
A city that he imagines to be filled with a rush of sounds: the horns of taxi cabs, sirens, both police and hospital, and the endless chatter of people pouring down its avenues.
The sharp scent of food trucks and roasting chestnuts blending with the smoke and exhaust of those cabs, the air always thick with rain and the sweetness of pretzels and hot dogs.
Neon signs that gleam in windows, reflecting off puddles and shop fronts.
The skyline always pulsing in the distance, silver and gold against the rising sun.
Unpredictable and alive.
He wants to be caught off guard and challenged, and catch it off guard in return.
He wants it to be a city where he can pursue his passions and capture in photos; old men in parks playing chess or feeding pigeons on stoops, and strangers passing each other in the crowd, sharing fleeting smiles.
The beauty in decay and the honesty in loneliness or in briefly relieving it.
To look at the city’s hidden corners and at the people passing by, and find something in those struggles and hopes that others miss.
The stories of resilience and the beauty of a fleeting moment of brightness and hope.
How darkness makes that hope burn all the brighter. That the lost can be found and that the forgotten can be seen again.
To look at those New Yorkers, and see what he had in all the hours spent in Hawkins, as he took black and white photos of half-empty streets, half-lit faces, and the distortions left behind.
During the rebuild, he’d sharpened his old instinct to look for what lies underneath, to find the truth in the flash of movement, and in the stark shadows on concrete.
To find the warning within photos for the future, the calls for needed help, and the secrets yearning to be revealed.
He dreams of capturing those very things in New York now - the edges.
He will always be tinged by his haunted memories of the war and the darkness underneath or obscuring the ordinary, if he hadn't already grown up in it too.
He expects shadows, scars, and flickers of light to always figure into his work, like an artistic scar of his survival.
But he desperately needs to prove that those can also be the proof of his survival, and use it all to create a raw beauty, the kind that lives side by side with scars.
That he can give himself a reason to live, to have survived Hawkins. To have lived through the mess.
That even in the darkness, there is light worth seeing.
To prove it to the world and to himself.
To expose it all.
To capture the outsiders.
To prove himself as an artist.
And maybe find a new home along the way.
But among it all, he wants to see if he can really do it, if he can take his camera around his neck, his old weapon, and find the cracks and the real moments under the glossy sheen.
He wants to give it his all and see what blooms.
Hope and desperation fuel him equally.
He wants to shake off the dust.
Jonathan's still a bit rattled by the car conversation when they pull up to NYU's campus.
But that rattle is quickly distracted by the amount of teeming life around him.
It's a new month and a new life for Jonathan Byers.
And seemingly for NYU.
There's a strike going on, with marchers holding signs.
As they drive by, looking for a parking garage, he tries to see what they're protesting about and already wants to rush to join them.
But he hasn't officially registered yet, so maybe he needs to do that first, and then stand with them as an NYU student, not just a lost soul coming in from the cold.
He loses sight of them as they drive by, and instead his thoughts now turn to the city around him.
It's so alive, with people on every street corner, with danger and possibility even.
With the chance that he's always wanted, that he's always dreamed of having.
The one that he's now going to have.
That is the one thought on his mind as they pull into a garage.
He's going to have a chance.
At his own life.
Jonathan arrives at the campus building, and now he can see the signs.
They're protesting for wage parity for the staff. For fairer wages and a better chance.
He and his mom share a look, both deeply knowing that pain in a way that he doesn't feel the need to touch on right now.
But he still takes a flyer that's shoved into his hand, even if he quickly pockets it, thinking it's probably not smart to walk to the registrar with it open even if he wants to show his support.
They cross the lawn, and then... he's walking up the steps to a building at NYU.
He's about to learn the schedule that he has, of which classes he got that he'd put in for, in long nights in his kitchen, once again with his mother and brother.
The rare times they got away...
But he's ascending the steps, and other students are welcoming him in, and he wipes away that past, as if it were the clean slate he wishes it was.
"Welcome to NYU!" A girl, who he might actually be older than because of his time in quarantine, is saying to him.
"Thank you." He flashes a warm smile back, and she waves him down the hall.
Set up in a large room are file folders after file folders of names and people, of his fellow new students, colleagues, compatriots, and friends.
He walks up to the one that says A-M and introduces himself.
"Jonathan Byers. Tisch School of the Arts."
That hasn't lost its kick.
"Mr. Byers." She says, going to look for his ID and packet.
After a minute, while he stands a bit awkwardly, she pulls it out.
"Welcome to Tisch." She passes it to him. Hands him a key. "Benedict House."
Jonathan has to stop himself from laughing at that.
He’d heard about it, in the brochures and the dorm programs.
Named after the Shakespeare character, the eternal bachelor.
The house for them and the artists.
Ah, Jonathan has fit that bill for almost a year now.
So it's very ironic.
He accepts it with a smile, though.
His mom has been watching him the whole time with one, looking very proud.
But now she’s laughing with him, and for the first time in a while, it doesn’t feel like quite so much pressure.
He wonders if they should move the car now and turns to ask his mom.
“Should we get our stuff?”
She thinks about it and is about to speak when...
“We have people to help at the house. Just bring the car around.” Someone pipes up.
So that settles that.
They go back to the car and pull it out, but not before cutting a deal with the guy to keep the spot, and Jonathan tips him quietly, grateful.
And then they drive up to the promised people.
They’re cheering and whooping, and he’s never seen so much purple, and he’s also so tired of purple.
But then they open the door, and they’re all cheering for him, and Jonathan doesn’t worry about the color anymore.
Doesn’t worry about how corny this all is.
He’s living his life now, and that’s the only thought he has.
While his mom returns the car, Jonathan checks his papers and finds his room.
It’s up some stairs, so he gets to lugging.
His back hurts from it all, but he’s also spent a lot of the last 9 months running and trying to learn how to actually handle the chronic pain from the hospital, from maybe still the single scariest fight for him, when he can, so it doesn’t hurt quite as much as he expected it to.
He reaches the top after another minute, and he’s looking through the glass windows, and the city is already beginning to unfurl itself.
He’s on the fourth floor, and it won’t be that awful without the bags.
He opens the door to the main hall.
It’s chaos.
Music is blaring throughout: The Cure, Joy Division, Bowie, The Smiths. Blondie, Pet Shop Boys, Billy Joel.
People are sitting in their dorms, talking loudly across doorways and debating whatever comes to mind.
Jonathan has never felt more at home.
He takes a look down at his papers - 406A.
So he walks down the crowded hall, smelling something as he does, and as the music is blaring, he arrives at his dorm.
He knocks but, hearing no response, opens the door.
The room isn't huge, but it has a desk with a computer for each of them, plus their beds.
His roommate is standing in the tiny gap between them, music blaring from a player on his bed.
He’s tall and handsome with jet-black hair that’s a bit spiky, a bit coiffed.
He hums along with the music, then turns to see.
”Oh shit. Jonathan Byers, right?”
He offers his hand with a smile, and Jonathan gladly takes it.
“The one and only. From Hawkins, Indiana to New York City,” he laughs, figuring it’s best to get the conversation about Hawkins out of the way.
“Alexis Wolf,” he says, shaking it.
“Hawkins, earthquakes, right? Messed up, man. I swear they should’ve let you guys out sooner.”
”I agree. Would've loved to have been here 7 months ago.” Jonathan laughs and doesn’t worry about that anymore.
The ache in his chest, and the memory that settles there, starts to burn away.
Even if, of course, it wasn't just a natural disaster, but lives torn apart, and scars inflicted that have not or will not ever heal. Secrets and fear becoming a way of life across the town, to this day in some ways.
The military patrols.
The sullen faces of half of the town in the school gym, waiting to find housing.
Mass NDA’s after the end, and intense interrogations after the Gate.
He’s still grateful that by running towards her, they’d done that part together. That they’d gone home together that morning.
He shakes the image off as fast as it comes.
”Good. Good. I had heard about it, about you, and in my humble opinion, you guys got totally screwed. So if you’ve missed any films or music, or if you haven't caught up on anything...I am your guy. Am at your service." Alexis faux-bows.
Alexis is very gregarious; Jonathan can tell.
But also, he's the first person he's meeting in New York, and offering him an open door back into the real world that Jonathan will gladly walk right through.
"I will let you know. Luckily, I haven't done much except try to make a dent in it over the last 9 months. But I will do what I can to finish catching up." Jonathan nods, grinning.
"You better. We have to define the next generation here, and you must know the past to understand the present." He pauses, growing more serious.
"But seriously, if you ever need anything, if you..if there are any nightmares still, because, honestly, I'd have them, if you ever need anything, just ask. I know this seems like a lot, that I'm putting on a show, but I heard some true horror stories, and you deserve just as much a chance as the rest of us. Not to have just been fucked over by the government."
Jonathan is stunned by his kindness, and almost thinks he doesn't deserve it.
Like he's found what his..his ex-girlfriend would've been like as a boy.
The kindness, the seeing him, and offering sympathy.
Noticing him, and understanding.
Looking right at him when he felt invisible.
Reaching out a helping hand and making him feel less alone.
Making his loneliness quieter.
It's an open welcome.
The kind that he's been waiting for for so long.
It's uncanny that he's feeling the warmth he's been missing right now.
That Alexis is offering to pull him forward into the world, and to catch him up, when all he's done is withdraw for so long.
'I will. Thank you. That means more than I can possibly say."
"I’m very glad. We are all bachelors here, mostly, and us and the artists, often the same, must stick together in the grand tradition we now find ourselves in!" Alexis is back to his performance, and Jonathan feels like, once upon a time, this would've bothered him.
But now, it's just so nice to be welcomed in, especially when Hawkins had slowly constricted him, even more so post-quarantine.
"We must." He nods.
Just then, the door opens, and his mom walks in.
"Joyce Byers," She introduces herself.
"Alexis Wolf, pleasure to meet you."
"Pleasure is mine. I hope Jonathan hasn't overwhelmed you yet."
"Not yet. He's cool, and honestly, if he does, he deserves to. That's a long time to be locked up like test animals." He smiles.
"It is." Something dawns on his mom, and she does too.
The three of them- his mom and his new roommate- move Jonathan in.
They unpack his records: The Smiths that he'd hunted down after the quarantine ended, the Joy Division that he'd held onto forever, the Bowie that he listened to religiously still.
Alexis nods in approval.
"Jonathan, maybe you had to wait just to meet me. Why do we have the same music taste?"
"I don't know. Long days spent alone?" He pitches.
"Long days spent alone. But I've had more than that. And now, well, I'll make sure you do too." Alexis nods.
They all laugh at that.
His mom leaves him, with one last tight hug, content.
Alexis gives them a moment.
"I mean it: if I see you before Thanksgiving, I'll shoot you myself, and you know I will. It is time for you to move on from Hawkins. I know you've always wanted to. Hell, I've always wanted to. So live my dream for me. Be a pretentious artist in the big city. And..I love you."
They both tear up at that.
Jonathan feels her push with a blinding warmth and pride. That she’s giving him one last defiant encouragement.
"I love you too."
For all her shortcomings and accomplishments, for all her wins and fails, he'd been so proud to see his mom end it.
She walks out after one last tight hug, and Alexis hops on his bed.
"It's time to take Manhattan!"
Jonathan is teeming with possibility.
At the world waiting outside, at the life waiting to be captured, the endless nights of music and debate, maybe even standing up for what's right, and making something out of his hell.
His chance to find his own artistic voice, to put into images what he still cannot put into words, to make a mark, and find a true place of his own.
He's ready to get started, with a sprint.
"But first, I need something to eat," Alexis says, laughing. "Want in?"
"100%," Jonathan says.
So they get up and walk through a still-very-crowded hall, back down the steps, and into a brisk fall air lit by a beautiful sunset.
They talk, lightly, poking fun at the new city around them, and end up stuck in a line.
A massive line of new students.
And the sun is already behind the horizon.
"So, I'm not waiting in this," Alexis says.
"I'm not either." Jonathan laughs.
"Good. Cheap pizza?"
"Cheap pizza."
They abandon their initial plan and find a dollar slice shop around the corner.
They talk about their dreams and future, and it turns out that Jonathan really has found a kindred spirit in his new roommate, like an inverse of himself somehow.
With just enough shared and just enough contrasting tastes to debate music and film all night.
To be laugh at the scenes around them, as they eat in a small park across the street.
To focus on the new life around them, and already start to open up about the ones they left behind.
It feels easy and long overdue for Jonathan to find someone new.
So he goes to bed for his first night in New York, feeling relieved.
Life here is going to be pretty special.
He falls asleep to the city’s hum, the distant sirens and horns, the blur of voices on the street and the wind through the leaves.
Jonathan breathes them all in as the pulse of New York ushers him into his first night.
Nothing has ever felt so right.