Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Karen Wheeler, Jonathan Byers & Will Byers
Characters: Karen Wheeler, Jonathan Byers
Additional Tags: Minor Joyce Byers/Karen Wheeler, It's intended but not very explicit, Vignette, Missing Scene, Karen Wheeler Tries, Stranger Things 1, Please can a responsible adult be nice to Jonathan 2k26, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Class Issues, Period Typical Attitudes, Good Sibling Jonathan Byers, Character Study, Jonathan Byers-centric, Jonathan Byers Tries, Jonathan Byers Needs a Hug, Karen Wheeler-centric, POV Karen Wheeler
Summary:
Jonathan shuffled between a few papers next to her in the passenger seat. Karen snuck a glance at a red light at the prospective missing posters, three of them, that the boy must have penned himself. It sent a cold, sharp feeling stabbing through her to see those posters, because they looked so... real. The damning black and white clarity of them pierced straight through her.
i hear you 'Nancy flushing Jonathan's weed' and raise you Nancy kinda secretly likes Jonathan high because it makes him all soft and obedient and docile for her, good at taking orders and doing anything she says and worshipping the ground she walks on and honestly just the perfect little pet for her..... sorry..... is this too much....
Anon, you have my full and undivided attention. Please always feel free to send me asks like this.
To your point, yeah, I can see why Nancy wouldn't like to see Jonathan deep in the throes of a genuine substance use disorder or might even find him unpleasant or irritating truly stoned, but... he doesn't actually have one, she's never really seen him high, and I don't for one moment believe that she truly begrudges Jonathan getting a little silly and dopey and relaxed. She knows how anxious and stressed out he is. #notmynancy.
Strangely enough, this is actually relevant to the fic I was working on tonight (and, uh, a different fic I haven't poked at in a while where they get high together and fuck). He's not high in this, but, you know, for Jonathan being a good, obedient boy for the love of his life, look no farther. (It's part of a rough draft I started a few months ago and just found tonight. Shh.)
She walks behind him, plants her forehead between his shoulders, skates palm over his lower belly, along his waistband, until it jumps.
“How do you want to touch me?” she teases.
It's easier and harder with her behind him. He can't see her, so he doesn't have to look at her with his face flaming, but he can feel her.
“I want to touch you so you feel good,” he mutters.
“Yeah?”
Louder, he manages, “I want you to know it's me. Not someone else.”
Her breath is warm at his back, along his spine where her lips ghost. “How are you going to do that?”
The fingertips of one hand dip into his pants while the other strokes at his ribs, makes him shiver.
Things that feel romantic in the mouth don’t seem to translate to something achievable by hand. They all seem silly. But he's spared from answering before he can untangle his tongue long enough to slobber out ideas like "I'll squeeze your tits in Morse code" or "who else would happily lap at your nipples until you're practically sobbing?" She’s impatient, too—tugs insistently at his zipper, too awkward at this angle for her, so she pushes at his hip until he gets the message. He opens his jeans and then resumes his position, thinking all the while about how obedient he is, how much he would have thought he'd hate that, but the reality of it is making him so hard that it hurts a little. It hurts to be this turned on, a throbbing ache in all the usual places, but it's in his heart, too. It’s somewhere in the part of his mind that got used to being alone, like the pleasant, gentle stretch of a muscle unaccustomed to use.
The part that couldn't have dreamed there would ever be someone he'd like to hold still for.
His pants fall, her hands working while his have stilled again, and with it goes another layer of awkwardness—any lingering doubts.
The heavy slide of the fabric over his dick is an agony that makes him shiver, not least because he suspects it's the only touch it's going to get for a while.
It twitches at the thought. God, he wants her. He wants whatever she wants to do to him. He's built for touch, built for action, for work, but he can receive, will receive, needs whatever she sees fit to give him.
“Are your arms tired?” she asks.
He almost lies. Says no, of course not, never.
“Yes,” he answers, bared in all the ways that matter
She pulls a face, and she reaches for him, guides one arm down to examine it. Rubs it between her hands to soothe the tired muscles, draw the blood back into it. Kisses his palm.
His eyes are wet. When did that happen?
Nancy is painting him with affection, pressing kisses into his skin with a deliberateness that feels like a message. She's touching him so gently. She asked him whether he felt any pain and then moved to take it away.
That's not extraordinary. Not rare. That’s just human.
He sneaks a moment to sweep the tears from the corners of his eyes, and to his relief, none replace them. His hand is already back behind his head when she looks up.
Jonathan finds himself thrust into fame with a wildly successful low budget film in the mid 90s but he’s super reclusive and won’t take any interview and refuses to do press.
Nancy is a promising journalist for a well respected paper/magazine but is having a hard time getting any upward traction after clashing with the editor one too many times.
Out of desperation, Nancy mentions she can get an interview with that Jonathan Byers guy and her editor seems impressed albeit skeptical.
But Nancy and Jonathan haven’t talked in 2 years since the incident.
Tail between her legs, Nancy reaches out and begs him to do an exclusive interview for her publication. After a bit of back and forth, he agrees, but only if she’s the one who does the interview.
Just thinking about Jonathan at Will's apartment in NY, tidying up on autopilot because he's spent a lifetime picking up after Will and taking care of him, and he's not even aware that he's doing it. Like, not a lot. But he's picking up clothes and cleaning the counter. And Will is like Jonathan. Jonathan seriously you don't need to do that. Jonathan I promise I can clean my own apartment. I need my mess the way it is. That's how I find things. And Jonathan is kind of embarrassed and startled.
Just thinking about Jonathan at Will's apartment in NY, tidying up on autopilot because he's spent a lifetime picking up after Will and taking care of him, and he's not even aware that he's doing it. Like, not a lot. But he's picking up clothes and cleaning the counter. And Will is like Jonathan. Jonathan seriously you don't need to do that. Jonathan I promise I can clean my own apartment. I need my mess the way it is. That's how I find things. And Jonathan is kind of embarrassed and startled.
There's something I like about the older party (Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin) all lowkey becoming attached to each other after the war. They dont have many other friends beside each other, and after college it seems like a no brainer for them to all just migrate together again, living close by and always over at one of their places, usually Jonathan's, to the point they're practically living together.
Like Dustin wants to go over and hangout with Steve, he goes to Jonathan's place first cause where he is almost always. Even if Jancy get together, OR Ronance and Stonathan are the main couples, they're still all attached to the hip.
Now I'm thinking of them in a poly relationship lowkey. Jancy, Stancy, Stonathan, Ronance, maybe even Rovickie? Or am I pushing it too far now? Vickie could get with Nancy too, maybe even Jonathan if she wanted idk.
The club barring her from entering didn't need to know her actual age, just that she was the daughter of a name that prints bigger names to magazines, that she knows skaters and dealers and performers alike, that she's Eleanor Fucking Byers and that that name can get her pretty much anywhere she wants. At a cost.
jonathan byers week day 6 - time skip/distance
time skip to an older jonathan and his family, distance between himself and his feelings, as well as his feelings and his children
I am buzzing at the thought of Will being a child art therapist and practising all his new skills and tricks on Jonathan before he brings them to any actual children, both so he can make sure he's got some confidence when doing it for real, but also because he genuinely wants to use it on Jonathan to see if he can help him at all but know that Jonathan wouldn't go for it if Will actually called it 'therapy' because like Jonathan's fine, right? He wasn't the one kidnapped into the Upside Down and was possessed by Vecna and developed powers and blah blah blah.
Thinking about Will coming to Jonathan's NYC apartment with a bunch of drawing stuff and asking a very amused Jonathan to draw with him, and he's subtly asking him questions and getting fucked up answers and is watching Jonathan draw and is freaked out because it's dark and scary and messed up or something (Will is drawing a picture of Jonathan as the dnd character they made together to practice when Will was first getting into it, if you even care) and he's asking him questions like "what's your favourite part of your childhood?" "You," "Okay, that's nice, but exclude me" "I can't think of anything. I don't really remember parts that you're not in it", and he's watching Jonathan draw and is thinking OKAY MAYBE I'M ONTO SOMETHING HERE AND ALSO THIS MIGHT BE LONG OVERDUE.
Sorry, don't mind me, but the thought of Will growing up and using his skills to help people, help other kids like him, and using it on his brother and realising he might need more help than anyone has ever realised and probably would never really know, not even Jonathan himself, and Will choosing to be the one who helps him or a change
The way people talk about Jonathan you'd think he was a full ass grown man and not a teenager before s5, like maybe saying a teenager should just leave his house because he's uncomfortable around his mother's boyfriend isnt actually a reasonable take
Poor kid’s so parentified even the damn fandom thinks he’s a grown man who needs to start acting like it
(16 years old when he was shopping for his little brothers coffin alone. Just btw.)
Actually you know what? I want to go there: the same people who are willing to give Steve a tonnnn of leeway for his early mistakes “because he’s just a teenager” PLUS grant him an inordinately large amount of praise for his growth/“redemption” afford Jonathan none of the same grace and act like even his minor mistakes are major irredeemable pitfalls. But the reality is that Jonathan has manyyy more forces working against him, hindering his capacity for quick and straightforward growth, which makes measuring the two’s progress on the same scale a completely ludicrous + pointless endeavor to begin with.
Much of what Steve has to overcome is literally normal immature teenage stuff. He’s a bully who outgrows it. He mixes with the wrong crowd, and his “redemption” begins the moment he ditches those negative influences in his life and replaces them with positive ones. Jonathan, meanwhile, is dealing with the heavy trauma of an abusive father, early parentification, growing up poor, and being trapped by the town’s stigma. And that’s all before the upside down of it all, which, while obviously traumatizing the whole group, disportionally affects the Byers’ on a deeply, deeply personal level.
“Steve has grown far more than Jonathan by s5 and therefore Steve is better than Jonathan” is such an inane fuckass argument. Like? No fucking shit. All Steve had to do was grow up and become an adult. Jonathan was forced to be an adult too young and has never had the chance to sit still long enough to process a thing he’s gone through. And it’s still ongoing! It isn’t exactly shocking that Steve has made more progress in his journey over the timeline of the show. Let’s all think!
Based on that last ask (thanks anon!) I DO have a new hc fresh off the dome…
Okay, so PLENTY of people do not call their stepparents mom or dad especially if they are already adults when the stepparent enters the picture. So no, Jonathan and Will aren’t going to call Hopper dad or anything.
HOWEVER I just imagine a really sweet moment where Joyce and Hopper attend something really important to Jonathan (student film screening? graduation? some later important event?) and when he introduces them to people he’s just very casually like “this is my mom and dad” 🥹
