I'm a very tired student that post random shit for fun. Writing vomit about my favourite fandoms, characters, tropes and even experimental shit rooted in my interest for literature — nothing too serious.
First...
Requests are OPEN ~ checkout my rules and whatnot here.
Negativity of any kind (rude comments and the like) that isn't constructive WON'T BE TOLERATED. Don't like my writing then just leave - put that energy somewhere useful.
And I feel like I might throw up Left hook, right punch to the gut You're so so pretty boy I'm paranoid I made you up
Summary: It was just supposed to be a summer job. It looked good on her college applications. But what the princess of Hawkins High didn’t expect was to fall for someone she’d barely looked at. Now, she danced with the question: Did he ever like her back, or was she stuck in love with a man who was haunted by a ghost?
8.1k words
Contains: Slight angst, mutual pinning(mainly from reader), tension, secret feelings, fluff, LOTS of fluff, happy ending
…
The Hawkins Post was the kind of place that looked tired even in daylight, heavy with a sadness so thick, it was impossible not to notice. The brick building sat on a corner of downtown Hawkins, wedged between a pharmacy and a store that sold fishing equipment nobody ever bought. That was the thing with Hawkins, nothing ever seemed to happen. There were plenty of shops and supply stores littering the “downtown”, which was less than a mile long and mostly cracked pavement, but no matter who filtered in and out, paper bags tucked beneath armpits and crinkled between knuckles, nobody ever seemed to use what they purchased.
For the Hawkins Post, papers sold, but that was expected, even if a place as drab as Hawkins. The windows were always slightly dusty, the air conditioning worked only when it felt like it, and somehow every surface carried the smell of ink, coffee, and old paper.
You'd only been working there for eleven days. Eleven days, three hours, and, if anyone asked, absolutely not enough minutes.
The job wasn't glamorous. You spent most mornings answering phones, sorting papers, filing reports, and occasionally being sent to pick up lunch for people who treated interns like an exotic species that existed solely to fetch things, especially if the lowly interns had a perky chest and bouncy hair.
Still, you loved parts of it. Maybe you secretly seethed in the bathroom after each snide remark about your blouse, or after each aggravated chuckle from your bosses who, for some reason, believed they would always be much more capable than you. But it paid, and after rejection after rejection, the steady flow was like hose water on a blistered summer day. Soothing and relaxing. That and you enjoyed how it got you out of the house.
Still, summer in Hawkins felt endless. It was the kind of summer that baked sidewalks until the air shimmered above them, the kind that left skin sticky with humidity before noon. You recalled most summers growing up being this way, but something about the late June heat was creeping up the back of your neck differently, sweat beading between your meticulously styled curls.
Most of your friends spent their days at the community pool, or the brand new mall making eyes at Steve Harrington, the resident pretty boy who’d fallen far fast, all gathered to waste entire afternoons in luscious air conditioned ice cream parlors.
You did those things too, just not every day.
You liked having somewhere to be, something to do, a reason to wake up before ten.
Which was exactly why you were sitting behind the reception desk on a Wednesday morning while everyone else your age was probably sleeping, tights pulled flat beneath your long purple skirt, and heals just a half size too big covering your feet.
You twirled a pen between your fingers. The clock ticked. A phone rang somewhere in the building. Someone yelled for coffee.
Normal.
Boring.
Predictable.
Until the front door opened, and the bell overhead jingled.
You glanced up automatically. A boy stepped inside carrying a camera bag, shoulders raised awkwardly beside a slightly shorter girl with a shoulder length perm. Nancy Wheeler. You recognized her from the school papers your younger brother brought home sometimes.
Still, your eyes flickered back over to the boy. He was familiar in a way that you couldn’t seem to place.
Tall.
Thin.
Dark hair.
Flannel shirt despite the heat.
The second he entered the building, he looked like he regretted it.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
He moved through the newsroom without saying much, and a few people greeted him. He nodded.
One reporter asked him a question, he answered with exactly three words, then he disappeared toward the photography department. You watched him go.
"Him?"
You nearly jumped.
The receptionist beside you smirked.
"What?"
"You're staring." She clicked her freshly manicured nails against the thick keyboard. Secretly, you thought the mustard yellow color was an insult to her hands.
"I wasn't." You scoffed, already focused back on your work.
"You were."
You rolled your eyes. "I was observing."
"Sure." She laughed.
"That's Jonathan."
Jonathan.
The name settled somewhere in your brain. You didn't think much of it, not yet. Still, the name sounded familiar. You’d only just graduated high school, not yet even committed to a college, though secretly you knew you’d end up at your local community school, and yet you found the many names that once filled the background were already slipping from you.
Jonathan…Jonathan….had he gone by Johnny maybe?
It wouldn’t be until later that night you finally came to. Zombie boy, Will Byers. You recalled the way he pinned up the flyers all those years ago, and at the time, while you’d given him a few sympathetic looks, you’d always just been…you.
Standing confidently on the other side of the hallway, not quite close with Carol and Tommy, but familiar with the faces that roamed the halls enough to earn friendly smiles.
You wondered secretly if he had placed you yet, or if, like him, you had just been another girl to slip into the background noise while he navigated high school.
The second time you noticed Jonathan Byers happened three days later.
Over a cup of coffee.
Technically, because of a spilled cup of coffee. Specifically, yours.
The morning had already been terrible, clouds overcast and dripping with rain that refused to fall. A thick haze covered Hawkins, leaving surfaces damp and akin sticky.
You'd slept through your alarm, burnt your toast, forgotten your purse, and worst of all, arrived to work exactly three minutes late. That was the part that unsettled you the most.
Most days, you showed up over fifteen minutes earlier, and even then, sometimes your boss would heckle you while strolling in just before he was on the clock. Mentally, you were already scratching off a list of insults you would mutter at him in the cramped bathroom stall.
You’d barely had time to pull yourself together that morning, hair a little out of place, and wrinkles still littering your shirt. Your heels tapped against the tiled floors with a new found urgency, your body weaving through the newsroom with a practiced ease, a cup of hot coffee, black as requested, balanced precariously in one hand and a stack of folders in the other, neat and organized. You nearly made it, an excuse building when disaster struck.
One collision.
One surprised noise.
One catastrophic splash.
Coffee everywhere.
All over the floor.
All over your shoes.
All over someone's flannel sleeve.
"Oh my God." You looked up. Jonathan stared back.
For a moment neither of you spoke, and you felt horror spreading through every inch of your body.
"I am so sorry."
Jonathan looked down at his sleeve, then at you, then back at his sleeve. Annoyance flickered across his face, then, between the furrow of his brows down to the pull of his lips, he took a second to study the situation, and his frustration resolved itself quietly.
"It's okay."
"It is absolutely not okay." You spoke all too fast, already moving around frantically.
"It's fine."
"It's all over you."
"It's coffee." His voice was impossibly flat.
"I know it's coffee."
You sounded increasingly distressed, Jonathan seemed increasingly confused, which somehow made everything worse.
"I'm really sorry." You couldn’t seem to stress it enough.
"It's okay." He nearly laughed, choking on a breath when your fingers pressed against the fabric, dabbing at the ruined material with thin napkins.
"I'm buying you a new shirt."
"What?" He scoffed.
"A new shirt." You were dead serious.
"No." He shook his head.
"Yes."
"No."
"Jonathan—" You huffed. He hesitated, stepping back defensively.
"How do you know my name?"
You stopped, blinking slowly. The question caught you so off guard that you forgot about the coffee entirely. "What?"
"How do you know my name?" His expression wasn't suspicious, just curious, genuinely curious, like the possibility had never occurred to him.
You stared, then laughed, actually laughed.
"Jonathan." You said it more matter-of-factly.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"You work here."
"Yeah." He shrugged.
"People say your name." You mirrored his movement.
"Oh."
You laughed harder.
For some reason, he looked embarrassed, you noticed that first, how easily he got flustered. Not necessarily because of attraction, but because maybe it had been conditioned. The second thing you noticed was the tips of his ears turning faintly pink.
Cute.
The thought arrived suddenly, unexpectedly, pressed tightly beside the dull ache of wanting to notice more about the walking mystery of a boy in front of you.
You ignored it immediately, or tried to, and somehow, he had made it impossibly easy to do.
With another soft mumble, he was gone, barely brushing past with an apologetic expression. Red light illuminated from the cracked door, liquid moving slowly from the bins.
The door clicked, and in the absence of him came the boisterous shout of your boss in the other room.
—
After that, you saw Jonathan less, or, you saw less opportunity to talk to Jonathan. He was always weaving in and out of conference rooms, well liked enough by the staff there to get away with minimal conversation before he disappeared with his camera slung around his neck, skin bathed in a sliver of red light before the door would once again click.
The thing about Jonathan was that he didn't fit, not in the way people usually meant anyway.
He simply felt disconnected from everything around him, and for a while, that had been the problem.
The newsroom buzzed with conversations, always busy, always shifting and changing and taking and taking.
Deadlines.
Arguments.
Laughter.
Jonathan existed just outside all of it, like someone standing behind glass. Never unfriendly, just separate. Most people accepted it.
You found it fascinating.
Because you couldn't imagine living that way, you talked to everyone! Cashiers, neighbors, teachers, random strangers in line at the grocery store. Anyone who’d ever known you would cling to your side in awkward moments because in a world of extended pauses and the unsure atmospheres, you always seemed to have an answer.
Silence made you nervous, to put in plainly.
Jonathan seemed comfortable inside it, maybe even preferred it.
You wanted to know why. Why in a world full of conversation and knowing people that revolved around small talk, he would rather sit in silence and simply not know.
The opportunity arrived two weeks later entirely by accident, as most of your interactions occurred.
You were sorting photographs in one of the back rooms when you heard music.
Not loud. Just enough to drift through an open doorway.
Curious, you followed the sound, abandoning the small shiny paper somewhere on a nearby counter. You didn’t even bother to clip it up, which you knew if Jonathan, or god forbid, your boss were to stumble across it, you’d never hear the end. But if curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction had always brought it back.
The darkroom sat partially open, and inside, Jonathan stood alone developing photographs. The red safety light cast strange shadows across the room, and for a perfect moment, he didn't notice you.
His attention remained fixed on the image slowly appearing in a tray of chemicals, and for the first time in a while, you watched from the doorway, completely silent.
Something about the scene felt private, not secret, just...personal.
It felt like catching someone in the middle of a conversation with themselves, mumbling senselessly in a way that made sense in their head, but sounded crazy when out in the open.
Jonathan finally looked up, and his expression shifted immediately. At first, he had been annoyed, a soft huff about the light ruining the photos on the tip on his tongue, then, he softened, and there was a flicker of uncertainty. Then that familiar awkwardness.
"Sorry." You leaned against the doorframe. "I was curious."
"Oh." Even now, he didn’t say much.
You pointed toward the tray.
"Can I see?"
He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to, more like he wasn't used to people asking. That was another thing you began to notice. Jonathan was built off of conditioning. Each action and every conversation, or lack of, seemed to be a direct result of how he’d been molded growing up. The ache returned.
Finally he stepped aside, and you moved closer.
A photograph emerged from the chemicals in black and white. It was downtown Hawkins in late afternoon sunlight. There were people crossing the street, cars parked along the curb. Nothing special, and yet, you stared.
Not with a fake smile or faux interest, but with a small furrow between your brows like you were trying to figure something out.
"It's pretty."
Jonathan looked down.
"It's just downtown."
"No." You shook your head. "It's..." You searched for the right word. Different, important, alive?
"It's nice." Brilliant observation.
Jonathan's mouth twitched, almost a smile.
Almost.
"You can say if it sucks."
"It doesn't suck."
"Most people think it's boring."
You looked at the photograph again, then at him.
"Most people are boring." That earned an actual smile.
Small.
Brief.
But painfully real, and for some reason, seeing it felt weirdly rewarding, like winning something.
You left the darkroom smiling.
Jonathan spent the next ten minutes staring at the doorway after you disappeared.
Though neither of you would admit that later.
…
The rides home started in August, because your car decided to betray you.
The engine had made a noise that sounded suspiciously expensive, and when you got the estimate, it was far too much for your shitty job to cover.
Your father refused to let you drive it, but still refused to drive you, and suddenly, where you stood halfway across town, transportation became a problem.
You were complaining about it in the newsroom one afternoon with a boy a year younger. He had an awful bowl cut and far too much ambition for a small town. You’d learned his name was David, but the older receptionist called him Davie, which always made him blush. David didn’t necessarily care about your complaints, but he always responded.
You had been halfway through your ramble when a voice spoke from behind you.
"I can drive you."
The room went silent, scarily so.
You turned around.
Jonathan immediately looked like he wanted to disappear.
"What?"
His expression suggested he regretted speaking immediately.
"Oh."
You smiled. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?" You blinked.
"Yeah."
"You don't mind?"
"No." He sighed, taking a step back despite the gaping distance already settled between the two of you.
"Because I talk a lot."
A pause.
"I know."
You laughed, and Jonathan looked away, but not before you noticed the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes, and maybe beneath it all, a hint of relief. As if he had been working up the courage to find a reason to talk to you for a while now. Somehow that made your stomach flutter. Just a little, only a little.
Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about. Nothing worth lying awake later that night replaying repeatedly.
Absolutely nothing, you told yourself, though in the back of your mind you were certain the smell of the old leather in his beat up car would linger in your mind for a few hours long after he’d drop you back at home that evening.
That first ride home had been awkward.
Not painfully awkward, not the kind where silence stretched so long it became suffocating. Just...different. Different in the way where both people itched to know more, but somehow neither of them knew how to search for what they wanted. Hands twitched, and fingers tapped lightly against the wheel, and between shaky breaths, small conversations swirled.
Jonathan's car smelled faintly like film chemicals, old leather, and something woodsy that clung to the flannel hanging from the backseat. The radio barely worked, one speaker crackled whenever he hit a bump, which was often considering Hawkins seemed determined to preserve every pothole in existence.
You filled the silence immediately, automatically. Of course you did.
"So."
Jonathan glanced over briefly.
"So," he repeated.
You smiled.
"I've never actually been in your car before." It was an obvious fact, and even more so, an overly obvious olive branch. An invitation for him to speak more.
Instead, he looked genuinely unsure how to respond to that.
"Okay."
You laughed. "You are terrible at conversations."
"I know."
"No, seriously."
"I know." His hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
You couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or amused. Maybe both.
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, washing everything gold. Outside, Hawkins rolled past slowly. Inside, you talked. About work, about customers, about the community pool, about the mall, about how your friend Denise had nearly broken her ankle attempting to flirt with a lifeguard. Most of it was stupid, small things that meant nothing and in the grand scheme of things, were useless.
But Jonathan listened, mostly. Occasionally he offered a quiet comment. Sometimes single sentence, sometimes only a word. But he listened, really listened.
You could tell.
Most people waited for their turn to speak.
Jonathan actually paid attention.
The realization settled somewhere unexpectedly deep and by the time he pulled into your driveway twenty minutes later, you felt oddly disappointed.
"Thanks."
He nodded.
"No problem."
You opened the door, then paused.
"You know."
Jonathan looked over.
"You could tell me something."
His brow furrowed.
"About what?"
You thought earnestly for a moment. You’d spent nearly the entire ride telling him all about your life, and still, you were groveling for just the small details of his life.
"Anything."
The confusion on his face was almost adorable.
"What do you wanna know?"
Everything.
The answer arrived immediately.
You swallowed it.
Instead you smiled.
"Never mind." This time, embarrassment flushed across your skin like red hot shame. You swallowed it down with a sweet smile.
His eyes lingered on you for half a second longer than normal, then you climbed out.
Neither of you noticed him watching until you reached the front porch.
You’d only turned to be polite and wave, half expecting him to already be peeling out of your driveway. But instead, he sat there, an unreadable expression on his face, soft and hard all at once.
It was somewhere between that prolonged silence and the softness of his gaze that the rides became routine, and in that routine, they had become your favorite part of the day.
Neither happened intentionally.
One morning had become three, three had become a week, a week turned into nearly every shift.
Just quiet offers when the day neared the end, just before he knew you’d go out to stand and wait for the bus that was always fifteen minutes early or nearly an hour late.
You didn’t mind the wait, often familiarizing yourself with the people who rode it consistently. You’d made friends with an older lady, who had even dropped off some cookies once for you at lunch time, and a younger boy who spoke more than you somehow. But nothing was ever the same as the way Jonathan spoke to you. It never was.
At first it was practical, then it wasn't.
You both knew it. Neither of you acknowledged it.
Every afternoon, around five o'clock, Jonathan would appear near the front desk, never announcing himself, never asking, just appearing, like a ghost who knew he was always welcome. He was, most certainly and without a doubt, always welcome in your bubble, and in the new dance you learned, you hoped he knew that.
You'd gather your purse, and he'd grab his camera bag, and somewhere in that lazy shuffling you'd end up together.
Again, and again, and again.
The conversations grew longer.
Stranger.
More personal.
You learned he loved music.
Not normal music, at least not by your standards.
One afternoon he nearly drove off the road when you admitted you liked Madonna.
"Don’t scoff at me Byers! You act like its a crime to like Madonna."
He glanced over.
"It's not a crime."
"You’re looking at me like I committed a felony."
He shrugged. "I just don't understand it." He spoke almost uninterestedly. But you knew him better now, and beneath that indifference sat excitement.
"Oh?"
"No offense." He added, it didn’t offer much.
"Already offended."
"Okay."
You laughed.
“Well you must like one Madonna song?” You pried, and he only responded with a sweet, tight lipped grin that he wore so proudly. It was moments alone that his confidence became unearthed, and each time his charm caught you off guard.
"What do you listen to then?"
His fingers tapped against the steering wheel.
"The Clash."
You stared.
"The what?”
His expression immediately flattened.
"Oh my God."
"No." You bit back a laugh. "No, seriously."
He fought off his own, though while yours was pure amusement, his felt more incredulous.
"What is that? Seriously, it sounds angry."
Jonathan groaned.
Actually groaned.
You laughed so hard your stomach hurt.
“All that pop music is rotting your brain, I swear.” He claimed, hands tightening around the cracked leather of his steering wheel ever so slightly.
You rolled your eyes playfully, then, let out your own scoff.
“Just because you listen to the Clang—“
“The Clash!” He huffed.
“The Clash, doesn’t make you more well rounded, you know. Madonnas not even my favorite musician, and still I can accept that her perspective on modern art is just as important and impactful as what you enjoy.” You spoke proudly.
“Sure, so what? You’re saying you’re different? That I read you wrong?” He snickered, and his eyes flickered towards you for a moment before they settled back on the road stretching ahead.
He had taken the long way. Funny.
“No, I’m saying I have depth.” You had argued. “Liking popular things doesn’t make me some zombie of societal conformity, you know. And even if it did—things are popular for a reason.” You rambled, hands moving wildly in the small space between the two of you.
“Because they’re safe?”
There was a pause, and for a second, Jonathan had almost looked embarrassed for his joke. Truly, it wasn’t like him to just shut people down and not hear them out. But still, you had smiled at him. Softer this time, but just as sweet.
“Because they’re not.” You had argued calmly. “Sure, maybe the last decade has been a build up to something more eccentric, and yes, on their own, these artists hold their own right, but would Madonna be half as enticing if not for the costumes and the glitz, and the glam? Shes a performer, and she does it well, and thats why people love her. Just because the crowds are too big for you, doesn’t make her talent any smaller.” You huffed finally, and your shoulders sunk back into the passenger seat comfortably.
There was a proud pause. Jonathan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, you had noticed that first, then, the playful banter continued, the old routine falling back into a steady place.
“So who is it then?Whitney? Or Michael Jackson?” He teased, and for some reason, his assumption that his taste in music made him deeper than you pulled at something deeply rooted inside of you. In a vision of perfect man, his only unredeemable flaw was the way his awkwardness often brushed over your opinions. Sometimes, it didn’t matter, but this? This felt like he hadn’t truly listened to you, and if he did, he couldn’t care less. An argument stirred, but instead, it came out as a strained laugh.
“Just because they’re popular doesn’t make them soulless.” You shot him a look, and your brows had furrowed more deeply across your face. He had simply shrugged.
There was a pause, the car filled with nothing more than the crunching of gravel and synched breaths.
“And for your information my favorite musicians are The Beatles.”
The silence broke instantly with heavy laughter and groans.
“Oh my god, the tip of the ice burg!” He joked, and in that moment, the defensiveness slipped away into a fit of giggles.
“Shut up!” You swatted at his arm. He shifted away before pushing back.
This time, a comfortable silence took over, calm smiles stuck on both of your faces.
Then, “And Ringo is my favorite so!” Jonathan nearly crashed the car then with the way laughter tore through his ribs.
“Nobody’s favorite is Ringo!” He argued, and your hand struck his shoulder light.
“Well he’s mine! Yeah, the others are talented, but without Ringo, the tracks wouldn’t be the same!”
He didn’t argue that time, just sat back and smiled to himself like a dork. Maybe that was your redeeming quality. How you found the importance of everything.
“Like a Virgin.” He finally confessed, and you had gasped so loud, it hurt your throat.
“I knew you liked Madonna! everyone likes Madonna!”
…
The car ride didn’t last much longer after that. Somewhere between the arguing, and the banter, and the uncontrollable laughter, Jonathan caught himself looping around your neighborhood endlessly. You thanked him quietly, slipping back into that polite voice reserved for him, and he shot back that bashful wave that was made just for you. Things fell back into a casual place, but still, for the next week he made you listen to cassette tapes every afternoon.
You thought you’d hate most of them, confidently so. The truth was more complicated, because once you stopped expecting something upbeat and popular, stopped expecting songs you could dance to, you started noticing things, things you liked, things you brought up to Jonathan in passing that made his ears perk up with excitement.
Lyrics.
Stories.
Feelings.
Rawness.
There was something honest about the music Jonathan liked. Something unpolished. The songs sounded like they had scraped knees.
You secretly liked that.
You never told him, not directly anyway.
Not yet.
But he could see it, the quiet admiration in your eyes, and the bubbling excitement when he offered another tape for you to borrow. He wasn’t entirely used to it, to people wanting to explore his interests, and even more, someone enjoying them.
That had been the problem with Nancy. He loved her, and he knew she loved him, but they were always at odds. It began to feel more like the love had become desperation, and the thread had long weathered away.
Maybe that should have scared him, and in a way it had. He still had a lot of love for Nancy. She knew things you would never, and he would make sure of that. His secrets were dangerous, and he found with unwavering certainty that you needed to stay away.
August melted onward, and the blistering Indiana heat refused to break.
The town felt suspended in syrup, and everything moved slower, everything felt softer, and somehow, despite being complete opposites, you and Jonathan kept drifting closer.
Nobody understood it. Not even you. Especially not you.
You were sunshine.
Jonathan was cloudy days.
You loved shopping, Jonathan spent his money on film. You liked crowded parties, Jonathan looked physically uncomfortable whenever more than four people occupied the same room and yet, you found yourself seeking him out constantly.
The darkroom.
The newsroom.
Lunch breaks.
Coffee runs.
Anywhere.
Every interaction became easier, more natural, like two balls looped around the same rope, smashing together no matter how high they were pulled apart.
It was friendship, a solid base that formed over months of quiet conversation. It was steady, warm, and something that molded perfectly into your life.
It wasn’t until one afternoon you found yourself sitting beside him on the curb outside the Hawkins Post eating melting ice cream. He had vanilla in a cup while you licked at the sweet strawberry in a cone. Teeth marks scraped against the other side. You’d given Jonathan a bite. He pretended not to like it, you knew he did.
You found your eyes glued to the marks, the conversation fading in and out of your ears, tucked behind the dull ringing. At some point, Jonathans hand cupped your shoulder, and beneath his touch, your muscles relaxed.
The realization struck suddenly.
You couldn't remember the last time you'd felt nervous around him.
Comfortable. That was the word. Dangerously comfortable. The kind that sneaks up on you, the kind that settles into your bones before you realize what's happening.
Jonathan sat beside you quietly.
You talked.
He listened.
Occasionally smiling, always fighting it, and always losing immediately. The sight still felt rare enough to make your chest tighten.
You looked over after having lost yourself in your ice cream for a minute too long, but for once, Jonathans eyes weren’t looking at you.
Often, you caught him tracing the slope of your nose down to the freckles that dotted your skin. But his eyes weren’t emptier now, distant.
He was staring across the street, lost somewhere, as if he himself was coming to some kind of revelation.
You recognized the expression immediately.
Sadness.
Not overwhelming sadness, just lingering swell.
Old sadness, the kind that never fully leaves.
Your smile faded, because you knew the feeling. Once, that look had been pressed deep into your face, etched into the worry lines of your forehead. Tommy Hagen, freshman year.
He was a sophomore, and oh so charming. Naturally, you clung to him, fell for him deeply. He was soft with you in ways he refused to be with others. Then came Carol, and the softness turned to stone. He was relentless, his sweet words suddenly sharp and cold. The small group that had formed around you in that time shot sympathetic looks until you couldn’t take it anymore.
It had been for the best, you knew that, you saw it every day in the way he and Caroline teased the less fortunate in the halls, Steve trailing behind like a morally correct puppy dog. But still, the hurt sunk deep, and sometimes, in the quiet, you missed the feeling of him silently.
"Nancy?" The reaction was immediate.
Jonathan blinked. His jaw tightened slightly.
You regretted asking almost instantly, the cone crunching slightly beneath your firm grip. The edges broke into sharp pieces. For a moment you thought he wouldn't answer.
Then, "Yeah."
Simple. Quiet. Honest.
You looked down at your ice cream.
"Oh."
A breeze drifted between you, as if it knew what to do with the heaviness and you didn’t.
The silence felt different this time. Not uncomfortable, just careful.
"Do you miss her?"
The question slipped out before you could stop it. Maybe it was because you wanted to know, or maybe it was because you were scared not to.
Jonathan stared at the pavement for a while, long enough that you thought maybe he hadn't heard. Then, "Sometimes."
Something inside you twisted.
Small. Sharp. Unexpected.
You hated it immediately because you had no right to hate it. None. Nancy Wheeler had been part of his life long before you appeared. Long before you’d opened that dark room door and his eyes met yours.
She was smart, pretty, ambitious, outrageously beautiful, honestly.
Everyone knew it.
But beneath it all, she was tough. Stronger than anyone you’d ever met, not afraid to fight, not like you anyway. The comparison made your cheeks hot, and suddenly you became aware of your own pink skirt.
Your curled hair.
Your glossy lips.
Everything that made people assume they knew who you were, everything that made people underestimate you.
You looked away. The ice cream suddenly tasted too sweet.
Jonathan noticed. Of course he noticed.
"What?"
You forced a smile. "Nothing."
He studied you. You hated how observant he was, even if it was one of his most admirable qualities. Sometimes you wished he would just ignore you like Tommy.
"You got quiet."
"No I didn't." You argued softly.
"You did."
You rolled your eyes.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
The bastard.
…
The first time jealousy appeared, you didn't recognize it. Not immediately. You only knew you hated the feeling. Twisting deep inside like something truly ugly.
A week later you arrived at work carrying coffee.
Your usual. One for yourself, one for Jonathan. One sugar for you, and almond milk for him. Somewhere along the habit that had somehow developed, you learned how he liked his coffee, and that made your chest jump.
You found him near the photography department, talking casually, talking closely to another girl.
She wasn't even doing anything wrong, that was the worst part.
She was pretty.
Tall.
Confident.
Laughing at something he'd said. Something he'd actually said, and for some ridiculous reason, your stomach dropped.
Dropped at how casually he seemed to fall into place with her. Maybe it had been work conversation, and maybe he was just being polite, but it stung. Stung because it took you weeks to break down his walls enough to let you in, and here he was laughing so easily with a stranger.
Jonathan looked up then, maybe at the sound of your feet scuffing the carpet, saw you, and immediately smiled. A real smile.
Small.
But real, and somehow that made everything worse.
Because it meant the smile wasn't yours anymore, and a sick thought crossed your mind. Was all the closeness just niceties? Did he care the way you did? Would he ever?
The realization lingered long after the girl walked away, long after Jonathan thanked you for the coffee, long after the conversation ended and the girl disappeared through the glass double doors, slipping snuggly into the side of another man in the conference room.
Oh.
It didn’t make it better, if anything, it made it worse.
That night you lay awake staring at your ceiling.
Thinking.
Thinking.
Thinking.
Jonathan.
Nancy.
The girl from work.
Jonathan.
Jonathan.
Jonathan.
Then the horrifying truth finally arrived. Not softly, not gentle, like getting hit by a truck.
You liked him. Not casually. Not a little. Not maybe. You liked him.
A lot.
The realization should have felt exciting.
Instead it felt terrible.
Because Jonathan Byers had just spent the last month slowly stitching himself into every corner of your life, and worse? You weren't entirely sure he noticed, and if he did? You weren't sure it mattered.
Because every now and then, when he thought nobody was paying attention, you'd still catch him looking sad, looking distant, looking somewhere far beyond Hawkins. Far beyond you.
It was like a piece of him was still standing beside Nancy Wheeler.
Still hoping.
Still hurting.
The worst part was how you couldn’t even be mad at him. You’d been there once too. Because sometimes, when the sting fades, letting someone else in is the very thing that brings it back.
The pain that settled between your ribs made your heart flutter. It was like suddenly the words of every ridiculous love song you'd ever listened to felt painfully true.
Because no matter how much you smiled, no matter how much you talked, no matter how much time you spent together, you couldn't compete with a ghost.
It hit somewhere deep, twisting into something ugly before shattering completely because the first time all summer, you found yourself wondering if Jonathan Byers would ever see you the way you saw him.
All the almosts, all the longing stares, all the soft touches he held for just too long, all the what ifs. You replayed each moment tenderly, and in a painful epiphany, you sighed. You were completely smitten, and completely his.
If he were to kiss you now, you might just drop dead.
…
The next morning felt wrong, not bad, in fact, your hair had curled perfectly, and your lipstick felt smooth against your lips. If anything, the morning should have felt perfect. Instead it was heavy with something unspoken.
Just... wrong.
Like something had shifted overnight, and you hadn't quite figured out how to stand on the new ground beneath your feet.
You sat behind the reception desk at the Hawkins Post, staring at a stack of papers you hadn't actually read in almost ten minutes.
Outside, the summer heat was already beginning to settle over Hawkins, making the pavement shimmer beyond the windows. Inside, typewriters clacked away and phones rang and reporters shouted to one another across the room. The day had barely begun, and yet, while you caught up, the world was already buzzing. The world kept spinning, and you were in love.
Everything was exactly the same, but somehow, it wasn't, because yesterday had happened. Yesterday, you'd sat in your bedroom and finally admitted something you'd spent months trying not to think about.
You loved Jonathan Byers.
Not a little, not a crush, not something fleeting, or stupid and childish like the crushes the blossomed in elementary school when a classmate lended you his crayon, but something real. You loved him, and now that you'd finally allowed yourself to say it, even if nobody else knew, you couldn't stop thinking about it, which was unfortunate because Jonathan Byers worked approximately thirty feet away from you.
You glanced up before you could stop yourself, lip drawn between your teeth so hard you nearly drew blood. His desk sat near the photography department.
Empty.
Your stomach sank, and you immediately felt stupid for letting him hold that power over you. Of course his desk was empty. It wasn't even eight-thirty yet.
You looked back down at the papers, then back up.
Still empty.
"Get a grip," you muttered.
The words earned a strange look from one of the reporters passing by.
You pretended to be very interested in organizing paper clips.
A few minutes later the front door opened, you looked up automatically, shoulders draw tight and brows raised. You had been on edge, silently praying that the bell that chimed softly wasn’t another coworker you barely knew the name of.
But it wasn’t, because there he was.
Jonathan stepped inside carrying his camera bag, his hair a little messy, and his spare hand already carding through the strands in a lazy tug.
Your heart immediately forgot how to function, which felt odd in itself.
He looked tired, which wasn’t unusual. Jonathan always looked a little tired.
His hair was still messy from the humidity after his fingers pulled at the flat brown strands, and his sleeves were rolled up to the point where the thin fabric was beginning to crease. Across his body, his camera bag was slung over one shoulder, pressing down against his tie.
Normal. Entirely normal. Yet somehow seeing him made every thought you'd spent all morning trying to suppress come rushing back.
Because you knew the shape of his smile, you knew the sound of his laugh, you knew how he took his coffee, you knew which songs he listened to when he thought nobody was paying attention, you knew how he got quiet when something was bothering him.
You knew him, and that was the problem.
Because loving someone was one thing, you’d loved your parents, you loved your friends, you had even loved Tommy, your insignificant boyfriend who had once been the center of your world.
But the thing was, all of the people you had given your love to, had loved you just as fiercely back. They had chased after you in a way that made you hungry for it. This wasn’t that. This was loving someone who didn't love you back.
Jonathan glanced toward the reception desk, and your eyes met. No one said anything, and for a moment, you wondered if you were even breathing.
For a second, neither of you looked away, then Jonathan smiled. A small one, the kind that was only ever reserved for you. No— the kind one you had once thought was reserved for you.
Your stomach flipped.
Great.
Fantastic.
You were doomed.
You offered a smile back before looking down at your papers again, because apparently eye contact had become dangerous.
The morning dragged. Every minute seemed longer than the last.
You answered calls, filed paperwork, pretended to listen to conversations, and spent most of the day trying not to look at Jonathan.
Which only made you more aware of him.
You noticed every time he walked across the room, every time he laughed at something another photographer said, every time he disappeared into the darkroom, and even more, every time he came back out.
It was exhausting.
Around lunchtime, you were attempting to alphabetize a stack of folders when a shadow appeared beside your desk. You didn’t have to look up, you knew who it was from the woodsy scent of the cologne alone. You knew him.
You looked up anyway, unable to help yourself, and there he stood, crooked smile and sweet eyes as always.
Jonathan.
Immediately, every coherent thought vanished.
"Oh." Brilliant. Fantastic response.
"Oh." Jonathan smiled nervously, and that was strange, because Jonathan was usually calm around you.
Quiet, slightly reserved, but calm.
Now he looked...terrified.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Neither of you said anything and the silence stretched again, wearing thin over time. Still, the clock ticked on in the distance almost as if it was baiting a conversation.
Jonathan shifted his weight uncomfortably, then looked away, then back. His fingers tightened around the strap of his camera bag.
You frowned.
Why was he being so odd? You couldn’t place him, and that scared you. Scared you because for one horrible second, you thought maybe he could read you. Maybe he knew about your revelation the second he saw you, and maybe he hated it.
"Everything okay?"
He laughed once, a nervous little sound, strained around the edges.
"Yeah." There was a pause. "Maybe."
He wasn't very reassuring, and the way he twisted his thumb around in his palm made your stomach twist.
"Jonathan?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. You'd seen him do that a thousand times, usually when he was uncomfortable, sometimes when he was embarrassed, or trying to find the right words.
His face was flushed, the tips of his ears a little pink like he was completely overwhelmed but pushing himself to speak. His tongue didn’t seem to work, all words falling flat, dying before he could form a real sentence. His awkward shift sent a jolt of uncertainty down your spine, and the shock rippled up quickly when your eyes flickered over his again. Suddenly you realized something.
Jonathan looked exactly the way you felt, which made absolutely no sense.
"Can we talk?" he asked quietly.
Your heart jumped.
"Sure."
He glanced around the newsroom. Too crowded, too hot, too many prying eyes and loose lips.
"Outside?"
You swallowed.
"Okay."
The walk outside felt impossibly long, the summer air thick with humidity and something heavier neither of you could name. The wall of moisture hit immediately, warm and bright and even more uncomfortable. It was fitting really.
Traffic drifted down the street, a dog barked somewhere nearby, and somewhere around the corner a mother was dragging her toddler along the sidewalk impatiently.
Jonathan led you around the side of the building where it was quieter, then stopped and stared at the ground as if he was expecting you to speak first.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke.
Finally, you broke. "You're kind of freaking me out."
Jonathan laughed, a real laugh this time, not some soft, pity laugh to fill the space.
"I know."
Another silence.
Then he took a breath, the kind people took before jumping off cliffs, before doing something that was impossible to undo or take back. For a moment, Jonathans face paled, and you thought he might just drop dead right in front of you.
"I've been trying to ask you something."
Your pulse immediately sped up. "Oh."
He nodded.
"For a while, actually."
You blinked.
"A while?"
Jonathan laughed softly.
"Months."
Months.
Your brain stopped working.
Months? "What?"
He looked embarrassed. "Yeah."
"Months?"
"Yeah."
You stared.
Jonathan looked away. A faint blush appeared on his face, and somehow that made it feel even more real.
"I just..." He sighed. "Every time I thought about doing it, I'd convince myself not to."
"Why?"
The question escaped before you could stop it.
Jonathan hesitated. For a moment he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, biting his lip, smoothing it over with his tongue, then pulling it back again. He always was a little indecisive when he was nervous. He lacked a steadiness in his composure.
"When things ended with Nancy..." He trailed off, but not because he was still in love with her, you realized that immediately.
This wasn't longing, this wasn’t him dancing with a ghost that he clung to for warmth, it was hurt. Old hurt. The kind that lingered long after everything else faded.
Jonathan looked down.
"I think I got scared." The admission came quietly, honestly.
"I cared about her a lot. And when it ended..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It made me feel like maybe I wasn't very good at this."
Your chest tightened.
Jonathan gave a small laugh.
"I kept thinking if I asked you out and things went wrong, I'd lose my favorite person here."
Your breath caught.
Favorite person.
The words settled somewhere deep inside you, sending a pulsing warmth down your neck to your toes. You felt your sun-warmed cheeks blossom into something more red.
Jonathan looked up then, meeting your eyes, as if he was finally convincing himself to not be afraid. This was real, and fear couldn’t chase that away.
"I didn't want that." He confessed, and just like the minutes that had stretched on before, everything hit deeper.
Every conversation was played back, every touch, every breath, every compliment that tip toed the line between friendly and more. Always genuine, and always searching for more. You replayed it all, dissecting the places you could have read him wrong.
Somewhere in the distance, a car honked loudly at another, and hot rubber skid across the pavement. Neither of you moved because despite it all, the world felt impossibly still.
Then he smiled. Small, nervous, hopeful.
"So." His voice cracked slightly, which was adorable, and apparently terrifying for him.
"So..."
You couldn't stop smiling. Jonathan noticed immediately. The corners of his mouth twitched.
"Would you maybe want to go out with me?"
The question hung between you.
Months of late-night drives. Months of conversations. Months of stolen glances. Months of wondering, all leading here. Sweat stains dark in dripping splotches under his dress shirt arms, his toe wrinkled and shirt ruined. Your hair slightly frizzy now and lipstick bitten into a mess.
You laughed softly, not because it was funny, but because you genuinely couldn't believe this was happening.
Jonathan's face immediately fell.
"Oh my God, that was a bad sign—"
"Jonathan."
He stopped, shoulders tensing before dropping quietly. You stepped closer, still smiling.
"Yes."
His eyes widened.
"What?"
"Yes." The grin that spread across his face was unlike anything you'd ever seen.
Bright. Unrestrained. Happy. Completely happy, and for the first time since you'd met him, Jonathan Byers looked lighter.
Like he'd finally put something down he'd been carrying for a very long time.
"Really?"
You laughed. "Really."
His smile grew even wider somehow, and suddenly you understood something, another realization piled on top of all your others.
All those months you'd spent worrying you were the only one falling, you hadn't been. Not even close.
Jonathan had just been standing on the other side of the same fear, trying to find the courage to cross it, and now he had.
Finally.
At the same time, your future felt wonderfully, terrifyingly uncertain. But when Jonathan reached for your hand, his fingers brushing yours carefully like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to, one thing felt certain.
I have been YEARNINNGGGG for a jonathan fic like this and it was perfect 😭 Captures Jonathan's shy nature so wonderfully, the development of their interactions — the way the dialogue is written to have both banter, chemistry without having to be agreeable to each other is so good. (Jonathan admitting to liking Like A Virgin, had me dying, I love them). And the overall writing and pace IS JUST DO GOOD WKJFOE in love. Thank you <3
And I feel like I might throw up Left hook, right punch to the gut You're so so pretty boy I'm paranoid I made you up
Summary: It was just supposed to be a summer job. It looked good on her college applications. But what the princess of Hawkins High didn’t expect was to fall for someone she’d barely looked at. Now, she danced with the question: Did he ever like her back, or was she stuck in love with a man who was haunted by a ghost?
8.1k words
Contains: Slight angst, mutual pinning(mainly from reader), tension, secret feelings, fluff, LOTS of fluff, happy ending
…
The Hawkins Post was the kind of place that looked tired even in daylight, heavy with a sadness so thick, it was impossible not to notice. The brick building sat on a corner of downtown Hawkins, wedged between a pharmacy and a store that sold fishing equipment nobody ever bought. That was the thing with Hawkins, nothing ever seemed to happen. There were plenty of shops and supply stores littering the “downtown”, which was less than a mile long and mostly cracked pavement, but no matter who filtered in and out, paper bags tucked beneath armpits and crinkled between knuckles, nobody ever seemed to use what they purchased.
For the Hawkins Post, papers sold, but that was expected, even if a place as drab as Hawkins. The windows were always slightly dusty, the air conditioning worked only when it felt like it, and somehow every surface carried the smell of ink, coffee, and old paper.
You'd only been working there for eleven days. Eleven days, three hours, and, if anyone asked, absolutely not enough minutes.
The job wasn't glamorous. You spent most mornings answering phones, sorting papers, filing reports, and occasionally being sent to pick up lunch for people who treated interns like an exotic species that existed solely to fetch things, especially if the lowly interns had a perky chest and bouncy hair.
Still, you loved parts of it. Maybe you secretly seethed in the bathroom after each snide remark about your blouse, or after each aggravated chuckle from your bosses who, for some reason, believed they would always be much more capable than you. But it paid, and after rejection after rejection, the steady flow was like hose water on a blistered summer day. Soothing and relaxing. That and you enjoyed how it got you out of the house.
Still, summer in Hawkins felt endless. It was the kind of summer that baked sidewalks until the air shimmered above them, the kind that left skin sticky with humidity before noon. You recalled most summers growing up being this way, but something about the late June heat was creeping up the back of your neck differently, sweat beading between your meticulously styled curls.
Most of your friends spent their days at the community pool, or the brand new mall making eyes at Steve Harrington, the resident pretty boy who’d fallen far fast, all gathered to waste entire afternoons in luscious air conditioned ice cream parlors.
You did those things too, just not every day.
You liked having somewhere to be, something to do, a reason to wake up before ten.
Which was exactly why you were sitting behind the reception desk on a Wednesday morning while everyone else your age was probably sleeping, tights pulled flat beneath your long purple skirt, and heals just a half size too big covering your feet.
You twirled a pen between your fingers. The clock ticked. A phone rang somewhere in the building. Someone yelled for coffee.
Normal.
Boring.
Predictable.
Until the front door opened, and the bell overhead jingled.
You glanced up automatically. A boy stepped inside carrying a camera bag, shoulders raised awkwardly beside a slightly shorter girl with a shoulder length perm. Nancy Wheeler. You recognized her from the school papers your younger brother brought home sometimes.
Still, your eyes flickered back over to the boy. He was familiar in a way that you couldn’t seem to place.
Tall.
Thin.
Dark hair.
Flannel shirt despite the heat.
The second he entered the building, he looked like he regretted it.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
He moved through the newsroom without saying much, and a few people greeted him. He nodded.
One reporter asked him a question, he answered with exactly three words, then he disappeared toward the photography department. You watched him go.
"Him?"
You nearly jumped.
The receptionist beside you smirked.
"What?"
"You're staring." She clicked her freshly manicured nails against the thick keyboard. Secretly, you thought the mustard yellow color was an insult to her hands.
"I wasn't." You scoffed, already focused back on your work.
"You were."
You rolled your eyes. "I was observing."
"Sure." She laughed.
"That's Jonathan."
Jonathan.
The name settled somewhere in your brain. You didn't think much of it, not yet. Still, the name sounded familiar. You’d only just graduated high school, not yet even committed to a college, though secretly you knew you’d end up at your local community school, and yet you found the many names that once filled the background were already slipping from you.
Jonathan…Jonathan….had he gone by Johnny maybe?
It wouldn’t be until later that night you finally came to. Zombie boy, Will Byers. You recalled the way he pinned up the flyers all those years ago, and at the time, while you’d given him a few sympathetic looks, you’d always just been…you.
Standing confidently on the other side of the hallway, not quite close with Carol and Tommy, but familiar with the faces that roamed the halls enough to earn friendly smiles.
You wondered secretly if he had placed you yet, or if, like him, you had just been another girl to slip into the background noise while he navigated high school.
The second time you noticed Jonathan Byers happened three days later.
Over a cup of coffee.
Technically, because of a spilled cup of coffee. Specifically, yours.
The morning had already been terrible, clouds overcast and dripping with rain that refused to fall. A thick haze covered Hawkins, leaving surfaces damp and akin sticky.
You'd slept through your alarm, burnt your toast, forgotten your purse, and worst of all, arrived to work exactly three minutes late. That was the part that unsettled you the most.
Most days, you showed up over fifteen minutes earlier, and even then, sometimes your boss would heckle you while strolling in just before he was on the clock. Mentally, you were already scratching off a list of insults you would mutter at him in the cramped bathroom stall.
You’d barely had time to pull yourself together that morning, hair a little out of place, and wrinkles still littering your shirt. Your heels tapped against the tiled floors with a new found urgency, your body weaving through the newsroom with a practiced ease, a cup of hot coffee, black as requested, balanced precariously in one hand and a stack of folders in the other, neat and organized. You nearly made it, an excuse building when disaster struck.
One collision.
One surprised noise.
One catastrophic splash.
Coffee everywhere.
All over the floor.
All over your shoes.
All over someone's flannel sleeve.
"Oh my God." You looked up. Jonathan stared back.
For a moment neither of you spoke, and you felt horror spreading through every inch of your body.
"I am so sorry."
Jonathan looked down at his sleeve, then at you, then back at his sleeve. Annoyance flickered across his face, then, between the furrow of his brows down to the pull of his lips, he took a second to study the situation, and his frustration resolved itself quietly.
"It's okay."
"It is absolutely not okay." You spoke all too fast, already moving around frantically.
"It's fine."
"It's all over you."
"It's coffee." His voice was impossibly flat.
"I know it's coffee."
You sounded increasingly distressed, Jonathan seemed increasingly confused, which somehow made everything worse.
"I'm really sorry." You couldn’t seem to stress it enough.
"It's okay." He nearly laughed, choking on a breath when your fingers pressed against the fabric, dabbing at the ruined material with thin napkins.
"I'm buying you a new shirt."
"What?" He scoffed.
"A new shirt." You were dead serious.
"No." He shook his head.
"Yes."
"No."
"Jonathan—" You huffed. He hesitated, stepping back defensively.
"How do you know my name?"
You stopped, blinking slowly. The question caught you so off guard that you forgot about the coffee entirely. "What?"
"How do you know my name?" His expression wasn't suspicious, just curious, genuinely curious, like the possibility had never occurred to him.
You stared, then laughed, actually laughed.
"Jonathan." You said it more matter-of-factly.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"You work here."
"Yeah." He shrugged.
"People say your name." You mirrored his movement.
"Oh."
You laughed harder.
For some reason, he looked embarrassed, you noticed that first, how easily he got flustered. Not necessarily because of attraction, but because maybe it had been conditioned. The second thing you noticed was the tips of his ears turning faintly pink.
Cute.
The thought arrived suddenly, unexpectedly, pressed tightly beside the dull ache of wanting to notice more about the walking mystery of a boy in front of you.
You ignored it immediately, or tried to, and somehow, he had made it impossibly easy to do.
With another soft mumble, he was gone, barely brushing past with an apologetic expression. Red light illuminated from the cracked door, liquid moving slowly from the bins.
The door clicked, and in the absence of him came the boisterous shout of your boss in the other room.
—
After that, you saw Jonathan less, or, you saw less opportunity to talk to Jonathan. He was always weaving in and out of conference rooms, well liked enough by the staff there to get away with minimal conversation before he disappeared with his camera slung around his neck, skin bathed in a sliver of red light before the door would once again click.
The thing about Jonathan was that he didn't fit, not in the way people usually meant anyway.
He simply felt disconnected from everything around him, and for a while, that had been the problem.
The newsroom buzzed with conversations, always busy, always shifting and changing and taking and taking.
Deadlines.
Arguments.
Laughter.
Jonathan existed just outside all of it, like someone standing behind glass. Never unfriendly, just separate. Most people accepted it.
You found it fascinating.
Because you couldn't imagine living that way, you talked to everyone! Cashiers, neighbors, teachers, random strangers in line at the grocery store. Anyone who’d ever known you would cling to your side in awkward moments because in a world of extended pauses and the unsure atmospheres, you always seemed to have an answer.
Silence made you nervous, to put in plainly.
Jonathan seemed comfortable inside it, maybe even preferred it.
You wanted to know why. Why in a world full of conversation and knowing people that revolved around small talk, he would rather sit in silence and simply not know.
The opportunity arrived two weeks later entirely by accident, as most of your interactions occurred.
You were sorting photographs in one of the back rooms when you heard music.
Not loud. Just enough to drift through an open doorway.
Curious, you followed the sound, abandoning the small shiny paper somewhere on a nearby counter. You didn’t even bother to clip it up, which you knew if Jonathan, or god forbid, your boss were to stumble across it, you’d never hear the end. But if curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction had always brought it back.
The darkroom sat partially open, and inside, Jonathan stood alone developing photographs. The red safety light cast strange shadows across the room, and for a perfect moment, he didn't notice you.
His attention remained fixed on the image slowly appearing in a tray of chemicals, and for the first time in a while, you watched from the doorway, completely silent.
Something about the scene felt private, not secret, just...personal.
It felt like catching someone in the middle of a conversation with themselves, mumbling senselessly in a way that made sense in their head, but sounded crazy when out in the open.
Jonathan finally looked up, and his expression shifted immediately. At first, he had been annoyed, a soft huff about the light ruining the photos on the tip on his tongue, then, he softened, and there was a flicker of uncertainty. Then that familiar awkwardness.
"Sorry." You leaned against the doorframe. "I was curious."
"Oh." Even now, he didn’t say much.
You pointed toward the tray.
"Can I see?"
He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to, more like he wasn't used to people asking. That was another thing you began to notice. Jonathan was built off of conditioning. Each action and every conversation, or lack of, seemed to be a direct result of how he’d been molded growing up. The ache returned.
Finally he stepped aside, and you moved closer.
A photograph emerged from the chemicals in black and white. It was downtown Hawkins in late afternoon sunlight. There were people crossing the street, cars parked along the curb. Nothing special, and yet, you stared.
Not with a fake smile or faux interest, but with a small furrow between your brows like you were trying to figure something out.
"It's pretty."
Jonathan looked down.
"It's just downtown."
"No." You shook your head. "It's..." You searched for the right word. Different, important, alive?
"It's nice." Brilliant observation.
Jonathan's mouth twitched, almost a smile.
Almost.
"You can say if it sucks."
"It doesn't suck."
"Most people think it's boring."
You looked at the photograph again, then at him.
"Most people are boring." That earned an actual smile.
Small.
Brief.
But painfully real, and for some reason, seeing it felt weirdly rewarding, like winning something.
You left the darkroom smiling.
Jonathan spent the next ten minutes staring at the doorway after you disappeared.
Though neither of you would admit that later.
…
The rides home started in August, because your car decided to betray you.
The engine had made a noise that sounded suspiciously expensive, and when you got the estimate, it was far too much for your shitty job to cover.
Your father refused to let you drive it, but still refused to drive you, and suddenly, where you stood halfway across town, transportation became a problem.
You were complaining about it in the newsroom one afternoon with a boy a year younger. He had an awful bowl cut and far too much ambition for a small town. You’d learned his name was David, but the older receptionist called him Davie, which always made him blush. David didn’t necessarily care about your complaints, but he always responded.
You had been halfway through your ramble when a voice spoke from behind you.
"I can drive you."
The room went silent, scarily so.
You turned around.
Jonathan immediately looked like he wanted to disappear.
"What?"
His expression suggested he regretted speaking immediately.
"Oh."
You smiled. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?" You blinked.
"Yeah."
"You don't mind?"
"No." He sighed, taking a step back despite the gaping distance already settled between the two of you.
"Because I talk a lot."
A pause.
"I know."
You laughed, and Jonathan looked away, but not before you noticed the smallest hint of amusement in his eyes, and maybe beneath it all, a hint of relief. As if he had been working up the courage to find a reason to talk to you for a while now. Somehow that made your stomach flutter. Just a little, only a little.
Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about. Nothing worth lying awake later that night replaying repeatedly.
Absolutely nothing, you told yourself, though in the back of your mind you were certain the smell of the old leather in his beat up car would linger in your mind for a few hours long after he’d drop you back at home that evening.
That first ride home had been awkward.
Not painfully awkward, not the kind where silence stretched so long it became suffocating. Just...different. Different in the way where both people itched to know more, but somehow neither of them knew how to search for what they wanted. Hands twitched, and fingers tapped lightly against the wheel, and between shaky breaths, small conversations swirled.
Jonathan's car smelled faintly like film chemicals, old leather, and something woodsy that clung to the flannel hanging from the backseat. The radio barely worked, one speaker crackled whenever he hit a bump, which was often considering Hawkins seemed determined to preserve every pothole in existence.
You filled the silence immediately, automatically. Of course you did.
"So."
Jonathan glanced over briefly.
"So," he repeated.
You smiled.
"I've never actually been in your car before." It was an obvious fact, and even more so, an overly obvious olive branch. An invitation for him to speak more.
Instead, he looked genuinely unsure how to respond to that.
"Okay."
You laughed. "You are terrible at conversations."
"I know."
"No, seriously."
"I know." His hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
You couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or amused. Maybe both.
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, washing everything gold. Outside, Hawkins rolled past slowly. Inside, you talked. About work, about customers, about the community pool, about the mall, about how your friend Denise had nearly broken her ankle attempting to flirt with a lifeguard. Most of it was stupid, small things that meant nothing and in the grand scheme of things, were useless.
But Jonathan listened, mostly. Occasionally he offered a quiet comment. Sometimes single sentence, sometimes only a word. But he listened, really listened.
You could tell.
Most people waited for their turn to speak.
Jonathan actually paid attention.
The realization settled somewhere unexpectedly deep and by the time he pulled into your driveway twenty minutes later, you felt oddly disappointed.
"Thanks."
He nodded.
"No problem."
You opened the door, then paused.
"You know."
Jonathan looked over.
"You could tell me something."
His brow furrowed.
"About what?"
You thought earnestly for a moment. You’d spent nearly the entire ride telling him all about your life, and still, you were groveling for just the small details of his life.
"Anything."
The confusion on his face was almost adorable.
"What do you wanna know?"
Everything.
The answer arrived immediately.
You swallowed it.
Instead you smiled.
"Never mind." This time, embarrassment flushed across your skin like red hot shame. You swallowed it down with a sweet smile.
His eyes lingered on you for half a second longer than normal, then you climbed out.
Neither of you noticed him watching until you reached the front porch.
You’d only turned to be polite and wave, half expecting him to already be peeling out of your driveway. But instead, he sat there, an unreadable expression on his face, soft and hard all at once.
It was somewhere between that prolonged silence and the softness of his gaze that the rides became routine, and in that routine, they had become your favorite part of the day.
Neither happened intentionally.
One morning had become three, three had become a week, a week turned into nearly every shift.
Just quiet offers when the day neared the end, just before he knew you’d go out to stand and wait for the bus that was always fifteen minutes early or nearly an hour late.
You didn’t mind the wait, often familiarizing yourself with the people who rode it consistently. You’d made friends with an older lady, who had even dropped off some cookies once for you at lunch time, and a younger boy who spoke more than you somehow. But nothing was ever the same as the way Jonathan spoke to you. It never was.
At first it was practical, then it wasn't.
You both knew it. Neither of you acknowledged it.
Every afternoon, around five o'clock, Jonathan would appear near the front desk, never announcing himself, never asking, just appearing, like a ghost who knew he was always welcome. He was, most certainly and without a doubt, always welcome in your bubble, and in the new dance you learned, you hoped he knew that.
You'd gather your purse, and he'd grab his camera bag, and somewhere in that lazy shuffling you'd end up together.
Again, and again, and again.
The conversations grew longer.
Stranger.
More personal.
You learned he loved music.
Not normal music, at least not by your standards.
One afternoon he nearly drove off the road when you admitted you liked Madonna.
"Don’t scoff at me Byers! You act like its a crime to like Madonna."
He glanced over.
"It's not a crime."
"You’re looking at me like I committed a felony."
He shrugged. "I just don't understand it." He spoke almost uninterestedly. But you knew him better now, and beneath that indifference sat excitement.
"Oh?"
"No offense." He added, it didn’t offer much.
"Already offended."
"Okay."
You laughed.
“Well you must like one Madonna song?” You pried, and he only responded with a sweet, tight lipped grin that he wore so proudly. It was moments alone that his confidence became unearthed, and each time his charm caught you off guard.
"What do you listen to then?"
His fingers tapped against the steering wheel.
"The Clash."
You stared.
"The what?”
His expression immediately flattened.
"Oh my God."
"No." You bit back a laugh. "No, seriously."
He fought off his own, though while yours was pure amusement, his felt more incredulous.
"What is that? Seriously, it sounds angry."
Jonathan groaned.
Actually groaned.
You laughed so hard your stomach hurt.
“All that pop music is rotting your brain, I swear.” He claimed, hands tightening around the cracked leather of his steering wheel ever so slightly.
You rolled your eyes playfully, then, let out your own scoff.
“Just because you listen to the Clang—“
“The Clash!” He huffed.
“The Clash, doesn’t make you more well rounded, you know. Madonnas not even my favorite musician, and still I can accept that her perspective on modern art is just as important and impactful as what you enjoy.” You spoke proudly.
“Sure, so what? You’re saying you’re different? That I read you wrong?” He snickered, and his eyes flickered towards you for a moment before they settled back on the road stretching ahead.
He had taken the long way. Funny.
“No, I’m saying I have depth.” You had argued. “Liking popular things doesn’t make me some zombie of societal conformity, you know. And even if it did—things are popular for a reason.” You rambled, hands moving wildly in the small space between the two of you.
“Because they’re safe?”
There was a pause, and for a second, Jonathan had almost looked embarrassed for his joke. Truly, it wasn’t like him to just shut people down and not hear them out. But still, you had smiled at him. Softer this time, but just as sweet.
“Because they’re not.” You had argued calmly. “Sure, maybe the last decade has been a build up to something more eccentric, and yes, on their own, these artists hold their own right, but would Madonna be half as enticing if not for the costumes and the glitz, and the glam? Shes a performer, and she does it well, and thats why people love her. Just because the crowds are too big for you, doesn’t make her talent any smaller.” You huffed finally, and your shoulders sunk back into the passenger seat comfortably.
There was a proud pause. Jonathan pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, you had noticed that first, then, the playful banter continued, the old routine falling back into a steady place.
“So who is it then?Whitney? Or Michael Jackson?” He teased, and for some reason, his assumption that his taste in music made him deeper than you pulled at something deeply rooted inside of you. In a vision of perfect man, his only unredeemable flaw was the way his awkwardness often brushed over your opinions. Sometimes, it didn’t matter, but this? This felt like he hadn’t truly listened to you, and if he did, he couldn’t care less. An argument stirred, but instead, it came out as a strained laugh.
“Just because they’re popular doesn’t make them soulless.” You shot him a look, and your brows had furrowed more deeply across your face. He had simply shrugged.
There was a pause, the car filled with nothing more than the crunching of gravel and synched breaths.
“And for your information my favorite musicians are The Beatles.”
The silence broke instantly with heavy laughter and groans.
“Oh my god, the tip of the ice burg!” He joked, and in that moment, the defensiveness slipped away into a fit of giggles.
“Shut up!” You swatted at his arm. He shifted away before pushing back.
This time, a comfortable silence took over, calm smiles stuck on both of your faces.
Then, “And Ringo is my favorite so!” Jonathan nearly crashed the car then with the way laughter tore through his ribs.
“Nobody’s favorite is Ringo!” He argued, and your hand struck his shoulder light.
“Well he’s mine! Yeah, the others are talented, but without Ringo, the tracks wouldn’t be the same!”
He didn’t argue that time, just sat back and smiled to himself like a dork. Maybe that was your redeeming quality. How you found the importance of everything.
“Like a Virgin.” He finally confessed, and you had gasped so loud, it hurt your throat.
“I knew you liked Madonna! everyone likes Madonna!”
…
The car ride didn’t last much longer after that. Somewhere between the arguing, and the banter, and the uncontrollable laughter, Jonathan caught himself looping around your neighborhood endlessly. You thanked him quietly, slipping back into that polite voice reserved for him, and he shot back that bashful wave that was made just for you. Things fell back into a casual place, but still, for the next week he made you listen to cassette tapes every afternoon.
You thought you’d hate most of them, confidently so. The truth was more complicated, because once you stopped expecting something upbeat and popular, stopped expecting songs you could dance to, you started noticing things, things you liked, things you brought up to Jonathan in passing that made his ears perk up with excitement.
Lyrics.
Stories.
Feelings.
Rawness.
There was something honest about the music Jonathan liked. Something unpolished. The songs sounded like they had scraped knees.
You secretly liked that.
You never told him, not directly anyway.
Not yet.
But he could see it, the quiet admiration in your eyes, and the bubbling excitement when he offered another tape for you to borrow. He wasn’t entirely used to it, to people wanting to explore his interests, and even more, someone enjoying them.
That had been the problem with Nancy. He loved her, and he knew she loved him, but they were always at odds. It began to feel more like the love had become desperation, and the thread had long weathered away.
Maybe that should have scared him, and in a way it had. He still had a lot of love for Nancy. She knew things you would never, and he would make sure of that. His secrets were dangerous, and he found with unwavering certainty that you needed to stay away.
August melted onward, and the blistering Indiana heat refused to break.
The town felt suspended in syrup, and everything moved slower, everything felt softer, and somehow, despite being complete opposites, you and Jonathan kept drifting closer.
Nobody understood it. Not even you. Especially not you.
You were sunshine.
Jonathan was cloudy days.
You loved shopping, Jonathan spent his money on film. You liked crowded parties, Jonathan looked physically uncomfortable whenever more than four people occupied the same room and yet, you found yourself seeking him out constantly.
The darkroom.
The newsroom.
Lunch breaks.
Coffee runs.
Anywhere.
Every interaction became easier, more natural, like two balls looped around the same rope, smashing together no matter how high they were pulled apart.
It was friendship, a solid base that formed over months of quiet conversation. It was steady, warm, and something that molded perfectly into your life.
It wasn’t until one afternoon you found yourself sitting beside him on the curb outside the Hawkins Post eating melting ice cream. He had vanilla in a cup while you licked at the sweet strawberry in a cone. Teeth marks scraped against the other side. You’d given Jonathan a bite. He pretended not to like it, you knew he did.
You found your eyes glued to the marks, the conversation fading in and out of your ears, tucked behind the dull ringing. At some point, Jonathans hand cupped your shoulder, and beneath his touch, your muscles relaxed.
The realization struck suddenly.
You couldn't remember the last time you'd felt nervous around him.
Comfortable. That was the word. Dangerously comfortable. The kind that sneaks up on you, the kind that settles into your bones before you realize what's happening.
Jonathan sat beside you quietly.
You talked.
He listened.
Occasionally smiling, always fighting it, and always losing immediately. The sight still felt rare enough to make your chest tighten.
You looked over after having lost yourself in your ice cream for a minute too long, but for once, Jonathans eyes weren’t looking at you.
Often, you caught him tracing the slope of your nose down to the freckles that dotted your skin. But his eyes weren’t emptier now, distant.
He was staring across the street, lost somewhere, as if he himself was coming to some kind of revelation.
You recognized the expression immediately.
Sadness.
Not overwhelming sadness, just lingering swell.
Old sadness, the kind that never fully leaves.
Your smile faded, because you knew the feeling. Once, that look had been pressed deep into your face, etched into the worry lines of your forehead. Tommy Hagen, freshman year.
He was a sophomore, and oh so charming. Naturally, you clung to him, fell for him deeply. He was soft with you in ways he refused to be with others. Then came Carol, and the softness turned to stone. He was relentless, his sweet words suddenly sharp and cold. The small group that had formed around you in that time shot sympathetic looks until you couldn’t take it anymore.
It had been for the best, you knew that, you saw it every day in the way he and Caroline teased the less fortunate in the halls, Steve trailing behind like a morally correct puppy dog. But still, the hurt sunk deep, and sometimes, in the quiet, you missed the feeling of him silently.
"Nancy?" The reaction was immediate.
Jonathan blinked. His jaw tightened slightly.
You regretted asking almost instantly, the cone crunching slightly beneath your firm grip. The edges broke into sharp pieces. For a moment you thought he wouldn't answer.
Then, "Yeah."
Simple. Quiet. Honest.
You looked down at your ice cream.
"Oh."
A breeze drifted between you, as if it knew what to do with the heaviness and you didn’t.
The silence felt different this time. Not uncomfortable, just careful.
"Do you miss her?"
The question slipped out before you could stop it. Maybe it was because you wanted to know, or maybe it was because you were scared not to.
Jonathan stared at the pavement for a while, long enough that you thought maybe he hadn't heard. Then, "Sometimes."
Something inside you twisted.
Small. Sharp. Unexpected.
You hated it immediately because you had no right to hate it. None. Nancy Wheeler had been part of his life long before you appeared. Long before you’d opened that dark room door and his eyes met yours.
She was smart, pretty, ambitious, outrageously beautiful, honestly.
Everyone knew it.
But beneath it all, she was tough. Stronger than anyone you’d ever met, not afraid to fight, not like you anyway. The comparison made your cheeks hot, and suddenly you became aware of your own pink skirt.
Your curled hair.
Your glossy lips.
Everything that made people assume they knew who you were, everything that made people underestimate you.
You looked away. The ice cream suddenly tasted too sweet.
Jonathan noticed. Of course he noticed.
"What?"
You forced a smile. "Nothing."
He studied you. You hated how observant he was, even if it was one of his most admirable qualities. Sometimes you wished he would just ignore you like Tommy.
"You got quiet."
"No I didn't." You argued softly.
"You did."
You rolled your eyes.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
The bastard.
…
The first time jealousy appeared, you didn't recognize it. Not immediately. You only knew you hated the feeling. Twisting deep inside like something truly ugly.
A week later you arrived at work carrying coffee.
Your usual. One for yourself, one for Jonathan. One sugar for you, and almond milk for him. Somewhere along the habit that had somehow developed, you learned how he liked his coffee, and that made your chest jump.
You found him near the photography department, talking casually, talking closely to another girl.
She wasn't even doing anything wrong, that was the worst part.
She was pretty.
Tall.
Confident.
Laughing at something he'd said. Something he'd actually said, and for some ridiculous reason, your stomach dropped.
Dropped at how casually he seemed to fall into place with her. Maybe it had been work conversation, and maybe he was just being polite, but it stung. Stung because it took you weeks to break down his walls enough to let you in, and here he was laughing so easily with a stranger.
Jonathan looked up then, maybe at the sound of your feet scuffing the carpet, saw you, and immediately smiled. A real smile.
Small.
But real, and somehow that made everything worse.
Because it meant the smile wasn't yours anymore, and a sick thought crossed your mind. Was all the closeness just niceties? Did he care the way you did? Would he ever?
The realization lingered long after the girl walked away, long after Jonathan thanked you for the coffee, long after the conversation ended and the girl disappeared through the glass double doors, slipping snuggly into the side of another man in the conference room.
Oh.
It didn’t make it better, if anything, it made it worse.
That night you lay awake staring at your ceiling.
Thinking.
Thinking.
Thinking.
Jonathan.
Nancy.
The girl from work.
Jonathan.
Jonathan.
Jonathan.
Then the horrifying truth finally arrived. Not softly, not gentle, like getting hit by a truck.
You liked him. Not casually. Not a little. Not maybe. You liked him.
A lot.
The realization should have felt exciting.
Instead it felt terrible.
Because Jonathan Byers had just spent the last month slowly stitching himself into every corner of your life, and worse? You weren't entirely sure he noticed, and if he did? You weren't sure it mattered.
Because every now and then, when he thought nobody was paying attention, you'd still catch him looking sad, looking distant, looking somewhere far beyond Hawkins. Far beyond you.
It was like a piece of him was still standing beside Nancy Wheeler.
Still hoping.
Still hurting.
The worst part was how you couldn’t even be mad at him. You’d been there once too. Because sometimes, when the sting fades, letting someone else in is the very thing that brings it back.
The pain that settled between your ribs made your heart flutter. It was like suddenly the words of every ridiculous love song you'd ever listened to felt painfully true.
Because no matter how much you smiled, no matter how much you talked, no matter how much time you spent together, you couldn't compete with a ghost.
It hit somewhere deep, twisting into something ugly before shattering completely because the first time all summer, you found yourself wondering if Jonathan Byers would ever see you the way you saw him.
All the almosts, all the longing stares, all the soft touches he held for just too long, all the what ifs. You replayed each moment tenderly, and in a painful epiphany, you sighed. You were completely smitten, and completely his.
If he were to kiss you now, you might just drop dead.
…
The next morning felt wrong, not bad, in fact, your hair had curled perfectly, and your lipstick felt smooth against your lips. If anything, the morning should have felt perfect. Instead it was heavy with something unspoken.
Just... wrong.
Like something had shifted overnight, and you hadn't quite figured out how to stand on the new ground beneath your feet.
You sat behind the reception desk at the Hawkins Post, staring at a stack of papers you hadn't actually read in almost ten minutes.
Outside, the summer heat was already beginning to settle over Hawkins, making the pavement shimmer beyond the windows. Inside, typewriters clacked away and phones rang and reporters shouted to one another across the room. The day had barely begun, and yet, while you caught up, the world was already buzzing. The world kept spinning, and you were in love.
Everything was exactly the same, but somehow, it wasn't, because yesterday had happened. Yesterday, you'd sat in your bedroom and finally admitted something you'd spent months trying not to think about.
You loved Jonathan Byers.
Not a little, not a crush, not something fleeting, or stupid and childish like the crushes the blossomed in elementary school when a classmate lended you his crayon, but something real. You loved him, and now that you'd finally allowed yourself to say it, even if nobody else knew, you couldn't stop thinking about it, which was unfortunate because Jonathan Byers worked approximately thirty feet away from you.
You glanced up before you could stop yourself, lip drawn between your teeth so hard you nearly drew blood. His desk sat near the photography department.
Empty.
Your stomach sank, and you immediately felt stupid for letting him hold that power over you. Of course his desk was empty. It wasn't even eight-thirty yet.
You looked back down at the papers, then back up.
Still empty.
"Get a grip," you muttered.
The words earned a strange look from one of the reporters passing by.
You pretended to be very interested in organizing paper clips.
A few minutes later the front door opened, you looked up automatically, shoulders draw tight and brows raised. You had been on edge, silently praying that the bell that chimed softly wasn’t another coworker you barely knew the name of.
But it wasn’t, because there he was.
Jonathan stepped inside carrying his camera bag, his hair a little messy, and his spare hand already carding through the strands in a lazy tug.
Your heart immediately forgot how to function, which felt odd in itself.
He looked tired, which wasn’t unusual. Jonathan always looked a little tired.
His hair was still messy from the humidity after his fingers pulled at the flat brown strands, and his sleeves were rolled up to the point where the thin fabric was beginning to crease. Across his body, his camera bag was slung over one shoulder, pressing down against his tie.
Normal. Entirely normal. Yet somehow seeing him made every thought you'd spent all morning trying to suppress come rushing back.
Because you knew the shape of his smile, you knew the sound of his laugh, you knew how he took his coffee, you knew which songs he listened to when he thought nobody was paying attention, you knew how he got quiet when something was bothering him.
You knew him, and that was the problem.
Because loving someone was one thing, you’d loved your parents, you loved your friends, you had even loved Tommy, your insignificant boyfriend who had once been the center of your world.
But the thing was, all of the people you had given your love to, had loved you just as fiercely back. They had chased after you in a way that made you hungry for it. This wasn’t that. This was loving someone who didn't love you back.
Jonathan glanced toward the reception desk, and your eyes met. No one said anything, and for a moment, you wondered if you were even breathing.
For a second, neither of you looked away, then Jonathan smiled. A small one, the kind that was only ever reserved for you. No— the kind one you had once thought was reserved for you.
Your stomach flipped.
Great.
Fantastic.
You were doomed.
You offered a smile back before looking down at your papers again, because apparently eye contact had become dangerous.
The morning dragged. Every minute seemed longer than the last.
You answered calls, filed paperwork, pretended to listen to conversations, and spent most of the day trying not to look at Jonathan.
Which only made you more aware of him.
You noticed every time he walked across the room, every time he laughed at something another photographer said, every time he disappeared into the darkroom, and even more, every time he came back out.
It was exhausting.
Around lunchtime, you were attempting to alphabetize a stack of folders when a shadow appeared beside your desk. You didn’t have to look up, you knew who it was from the woodsy scent of the cologne alone. You knew him.
You looked up anyway, unable to help yourself, and there he stood, crooked smile and sweet eyes as always.
Jonathan.
Immediately, every coherent thought vanished.
"Oh." Brilliant. Fantastic response.
"Oh." Jonathan smiled nervously, and that was strange, because Jonathan was usually calm around you.
Quiet, slightly reserved, but calm.
Now he looked...terrified.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Neither of you said anything and the silence stretched again, wearing thin over time. Still, the clock ticked on in the distance almost as if it was baiting a conversation.
Jonathan shifted his weight uncomfortably, then looked away, then back. His fingers tightened around the strap of his camera bag.
You frowned.
Why was he being so odd? You couldn’t place him, and that scared you. Scared you because for one horrible second, you thought maybe he could read you. Maybe he knew about your revelation the second he saw you, and maybe he hated it.
"Everything okay?"
He laughed once, a nervous little sound, strained around the edges.
"Yeah." There was a pause. "Maybe."
He wasn't very reassuring, and the way he twisted his thumb around in his palm made your stomach twist.
"Jonathan?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. You'd seen him do that a thousand times, usually when he was uncomfortable, sometimes when he was embarrassed, or trying to find the right words.
His face was flushed, the tips of his ears a little pink like he was completely overwhelmed but pushing himself to speak. His tongue didn’t seem to work, all words falling flat, dying before he could form a real sentence. His awkward shift sent a jolt of uncertainty down your spine, and the shock rippled up quickly when your eyes flickered over his again. Suddenly you realized something.
Jonathan looked exactly the way you felt, which made absolutely no sense.
"Can we talk?" he asked quietly.
Your heart jumped.
"Sure."
He glanced around the newsroom. Too crowded, too hot, too many prying eyes and loose lips.
"Outside?"
You swallowed.
"Okay."
The walk outside felt impossibly long, the summer air thick with humidity and something heavier neither of you could name. The wall of moisture hit immediately, warm and bright and even more uncomfortable. It was fitting really.
Traffic drifted down the street, a dog barked somewhere nearby, and somewhere around the corner a mother was dragging her toddler along the sidewalk impatiently.
Jonathan led you around the side of the building where it was quieter, then stopped and stared at the ground as if he was expecting you to speak first.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke.
Finally, you broke. "You're kind of freaking me out."
Jonathan laughed, a real laugh this time, not some soft, pity laugh to fill the space.
"I know."
Another silence.
Then he took a breath, the kind people took before jumping off cliffs, before doing something that was impossible to undo or take back. For a moment, Jonathans face paled, and you thought he might just drop dead right in front of you.
"I've been trying to ask you something."
Your pulse immediately sped up. "Oh."
He nodded.
"For a while, actually."
You blinked.
"A while?"
Jonathan laughed softly.
"Months."
Months.
Your brain stopped working.
Months? "What?"
He looked embarrassed. "Yeah."
"Months?"
"Yeah."
You stared.
Jonathan looked away. A faint blush appeared on his face, and somehow that made it feel even more real.
"I just..." He sighed. "Every time I thought about doing it, I'd convince myself not to."
"Why?"
The question escaped before you could stop it.
Jonathan hesitated. For a moment he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, biting his lip, smoothing it over with his tongue, then pulling it back again. He always was a little indecisive when he was nervous. He lacked a steadiness in his composure.
"When things ended with Nancy..." He trailed off, but not because he was still in love with her, you realized that immediately.
This wasn't longing, this wasn’t him dancing with a ghost that he clung to for warmth, it was hurt. Old hurt. The kind that lingered long after everything else faded.
Jonathan looked down.
"I think I got scared." The admission came quietly, honestly.
"I cared about her a lot. And when it ended..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It made me feel like maybe I wasn't very good at this."
Your chest tightened.
Jonathan gave a small laugh.
"I kept thinking if I asked you out and things went wrong, I'd lose my favorite person here."
Your breath caught.
Favorite person.
The words settled somewhere deep inside you, sending a pulsing warmth down your neck to your toes. You felt your sun-warmed cheeks blossom into something more red.
Jonathan looked up then, meeting your eyes, as if he was finally convincing himself to not be afraid. This was real, and fear couldn’t chase that away.
"I didn't want that." He confessed, and just like the minutes that had stretched on before, everything hit deeper.
Every conversation was played back, every touch, every breath, every compliment that tip toed the line between friendly and more. Always genuine, and always searching for more. You replayed it all, dissecting the places you could have read him wrong.
Somewhere in the distance, a car honked loudly at another, and hot rubber skid across the pavement. Neither of you moved because despite it all, the world felt impossibly still.
Then he smiled. Small, nervous, hopeful.
"So." His voice cracked slightly, which was adorable, and apparently terrifying for him.
"So..."
You couldn't stop smiling. Jonathan noticed immediately. The corners of his mouth twitched.
"Would you maybe want to go out with me?"
The question hung between you.
Months of late-night drives. Months of conversations. Months of stolen glances. Months of wondering, all leading here. Sweat stains dark in dripping splotches under his dress shirt arms, his toe wrinkled and shirt ruined. Your hair slightly frizzy now and lipstick bitten into a mess.
You laughed softly, not because it was funny, but because you genuinely couldn't believe this was happening.
Jonathan's face immediately fell.
"Oh my God, that was a bad sign—"
"Jonathan."
He stopped, shoulders tensing before dropping quietly. You stepped closer, still smiling.
"Yes."
His eyes widened.
"What?"
"Yes." The grin that spread across his face was unlike anything you'd ever seen.
Bright. Unrestrained. Happy. Completely happy, and for the first time since you'd met him, Jonathan Byers looked lighter.
Like he'd finally put something down he'd been carrying for a very long time.
"Really?"
You laughed. "Really."
His smile grew even wider somehow, and suddenly you understood something, another realization piled on top of all your others.
All those months you'd spent worrying you were the only one falling, you hadn't been. Not even close.
Jonathan had just been standing on the other side of the same fear, trying to find the courage to cross it, and now he had.
Finally.
At the same time, your future felt wonderfully, terrifyingly uncertain. But when Jonathan reached for your hand, his fingers brushing yours carefully like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed to, one thing felt certain.
I have been YEARNINNGGGG for a jonathan fic like this and it was perfect 😭 Captures Jonathan's shy nature so wonderfully, the development of their interactions — the way the dialogue is written to have both banter, chemistry without having to be agreeable to each other is so good. (Jonathan admitting to liking Like A Virgin, had me dying, I love them). And the overall writing and pace IS JUST DO GOOD WKJFOE in love. Thank you <3
gap-tooth smile (god, i count my blessings from the one eyed dove)
steve harrington, dustin henderson, ft the party, 1.3k words
or: steve harrington being bullied by his nuggets
prompt
-
love was a strange thing.
that was the thought that ran through steve harrington’s pretty head as his beamer trekked through the streets, swerving to a stop before hawkins high. school used to be a place for honing popularity, perhaps for choosing his next fatuous hookup- and albeit his king steve status, he had felt empty inside.
not anymore.
as if on cue, the shrill bell rang and piles of students filed out. steve only had his eye six- dustin, lucas, will, mike, el and max headed towards his car with identical looks of determination and he sighed. his beamer, despite its beauty, couldn’t take all of them. would they care? no.
bickering relentlessly, the children filed themselves messily into the car.
“where are we going?” steve asked, resigned.
“arcade,” max replied, as she put her feet up against his headrest, red converses smashing into the back of his head, messing up his styled hair. “and make it quick.”
steve shook his head in exasperation. how he had landed a job as a personal (unpaid, may he add) chauffeur for a group of 14-year-olds was unbeknownst to him. although, his fingers tapped fondly against the wheel as the kids fought manically to who was taking the middle seat. (“dustin, you go, you don’t have collarbones.” “that’s ableist.”)
“can we have some change?”
steve turned. lucas grinned, a picture of innocence, wide-toothed smile that was almost contagious. “you come to my car, you make me drive you around and you ask for my money?”
six heads nodded, scarily in sync.
steve rolled his eyes, but his hand reached for his wallet and he handed them every coin he had. the lights of the arcade painted their faces with childlike wonder, and steve had to hold back a smile of his own. the kids clambered out of his car, will and el, ever the angels, thanked him profusely for the drive, while max wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick hug, dustin and lucas giving him a fist bump, mike a high-five.
“be careful,” he shouted after their retreating figures, hands tapping nervously on the steering wheel.
el gave him a thumbs up and max grabbed her wrist, dragging her into the arcade, hand filled to the brim with steve’s pennies.
as steve observed the aftermath- the shoeprints on his headrest, boys’ spit all over the car-seats, max and el’s long hair shedding all over- it was all worth it, steve realised. realised that despite growing up in an empty house, he had now found a family of his own.
-
“wha- dude!” steve cried as a rather hazardous pair of jeans lay right outside his bedroom door, where he almost slipped and smashed his head in. “dustin!”
when no reply came, he echoed in frustration. “dustin!”
strolling through the house, steve finally acquired his target. bursting through the door, six pairs of eyes settled on his panting, fuming self, where they sat on the floor, surrounding his parents’ 40 inch tv, snacks and sleeping bags piled up all over them.
“i told you guys you could have a sleepover here,” he scolded. “not try and murder me with your bad taste in clothes.”
“what did i do?”
“you!” steve gestured wildly at dustin, arms flailing. “you put your jeans right outside my room and i almost died, man!”
dustin scoffed. “it’s not my fault you’re so clumsy.”
“me? i am not clumsy.” offense flooded steve’s features, eyes darting around to seek reinforcements from the others.
he did not receive any.
“yes, you are.” a chorus rang across the room and steve exhaled, trying to keep his composture. betrayal at its finest. he let six kids in his house and for what, to gang up on him?
“he’s not exactly wrong, you know,” will, who was normally silent during steve’s gentle bullying, piped up. “you do lose a lot of fights.”
steve spluttered in embarrassment while the kids listed out every single fight he had lost, due to his bad luck, of course. it didn’t say anything about his clumsiness, of course.
“there was billy…”
“even jonathan.”
“that random guy who tried to get us to buy his candles on the street…”
“i can fight,” steve said defensively, an almost whining tilt to his voice. “henderson, if you’re so cocky about it, take me down.”
“what?” surprise arose on dustin’s face. “me?”
“yeah, come on,” steve said, bouncing on his heels, fists tightly clenched. “me, you, let’s go.”
the boys started chanting, “dustin, dustin, dustin.”
max murmured under her breath, “stupid shits.” el echoed the sentiment hesitantly, and seemed to be proud of herself by the end of it.
dustin stood, innocent hands going to dust away the crumbs on his lap, when suddenly he charged towards steve, causing him to almost topple over. the boys roared in support, and dustin tilted his head ever so slightly, like he was saying “i told you so.”
max and el were focused on the movie playing, but steve could tell that they were invested- no matter how much they pretended it wasn’t of interest to them. the way every time he glanced towards max, a ripple of red hair flicked away, like her neck was rapidly snapping away. the way when his gaze flickered towards el, her eyes would rapidly avert back to the bright tv screen, cheeks flushed.
they circled each other. seeking weaknesses, seeking distractions. dustin crouched into an awkward squat while steve brandished his fists like it would scare dustin into submitting. again, dustin was the more impulsive out of the two, and he dashed towards steve with a renewed passion, and all steve saw was a mop of curly hair before steve’s hands wrapped around dustin’s body on instinct.
catching dustin in an awkward hold, steve attempted to somewhat launch him onto the floor, but unfortunately for dustin, steve’s fingertips dug into his stomach so ferociously that he let out a mangled screech, and everyone went quiet.
“wahait, steve-” was all he could get out before steve suddenly clawed into his sides, terrifyingly precise and dustin burst into uncharacteristic, high-pitched giggles.
the boys jeered, and mike cried out, “get the ribs!”
dustin, upon hearing this, immediately let squirmed in panicked laughter and something evil overtook steve’s eyes as he let the boy sit on the floor, steve’s fingers crawling up his body onto his ribcage. the whole room shook with his laughter, and the others joined in, painting the harrington house with a newfound happiness.
“plehehase,” dustin howled as rough fingers dug into the crevices of his ribs, shaking deep into his flesh.
when steve glanced down at the hysterical child, he saw dustin's baby teeth, wrapped in a cackle, all pearly and half-grown and gap-toothed, and steve damn near melted. when he first lay his eyes on this toothless, troublesome, bratty boy, he had no idea how much he would grow to like him. to love him. to love all of them, no matter their flaws, or messiness, or tendency to leave everything right outside his bedroom door.
steve didn’t notice, but he had long ago stopped tickling dustin. his arms were still tightly wrapped around dustin’s panting form. it felt nice, steve thought, to love someone like a brother. dustin seemed to enjoy the tenderness, too, until he realised all his friends were fuckin’ watching him cuddle steve harrington of all people.
“gross, get off me!”
he shoved steve off before opening another bag of doritos, grubby fingers touching every inch of the harringtons’ leather couch. max and el continued their debate on unicorns- “el, they’re not real”, and the boys screamed the house down, laughter occasionally erupting from their mouths. it was pure chaos.
gap-tooth smile (god, i count my blessings from the one eyed dove)
steve harrington, dustin henderson, ft the party, 1.3k words
or: steve harrington being bullied by his nuggets
prompt
-
love was a strange thing.
that was the thought that ran through steve harrington’s pretty head as his beamer trekked through the streets, swerving to a stop before hawkins high. school used to be a place for honing popularity, perhaps for choosing his next fatuous hookup- and albeit his king steve status, he had felt empty inside.
not anymore.
as if on cue, the shrill bell rang and piles of students filed out. steve only had his eye six- dustin, lucas, will, mike, el and max headed towards his car with identical looks of determination and he sighed. his beamer, despite its beauty, couldn’t take all of them. would they care? no.
bickering relentlessly, the children filed themselves messily into the car.
“where are we going?” steve asked, resigned.
“arcade,” max replied, as she put her feet up against his headrest, red converses smashing into the back of his head, messing up his styled hair. “and make it quick.”
steve shook his head in exasperation. how he had landed a job as a personal (unpaid, may he add) chauffeur for a group of 14-year-olds was unbeknownst to him. although, his fingers tapped fondly against the wheel as the kids fought manically to who was taking the middle seat. (“dustin, you go, you don’t have collarbones.” “that’s ableist.”)
“can we have some change?”
steve turned. lucas grinned, a picture of innocence, wide-toothed smile that was almost contagious. “you come to my car, you make me drive you around and you ask for my money?”
six heads nodded, scarily in sync.
steve rolled his eyes, but his hand reached for his wallet and he handed them every coin he had. the lights of the arcade painted their faces with childlike wonder, and steve had to hold back a smile of his own. the kids clambered out of his car, will and el, ever the angels, thanked him profusely for the drive, while max wrapped her arms around his neck for a quick hug, dustin and lucas giving him a fist bump, mike a high-five.
“be careful,” he shouted after their retreating figures, hands tapping nervously on the steering wheel.
el gave him a thumbs up and max grabbed her wrist, dragging her into the arcade, hand filled to the brim with steve’s pennies.
as steve observed the aftermath- the shoeprints on his headrest, boys’ spit all over the car-seats, max and el’s long hair shedding all over- it was all worth it, steve realised. realised that despite growing up in an empty house, he had now found a family of his own.
-
“wha- dude!” steve cried as a rather hazardous pair of jeans lay right outside his bedroom door, where he almost slipped and smashed his head in. “dustin!”
when no reply came, he echoed in frustration. “dustin!”
strolling through the house, steve finally acquired his target. bursting through the door, six pairs of eyes settled on his panting, fuming self, where they sat on the floor, surrounding his parents’ 40 inch tv, snacks and sleeping bags piled up all over them.
“i told you guys you could have a sleepover here,” he scolded. “not try and murder me with your bad taste in clothes.”
“what did i do?”
“you!” steve gestured wildly at dustin, arms flailing. “you put your jeans right outside my room and i almost died, man!”
dustin scoffed. “it’s not my fault you’re so clumsy.”
“me? i am not clumsy.” offense flooded steve’s features, eyes darting around to seek reinforcements from the others.
he did not receive any.
“yes, you are.” a chorus rang across the room and steve exhaled, trying to keep his composture. betrayal at its finest. he let six kids in his house and for what, to gang up on him?
“he’s not exactly wrong, you know,” will, who was normally silent during steve’s gentle bullying, piped up. “you do lose a lot of fights.”
steve spluttered in embarrassment while the kids listed out every single fight he had lost, due to his bad luck, of course. it didn’t say anything about his clumsiness, of course.
“there was billy…”
“even jonathan.”
“that random guy who tried to get us to buy his candles on the street…”
“i can fight,” steve said defensively, an almost whining tilt to his voice. “henderson, if you’re so cocky about it, take me down.”
“what?” surprise arose on dustin’s face. “me?”
“yeah, come on,” steve said, bouncing on his heels, fists tightly clenched. “me, you, let’s go.”
the boys started chanting, “dustin, dustin, dustin.”
max murmured under her breath, “stupid shits.” el echoed the sentiment hesitantly, and seemed to be proud of herself by the end of it.
dustin stood, innocent hands going to dust away the crumbs on his lap, when suddenly he charged towards steve, causing him to almost topple over. the boys roared in support, and dustin tilted his head ever so slightly, like he was saying “i told you so.”
max and el were focused on the movie playing, but steve could tell that they were invested- no matter how much they pretended it wasn’t of interest to them. the way every time he glanced towards max, a ripple of red hair flicked away, like her neck was rapidly snapping away. the way when his gaze flickered towards el, her eyes would rapidly avert back to the bright tv screen, cheeks flushed.
they circled each other. seeking weaknesses, seeking distractions. dustin crouched into an awkward squat while steve brandished his fists like it would scare dustin into submitting. again, dustin was the more impulsive out of the two, and he dashed towards steve with a renewed passion, and all steve saw was a mop of curly hair before steve’s hands wrapped around dustin’s body on instinct.
catching dustin in an awkward hold, steve attempted to somewhat launch him onto the floor, but unfortunately for dustin, steve’s fingertips dug into his stomach so ferociously that he let out a mangled screech, and everyone went quiet.
“wahait, steve-” was all he could get out before steve suddenly clawed into his sides, terrifyingly precise and dustin burst into uncharacteristic, high-pitched giggles.
the boys jeered, and mike cried out, “get the ribs!”
dustin, upon hearing this, immediately let squirmed in panicked laughter and something evil overtook steve’s eyes as he let the boy sit on the floor, steve’s fingers crawling up his body onto his ribcage. the whole room shook with his laughter, and the others joined in, painting the harrington house with a newfound happiness.
“plehehase,” dustin howled as rough fingers dug into the crevices of his ribs, shaking deep into his flesh.
when steve glanced down at the hysterical child, he saw dustin's baby teeth, wrapped in a cackle, all pearly and half-grown and gap-toothed, and steve damn near melted. when he first lay his eyes on this toothless, troublesome, bratty boy, he had no idea how much he would grow to like him. to love him. to love all of them, no matter their flaws, or messiness, or tendency to leave everything right outside his bedroom door.
steve didn’t notice, but he had long ago stopped tickling dustin. his arms were still tightly wrapped around dustin’s panting form. it felt nice, steve thought, to love someone like a brother. dustin seemed to enjoy the tenderness, too, until he realised all his friends were fuckin’ watching him cuddle steve harrington of all people.
“gross, get off me!”
he shoved steve off before opening another bag of doritos, grubby fingers touching every inch of the harringtons’ leather couch. max and el continued their debate on unicorns- “el, they’re not real”, and the boys screamed the house down, laughter occasionally erupting from their mouths. it was pure chaos.
Emotional Walls Your Character Has Built (And What Might Finally Break Them)
(How your character defends their soft core and what could shatter it) Because protection becomes prison real fast.
✶ Sarcasm as armor. (Break it with someone who laughs gently, not mockingly.)
✶ Hyper-independence. (Break it with someone who shows up even when they’re told not to.)
✶ Stoicism. (Break it with a safe space to fall apart.)
✶ Flirting to avoid intimacy. (Break it with real vulnerability they didn’t see coming.)
✶ Ghosting everyone. (Break it with someone who won’t take silence as an answer.)
✶ Lying for convenience. (Break it with someone who sees through them but stays anyway.)
✶ Avoiding touch. (Break it with accidental, gentle contact that feels like home.)
✶ Oversharing meaningless things to hide real depth. (Break it with someone who asks the second question.)
✶ Overworking. (Break it with forced stillness and the terrifying sound of their own thoughts.)
✶ Pretending not to care. (Break it with a loss they can’t fake their way through.)
✶ Avoiding mirrors. (Break it with a quiet compliment that hits too hard.)
✶ Turning every conversation into a joke. (Break it with someone who doesn’t laugh.)
✶ Being everyone’s helper. (Break it when someone asks what they need, and waits for an answer.)
✶ Constantly saying “I’m fine.” (Break it when they finally scream that they’re not.)
✶ Running. Always running. (Break it with someone who doesn’t chase, but doesn’t leave, either.)
✶ Intellectualizing every feeling. (Break it with raw, messy emotion they can’t logic away.)
✶ Trying to be the strong one. (Break it when someone sees the weight they’re carrying, and offers to help.)
✶ Hiding behind success. (Break it when they succeed and still feel empty.)
✶ Avoiding conflict at all costs. (Break it when silence causes more pain than the truth.)
✶ Focusing on everyone else’s healing but their own. (Break it when they hit emotional burnout.)
I feel like lot of arcane fandom discourse is just a product of how charged our political climate has gotten.. the idea of modern audiences projecting puritanical moral frameworks onto stories that seem to deliberately resist them. The show intentionally avoids a lot of words like LOVE but also labels like authoritarianism despite being applicable because it isn’t interested in hand feeding us who’s “good” or “bad” - which I think is why the fandom is so Divided when it comes to defending its faves - it’s about flawed people making desperate choices in high-stakes situations.
But the fandom’s urge to decide who we’re “allowed” to like often flattens that nuance, and I think Caitlyn’s treatment is a perfect example. Critiques that dismiss her as “copaganda” ignore that her arc is fundamentally about disillusionment, not institutional glorification. Who is she convincing. Her story has uncomfortable imagery of someone committing terrible acts (as most central characters do in this show???) and ends on an uncertain, un-triumphant moment. Yet because she’s an Asian lesbian and part of the show’s central canon couple, she becomes this lightning rod for purity politics - I see people disguise latent racism, misogyny, and queer discomfort behind pseudo-progressive language that feels so unique to this fandom. Meanwhile, male and non-canon ships are given far more grace to exist in their moral grayness because. Hey guys. That’s more fun and interesting, and these are fictional characters providing an opportunity for such an inclusive space that I think has been taken for granted.
This fandom is just so. incapable of sitting in ambiguity. I think the refusal to let characters like Caitlyn be complex (in the way white dudes from other shows are allowed to be complex) says more about our cultural discomfort with imperfection in this day and age than about the show itself. Shouting bad writing from your high horse.. holy cope….
fanfic writers have the power to write literally whatever they want, since they’re writing for themselves first and foremost
you as a potential reader have the power to filter out tags and avoid what you don’t like, since you’re reading for yourself first and foremost
you’d think this is a common sense, but somehow it’s still a hard-to-swallow pill for people who want to censor and enforce rules on art — when art has always been, and will always be, about the freedom to express and create anything the artists want
⋆˙⟡ Years pass, but every glance from Vi feels like the first time all over again.
pairing: wife!vi x wife!reader
word count: 497
tags: mature love, domestic fluff, Vi as a hopeless romantic.
⋆˚saori’s take: started writing this week’s kinktober fic and ended up making this instead… my soul’s been craving fluff lately, sorryyy
The night falls over the city, but in your small apartment, the silence tastes sweet. The clock on the wall reads almost midnight, and you’re still at your desk, going over papers, your glasses slipping down your nose and a strand of gray hair falling across your forehead.
Beside you, Vi sits in the armchair, elbows resting on her knees, with a gaze so calm it feels as if time itself has stopped just for her. She watches you in silence, her eyes full of something that seems like tenderness, but also something deeper, heavier, as if she wanted to etch your image into her memory.
“So I had to redo the whole report,” you murmur, without looking up. “And they didn’t even thank me.”
Vi smiles. “They should. You’re brilliant, you know that.”
“Yes, of course,” you reply, amused, flipping a sheet. “Tell that to the boss next time he yells at me.”
Vi doesn’t answer. She just keeps watching you. That look. Warm, hypnotic, almost reverent. Until, without meaning to, you let out a small laugh.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, turning toward her. “I look like a mess.”
Vi shakes her head, leaning in slowly. “Because I can’t get enough. No matter how many years pass, you’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Your chest tightens. “Love—”
She smiles, that crooked smile that never changed, and leans in to brush her lips against yours. The kiss is gentle, tender, as if she’s afraid of breaking you, yet it carries the full weight of the years you’ve shared: the fights, the laughter, the rainy nights, the comfortable silences.
When you pull away, you trace her face with your thumb, pausing over the lines of her gentle wrinkles, her hair no longer fully red, and her tired but alive smile.
“You know,” she murmurs, her voice soft, “when I was young, I thought loving someone meant fighting for them. But with you… I’ve learned that loving is also staying.”
Your eyes well up, unable to stop it. “Violet, don’t say things like that, or I won’t be able to focus on these papers.”
“Then don’t.” Vi laughs quietly, and her soft laughter mingles with your sigh.
You rise and move toward her, sitting on her lap. Your wife wraps her arms around you without a word, resting her chin on your shoulder. The warmth of her body, the sound of her breathing, the slow beat of her heart against your back, all of it makes you think that love, in the end, is just this: existing beside someone and feeling the world fall into place.
“You know what’s the worst part?” Vi says after a while, stroking your hand.
“What?”
“That with every passing year, I love you even more. And I have no idea how that’s even possible.”
You laugh softly. “You’re so cheesy.”
“And you keep falling for me anyway, so I must be doing something right.”
Bored asf and I miss my wife. So I'm back with the most random of the random:
Head canons about Vi
Warning: None. Just random and fluff. VixReader involved!
Note!! If you disagree with any of these or think it's a mischaracterisation don't get too pressed. It's just for fun. Just let me know what you think or want to add onto this, I'd love to hear it :DDD
Vi would buzz her head on a random Tuesday at 3.21am just because.
OK, wait, there's some reasoning behind it, but for the most part, Vi never really gave her hair too much weight of importance. Since she was little, from the days of short choppy locks that her mum would keep ear-tips length to the days she slicked it back, Vi never really saw her hair as some tool for style but for utility and function. Keep it out of her face. Out of her way. For the most part of course. Maybe cutting her under sides with a broken piece of glass in Stillwater did end up looking sick as fuck in her mind, but as the top outgrew the bottom, it wasn't so much a cool decision for a half mullet as it was an apathy to maintaining that shit. And once she dyed it out with whatever chemical stuff she found... Vi figured why not shave all of it off? Why wait for her roots to bleed back to her colour and waste periodic trimming and trimming before a real haircut? She was never too attached to it so... ?
**Jinx standing at the door way with a maniacal grin, holding up a electric razor up that erupts to life** [Yes, my headcanon lives in this mystical beautiful world in which Jinx didn't "die" and the sisters lived happily ever after]
It's a simple task. At first. Once Jinx is pulling away allowing her big sis' head yo turn to the side and then to the other side, Vi's pinky black buzz was strangely uneven. Welp.
It's a long night of Vi perched on an old stool that was dragged into the tiny bathroom, Jinx gliding the plastic teeth over her scalp repeatedly, randomly as sprinkles of her join the litter of long strands covering the old tiles. Idle chatter shared over the gritty hum. The only time the two were forced to bear anything beyond the banter and even exchange a few words of mirth over some memories. "Bit rusty, but it's only been about what? 10 years?" - "Count a couple more years." Vi chuckles, "You begged to play hairdresser before you lost all ya baby teeth" - "And I was pretty fucking good at it too! McClanking scissors were janky as hell and I could still cut straight. You're welcome :))" A beat passes as Vi hugs a knee against her chest, watching the ground with a small smirk at the memory. "You nearly nicked me, fatally, but yea... did alright, pow." She murmurs fondly.
That morning you woke up to a pink bald woman in your bed instead of your girlfriend, you screamed bloody murder only to realise it is your dumb stupid ass girlfriend who decided to shave her fucking head on a whim without telling you.. you cried for the next three days every time you saw her peach head.
I imagine Vi would gain a bit of weight after that shit show of a war. After a life of little food that zaun had to share around, years of Stillwater that starved her of it, and a lifetime of survival mode where her fits were her primary protection, the crashing waves and thunderous storm at sea dialed down and Vi could finally come to the surface and breathe a different lifestyle. Meaning, less of a need to throw punches for an outlet. More times to sleep good hours and more food to have for enjoyment rather than a rare luxury.
Vi would oggle at a load that she could actually taste the sweetness of the wheat. And chocolate was lowkey fucking mind blowing. The good shit, not the ones Babs had that tasted bland compared to the exotic ones which she said were off limits for the kids (teenage Vi tried. It was crazy).
Vi was napping and sleeping everywhere. In an actual bed. On the couch. Slumped against the counter. Draped over you as you read or worked away at papers. Sleep and eating was easier when the world didn't feel like it was caving in or pulling it away from under or in front of you. And suddenly, your hand is encircling her waist, squeezing her sides that were a lot more plush and soft than what you remembered. "Stop squeezing me, I'm not some toy", she gruffs. "But you're so soft!!" You hug her back close to your chest, her between your legs as you watched her flick through channels. "What? Am not. Is this soft to you?" She'd flex her arm and you'd glad squeeze her bicep between your fingers, "mm very plush". She stubbornly announced she's gonna start lifting with Jayce and you gasped, scandalised and offended.
Another thing - Vi also wouldn't know how to apologise... immediately... un-stubbornly.
If anything she's really fucking good at being stubborn. So after any argument of blow out fight when the walls are up, both fighters on the fence, guards all the way up, Vi's move is to dismantle your defences little by little. Vi style. Aka flocking to you with all things you love, just to soften you up. In the most discrete way possible.
It begins with the small things of course. She'd come back to your shared, humble, abode. The familiar sound of her boots thumping off and onto the ground as she enter, she huffs a small reluctant greeting (she misses you) before tossing a small bag of treats. Shiny and pristine. Your favourites. She'd mumble about getting because she saw it or 'whatever' and thought to get some cause you guys were out of it. The next morning you find one of your products restocked, sitting on the corner of the sink. In the laundry you found your clothes you meant to wash for the day, your pile, your responsibility, Vi's already done it. It's folded and left in the basket for you to take, folded in the way you always complained she never does. Done.
You sigh silently, hand coming to your hips as you stare down at the neatly stacked clothes and then in the kitchen the sweet snacks you've eating half of, your skin smooth from the moisturiser she bought. You roll your eyes to yourself, shoulders slumping from the endearment that seeps into your wilful heart and take the basket back to your shared closet.
Later that evening when she comes home again with the same tumbling boots and scuffle of her leather jacket as she shrugs off. She has flowers this time. Red roses in a decorative paper that has a Jinx's flashy touch which scream, 'I'm trying to help mah big sis' and future-sister-in-law troubles.' "Hey I found these," she tries to sound neutral but fails, "I know you said the place needs a bit-" And before Vi could finish her sentence. "I'd appreciate it if my partner would just talk to me." You say calmly. You continue chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, across from it a stunned puppy with wide-eyes and lowered roses before growing crestfallen. You don't look up. You know she has the roses. And you know she knows that you know what she's been doing these past few days since your fight. Then, a sigh.
Her feet pad around. A pause. And then her warm, rough palms smooth over the dips of your hips, slither across your midsection as her chest presses against your back. Her head falls gently onto your shoulder, almost hesitant for a split second before pressing her nose into the crook of your neck. Words of 'I miss you' bleed from her touch and to your skin. The moment you felt her, your movement was paused, and the sound of knife on wood vanished into a sweet silence. Feeling her again felt like a relief, a tension you've been waiting to pull back like a veil, and here she was. "Ready to talk?" You murmur softly, and you feel her after a beat, nodding her head that nudges your shoulder. At her non-verbal response, the end of your lips lift gently, and you let your temple finally rest against her head of red in silent gesture, I miss you too.
This is really short!! Might add more in the future:))
Bored asf and I miss my wife. So I'm back with the most random of the random:
Head canons about Vi
Warning: None. Just random and fluff. VixReader involved!
Note!! If you disagree with any of these or think it's a mischaracterisation don't get too pressed. It's just for fun. Just let me know what you think or want to add onto this, I'd love to hear it :DDD
Vi would buzz her head on a random Tuesday at 3.21am just because.
OK, wait, there's some reasoning behind it, but for the most part, Vi never really gave her hair too much weight of importance. Since she was little, from the days of short choppy locks that her mum would keep ear-tips length to the days she slicked it back, Vi never really saw her hair as some tool for style but for utility and function. Keep it out of her face. Out of her way. For the most part of course. Maybe cutting her under sides with a broken piece of glass in Stillwater did end up looking sick as fuck in her mind, but as the top outgrew the bottom, it wasn't so much a cool decision for a half mullet as it was an apathy to maintaining that shit. And once she dyed it out with whatever chemical stuff she found... Vi figured why not shave all of it off? Why wait for her roots to bleed back to her colour and waste periodic trimming and trimming before a real haircut? She was never too attached to it so... ?
**Jinx standing at the door way with a maniacal grin, holding up a electric razor up that erupts to life** [Yes, my headcanon lives in this mystical beautiful world in which Jinx didn't "die" and the sisters lived happily ever after]
It's a simple task. At first. Once Jinx is pulling away allowing her big sis' head yo turn to the side and then to the other side, Vi's pinky black buzz was strangely uneven. Welp.
It's a long night of Vi perched on an old stool that was dragged into the tiny bathroom, Jinx gliding the plastic teeth over her scalp repeatedly, randomly as sprinkles of her join the litter of long strands covering the old tiles. Idle chatter shared over the gritty hum. The only time the two were forced to bear anything beyond the banter and even exchange a few words of mirth over some memories. "Bit rusty, but it's only been about what? 10 years?" - "Count a couple more years." Vi chuckles, "You begged to play hairdresser before you lost all ya baby teeth" - "And I was pretty fucking good at it too! McClanking scissors were janky as hell and I could still cut straight. You're welcome :))" A beat passes as Vi hugs a knee against her chest, watching the ground with a small smirk at the memory. "You nearly nicked me, fatally, but yea... did alright, pow." She murmurs fondly.
That morning you woke up to a pink bald woman in your bed instead of your girlfriend, you screamed bloody murder only to realise it is your dumb stupid ass girlfriend who decided to shave her fucking head on a whim without telling you.. you cried for the next three days every time you saw her peach head.
I imagine Vi would gain a bit of weight after that shit show of a war. After a life of little food that zaun had to share around, years of Stillwater that starved her of it, and a lifetime of survival mode where her fits were her primary protection, the crashing waves and thunderous storm at sea dialed down and Vi could finally come to the surface and breathe a different lifestyle. Meaning, less of a need to throw punches for an outlet. More times to sleep good hours and more food to have for enjoyment rather than a rare luxury.
Vi would oggle at a load that she could actually taste the sweetness of the wheat. And chocolate was lowkey fucking mind blowing. The good shit, not the ones Babs had that tasted bland compared to the exotic ones which she said were off limits for the kids (teenage Vi tried. It was crazy).
Vi was napping and sleeping everywhere. In an actual bed. On the couch. Slumped against the counter. Draped over you as you read or worked away at papers. Sleep and eating was easier when the world didn't feel like it was caving in or pulling it away from under or in front of you. And suddenly, your hand is encircling her waist, squeezing her sides that were a lot more plush and soft than what you remembered. "Stop squeezing me, I'm not some toy", she gruffs. "But you're so soft!!" You hug her back close to your chest, her between your legs as you watched her flick through channels. "What? Am not. Is this soft to you?" She'd flex her arm and you'd glad squeeze her bicep between your fingers, "mm very plush". She stubbornly announced she's gonna start lifting with Jayce and you gasped, scandalised and offended.
Another thing - Vi also wouldn't know how to apologise... immediately... un-stubbornly.
If anything she's really fucking good at being stubborn. So after any argument of blow out fight when the walls are up, both fighters on the fence, guards all the way up, Vi's move is to dismantle your defences little by little. Vi style. Aka flocking to you with all things you love, just to soften you up. In the most discrete way possible.
It begins with the small things of course. She'd come back to your shared, humble, abode. The familiar sound of her boots thumping off and onto the ground as she enter, she huffs a small reluctant greeting (she misses you) before tossing a small bag of treats. Shiny and pristine. Your favourites. She'd mumble about getting because she saw it or 'whatever' and thought to get some cause you guys were out of it. The next morning you find one of your products restocked, sitting on the corner of the sink. In the laundry you found your clothes you meant to wash for the day, your pile, your responsibility, Vi's already done it. It's folded and left in the basket for you to take, folded in the way you always complained she never does. Done.
You sigh silently, hand coming to your hips as you stare down at the neatly stacked clothes and then in the kitchen the sweet snacks you've eating half of, your skin smooth from the moisturiser she bought. You roll your eyes to yourself, shoulders slumping from the endearment that seeps into your wilful heart and take the basket back to your shared closet.
Later that evening when she comes home again with the same tumbling boots and scuffle of her leather jacket as she shrugs off. She has flowers this time. Red roses in a decorative paper that has a Jinx's flashy touch which scream, 'I'm trying to help mah big sis' and future-sister-in-law troubles.' "Hey I found these," she tries to sound neutral but fails, "I know you said the place needs a bit-" And before Vi could finish her sentence. "I'd appreciate it if my partner would just talk to me." You say calmly. You continue chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, across from it a stunned puppy with wide-eyes and lowered roses before growing crestfallen. You don't look up. You know she has the roses. And you know she knows that you know what she's been doing these past few days since your fight. Then, a sigh.
Her feet pad around. A pause. And then her warm, rough palms smooth over the dips of your hips, slither across your midsection as her chest presses against your back. Her head falls gently onto your shoulder, almost hesitant for a split second before pressing her nose into the crook of your neck. Words of 'I miss you' bleed from her touch and to your skin. The moment you felt her, your movement was paused, and the sound of knife on wood vanished into a sweet silence. Feeling her again felt like a relief, a tension you've been waiting to pull back like a veil, and here she was. "Ready to talk?" You murmur softly, and you feel her after a beat, nodding her head that nudges your shoulder. At her non-verbal response, the end of your lips lift gently, and you let your temple finally rest against her head of red in silent gesture, I miss you too.
This is really short!! Might add more in the future:))
You're based in Europe, right? Could you help out signal-boosting this European citizens initiative to ban conversion therapy in the EU?
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/#/screen/home
I don't think I have to explain the horrors of conversion therapy to you, so let me explain how this initiative works.
For it to get taken seriously by the EU, we need two things:
7 countries need to reach the minimum threshold of signatures for their country. We're currently at 6 out of 7! Slovenia only needs 300 more signatures to become country number 7!
We need a total of 1 million signatures. This might look daunting, but there days ago we were still at 200.000. Yesterday we were at 450.00. We are at 535.000 right now. So we have a long way to go, but we are moving fast!
The deadline is in a few days, on May 17.
Anybody with a European citizenship can add their name to the pile! If we reach the right amount, the official citizen initiative will be put before the EU Commission.
With lgbtq+ rights getting rolled back across the world, including Europe, there is no time to lose to demand stronger protections.
Give your support !
MAY 14, 2025 (VERY RELEVANT) SPREAD. THIS. LIKE. WILDFIRE!!!
FUCK OFF WITH YOUR SHIPS I NEED MORE makixfem!reader RIGHT NOW
I'm just thinking about Maki as a silent lover.
She definitely took a long time to confess to you. I mean, you're the prettiest girl in jujutsu high — and quite frankly, in the whole world, if she was completely honest. You had a smile that put the sun to shame. Eyes that make her stomach flip about a hundred times when you glanced her way. Crinkling in the corners in a way that make your eyes squeeze into mooncresent shapes, her favourite time of day. You laughed and snorted when something was really funny (typically it's because Panda and inumaki were doing something stupid). You pouted at the most stupid things like a ladybug draped in a classroom (you were too adorable it made her sick). And you too incredibly kind — leaning in like that, tilting your head to the side at her when you asked about her day despite her silence, drifting away from the louder group you oh so naturally fit in and yet you're always in her face. Like a puppy to a black cat minding her business.
Yea, Maki kept her distance. Tried to at least. Silently observing you, loving you from afar. It was easier and yet so incredibly difficult when you're always gravitating to her too. Like the sun and moon.
You loved Maki. She was like a heavy protective blanket that felt warm despite her cool demeanour. Her silence intrigued you and better yet, when you got close enough, asked the right questions just to coax out her smooth, low voice, her words and thoughts intrigued you most.
Maki always thought she was too difficult to love. Tainted and bland. Rigid and sharp. The total contrast to the sunshine and softness you were in her eyes. But what shocked her was how you always had the space, time and energy to try. For her.
Finding her in hallways, seeking her out at lunch, tugging her hand along to trail behind the group, texting her at night. You tried and you succeeded in rounding her jaded edges, getting to her core. During her long and hard days of training and mission work, the sound of your sweet voice saying her name, whilling around to spot your beaming smile, twinkling eyes and excitable wave, God it's like cupids arrow straight through her chest and she's wondering... how'd I get so lucky?
So when she finally has you — her one and only — Maki is not grand gesture kinda gal, but she sure does try her hardest to show how much she loves you.
Maki is a silent lover, a woman of little words, but many gestures.
Sometimes it's just the small things.
When she's around you, in public or in your dorms, she's always got some sort of attentive eye on you. Walking in crowded spaces, she's always got a hand on your lower back guiding you through. Standing on a pathway, midway ranting to her about some incredible sale you saw at the markets you just left, Maki is pulling you closer by the waist, just a gentle tug just so the cyclist zipping by doesn't hit you. Lounging around in one of the guys' dorms, snacks and drinks everywhere, Maki is the one noticing you empty cup and she refilling it with you favourite drink before you notice it was gone. When it's your training days and she knows you're on the grounds till late, she's joining you at sunset even if she's beat and tired. She's not letting you stay out late at night byself, are you crazy? She'd always rather be there by your side, silently looking out for you whether you notice or not. Someone has to and if it's anyone, she wants it to be her.
And those are just the little things. A reflexive, comfortable routine she falls into.
When Maki truly gets to know you, know you intimately, understanding how you work, your quirks and insecurities, Maki is weighted with what dreary shadows her little sunshine has.
Late night talks, curled up on her bed, face to face. You play with the lint of her sheets as you murmur softly in the quiet twilight hour. You stare at where your fingers fidget, unsure whether to meet her eyes, unspoken fear of what Maki thinks of you as you tell her about your woes about being forgotten, replaced, as if you were only here for laughs and if you were to truly disappear... no one would notice when it's a little cloudy. Maki's half lidded eyes never left your face. Cheek pressed into her mattress, her short hair falling to the side kissing the edges of your sprawled locks, glasses pushed up close as her heart aches. Her love. Her sunshine. You really felt that way?
Her chest rises and rises, bubbling up with thoughts and rebuttals and proof to shut down your ridiculous, self-depricating, so fucking wrong, insecure beliefs—
and then one glance from your pretty eyes, so uncharacteristically shy and it's fleeting with regret, an apology slipping from your lips she'd kiss forever just to prove your thoughts wrong, and you're shrinking before her. Shrinking and shrinking and the sight snaps her out of her rumbling thoughts.
Maki's reaching out to take her fidgeting hand in hers, warmth blooming from skin to skin as she leans in a little closer, capturing your gaze in which she intends to keep.
"Don't apologise..." She whispers. Her light eyes soften under the dim light of her lamp, in a way so gentle and loving it was hard to look away.
"I get it." Maki confesses, squeezing your hand, the rough pad of her thumb gliding over your knuckles. "Ok?" Her voice is so soft, "But when you talk to me... like this? you don't ever need to apologise ok? Because I..." so soft, "I never knew you felt like that..."
The anxiety in your chest ebbs as she listens to her speak, her breath on your lips, her warmth like an unexpected blanket. A moment of silence stretches, both of your thoughts wandering, Maki traces the edges of your delicate complexion with her eyes. You nose, your lips, your eyes, the curve of your jaw, the softness of your skin — the map of her lovers face.
A small huff leaves her lips, one you would've missed if it wasn't in the dead of night and it almost sounded like a scoff. Before you could ask what, Maki's hand moves from yours to reach up and tuck a strand of hair carefully before her ears. Her fingertips grave your sensitive skin and goosebumps erupt down your spine, but you barely let it be known before Maki's speaks up, barely above a whisper,
"I don't know who would but... I know I could never forget a face like this..."
Your eyes widen slightly, and now your chest was tightening for a different reason. You stare at her, silently stunned under her unabashed touch, her fingers caressing your jaw down to your chin, the pad of her thumb gliding over your skin her eyes of mirth trail. Not with lust or desire but with affection. You've never seen Maki look so... unguarded.
"My pretty girl..." Her voice rasps with a love smooth and sweet like honey, "I could never forget you." She clarifies and her eyes meet yours again, softening as a tender smile graces her lips. She means it, every word. And you didn't need convincing.
Maki realised from that night that her little warm sunshine wasn't without her burns or cloudy days. The way you loved her loudly and proudly, Maki wanted to do the same. But with no need of an audience, just for you to know it, believe it and feel it.
Maki may not be one for big gestures or loud proclamations, Maki may be a silent lover but no doubt, she'd make sure she spent every day of the rest of her life ensuring you felt loved. Even if it meant protecting you from ongoing crowds, keeping your cup filled or holding your hand at 3 in the morning, listening to talk into the dark. She'd do it.
She'd love you till the day she has to take her last breath.
___
<3333333
I wrote this at near 5am... yea so not proofread :D
(y'all notice how its 'has to take her last breath', not 'when she takes her last breath' ? ... yea maki got that sacrific mentality. Maybe I should write angst for her too lol)
Nanami doesn't exactly know when this started. How it started. But that doesn't quite matter to him.
All that was significant and valuable for hum to know is that your stomach is the softest thing he's ever touched, and he loves it. So much.
He loves the roundness, the soft curves of your body, dragging his fingers over your skin. He adores every part of you but naturally — everytime — his palms find their way back to your tummy. Down to the pudge, the weight of your stomach, the place you've always tried to hide and flatter and tuck away, his slender fingers and warm expanse od his palm are slipping under whatever waist band or shirt you've masked it with, whispering "Don't hide, love, I just want to hold you", as he softly kneed at his favourite dough.
It's a bad habit, really. He will not only do it at home but when you're in public together. When you both are at the groceries, browsing an ailse of sauces, he's coming up to your side, equally invested but with a hand coming up to your hip and sliding over to your abdomen. At the bakery when he's enquiring about the freshness of the sourdough, his arms is wrapped around you inconspicuously, his fingers tips absentmindedly slipping under your waistband just to feel you. If your shirt ever rides at his actions, making it visible to others you pushing his hand away. The sudden actions always leaving him bemused. "What's wrong, love?"
"Will you stop doing that!" You give him a harsh whisper, a mild scold.
"I thought you enjoyed my affections." He says, amusement dancing in his schooled tone, watching your expression closely. You kept looking around wearily.
Sat on a bench in the park, snug at each other's side, this time Nanami made never effort to make it discrete — not that he ever truly thought about it — and caress your front the small buldge of your stomach created whenever you sat down. Especially in his favourite pencil skirt you had to wear for work, he can't help but want to touch. To feel softness as he speaks to you comfortably, almost like a comfort habit.
"I do!" You say firmly, "But if you keeping caressing my stomach like that, people will think I'm pregnant or something." A huff leaves you as you watch young families and couples walk by.
Nanami's eyes gleam, and the end of his lips curves softly at the mere idea. His hand you had pushed earlier to your lap slips over your tummy once more and he leans down to your ear, close enough to feel his breath tickle your skin. "What's so wrong about that, darling?" His voice lowers in a way he knows sends a shiver down your spine and he's right with the way he watches the tips of your ears go pink at the idea. Just to tease you further he plants a gentle kiss against your sensitive ear, eliciting a squeal from you and hes pulling away with a raspy chuckle.
You slap his chest that doesn't phase him, "You're awful!" But your words lack malice, instead he's smiling down at you and that rose blush that paints your cheeks.
...
Not proof read :DDD coming out of my cave the moment I have something really important due, how typical
