Robin found out because Steve forgot that he owned a phone. She called. He answered. Jonathan was still there.
That was it. That was the whole crime.
“What are you doing?” Robin demanded to know. Apperently the space between their last call and now had been too long. Steve glanced at Jonathan, who was halfway through pulling on his shirt again and froze mid-motion. “Uh. Eating toast?” Steve answered.
There was a pause. Then—
“WHY IS JONATHAN BYERS BREATHING NEAR YOU?” Jonathan winced, how the hell could she have heard him breath?Over the fucking phone...?
Steve pulled the phone away from his ear. “Robin—” “PUT HIM ON! PUT HIM ON RIGHT NOW.”
Steve mouthed sorry and handed Jonathan the phone. “Hi,” Jonathan said cautiously. Robin screamed. Actually screamed.
Steve could hear her pacing, words tumbling over each other: “I KNEW IT—NANCY OWES ME TEN BUCKS—THIS IS BETTER THAN CHRISTMAS—STEVE YOU ASSHOLE YOU COULD’VE TOLD ME—”
Nancy’s voice cut in, distant but triumphant: “I CALLED IT.” Jonathan looked like he might pass out. Robin reappeared on the line, suddenly very calm in a way that was deeply threatening. “Okay. details: When did this start? Who kissed who? Is Steve crying yet?”
Steve grabbed the phone back. “I am NOT crying.” Robin gasped. “So you’re in denial. Classic.” Jonathan laughed into his hand, unable to stop himself. Robin heard it. “Oh my god,” she said softly. “You made him laugh.” Steve closed his eyes. “We’re coming over,” Robin declared.
“Robin, no—” “Already on our way. We will bring celebration bagels. This is a historical event.” The line went dead. Jonathan stared at Steve. “Is she always like this?” Steve sighed. “You have no idea.”
So yesterday was valentines day. So what was I doing? Having a movie night with the bf. You wanna know what we watched? My all time favorite love movie "Titanic" I have watched it a dozend times and I'm still crying like a baby...
But now... now, still caught in the Stonathan hyperfixation hell one question rose...
Can I write a Stonathan Titanic AU? And how sad do I wanna make myself? So I thought maybe I ask you guys about it xD
Steve Harrington & Jonathan Byers — A Tarot Subtext interpretation
or: why the narrative keeps pairing these two across collapse, choice, and quiet devotion
(This is my Interpretation of them and their actions in light of Taro, pls don't be too hard one my, its ages since I last did something like that.)
When tracing Steve and Jonathan from Season 1 through Season 5, their interactions, parallels, and repeated narrative positioning line up nice with the Major Arcana — especially the cards of collapse, suspension, and hope.
It's for sure not intentional, but you can easy read them through tarot logic.
Let me explain:
The Fool (Reversed) — Steve Harrington
Theme: reckless courage, false confidence, punishment for beeing naive
Steve enters the story as someone moving forward without protection.
He performs confidence rather than inhabits it.
He rushes into danger before understanding it.
He mistakes self-sacrifice for worth.
The Fool reversed isn’t innocence — it’s confidence without grounding.
Steve’s arc repeatedly punishes him for stepping forward because he thinks that’s what a “good man” does. This sets him up as the character most likely to fall — physically and emotionally.
The Moon — Jonathan Byers
Theme: repression, fear, intuition without language Jonathan lives under Moon logic:
He sees threats early
He senses danger before others believe it.
He carries fire as defense, not aggression.
(It hit me while rewatching: S1 he had the lighter to set the Demogorgon on fire, in S5 Final he had a flamethrower...)
The Moon is about truths that cannot be spoken safely. Jonathan consistently knows more than he says — about monsters, about people, about himself.
Where Steve moves forward blindly, Jonathan watches from shadow.
The Lovers (Reversed) — (Season 1–5)
Theme: mischoice, repression, choosing safety over truth
The Lovers reversed isn’t about failed romance — it’s about refusing the alignment that would change everything.
Steve and Jonathan: orbit Nancy, clash over her
misread each other as rivals rather than mirrors
But truth is: their conflict is emotional, personal, and charged in a way that far exceeds simple jealousy.
The card signals not “wrong love,” but love deferred by fear.
The Hanged Man — Jonathan’s Waiting
Theme: suspension, sacrifice, endurance
Jonathan’s defining behavior is waiting: he delays his wants he chooses responsibility over desire, he absorbs pain silently
The Hanged Man doesn’t act — he endures. Jonathan repeatedly freezes himself in place so others can move.
In tarot, this is wisdom through stillness — but also self-erasure.
Two of Cups (Reversed) — Subtextual
Theme: intimacy without acknowledgment, connection without balance
Canon gives us repeated moments of mutual reliance:
-Jonathan and Steve saving each other (S1 E8)
- physical proximity in crisis (S5 E6)
- charged silence instead of confrontation
Two of Cups reversed suggests a bond that exists but cannot be safely named.
They connect — but unevenly.
They trust — but without language.
That imbalance drives tension across seasons.
The Tower — Steve’s Collapse
Theme: destruction of false structures
Steve is repeatedly placed in Tower positions:
- beaten (Every damn season...)
- drugged, tortured (Season 3)
- physically falling from a tower (We all know that one)
The Tower doesn’t punish — it reveals
Steve’s suffering strips away: the golden boy myth, the jock hierarchy, he idea that protection equals worth
What remains is raw, human need — and Jonathan is consistently present at the aftermath.
The Hermit — Post-Collapse Isolation
Theme: retreat, reflection, internal reckoning
After every collapse, Steve withdraws. After every revelation, Jonathan retreats. They become mirrors:
Steve unsure who he is without usefulness (Dustin and Jonathan calling him more or less direct "dumb" in S5)
Jonathan unsure who he is without silence
The Hermit isn’t loneliness — it’s reckoning.
The Star — Quiet Hope
Theme: healing without erasure
->The Star follows the Tower.
It does not promise happiness. It promises breath.
In subtext:nsoftened interactions, gentler conflict, mutual recognition without resolution
Hope exists — but quietly. Earned.
(S5 E8, after the fall of Steve)
The World — Integration (subtext)
Theme: wholeness, alignment, completion
Canon never gives them this card outright, but it circles it.
The World is about standing together without false roles: not rescuer, not watcher,not rival, Just two people fully seen.
(S5, Epilogue)
What it means:
Tarot doesn’t predict. It reveals patterns. Steve Harrington and Jonathan Byers have been orbiting the same ones since Season 1. They constantly draw this cards:
The Tower (collapse)
The Lovers (Reversed) (misalignment)
Two of Cups (unspoken bond)
The Hanged Man (endurance)
The Star (quiet hope)
It is a story about two people learning how to survive without sacrificing themselves for others — and maybe, one day, choosing to live instead.
Maybe I will look closer into their interaction through out the season under the light of tarot...
Its time to introduce the stonathan fan bubble to my personal flavor of "angst"
So here, have a little snippet of the story I'm currently writing.
Warning: selftdestruction, selfloathing, heavy angst
Jonathan x Steve (more or less)
Jonathan POV
Jonathan didn’t remember how long he’d been walking after he had turned away from the broken fence he had been leaning on.
His feet hurt but his head hurt worse. The streets of Hawkins blurred together, familiar and meaningless, like a place he’d outgrown but never escaped. He finally stopped behind the old Byers house, crouching in the shadow of the remains of castle Byers where no one ever looked anymore.
No one ever looks.
There was a darkness whispering in his own head. Sharp like a knife that reminded him why he was the way he was.
His hands shook as he dug into the pocket of his jacket in search of the cigarettes but instead found something else. The joint was bent and a little crushed, forgotten for months, maybe longer. He stared at it like it might accuse him of something.
“Figures,” he muttered. “Still here when nothing else is.”
He lit it anyway.
The smoke burned his lungs, sharp and grounding, and for a few blessed seconds his thoughts slowed enough to breathe. The panic dulled at the edges, not gone, never gone — just quieter. Manageable.
That was always the goal. Manageable.
He leaned back against the wood, sliding down until he was sitting on the ground, knees pulled in. The night pressed close, heavy and dark.
No one cares if I’m here or not.
The thought wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t feel new. It was just… factual. Like gravity. Like something he’d always known.
Joyce loved him. He knew that. He did. But love didn’t stop her from leaning on him like a crutch, didn’t stop her from needing him to be the strong one. Will needed her more. Always had. Especially after the Upside Down, after surviving.
Jonathan had learned early that being needed was the same as being loved. Because love always had a price tag on it. At least for him.
And if you weren’t needed?
Well….
He pressed his thumb into the inside of his wrist, hard enough to feel the pulse there. Grounding. Punishing. Proofing.
He focused on the sensation, the sharp pressure, the way it cut through the fog.
I exist. I exist. I exist.
Steve’s voice slipped into his head without permission.
You know you can talk to me, right?
Jonathan let out a broken laugh that turned into something too close to a sob.
“Yeah,” he whispered to no one. “Sure.”
The worst part — the truly unbearable part — was that Steve had noticed.
Had noticed the quiet, the cracks, noticed him.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
People like Steve Harrington didn’t look twice at people like Jonathan Byers. They didn’t see past the silence, didn’t linger long enough to realize it wasn’t shyness, it was fear. Survival. Years of learning that saying the wrong thing could make everything worse.
Steve had called him out once. Throwing words like knives, aiming to hurt him like a hunted animal. It had ended with violence.
He still felt the moment his hand had smashed into Steve's face. The fury, the self-loathing, all at once and nothing.
In this moment he had felt and acted like a cornered animal. No way out, so only lashing out had been an option.
But now Steve was here — older, gentler, still loud, still careless in that way that made Jonathan ache — and suddenly those words echoed differently. Less like an insult. More like a threat.
Because what if Steve knew?
What if Steve really saw him?
Jonathan’s chest tightened again, panic rising fast and vicious. He crushed the joint into the dirt with shaking fingers, like destroying evidence of something shameful.
He couldn’t let Steve care.
Caring meant questions. Questions meant truth. And truth, in a small town like Hawkins, in a town that barely tolerated difference, meant danger.
It meant losing another person who’d accidentally wandered too close to his heart.
He pressed his forehead to his knees, breath coming in short, ragged pulls.
Don’t need him. Don’t want him. Don’t—
But his mind betrayed him with memories: Steve standing between him and the danger. Steve helping him out of the molten room, holding him just a moment too long. Steve checking in afterwards, again and again. Steve staying when it would’ve been easier to leave.
Jonathan wrapped his arms around himself, fingers digging into denim.
“No one stays,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not for me.”
Somewhere, not too far away, a car door slammed shut.
Jonathan flinched, heart slamming against his ribs. For a terrifying second, hope surged — sharp and unwelcome.
Then he crushed it.
Hope is dangerous.
Hope is how you get hurt.
He stayed there in the dark, shaking, unseen, carrying the weight of a lifetime of being overlooked — and the unbearable knowledge that this time, someone had noticed.
