Chapter 5: the flea and the acrobat
(I'm confused. In s1, Nancy gets dropped off by Barb at Steve’s but then walks home at the end of the night, and walks from Steve's house to her house, from Hawkins high school to Steve's house, and from her house to the funeral home, all without a car. That's why I keep having y'all pick her up cause I genuinely don't know how shes getting to a fro. Ik Hawkin’s is a small town, but I didn’t think it was that damn small. 😭)
masterlist
ao3 link
word count: 5k (I've been yapping lately you guys sorry)
Synopsis: You and Nancy begrudingly press Jonathan for help finding Barb, and find out the three of you make a surprisingly good trio. Your brothers behavior surprises you.
You stood corrected. Your mother didn’t ground you per se, but she voiced that she just wanted you to be safe and stop with the lies. However, one consequence of your actions was that you stayed away from Nancy. When you went to your room, you sat at your desk, filled with a restless need to understand the chaos unraveling around you. The desire to escape the confusion was overwhelming. You picked up one of your magazines, hoping to lose yourself in celebrity gossip and new hairstyles, to seek solace in the mundane and maybe feel like a normal teenager, if only for a few minutes. As you got comfortable on your bed, the phone on your nightstand rang, jolting you out of your thoughts. You immediately picked it up, fearing your mother would hear it and decide to change her mind about grounding you. “Hello?” you spoke softly into the receiver, your voice still hoarse from your earlier breakdown.
“(name). How are you?” Nancy asked you through the receiver. You knew her long enough to know she had that “I need something” tone in her voice, but you decided to humor her regardless. “This is all so confusing, Nance. I don’t know what to do. No one who is supposed to be listening to us is actually listening, I’m scared we’ll never be able to find Barb.” you admitted sadly.
“I know. But remember that picture Jonathan took of Barb at the pool? I put all the ripped pieces back together, and I found something. Something that could help us. But we need to take a trip.” There it goes. The “I need something” tone in her voice was a ride.
“I don't know Nance. Even though I’m not exactly grounded, my mom’s keeping me on a tight leash. Plus, my keys are downstairs, and she’s like, guarding that whole area.” You sighed. “Well then, sneak out your window. We’ll meet in the middle of our houses, like usual, and then we have to head to the funeral home,” she explained.
“Girl, what? The funeral home?” you asked quickly into the receiver. “What the hell are we going to do at the funeral home?”
“Because I called Ms. Byers’, and she said that’s where Jonathan is,” Nancy answered as if that explained everything. “Creepy pervy Jonathan? Why are we seeking out creepy pervy Jonathan? At a funeral home of all places,” you asked, more confused, but also disgusted. Honestly, you could go the rest of your life without seeing that weirdo again. She scoffed into the receiver, and you swear you could feel her eyes roll, though since you couldn’t see her, you couldn’t prove it. “Yes, Jonathan,” she made an emphasis to leave out all the degrading names you called him previously.
“Because he took the picture, and he might know something. As far as we know from these pictures, he was the last one to have seen her. When I taped the pieces of the picture back together, I saw this weird figure next to Barb at the pool. I think it’s the thing we saw in the woods, and from what I can gather, he could’ve seen it too. Everything points back to “creepy, pervy Jonathan.”” Alright, she had a point. You groaned and got up to grab your jacket and a pair of sneakers. “I’ll meet you in 10,” you grumbled before hanging up.
You and Nancy met up in the empty space between your houses as planned and walked to the funeral home. When you arrived, your heart did a sad little flip when you saw a dejected Jonathan talking to a heavy-set man (whom you assumed was the funeral director), guiding him through a selection of coffins. heart-wrenchingly small coffins. Nancy peeked her head around the doorway, and their eyes met. When the man left, Jonathan slowly walked towards you two with his hands in his jeans pockets. “Hey...” he greeted cautiously. You lingered a bit behind Nancy as they interacted. “Hey. Your mom, um... she said that you’d be here.” She sputtered out awkwardly. They shared a tense look in uncomfortable silence before Nancy finally spoke up. “Can we um.. talk for a second?” Her brows furrowed as she gestured towards the hallway. He looked towards your disdainful expression and quickly looked away, nodding towards Nancy. The three of you sat on the bench in the hallway, you and Jonathan sitting on either side of Nancy. He was looking down at the picture Nancy had handed him, the one he had taken at the party, and Nancy had taped together, showing him the shadowy figure in the background. “It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion... but I wasn’t using the wide angle... I don’t know, but it’s weird.” Jonathan shrugged next to the two of you as he lifted the Polaroid closer to his eyes.
You and Nancy frowned; you looked down at the photo one last time before looking up at him again. “And you said that you’re sure there was no one else out there? No one at all?” you asked him, hopeful that he would recount some other memory of that night, remember something that could help bring you one step closer to finding Barb. “No,” he quickly said, shaking his head. “She was there one second, and then um... gone. I figured she bolted.” Jonathan shrugged.
“The cops think she ran away...” Nancy said with an annoyed, sad look. “But they don’t know Barb,” you finished. Nothing but sadness and dissociation on your face. Like you were somewhere else in your mind. “And when we went back to Steve’s the next day, we... we thought we saw something,” Nancy admitted, not looking up from her lap where her hands were situated.
“Some weird man, or an animal. Something. We don’t know what it was. But whatever it was, we think it’s that thing in the photo, and we think it took Barb,” you said before pointing at the photo in his hands, your finger on the distorted figure in the dark background. He stared at you two with an expression you couldn’t exactly decipher... confusion, concern, bewilderment, you couldn’t place it. After the silence dragged on for a few more seconds and shifted into something uncomfortable, Nancy finally spoke up. “We’re sorry, we... we shouldn’t have come here today,” and she started gathering her stuff. You followed suit and mumbled a soft “sorry” to him. As the two of you were on the way out of the funeral home, Jonathan called out to you. “What’d he look like? The man, animal, whatever. What’d he look like?”
The two of you stammered over your words, looking at each other for ideas on how to exactly describe it. “We didn’t really get a good look... but it looked like he didn’t... well, it looked like he had—” you started, but Jonathan finished your sentence. “—like he had no face?”
You and Nancy shared a look of surprise and concern. “How’d you know that?” Nancy asked as she finally broke eye contact with you and looked towards him. He looked just as surprised that his words had landed, and started explaining that his mother claimed to have seen the same thing, a faceless monster that came out of the wall. After the confession, he offered to tweak the photo in the school photo lab so you could get a better look at the dark figure. You and Nancy contemplated taking up his offer, but soon realized it was a really good idea and agreed.
He led you both towards his car outside the funeral home and opened the back door for both of you. You furrowed your eyebrows at Nancy. A look that screamed, “Nancy, I’m not getting in this creep's car.” You know she understood you, because she shot you a look that you knew translated to “It’s for Barb,” based on the soft, determined set of her eyes. It was enough to make you grumble and crawl into his backseat. It smelled exactly like you thought it would. Sad, faintly of a little tree's car freshener, and another distinct scent, not necessarily a bad one, but a natural scent that seemed to have settled into his plush seats. On the car ride to the school, Nancy seemed to clock the look on your face and shoved you with her elbow. You turned up your nose and crossed your arms. It was a long, uncomfortable ride that just got even more awkward with every unspoken word between the three of you, but honestly, you were fine with it.
When the three of you finally arrived at the school after that grueling, awkward car ride, you made a beeline for the photo lab. Jonathan seemed a bit more in his element in here; it might have to do with the fact that you and Nancy honestly didn’t even know what he was doing. You didn’t know if he was basking in your ignorance and using this as an opportunity to subtly show off, or if he just had a sense of superiority that he knew something you didn’t. Or maybe it was neither, and he was solely focused on helping. As he started messing with the machinery, you and Nany impatiently waited for him to... what was he doing?
“What exactly are you doing again?” you asked with an exasperated sigh, hoisting yourself on the counter next to the machine he was working with. “Brightening and enlargening,” he mumbled to you, eyes not leaving the photo.
Nancy let out an impatient sigh and looked around the room before her eyes landed on him. “Are you sure that your mom didn’t say anything else? Like where it might have gone to, or...” she trailed off, hoping he would connect the pieces himself and add something. He fiddled some more, his eye now up to a telescope-looking piece on the machinery, and shook his head, indulging in the conversation but obviously preoccupied. “No. Just that it came out of the wall...” he mumbled. Suddenly, the machine dinged, and he took his eye away from it, taking the photo off the flat part of the machine and placing it face down in water. You hopped off the counter and followed him. You and Nancy lingered close to him, as he swished the photograph around in the pan of water. “How long does this take?” she asked him. “Not long...” he mumbled without looking up.
His vague, monotonous answers were irritating you, to be frank. If you were being even more honest with yourself, his presence was irritating you. Of all the people who had useful information about Barb, it had to be him? “How long is 'not long'?” you huffed out irritably. “Um.. maybe a few minutes. Not long,” he stumbled over his words, looking up at you briefly before seeing the annoyed look on your face and quickly looking down. You and Nancy lingered in the silence that followed, and you returned to sit back on the counter. She was, as usual, the one to break the silence between the three of you. “You’ve been doing this a long time?” she asked him. He finally made eye contact with her for what you think was the first time since all three of you left the funeral home, and raised an eyebrow. “Been doing what?”
“Photography,” she clarified. He allowed himself to softly smile and shrugged, which caused you to roll your eyes. She noticed and shot you a quick glare. “Yeah, I guess I’d rather observe people than you know...” he trailed off. “Talk to them?” she finished. You inhaled and tuned bits and pieces of their conversation out; everything he said creeped you out or irritated you on a spiritual level, and you couldn’t take their small talk anymore. You wish she would only interact with him if it concerned finding Barb. He smiled and nodded. “I know, it’s weird,” he said before letting out a scoff. She furrowed her brows and shook her head. “No!”
“Second lie of the evening,” you mumbled to yourself as you swung your feet from the counter. They either didn’t hear you or chose to ignore you, because Jonathan immediately spoke up. “No, it is,” he stammered as he looked down at the photo for a second before turning his gaze back towards Nancy. “It's just sometimes... people don’t really say what they’re really thinking,” he began to explain. “And when you capture the right moment, it says more,” he finished with a shrug. “Oh my god...” you mumbled under your breath, masking a grossed-out look to avoid another elbow in your side. Nancy seemed to have the exact opposite mood, however, as she donned an amused look and giggled. “Well, what was I saying?” she smiled as she looked down at the picture.
“What?” he asked, confused, looking over at her before their eyes met. “When you took my picture?” she spoke up. You paid close attention to his reaction; he looked down in what seemed to be (what you hoped to be) shame, and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have taken that, I’m sorry,” he admitted before rubbing his face. “That’s the second smartest thing you’ve said all evening,” you said as you mocked Nancy’s smile before rolling your eyes. Nancy shot you another glare before looking back at Jonathan, who was quickly gathering you weren’t his biggest fan. He was about to continue on before you glanced down at the picture again and jumped off the counter. “Holy shit, that's it!” you said as you pointed to the pan of water. The two of them quickly looked down before their eyes widened.
A humanoid figure, tall with long, dark limbs, towered in the corner next to Barb, faceless as the two of you had previously described. “That’s it. That’s what we saw.” Nancy mumbled beside both of you. Jonathan gasped and shook his head. “I thought my mom was crazy... cause she said that’s not Will's body, that he’s alive,” he stuttered out. “And if she’s right about this, then...” you beamed as the hope returned to your face and you finally allowed yourself to soak in his words for once. You let out a relieved sigh and finally let yourself smile for the first time all day. “And if Will’s alive..”
“Then so is Barb.”
November 11th, 1983
Though you were an unlikely trio, you have proven to get stuff done together. So the three of you decided to reconvene after Will’s funeral and then decide the next course of action for finding Barb. You walked back home while Jonathan drove Nancy back to her house. You were warming up to him, but you couldn’t take any more forced conversations or awkward silence. Then the next day, you prepared for A funeral that the three of you were now convinced wasn’t even real.
When you and your family arrived at the “funeral”, you quickly found a spot next to Nancy and behind your brother before the service officially began, resting a comforting hand on Lucas’ shoulder that he returned with a quick squeeze, but exchanging uneasy looks with Nancy, while Jonathan occasionally looked back at you two from his spot at the front. Compared to how he was the night Will went missing and the night they found his body, Lucas seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits today. It confused you a bit, considering Lucas was the type to get uncomfortable and sad at any funeral, let alone his friends, but you remember your mother saying that everyone grieves differently and decided to leave it alone. Thinking maybe he was just in shock.
When it was time to throw roses on the coffin, you couldn’t help but notice the ugly, bright yellow color of the roses. You were in line behind Nancy, and when she threw hers, you immediately threw yours and sped to catch up to her. “Those are hideous. Who chose that color?” you remarked quietly to her. She held back a giggle but quickly masked her face and gave you a playful shove. “Would you have some decorum?” she said before the two of you silently smiled to yourselves, wrapped in your own worlds as your parents interacted with each other and Ms. Byers. When it was time for everyone to leave, you shot Nancy and Jonathan a knowing look before turning towards your family. “I’ll stay here. See if Ms. Byers or Jonathan needs anything. I’ll catch up,” you nodded towards your parents. Lucas looked at you with suspicion, but your parents looked at each other before turning back towards you. “Alright, we’ll be at the after service,” they said before continuing back towards the car and wishing you a farewell.
You met with the two of them in front of a fenced-in grave, sitting on the ground with them as the three of you discussed logistics. “So this is where we know for sure it’s been right?” Jonathan spoke up as he pointed towards a folded-up map of Hawkins. “So that’s Steve’s house,” you mumbled with concentration as you pointed to a spot on the map marked with a big red X.
“And that’s the woods where they found Will’s bike... and that’s my house,” Jonathan said before pointing to two red X’s not too far from each other. “It’s all so close...” Nancy remarked, and you nodded in agreement. “It’s all within about a mile,” you agreed.
“Whatever this thing is, it’s not traveling far,” Jonathan said with a newfound confidence in his voice you didn’t think he was capable of possessing. You nodded and looked up from the map to see Nancy giving you a knowing look. “You want to go out there,” she assessed. You raised an eyebrow and looked towards Jonathan, who had an unreadable expression on his face. “We might not find anything,” he answered with a shrug. “We found something,” Nancy defended before looking between the two of you. Jonathan nodded while you shook your head. “This is crazy. And let’s say we even do see this mystery thing that we’re assuming snatches up children exactly like us, then what? We hope to sneak up on it and take a picture to show the cops who don’t believe us,” you reasoned. They both looked towards you like you were the crazy one, and Jonathan spoke up with all the determination you think he can muster when around you. “We kill it.”
You deadpanned and stayed put as Jonathan suddenly got up from his spot on the ground, shoving the map in the breast pocket of his suit, and watched as Nancy followed suit. You quickly scrambled up to follow them as Jonathan led you all towards the cars lined up on the side of the cemetery. “Are you insane? What do you mean, kill it? We don’t even know what it is!” you whisper-yell towards him. He ignored you and got in a black car with a number nine on the windshield, fidgeting with the locked compartment in the passenger's seat, trying to open it with a sharp object. This has officially gotten too crazy. You looked around cautiously before you and Nancy rounded the open door to attempt to block his actions from view. “I knew you were a little weird, but this is fucking insane. What the hell are you doing?!” you spoke lowly. “Give me a second,” he shot back before finally getting the compartment open and grabbing... a black handgun and a green box of bullets. shock crossed both your and Nancy’s faces, your eyes widening and your mouths fell open. As you watched him shove the two in the pocket inside his blazer.
“Are you serious?” Nancy spoke up. “What? You two want to take another photo of this thing when we find it? Yell at it?” he sarcastically quipped as he hurriedly closed the glove compartment and closed the car door, causing you and Nancy to back up from the spot you were guarding him at. You looked around before crossing your arms. “This is a horrible fucking idea,” you mumbled incredulously. “Yeah? Well, it’s the best we’ve got. Unless you two have any other ideas?” he questioned as he looked between the two of you. When neither of you spoke up, you took some time to realize that, unfortunately, this was your best idea. “You can tell someone, sure, but (name), you said it yourself, they’re not going to believe us. It’s up to us to find that thing, and figure out where Will and Barbra are.” You looked down and realized that he was right. They already think you and Nancy are liars, horny, guilty, and distraught about the disappearance of your friend. No one was any closer to finding Barb than you three had been, and the clues the police department was following weren’t adding up. But then Nancy spoke up. “Your mom would believe us.”
“She’s been through enough.” Jonathan dismissed. “But she deserves to know.” Nancy shot back. He sighed and ran a hand across his face. “Yeah, and I’ll tell her. When this thing is dead,” he said with an irritated, exasperated tone. The three of you looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows and weary looks before you broke the tense silence with a sigh. “Nance, he’s right. Ms. Byers is going through enough, and she’s no use to us, preoccupied and scattered. I hate to say it, but if we want to get anything done, the three of us just have to do it ourselves.” Nancy looked at you with understanding before the three of you disengaged from your spot at the car and walked towards Jonathan's car. When you entered his car, Nancy got in the front seat, and you stayed in the back. He told you that he’d drop you guys off at your houses to change clothes and get weapons, then he’d pick you guys up, and the three of you would “train” in order to take this thing down. He dropped you off at your house first, and you were relieved your family wasn’t back yet. You told Nancy you would gather your things and meet her at her house in a few minutes. She nodded and made sure Jonathan didn’t drive off before you arrived safely at your house.
You made a beeline for the downstairs bathroom as soon as you entered; surely something in here had to be a weapon. The TV your siblings probably forgot to turn off on their way out is providing background noise in the living room. You opened every drawer and cabinet, and then let out a groan of frustration when you couldn’t find anything useful. Barrets and beads weren’t going to stop this thing. You went to the living room and plopped on the couch when you finally took notice of the weird movie playing on the TV. You took that as a sign to get up and find some other weapons, but then something on the screen caught your eye. It was a character played by James Bond, and he was startled by a snake in his toilet. He reached for a lighter and a can of aerosol spray. Your face contorted in confusion before you saw him place the lighter in front of the can and press down on the spray nozzle, causing a makeshift flamethrower to come to life and torch the snake. Your face brightened as you headed to your bathroom again, this time with a hopeful expression.
When you finally arrived at Nancy's house, you had a backpack full of goodies. Some of your father's stuff from his time in Vietnam, all the hairspray in your house, two lighters, and a pocket knife. Nancy was about to pick up her bat before she saw you. She greeted you and started practicing swinging her bat. When she saw you take out your hairspray and lighter, she scoffed. “What are you going to do? Give it a makeover—” her words were cut off by a breath of fire emerging from the can. She yelped, and you smiled at her, about to turn around to do it again, your finger on the top of the spray nozzle, when out of nowhere, Steve emerges. You all yelp, and Steve puts his hands up in surrender. “Whoa! Hey! I knew you two were mad at me, but Jesus Christ...” he mumbled before putting his hands in his pocket. You roll your eyes and put your makeshift flamethrower down, retreating behind Nancy. “What are you doing here?” you asked irritably.
“What are you two doing?” he asked, looking around the Wheeler garage at the assortment of sports equipment and your bag of seeming junk. You both tilted your eyes, and Nancy was the one to address him. She followed his gaze around the garage and shrugged. “Nothing,” she stammered out. “I hope those aren't meant for me,” he said, pointing to the baseball bat she was clutching and the hairspray you had in your hand. He furrowed his brows in confusion before he caught sight of the lighter in your other hand. You both looked down, and you placed the lighter in your pocket and slightly brought the hairspray behind your back, hoping to look as inconspicuous as possible. Nancy followed suit and brought the bat slightly behind her. “What? No. (name) was about to do my hair and I was... thinking about joining softball.” you’ve known Nancy your whole life, growing up next door, always in the same classes, you feel like you’ve heard her be in many predicaments where she had to bend the truth, so it came as a surprise to you that you’ve only just this week noticed how awful of a liar she is. You mumbled an “Oh my god...” before retreating towards the back of the garage, pretending to be preoccupied with something else.
You fiddled with the sports equipment as you heard parts of their conversation. He seemed to be apologizing; it was a clumsy, awkward one, but at least he was trying. You perked up, however, when he suggested that he and Nancy go to a movie. Nancy looked at you with a bit of panic, and you just shrugged your shoulders and shook your head vigorously, having to stop when Steve followed Nancy’s gaze towards you, and you had to pretend to be enamoured with a piece of hockey equipment. There was no way she could hang out with Steve tonight, but you know, you couldn’t exactly say why. “I just... I don’t really think I can... I’ve been, uh, really busy with this funeral thing and with my brother, so...” You shook your head in disappointment at her fabricated response, using her brother's woes for the crux of her lie. He looked between the two of you, and he nodded in understanding. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he finally spoke up. “I should probably go...” he mumbled before turning to head out of the garage. “I’ll call you later,” Nancy called out to him as she saw him off with a kiss.
Once he was finally gone, you let out a sigh you didn’t even know you were holding and took the lighter out of your pocket. “Now what were you saying about my lighter?” you asked with a raised brow. Nancy rolled her eyes at you and handed you a
hockey stick . “Just in case you run out of aqua net,” she mumbled. You both giggled a bit and started taking swings. After a few minutes, you looked over to Nancy and your face softened, your swings slowed before stopping, and you turned to face her completely. “What if we kill this thing, and we still don’t find Barb? What do we do then?” you asked her. She stopped swinging her bat and looked towards you.
“Then we start from our next clue. Then the one after that, and the one after that, until we find her,” she reassured. You were about to speak up again, but Jonathan's car entered the driveway. You and Nancy quickly got your things before loading into his car and heading off to the woods.
