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Jonathan was not supposed to be home.
That was the thing. That was the foundational, load-bearing fact of the entire situation. He was supposed to stay at Nancy's house, and he had been at Nancy's, right up until her mom came knocking on her door. Jonathan had frantically slipped out the window, driven back to his mother's house with his overnight bag, and let himself in quietly so he didn't wake anyone up.
That should have been the end of this story.
He'd seen the light on under Will's door when he came in. That wasn't unusual. After everything that had happened to him, he couldn’t be faulted for being a bit afraid of the dark. Jonathan had bought him the little plug-in nightlight, and it had sat in the outlet by his bed for the better part of four years now.
But after slipping into his thread-bare pajamas, he heard something. Not only was Will still awake, he was talking to someone.
After listening for a moment, he recognized the other voice as Mike Wheeler, which didn't surprise him at all. Mike was here constantly. If he wasn't, usually you would find Will at his house. It had been that way most of the time he had known the boy, and from what his mother had told him on the phone recently, it had been especially true the last few months. Jonathan thought briefly about knocking on their shared wall to let Will know he was home, but decided it wasn't worth it. He'd see them in the morning.
Through the wall, the conversation continued. He paid it no mind, just laid down on his pillow and let the muffled rumble soothe him to sleep.
He was almost there, when he heard the distinct, heavy thud of someone throwing themselves onto Will's bed, then Mike Wheeler's voice "Come here, baby."
Jonathan's eyes shot open. Well, that was a new development.
"You know I can't say no to that." Will replied, and he could hear his smile in his voice. There was a softer thud as he presumably joined Mike on the bed.
"Now you know how I feel," Mike laughed. “Never been able to say no to you."
He lay there listening without really meaning to. Will had been carrying his pain, his yearning for so long. Quietly, for so many years, and he had watched him do it and hadn't been able to do a single thing about it. And now Mike Wheeler was on the other side of this wall calling him baby. A warm feeling spread through him, so genuine and complete that for a moment he just lay there and let himself be happy for his little brother. He didn’t even feel bad for his unintentional eavesdropping.
He heard Will laugh, soft and a little breathless, "We should go to sleep. We've got to be up early-"
"I'm already up for you." Mike said. "Literally and figuratively."
"Mike, that was terrible." Will scoffed.
“Did it work?”
"Hmm…” Will exhaled, long and fond and defeated. “Yeah, obviously.”
Then he heard kissing.
Loud, wet, enthusiastic kissing.
Oh. He stared at the ceiling while his brain caught up to his precarious situation. After living in New York for so long, he'd forgotten how well sound traveled here. How little insulation there was between his room and Will's. He'd lived with that fact his whole life and it had never once mattered, and he would have lived a long happy life having never thought about that fact again.
He heard a short bit of creaking, then the soft rustling of fabric.
“Fuck, Will…most perfect ass I've ever seen.”
Oh God, NO! Panicking, he reached for his Walkman.
He loaded in Speaking in Tongues and quickly put his headphones on. The foam pads were almost completely shot, had been for two years, and the left speaker crackled slightly if you moved wrong, but he turned it up as high as it would go and prayed.
"God, look at you.” and it came through the music like the wall wasn't even there. “So pretty, baby-"
"Mike!" Will shushed, "my mom is literally down the hall-" and then immediately, horrifyingly let out a soft groan.
“Your mom took two sleeping pills right after dinner." Mike said, unconcerned. "I watched her do it. A herd of elephants wouldn't wake her. And Hop's not here tonight, and Jonathan's with Nancy-"
If only that was true.
“So nobody is hearing anything.” Mike said, with the total confidence of someone who was absolutely wrong. "Come on, you know I love hearing all the pretty sounds you make for me."
Then he heard something wet and rhythmic that told him, in no uncertain terms, exactly where Mike's hands were.
Jonathan stared at the ceiling and thought about how glad he was for his brother, which he was, genuinely, wholeheartedly, and also about how he needed David Byrne to sing much MUCH louder.
"Holy shit, you look fucking incredible..."
"Please. I need more" Will said, voice muffled now. "It’s so good, Mike. Pleasepleaseplease-"
"Gorgeous, gorgeous-"
“Mike!” Will whined impatiently.
"Shh. I've got you, Will. Look up at me, wanna see your eyes when I-"
Jonathan sat up, took his pillow, and held it over his face with both hands.
He took a deep breath and thought about his thesis and whether the oil in his car needed to be changed. He thought of the documentary he'd half-watched two weeks ago about Arctic migratory birds, and tried to visualize them flying somewhere cold and peaceful and very far away from Hawkins, Indiana.
“Jesus fuck, ggh-” Will panted loudly “f-fuck, feel so full.”
"Is it too much, baby?"
“No, ‘m still stretched from this morning” He said breathlessly. "Just- please, I need you to move, please-"
Then he heard the bed. A soft rhythmic creaking.
Then he FELT the bed. Oh my god, why did their beds share this wall? He felt the wall pulse, the faintest tremor in the plaster, but enough- enough to understand with his whole soul what was happening six inches away from his head.
Jonathan stared at the wall. He had pushed his bed against it when he was seven years old to make more floor space. He had never once reconsidered that decision until this moment in time.
"Right there!" Will said clearly, not even trying to be quiet because he had absolutely no reason to think he needed to be quiet. "Oh, God. Right there, don't stop-"
"Yeah?" Mike said, and his voice was so rough, unrecognizable, nothing like the voice that had been irritating Jonathan at dinner tables for the better part of a decade. "You like that?"
"Yes-" A sharp inhale. "More, harder, please-"
“Ugh, you’re always so fucking tight.” Mike moaned “My good boy. So beautiful. So fucking pretty, Will.”
Jonathan removed himself from his bed.
He walked down the hall with a blank expression, went to the kitchen and filled a glass at the tap. Looking out the window into the dark yard, he took a long drink, wishing desperately it was something stronger.
He thought about the day his mother had brought Will home from the hospital, this small red furious thing. Jonathan had been four years old and fell completely in love. He'd decided somewhere in that first week that nothing bad was ever going to happen to him if he could help it.
He thought about the afternoon Will had come home from his first day of kindergarten and announced excitedly that he had made a friend. That his name was Mike and that they were going to be best friends forever and ever.
He thought about Will at thirteen years old, following Mike Wheeler around with that look on his face of pure adoration and longing. Every version of that look accumulating over the years. The careful distance Will kept, the way he'd aim himself at Mike and then pull back at the last second, for years and years. Apparently not anymore.
He was glad. He stood there genuinely, completely ecstatic for his brother.
Down the hall, Will moaned loudly.
He was trying. He was sincerely trying to hold onto that feeling.
He heard things he was going to have to spend real effort in therapy trying to forget.
He heard Mike groan "That’s it, sweet boy. Y’ getting close?" and desperate whimpers from Will. He heard Will saying Mike's name over and over, wrecked and open, the voice of someone totally undone. He heard the creaking rhythm of Will’s old bedframe hitting the wall again and again and again. Mike whispering "So good baby, you're doing so, so good."
After another minute, he heard Will wail.
"I think…I‘m close, Mike, I feel like ’m g-gonna-" he panted, tone wet and raw.
Jonathan sat down on the couch in the dark with his face in his hands and waited, with everything he had, praying for it to be over.
“Gonna come on my cock, Will? Come for me baby, you can do it. Give it to me, please-”
“Oh fuck, ohmygod-" thin and desperate, and Mike was talking him through it in a low voice Jonathan couldn't fully make out, didn't want to, and then Will made a muffled sound that was euphoric and helpless and final.
Jonathan exhaled.
He heard them after, voices in the afterglow. Soft laughter from Will, tired and satisfied. Then the settling sounds of two people making themselves comfortable in a bed sized for one.
Jonathan stared at the ceiling.
He fell asleep around two.
***
His alarm went off at six. He silenced it, and laid there for a moment remembering everything from the previous night in complete traumatic detail.
Then he got up to make some coffee.
He took three mugs out of the cabinet, and put them on the counter. Sitting at the table he grabbed the morning paper and waited.
He heard Will's door creak open at six-twenty.
The sound of two sets of footsteps carried down the hall. Unhurried, the boys must have thought they had the morning to themselves. His mother would still be asleep for at least another two hours
They rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped.
In his peripheral, Will was pale, the color of chalk. He was wearing boxers, and what was obviously Mike's shirt. His hair was sticking up in four directions, and his face was quite an amusing sight as it cycled through confusion, recognition and then a dawning, specific horror as the reality of what he was looking at assembled itself fully.
Behind him, Mike had one hand still on the doorframe. He was shirtless, in blue plaid pajama pants. His mouth dropped open, before his hand shot up unsuccessfully working to cover the purple mouth shaped bruises that littered his collarbone.
Jonathan did not look up from the paper. He had been tormented last night, and karma was a bitch.
"Coffee's almost done," he said.
Silence.
He heard two chairs pull out from the table.
Jonathan turned a page.
He let that silence run. He was a patient person. He had earned this.
He heard Will draw a careful breath. "When did you get home?"
"Last night. Little after eleven."
Mike had practically turned green across from him.
"I thought you were staying at Nancy's?" Will questioned. He was starting to look a bit sick himself.
"Yeah, I ended up leaving early. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed, you know?"
"Right…” Will replied, with a noticeable hesitation before speaking again. ”So you just…you came in and went straight to bed?"
"Tried to." Jonathan said, turning another page. "You know these walls are really something. Grew up here and I don't think I ever appreciated how thin they are. You can hear just about everything that goes on in this house."
Will had gone from pale white to a very vibrant, painful looking pink.
"Everything?" he whispered, barely audible.
"Pretty much." Jonathan answered.
He let that sit for a long, entertaining moment before continuing.
"Last night was enlightening, really. I've spent years wondering what Mike Wheeler thinks of my baby brother." He looked up briefly. "No worries there! Turns out you're such a good boy for him.”
Mike buried his face into his hands.
"Yeah, that one's going to stay with me for a while. And the part where you-" Jonathan began.
"Please.” Will begged. ”Please don't."
And if that didn’t bring back painful memories…
"Please don't what?" Jonathan asked pleasantly. "Please don't stop? Harder, please? Oh God, plea-"
"Jonathan!" Will's voice came out strangled.
"I'm just clarifying."
“Just tell me, are you going to kill me?” Mike grimly questioned. “Do I need to start running?”
“Oh, be serious, Mike” Jonathan laughed. “ I couldn’t do that to my brother. From what I heard last night, he’d be devastated.”
Will shot him a glare.
He got up, poured them all a fresh cup of coffee and sat back down. He took a sip and looked back out the window at the yard, just as he had the night before.
"I'm glad," he said, after a moment. “about you two. I mean that. I didn't know it had happened yet, and the way I found out last night was…not ideal” He chuckled. “But you have my word I won't bring it up again after today.”
"Today isn't over," Will said, sounding suspicious.
Jonathan looked at his watch. "Yep, I’ve got about fourteen more hours to milk this. I suggest you make peace with that."
Slowly, carefully, Will's hands slid down his face. He stared at the table dejectedly.
Across from him, Mike picked up his mug and took a slow, burning mouthful.
"Good coffee," he said, hoarsely.
"Thanks," Jonathan replied.
The morning went on.
***
Four hours later, he was trying to get his mother, Hopper, and Will arranged in the living room for a photograph, which was proving to be the most logistically challenging thing he had done all year.
"Jonathan," Will whined, from where he'd been standing for the last ten minutes. "We have to leave soon."
"I know. Hold on." he adjusted the camera. "Mom, can you move left a little."
"Like this?"
"A little more…Just a little more, yeah. Perfect. Hop, can you-"
"I'm not moving," Hopper said, from the armchair he had not been asked to sit in and showed no signs of leaving. "Take the picture from here."
"You're not even in the frame."
"So move the frame."
"That's not how-" Jonathan lowered the camera briefly. "Can you just stand up, it'll take two seconds."
Hopper looked at him blankly before taking a long sip of his coffee.
"Jim," Joyce said.
Hopper stood up with a loud sigh.
"Thank you," Jonathan said. "Okay. Will, stop squinting."
"The light is directly in my eyes."
"Then look slightly left."
"Then I'm not looking at the camera!"
"You can look at the camera without-it's fine, just-" Jonathan looked through the viewfinder. "Okay. Okay, that's good. Stay right there."
Jonathan took the picture.
"Okay one more-"
"Jonathan!"
"Just one more. Mom, can you-"
The phone rang.
His mother held up a finger and went to the kitchen. Hopper sat back down immediately, with some relief.
From the kitchen, Joyce's voice drifted in. "Hello?...Karen, hi-" her brow furrowed. "...No, I haven't seen him since dinner last night. He was planning on heading out after I laid down." She glanced at the window, then at Jonathan, eyes filling with worry. "He didn't come home?"
Jonathan looked at the camera in his hands.
"No, I-" His mother covered the mouthpiece. "Have any of you seen Mike this morning?"
Jonathan considered this for a moment.
"He spent the night," he called back. "I'd knock first though, Will kept him up half the night. Those boys sure can be loud when they're having a good time.”
Will turned his head toward Jonathan with an expression that was equal parts horror and betrayal.
Jonathan raised his camera and looked through the viewfinder at nothing in particular.
Behind him, he heard his mother say very carefully into the phone, "Um…It sounds like he stayed over here, Karen. I'll have him call you." She paused. "Mhm. I know. Okay. See you in a bit."
Worst night's sleep of his life. Completely worth it.