It was no secret that Joyce’s overprotectiveness toward Will had become more noticeable as the years passed. It wasn’t sudden or explosive—just a quiet accumulation of small things: lingering looks, hands that stayed on his shoulder a second too long, questions asked twice even when she already knew the answer. Jonathan noticed all of it. He always had.
Lately, though, he’d noticed something else too.
Will barely talked to him anymore.
Their conversations were short, awkward, full of pauses that stretched longer than the words themselves. Will spent more time locked in his room or glued to Joyce’s side, as if the outside world was still a place he hadn’t fully learned to trust. Jonathan didn’t blame him. After everything they’d been through, no one came out untouched. Still, it hurt.
—Well… that explains why I use weed as a refuge, right?
The thought crossed his mind without bitterness, more resignation than humor. The high hit him gently, like sipping white wine just enough to dull the sharp edges of his problems without erasing them completely. It wasn’t escape. It was survival.
The Byers family had always been like that—enduring however they could.
When he, Nancy, Steve, Dustin, and you crossed into the Upside Down to follow Holly’s trail, everything unraveled fast. The thick air, the warped sounds, the constant feeling of being watched. They lost contact with the others almost immediately, and though no one said it out loud, they all thought the same thing: Joyce would be terrified. Will too.
Hours blurred into something heavier. Days collapsed into a single, endless stretch of tension. No one knew how long they’d really been there—twenty-four hours? Two days? Time never behaved normally in the Upside Down. All they knew was that they made it back: exhausted, scraped up, covered in dark residue and fear that clung to their bones.
But they were alive. And that counted for something.
When Joyce’s car screeched to a stop, Jonathan felt the tightness in his chest loosen just a fraction. The door flew open and his mom jumped out, Will right behind her. Jonathan was sure—absolutely sure—that Will would run straight to him, that he’d crash into him with one of those desperate hugs that came once the terror finally faded.
But it didn’t happen.
Will stopped halfway… and turned.
He ran to Max instead.
Jonathan blinked, stunned, watching as his brother wrapped his arms around her, holding on like he couldn’t bear to let go. Max—just awake, still fragile, still pale—returned the hug clumsily, but with a small, genuine smile. That was the real victory. Not their return. Her. Alive. Conscious. Pulled back from the demodogs—and from something far worse.
And Joyce?
Joyce barely spared Jonathan a glance. No rush toward him, no immediate embrace. She was too busy checking on Max, asking if she was okay, thanking everyone with a voice that trembled. Jonathan understood. He always did. That didn’t make it hurt any less.
He let out a quiet sigh, eyes dropping for a moment—until he looked up sharply.
It was you.
You were running toward him without hesitation, without stopping for anyone else. When you reached him, you wrapped your arms around him tightly, urgently, like you needed to make sure he was real, that he wasn’t going to disappear. Jonathan held you back just as firmly, eyes closing, forehead resting briefly against yours.
In that simple moment, something shifted.
Like a quiet act of alchemy, exhaustion, fear, and neglect melted into something new: the certainty that even when everything seemed to tilt toward others, he still mattered. That someone chose him. That someone ran toward him without a second thought.
And for the first time in a long while, Jonathan felt like he wasn’t fighting alone.