Chapter Text
Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead but he didn’t make any move to wipe them away; too focused on the task at hand. The metal of the camera was almost hot between his palms, warmed by the heat of his body and by how long he’d been holding it. Branches were sticking into his side and his haunches were starting to hurt from the strain.
But he hadn’t gotten the perfect shot yet.
The camera clicked and lit up but from his vantage point, the light and sound were nothing to the man inside of the house. Jonathan stared at him for a long while as he waited for him to get more centered in the frame of the window, and thus the frame of his shot. The shirt he had been wearing was already discarded to expose the lean lines of his body and in that moment he looked so peaceful. Beautiful and empty, he looked so fully himself.
Steve Harrington; the person that he was at the very bottom of it all.
Steve yawned and fluffed a hand through his hair and Jonathan was quick to snap another picture before Steve stretched out and cracked his neck. Jonathan was able to get in three more quick shots before Steve stepped out of view of the window. Finally, after what had felt like ages, Jonathan lowered his camera and allowed himself to sit down fully behind the bush he had been crouched out behind.
Jonathan’s palms stung and his things ached and he hadn’t been more pleased with himself in a long time. He stayed sitting there under the dark canopy of trees with eyes trained only on his very favorite window. The entirety of Jonathan’s eyeline was illuminated in a cool blue by the light of the pool.
Everything, save for the rectangle of yellow streaming out of Steve’s bedroom window. Jonathan couldn’t hear him but he knew that he was puttering around; doing some nightly routine that he’d started way back in middle school. Steve’s light was the only one that was on in the house, the only source of warmth leaking out into a backyard bathed in an eerie blue glow.
Until, that too grew dark and all that was left was the long night and all of the predators that lurked outside within it.
—-
The first time Jonathan Byers noticed Steve Harrington he was eleven years old trudging through the woods behind his house. His mom never seemed to have any time for him anymore, not since they moved out of dad’s house.
But, honestly? It started before that. It started when Will was born. Suddenly, he was the precious baby of the family, the one that everyone loved to dote on and had to devote their time on. Will didn’t get hit by their dad. Will didn’t have to clean up the house. He didn’t have to walk the dog or anything . He didn’t even have homework yet, but mom never told Will to set the table for dinner or asked him to strain her overcooked pasta.
Jonathan picked up a stick as he walked through the woods, and dragged it along the ground behind him where it made a soft sound through the dirt.
He loved his brother.
He loved Will so much.
Sometimes, though, Jonathan wished that he got to be the baby again. He wished that he got everything handed to him and didn’t have to take care of anyone else. That he didn’t have to share everything of his with someone else. That he could at least have one thing that was his. Just his.
Only his.
The woods were large enough to traipse through as an adult but at eleven years old Jonathan got lost easily, though he didn’t realize it at first. His feet made crunching sounds in the fallen leaves and he smacked his stick around like a cane. He didn’t realize that it was even getting late until a yawn wracked his small frame.
He turned around.
He looked this way and that.
No way home.
At least, not one that he could see.
But there was a house off in the distance and for an eleven-year-old that was more than enough of a destination when you were lost. He started off towards the house and his feet started to ache in his too-small shoes but he kept pushing forward until he got to the tree line separating the property from the woods. And there he stopped.
There was a large open lawn with a swing set and a slide and all the things Jonathan would kill to have in his own yard. There was a little boy who was just sitting in the middle of the playset with his chin resting on both of his fists, looking bored and despondent.
Jonathan watched him. They were roughly the same age, probably approximately the same size even though Jonathan had always been skinny for his height. The kid was pretty for a boy, with hair longer than Jonathan would’ve expected. It reminded him of how his own hair had gotten the last time his mom had whipped out the bowl and scissors. For a kid with so much money, Jonathan wondered why he didn’t have a proper haircut.
It suited him, though, the length of the brown strands. They curled beneath his ears and gave him a cherubic appearance with his round cheeks and pink mouth.
Not for the first time in his life, Jonathan felt covetous. Jealous. It wasn’t for the toys or the home or the way this boy seemed to be all alone, everything to himself the complete opposite of Jonathan’s own life.
No, the impulse was thready and deep a thrum in the abdomen that made Jonathan mad. It made his heart rate go up and his face flush and he felt his hand curl harder around the stick he was holding until it snapped in his grip with a dull thunk.
The boy sat up straight. His hair hung in front of his forehead but not like Jonathan’s. There was an artful sweep to it and there were moles littered over his face.
“Hello?” He called out, voice trying to be strong but wavering. He stood up and brushed off his blue shorts, no doubt his palms sweating. Was his heart beating like a little jackrabbit? Jonathan’s was.
Something about it made Jonathan step back, made him make sure he was obscured behind a tree as the boy gazed out into the woods unknowingly. The sick thrum that ran up Jonathan’s spine made him drop the pieces of the broken stick and turn around, moving as quietly as he could back the way he came.
He thought about the feeling the whole time he walked, as lost in thought as he was in the woods. The endorphin rush he had felt standing there while the other boy looked for him; totally unaware of Jonathan’s presence only a few yards away. That Jonathan watched him as he looked on, confused and slightly frightened.
It was a perverse thrill. A moment in time of complete power.
And the moment was only his.
—--
While he was on his way home, Jonathan’s camera was sitting lovingly in the passenger seat of his car. He had told his mom that he was going to pick up an extra shift at work but lied about how long it was and found himself at Steve’s house half the evening. Over the years it had become something of a ritual- only increasing with intensity when Jonathan developed a love for photography.
Steve was a beautiful boy; aloof and unaffected by things at school. Mostly withdrawn despite being popular. He fascinated Jonathan because the boy he could see behind his camera was another creature entirely. He was something to be studied like a bug; pinned to a corkboard and peeled apart. Trapped behind glass like one of Jonathan’s photos. So many faces on Jonathan’s camera and all of them Steve in all his many permutations.
Jonathan knew the real him, had learned it ages ago when he first found out that the Harrington’s not only liked their vacations but that they left a hide-a-key under a rock by the backyard landscaping.
He knew that Steve’s bedroom was meticulous and tidy but he was a forgetful creature and he wouldn’t notice at all if a pair of underwear or socks went missing. Jonathan knew that if he jerked off into a pair of Steve’s gym shorts and shoved them at the bottom of his dirty clothes hamper that Steve would never even know.
Jonathan knew how many products Steve put in his hair and how many Cosmo magazines he had on his desk. His room was fairly sparse and mostly empty. At least so by Jonathan’s standards but the room itself was not unlike how he viewed Steve. A pretty vapid vessel, something empty to be filled. A specimen to be molded and shaped into Jonathan’s art.
Steve’s parents had been home when Jonathan snuck inside that night so he had to be extra quiet going up the stairs, though not by much as the master bedroom was downstairs by the kitchen. Steve didn’t have a lock on his door and Jonathan was able to slide it open silently before making his way around.
It was about Steve, but it wasn’t about Steve.
Jonathan took his time. Steve only had the two posters in his room and Jonathan silently swapped them around so they hung in the opposite place on the wall. He carefully moved small objects back and forth on Steve’s desk. He picked up the bowling pin and gently set it on Steve’s nightstand instead. The bowling pin always made Jonathan smile, he’d stolen one of his own from the bowling alley just so they’d have a matching set.
He was less careful as he mixed up the hair care products in the ensuite bathroom, knowing it was harder for Steve to hear him in there with the door shut. He put the shampoo and conditioner under the sink and placed his can of hairspray on the shower caddy. All the while Jonathan took small photos of the room and the changes that he made before he finally turned to Steve who hadn’t moved a bit while Jonathan quietly meandered about. By then, Jonathan was quite practiced at it after all.
“Hey, Steve,” Jonathan said, quiet and a little mocking.
He touched two fingers to Steve’s square jawline and huffed a little at the prickle of stubble that tickled his skin when he stroked downward. Steve panted softly in his sleep and turned slightly, but he did not stir. Jonathan let out a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding and moved his camera silently to snap a photo of Steve up close. He had learned long ago that the flash was never enough to wake Steve when he was passed out, and most nights he seemed to be passed out on something.
Jonathan wasn’t certain, exactly, what it was that Steve was getting into but he didn’t particularly care. A rich kid like him probably had access to anything he wanted; not to mention the rumors about Mrs. Harrington’s extensive pill collection.
While the cause of it didn’t matter to Jonathan he couldn’t help but be grateful for the side effects. How could he not appreciate them when they allowed him liberties such as these? In this state, if Jonathan was gentle enough he could maneuver Steve however he liked and get the perfect pose for one of his photos.
In the last couple of years, since Jonathan had taken up photography, he’d gathered an extensive collection of pictures of Steve Harrington. The timeline showed within them as Jonathan grew bolder and the pictures grew closer and closer until Jonathan was like this; his hands on Steve’s body pushing him into whatever position he desired.
It had been such a slow process and Jonathan had been so very patient over the years; careful to even get this far and yet still Jonathan longed to do more. He wanted skin. He wanted to see what would feel like against him properly. How warm would his mouth be? How tight that place between his legs?
But Jonathan had to exercise control. He couldn’t just rush in blindly, couldn’t deviate from the progress that he had made for a cheap thrill that would ruin everything he’d built up. He had to take things slow, like developing photographs, he couldn’t rush the process or the end result would be unsatisfactory.
Soon, though; Jonathan hoped.
—
While he was on his way home Jonathan smiled to himself as he remembered switching the books around on Steve’s desk and moving his magazines into his closet. He’d also taken the liberty of stealing some of Steve’s homework just because the idea of him being embarrassed in class delighted some sick little spark in Jonathan’s lower gut. The very idea that Steve would wake up in the morning and find his room subtly different was delightful to Jonathan.
It made him feel like he was decorating his butterfly’s enclosure, studying the specimens' habitat and how it would react to change.
It was a delicious heady feeling that traveled like pop rocks through Jonathan’s veins. Perverse and cruel in turns the thought of it gave him a helium buzz in the brain like a great high.
It was only intensified by the knowledge that he’d been doing so now for the last month and Steve had seemed increasingly confused the times when Jonathan sat quietly in the bushes watching him through his bedroom window.
The thought of it caused a twitch in Jonathan’s pants. His hand went towards his thigh but he kept the other firmly on the wheel. Beyond the times he liked to jerk off in Steve’s things, Jonathan tried to keep the more sexual side of his obsession in the confines of his own bedroom.
And he was tired. While it was only just after nine o’clock, Jonathan had actually worked that day and then he’d spent the last four hours watching Steve which was a job in and of itself. He didn’t need to be distracted driving home with a camera full of incriminating film.
Still, though, Jonathan could be a weak man. He had been bold tonight, perhaps bolder than he had been before and the images beckoned him. Jonathan thought of Steve’s pretty pink lips and the long sweep of his dark lashes; his body lax and fully at the mercy of whatever deed Jonathan could imagine working upon him. The way Jonathan could have been cruel or kind and how it would’ve been all his choice to make. How for Steve there would not have been a single thing he could have done to prevent it..
Jonathan licked his lips and despite himself, he found his hand inching toward the seam of his jeans as he thought about all of the possibilities the night had held even though they were still outside of his reach. All the different things he could have done with Steve at his mercy that way.
Jonathan’s hand found his cock over the rough fabric of his old jeans and he gave it a squeeze as it twitched. His eyes closed briefly and he let out a sigh, not bothering to slow down as he took the corner because he’d taken it a thousand times and he knew that he could round it easily at a higher speed limit than the sign suggested. He rubbed himself once more and then suddenly his foot was slamming on the brake with all of its might, causing the car to spin out.
Whatever Jonathan struck went flying and lay crumpled in a heap on the road. It was within the beam of Jonathan’s headlight when his car finally stopped spinning. The adrenaline was causing Jonathan’s heart rate to skyrocket and he couldn’t think for a long moment as he stared forward.
Then with shaky hands Jonathan bent down towards the floorboard of the passenger side and picked up his camera, turning it over to inspect for damage. He gently set it back in the seat and with hands still trembling he unbuckled his seatbelt. Jonathan’s ears were ringing and his head felt full like he was a scarecrow overstuffed with cotton.
Jonathan could feel every single one of his teeth in his mouth and they all felt sharper, the touch of them metallic to his tongue.
Out at the edge of the light, a single bike wheel continued to spin. An aimless trajectory towards nowhere.
“Hello?” Jonathan called, his quaking hands reached for the car door and it opened stiffly but didn’t need any real force. There was smoke rising from the hood of his car but no dent that Jonathan wouldn’t be able to push out. He stared at the small streak of red along the grill of his car and the almost negligible dent on the hood. They were such very small things Jonathan almost couldn’t understand it. Not with what was sitting a few feet away, the product of something so… minute in nature.
Jonathan suddenly rushed forward without thinking about it before his body had him curling inward immediately after the motion. His ribs had taken some of the damage from the wreck.
And Jonathan knew.
He knew. The brain was already caught up before the body could see but Jonathan knew what his eyes would find crumpled there on that dark road, the same as he knew then and there how everything would eventually end.
Will was a mangled heap of viscera and bone, his body still wrapped around his bike unnaturally. One of his eyes was open and it stared off into nothing, while the other side of his face-
Jonathan sprinted for the grass despite his aching ribs and retched violently; each jerk of his body another jolt of pain in his sides until his stomach was empty and he was heaving on all fours on the side of the road. It took a long moment for Jonathan to gain his composure as his body was wracked with tremors of pain, nausea, and grief. And then, not unsurprisingly, anger made its wicked way into him until he was standing haunched with his hands on his knees still trying to catch his breath.
It had been an accident!
Will should have been at home by now and Jonathan never should’ve had to worry about him being out on the road at night. He was supposed to have finished his stupid game hours ago so Jonathan didn’t have to worry about anything while he-
While he took some time for himself .
And now, like always, Jonathan had to take care of Will once again.
Jonathan had to call the cops.
Jonathan could not call the cops.
He had lied to his mom and said he was working until nine that night and when the cops checked they would immediately find out Jonathan only worked until five that afternoon and that he wasn’t actually coming home from work when he hit Will. Then they would want to know why he would lie about that. And then-
Then they would want to know what it was that Jonathan was actually doing and he had so many years' worth of photos hidden in his room; so many details on film sitting in his car at that very moment, would he be able to lie convincingly to the police? What would he even tell them? Would they believe him? Would they end up looking at those photos and locking Jonathan up for the rest of his life?
Between one moment and eternity, the only solution became clear to Jonathan with sudden startling alacrity.
He approached Will’s body slowly, stomach still turning at the sight but curiosity piquing as well; he took in the way the bones where they protruded and the side of Will’s face that wasn’t much more than bone itself. There was an aching in Jonathan’s heart but it didn’t feel quite right, not like the movies and songs always told him it would be. He looked ruefully at his brother and shook his head.
He touched the unmarred side of Will’s face. Closed that single eye and brushed a shaking hand through his hair.
And then Jonathan began the work of detangling Will’s corpse from his bicycle. It was a sickening process. One of Will’s legs broke further as Jonathan ripped it off of the pedal and it gave a rather dull cracking sound as it did. Jonathan gently removed his backpack. He wanted to keep it. A small memento to remember.
After finding a discarded shopping bag in the backseat Jonathan carefully wrapped it up and placed it in his car. When he did so he found himself staring at his camera still in the passenger seat.
Jonathan stared for a very long time.
His gaze altered to where Will was now laid supine in the street and then to where his camera sat softly on the cheap nylon blend of his car seat. The possibility of someone driving by didn’t even enter Jonathan’s mind at that moment.
Jonathan loved Will.
He loved his brother so much.
But Jonathan gently pulled the camera out and walked back over to Will’s body. The first flash of the camera illuminated Will and his state so completely that Jonathan almost had to look away. But he did not.
Could not.
It was a depraved thrill that filled Jonathan along with each whir of the camera. There was some sick part of him that felt a vexatious satisfaction, a smugness in his bones as he snapped each picture as easily as Will’s body had snapped on impact with his car. He only had so much film left after such a long night with Steve, but Jonathan made sure to get the very best angles.
And then as if startled out of a daze a yawn pulled itself from Jonathan’s body, causing him to ruin a shot. He paused, cradling his camera close to his chest as he looked around. He took a step back towards his car.
The camera was placed lovingly beside the sack holding Will’s backpack and Jonathan sat down in the driver's seat as he tried to think of what to do now. It would have to look like an accident but the Byers themselves were mostly the only ones to use it and Jonathan couldn’t stomach the idea of his mother driving past Will lying in the road like that.
(Part of him did imagine it, felt a shocking thrum up his spine and tingle over his skin like gooseflesh but Jonathan pressed it down as deep as he could bury it.)
The quarry was the only option Jonathan could think of but there was no way he could put Will and his bicycle in his car in the state that they were in. Jonathan chewed his lip and finally started to think about the possibility of at least one person driving by and seeing this whole tableau.
He decided to move his car. He pulled off on the side of the road and maneuvered his car behind a bush as best he could, worried it would end up getting stuck in the mood but with more pressing issues to attend to first.
Jonathan would have to drag both Will and his bike all the way to the quarry and simply push them in. Hopefully, it would look like an accident. Just a dumb kid biking at night and not paying enough attention. Something about the thought made Jonathan turn sharply in Will’s direction.
“Sorry, I called you dumb,” Jonathan told Will quietly to which Will predictably did not reply.
The first thing Jonathan did was toss Will’s bicycle into the ditch on the side of the road opposite his car because he wouldn’t be able to drag both of them at once and the body was the biggest issue.
The quarry wasn’t actually that far away through the woods, and Jonathan knew the woods well. But, it was a much more difficult trek with the dead weight of his baby brother in his arms. At one point, as he neared the edge of the rockside, Jonathan swore he heard a twig snap and he almost dropped Will then and there.
Jonathan whipped his head around looking for any sign of a person but there wasn’t anything.
He was paranoid. Only paranoid, and rightly so.
Jonathan sucked it a great breath. He remembered picking Will up for the very first time when his mother brought him home from the hospital. He remembered holding Will when their dad would scream at mom for hours until his voice was hoarse and how Will’s small body had trembled in fear even though it was never him that dad hit on.
Jonathan remembered each time he tucked Will in because mom wasn’t there to do it, each time he had to drop everything he wanted to make sure Will had his dinner, or that Will’s laundry was done, or that he had a ride home from his friend's house. Jonathan thought of all the times he’d given up everything for Will and how the one time he had decided not to, the one time he decided to do something for himself instead it ended up with the boy dead in his arms.
Will certainly wasn’t trembling from fear in his arms now, wasn’t hanging off of his shoulder to show him a new drawing or asking Jonathan to do something he was certainly old enough to do for himself now.
Will wasn’t… anything.
It almost reminded him of his time with Steve. The blank canvas of it all. Something so utterly empty, waiting for Jonathan to fill it. Jonathan was the only one who could.
“Goodbye, Will,” Jonathan said. His voice was soft and quiet in the night. Up above them, the sky was filled with stars and all of them looked down on Jonathan with Will’s eyes. He picked Will up like he would an infant, one arm behind his neck and the other below the bends of his knees.
He stepped closer to the edge and stared at Will’s mangled face in the moonlight. He smiled softly at him.
Will was empty now but so too was he permanently preserved. From now on Will would only ever be twelve years old for forever. As a body, Will was prone to age and change and always in need of care but now he would be Jonathan’s baby brother always. Like a fly trapped in amber.
Jonathan released him over the edge. He watched Will tumble artlessly, gracelessly downward until he hit the shallow water with a sound that told Jonathan that the water level was low. When he peered over the side he could only just make out the lump he thought was Will. It was hard to tell, precisely, as the moon and stars didn’t reach deep into the crevasse of the quarry to illuminate the water. There wasn’t any light down there.
Tossing the bike took less than half of the time and when he got back to the road there wasn’t any sign anyone had driven by at all. Halfway back to the quarry, rolling Will’s destroyed bike along as best as he could with the way it was bent, Jonathan paused at the sound of another twig snapping.
It was probably an animal.
Actually, it was almost certainly an animal. There was that paranoia again. Jonathan berated himself for it but he picked up his step. When he once again returned to the quarry’s edge he wasn’t able to make out where Will’s body was any longer, not even by a guess. Whatever little current there might’ve been must have pulled him closer to the rocks, was Jonathan’s best bet.
The bicycle he tossed carelessly over the edge. He didn’t even bother to watch it fall and was already walking away when he heard it splash as it made its inexorable collision with the water.
Jonathan felt a sadness in his chest but it was warred with annoyance over the whole thing and even within some small part of him there was a seed of twisted glee. As he traipsed back through the woods Jonathan felt so the emotions bled into a gordian knot of nothingness, like he was empty inside now too. He couldn’t feel the sadness over losing his only brother, not even the satisfaction he’d gotten from his pictures that evening was able to pull forth any sort of feeling. Jonathan didn’t think about his mother or the pain she’d shortly be going through. He didn’t think about the fact he would have to talk to the police. He didn’t think about the way the news would be all over town before lunchtime. He didn’t find himself thinking of any of these things at all.
While he was on his way home, the only thing that Jonathan could bring himself to think about was taking a shower to get rid of all the blood.
—-
When Jonathan got home it was almost eleven o’clock which left him a couple of hours to clean things up. Usually, he resented his mom for taking on the inventory shifts because it meant he had to be the adult for the night. Jonathan would have to come home from school and usually work as well, and he would make sure that Will had dinner cooked, that Will did his homework and that Will took a shower and went to bed.
Those nights Jonathan usually stayed up until his mom got home. There wasn’t any worry or concern there, he just enjoyed the few free hours he got the house to himself and took his time going over his photographs religiously and making plans for the future in a notebook he kept hidden away with the pictures. He’d even penned a few poems but Jonathan had a feeling that if anyone read them they’d be disgusted and not because his subject was a boy.
Jonathan was grateful for inventory night that night. More grateful for the empty house than he ever had been before.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t drenched in blood. Will hadn’t been bleeding very heavily, at least not externally. Mostly, the blood had come from the side of his body that had been scraped by the road and the areas where his bones had penetrated his skin.
The first thing Jonathan did was park in the area of the yard nearest the water hose and strip naked as soon as he got out of his car. After washing himself off he sprayed the blood off of the grill, again amazed by how little there was when it was the thing that killed his brother.
No.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
Jonathan was the thing that killed his brother.
He shut off the water hose.
In the backyard, Chester was yapping away angrily, no doubt out of food and incensed at being left on his leash all day. The sound was as loud as crunching glass and screeching metal for Jonathan but he ignored it, just like he ignored the headache forming behind his eyelids.
Still naked he bundled up his dirty clothes and made his way around to the backyard. He threw them in the firepit and looked around for the lighter fluid for a moment before soaking everything liberally until the bottle was empty. Jonathan realized his wallet and lighter were still in his jeans pockets and he had to reach inside to fish them out.
The wallet Jonathan just tossed in the grass but he flicked his zippo and leaned close to the pit to torch the corner of the shirt that was hanging over the edge of the metal pit. When the fire ignited the fluid he’d gotten on himself while fishing through his jeans lit on fire as well and Jonathan dropped the lighter as he let out a loud yelp and rushed to try and bury his hand in the dirt to put the flame out.
Jonathan cradled his burnt hand to his chest and cursed to himself. The pain wasn’t unbearable but having any kind of injury wouldn’t look good for him. He pulled his hand away from his breastbone and saw angry red skin along the back of his hand and wrist. Not terrible but noticeable. He cursed again, letting out a yell for the first time that night.
He kicked his wallet and it flew across the yard, nearly hitting Chester before thudding against the side of the house and falling to the ground.
“Goddamnit,” Jonathan said and his voice cracked, body trembling. He realized he was sitting naked and wet in the middle of a November night when the weather was at least in the forties. He stepped closer to the fire and picked up his lighter that was still lit, careful not to let himself catch ablaze again.
Chester barked at him pathetically as Jonathan picked up his wallet and slipped inside to get dressed. He decided to take a real shower to eliminate anything he might’ve missed outside. He didn’t know what to do about his shoes but his dad had taught him enough about cars that he knew not only that he could pop that dent out but that he also needed to do it as quickly as possible.
He left his tainted shoes behind in his bedroom on top of a towel. His mom probably wouldn’t notice the missing clothes but she would definitely notice if one of his only two pairs of shoes were gone.
Or, perhaps, she wouldn’t really have time to think about Jonathan at all. That, it seemed, was something that would never change.
The dent ended up coming out as easily as Jonathan thought it would with a plunger and a small hammer to tap on the other side. Twenty minutes later Jonathan was staring at his car and it looked like nothing had ever happened. Something roiled in his stomach and with the state that he was in at that time, he wasn’t certain if the feeling was pleasant or painful.
He moved his car back to where he would usually park it. He grabbed his camera and the plastic bag holding Will’s backpack. He locked the door and went inside the house.
Jonathan was sitting on his floor, Chester’s barks now like a sledgehammer to his head, and he thought about scrubbing his shoes in case there was any blood on them when the idea of the car interior also having blood on it finally occurred to him and he bolted up, dropping his shoe as he reached for a rag and made his way back outside.
He was running out of time before his mom would get home from her night shift and it would look suspicious if anyone saw Jonathan doing it during the day so he hastily wiped down the steering wheel and seats; hoping that he got everything. He checked the fire pit in the back yard and the clothes were still burning. Chester whined at him and Jonathan just didn’t have the patience for it. He was still shivering from the cold and the fire was still burning and the dog food was all the way in the shed and Jonathan just… did not care. He scuffed up some dirt at Chester as he passed him.
“Quiet.” Jonathan snapped. The door slammed shut behind him. It rattled in its frame from the force of Jonathan’s pull but he could still hear Chester whining outside. Intermittently he would let out a yowl that would have Jonathan’s blood boiling.
He shut his bedroom door and sat down on the floor but still, he heard the incessant noise of the dog outside.
Jonathan didn’t think about Will’s empty room down the hall and he didn’t think about the fact that just last night Will had been sleeping there peacefully. Chester began to bark more in earnest and Jonathan put his hands over his ears in an attempt to block it out.
He needed to clean his shoes.
There could be blood on his shoes and if there was blood on his shoes then everyone would know and Jonathan would-
Jonathan just really needed to get his shoes clean but Chester wouldn’t shut up. Jonathan’s face was wet and he wasn’t certain why. He tossed the old toothbrush he was using down on the towel and abruptly stood. Everything faded away around him like he had tunnel vision, the only thing permeating his senses was the sound of that bark and he was startled to find it drawing nearer and nearer until it was right next to him.
He was standing outside. His feet were bare and they were getting muddy. He glanced over at the firepit and saw that where it had still been blazing only moments before when he initially went inside, it was now just a low smolder. The smoke reached up from the dying embers out into the night sky and towards all of the stars with Will’s eyes.
Jonathan blinked and looked down at his hands. The burnt hand had Chester’s lead wrapped around it tight enough that his skin was practically blue from his grip. Chester was lax against the ground, trapped between the post his lead was tied to and the length of it wrapped around Jonathan’s fist.
He was quiet.
It was finally quiet.
Jonathan started to breathe slowly and released his grip from the leash. He made an aborted step towards the shed to get the shovel but the energy seemed to drain out of him entirely and all he managed to do was peek into the firepit to see how charred his clothes were. The blue jeans looked like they needed to burn more but Jonathan didn’t have anymore lighter fluid.
He would have to worry about that later. Jonathan doubted anyone would be looking in the firepit so he let it go. He stepped over Chester as he made his way inside; the silence was now all-consuming but not entirely unpleasant. Jonathan felt miles away.
Jonathan walked past Will’s bedroom and looked inside. The door was open but Jonathan didn’t turn on the light or step inside. It seemed so very useless a space suddenly and so he went back to his own room where he shut the door and picked his toothbrush back up.
He was methodical as he cleaned his shoes. He scrubbed every inch of them over and over again until he held them up in the light and they were practically white under the glow of the bare bulb that lit his bedroom. Jonathan’s hand was aching fiercely by then from all the strain it had gone through that night.
Just a night.
Jonathan put up his shoes but he left the towel out as he unwrapped the plastic bag and pulled out Will’s backpack.
It wasn’t very bloody. It was just a few smudges that were now more brown than red but Jonathan was careful to make sure he set it on the towel as he dug around inside. He had a flash of deja vu as he remembered digging around in Steve’s backpack earlier that night to throw away some of his homework and the difference of the two events gave Jonathan whiplash and he zipped Will’s backpack closed suddenly.
He wrapped the backpack up again, this time securing the towel around the plastic bag as well, and then opened up the section of loose floorboards where he kept his photographs and journals.
It was a tight fit but Jonathan squeezed Will’s backpack into place with the rest of his momentos. It would be nice to look back on in a little while; after all of this was over. Jonathan liked having stuff to remember things by and he wanted to remember his brother. His little brother whom was now permanently preserved in time. His little brother who would always be as Jonathan made him, now and forever.
His little brother Will, who was perfect now.
Jonathan thought that sleep would be an elusive mistress evading him that night, but everything was so silent and so far away; his body was floating in a strange limbo and his mind felt farther still.
When Jonathan’s eyes finally closed and his body fell into slumber it wasn’t even another thirty minutes before Joyce came home, none the wiser to the events that had transpired.
All she could think of was her bed. She toed her shoes off by the front door and made her way down the hall. Her eyes only briefly glanced toward Jonathan’s closed door and Will’s open room before she just continued to move down the hallway to her own bedroom. She happily changed into her pajamas and glanced at the alarm, groaning to herself as she thought of how few hours of sleep she would get that night.
Joyce climbed into bed and when her eyes finally closed and her body fell into slumber she enjoyed her last moments of blissful unawareness before her life would change forever.