TW: Mental health issues and very slight mentions of abuse
Jonathan always knew Will was different.
The day he was born and he held him in his arms he knew Will was a special boy.
He was the first one to hold Will, after the birth, his mother had passed out and Lonnie's throat was too full of beer to even realize what happened.
So he requested to hold Will. And they allowed him.
He was the first one, a title he holds onto with great pride. Will was smaller than regular babies and he cried less than he expected.
The first thing Will did was reach out to him. He reached out and touched Jonathan's cheeks before laughing, or making a sound awfully close to laughing.
And from that moment Jonathan knew Will was different. A good different.
Despite being 6 he knew babies weren't supposed to laugh, they were supposed to cry, but Will laughed and it felt amazing to see it.
So from that day, Jonathan did everything to protect Will. He stood between Lonnie and his brother when that bastard spit as much shit as he drank, he stopped him when he got physical and always comforted him when things got tough at school.
Jonathan was not a strong kid and he definitely couldn't protect himself from Lonnie, that's why he ended up with multiple unexplainable bruises, but he would rather be beat up for hours than let that asshole lay a finger on his brother.
At first, it was a blind protectiveness, something he never questioned. But soon it turned into something deeper. Something his mother called love.
The first time Jonathan used the words 'i love you', it was directed at Will, not counting Joyce of course, mother-son love was something you didn't need to learn about, it came naturally.
But Jonathan never had someone else to love, someone who was a boy. His father was not someone you'd look up to, so he never knew what it was like to love someone other than his mother.
But then Will came along.
And Jonathan learned the prospect of love even more deeply. When Will grew past the age of 5 and began developing as a human, he realized just how different his brother was.
Maybe it was from his home life, but Will understood things no child his age should. He always understood why Jonathan had bruises, why there were empty beer cans in the living room, and why their parents were fighting.
He never questioned it.
He didn't need to.
He knew, somehow he knew.
But he always went to Jonathan. Even though he understood there were assholes like Lonnie on this earth, who only wished to bring harm, he always went to Jonathan for comfort.
They sat on his bed and turned the music up so loud that they could only hear each other's loud shouts and hugged.
They hugged for hours till they fell asleep.
This was something that didn't change for a long time, even after Lonnie was gone, before bed Will would knock on Jonathan's door and they'd quietly listen to music before drifting off together.
And Jonathan liked it that way. Being close to his brother, someone he adored in any way possible, was something he could never replace.
But then Will got a friend and he stopped knocking on Jonathan's door after a while.
He met Mike and got closer to him, spending nights awake just talking to each other through one of those walkie-talkies.
Jonathan was glad Will found a friend who wasn't him because sometimes he thought he wasn't a good influence on Will.
