Stonathan ❤️

49

NOT MINE!!

all credits go to fearofsilence on ao3

There's a swingset in the middle of the forest somewhere. Rusted and rickety, with chains that scream and weep when you sit on either of its rubber seats. Moments away from falling apart, from crumbling into dust.

Jonathan and Steve found it one day when they were exploring. Steve thought it was creepy. Jonathan thought it was beautiful; he took a photograph of it with the brand-new camera his mom had saved up all year to give him for Christmas.

That photo still hangs on his wall, right beside the one he'd taken three years later of Steve, one foot on each swing and the brightest of smiles on his face.

~:~

Jonathan doesn't usually take pictures with his phone. He doesn't like the hollow, lifeless quality of pictures captured with such an easily-accessible camera.

He showed Steve once. He took a picture of his own hand silhouetted by the afternoon sun through his bedroom window – first with his phone camera, and then with his Canon. The first came out flat, grainy, pixelated. The second showed each ray filtered through his fingers, the place where the sunlight bled through thin skin and made it glow red.

"Whatever, man," Steve said dismissively. "I'm not going to lug that big thing around my neck everywhere I go when I can just whip this sleek little beauty out of my pocket and..." He lifted his new smartphone in front of him and snapped a candid of Jonathan. "... shoot."

Maybe that was part of the problem. Steve wanted everything to be easy.

~:~

"I can't do this," he'd said.

I can't do this. The words Jonathan's heard every morning since, as soon as his mind drags itself out of sleep.

~:~

Ninety-nine percent of the photos in his phone's camera roll were taken by someone else. Some by Nancy, some by Will.

Most by Steve.

That must be why there's so many of Jonathan himself.

Jonathan drooling on Steve's pillow. Jonathan squinting against the light, hair mussed from sleep. Jonathan pulling a t-shirt over his head. Jonathan with snowflakes clinging to his hair. Jonathan jumping in a freshly-formed puddle. Jonathan floating on his back in Steve's pool. Jonathan laughing around a sip of chocolate milkshake. Jonathan sitting on a curb smoking a cigarette.

There are ones of Steve, too. Most Jonathan is sure he hadn't been the one to take, given the angles.

He hasn't had the heart to delete any of them.

He still spends way too much time scrolling through them all. Way too much time remembering happy moments that feel so tangible until he puts the phone down and realizes they're all gone.

The smell of bacon and maple syrup wafts in through the cracks in Jonathan's bedroom door. He knows his mother will be expecting him to join her and Will for breakfast.

He puts his coat on and sneaks out the back door.

~:~

The woods used to scare him. Something about the darkness, the unknown, monsters lurking around every corner.

It was Steve who taught him not to be afraid of things he couldn't see.

He thinks maybe it was Steve, too, who taught him to see things that weren't really there.