Stonathan ❤️

138

NOT MINE!!

all credits go to Whookami on ao3

A/N: I did not read through this!! its very long and i saw stonathan in the tags and stuff so if its not stonathan i apologize!

Steve Harrington is a walking lie. For this reason alone, Jonathan Byers has grown to hate him.

Well, maybe there's more to it than just that. The first seeds are planted in those unabashed lies, but it's his denial of this fact that allows those feelings to bloom in Jonathan's heart. The way Steve shrugs everything off with a lazy smile and a no-shits-given attitude. It's infuriating.

The real problem is that Jonathan can't call Steve on his bullshit. Not without admitting something that is, at best, a little embarrassing, and at worst might result in him getting his face punched in.

Even as a child Jonathan is aware that some things are not worth the trouble they might cause you in the long run. The other boys at school might push him around, maybe kick him a few times once they got him on the ground. Jonathan can handle that. He knows how to pick himself up and walk away. No, the thing that really frightens him is the possibility that word will somehow get home to his father. Lonnie Byers isn't the type to take this sort of thing as a normal moment of youthful confusion. For Lonnie, the idea that his son occasionally catches glimpses of another boy's aura...this would be something he'd need to beat out of Jonathan before it could grow any more powerful. Before it could take root .

It isn't like it's only Steve's aura he can see. From time to time Jonathan notices the slight distortion of colours around other classmates and students at Hawkins Elementary. Steve however is the only boy, and the only one that really puzzles Jonathan. For instance, the girl who sits behind him in music class, who wears huge sweaters and lots of costume jewelry, sometimes gives off quick flashes of colour he can see from the corner of his eye. It's vibrant, but never lasts long. It makes sense, though. They both like music and hang out mostly by themselves. They speak little when not spoken to. Every now and then Jonathan feels her staring at him, head on her desk and only her intense blue eyes showing, narrowed like she's trying to peer through him. Jonathan wonders more than once if it was maybe because she can see his colours too? If she does, Robin never says anything about it. Maybe she's just trying to see if she can? It's impossible to force yourself to see another's aura, everyone knows that. Either you are a person's soulmate or you're not. It can't be made to happen by sheer willpower, or else what's the point? It doesn't stop some people from trying though.

Jonathan doesn't think he actually is Steve Harrington's soulmate. It's a ridiculous idea. In childhood there are simply.... moments . Moments when your soul understands someone else's in such a powerful way that it causes you to become aware of it, to connect to it. Kids are too young to actually have soulmates, they're still learning, still discovering what kind of person they want to grow up to be. It's like practicing, making these tenuous connections never meant to last more than a second or two. His mom had explained it like a person's soul was constantly on alert, catching these flashes from other people now and then when something inside of them recognizes something inside of you. It was perfectly natural. It couldn't be helped. Not that his father would understand that.

So Jonathan learns from a very young age to keep certain things to himself. The problem will go away eventually on its own. As you get older the ability manifests less and less. People become more defined as individuals, their tastes and preferences more pronounced. Over the years people will begin to fall away, one by one, their flashes of colour forever invisible to all but the select few who might truly be their potential soulmate. Most people have a few out there in the world waiting for them. A couple they might have the luck to actually run into during their lifetime. No one knows for sure how many a person can have as a maximum, if such a limit even exists. Some people never see a single aura once they hit adulthood, having to content themselves with finding another matchless person, or with being alone.