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Growing up, they hadn’t always had that much to eat. Joyce tried, of course. She’d worked endless hours and done what she could to keep the lights on. Still, Jonathan knew better. He saw the bills piling up on the table, saw the red stamps and the way Joyce would shove them to the bottom of the stack when she saw his eyes land on them.
So he’d started to make sacrifices; small ones, of course, manageable ones. He’d babysat for Will’s friends, even though he’s still uncertain why their parents would leave a twelve-year-old alone with their precious kids. He mowed lawns, delivered newspapers, walked dogs--anything he could do without attracting the attention of worried eyes, nosey teachers, adults who stuck their noses where they didn’t belong. Even before reaching teenagehood, Jonathan knew the consequences of getting too comfortable in a small town like this one. He already heard the whispers: Have you seen how skinny those Byers boys look? Have you noticed how nervous Joyce has been, you’d think she’s on the brink of a breakdown? I heard the plant Lonnie’s working at is closing down, what a pity.
But Jonathan was fine, his family was fine. So what, if he hadn’t been able to buy new shoes since his last growth spurt and he had blisters forming on his heels? So what, if his Polaroid had been out of film for nearly a year despite asking for refills for months? Jonathan learned to accept scraps as if it were second nature.
Will only ate the white meat on a chicken, complaining that the dark meat was slimy and gross, so Jonathan learned to like dark meat. Will preferred sweet things, so Jonathan trained himself out of his own sweet tooth. Will grew out of his jacket, so Jonathan learned to like the cold.
---
Even after Joyce finally kicked Lonnie out, their funds didn’t exactly increase. Sure, the constant siphon on their earnings had disappeared, but so had half of those earnings. As much of a leech as Lonnie was on their funds, Jonathan couldn’t help but miss him on nights when his stomach would growl with want, his mom still on shift and Will’s ever-growing body sleeping restlessly next to his own. At least Jonathan didn’t feel guilty eating dinner when Lonnie still lived with them. But then Jonathan would look at Will’s face, smooth and content and so, so young in sleep, and the hunger pangs were worth it. They didn’t hurt as badly as fists against his skin, at least. Jonathan would rather count each of his own ribs through his skin, than count bruises on Will’s.
It’s just that, it’s difficult to fill in the space their father had left behind when he could barely fill out his own worn-through jeans. It’s hard to hold his head high at school all day on an empty stomach, comfort Joyce when he can’t remember how a mother’s hug should feel, help Will with his homework when Jonathan’s head is too filled with categorizing how the world is falling apart around him rather than which words are adverbs. But they’re on their own now, and Jonathan will give away as many pieces of himself as he can stand, if it means that he’s enough.
---
Something about being stuck in the military quarantine zone feels comforting to Jonathan. It’s horrible, obviously, watching everyone in their town deal with the fallout of an otherworldly evil of which they have no understanding, but a vindictive little spark lights up in him that people finally know how he felt when Will disappeared for the first time. When he was looking around every corner for someone to blame, some answer to why him, why here, why Will.
Another part of him loves the routine.
Back when the world was simpler and Jonathan had just begun working, he had to fight Joyce tooth and nail to contribute his earnings to the family fund. She wouldn’t let him touch the bills, said no kid needed to worry about things like that (as if he wasn’t already worried, as if he wasn’t asking in the first place, as if he’d suddenly become as innocent and childlike and pure as Will the second Lonnie’d stepped out. As fucking if).
So, Jonathan took over grocery shopping. It was a win-win, truthfully, for everyone. Jonathan felt like he was contributing, like he was saving not only his mom’s money but her time too, precious time that she could be spending with her sons.
Doing the grocery shopping was soothing, surprisingly. Jonathan’s not great at math--not great at anything, really, based on his lackluster grades--but something about the numbers calms his spiraling mind. He takes pride in cutting out coupons from the papers, resisting the urge to swipe the sections out of the papers he delivers to the houses on Lenora. The ones with multiple stories and fresh, pastel paint and comic-book-green grass, the houses where spoiled rich kids like Steve Harrington live and fridges are never empty. His ever-shaky hands still as his scissors glide through the shiny paper, bright colors and bubble letters spelling out “Half Off” and “Buy Three Get One Free!” There’s a certain zen to it, but nothing beats watching the numbers on the register drop.
The beginning stresses Jonathan out like nothing else, adrenaline running through him like electricity as he fills the cart with the items on his carefully curated list. Every time, it feels like both far too little, and way too much. They can’t possibly afford it this time, Jonathan’s certain every week. He must have messed up. He must have missed a decimal, or counted the cans improperly. His hands sweat as he stands in the check-out line, watching the numbers tick upupup and feeling his heart rate rise alongside it.
One week, Jonathan had miscounted. It was early into his new mission, and he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of tax just yet, so the numbers came out just a bit too high. It shouldn’t have been an issue--wouldn’t have been, probably, for anyone else. But Jonathan only had a set wad of cash in his pocket, and there was no wiggle room. So he’d had to make the shameful trek back down the aisles, had to weigh the importance of breakfast cereal against the nearly-empty jar of peanut butter sitting in their pantry. It was Will’s favorite, and he’d wanted to surprise him.
Walking home with the plastic bags cutting angry red lines in his palms, heavy despite their distinct lack of peanut butter, Jonathan vowed never to screw it up again. The look on Will’s face when the jar ran out two days later, no replacement to be found, cemented it.
The next week, Jonathan felt the elation of a perfectly planned shopping list. He even went home with a few spare cents in his pocket, jingling merrily like the little bells on Will’s favorite Christmas ornament. Joyce had squeezed his shoulder when she got home late that night, told him, good job, kiddo. She hasn’t called him that in years.
Jonathan’s been chasing that high ever since, and while he hasn’t screwed up again since that first week, the heart-racing anxiety of filling the cart and the subsequent joy that overcomes him when the coupons hit and the numbers drop has become his weekly routine. Jonathan wonders if this is how Lonnie must have felt after a long day when the alcohol finally hit his system, and pushes the thought away roughly. This isn’t the same, not even close. Jonathan’s helping, he’s being useful. He’s being good. Right?
Now, handling the supply runs with Argyle, Jonathan feels that high again. It’s better than the Purple Palm Tree Delight, which he’s stopped altogether now that he’s back in Hawkins. Maybe it’s the directness of the danger here, maybe it’s the increased military oversight, or maybe it’s the fact that Jonathan suddenly has his drug of choice back. Being useful grocery shopping.
It isn’t quite the same; supply runs require a lot less couponing and a lot more subterfuge. Jonathan plans routes for Argyle to take, helps him sneak across the quarantine zone, collects orders from Joyce on what the families need and from Steve on what the Hawkins food bank is running low on. He tallies how many of each product is required, how much it will take out of their collective stash of government hush money.
Jonathan just wishes he could watch the numbers tick up and drop back down.
---
When Will disappeared, the first thought that entered Jonathan’s head was, it’s my fault. He’d taken that extra shift without telling Joyce, had put the money and the numbers and the ephemeral high of a successful paycheck over his family, and Will paid the price. The second thing he thought was, it should have been me.
Jonathan’s the older brother, the protector. He knows his place, knows that sacrifices must be made. Whether it’s going hungry for the night, or getting a job at twelve and then watching Will surpass that age and much older without similar responsibility. Whether it’s their father’s fists or using his college fund to pay for his undead baby brother’s funeral. It’s bred into his bones; the first lamb to the slaughter, moving blindly forward in hopes of satiating the beast before it can work up the appetite for his little brother too.
Now that they’re back in Hawkins, now that the ground has split open and Hell peeks through, Jonathan can’t help but think, I should’ve done more. When Will’s eyes roll back into a milky white and he starts shaking like he’s twelve again, Jonathan thinks, it should’ve been me.
It isn’t even a question anymore, that Will always comes above him. The only thing Jonathan’s ever been chosen for is to go first: let Lonnie hit him over Will, let Joyce send him into battle over Will, let him be the one who dies over Will. He’s kind of okay with that. He’s used to it, at the very least.
The worst part is, Jonathan knows in his bones that Joyce would have picked him any day if she was given the chance. It’s his job, and they all know it. He’s supposed to be the older brother, the sacrificial lamb, so why can he never get it right? The goal of a sacrifice is to appease, to satisfy.
One night, when Jonathan falls asleep on the Wheeler’s couch with an empty stomach despite there being more than enough to go around on the day after Argyle’s latest supply run, Jonathan realizes why it could never be him. A sacrifice must be good: it must be good, it must be pure, it must satiate the beast. And no matter how hard he tries, Jonathan isn’t a filling meal.