#but his mother is still claire so he's also belgian

[scrollonso]

a sneak peak of what i have so far

[nessataleweaver]

Just watching the 1978 movie of Death on the Nile.

Random comments:

(warnings: indiscriminate switching between actor and character names, also, random spoilers)

God, I’d forgotten how gloriously EXTRA this entire movie is. Even the opening theme is bombastic orchestral.

When 95% of your speaking parts are played by actors whose names show up before the title, it’s safe to say you’ve got an all-star cast.

Jeez, eyes on the road, Mia Farrow! Making out while driving is a safety hazard.

I love Maggie Smith. 90% of her screen time in this movie is her being utterly sarcastic, or even more utterly ‘I am at least 120% done with this shit’.

According to Linnet, following your ex-best friend and your ex fiancee around on their honeymoon is, ‘Common, Jackie. Very, very common.’  Not nearly as common as stealing your best friend’s man, you entitled bitch. *eye roll*

God, the necklines on most of Linnet’s evening gowns are more like waistlines. I’m not saying it’s bad to show off what you’ve got, but has fabric tape even been invented yet?  This woman’s showing almost as much of her chest as Nicki Minaj.

Hey, it’s Olivia Hussey! Still my favorite movie Juliet (sorry, Claire Danes). I’m glad to see she got to do something after R&J besides Turkey Shoot.

Peter Ustinov’s accent is so thick and treacly I feel one of his co-stars could spread it on toast for breakfast.

The scene where Jackie confronts Simon and Linnet at the Temple of Abu Simbel is really well done. The wind howling through the temple until yes, it nearly does sing, Jackie’s voice echoing through the valley and the close-up shots of her being buffeted by the wind are all very striking.

Salome’s motherly advice: ‘If you wish that uncouth man to lay siege to your virtue, don’t forget to put up at least a semblance of protest! Men love the chase!’ (actually, that’s rather sex-positive, especially for a 20′s or 30′s set movie. Also, a good point about many men’s ideas of courtship. Ferguson’s exactly the sort of man who wants to do the chasing.)

“Linnet said that she felt everyone on this boat was her enemy”. Well, sheesh. Given the doctor, both Osbournes (mother and daughter), Bette Davis, and Jim Ferguson all became her enemy directly because of things she said or did to them during the first act, it’s no fucking wonder.  Actually, it’s extraordinary that she wasn’t murdered earlier.

I’m still a little surprised that Louise the Maid didn’t just steal some jewellery or at least speak to a lawyer about Linnet pretty much blackmailing her into working for Linnet for as long as she wants. Or at least putting something in her tea to give her diarrhea. Though, I’m not sure why she’s so hung up on the Egyptian dude; he sounds like an utter loser.

Okay, so it’s been awhile since I read the book or watched any of the other adaptations.. but WTF is up with the cobra in Poirot’s quarters? Is it to give David Niven something to do beside give Poirot a Watson to exposition to? Or is it foreshadowing? Poirot knocking on the wall between their cabins in morse code to alert Colonel Race, foreshadowing Simon yelling to alert Jackie in the cabin next door to alert her to Salome Otterbourne about to reveal all?

“You perfectly foul French upstart!”

“Belgian upstart, please.” - not even Bette Davis can take down Poirot in verbal judo.

The Muses bless you, Angela Lansbury. She’s such a Large Ham you could make an entire picnic worth of sandwiches out of her performance, and she’s very obviously loving every second of it.

“I might have Hair of the Dog, but never Scale of the Crocodile!” I wish I could use that sentence sometime. (hmm... keep it in mind for a fic?)

Huh. Poirot might have gotten the best of Bette Davis in that conversation, but she out-foxed him there and left him fuming. She might not have those pearls, but Poirot’s got zilch on her now.

Honestly, Poirot, if you tell your friend what to order in French terms, knowing that he doesn’t speak French, you have no right whatsoever to complain or even look exasperated when he orders you eel instead of mushrooms.

Ah... that’s Louise dead. Honestly, doesn’t she know that she’s in an Agatha Christie?  The quickest way to be murder #2 is to blackmail someone.  Must give Jane Birkin credit, though; she’s very different here than the character she plays in Evil Under the Sun (also with Ustinov as Poirot).

“I saw that it was-” BANG! Alas, Angela Lansbury.  If you weren’t so interested in milking your Great Revelation for every drop of drama, you could have gotten out the info without getting dead. Let that be a lesson to you, ladies and gents and non-binary persons: if you know who the killer is, tell everyone in the vicinity IMMEDIATELY.

And... Poirot already know who it is? Less than a minute later? Well, that’s a quick segue to the Grand Summation.

And.. you’ve got to throw in one last red herring? Hinting that Jim Ferguson killed Mrs Otterbourne because he thought he couldn’t get Rosalie permanently  with her mother still around?

When Poirot looks at the boat’s butler and hints he killed Linnet by mistake, the dude gives him one of the best ‘WTF, dude, are you on ‘shrooms?’ looks in cinematic history.

Oh... every time an accused murderer starts laughing at Poirot, it’s a dead cert they’re guilty as.

Now wondering... why didn’t Simon throw the nail polish bottle (that he used to help fake his wound) overboard, rather than putting it back in Linnet’s bathroom cabinet? It gave Poirot a major hint, and it’s not like anyone could have found it in the river, or even think to mention it.  Further in that line, if he’d tossed the gun separately from the stole - the improvised silencer - it would have been harder to connect the hole in the stole with an extra shot that way. Not to mention ripping the hole open a little? but then, simon’s trying not to scream in pain from the fresh wound, so...

It might have been easier to pay Louise off once, then kill her later.

This version is gloriously OTT and colourful (the outfits, alone!) and loaded with scenery porn (you can tell they definitely got to film in Egypt for this one!)... but I still like David Suchet as Poirot better. (Sorry, Sir Peter)

I also like Emma Malin, from the Poirot tv show better as Jackie. She comes off as genuinely melancholy over losing Simon, rather than Mia Farrow’s bordering on a nervous breakdown over-acting. It makes Jackie much more convincing as the brains of the operation. Her delivery of the line “One must follow one’s star” during her exchange with Poirot on deck the night before the murder, you get the feeling Poirot truly liked Jackie, and wanted her to turn away from whatever she had planned.  Malin and JJ Field also have much more chemistry than Farrow and Simon Corkendale, and Malin comes across as a woman who loved ‘not wisely, but too well’, and Field makes Doyle a man who simply found himself in a situation that brought out the worst in him, and couldn’t resist the temptation.  Farrow comes across as someone in desperate need of a ‘women who love too much’ seminar, who manages to fall in love with a selfish man-child who brings out all her worst traits (like the Lonely Hearts killers). You get the feeling Farrow’s Jackie and Corkendale’s Simon would have had an unhealthy relationship, whether Simon ever met Linnet or not.

Although I can’t help but feel Linnet would have gotten her heedless, entitled, self-centered, lacking in empathy for other people self murdered pretty early in life anyway. Like I said before, she managed to get three people to have serious motives to kill her, and two others minor motives within what, four days of meeting them?  Wonder if that big fancy estate of hers was anywhere near Midsomer county?

At the end of the 1978 version, Ustinov quotes the philosopher Moliere, “The great ambition of women is to inspire love.”  Though in this case, it was more the man who inspired it that got (counts it up) five people killed.  If it was Jackie that inspired love, rather than Simon, I think things would have ended up rather differently.

Having written all this, I’m actually rather interested in seeing how Kenneth Branagh does this next year. While I had a few quibbles, overall I was quite impressed by his version of Murder on the Orient Express. Going by the cast he assembled for that, I’m looking forward to seeing who he’ll get for Nile. On one hand, I’d love to see Sophie Turner as Jackie... she could pull it off like a boss. On the other hand, I’ve seen Sophie suffer enough on screen (with more to come in Dark Phoenix. I’d like to see her playing characters who get to have a good time for a year or so.

Just checked imdb... Jackie’s actor hasn’t been announced yet. But Gal Gadot is going to be Linnet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her as a thoroughly unlikeable character before, though I’m sure she’ll do well.

[stoprobbersfic]

future tense (jonathan x nancy, 3/5)

rated: let’s call it “mature” jonathan and nancy, college and adulthood, idiots in love. part one | part two read on ao3 tonight i think i’ll walk alone, i’ll find my soul as i go home

New York City is big. And bright. And crowded. And loud. 

She knows he'd love it.

Her, well, she's trying.

Columbia has a beautiful campus, majestic architecture and a surprising number of large green spaces. (Suburban girl she is, she always imagined New York as unbearably cramped but there are different kinds of large, she's learning.) There is a stunning park and cathedral near by. The subway is too.

Her roommate is sweet. Fun and funny, genuinely interested in her life, in wanting to be her friend. She's grateful for it. Nancy's never had a sister close to her own age, will never have the chance to do this with Holly, but when she and Claire whisper to each other from across the room late at night, missing home together, she feels a little more okay. A little less weird.

Claire is homesick too, which helps. She's from Massachusetts, which is so much closer than Indiana, but her boyfriend is in Texas now and she's also feeling alone. Neither of them sleeps very well the first couple weeks and one night they slip out of their dorm room and walk down to Tom's Restaurant at four in the morning. They order hash browns and coffee and a Belgian waffle piled high with whipped cream and strawberries and let the words come spilling out. It's not like with Jonathan – she can't tell Claire everything, certainly can't say why the screeches of unmaintained brakes and squeals of car tires in the middle of the night sometimes send her scurrying, terrified, to the pay phone in the empty hallway. But she can talk about missing him, missing home, and not feel silly. Claire feels the same way.

The other students are nice, they're smart, they're more like her than she'd expected. No one seems fazed if she passes on going out to study, or if she turns down a party. They seem to get it.

It's a relief, because while she's certainly not about to start failing classes she's also not exactly studying.

At Hawkins High the goal was simply to be the best. Highest GPA. Perfect test scores. Unimpeachable attendance record. That last one started to slip around the time she discovered monsters were real and the weird Byers boy was cute, but the rest of it had been like the brass ring on a carousel – right there, in reach, hers to grasp if she wanted it. And Nancy Wheeler always got what she wanted.

But college is different. Problem sets have been replaced by piles of reading, classes center around discussion and debate. There are no right answers anymore, just good arguments and critical thinking, and it's frustrating. She wants to be praised, wants to be correct, but "correct" has been exposed as an abstract concept and she hasn't fully grasped the thing in its place. Nor does she want to pursue objective correctness into pre-med or research science. It doesn't feel right.

Nothing, she has to admit, feels right. She realizes now she thought only of the end of high school, of the concept but not the reality of college, and nowhere past that. She's not sure what she wants to happen next.

She tries not to let on how rudderless she feels, but it's hard. Her mom has noticed; Nancy hears the concern in her voice every time they talk. She knows her mother thinks this has to do with Jonathan, with romance, but that's really not it. Nancy just feels a bit lost, is all.

Mike notices too, and she's so much worse at lying to him.

"Is this still about Jonathan?" he asks her one night. She can hear Dustin and Eleven arguing behind him about something, but even with his friends there he never passes up a chance to talk to her when she calls. It's a wonder, how much their relationship has changed over the years. She's glad for it.

"No," she answers honestly. "I just feel… I don't know what I'm doing here."

"At school?"

"Yeah."

"But," he pauses, perplexed. "But, Nance. You're the best at school."

She laughs at that, feels a warmth spread through her that's been too absent lately.

"Not anymore."

"Bullshit," her brother says. "You just haven't found the right classes yet, or something."

"I don't know what I want to do," she admits, sighing. "I don't know what I'm working towards."

The argument in the background grows louder, angrier.

"Shit," Mike says, sounding distracted. "I gotta break this up. Sorry, Nance. We'll talk soon. I miss you!"

"I miss you too, Mike," she says softly, holds the phone to her ear after the click of him hanging up until the angry tone of a disconnected line takes over. Her room is quiet, empty. Claire went to class, then the library; midterms are only a week or so away. Nancy should be studying. Should be reading. She has papers to write.

She has three framed photos on the small desk at the end of her bed on her half of her room, all three taken by Jonathan. The first is of the boys, Will and Mike and Dustin and Lucas sitting around the card table in her basement, mid-D&D game. Mike's eyes are barely visible over the top of his dungeonmaster's book or manual or whatever it is, sparkling and mischievous. Will, Dustin and Lucas are all leaning forward mid-decision, brows furrowed in concentration. An empty blanket fort is just barely visible in the background.

The second is of a family dinner, one of the first he'd been invited to. Her mother's cooking covers the table, arranged just so, and she's setting down glasses of water. Nancy is arguing with Mike about something, her father is reading a folded newspaper next to his plate. Holly is watching them all with something like amusement. They were all waiting for him to get there. He blamed that roll of film for his lateness and swore he wasn't nervous even as she laughed and called him a liar.

The third is of the two of them, a little out of focus and motion blurred. Just their faces, pressed tight together. His hair is a disaster and so is hers and if you were able to zoom out a little further you'd see they were in his bed, cozy under the covers. She had reached for his camera, lifted it into the air and aimed it at them, snapping pictures at random. He protested – protested being the subject, protested her technique, protested the waste of film. She shushed him and kept adjusting herself next to him until she seemed to spark something in him and he took the camera out of her hands and rolled on top of her and she forgot all about it until the next time she met him in the dark room.

Most of the pictures were awful and her finger was somehow in the way for half of them, but this one had stolen both their breath. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are sparkling; his smile is wide and joyful, his guard fully down. He'd printed it and framed it, one for each of them, and given it to her wrapped with a bow on a Thursday "just because."

She misses him, but it's not his face she's looking at; it's hers. She looks so relaxed, so happy, so sure. She can't remember the last time she felt like that. The longer she looks at herself, the harder the rock in the pit of her stomach becomes. The more her heart pounds. The more she feels a thought bubbling up inside her that she wants to push away.

She switches focus, runs her fingertip over his face behind the glass, taps on his smile, then sighs. Pulls the course catalog onto her lap from where it was resting at the foot of her bed. She flips to the Spring 1987 section, and starts looking for answers.

+++

Hawkins is eternally busy with the most random shit. Jonathan's now photographed two school spelling bees, a fall festival, three mayoral groundbreakings for buildings he's pretty sure the town doesn't need and will never build, and a feature article about the continuing pumpkin patch wars between Merrill and Eugene, which have escalated to an annual contest of regional interest so his picture gets picked up by the state section of the Indianapolis Star and isn't that bizarre.

It doesn’t make him like his shit little suburb any more than it did in high school; he still feels the pull to leave deep in his stomach every night as he's falling asleep. But he does like the job. He likes the paper. He likes his editor. And he finds surprising freedom in his work. As long as he has three or four newspaper-appropriate shots he's free to shoot and develop anything he pleases. Artistic silhouettes of the mayor posing with a shovel weren't what he envisioned as he put together his college application but it doesn't make the photograph any less good.

What he likes the most are the battle of the bands. They're silly teenage things but the kids are into it, on stage and in the crowd. He's gotten a few great shots that he kept for his own memories and uses. A kid with dark curly hair screaming into a microphone. A drummer mid-solo, sticks poised to slam into cymbals. Three girls dancing with wild abandon, hair flying all over the place. Those pictures make Hawkins look as cool and edgy as any big city. It doesn’t matter that the bands sounded like absolute shit – off key, poorly rehearsed, just kids fumbling at being rock stars. In those photos you could almost believe they were about to get their big break.

Those photos give him ideas, but he hasn't had the courage to put them into words yet. He can't shake the feeling he's starting to formulate a plan – and one he'll have to tell Nancy, sooner or later, but he's still shy about it. For now.

Every morning when he walks into the Hawkins Post's office, he hopes to get another one of those assignments. But standing in the small, empty room the Hawkins Police Department usually keeps reserved for the rare press conference or station-wide training, he thinks this one isn't too bad either.

Steve Harrington glares at him. His uniform is neatly pressed, his hair newly cut, the badge on his lapel shines like it just came out of its box. Because it did.

Hopper can barely keep his laughter in check.

Jonathan raises his camera to his eye and snaps another picture.

"You know, if you don't want to look like a sour asshole in the paper you should try smiling or something," he offers.

"Fuck you, Byers."

"Hey man," he lowers the camera, lets it hang around his neck as he raises his hands. "I'm just doing my job."

Officer Callahan guffaws loudly and that makes Hopper crack too, and the rest of the cops fall like dominoes. Steve's glower deepens.

"This is bullshit," he says.

"This is better than any hazing we could have come up with," another cop says. Jonathan snaps another picture of Steve, who looks more embarrassed than he thought him capable of.

"I'm gonna send that one to Nancy."

"Don't you dare—"

"Alright," Hopper interrupts. "Let's get this show on the road. We've all got work to do."

Jonathan doesn't miss his wink, and stifles a laugh.

The induction ceremony is short, but formal, and it's so odd hearing that tone coming out of Hopper's mouth. But Steve stands up straight and looks proud of himself and, if Jonathan's being honest, Hopper looks proud too, and he gets at least half a dozen great photos of them shaking hands and officially welcoming him onto the force.

And then it's done. Jonathan's packing up his camera when Steve comes over and stands beside him.

"This is a little surreal," Steve says, reaching out and tugging on the press pass hanging around Jonathan's neck at the end of a lanyard. Jonathan reaches out and taps Steve's badge.

"Just a little."

"How's Nance doing?"

"Good," he straightens, shoves his hands into his pockets. He doesn't have another assignment until that afternoon, doesn't have to go rushing out, and it's been a minute since they've been able to catch up. "She's homesick."

"Really? For this place?"

"Believe it or not, yes. And, um. For me," Jonathan rocks uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. "And anyway, you stayed. Who are you to judge?"

"That's fair," Steve sighs and takes off his hat, runs his hand through his hair to dishevel it a bit. When he's done he looks a little more like the boy Jonathan went to high school with. "You gonna go visit her?"

"I'm trying, but it's tough," he admits. It has been. Work keeps him busy, far busier than he was expecting. And New York is far. Twelve hours in a car, almost sixteen on a bus, over a day and through Chicago on a train. And he can't afford a plane ticket. He tells Steve all this, frowns at his skeptical expression.

"It's four hundred dollars," Jonathan says again. "You know, not all of us are rich."

"It just seems like the kind of thing you make happen if it matters to you, that's all."

"Come on, of course it matters to me. But I can't just go for a weekend. It'll take me most of a day to get there in the first place, and back. So it's tough. I'm trying to figure it out."

"Can't you take some time off work?"

"Yeah, they give the new kid time off all the time," Jonathan shoots back, sarcasm dripping from each word. Steve gives him the finger.

"You don't have to be a dick."

"I'm just frustrated," he admits, shoulders his camera bag and starts to leave the room. Steve follows, leering.

"I can imagine."

Jonathan glares and Steve laughs, stopping at the desk that has now been designated his. Jonathan lets a smile peek through again.

"Seriously, congratulations," he says. Steve smiles back.

"Thanks, Byers."

Still, Steve's questions knock around in his brain in the drive back to the newspaper. It stays with him in the black room as he develops the film, in the dark room as he makes a contact sheet. At his desk as he examines the sheet through his loupe, circling the best photos for the paper in red and the ones he wants to send to Nancy in blue. As he knocks on his editor's door and hands the sheet over to him.

He hates, it how limited he feels. How stuck. If it's not the panic of losing his family, it's the reality that there's nothing to spare. That even with the best-paying job he's seen, by far, in his short life all he's really got to show for it is a press pass and less worry lines on his mother's forehead. That the meager savings he has falls far, far short of what it would take just to visit his girlfriend for two days.

He know Nancy thinks he gave up when he said no to NYU and resigned himself to life in Hawkins, to his bedroom in his mother's house and his little brother's nightmares. That he stopped dreaming. But that's not true; he just shifted his dreams a little bit, molded them to a reality that no amount of monster fighting or beautiful girlfriend could overcome. Jonathan knows intimately how easy it is to dream, and how hard it is to make reality bend to your whim.

He hopes he's learning how to find the middle of that Venn diagram.

+++

Her phone is already ringing when she pushes her door open, breathless from running up six flights of stairs. Claire had convinced her to go out after their classes had finished and Nancy has been promising – promising her mother, her brother, her boyfriend, herself – that she'd give the city a proper chance, spend more time in it, do more things. But of course today would be the day the time got away from her, the one day she actually had a reason to be back in her dorm room, next to the phone, at eight o'clock sharp.

She drops her bag in the middle of the floor and doesn't even bother taking off her shoes as she jumps on her bed and grabs the handset.

"Hey," she pants. There's a moment of surprised silence before Jonathan answers her.

"Hey," he says slowly.

"Sorry I'm late," she gets out, trying to catch her breath. "Claire dragged me out to dinner and then the elevator was taking too long. I ran upstairs."

"Aren't you on the sixth floor?"

"Yes," she hisses and flops onto her back. "I am."

There's another moment of quiet surprise before he starts giggling. She can't stop the grin that spreads across her face.

"Don't laugh at me." She's pouting, but she's not serious.

"I'm not laughing at you!"

"You are!"

"I just love you, that's all."

His voice warms her. She rolls onto her side, glancing at the photo of them as she cradles the phone between her jaw and shoulder so she can run her thumb over the scar on her palm.

"I love you too," she says, breathing finally under control. "Happy anniversary."

They'd waited almost the entire year to talk about it, to try to put a name to it, when their anniversary would be, until November was looming again and they had to decide whether to mark it at all. It is not the date of their first kiss. It's not the date the gate closed, or the date of the first time he snuck into her room without a monster on their heels, or the first time he took her to a movie.

It's the date they cut themselves open and mingled their blood on his living room floor and tied themselves together forever.

That year doesn't count, though. They're not rewriting history.

"Happy anniversary," he replies.

"Tell me you're calling from the pay phone outside and you're here to surprise me and I get to kiss you silly and take off your pants with my teeth."

The laugh that startles out of him is breathy and a little needy.

"I wish," he sighs. "When is your break again?" "A week 'til I fly home for Thanksgiving." Just saying it floods her with relief. "I just got the ticket in the mail today."

"And you're home for a week?"

"Mmhmm."

"Not long enough, but I'll take it. Do you think your mom will kill me if I just lock you in my room the whole time?"

"And deny her the opportunity to parade us around in front of my relatives?" She makes a face and shakes her head. "I hope you're ready to be grilled about your college decision for at least three hours."

"I have a job," he reminds her. "I'm a professional now. They've gotta be impressed by that."

"They're not impressed by anything," she laughs. 

"Hmph."

"I think you're impressive." She grins into the phone. "When is your trip to Chicago again?"

A month ago he had called with the shocking news that one of Hawkins' bands actually won one of the battles he's been photographing and was headed to Indianapolis – his first on-the-road assignment. They won there, too, and the next thing he knows he's being sent to Chicago to photograph the championship.

"Friday morning," he answers. "Just until Saturday night, but it should be fun."

"Are they putting you up in a hotel?"

"Yes!" He sounds so excited, it makes her heart swell and hurt at the same time. "Well, hotel might be overstating it a little. Motel. Let's go with motel. I think I'll see Andy and Ben there, too."

Who? The unfamiliar names make her stomach flip over in weird ways. So she asks.

"Oh! Oh, I didn't—I met them in Indy. Andy's a photographer for the Indianapolis Star, Ben shoots in Chicago, for some alternative paper, I can't remember," he says. "We met at the Indy show. They're cool."

Friends. He's making friends, professional friends. It makes her smile, and also a little sad. He's making friends without her.

"I wish I could be there. I'd like to see it." There's a wistful note in her voice she wishes she could hide. 

"Me too, Nance. You'd love it. It's just so ridiculous." He's quiet for a second and when he speaks again his voice is lower. Softer, but not gentle. "Claire still out?"

Heat flashes through her and she shifts on her bed, getting comfortable.

"Yup." She lowers her voice to match his.

"So," he says and she hears his sheets rustle as he stretches out on them and she closes her eyes, imagining his room and his bed and him, probably barefoot, probably still dressed for work but disheveled, his shirt untucked and collar unbuttoned, his hair ruffled, "how much do you miss me?"

They've only done this a handful of times but it's been good, really good. She aches for him all the time and he aches for her, and it all spilled over one night. It's not as good as him being there, but the sound of his voice, deep and hoarse and wanting, as she ran her own hands over her body has been stuck in her head ever since. She can think of worse ways to handle the distance.

"So much," she sighs, squirms a little.

"Tell me," he implores.

+++

The second the plane touches down in Indianapolis she feels lighter. Just acknowledging that makes her feel guilty as Nancy shoulders her purse and joins her fellow passengers in shuffling off the plane.

The airport in New York had been a nightmare, crowded with holiday travelers, and while there's a big crowd at the gate it's nothing like what she just left. She rolls her neck as she scans the crowd for her parents, loosening the tension from two hours of sitting still. Her mother's hair has been growing with each year, and she wonders how much bigger it's gotten in the four months since she last saw her.

There's plenty of hairspray and crimping on display but none of it is attached to her mother's face. She frowns, scanning the faces in the crowd a little more closely, when a hand ruffling dirty blonde hair catches her eye. Her lips curve in a wistful smile as she thinks of him, wonders if he's off work by now, if he'll be waiting at her house when she's finally back in Hawkins. Then her eyes dip lower and she freezes.

A slow smile spreads across Jonathan's face, and he raises his eyebrows at her in the moment before she throws herself at him.

He catches her, and it's like the rolling ocean that has kept her off-kilter and unsteady since August has suddenly calmed to smooth glass.

"Hey," he says into her ear, almost a breath more than a word, and she buries her face in his neck.

"Hey," she replies into his skin. He still smells the same, and she forces the tears out of her eyes. "Oh my god. You're here."

They shift together, pulling back enough that she can take in the subtle changes to his face, the way his cheekbones and jawline have sharpened slightly but his dimples are still there, how the bags under his eyes look mostly the same and, thankfully, not worse, how there's a dark spot on his lip where he's been chewing it, probably while he's developing film. His eyes are roaming her face as well, moving too fast for her to fully catch his gaze, just flashes of the chocolate brown she's seen in her dreams.

"You look beautiful," he says, stealing the words from her tongue, and she presses up on her toes so she can finally kiss him. She feels his smile against hers and tightens her arms around his neck.

He breaks the kiss after only a few seconds and she doesn't bother to muffle her whine, which makes him laugh. He jiggles her a little bit in his hug and then takes a step back, sliding so he has one arm tight around her shoulders as he maneuvers them through the crowd and towards baggage claim. They fall into step together almost instantly. She tightens her arm around his waist and tips her head onto his shoulder, feeling how solid he is, marveling that he's here.

"Did you plan this?" she asks. He just grins at her. "I talked to mom last night, she said they'd be here to pick me up, they didn't even mention you."

"C'mon Nance," he laughs. "Do you really need me to explain a surprise to you? You're supposed to be the smart one in this relationship."

"I know what a surprise is, I just didn't expect—" she cuts herself off, tries to figure out how to say this without digging herself in deeper. "I mean, I thought—no one said—"

"Yes," he says slowly, eyes glittering with mirth. "That's how a surprise works."

"Oh, don't laugh at me!"

"I can’t help it, you're funny," he chuckles, and she retaliates like the mature young adult she is and sticks out her tongue at him.

He looks away from her, checks around him like he's searching for something, before steering her over into a corner by an empty bank of pay phones just before the luggage carousels.

"What—" she starts to ask, but he presses her into the corner and swallows her question.

She wastes no time parting her lips for him, sliding her hands up and into his hair. His thigh slides between her legs and she arches against him. He kisses her like he's drowning and she's air, and clutches at her lower back. Her head spins, seconds stretch into hours, and the rest of the world falls away.

They're panting when he pulls back, dotting kisses along her jaw, and she wonders if there's a supply closet anywhere nearby and how much trouble they'd get in if they got caught having sex in an airport. Is that a federal crime?

"We should get my suitcase," she says instead, not missing the breathless note in her own voice.

"Mmm," he agrees, dragging his nose across her cheek on his way back to her mouth. She doesn't try to stop him, just tilts her head at a more inviting angle and slides her hands down from his hair to his hips, pulling him closer. One of his hands slips into her coat and under the hem of her sweater, working its way up her bare back. A shudder runs through her when his fingertips travel up her spine. The roar of her pulse in her ears drowns out the sounds of the airport.

"Jonathan," she whispers, tries to keep it from becoming a moan as her head spins and swims.

"I know," he says, but he's barely pulled back and each syllable is another brush of his lips against hers. Heat pools in her core and she's having a very hard time keeping her head on straight. "I just missed you."

"So much," she agrees, unable to stop herself from chasing his mouth, swiping her tongue across his bottom lip. In the back of her head she starts planning her phone call to Hopper when they're arrested for indecent exposure.

He kisses her one more time, hard, then leans his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. She watches him, drinks in the way his eyelashes fan out on his cheeks. She's always been envious of how long they are, how delicate.

"There's a dozen people at your house," he warns her softly. "My mom and Will, too. Your mom sort of made this into a thing."

"Of course she did," Nancy laughs, and slides her hands from his hips all the way around his waist, clutching him close. "We could run away?"

"Your mom would kill me."

"Not if she can't find us."

"See? The smart one," he smirks, but removes his hand from under her shirt and his leg from between hers and takes a step back anyway. Reaches out to take her hand and tug her away from the wall. She runs her free hand through her hair to urge it back into place as they finish their walk to the baggage claim.

He insists on carrying her suitcase to his car, which is parked at the far end of the lot as usual and while she teases him about it, the familiarity of it makes something inside her tighten and then release.

She rolls down her window on the highway, sticking her head out and letting the wind whip her hair into a riot. She can smell fallen leaves and a hint of fireplace smoke, exhaust from cars mingling with freshly razed cornfields. It smells like home.

She keeps a hand on the nape of Jonathan's neck as Hawkins approaches, playing with his hair and stroking his skin. They've kept up a steady stream of stories since they left the airport, but she falls silent as she eyes the familiar tree line and wide open sky. She watches all the landmarks she thought she hated come back into view; the entrance to Main Street, the silhouettes of the schools, Mrs. Rierden's eternally-present, ever-terrifying garden gnome collection.

A New Order tape she's heard in this car a million times plays softly in the background and she feels pieces of her soul she hadn't noticed shifting out of alignment move back into place. She takes a long, deep breath through her nose, a deeper breath than she's drawn and months, and releases it as a sigh.

Jonathan glances over at her, plucks her hand from his neck and laces their fingers together tightly.

"You okay?" His question surprises her.

"Yeah," she assures him. "Yes. It's… it's good to be home. I missed it."

"Really?"

The skepticism in his voice makes her want to snap at him; if he hates Hawkins so much why did he stay? But it's not fair and it's not what he means. She knows he's thinking of the New York City of his dreams, the skyscrapers and art galleries and rock clubs, the effortlessly fashionable youth and nonstop motion. She can't deny the romance of his fantasy, but she knows now how much of a fantasy it really is.

"Really," she answers instead and gives his hand a squeeze as he pulls into her cul-de-sac. Her parents' driveway is completely full and he has to park almost an entire house away. "Oh, Jesus."

"Yeah." He winces as he gets her suitcase out of the trunk and they approach the house.

Nancy can hear the chatter inside, can see through the living room window that her mother has laid out her best spread of finger foods and filled her prized crystal punch bowl with something that is, based on the sway in her Aunt Linda's silhouette, extremely alcoholic.

They stop outside her front door and look at each other, bracing themselves. It's a ridiculous thing to do – they have fought literal monsters together – and she can't help but grin at him, letting the tip of her tongue peek through her teeth.

"Ready?" she asks.

"No." He rolls his eyes at her and leans in to brush one more kiss onto her lips. "Your mom is crazy."

"Believe me, I know—"

Before she can say anything more the front door flies open and Mike lets out a whoop of glee.

"She's here!" he shouts and sweeps her into a hug and that's the last moment she has alone for hours.

+++

He struggles slightly as he pulls himself onto the roof outside Nancy's window an hour after the welcome home party officially ended, and marvels a little at that. Sneaking into her bedroom had become a well-practiced routine very, very quickly after their visit to Sesser, Illinois, and by the end of high school he could get in and out practically in his sleep. But it's been months and it feels both familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

He's extra careful not to make any noise.

Her window is open, as he expected, and she's on the bed, as he expected, but she's not wearing any of her parent-approve nightclothes; instead, she's got on his favorite threadbare Clash shirt that he's been looking for for ages and, if he's seeing clearly in the dark, not much else. She's sitting crosslegged, waiting for him.

He clears her windowsill and freezes, drinking in the sight of her. She seems to glow in the darkness and her eyes shine like moons.

"Come here," she says softly and he's helpless to do anything other than obey. She stands to meet him, reaches out and fists her hands in the front of his sweater and pulls and then her lips are crashing into his an his entire world shrinks to her, only her.

He wants to take his time with her, wants to taste every inch of skin, drink in her flavor and her scent, but it's been too long and neither of them can slow down. The last time he remembers feeling like this is the first time they slept together, the desperate movements of teenagers in a stranger's basement, a year of tension and wanting and longing finally snapping.

He doesn’t know how she gets off his jacket and sweater, can only feel how hot her mouth is as she traces her tongue down his neck and to his chest, leaving a burning trail across his skin. He tries to distract her, to gain the upper hand once more, but she's focused in a way he's rarely seen. She strokes him through his jeans and then inside them, makes his clothes disappear and maneuvers them so he's sitting against the pillows piled against her headboard and buries her face in his lap. Her mouth is even hotter as it envelops him and he gasps loudly once before remembering where he is and biting his lip to keep quiet.

He fists one hand in her sheets and the other in her hair and hangs on for dear life. It is a wonder he forgot how good she is; it is a wonder she is back in his arms where she belongs.

He tugs gently on her hair when he feels himself careening toward the point of no return, gulping down air like he's run a marathon, and tries not to come just from the incredibly pleased look on her face when she pulls away.

"Nancy," he says hoarsely, reaching for her, and she shuffles up until she's straddling his lap like she does in his dream and when he brushes against her he confirms that yes, yes, she is only wearing his t-shirt, and he's going to take care of that too.

He pulls it over her head as she sinks down on him and they both moan, then freeze. Listen.

Beyond her door there is only silence and he tosses his t-shirt somewhere behind her and thrusts up into her, burying himself fully. They both sigh at the feeling, and he thinks he hears her breathe something that sounds like finally. She sways forward, catching herself on his chest and he pins her hands there, holding her close. She rocks her hips shallowly, making his eyes cross as she leans in and hovers her mouth over his.

"I love you," she whispers and his heart clenches behind his ribs. "I forgot to say, earlier. I love you."

"I love you too." He closes the scant distance between them, sealing their lips together, as she begins to move on him in earnest.

He knows her parents are only a hallway away but he can't seem to keep quiet, can't stop the words from spilling past his lips and into her mouth or onto her cheek, her name and please, over and over please, begging, but for what he's not quiet sure. For release, of course, and her love, but also to be here, be with him, to stay. Stay here in his arms, to not leave him behind again.

He can't ask her any other way; it's unfair even to ask like this. But she responds with his name and yes, over and over yes, and he wonders if she really knows what he's asking, really knows how she's answering. If she means it.

She whispers his name and please and fuck, too – Fuck, and oh fuck, and fuck me, please fuck me, Jonathan. The last sends his head spinning and he wraps his arm tight around her waist as he teases her breast with his tongue as she holds onto the headboard behind him and doubles her efforts. He moves his free hand between them because he's not going to last much longer, not when she's whispering that in his ear, not when she's so hot and all around him.

He feels her start to shake just seconds before he loses all self control and all he can think is oh thank fuck as he spills himself inside her.

"Holy shit," he murmurs into her neck as they catch their breath, and feels her chuckle in the most intimate of ways. She's gone partially limp above him, one hand combing through his hair as she tries to regain some measure of control. But his toes are going a little numb and there's a cramp in his left thigh he's been fighting for a while now, so he shifts them carefully, sliding down until they're lying down.

When their heads are sharing the same pillow he pulls her duvet over them and takes her in. Her mouth is swollen and her hair is a riot and he thinks she's never looked more beautiful.

"You're thinking corny thoughts aren't you? I can tell," she says, running her fingertips over the silly grin that's stretched out over his face. He shifts a little closer and lays his arm over the dip of her waist.

"Just that you're beautiful. And that I love you." He won't tease her about the silly grin that stretches across her face in response, but he's pretty sure they match now.

"I love you too," she says, but there's something else in her eyes, something cautious and a little distant. His smile fades.

"What?" he asks and tries not to let his worry fly too far off the rails too quick. He's pretty sure she wouldn't have fucked him like that just to break up with him a moment later.

"Nothing," she says, and moves her hand to cup his cheek. But the lie of it is all over her face.

"I can see you thinking. What is it?"

"It's nothing, really," she insists. "It can wait. We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Nancy." His stomach is churning now and he moves to sit up but she grabs his arm, holds him down. Pulls him a little closer. "Just tell me. Please."

She seems to catch what he's thinking and her eyes widen.

"Oh, no, Jonathan—no. It's nothing like that. I swear. It's just… school stuff."

On the one hand, he feels a wave of relief wash over him. On the other, he feels a little insulted that she's already thinking about finals.

He says so and she laughs, shifting so she's lying on his chest with her mouth at his chin. She peppers kisses along his jaw, even presses one in the dimple on his chin. 

"It's really not that," she says between kisses and he closes his eyes, focusing on the feel of her mouth and her skin and how warm she is, how real, how right there.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to…" he trails off, because he's not sure exactly what he did but he's pretty sure he broke the spell. He feels her hair move against his cheek as she shakes her head.

"You didn't. I was just thinking about how good it is to be here." His eyes open at that and she's staring down at him, her eyes so blue and so clear. He cups her cheek as she speaks, feels her jaw move. "How much I want to stay."

"In Hawkins?"

"No, not exactly. But New York…" she sighs, breaks eye contact and looks somewhere just beyond him. "I don't think I like New York."

He didn't expect to hear that. Guilt floods him.

"Is it because—"

"No." Her eyes snap back to his. "It's not because of you. I don't know… I don't know if I'd like it more if you were there, or if I'd still feel like this. But it doesn't feel—it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like me. It's so, so…"

She's casting about for words and he's not sure what to do, so he lifts a hand and starts to rub soft circles on her back, on the skin exposed above the edge of the duvet. He can feel her start to relax under her touch and her words come together again.

"You were right," she says. "It's frenetic and it's exciting and it sure as hell never sleeps, but it also doesn't stop, and it doesn't care. No one looks at you twice and that's freeing but it's also so lonely. Not lonely like I miss you and I love you, lonely like I think if I simply disappeared no one would care. No one there, anyway. They're not cruel, but I don't like it. There's not enough space, and not enough... compassion."

Jonathan's spent most of his life trying to slip into the shadows, out of people's attention and to a place where he is left alone; to be himself and to simply be. He's dreamed of slipping anonymously into New York, of being part of the foot traffic and the city without having to stand out at all. The idea has always been inviting to him; what Nancy's describing sounds as lonely and cold and foreign.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. "I never wanted you to be unhappy." 

"Of course you didn't," she says with a smile and leans in to kiss him properly. "This isn't your fault, Jonathan. It's not even all bad. I think…. I think this is one of those things I needed to learn. For myself. About myself."

"But that wasn't what you were thinking about," he says slowly. He's been watching her for years now, knows what every shift and twist of her face means.

"No," she agrees, then pauses to worry her bottom lip in silence for a moment. He waits.

"Are you… going to stay in Hawkins?" she asks softly. He considers this for a moment.

"I hope not. But I don't—" He presses his lips together, almost wanting to keep the words in. He knows when he speaks them it'll amount to a decision made, and this decision racks him with self-doubt even though he knows he actually made it a long time ago.

Still, he promised he'd never lie to her again, not about something like this.

"I don't think I'll go that far away," he admits. "Definitely not as far as New York."

He can't look at her face; the soft surprise there hurts. He feels something young and optimistic in him die for real this time. He has tried not to dwell too much on the horrible things that happened to his family; once the nightmares faded and Will got better and his psyche began to heal he became determined not to get lost in the horror anymore. It lurks at the edges but he tries to keep it there. This is the only way he knows just how deeply he was injured, and how permanently. It makes him so, so angry.

He drifts far enough into his thoughts that he misses what she says next.

"Hmm?"

"I said, what about Chicago?" She's not looking at him again, instead examining her hands where they lay on his chest.

"What about Chicago what?"

"Is it too far away?"

Chicago is three and a half hours from Hawkins. He knows, because he's done the drive. Four hours in bad traffic. Far enough that he is the fuck out of his shitty little suburb; close enough to speed home in an emergency.

He's been thinking for a while about how Chicago could be damn near perfect. He's been thinking for a while how he might be able to convince Nancy to agree.

All those words stick in the back of his throat as he watches her closely in the dark.

"I—Why, Nancy?"

His hand has stilled on her back, and is now pressing her tighter against him, holding her in place while something begins to bloom in his chest.

"Because," she says slowly, "I've been thinking. About transferring. In the fall."