After the war

Chapter 25 : A turbulent breakfast

- "This is disgusting!"

The young man violently threw his plate full of food against the wall, breaking it in million pieces, under the dazed eyes of his family.

- "Will, calm down!" Jonathan tried.

He wasn't expecting Will to calm down, but seeing his mother shaking and looking down like if she did something bad was breaking his heart.

- "Calm down? Calm down!? I'd saved your ass so many times during those seven years, the only thing I'm asking is decent food! Is it too much asking!?"

- "Wi—"

- "No, it's okay, Jonathan. He's right," Joyce intervened, close to cry. "Let me cook you something else, sweetie."

Joyce stood and went to the kitchen to feverishly cook something else for her son. Jonathan was giving a death glare to Will who was happily giving it back to him. His mother and himself had struggled to find food for seven years, sometimes starving for days to have just a piece of bread at the end of the week, and now Will was throwing good food away just because it wasn't to his liking!? It was unbearable. Unbearable and disrespectful. But every time Jonathan was trying to say something, his mother was cutting him and complying the requirements of the youngest. He had this arrogant look in his eyes that Jonathan couldn't bear. It wasn't his brother. Not anymore. He understood that he changed because of what he saw or what he had to do, but he wasn't expecting him to become a real asshole.

Jonathan stopped this battle of looks and stood to gather the food that Will threw, taking off the pieces of the plate from it. Wasting food was a shame; if Will didn't want it, Jonathan would eat it. While he was putting Will's food in a plastic box, someone knocked at the door. Jonathan wasn't even surprised; he was quite sure to know who was behind the door.

- "I'm coming," the young man sighed.

It was just the beginning of the day, and he was already exhausted. He finished to fill his plastic box and put it on a piece of furniture of the kitchen -his mother hiding her tears the best she could- before going to the door and opening it.

- "Hey kiddo," Hopper saluted.

- "Um, hey."

- "Is your mother here?"

- "Where else could she be?" Jonathan answered, a bit bitter.

- "...Is everything okay?"

The dark circles under his eyes should have been enough for Hopper to understand that nothing was okay in this house currently. Jonathan was wondering if this man wasn't playing dumb not to face the truth or was just...stupid. But then he realized that Hopper was very pale and had dark circles too; the man had probably spent the night outside, trying to stop the rioters to break everything. Everyone was in a complicated situation; it wasn't Hopper's fault if Will transformed into a tyrant. Jonathan took a deep breathing and moved aside to let him inside.

Hopper barely put a foot inside the house that he could feel the tension in the air. The silence was threatening, almost choking him. Joyce didn't even turn around when he reached the kitchen, and Will was...scary. Hopper wasn't easily impressionable, but his eye was full of hate and resentment.

Jonathan quickly walked in the kitchen and stopped next to his mother, who was still focusing on the food not to break down, to murmur:

- "Hopper is here."

Joyce just sniffed and nodded.

- "I can ask him to wait in the living-room if you want."

Joyce nodded again and avoided to look at her son, already feeling ridiculous and ashamed to cry in front of him. Jonathan gently rubbed his mother's back and gave another death glare to his brother who had a smug smile on his face before indicating Hopper to go to the living-room for now. The man obeyed and sat on the couch, Jonathan bringing him a cup of coffee.