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Rain pattered against the window Will leaned on, feeling the wind shaking the glass and The Cure blasting in his ears. Distantly, he could hear Robin and Vickie giggling next to him in the hospital waiting room.
He couldn’t say he knew Robin very well. Any friend of Steve’s always made Will wary, but she seemed to bring out a different side to him. Lately, he noticed Steve was always on edge, even when talking to other popular students or when Jonathan was around. Mike and Dustin would poke fun at Steve’s failed flirting attempts, which shocked Will. Steve? Steve Harrington, of all people, struggling to flirt? To find a girlfriend? Maybe I missed more than I thought in Lenora.
Despite his newfound awkwardness, Robin made Steve laugh in a way that reminded Will of his golden days. Like together, they forgot themselves and any inhibition. He kind of envied it. Will’s never noticed Robin before but she definitely didn’t fit into the “popular girl” mold, especially with her incessant rambling. Will didn’t mind. On drives in the van, he could zone out and listen to Robin and Lucas bicker about movies and music taste. It was like listening to a radio station or podcast without a dull moment.
Sometimes, he would catch her glancing at him, with sharp eyes that seemed to read Will like a book. Like she knew too much already. He wondered if Robin was scared of him. But maybe Robin, who had survived the Upside Down and lost a friend, understood what it was like; What that did to someone.
Now he sat next to Robin as they waited for Lucas to speak with Max, who was still unconscious. Lucas liked to sit in her room and play her favorite songs, read books out loud, and gossip about typical Hawkins drama - which unsurprisingly managed to persist during an apocalypse. Not that Will was up to date.
It started almost as soon as he got back to Hawkins. First, the goosebumps down his neck, a feeling like his stomach had dropped. Then, the nightmares settled in, visions of loved ones mutilated, drenched in blood and their own remains. Visions of him and Mike, starting as pleasant dreams before Mike’s calloused hands reach out to stroke Will’s chin as he leaned in, eyes fluttering shut. Sometimes, the dreams ended there, and other times Mike’s warmth melted into Henry’s coldness; The fingers on his jaw turned to claws, scraping his skin hard enough to leave scars.
Either way, Will woke up disgusted with himself, bile gnawing at the back of his throat. The shadows in his already sick mind were growing again, leaving a piece of the Mind Flayer behind with every nightmare, tangling so deep Will couldn’t tell what thoughts, what desires, were his or Henry’s.
Will pushed the volume up button on the player, realizing the waiting room was far too cold. His breath shallowed and the room swayed when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Hey, Vickie and I are going to the bathroom real quick, do you need anything?” Robin looked at him with her sharp eyes again, noticing his distress. She pointed to a red-haired girl in a nurse’s outfit Will assumed was Vickie. She stood at the reception, reading files and not looking in Will’s direction.
“N-No, I think I’m going to take a walk. Get a drink at the food court. Are you guys hungry?” Will watched Robin and Vickie make eye contact, with a certain glint in their eyes unnoticed by Will, and shake their heads, “Well I’ll be back in 5.”
Will returned five minutes later with a soda, letting the carbonation burning the back of his throat ground him. He glanced around the waiting room looking for the girls and didn’t see them. Checking the time, Will noticed Lucas should be done soon and headed towards the bathroom to find the girls.
Hawkins has an opening to hell, an evil force is sending man-eating monsters and vines to destroy the world, and gay marriage isn’t legal, yet Robin had never been happier. She’s hanging out with Steve, a radio talk show host playing her favorite songs, and she’s dating the girl of her dreams. Screw Vecna or Henry or whatever, nothing could deter her from the high she was on.
The taste of cherry chapstick numbed the tip of Robin’s tongue. Their lips met, soft and lingering for a moment before diving back in. Robin tilted her head to the right, deepening the kiss as she pressed Vickie against the wall. All Robin wanted was Vickie - to feel, to smell, to taste, to touch. Her cotton sweater, her cherry chapstick, her cheap strawberry perfume that should make Robin sneeze but she’d rather die than let the moment break.
They would never tire of this. Years of yearning and being queer in a conservative town is exhausting, but the secret glances, holding hands and playing it off as close friends, sharing beds to giggle and kiss until the sun rose again - all of it was worth it.
Vickie held Robin’s face closer, sucking on her girlfriend’s lip in a way that always made her knees weak.
“Shit, Vickie-”
Pop.
The girls whip their heads to see Will with wide eyes and furrowed eyebrows, his drink spilled on the floor and on his pants. He stood frozen holding the door open before bolting, leaving the drink behind. Robin’s heart dropped.
“Shit, that was Will.”
“Who-”
Robin let go of Vickie, promising to return, before following Will down the hallway. Robin called out after him, ignoring the staff scolding them for running.
Will wandered around the hallway looking for bathroom signs, passing by a nurse flirting with a doctor and an angry patient looking at his medical bill. As Will rounded the corner, he heard him shout, “Who the hell charges 500 dollars for a bandaid?!”.
Finally, Will stumbled upon a family bathroom. He knocked twice softly, and leaned on the door hearing shuffling noises - but no response. He slowly opened the door, preparing for someone to curse him out and saw -
Vickie. Red hair. Nurse’s outfit. Female. Kissing Robin. Also female. And not just kissing, Will saw tongue. What the fuck. His blood turned cold and his hands went weak; the drink slipped from his grip and splattered on the floor. Loud. Only then did the two snap out of the moment and notice Will’s presence. They froze, eyes wide, mouths open but silent. And for a moment, Will wished he hadn’t seen anything at all.
So, he did what any logical person would do. He bolted. Not even the wet mess on his pants cut the haze through his mind.
He heard Robin call out to him but kept going until he saw the light of day from outside, tears stinging at his eyes. She’s… a queer? They’re queer. He stopped at the far end of the parking lot. The rain was gone leaving puddles and a sticky feeling in the air.
He heard Robin panting behind him as she caught up, dropping her hands to her knees to catch her breath. Will turned slowly, expression empty.
“Will… I can explain.”
“You’re queer.” Will said flatly, internally wincing at his own tone. Some part of him knew he was acting weird, that Robin would get the wrong idea about him.
“I-Well. Yeah?” He noticed Robin’s hands shaking at her side and her voice, for once, taking on a quieter tone, “Please, Will, you cannot tell anyone about Vickie.” What?
“Will, they’ll… They’ll tear her apart. At school. Her ex-boyfriend, he knows the jocks and-and they’ll make a scene with her - tell the whole town and ruin her life!” The panic in her eyes twists something in Will’s gut, but he can’t find it in him to say anything yet, “I can’t let this ruin anything for her. If you tell anyone, tell them about me and me only. Tell them - you found me ogling some girls at the store or-or you found a porn under my bed or something. Anything! Just - leave Vickie out of this. I’m begging you.”
“Robin-”
“I mean, God. Do you know what it’s like? Having these-these thoughts that you can’t get rid of and you know they’re bad for you because society says so. But then she…” Robin takes a deep breath and Will notices the light returning to her eyes, “She looks at you. And the world melts away. And nothing matters except you, and her. Fuck society, fuck Reagan and his smear campaign, and fuck it if we go to hell, I don’t care. I really, really like her, Will. It's genuine, just as valid as if I liked a guy, which I don’t. I’ve never liked a guy like this. Hell, I’ve never liked a guy period.”
As Robin kept talking, she seemed more and more sure of herself - and Will let a tear run down his face. Robin paused in shock, not sure how to respond. He took in what she was saying, how brave she was. It's the first time anyone had spoken about being queer like it was a good thing. Like it could be good. And somewhere deep in his chest, a tiny sprinter of hope pressed against the ache.
“How did you know she liked you back?” Will’s voice wavered, his hands meeting in front of him to fidget wit his fingers. Robin blinked stupidly, not expecting the question.
“Oh, um. I guess it clicked a few months ago. I was, um, dropping hints that I didn’t like guys. That I liked girls. And she-Well, she said she felt the same. And we started talking about Fast Times-”
“Wait, the movie?”
“Yeah. Yeah, the movie.” Will smiled as Robin let out a nervous laugh. The tension in the moment quickly dissipated.
“I, um... I don’t think I like girls. Romantically.” Robin’s jaw went slack as realization dawned in her eyes, “I think I like someone else. A guy.”
Will’s lip quivered, and more tears slipped free. Robin stepped forward, brushing the wet streaks from his check before pulling him into a hug. The two fell into a quiet embrace, Robin’s arms rubbing his back as Will sobbed lightly into her shoulder.
“I’m so proud of you.” She muffled into his jacket, which did little to help his sobs.
A few minutes into the hug, Will’s eyes stung lightly by the soft sun setting through the scattered rainclouds. He realized distantly that his thoughts had never been so quiet.