Work Text:
November 25th, 1989
Tomorrow, Will is going to be flying out of Indiana again, but Jane tries her hardest not to think about that while he’s still around. For now, he’s home, and they’re in his bedroom, and she’s absentmindedly painting his thumbnails a dusty blue color while he reads a textbook that he brought with him to study over the autumn break.
“Purple for the others?” she offers sweetly, holding up a bottle of Cutex in the color Ultra Violet Cream. “I like this one. Max let me borrow it.”
Will shifts, closing his book with the hand that hasn’t been decorated by his twin. “Your favorite color.”
“Yeah, so when you leave tomorrow, you can look at your hands and remember me,” Jane reasons as she’s untwisting the cap. “I wanna make you look nice.”
“Am I not pretty?” Will asks cheekily, giving her his goofy half-smile.
“Not pretty,” Jane says, and it’s like a punch to the gut at first, but then she beams at him as she’s swiping the brush over his index fingernail, and he just can’t be mad at her. “Handsome. They are different but the same. Dad said so.”
Will watches her handiwork. She’s not very coordinated and sometimes she’s unintentionally messy and sloppy for someone who’s been on this planet eighteen years. But she’s happy, laid on her stomach with her feet kicking in the air. Sometimes, Will has to remember that, even if she’s been alive for eighteen years, she’s only lived for just a couple. So if his cuticles are painted purple and blue, he can absolutely live with it if means she can live a little more.
“How are they different?” he eventually asks her. Jane lifts her head, perplexed. She has the memory of a goldfish. “Handsome and pretty? How are they different but the same?”
“Because,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it’s written on her forehead. “Pretty is for girls. Handsome is for boys. Everyone knows that.”
Now it’s Will’s turn to look perplexed. “And Hop told you that?”
Jane swings her feet and moves onto his middle finger. “We read a lot. I didn’t know what handsome meant. Dad said that it’s kind of like pretty but for boys. It means the same thing, almost. It’s a compliment. That you are nice looking and cute.”
Of course Hopper would overcomplicate language for Jane. Instead of grabbing the dictionary and giving her the simple definition, he had to assign some kind of gender role to it. It’s not Jane’s fault that she believes it, either. Her brain is still adjusting to the real world outside of that lab, and sometimes it’s like teaching a kindergartener their sight words. She absorbs what’s given to her. Will refuses to blame her, but he does blame Hopper. Just a little bit.
“What else has he taught you?” Will asks, not because he’s curious, but because he’s concerned.
“Hmm…” Jane hums, clearly in thought. “I don’t know.”
Hopper has taught her a lot throughout the years, so it’s difficult to pinpoint just one thing to talk about, but then she remembers the other day when the man on TV was talking about AIDS being a punishment for gay people. It’s an unpleasant thought. She remembers crying her little eyes out in her father’s arms until she fell asleep.
“Oh,” she eventually says. Her stomach feels sick. Hopper said a good way to stop it from feeling sick is to talk about what’s making it sick. “He said that some people don’t like gay people and want to kill them for being gay.”
Will is quiet. He watches Jane as she finishes up with the rest of his hand. She’s not looking at him, too focused on her art project, but she doesn’t seem at all disturbed by what she just said. It’s like she was simply reciting facts from the random fact book that Hopper gives her to read when he’s watching football. She doesn’t try to elaborate or ask questions about it, and maybe Will should be grateful for that, but he can’t help but to worry.
“How do you know that?” Will tentatively asks her. He almost doesn’t want to know the answer to that, but now he’s stressed, wondering why Hopper would even bring it up.
“Because Dad told me,” she says.
“But…why did he say that?” he asks, now becoming desperate. “Remember what context is? I need some of that.”
“I was watching the news. Dad doesn’t like the news,” she mutters, fanning Will’s hand so the paint will dry. “There was a man—Dad said he’s called a priest, I think—talking about AIDS and homosexuals. Dad said we do not call them homosexuals. We call them gay. Just gay, if it’s a boy who likes boys. Or lesbian, if it’s a girl who likes girls.”
Will relaxes, feeling marginally better. Still, the fear lingers. He hardly ever discusses his sexuality or the fact that he’ll never be society’s perfect picture of a man. It’s just not very important. His mom loves him, and so do his siblings. He’s sure that Hopper does, too, but this whole gay thing might’ve thrown him for a loop. If it did, Hopper doesn’t say anything about it or make him feel like an outsider for it. Maybe that in itself is a form of love.
“Yeah. Just gay is fine,” Will agrees. At least Hopper got something right. “And lesbian. Like Robin.”
“The priest said that AIDS is God’s punishment to those who do not repent for being gay,” Jane says. “Hopper taught me what homophobic means. He said that those people want to kill gay people for being gay. Like I do with pill bugs because they’re scary and gross. That’s how homophobic people feel about gay people.”
Will pauses. “And then?”
Jane sighs, motioning at him to give her his other hand. He closes his textbook and offers it to her. She promptly gets to to work, still kicking her feet.
“I started to cry,” she admits innocently. “Because I don’t want anyone to kill you. You’re my brother, Will. Some people think we’re twins. And I don’t want God to give you AIDS for being gay.”
Shifting uncomfortably, Will clears his throat. “Um, did Hopper tell you that was possible? That AIDS can just be given to someone by God?”
“No,” Jane easily says. “The priest said that.”
“Well, it’s not true, Jane,” Will assures, maybe a little too roughly, because Jane stops what she’s doing and looks up with those big brown eyes of hers. “AIDS and HIV are viruses. You can get it from blood transfusions or…or sex, usually. But anyone can get it. Not just gay people. A man can give it to a woman if he has it and they don’t have protected sex. And, a woman with HIV who is pregnant can give it to her baby, or the baby can catch it when it drinks the mom’s milk. You can be born with HIV, Jane. God cannot just give it to you. God can’t give you anything. It’s just…it happens sometimes when people aren’t careful. It’s a human virus.”
“Oh.” She purses her lips and returns to painting his nails. “Will?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have AIDS, right?” Jane asks, fearful. She lowers her head, trying to blink back the tears. “I don’t want you to die. I saw on TV, people are dying from it. I’m scared you’ll die.”
“No, I don’t,” he reassures her by brushing her hair back with his dry hand. “I’m careful, Jane. I can’t say that I’ve…not had had sex yet. I have. Twice. And I was protected, and he was protected. And if I ever start to feel sick, I promise I will get tested. I promise I will tell you.”
Moving onto the neglected pinkie nail, Jane nods and dips the brush back into the bottle. She trusts her brother to tell her the truth. God can’t give people AIDS, and it’s not a punishment for boys liking boys. Will doesn’t have AIDS, and if he ever does have AIDS, Jane would still love him. She would cry her eyes out, but she would still love him.
“Will?” she asks as she’s fanning his hand. “Are you ever scared that someone will kill you for liking boys?”
He holds his breath. Some days, yes, some days, no. It just depends on the day and where he is in the moment. At school? Mildly concerned about it. At the gay bars that he’s really too young to enter but is allowed into with a fake ID made by his roommate? Not at all concerned about it.
“It’s complicated,” he eventually decides to tell her. “When I meet new people, I have to read them. Some people really do believe that being gay is wrong, that God punishes us with HIV and AIDS. But I don’t tell everyone that I like boys. Only some. People that I trust. I can’t tell everyone, because then I’m taking a risk. Only my friends and people I know won’t hurt me.”
“Do you kiss boys in public? And hold hands?” Jane asks. “On TV, I heard a man say that gay people—he didn’t say gay people, he said the bad ‘F’ word that Hopper said I can’t say—shouldn’t hold hands and kiss in public because no one should see that, especially kids.”
Jesus, what is this girl watching when Will isn’t home and Hopper isn’t monitoring her media intake?
“It depends,” Will says, earnestly smiling at her when she swings her feet and stares at him with shimmering interest. She’s too pure for this world. “A boy that I dated—well, maybe not dated, but we…never mind. A boy that I was with, we went out together. We held hands on the walk back to campus. But it was already dark and no one was around. But if it were in the daytime, I don’t think I would have been comfortable. People are scary, Jane.”
“So only if no one is around?” Jane asks. “Like a secret?”
“Kind of,” he says with a shrug. “I just have situational awareness. If I ever feel unsafe, I try to be quiet and lay low. But other times, when I know I’m safe, I can hold hands and kiss and be myself.”
“Situational…awareness,” Jane repeats. She thinks very hard, putting the words together in her head. “So you decide if it is safe or not and then decide what you will do if it is safe or not. Like sometimes when I hear good screams coming from Mom and Dad’s room, I know I can’t knock or sleep in their bed. Not safe. But if it’s quiet and the door is open, I can go inside. Safe.”
“Yeah,” he says, cracking a smile. “Just like that.”
“It’s not quiet a lot,” Jane proceeds to tell him, looking haunted. “I hear it on Wednesdays and Sundays. I can’t sleep in their bed on those days. One time I walked in after the screams stopped. I just wanted to sleep in their bed because I was thinking about the lab. Dad didn’t have a shirt. He put one on and carried me back to my bed and said he would stay with me because he needed to change the sheets.”
Will closes his eyes. “Okay, that’s enough information—“
“Mom wasn’t wearing pants or underwear,” Jane continues, wincing. “I think they were having sex. Now they keep the door locked when they’re making happy screams.”
“Anyway,” Will emphasizes, holding up his hand and reviewing Jane’s work. “I like the purple. It reminds me of you.”
“So you’ll think about me when you’re far away,” she says, sitting up on her knees. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“I’m gonna miss you, too,” he says as she’s wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll call you every Saturday and we can talk about the week, like always. Right?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, resting her head on his chest so she can listen to his heart beating a steady rhythm. “I love you. You’re pretty, Will.”
He holds her close, arms tight around her like she’ll disintegrate in his hands. “I love you more. You’re even prettier.”
He doesn’t tell her that he might have to scrub the nail polish off before he gets to the airport. It’s not important, and he would never hurt her that way.
—
In the morning, Will wakes up before his mother and siblings. He sidles into the kitchen, needing some coffee before the trip back home, and is greeted by his stepfather sipping away at a mug with a newspaper in his hand. On the cover is something about AIDS. He inwardly winces.
“Good morning,” he awkwardly tells Hopper, who immediately puts his coffee down.
“You’re up early,” Hopper says, folding the newspaper with the AIDS propaganda face-down. “You don’t leave here for another four hours.”
“I know,” he replies as he moves to the counter and pours himself a mug. He’s not been much of a coffee person lately, but it’ll do. “Jane kicks in her sleep.”
“She does,” Hopper confirms with a chuckle. “I feel bad for your mom, having to feel that kind of thing when she was pregnant but couldn’t do anything about it. And now I feel even more bad, because Jane always likes to sleep curled up and facing her so her knees are always kicking Joyce in the ribs.”
“She’s still sleeping in your bed?” Will asks. It’s a dumb question, but he doesn’t know what else to say.
“Once or twice a week,” Hopper says as he pushes out a chair with his foot, inviting Will to sit with him. Will does, pouring a little sugar into his mug. “One week she didn’t at all. She stayed in her bed. We thought, maybe she’s able to self-soothe now, it’s over. But the very next day, she came in and immediately climbed into bed between us, crying about the lab and what happened to Max. And it was over from there. I can’t say no to her.”
“It’s the eyes,” Hopper chuckles. He nods to the bright purple glimmer on Will’s nails. “I’m assuming that’s how that happened.”
Will stops breathing for a second, trying to gauge Hopper’s reaction. His stepdad is smiling, not seemingly upset at his stepson for wearing nail polish like a girl. Hopper isn’t like Lonnie was. He doesn’t call Will a fag. And Will knows that his mom wouldn’t have married Hopper if she thought that he might call her son those kinds of names.
“Yeah,” he says. “I hate saying no to her. She stares at me like a dog staring at a pork chop.”
“It’s almost offensive how good she is at that,” Hopper says. “She can easily run circles around this entire household with those eyes. I caught her wearing my good shirt after I’d worn it, while she was eating spaghetti, and when I told her to change it, she just looked at me.”
“She kept the shirt on?” Will surmises.
“Yeah. She said she likes wearing my shirts after I wear them because they’re marinated.”
“You taught her that word,” Will reminds.
“I didn’t think she would use it in that context.” Hopper offers Will another Sweet N Low packet. “She’s interesting.”
“She is.”
For the rest of the morning, Hopper never mentions the nail polish again. If he has any negative thoughts about it, he keeps them to himself, and that’s all Will can ask for.
Just for that, Hopper is not like Lonnie.