Chapter Text
Will was trying his hardest not to fall asleep in Calculus, he had stayed up all night drawing (again) and was now facing its consequences in his 4th period class. Mr. Park barely taught anything and just passed out worksheets for the class to finish. Will stared out the window watching the orange leaves fall from trees and was daydreaming about Chance, the cute guy on the basketball team. As if on cue, he felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled out his phone to see a text from Chance.
“meet me in the third floor bathroom”
The corners of Will’s mouth pulled upwards, he and Chance had hit it off at a party earlier in the year and had been sneaking around with one another since the start of October. Chance didn’t want people knowing he was gay (or bisexual? He and Will had never discussed this fully) so they always had to meet in private. Will didn’t mind this too much, people knew he was gay but seeing people do couple-y PDA stuff in public always gave him a weird feeling in his stomach. Will looked up at Mr. Park, who was sitting at his desk reading ‘The Sun Also Rises’ by Ernest Hemingway, and walked up to him.
“Mr. Park, may I use the bathroom?”
“Yeah whatever,” Mr. Park responded in his monotone voice, not taking his eyes off his book.
Will practically ran out of that room and up the stairs to the third floor, where he opened the bathroom to find... nobody? Will looked around then suddenly felt two cold hands close around his throat. He let out a yelp and turned only to find Chance laughing at him, he had been hiding behind the door waiting to scare Will.
“Oh my god I hate you,” Will said sarcastically, slightly pushing the other boy away.
“Yeah yeah whatever,” Chance retorted, grabbing Will's hips and pulling him closer, Chance leaned in and kissed him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” he whined.
“You saw me before the long weekend, it's been like 3 days,” Will giggled as Chance peppered him with more kisses all over, “you could’ve just come over.”
“Don’t even start, you know I wanted to but Coach has been crazy about pre-season practice,” Chance complained. Will knew this fact all too well, Will’s close friend Lucas was also on the basketball team and had echoed these same sentiments.
“Yea I know I’m just teasing you,” Will pulled Chance in for another kiss which seemed to last an eternity, until Chance pulled away from him.
“I have to go back to class now, Ms. Greene is going to get suspicious if I’ve been gone for too long, but if you can make it, we have a scrimmage on Thursday. I can text you the details,” Chance said with a smile on his face.
“Yeah for sure, I should be free,” Will responded as Chance made for the door to head back to class. Will started to walk out with him until Chance stopped him.
“Will hang back for a second, you don’t know who’s around,” He said suddenly with a serious look on his face.
“Oh... yeah of course, of course,” Will responded, taking a step backwards. He waited a few seconds after Chance left to return back to his own class. He walked back into the hellscape that was Calculus and sat back down doodling on his worksheet.
***
At long last, after a much needed nap in the library during his free period, a test in his AP Literature class, and an interesting lecture in his art history class, it was time to go home. Will was on his phone walking to the parking lot when he accidentally bumped into someone.
“Oh I’m so sor-,” he started until he realized he was looking at Chance. “Oh hey! You never texted me the details for the scrimmage” Will asked. Chance opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by an all too familiar voice.
“You ready Chance? I heard Coach is extending practice to 6,” Andy came seemingly out of nowhere, putting his arm around Chance, Andy's gaze landed on Will standing in front of them like an idiot. “What are you looking at, Byers? Don’t tell me you’re checking out Chance,” he burst out laughing at his own joke. “He isn’t some queer like you.”
Will’s face turned bright red with embarrassment, he looked at Chance only to see him nervously looking at the floor. Will opened and closed his mouth, no sound coming out. Fully embarrassed at this point, Will turned and walked as fast as he possibly could away from them, taking the long route to the parking lot. Will tried to hold back the tears as he got in his car but once they started flowing, there was no end to them. Will closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“It’s fine, I’m okay,” he repeated, not sure who he was trying to convince. Suddenly he heard a sharp knocking, he jolted up and turned to see Mike staring at him through the passenger side window with a look of concern on his face. Will quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve as he rolled the window down.
“Oh, hey Mike, what's up?” Will said as steadily as he could.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Mike asked hesitantly.
“Yeah I’m good, i just ran into Andy and-”
“Did he say something to you?” Mike scowled “I swear to god-”
“No, no it’s nothing I just-, it's nothing don’t worry about it,” Will responded back, regretting even saying anything in the first place.
“Will, you have to stop letting those mouth-breathers walk all over you,” Mike responded. Will knew it came from a place of concern but it still felt condescending, especially coming from Mike’s mouth. Mike seemed to understand this and tried to course correct, “Hey, screw Andy and them anyways, he and Stacey probably broke up again and he’s just taking that frustration out on you.”
Will smiled, Mike always knew how to make him feel better.
“Well, anyways,” Mike started back up, “I’m headed to Starbucks to try to get some work done, if you’d want to join me?”
“Yeah sure, I don’t have anything to do right now anyways”
“Cool, uh if you want we can just go in my car, I can drop you back here when we’re finished.” and just like that Will was getting in the passenger seat of Mike’s car. Will kept stealing glances at Mike on the drive there, he had always been handsome but now that he had cut his hair shorter he was more attractive than ever. Truth is, the main reason Will had gone after Chance is because he didn’t want to be so hung up on Mike, he had hoped that him and Chance being together would help alleviate all the complicated feelings towards Mike. Looking at him now, however, he’s not so sure those feelings are gone.
“I can feel you staring at me, you know,” Mike said.
Will could feel his face burning up, “Oh I was just-” he stammered “We’re practicing drawing portraits in art so I was just, you know, looking at you as a reference...” I mean, he wasn’t fully lying, they really WERE working on portraits in his art class, but that’s not why he was staring so intently at Mike.
“Well if you make one of me I’d love to see it” Mike responded back, finally taking his eyes off the road to meet Will’s eyes for a moment. It was just for a second but Will could feel the butterflies in his stomach.
“Yea, for sure...” Will said quietly, turning to look out the window. They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, with the only sound being Mike humming along to his music.