Chapter Text
"You're so afraid of that heart inside your chest" - Olivia Dean & Sam Fender (Rein Me In)
Saturday, August 27th, 1988
Opening the doors to the Roller Rink felt like opening the doors to a different world. The dark atmosphere, incomplete without its flashing rainbow lights, was so vastly different than the bright outside of California at 1:30 pm. If Will was being honest with himself, he loved spaces like this. It reminded him of going to the arcade with his sister when they were younger. He and Jane went to the arcade nearly every weekend. Indiana did not supply either of them with many friends, so they always relied on each other.
Will would never tell anyone this, but he always longed for friends growing up. A few people came and went as the years went on, but no one stayed. He loved Jane with every bit of his heart, of course, but he grieved the experiences friendship could’ve given him. No one ever seemed to think he or Jane was worth that effort. Even Jonothan got bullied a lot in school.
Maybe it was the Byers’ curse.
He would simply have to live with that.
“Okay,” Jane started, walking determinedly into the building, her brown hair bouncing with her steps. “Mom said we can only stay here for an hour.” Will strained to hear her over the blasting music. The DJ did not look like he was doing much; his head was tilted back like he was asleep. He was probably just playing a top ten hits radio station.
“Do you—” Will squinted, straining his neck to see, “see the counter anywhere?” Jane was already pulling the same strained face as he was in an attempt to see better in the wildly chaotic space. Only ten feet behind them stood the very counter they were looking for. A large neon sign that read “Skates & Blades” hung from the ceiling above it. It only took Will and Jane a few more seconds of looking around like idiots before they noticed what was right behind them.
They glanced at each other, a playful embarrassment clear on both of their faces. Jane took the lead, walking to the counter. A teenage girl, likely around their age, with ginger hair and an idle look on her face, manned the counter. She looked up from the counter as they walked over, the boredom never leaving her face.
“Hello, what can I help you with?” she asked. Any trace of what may once have been a customer service voice was long gone by this point.
“Hello!” Jane said, far more brightly in comparison. “Just two pairs of skates.” Will’s focus was dragged away by a loud group of friends sitting at a table nearby. Their voices managed to carry, even over the booming music. A pang of jealousy hit Will. He felt, if only for a moment, that he was looking at a life he could have led, something he could have had if he hadn’t grown up in small-town Indiana. Or, maybe if he wasn’t just so different.
“Mike!” The red-headed girl yelled over her shoulder, pulling Will’s attention back to the counter in front of him. He noticed now a brightly colored name tag reading “Max” was pinned to her—just as brightly colored—uniform polo shirt. She stood still for a few moments before rolling her eyes and poking her head into a backroom that, from what Will could see, housed all their rental roller skates and blades. Their voices, quieter now, still carried to where Will and Jane were standing.
“Mike, seriously.” The girl, Max, said. Her voice was still in earshot.
“I know, I know, I know,” could be heard as a person Will could not really see made his way around the backroom. Max made her way back to the counter, her expression now something more akin to amusement.
“I’m sorry,” she says smugly, “my coworker he’s—”
“Right here!” said a boy emerging from the back room, presumably Mike, if Max’s words and his name tag are anything to go by. “With your skates,” he says as he drops them onto the counter. Will noticed his hair first. It was dark and cropped in a way that contrasted the rest of his face perfectly. Will found his own heart betraying him in the way it picked up speed in front of Mike. He tried to look anywhere but the other boy’s face; instead, he made the grave mistake of making eye contact. He was transfixed. Simply unable to look away. But Mike didn’t look away either. In fact, in the low light of the rink, he seemed—Will hoped—just as captivated as he was.
It was mortifying, and so terribly cliché.
He was so lost that he didn't even realize everyone’s attention was on him until Jane lightly nudged him with her elbow. He fumbled his wallet, grabbed the skates, and put the money on the counter.
“Thank you!” Jane said brightly, and Will was grateful she was there because he did not trust his voice. He nodded his head and turned on his heel, Jane following closely behind, a knowing look on her face. She was always able to read him so well. She caught up momentarily, nudging his shoulder with hers. She leaned in to whisper in his ear, finally out of earshot from the counter.
“You thought he was cute,” she teased. Will’s face lit up, cheeks feeling hot.
“What! I—” he stuttered, looking away from her as she giggled to herself. “I absolutely did not,” he said, but not even he could be convinced by his words with the defeated way he spoke them.
Will had come out to Jane two years earlier, the summer before their Sophomore year of high school. He remembers being so afraid of her hating him. They could not live without each other, and just the mere thought of ruining their relationship made him feel sick. He hadn’t planned to say anything that summer; quite frankly, he had never planned on telling anyone.
He had come home that day with tears in his eyes, immediately retreating to his room. He'd had a crush on a guy in one of his classes for a while, Carlton. It didn't go as well as he'd foolishly hoped. Jane gave him his space; she didn’t want to pry, and she knew he'd come to her when he was ready.
He didn't come down for dinner, or when Joyce called him to watch a movie with the rest of them. Jane knew something was really wrong then. When she gently opened his door, she could hear him sniffling into his pillow. She just sat next to him, placing a gentle and grounding hand on his shoulder. “Is this about a girl?” she asked, and the question only made Will’s tears fall harder, the shame of his secret weighing him down, as if someone set a heavy weight on his chest. He said nothing, opting to stay silent, save for his crying.
But when Jane failed to continue saying anything, Will let out a pathetic, muffled “no” into his pillow. He waited for her to get up and leave, frustrated by his closedoffness, or tell him just to come out to watch the movie with the rest of them.
She didn't leave, though. Of course she didn’t. This was his twin sister. Instead, she slowly moved her hand that was on his shoulder in a comforting motion. When she spoke again, she said the words that, for the first time, made him feel seen in a way he never had before.
“Is this about a boy?”
She'd said it so softly, yet it seemed to echo around his room. He felt his heart skip a beat, fear and hope both mixing nauseatingly in his chest. He looked up at her tentatively, nodding his head. It was simultaneously the most terrifying yet relieving thing he had ever done. Jane just pulled him into a hug. Woven into her actions was a quiet acceptance and unconditional love that Will felt to his soul.
It was Jane's easy acceptance of him that gave him the courage to tell his parents finally, and Jonathan only a few months later.
“Not like it matters,” Will said, sitting down to put on his skates. He looks around them to make sure no one can hear them before he speaks again. “He’s definitely not gay”.
“Who cares, you are allowed to find boys cute, Will,” Jane said, always seemingly the voice of reason. It made Will wonder for a moment, as he often does, what it would be like if this were something he didn’t have to hide. If he could just be without the fear of ridicule.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, but it was half-hearted. He avoided looking up, just focusing on lacing up his skates. He focused on the way the worn laces of the rental skates lit up under the blacklight.
“Hey!” Jane said, nudging his shoulder. “I’m serious. Don’t let yourself fall down that spiral again”. She could always tell how he was feeling, and most times, Will could not tell if it was a blessing or a curse.
He is starting to believe it was a blessing.
“Yeah,” Will smiled, mentally shaking off that old, painful trail of thoughts. And, to his luck, he found he did not have to force them away; they just seemed to roll off his shoulders, getting lost somewhere under the old wooden floors. “Yeah, you’re right.”
The rink felt unsteady under Will’s feet. He has not touched roller skates in years, so he was severely out of practice, and it was showing in the way he stumbled on the rink. Jane was not much better than him, looking as if she was one wrong move away from wiping out. Eventually, they fell into an easy rhythm, skating slowly next to each other. They were too focused at the beginning to say much of anything to each other, but when Will felt he had gained confidence on the skates, he spoke up.
“He was cute,” Will whispered, leaning over into Jane's space. A lightly flushed smile adorned his face, but if you asked him, he'd swear it was from skating.
Jane let out a little squeal, smiling. “I knew it!” she exclaimed.