Chapter Text
I think I’m gay.
A blot of ink soaks into the paper, smearing the words angrily. The hold Will has on the pen in hand is explosive, shaky.
Never before had he said those words, not even in his head.
The pen slips from his sweaty palm and clatters to the page, rolling across the one sentence there.
Perhaps this isn’t what Dr. Owens meant by keeping a journal. He had only said to write down things that haunted him, scared him. Real things: like the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer, and tentacles that invade his dreams. Catalogue parts of himself that he didn’t want to say aloud in fear of them being used against him. This -
This wasn’t what Will meant to write.
He stares down at the four words like they’re going to unscramble in front of his very eyes, reveal they were just an anagram for something else, and he never actually wrote them. Those are very incriminating words. Those four little words.
But they don’t change. And no matter how many times Will scrubs at his dry eyes, they do not rearrange as he had hoped.
The pen finds its way back into his hand, as if it had simply flown back into its preferred space, still sweaty. Will considers crossing it all out. Hovers just millimeters over the ink, trembling. But it’s like putting a bandaid on a knife wound. Sure, he can hide it, but it does nothing to actually fix him. It does nothing to disprove that Will had written it down in the first place.
No, surely this isn’t what Dr. Owens intended when he handed him the black composition and a pen.
There are just seven words total. The date harmlessly floating at the top, then the four words burning along the first line of the paper. If he squints hard enough, he thinks maybe he can see actual steam billowing off of them, as if he had ingrained the very heat of Hell itself into them.
Yet, Will can’t bring himself to scribble it out.
I think I’m gay.
Why? Why does he think he’s gay?
He thinks he probably knows, has probably known for a long time. But the question haunts him, circles his head in nauseating loops. He can’t just leave it at that, can he? Just those four words. He - he should explain himself, maybe.
His first thought is the middle of fourth year gym class. Josh Buchanan. Some rich kid with an attitude and too much hair gel. Will had never been noticed by him before this moment. Had always ghosted along, invisible and unseen, through his classes. Had spent more time in the gym doodling with a box of crayons and a sheet of paper in the corner (the teachers never tried to encourage him to join in). But this time, the school had board members touring the facilities, so of course, Will had to participate this time. To show those funding the building and teacher paychecks that their school had some kind of worth - like it actually wanted its kids to succeed.
They played dodgeball that day.
Will gets placed in Josh Buchanan’s red jersey team, and he had felt piercing eyes on him. Will, stunned, had turned to meet those eyes, only to find something cruel staring back at him.
They huddle without him, exclude him, but Will doesn’t much care. He didn’t even want to play. Eyes ping pong around the group, darting to Will then leaping away again, and only then does Will realize they’re talking about him.
“He looks like a girl.”
Sixth grade biology when they had to swap classrooms for sex-ed. How he was shoved back by Ricky, a classmate, from following the rest of the boys. “He’s going to get off on it. Should just stay with the girls, anyway, since he likes to take it.” It’s the first time anyone had ever explicitly accused him of liking other boys. The words fag and queer had occasionally been thrown his way, but always felt more like they were making fun of him for being weird. This was - different. This was new. It felt visceral.
Had he ever given any indication of liking boys? Apparently people thought so.
Sophomore year, in Lenora, when Ashley Duncan had shifted in her seat during history presentations. They had to present a historical hero to the rest of the class. Before El had gotten to present her diorama of Hopper, Ashley had slipped a leg into the aisle between them. Will notes the movement in his periphery the way one does when a fly lands on the wall. Slowly, it had slid closer. Between presentations. Crossed the barriers of his desk and tapped his shoe. Will remembers looking down at the transgression in confusion. How his eyes had snapped up to meet hers. She was chewing bubble gum, snapping it between her teeth obnoxiously, and her hair had been tied up in a scrunchie the way girls do when they want their hair to look bigger. Her foot worms up the cuff of the leg of his pants, knocking into his leg. Panic had slid down his throat, hot and slimy, at the smile she presented him. And without a thought, he had kicked her shoe aside and straightened in his chair, pulling his leg to the other side of his desk - well out of her reach. Her eye roll was loud, her scoff turning a few heads down the row, and Will’s neck had erupted into flames.
Boys yearned for this sort of attention from girls. Will knows because he had to listen to Lucas and Dustin analyze every single interaction they ever had with Max, up until Lucas asked her to dance at the Snowball. They thought it was hot when a girl met their eyes, or when they brushed hands, or when a girl chewed gum. Girls flirted, and guys liked it. So he didn’t understand why he seemed to have the opposite reaction. It was not a welcome reception he was feeling, when she touched him. It was nausea and violation, the way one would react as if your wine-drunk aunt touched you after five glasses.
The words come out like vomit. A dam finally cracked underneath a single blow.
Every memory. Every fantasy. Every mean word spoken to him. It all gets written down.
Then, finally, the one reason he had been shoving deep, deep inside of himself. The one he has tried and tried again not to think about but inevitably does anyway.
Mike.
Will recoils from the page, breathing heavily. His pen is burning in his grasp, hot from his own temperature or from writing. The ink is darkened over his name. Engraved into the page like it held more fervor than the other words.
There is no logical lead up to it. No other thoughts around it. Just. Mike.
But Will’s head is spinning, and suddenly, he’s remembering more than just these little moments from childhood. He’s leaping. Bounding. Reflecting on all of it like it’s playing through his head inside an 8mm film reel.
Mike, he writes again, steadier this time.
I don’t like to write about Mike.
I think I get afraid of what I’m going to write if I do. Last time his name slipped onto the page, I had yelled at him through my words, called him foolish and headstrong. It was easier, maybe, to yell at him than to say something else. To admit that I was worried about him.
Besides, this journal is about me. I shouldn’t even be mentioning anyone else in these entries - they don’t even have anything to do with my therapy. But I can’t talk about myself without talking about Mike. This time, I need to talk about Mike.
Last night, I had a dream about Mike.
It isn’t the kind of dream you should be having about a friend. A close friend. It was the kind of dream that would never happen outside of a fantasy. It’s not the first time I’ve had one of these dreams - but it was the most memorable. I think about it now, and my mouth goes dry, and my heart races guiltily in my chest.
I’m sure you get these thoughts, too. But not about me. I understand that.
El is so pretty - I bet you think about her all the time. In dreams, in the daylight, in bed. I still remember the summer you two wouldn’t stop hanging out. When Hopper had to separate you because you were making out too much.
I had a lot of weird thoughts that summer.
Will isn’t quite sure when this turned from an introspection into a letter to Mike, but it feels right, and crossing it out feels like taking several steps backwards.
Jon says it’s normal to feel these kind of things. I didn’t tell him about you - god, he probably thinks I’m smitten with some girl. (Yuck.) But he smirked, messed up my hair, and said it’s a part of growing up. Like growing pains or something. He said it’s healthy to analyze these feelings rather than bury them. He’s starting to sound more like Dr. Owens.
I don’t think he meant…I know it’s different. But I think he’s right. I think it does help.
I think I’m closer to - well, maybe not accepting - but understanding what this all means. Who I am.
I’m new to this whole masturbating thing. Turns out getting kidnapped and tortured when you’re 12, then again when you’re 13, has that effect on your libido. I must have missed those formative years, because I didn’t start thinking about it until that August night in your bed.
(Fucking virgin, I know.)
It was hot - the hottest day of the year, I remember (even inside the house), because your dad tried to install insulation in the walls with some guy he met at the hardware store that same night, and we had to play D&D in your room to avoid inhaling asbestos. We all couldn’t stop complaining about the heat, even with the window open and a fan on your windowsill. Your forehead was so sweaty and you had pit stains under your Hellfire shirt. (I hated that you joined a club without me, btw, but I couldn’t figure out how to be that mad at you when you looked so good in that stupid, stupid shirt. Maybe I wish I could have been here, too. Maybe I would have wanted to join.) When we laid everything out on your bed, our elbows kept bumping and you were so engaged, passionate, and all I could smell was you. Your sweat and the fading notes of cologne that you probably started wearing when I left for California, because I didn’t recognize it.
It was different. A good different.
I had never understood, before, what people meant by desire. Until that very moment. When I was watching you, I felt my pupils get so big. There was this tug in my abdomen. I don’t think it was entirely lust, now that I’m reflecting back on it, but it was new and exciting and confusing.
My eyes traced your hands for the rest of the night. Felt sparks whenever they brushed against my outer thigh.
I wanted you to do something, then, though I could never quite imagine what.
I know what I would have wanted you to do then, now. But it was harder, back then. I had no experience. I barely even knew what I was feeling.
My mom freaked out when I first came to her for advice. (I bet you would laugh, if you read this, because you know exactly what she would say.) Jonathan tried to explain some of it to me, but he choked too, eventually. I think they still see me as that traumatized kid. That I’m too innocent, or something.
But I’m not. I’m definitely not innocent. Because then I wouldn’t be thinking about you the way that I do.
I passed by some people on the streets, outside of the church on Keerly, and they were talking about it. Well. About how it would be with two men. They said men like me preyed on other men. I hope that’s not what I’m doing, I hope you would never feel that way and I never made you feel that way, but sometimes I do feel guilty. Nauseous.
Sometimes when I touch myself, I try to think about Stacy - that girl from the Snowball Dance. The one who asked me to dance and the one you encouraged me to dance with. But it doesn’t feel good. It never does when I think about a girl.
(You’re never going to read this, but I need to know. How do you touch her? How does she touch you? How does sex work? Maybe if I understood it better I wouldn’t be as confused. Maybe I would learn I actually do like girls - that I’ve just been misled.)
Part of me doesn’t think that’s true, though.
It only feels good when I picture a boy. It feels best when I picture you.
I know it’s wrong. I know that there’s something wrong with me. That normal people don’t feel this way. Picture the things that I do. But I’m a teenager, and it’s hard to not think about. My physician who works with Dr. Owens says there’s nothing physically wrong with me. When I told him about these things - excluding you or your gender, of course (I wasn’t ready to admit that) - he had laughed and promised me that it was normal. That my body was working exactly as it should, and I shouldn’t try to stunt its development. The urgency, the frequency - it’ll resolve in a couple of years, he said.
The thing is: I know that I should be more afraid of it. I know that if you knew, you wouldn’t take kindly to it, and I know that it was wrong to hide it from you.
But it took nothing, to think of you. All it took was a thought of your lips, or your hair, or your fingers. My hand would trace my stomach and slip under my waistband to find myself already turned on. Some nights were so bad that I could cum without touching myself, or in the midst of a dream. It was so disgusting. It was so perfect.
I hate you, sometimes, for making me feel this way. The way other people can’t. It’s crazy to me that I can feel this way and know that it’s only ever going to be one-sided. The kind of frenzy that can’t be contained within a single body.
If there was anyone else in this goddamn town that wouldn’t beat me to death for making a move on them, maybe I could have done that. Maybe it would have made everything a little easier, more manageable. On TV, they always say that it’s easier to get over someone if you have someone to distract you. But I didn’t want girls. And I never let myself conceive of the possibility of doing it with another boy. So, I contained it.
Not very well, I’m afraid. Now that I’m writing this entry.
Now, I realize I didn’t contain it at all. Only stopped feeding it when I felt too disgusting to give in.
You’ll hate me once you find out.
I always entertained that possibility. Stopped listening to it.
But this is my notebook, and I need to stop being scared. Words do not bleed, and neither do I. This is the first entry that is finally, fully, honest. Even if it’s only on paper, I am finally brave.
(It’s a start, right?)
Dr. Owens always said so.
- Will
“Will!”
The voice makes him jump, his heart thumping, as he stares down at the words. This is - this is too much. He grabs all the paper off of his desk, rips out the page in his journal (he’ll shred it in the library, leave no evidence behind), and hastily stuffs them into his bag. “Yeah?” he calls back.
“You’re going to be late!” Jonathan nags through the basement door.
Will’s eyes slide to the clock above his desk. “Oh shit!”
He sprints to the bathroom, smears toothpaste over his teeth, and slips on a pair of tattered sneakers. It’s only as he’s crossing the threshold into the Wheeler’s kitchen that he notices his shirt is half-tucked into his jeans. He mutters a good morning to the other occupants of the house, in their own state of pre-day frenzy, and throws some sliced bread into the toaster. While he waits, he fixes his shirt and slices the butter into even globs.
Jonathan squints at him from across the island. “Did you sleep?”
Will blushes, knowing very well that he hadn’t. Had spent a majority of the night doing something worse in the haze of a dream he didn’t want to be having. “Yeah, 'course.”
If Jonathan believes him, he doesn’t say so. He wouldn’t be able to prove anything, anyway. He spends 95% of his nights in Nancy’s room doing god knows what. There are complementary dark circles under his own eyes, suggesting to the wise.
The toaster dings.
Mike reaches behind him to grab one of his slices of toast.
“Hey!”
“Snooze you lose, Byers.” Mike snarks obnoxiously beside his head, already a bite deep.
Will butters his remaining toast with a grumble, cursing this town for forcing him into co-habitation with the Wheelers of all people. And Vecna. He can’t not thank the interdimensional, former Hawkins native, magical, undead lich for sundering the town into four equal parts and tearing apart what was left of the Byers’ house.
Mike groans, wiping the crumbs from his mouth and stretching his arms so high above his head that his waist tightens.
The toast enters his mouth, now only an afterthought. Will stares at his shoulders, mindlessly chewing, and watches him shift his sleep-crushed curls, slap the sleep from his expression (right across the wine-colored birthmark that stretches from his eyebrow down to the curve of his lip) at the ledge of the garage. Will breathes in once, twice.
Right.
He’s okay.
“We’re going to miss it!” Holly barks at Mike, tearing out of the house in a bright topaz jumpsuit, heart-shaped earrings swinging. “Put it on, put it on!”
“Alright, Holly,” Mike snaps back, yanking his dark blue bike from its rack beside the house.
Will grabs the red one beside his.
With a push of their legs, they talk off down the driveway. Mike jams his thumb into the radio clipped to the front of his bike, and the morning air sings with Rockin’ Robin’s scratchy voice.