Chapter Text
Will hated spring.
He’s always been fond of Fall the most, even after being kidnapped and transported to an alternate dimension of his own creation, Fall had meant floating leaves, the scent of pumpkins and apple cider. Fall meant Halloween, a time for candy, fun, and huddling in Mike’s basement while watching horror movies with his best friends. There were so many fond memories associated during the colder season-intimate and close-that he just naturally grew to love it. Fall was the season he made his first friend….then his second and his third. It’s the season he met his not-twin sister(but twin if anyone else in Hawkins asks), and also the season he gained a new father…one that didn’t beat the shit out of him.
Fall may have been the season he died in….but it was the season he experienced most out of life. There were too many good memories to outweigh the bad. His friends and family loved him, and made sure to try their best to save him from his own self, so how could he ever hate Fall?
Summer and Winter came as a close second in his heart. Cozied up in Mike’s basement with hot chocolate, and opening presents with plates of food stacked on the table. Or basking in the heat of the sun, dipping in cooled water that clung to their skins, laughing and just having fun.
He had so much love for three out of the four seasons and was just normally a ‘go with the flow’ sort of person that…no one would know how much Will fucking hates spring.
It isn’t because April was the month that Lonnie, close to ten years ago, had sent Will to the hospital for the first and last time. It wasn’t because in May of two thousand and six that Troy moved to Hawkins and started tormenting Will and his best friends, leading to years and years of bullying until they were all finally big enough to defend themselves against him. It wasn’t because-due to the messing of time and space-that, for some reason, everyone forgot Will’s fourteenth birthday which was March twenty second. Or because Spring three years ago had been the last time he sat in Mr.Clarke’s classroom.
No.
It was because Spring was the season of love.
February-a strange mix of Winter and Spring- brought upon red flowers and heart shaped boxes with chocolates stuffed inside. The holiday meant that rich reds and bright whites decorated the town, kickstarting the season of life with love. The birds chirped and romance hung in the air, and everywhere around him he’d see couples kissing, holding hands or asking each other to be their valentines. Some relationships ended, but more began.
Will would sit and stare from afar at interlocking hands and sweet words whispering between couples, his heart aching inside his chest. Will yearned for that sort of thing, he wanted it more than anything. To feel the affectionate touch of another? Will had floated through life knowing how different he was from other people, he knew he could never give a girl the type of love she wanted, because Will wanted that type of love for himself.
He wanted someone to hold his hands and kiss his fingers. He wanted someone to wake up with in the mornings, or someone to sneak off into the night to see….alone and no one to witness the things they’d get up to. Will so badly wanted the affection that Lucas gave to Max, or the attention and devotion that Dustin gave to Suzie-a devotion that transcended distance for years.
Will hated Spring because everyone was so in love, and when he looked around him…then at himself in the mirror, no hickies or love marks to show, he’d be reminded again and again that no one has, or ever would, love him the way he wanted.
Love is a concept offered to everyone else, just not for him.
Gay people exist of course, it’s twenty-seventeen, and being gay isn’t such a foreign concept to the world. But Hawkin’s was a very small town in a predominantly red state, everyone knew everyone and mostly everyone were conservative, white, Christians. If there were other people like him in the school…well…Will would never know. He didn’t have the courage to even try to approach anyone-even with the Chief of police being his step dad, he knew how dangerous it could be for him. Will has always had to move through life carefully because of his suspected sexual orientation-he can’t smile or trust someone too much outside of his friend group, less he wants rumors to happen.
Will didn’t have the means or courage to approach anyone for that reason, and for the biggest reason of them all…
It came in the form of a tall, lean boy who he’s known his whole life. With hands so big and hair so dark, Will always imagined what they’d feel like in his own hands. A boy who’s been there for Will his entire life-was there in the hospital with him while he healed, and had gone years of being friends with Will without caring that Will never spoke once the whole time. A boy who knew Will’s moods and had been there by his side when the Mind Flayer possessed his body…Mike, who was able to drag him out of the creature's hold. The very person that Will called for when his consciousness slipped to the other side.
Will loved Mike Wheeler-hell, he loved him so much that he could never express how much he does.
Will is in love with his best friend, and is doomed to never love anyone else again. Doomed because Mike is:
- Straight
- His sister’s Ex-boyfriend
- He’s pretty sure Mike is talking to someone, cause he’s always checking his phone these days.
- Won’t ever see Will how Will see’s him
Sure, Mike and El had dated for only one summer, but Will could see just how in love with the girl he’d been. He was practically obsessed with her and spent that whole summer attached to her hip, to this day he doesn’t know why they broke up, but the two are still familiar with each other in that Mike will hang out in her room from time to time or hug her tight if they haven’t seen each other for a while. He’s just grateful that he never saw them kiss, or he might have actually broken down and killed himself from the sight of it alone.
At night, Will will put his earbuds in and cry silently into his pillows….his heart bleeding out of his chest, wondering why-out of the pain and suffering, the constant assault on his body, and the sense of never feeling like he’s his own person-that he can’t have the one thing that he’s wanted for years. Why can’t he have someone who loves him like Mike had loved El(and probably still does)?
And Will hates himself so much because of it. The guilt and the shame of wanting more, and thinking horrible things about his best friend when he touches himself.
Maybe this is his curse? His consequence of being granted powers of creation means he’s not allowed to have an easy life, he’s not allowed to ever be normal, or have normal things. When it comes to life and love, for the price of being able to roll a Nat 20 in everything else, he’ll never be able to roll anything other than a Nat 1.
__________________________________________________________________
Sunday afternoon Will biked by himself from the library all the way back home, his tires scraping over asphalt and kicking up dust behind him along the way.
He’d used the free Wi-fi to finish this week’s PowerPoint presentation on that stupid capstone project that was fifteen percent of his English grade this semester. He had finished his part of the group project, and now it was up to Kate and Simon to come up with the flashcards before Friday’s presentation. The topic being targeted specifically to seniors, who were only weeks away from graduating, about college campus sexual assault. Kate had phone interviews with different campuses in the state of Indiana to talk about resources, made notes, and Will transferred those notes right into the slides. He couldn’t wait to finally be over with the project because it took out precious drawing and reading from his free time. It had also affected the hang out times for the party the last few months, and everyone was itching to sit down and finish Mike’s campaign.
He rolled up to the empty driveway of his house and rolled his bike to the backyard, shoving it into the very shed he was ripped out of at twelve years old, and went into the house. Will tried not to frown too hard at the flowers on the counter and the deflating balloon hearts tied around one of the kitchen banisters-a gift from Hopper to Joyce just five days ago for Valentine's day. And that obnoxiously large bear he got for Jane that stayed in the same spot on her bed when Will walked past her room.
Will went to his room and shut the door, tossing his bag somewhere on the floor.
For hours, he spent painting in front of his easel, texting in the group chat when he’d remember. Mike, Dustin and Lucas were all at the school for Lucas’s basketball game, so they kept sending updates about that, and Max and El were having a sleepover at the Mayfield’s that night, and were texting in the chat as well.
Hopper came home and yelled for Will to come get his pick of the Mcdonalds bag before disappearing into his room. Will took his food to his room and ate there, showered, and when the sun started to fall he lay on his bed, scrolling through his phone.
He doom scrolled through TikTok for a while, looking at art stuff and listening to a few political videos. His finger swiped and swiped until he got to a GRWM video where the guy started talking about this dating app he tried out…. Grindr.
He’s heard of it before plenty of times, he’s never cared to pay much attention to it. But something the creator said in the video stood out to him more than anything else;
“...like…you’d think they’d id people, or something? People just be lying about their ages these days, it’s crazy….”
Will swallowed, hard. An idea formed in his head.
He knew it was wrong. A part of him knew he shouldn’t even try doing this-he knew about the dangers, or the million other reasons of ‘why not’. Still, using his mind to lock the door, his thumb tapped the screen and typed Grindr into google play, clicking the download button after a brief moment of contemplation.
For a while he took time-quietly-shuffling around in his closet and adding photos of himself in different shorts to his profile. A few shots of his thighs, just sitting normally on his bed, and a few others of him kneeling on the carpet and with his legs spread just slightly. No face shots, and nothing in the background to give away his identity or age(that he clearly lied about when asked if he was eighteen or older).
His profile name read WTW and had a photo of a 20 sided dice as his profile picture. In the description he gave his actual height (5’9”), weight (136lbs), ethnicity(white), gender (Man), and position(bottom). He lied about his age, putting the only number closest to sixteen which was eighteen.
He put:
Looking to talk to someone of similar age as me, and who likes the same things I do; Dungeons and Dragons, art, video games and science. You have to be kind. No kids, single, and someone I can talk to.
Simple enough-or so he thought.
One by one the messages started rolling in. Older, creepier guys started filing in his inbox. Fifty year olds…fourty year olds. Because he turned on the location to find someone close to Hawkin’s, he was surprised to find that there were more older men like him living right here in town.
He recognized Joe from Jim and Mandy’s Pawn Shop by the side profile he posted. There was Larry, Sarah-from-biology’s dad, who happened to be one of the officers that worked with Hopper(this could explain why Will hated talking to him at the station, he knew he was being too friendly with him when it was just them). And the freshman sex-ed teacher, Mr.Hobbs, had messaged him too(he could tell it was him because Will knew that clock on the wall in his profile pic. It’s the very clock that Will would stare at for months, waiting for the class to be over.
‘Aren’t you a bit young to be on here, sweet boy? Be careful about who you talk to. You can trust me.’
‘Look at those thighs. You’re so sexy, baby boy. Message back and I can show you what it’s really like to be with a man.’
‘I’d love to fuck your thighs. I bet you’d like it if I spread my cum all over them.’
‘Show me your lips so I know who’s mouth I’m thinking about right now.’
Someone had even sent a voice recording of them jacking off-Will fumbled and almost dropped his phone cause the volume was up so loud. It had been too loud in his quiet bedroom-for a second he sat there on his bed, listening to the noises of his house…nothing strange or out of the ordinary other than the fire alarm that needed a new battery, and the loud whirring of Jonathan’s ac unit across the hall.
He couldn’t believe it.
Will was in actual disbelief….both shocked and mildly disgusted by what everyone was sending him. Will powered through the internal cringe and stopped reading his inbox, and focused on the profiles of people around his age. Eighteen through their early twenties, most of them were out of state…a lot of them were extremely attractive, too. There were few that were tops, but the ones that were looked decent in the face and bodies. One had a nice jawline…another had a hard looking stomach, and there was one who clearly came from a wealthy family from his photo in front of a Jaguar.
But as Will lied there and scrolled through his options, his brain nitpicked everything he was seeing.
His nose is too straight.
His hair is too blonde.
He’s too short….he’s too tall…
….his hair is too long and his cheekbones aren’t sharp enough.
As he went through over and over again, the more complaints he had, the more he realized what he was looking for-who he was looking for. He only came to find anything close to his imagination in the form of some twenty year old man living in New York. He was cute, and checked all of Will’s physical boxes….he had pictures of arts in his profile and animals, cute photos that made Will laugh. Carlton. Will almost messaged him except, taking another look at his photo, he looked at his too straight teeth and how the hook of his nose just wasn’t right.
Will huffed and exited out of the app. Pissed, frustrated, and more than both of those things, he was disappointed…..sad.
What was I thinking?
Will went back to Tiktok and lay there under his covers in the dark. He scrolled and scrolled, trying to take his mind off everything but it was hard with the inbox notifications popping up at the top of his screen. He lost count of how many times he had to swipe the dirty messages out of the way and go back to trying to ignore the aching in his chest.
He was watching his hundredth seafood boil video when another message popped up.
Will was quick, his thumb pressed on it and he started to slide it over when the message caught his eye. Reading;
‘.....Will!?’
Immediately, he let go of it, rereading it, making sure it wasn’t a trick of the light or his brain playing games with him. Alarm shot through him-he sat up, clicking on the message and going to the app, right to the freshly started inbox. Quick, he tapped the profile of ‘DungeonMaster0322’ and went right to his profile, the photo of his profile pic was also a twenty-sided die that looked awfully familiar-
There’s a photo of a pair of black and white converses, with a familiar-looking smudge at the tip. Another one of strong thighs under black shorts. A picture of a ceiling that looks awfully like the ceiling he’s stared at for years during sleepovers. One by one, the pictures hit too close to home, something rising in Will’s chest.
Then, the photo that sent him spiraling- A picture of a flexing bicep, a black sleeve rolled up to show the muscles underneath pale skin, and in the background on the blue wall, there was a bulletin board.
A bulletin board with Will’s art on it.
Will shot up and his fingers flicked to the back button, typing a hundred miles per hour, horror-stricken as he typed;
‘Mike!?’
Bubbles popped up instantly, the lights in Will’s room flickered violently.
‘Holy shit’
His phone slipped up between his fingers, floating-cracking in the space between his hands. “Holy shit.”