Chapter Text
Will had been left out by the Party. Again. He couldn’t help but think that it must be intentional at this point – he mentioned in the cafeteria earlier that he was busy tonight, helping the drama club with their set design. It had definitely been acknowledged as Lucas remarked, "so you have the time to learn musical numbers but not the time to contribute to our Chemistry assignment?"
Will had found this funny at the time. He wasn't participating in the play (it wasn't even a musical this year) - he was simply helping out with the set design as there had been an open request to his art class. It might help in developing his skills, figuring out colours and designs that could be seen from the back row of seats. He was going to be painting furniture, wooden backdrops, and making props. He also made a mental note to remember to finish his part of the assignment - researching flame tests for different metals.
It was rude - and uncommon - for the entire party to congregate without just one person. However, Will was sure that this exact same thing had happened just last week too. Maybe he wasn't meant to know about it at all. It was bad enough that he privately felt fundamentally different and othered from the rest of the party, but now it seemed like he was intentionally being left out.
Mike was the one who had let it slip to him. They were sitting together in algebra, their last class of the day when Mike asked what time he’d be heading over this evening to catch A Nightmare on Elm Street with the rest of them.
Will flashed with annoyance but the earnest look in Mike's eyes made the emotion die within seconds. How had they even planned this since lunch? His wide brown eyes connected softly with Will’s in a way that made his stomach turn. Will thought he would never get used to how intense and intimate eye contact with Mike felt - and they had been best friends for over ten years. He quickly moved his eyes away, staring down at the worksheet in front of him.
"I'm - uhm, I have that theatre thing tonight," he wished he hadn't agreed to it at all now, with the prospect of everyone hanging out and watching a movie on the table for tonight, "the set design stuff."
"Oh."
Will desperately wanted to gauge Mike’s reaction, but didn't dare look up at him. It felt ridiculous, sometimes, to be scared of looking his best friend in the eyes – but Will knew it was for reasons other than Mike being his best friend. If Mike was his best friend, and best friend only, he would easily be able to make that connection – he did it with everyone else already. But for now, and the foreseeable future, he wouldn’t be able to look him directly in the eyes for more than a second before feeling overwhelmed with emotions he tried to avoid.
Mike's tone of voice seemed disappointed was all that Will could interpret as he doodled spirals and patterns along the margin of his worksheet, trying to do anything to seem busy.
An awkward feeling encompassed the two like a heavy blanket. Will didn't know what to say, but after a few minutes they returned to chatting about the latest X-Men and the upcoming Batman release. Discontent hung over Will until the class ended, and following that, until he fell asleep that very night.
-----x-----
Will found that set design was very different this time than it had been last time. Previously, it had been lively chatter in a classroom full of fifteen people with a teacher commandeering them between tasks, splitting them into groups. He had been paired with a junior girl with sleek black hair and warm brown skin. He could tell she was pretty, but he didn’t feel anything no matter how much he wanted to feel something. He knew what it felt like to be attracted to someone physically, and her dark hair and eyes reminded him of someone else he did find pretty. Will had tried to like girls for years now, but he was at a point where he couldn’t even bring himself to try – he knew the truth. He made casual chit chat with her as they sorted through a box of old props, setting aside some plastic flowers and delicate teacups to be placed as accessories on the set. She was kind and soft spoken, laughing along to Will’s nervous (and probably bad) jokes. He recognized some of the other students, and he found that the first session was very relaxed, but also tightly organized.
As he stepped into the room today, there was only one other student present. He vaguely recognized her from around school - wasn't she in band? - and gave her a quick smile. She was definitely a senior, he was sure of that at least, knowing her tenuously through Jonathan. Her pale skin was spattered in light freckles, covering most of her face. A fringe hid her forehead and the rest of her hair laid in soft waves, stopping bluntly just before it reached her shoulders.
"Hey," his voice was soft as he spoke - kind with his inherent shyness poking through.
"Do you know where everyone else is? Have they gone missing ?" The girl (her name escaped Will, but he wasn't sure whether he had known it in the first place) seemed exasperated, but the most she could've been waiting for was fifteen minutes. Will could concede, though, that it did seem unlikely that anyone else would arrive now.
"I'm Will, by the way. Will Byers," he supplied, making conversation to cover the fact that he was just as clueless as she was as to where everyone else could be.
"Robin," she saluted him with two fingers.
Will strode to the teacher’s desk to see whether anything had been left - the first sheet he picked up was simply a class schedule, stained with dark brown circles from the bottom of a coffee cup. The next had a note in red marker, all in capitals.
APRIL 28 SET DESIGN
PLEASE COMPLETE:
PICTURE FRAME
CHEST OF DRAWERS
SET WALL PAINTING
The last one was circled and underlined multiple times, and Will managed to surmise that this was the most important out of the list. The other side of the paper contained more details for this – written in notes rather than full sentences, describing how the wall had already been constructed by the school’s shop class, and was waiting in the larger studio down the hall. It needed to be painted like a mock Victorian wall, with wooden panelling on the bottom third and a teal and gold pattern wallpaper on the top part – Will cringed at the pairing of colours, but Victorians did love excess, so he guessed it was accurate.
He quickly strode over to Robin, handing the sheet to her as she leaned against a desk, looking at some of the artwork on the wall. She quickly scanned it, an understanding sound of ohhh leaving her mouth.
“Everyone else is probably there already,” Will looked up from the sheet and to her pale eyes, taking in her long eyelashes and the dark eyeliner covering her eyelids. She was reading the back of the sheet now, nodding as she did.
“I can’t believe I didn’t even think of this – I-I swear to you I am smart, kid! Just sometimes… common sense escapes me,” they locked eyes this time, and Robin slung her bag over her shoulder, folding the sheet into her jean pocket.
Will laughed, “I get it completely, don’t worry about it.”
Fluorescent lights beat down against the squeaky linoleum floor as they walked to the larger art studio in silence. Again, they found that this room, too, was empty. Multiple tubes of paint were laid out on a long table to the side of the room, in varying shades of brown, teal, green, and blue. There was a selection of paint brushes – synthetic, natural, wide, thin, thick laid out too, plus a selection of plastic palettes, plastic cups, rags and cloths.
The set wall was huge – Will had seen them before, but while they were at the back of the stage rather than one right in front of him. It was laid on the floor, and pencilled on the plywood surface was the design needed – wainscot panelling for the bottom, to be filled in with rich dark brown to resemble mahogany. The 'wallpaper' section was intended to be patterned with fleur-de-lis style gold emblems, sketched evenly across the huge plywood - even these outlines in themselves were impressive, all straight lines and even spacing.
After taking everything in, he glanced over to Robin, who was now sifting through the equipment stacked on the table.
"You can go home if you want," she smiled up at him, "seems like everyone else has."
Will shook his head softly, dropping his backpack on the floor and walking over to the table to join her.
"Nah, I… don't have anything planned." Will admitted, shaking his head softly as he grabbed a palette, a few brushes and a selection of brown paints. He was already mentally planning the exact colours to use, and how to mix them.
Robin and Will managed to plan out their colours together, deciding to do the darkest ones first and then highlighting the edges of the wainscoting once they had finished. He mixed a few on a palette for them to share, and they both gathered at the right hand corner of the set wall to begin painting.
Will already felt like he was warming up to Robin - he enjoyed how scatterbrained and sometimes carefree she seemed, and she let him take the reins in planning everything out. It was nice to have the support and confidence of someone new. Will wasn't normally the leader in things - he preferred to take directions from others and help out in that way.
They began painting slowly, lathering the paint on thick in the first corner. The silence was comfortable, but Will felt like he should make some conversation if they’d be here for two more hours - and Robin seemed kind enough already.
"My friends are all hanging out without me tonight. Watching some stupid movie, and I even told them I was busy tonight." He wasn't too sure why he even decided to open up to Robin about it, but he was still feeling vulnerable and annoyed from Mike bringing it up just over half an hour ago. He wasn’t normally one to open up - especially to someone new - but she had such an accepting nature around her already, he decided to take a chance.
"What grade are you again? Junior?" Robin continued to stroke her brush along the rough wood as she sat on her crossed legs.
"Sophomore."
"Sixteen year olds are always inconsiderate dorks. I wouldn't even worry about it, really. When I was sixteen, I walked for like, an hour, to my friends house to surprise her with a birthday gift and when I got there I saw that everyone else was there having a party, they were all listening to music and talking and I was just in the doorway holding a stupid gift I had spent all night perfecting." Robin's voice seemed to waver at the end of the memory recount, and so she picked up the tone, trying to comfort Will again, "What I mean, Byers, is that at your age," as if you are much older? Will replied in his head, "people don't know how to show their appreciation for their friends. It's nothing personal, maybe they even feel snubbed by you sometimes when you think what you're doing is harmless."
"Yeah, I guess. I just wish I didn't even know that they were hanging out at all. I'd rather they do it behind my back than know and not be able to be there," he sighed, shuffling down slightly to trace the edge of some of the pencilled panelling.
"I get where you're coming from there, I agree. How did you even find out? Did you overhear them?" Robin seemed sure to find a way to reassure Will, which he appreciated.
He looked up at her, replaying the scene with Mike in his head and planning out his description.
"It was just in class, my friend," he stumbled on the f , as if he thought of describing Mike in another way, "just asked what time I was coming over to watch the movie with all of our other friends. He said they were all going. I mean, I said at lunch I was busy tonight before I had even heard the idea and I swear I told him yesterday too." Will rolled his eyes at the thought.
He looked over to Robin, and found that she had already gotten paint on her hands and her dark blue jeans, a streak of dark brown on her left knee. He neglected to mention the stain to her, moving his gaze up to meet hers.
"Maybe he assumed you would come once you were done here. Especially if everyone else is going tonight too," she gave him a reassuring smile, but it didn't help him to feel any better.
"No… I don't know, I just feel like it's intentional," Will had thought that discussing it would help him feel better - everyone always said talking things out was the only way to deal with your emotions. But now he just felt worse than he had before, being reminded of how lonely he felt sometimes, even when they were all together and goofing around and joking. He always felt like he was slightly different from them all, like he couldn't truly connect. He understood why, but it wasn't like they knew. Or at least he hoped they didn't know the truth. If they did, they wouldn't be friends with him anymore. That was weirdly reassuring - everyone is friends with him, they don't single him out as different (at least not explicitly) so they mustn't be able to tell. However, the thought that he would have to live out his entire life with his dark secret keeping him from ever getting really close with someone - never being able to let someone truly know who he is - haunted him.
Trying to talk his feelings out was not helping. It was just dragging down Will’s mood, making him hate himself more and more by the second.
"No way. Like I told you before, Byers, kids your age are stupid and forgetful and don't know how to properly express themselves. Yeah, it's a shitty thing and you are very, very reasonably upset right now but I wouldn't dwell on it," Robin extended her arm and rubbed his shoulder in an unexpected display of affection, "and I am completely sure that your friend does mean you're invited along tonight."
Will found it ridiculous inside that she referred to him and his friends as kids, when she was only two years older. He was sixteen! Well, he hadn't been sixteen for that long, but he was still sixteen nonetheless.
Even though Will felt flower than he did earlier during the ordeal with Mike, he still appreciated the closeness and warmth that Robin was already showing him despite the short length of their conversation. It was comforting to have someone support him as she did, even if they didn't know each other well yet.
"Thank you. I mean, I hope so," even if he didn't think it was realistic that he actually had been invited along, "I appreciate it. I really, really do."
He smiled as kindly as he could at Robin. She was probably one of the nicest people he had met in Hawkins so far - and he had lived there his entire life.
She looked down, seeming to focus particularly on straightening her dark brown strokes against the stencil drawn on the plywood.
"I just know how it feels to be left behind… but you seem pretty kind already, so I doubt your friends actually mean to exclude you, okay?" Robin dipped her brush back into the paint palette before continuing, "I'm not trying to be self pitying but for me, I know I can be overwhelming sometimes when I talk too much and I always seem to just miss when I'm getting exhausting to be around. So I understand why they would leave me out of things. But you, Will?" - it seemed weird for her to use his first name now, but he appreciated the usage - "you're nice, you're kind, you're easy to talk to."
" You're easy to talk to. I don't think you speak too much or anything, they're the ones that seem like assholes. But I mean, even I can see that I can be whiny, or moody, or stupidly shy even around the friends I’ve had for years.” Will couldn't help but feel like he was asking for compliments when relaying this to Robin, but he was just speaking his mind. When Robin had done the same, it felt like she was just speaking from the heart instead of asking for sympathy.
“I mean, first off, I don’t think you are whiny or moody. And if you are - you clearly have a good reason to be. I was definitely the same when I had those shitty friends,” she took a deep breath before she spoke again, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, really. After that birthday thing, I made an excuse to leave as soon as I could, practically crying as I ran home - I felt embarrassed that I had turned up, they made me feel like it was weird to want to see my friend. It was probably the lowest I’ve felt, but eventually I realized - even if I can be a little weird, or annoying, that I shouldn’t have to feel constantly left out by my friends or be the only one asking them to hang out. It took me a while but I managed to move on from them - I don’t have as many friends but my friends now - they get me, they understand me for who I am.”
Will put his brush down to listen, nodding along.
Robin continued, “I mean I don’t wanna be giving you some wise speech about finding new friends and abandoning your old ones. I just want to say, if you feel like your friends are too shitty or they keep upsetting you - there are other people out there. People who will understand how you think a little better, or who consider what you want a little more seriously.”
It felt like Robin understood Will on a completely different level to everyone else - her advice seemed to perfectly click in his mind and it comforted him. Robin's last sentence already resonated with him - he did feel like he had met someone who gets him, who takes what he says seriously. Of course, he still liked all of his friends, and he doubted that he would ever stop being friends with him, but it is already reassuring enough to have it affirmed that there are other people out there. He did know it in the back of his mind - especially considering that Hawkins was a small town and he pretty much already knew everyone his age. The voice in the back of Will's mind still reminded him that no matter if these accepting people exist, he doesn't know them yet, and his current friends still think that he's too nervous, too childish, too annoying. But it gave him more optimism for the future.
“I hope so. I don’t want to give my friends a bad rep, they are nice most of the time, but it's good to hear that there’s more people out there.” Will imagined them all hanging out in Mike’s basement, huddled on the sofa or on the floor, snacking together. Lucas and Max on the floor together, Mike and Jane cuddling beside Dustin on the couch. Imagining some of those aspects made Will grateful that he wasn’t there to witness it - he was having a better time getting all emotional and soppy with Robin.
“Right. Enough therapizing for today, I think. We can talk about something a little more lighthearted,” Robin grinned at him. Will grabbed his paint brush again, shuffling further along the floor and redipping his brush in the dark brown paint. He began gliding it across the wood once more.
They delved into conversation about books - Will did enjoy reading, but nowhere near as much as Robin did, he found out. She had just finished reading a book by Charles Dickens, and when she described the plot, she made even a long, drawn-out legal battle sound interesting.
“I know it seems boring, but trust me - it’s about different aspects of class and social mobility, identity, things like law and justice. There is a lot more to it than a bunch of wills made by a dead guy!” It seemed like she had claimed these things to a lot of people before, but Will nodded and agreed - it did seem a lot more fascinating when she described it like this.
Will preferred to read fantasy books - as a kid, he had loved Narnia and he eventually moved onto the Hobbit and the Sword of Shannara (although he did consider it a little too similar to the Lord of the Rings). He discussed them for a bit - he could admit it was a bit of a childish interest, but his friends read the same books and the same comics as he did. He liked the escapism aspect - being able to put his mind somewhere else other than his current reality was just what he needed. It helped him to create a greater depth in his D&D campaigns - not that the party did them that much anymore. He was still hurt from the time Mike and Lucas ridiculed him for wanting to play it instead of wasting time on their stupid girlfriends. Pushing the memory down, he refocused on the current conversation with Robin. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to think about, or something that he even wanted to remember.
“No, no, I don’t think it’s childish at all to be into fantasy books. Like just think - who’s writing these books? It’s certainly not other teenage boys, it’s grown men and women who think of these elaborate worlds and stories,” Robin said, “books aren’t for a specific group of people. They’re for anyone, any age, any gender. If it’s your favorite, then it’s your favorite. No need to let anyone else’s opinions affect you.”
“What’s your favorite book? Or genre?”
“I'd say that Little Women is my current favorite. I only finished it last week but I’m halfway through rereading it again. The protagonist - Jo - God, I’m telling you she is me on another level. She loves reading, and writing, she’s a little reckless and she’s a huge tomboy. The main guy character - Laurie - has a huge crush on her for a lot of the book but she loves him as a brother, not romantically. He ends up marrying her sister later on, but just after Jo realizes she has a crush on him - but I mean, that in itself is debatable.”
At this point, Robin had abandoned all effort she was putting in with the set wall painting - she was laid on her back on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling as she spoke. Will didn't mind this - he found it more relaxing to mindlessly paint than anything else, especially when he doesn’t have to think too hard about shading or intricately mixing different colours. They’d almost finished the base colours for the wainscot portion of the set wall, having shuffled along gradually together.
Robin propped herself up on her elbows, looking over to Will inquisitively before she spoke. She seemed to be considering the next thing she said. Will braced himself.
“Do you have a crush, Byers?” Of everything to ask him, Robin picked the worst possible question for Will to answer. He froze in place, keeping his eyes locked on the unmoving paintbrush in his hand. Will carefully considered his answer before answering.
Technically, yes, Will very very much had a crush - one he had for a few years, and only seemed to get stronger over time. But it wasn’t an appropriate crush, it wasn’t one he could casually discuss with a girl he had just started speaking to today, it wasn’t even one he could discuss with the family he’s had his entire life or the friends he’s had for years. In these situations, Will defaulted to full denial - he said he didn’t get crushes, that he had never even had one before. He just said he wasn’t interested in girls (a half-truth, which made him feel better about ‘lying’) and that he preferred being alone. He thought of countless excuses, countless reasons as to why he didn’t want a girlfriend and he never discussed the girls he found cute with his friends. They assumed it was just shyness or immaturity, and that he would eventually grow out of it one day. Will preferred everyone thinking this than them all knowing the reality of the situation.
Will quickly realized he had been thinking about the question for far too long to be normal, and he flashed his gaze over towards Robin. She was still staring at him, waiting for a response.
He panicked. “Yeah.” Cold trickled down his spine as Will realized that he had said the exact opposite of what he had meant to say. He had been repeating don't say yes don't say yes over and over in his mind, but his mouth had faultered on him when he tried to respond. The pit of his stomach felt empty and his body felt cold but his face felt hot. Will kept his gaze locked on the painting in front of him, pretending that he was busy fixing up a straight line along the edge. He couldn't come back from this mistake - even if he denied it now, Robin would just think that Will was acting a little shy and embarrassed, and try even harder than she would've to get information out of him.
“Aaand their name?” Robin pressed. Will knew she was just trying to make friendly conversation, and after the emotional depth they had ventured into earlier, crushes paled in comparison.
“Simone,” Will spluttered out the first girl's name that came to his head. Of course, he thought to himself, it was the feminized version of a masculine name.
“Simone Krip-?”
“No… someone in my grade.” Will cut her off. It was just his luck that there was actually a Simone attending their school. Will only now remembered that she existed - and she was a senior, probably sharing some classes with Robin.
“What’s she like?” Robin continued - she had now rolled onto her front, resting on her sweater bundled underneath her head. Will was glad that her eyes weren’t on him anymore, pressing him with anxiety as he tried to think of more lies. He felt paralysed by the pressure - his mind was blanking completely.
“H- They- she, she’s funny. I’ve known her a while,” even though Will was silently detesting Robin for even the mention of crushes, he didn’t necessarily want to lie to her. He thought of a way to get around his conundrum, “we were childhood friends. They have long eyelashes and almost black ringlets… She has so many of the same interests as me and we have the same views on like, every topic we can think of.” Will pictured his crush's dark brown eyes in his mind - he was always too scared to look into them in case he would be able to tell. Will thought of the way his crush smiled at him from across the classroom whenever someone asked a ridiculous question, the way that his crush made the funniest jokes out of anyone that Will had met. Shame washed over Will as he finally registered the fact that he was discussing his crush as if they were a girl - Will had wished for so long, for so many years that he could have a crush on a girl, that he could think about holding their hand or kissing their lips the way that he thought about doing it to his best friend. Will tried to keep the two things separate in his mind - there was his best friend, Mike, and his crush, Mike. They just so happened to be the same peson. It helped Will to cope with it better if he imagined that he didn't have a crush on the one friend that he spent the most time with out of anyone. Maybe doing it this way would help - he could talk about his crush, Mike, through this fake crush of Simone that he had created. It was not the greatest scenario - and not one that Will would have chosen if he had the choice - but he had dug himself into an inescapable hole now.
“She seems c- sweet.”
“She’s completely unattainable though. She has had a boyfriend, for like, forever now,” the more he spoke, it got easier to pretend Mike was a girl. But he was just weaving a bigger web of lies with each response to Robin.
“Noo, that doesn’t mean anything, trust me. There was a couple who had been dating since middle school who broke up just a few months ago. And I doubt there’s any person attending this school who is out of your league, either,” Robin was great at helping Will - but this time the words couldn’t do anything to raise his mood. He appreciated the compliment - but he was never that concerned about girls finding him attractive in the first place.
“Not even in that way - even if she was single, I would just never be her type. The people she likes… just are nothing like me.” It was impossible for Will to discuss the finitude of his situation - it wasn't just that he had low self-esteem about the situation, it was just a fact of his life. He had given up on painting too at this point, leaning back on his arms. He couldn't tell whether thirty minutes or two hours had passed as they'd spoke to each other, but he didn't care enough to check his watch.
“You are far too hard on yourself, Byers. It’s always worth a try - especially if Simone one day ends up single,” Robin turned to smile at him. He smiled back, but he did not feel anywhere close to happiness. However cathartic it was to discuss his crush, however covertly it was, it also reminded him of how he could never be normal and he couldn’t have a normal crush.
Will needed to move the discussion away from himself. The anxiety just kept building inside of him, no matter how relaxed he pretended to be.
“Do you have a crush on anyone?” He asked, trying to stay on topic but coax Robin into talking about herself at length again. He did enjoy listening to her - she was insightful and funny, and always managed to notice little things that no one else would’ve ever commented on. Will also knew that if he managed to get Robin talking, he wouldn’t have to continue speaking about his half fake crush anymore as she took up the conversation.
“No, no. I don’t really get crushes on anyone.” Robin simply supplied. Will felt snubbed, but didn’t press her anymore than that.