Work Text:
August 7, 1986
Will bounces his leg up and down in his chair. How long was the owner of the strawberry patch going to talk Hopper? It seems like it had been forever.
Will swallows the clump of spit gathered at the back of his throat.
Oh god, oh god, oh god…
How could he have been such an idiot? Trespassing on private land? When he knew he would be sent to Hopper, his mom’s fiancé, if he got caught? Now what was he supposed to do?
Will tightens his fingers around the armrest and glances at his watch.
He wishes Jonathan was here. Or Mike or Lucas or Dustin, or even El or Max. But they didn’t know. No one did. He wished he could tell them. Friends didn’t lie, and he hated keeping secrets from his own brother and his best friends. He had come so close so many times. It perched on the tip of his tongue whenever Jonathan called home, or when the party hung out in Mike’s basement or re-watched the Star Wars trilogy. But he didn’t know what they would think. He didn’t want to know what they would think. Not yet, anyway.
But… a thought startles Will like a monster in the night, breaking him into a frantic sweat… oh god, oh god, oh god…
What if they found out soon? What if Hopper told his mom? And his mom told Jonathan? And Jonathan told Nancy? And Nancy told-
No. He didn’t want to go down that road. He didn’t want to think about what his friends would say after they found out why he’d been spending so much time with Connor.
You can’t be in the AV Club any more, Will pictures Mike glaring at him with hostility. We don’t allow fairies.
They would hate him.
“Will?”
He feels Hopper tap on his shoulder. Will lifts up his head to meet the police chief’s eyes, suddenly aware that his cheeks are wet with fresh tears.
“Yeah, Hopper?” Will had grown used to calling his mom’s fiancé “Hop” over the past year, after the chief and El began eating dinner with himself and his mom every Tuesday night. “Can you pass the mashed potatoes, Hop?” “Do you get a lot of criminals, Hop?” And a wide, friendly grin would spread across Hopper’s face before he ruffled Will’s floppy hair and answered his questions. But Will didn’t know if he was allowed to call him nicknames anymore, especially if Hopper had found out what Will was doing with the art teacher’s son near the strawberry field.
“Come on, kid, come into my office,” Will notices Hopper drops his voice down to a low, soft tone, a tone he reserved for people he felt special affection, his mom and Jonathan and his friends and especially El, which meant the chief still felt some kind of care towards Will.
Maybe… maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe Mr. Merrill didn’t tell him everything. Will thinks as he follows Hopper to a small room at the edge of the station. Maybe he’ll just give me a fee for trespassing private land, I’ll pay it off with my job at the art studio, and no one will ever find out my secret.
Or maybe I’m just thinking wishfully.
“So,” Hop starts before he shuts the door. Will sits down at a chair in front of the chief’s desk while Hopper circles to the opposite side. Hopper props his top drawer of his desk open and removes a yellow notepad and a ballpoint pen. Oh god. He’s taking notes. If he knows, he better not write it down. “I heard you were caught trespassing land near Merrill’s Farm?”
“Is that all you heard?” Will asks carefully, hiding his shame behind a mask of formality. Hopper’s eyes glint at Will as he jots down notes, expecting him to add more, but Will says nothing, just stares back with a stoic look. Jonathan always said that Will was good at hiding, and it was true. He hid from the Demogorgon, he hid from the Shadow Monster, and he hid his feelings for boys with sweet smiles and soft lips for sixteen years. If he was careful, then he could hide from Hopper too. If Will played this right, he could walk out of the station scot-free.
“Uh, well, not exactly,” Hopper slides his pen across the table as he rests his arms on his desk. Crossing his fingers together, Hopper gives Will a short smile, one that meant he knew more than he let on. “I heard you were caught making out with the art teacher’s son.”
No, no, no, no. Will bites his trembling lip. He feels tears threaten to spill out of the corners of his eyes. No.
“Well?”
“That-That’s true,” Will admits. Tears leak out of Will’s eyes silently, and he feels quiet tremors beginning in his arms and legs. Don’t shake, don’t shake, he tells himself, clenching his muscles to stop.
“Just, please don’t tell my mom, okay?” He bursts before Hopper can say anything. More than anyone else, his mom was the last person Will wanted to know his secret. He already caused her enough stress with the medications and the panic attacks and the debilitating fear Will was going to go missing again. “She’ll only be more worried that something else is wrong with me.” The tears slip down so fast that Will loses himself in them. As they blind him, he squeezes his eyes shut, avoiding Hopper’s reaction in the process. It’s okay, I don’t want to see it, he says to himself. I don’t want to see my future stepdad hate me. “I-I-I know you hate me now.”
“Hey kid?” Will feels Hopper lean over his desk, trying to meet his eyes. “I’m not going to tell.”
Will’s tears freeze midway down his chin. He opens his eyes.
“You-You’re not?”
“Nah,” Hopper is still using that low, soft tone as he gazes at Will. Eyeing Will’s splotchy face and runny nose, he takes a tissue box out of his open drawer and passes it to him. “From what I know, you were just kissing, you weren't harming anyone. Besides, Mr. Merrill doesn’t own that land, error in the paperwork or something, so that asshole had no business yelling at you. As far as I’m concerned, this can be our little secret.”
“Secret?” Will asks as he dabs his cheeks with a tissue.
“Yup,” If he didn’t know any better, Will would think Hopper’s eyes soften towards him. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Will repeats. His muscles relax and unclench themselves. He was safe for now. It almost seemed too good to be true but studying Hopper, with his warm eyes and close-lipped smile, Will knows that it’s okay. That this secret will stay between them. That he can hide a little longer from everyone else.
“You know that by the end of next week,” Hopper leans back in his chair. “El and I will be moved out of the cabin, right? So it’ll be empty in case you and your friend ever wanted a safe space.”
“Really?” Will’s eyes widen. A space for him and Connor? That seemed too good to be true, too. They’d been meeting in strange corners of the woods and behind the arcade, something that still made Will uneasy even after all these years, but they had no other choice. It’s not like Will could bring Connor home, where his mom was always on his shoulder, making sure he was okay.
“Yeah. I think Mike and El have been hanging around the basement so you don’t have to worry about them bugging you. Once we’re all cleared out next Saturday, I’ll give you the go ahead. I’ll leave some of my records in there for you, too. I don’t have the Clash or the Talking Heads or whatever you and Jonathan listen to, but there’s still some good stuff on there.”
“Yeah?” Will says, smiling at Hopper now. He still couldn’t believe Hopper paid such close attention to what he and his brother liked. His own dad could barely remember that he hated baseball. Will really was lucky to have Hopper as his new stepdad, as part of their new family.
“Yeah. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work but um, if you ever need to talk to me about…” Hopper shifts in his seat, unsure how to address the issue without making them both uncomfortable. “Stuff. I’m here. Okay?”
“Okay,” Will smiles as he stuffs the tissue in his pocket. He knew how Hopper was at addressing relationship issues from watching him with Mike and El. He always wanted to help but he felt awkward doing it, like he was pushing his nose up against a window he wasn’t supposed to be. But Will appreciated Hopper was so helpful to them all because he needed someone right now. Aside from Connor, Will felt isolated, detached from everyone, like swimming in a swirling, dark abyss by himself, but now he knew he had someone. He had Hopper. “Thanks, Hop.”
Will gets up to leave, thinking about how excited he is for August 26th, when Hopper calls him back.
“And Will?”
“Yeah?” Will turns around, hoping that it’s not all a joke, that Hopper will laugh and call him a fag and slap him with a $2000 dollar fine for trespassing, but Hopper still smiles with those warm eyes before he spinning a joke they told over and over again.
“I’ll see you for dinner tonight. Let’s hope your mom’s not making mashed potatoes again, huh?”