Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They were hanging out in the Byers’ house when the hell broke loose.

Will had taken Jonathan’s room after he moved away for college, although his older brother still stayed at his old room when he came home for holidays but other times Will used the room. Will’s old room was El’s after Hopper married Joyce last summer and Joyce thought El could use the room when they stayed at their place. ( Hopper was still insisting that all of them could stay at the cabin but they all knew that it wasn’t going to happen. )

It was almost Easter, the weather was warm, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the freshman year of high school was going pretty good for the Party. Well, for most of them, Will was still getting picked on but it wasn’t bad as it was before, thanks to now being the son of the chief of town and stepsister of weirdly intimidating new girl.

It didn’t save him from his friends’ friendly teasing though. Even at his own damn house.

“Dustin, give it back!” Will tried to reach what Dustin was holding, the postcard the boy found under Will’s pillow.

Will didn’t realize how or when it happened, he just saw Dustin looking for Back to The Future tape, going into his room to search for it, and instead of finding the tape, he found the damn postcard! It had a picture of London Bridge, it was a simple postcard from England. What freaked him out were the things written back of that picture. Or more like Dustin reading those things.

With all their loud voices the other teens went into the room, seeing Will and Dustin fighting over a postcard, not understanding a damn thing. They didn’t interrupt what was happening, Lucas kept on eating his chips.

Will finally gave up struggling to take what the much taller boy was holding and sat on his bed, knowing what was going to happen.

Dustin smiled victoriously and started to read back of the postcard. “You’re all I can think about / When the sky gets dark”

Lucas dropped his bag of chips. Mike looked at him like Dustin just grew another head. El’s mouth opened in shock and Max’ eyes grew wide. Everyone in the room didn’t see this coming, except Will who already knew what was written in there, and he was internally screaming.

“Your eyes outshine the stars / Emeralds in the night” Dustin finished reading.

“Will, what is this?” El was the first one to break the silence, seemingly she was the calmest one of them all. She was also a little worried for her strep brother whose face has got red as Max’s hair after Dustin finished reading.

Dustin answered her question with a grin on his face.

“This is a poem, El. A love poem. A poem someone wrote for Will!” Dustin shouted with glee, still can’t believe that Will had this postcard. “It was under his pillow when I found it.”

Will took the pillow to his face and started screaming.

“That’s gross and sweet at the same time.” Max added, sharing curly-haired boy’s excitement. “And you hid this here for what? Looking at it before you go to sleep?” Max was smiling widely. “Will, you’re adorable.

Lucas wasn’t having any of it though. “Am I the only one is still trying the progress the fact that Will hid this from us!” Lucas shouted with a little bit of anger in his voice. “I mean, I understand you don’t have to share everything I guess, but I thought we shared this kind of stuff within Party members.” Said Lucas, while putting his arm around Max’s shoulders, trying to prove a point.

Max rolled her eyes, not sharing her boyfriend’s attitude. “Lucas, don’t be so hard on him, I’m sure this sweet lover boy was just too shy to talk about these things!” Max toke a step closer to him and squeezed his cheeks like he was a baby.

“Max, don’t.” Will protested softly and Max stopped, didn’t make him repeat, but she had the same look on her face like she was about to break into laughter at any point. “Lucas had a point though, why didn’t you tell us before? Is it new?” Dustin crossed his arms in his chest and looked at Will with a curious look.

Will turned his eyes away from him and softly murmured. “Kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“Like… six weeks?”

Another yelling session started in the room.

“Dude, what the hell! Why didn’t you tell us all this time? You know our girlfriends!”, that was Lucas.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god…” that was Dustin.

“Could you guys stop acting like Will just murdered someone? It’s not that big of a deal!” that was Max.

El was still the calmest but even her voice got a little higher, “Yeah, but friends don’t lie, Max. Will could’ve told us about this.”

“Yes!” Lucas agreed with her, raising his hands. “ Look, I understand, maybe you didn’t want to tell us because you thought we would make fun of you and tease you and stuff-”

“Speak for yourself, I wouldn’t.” Dustin interrupted him

“But why didn’t you tell the girls? They would help you with-” Lucas couldn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Yeah, like they wouldn’t tell you guys immediately.” Will spoke after a long time of being silent.

“I wouldn’t If you made me promise not to tell the boys!” El said with confidence. She sat next to Will and softly whisper-talked “I wouldn’t even tell Mike.”

“That’s a big thing you know.” Dustin teased her.

“Well, I’m not that sure what I would do if you only told me-” Max told, honestly.

“- but if El knew and she didn’t tell the boys, neither would I.” she backed up her best friend.

“I know… it’s just… I wasn’t ready… I guess…” said Will, in a little voice.

“Awww.” El hugged him and ruffled his hair.

“Mike, why you’re all quiet?” Lucas questioned, realizing the boy who talked the most normally, didn’t open his mouth since the reveal of Will’s secret. Mike’s face was strange like he was thinking about something deep, something the other kids failed to realize. His eyes were focused on Will, but Will’s eyes were on the floor. Mike quitted staring at the boy turned his eyes at Lucas and answered, in a little defensive tone.

“I didn’t get to say a word from all your yelling!” then, asked the question who was hanging in everyone’s heads, except Will.

“Can we get a name at least?”

Will looked at them like he was looking at a bunch of wild animals. Like they were ready to jump on him with a word that fell from his mouth.

“What the hell,” He thought. “They’ll find out eventually.”

“Charlie.”

Chapter Text

The name reveal caused another long, weird silence within the teenagers, Will was silent for other reasons but for the others, none of them wanted to be the one who started asking questions, so they decided to do the thing that made the most sense.
They left Will’s room and sat on the couches of the living room.
Lucas was sitting in the middle of Max and Dustin on one of the couches; El, Will, and Mike were sitting on another one, El being the one in the middle of the boys in this one.

Their prior plan was long forgotten, none of them wanted to watch Back to the Future right now ( they had seen the movie like, 50 times before? ). But the chips they bought for the “movie day” was still looking extremely delicious and also now they were going to be eaten while doing something they did rarer than watching sci-fi movies.

“So, Charlie… ” said Max, being the one who broke the silence. Her voice was full with joy “That’s a cute name.” she took one of the bags of chips and started eating. Will could tell that she was genuinely happy for him, but she was also enjoying Will’s awkward position.

" Great. Here we go." He thought.

“Yes, I guess, it is.” Thinking of Charlie made Will feel better about this situation. To be honest, everything about Charlie made Will feel better than most of the times he felt. Will started smiling like an idiot.

“Oooooooooooh.” Lucas started laughing at Will’s smile, looking like he was finally out of his moody attitude, “If mentioning her name makes you like this” he pointed on Will’s face “I can’t imagine how head over feelings you must be around the girl.”

Will’s smile almost fall down on his face.

Oh. Right. A girl.

His friends were expecting him to date a girl as normal boys did

But he wasn’t seeing a girl. He wasn’t normal like they were. And if they knew it, they wouldn’t act like… this. They wouldn’t act friendly at all, they wouldn’t be happy for him. Max wouldn’t be this happy or El wouldn’t be looking at him with cute curiosity in her eyes and the boys definitely wouldn’t be-

“Hey, from Earth to Will, are you there?” Dustin snapped his fingers in front of Will’s face. Will didn’t even notice how fast he lost himself within his thoughts. He took his eyes from the point they were fixed and he looked at his friends’ face, their eyes were full of wonder. And he managed to smile a little to clear their worries.

“Oh boy, our Cleric is in loooooooove!” Dustin was practically dancing in the spot he sat. “ I didn’t think I could live long enough to see this day.”

El laughed softly. Gosh, Will loved when she laughed. If this position made her laugh, then maybe, maybe his friends finding of Charlie’s existence wouldn’t end badly.

“You really have feelings for Charlie, don’t you?” Mike asked with his calm, not pushy voice tone.

Will couldn’t help but notice how Mike didn’t use a pronoun; he just called “Charlie”. It made Will feel good, even safer.

“Yeah, I mean… Whenever we hang out I have so much fun and…. It’s just nice being around-” he stopped himself from saying “him”, he didn’t want to lie his friends (“Friends don’t lie.” El’s voice echoed in his head. He was being an awful friend, wasn’t he? ). But he wasn’t ready to tell them to truth either. He knew they loved him, but would they love this part of him?

“ -her. I love being around her.” Will started looking at the floor, couldn’t managing to look at the eyes of his friends. El held his hand, feeling his distress.
“You don’t have to tell us more if it makes you feel-“ El searched for her words for a second. Then realizing she couldn’t find something that fits perfectly, she just said: “- if it makes you feel bad.”
“No, I am okay. Thank you for-” Will was interrupted by Dustin, again

“Is she hot?” Dustin raised the question he has been dying to ask for.

“Dustin!” El said with a little shock and anger, Will couldn’t help but laugh at her tone.

“What! It’s not like you don’t want to know more about Charlie, either.” He answered, looking at Lucas and Mike, waiting for them to back him up.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you talk about her a little bit,” Lucas said, trying not to push his friend.

“Only If you are comfortable with, you know, talking about it,” Mike reassured him.

Will took a deep breath. “We met at our art class.”

“I knew it!” Dustin threw his hands in the air. “I mean, of course, it makes sense that you would find yourself a girlfriend from the only class you don’t share with any of us.”
“And maybe the fact that art’s been Will’s interest for years and it’s probably what bonded Will and Charlie in the first place. Thinking it this way it makes more sense, Dusty-bun.” Mike rolled his eyes.
“I’ll show you Dusty-bun- ”

“ Wait, what about the postcard? Did she send it from England? How?” Lucas changed their focus from their bickering with his question.

“No, she didn’t send it from England.” He was still troubling to call Charlie a “she” but he started it, he couldn’t chicken out now.
“But she is from England, and she brought some pictures, postcards and other things from London to remember her home.” Will finished.

Max smiled sweetly “ If she gave you something she brought here to remember her home, she must have strong feelings for you too.”

“You say so?” Will’s all face lightened up with Max’s comment.

“Of course, idiot, I mean, just look at the poem she wrote!” she coughed, and started repeating the poem from the postcard in mocking way with a heavy English accent “Your eyes outshine the emeralds, oh Will ”

Lucas and Dustin started laughing hysterically, and then Mike, El was the only one who was laughing like a normal human being.

“Okay, stop, she doesn’t sound like that at all and you’re repeating it wrong!” Will couldn’t stop his laughter coming from his mouth. Gosh, it was fun talking about Charlie with his friends.

I hope it stays this way forever. I hope they never find out.

“Does she have an accent?” Mike asked, stopping his thoughts.
“Yeah, Charlie grew up in England.” He didn’t want to add the fact Charlie’s family moved to America, like a year ago, cause it would make his friends finding who Charlie is easier.

He felt terrible, keeping a secret from his best friends now felt even worse cause they halfway found out about the secret.
First half was really exciting and good to hear for them.
Will wasn’t sure about the other half.

“I bet she sounds hot.” Dustin made another unwanted comment about Charlie’s hotness.

“Dustin, why do you care if Charlie sounds hot or not?” Max questioned him, raising one of her eyebrows.
“Yeah, why do you keep asking if she’s… hot?” El added to her best friend’s questioning. Then, she dropped the bomb that will make Dustin freak out like a Demo-dog just appeared in the room.

“You know me and Max can talk to Suzie too, right?”

Mike and Lucas started laughing again, this time Will joined them. Max and El look each other with victorious smiles; he could almost imagine seeing Max and El telepathically high fiving each other.
“No, no, no, no, no, it’s not, I am just curious about Will’s girlfriend okay, it’s not… it has nothing to do with me and Suzie! Oh my god oh my god oh my god girls, don’t tell Suzie please she will get it wrong!” Dustin was standing now and none stop talking with his hands in the air.
“I don’t know Dustin, if I were Suzie, I would like to know if my boyfriend wondered about other girls’ appearances, I think we should tell her, us girls should stick together, right El?” Max winked at El.
El chuckled “Yeah, we’re another species after all.” She winked back at Max.
“Not this again!” Mike yelled with annoyance in his voice, his girlfriend liked to keep him reminding the time he screwed up.
Will was so happy that he almost forgot that they were asking questions about Charlie.

Then, Lucas, probably being the one most frustrated about Will not telling them about Charlie before, he had to be the one ruin Will’s good mood, right?

“Wait wait wait stop!” Lucas shouted.

“Thank you, Lucas, you are my best friend!” Dustin sat back at his spot and he was about to hug Lucas then the boy stopped him.

“It’s not about you, dumbass, I still have one last question about Charlie, if Will doesn’t mind answering, and I want to ask him before I forgot!”
The focus was on Will’s once again.

“Sure.” He said, tried hard to stop his voice from cracking.

“Okay… it’s an easy one, don’t worry, just… What’s Charlie’s last name?”

Oh no.

No, no, no no no no no

“We understand if you don’t want us to meet her face to face right now but yeah, I think everyone here would love to know her full name so at least we know who she is.” Lucas added, going back to his serious attitude again.

Will couldn't speak. He couldn’t even open his mouth. He had to say something. Made up a last name? No, it would make his friends even more frustrated when they found out the person he told them didn’t even go to their school. But he couldn’t tell them, no, no-
“Will, are you okay?” El started worrying.
“Will, we already know the girl exists, it shouldn’t be that hard to tell us who she is,” Max said, he realized she began to become suspicious like Lucas.
“Dude, it’s okay. You guys met Suzie even though we’re in a long-distance relationship, don’t you think we should- “

“NO!” Will yelled, with a wave of newborn anger he didn’t notice he held inside.
Everyone in the room became uncomfortable with him suddenly raising his voice.
“Will, what’s wrong?” Mike asked in a low voice, trying not to sound pushy.
But it didn’t help.

“Just stop this stupid interrogation, okay?” Will stood up without noticing doing it, trying to put some distance between him and his friends. And Will tried, he tried so hard not to break into tears.
“What’s stupid about wanting to know her? You already told us so much about her!” Lucas’s voice was rising even higher.
“Lucas, calm down.” Max tried to stop his boyfriend from raising his voice against Will.
“Do you not want us to go see her or something? Dude we won’t, we promise, we won’t ever go near her. We just want to know.” Dustin’s attitude was a lot calmer than Lucas’ but it didn’t help either.

Cause Will knew.

Charlie’s not a “her”.

Will knew his friends shouldn’t know who Charlie really is. If they did, they would no longer be his friends.
Will started shaking his head repeatedly, something he did often when panic started taking over him.
“Will, it’s okay, we’ll stop, okay? Breathe. Will, breathe. We will stop talking about her.” El stood up next to him, trying to calm him, trying to stop Will’s shaking turning into a panic attack.

But it was the last straw for Will.
“It’s not her!” Will yelled, after hearing his own voice echoing in the house, he noticed he said this out loud too late.

He couldn’t look at his friends’ faces.

I’m going to lose them forever.

But it’s too late now.

They heard. They’re smart. They’ll understand.

I should at least tell them properly.

They’ll hate me they’ll hate me THEY’LL HATE ME THEY’LL –

“Charlie… Charlie is not a girl.”

Chapter Text

“Charlie… Charlie is not a girl.”

Will’s mind has been living the last fifteen minutes in a loop.

“It’s not her!” he yelled, he yelled so loud that his throat hurt.

“Stupid,” and he was talking to himself right now, with a still sore throat. “So stupid.” He couldn’t stop the tears running down his face.

“Will, it’s okay.” Will heard his sister’s voice in his head.

He wished she was with him. It felt like she would be the only one who wouldn’t judge him among his friends, and it was just because she didn’t know that she should, she didn’t know why Will having a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend would be a big issue.

He wished he could hug her and listen to her calming voice, telling him that everything’s okay.
But it wasn’t. Nothing was okay. Because of Will.
And El wasn’t with him.

Will had left Byers house fifteen minutes ago, right after the reveal, and ran into the woods.

∞∞∞

“Shit,” said Dustin, in a small voice ( it was very unlike him) after fifteen minutes of awkward silence, which felt like an eternity for everybody.

It had been fifteen minutes since Will Byers has run out of the door and left all of them in shock.

"Charlie is not a girl."

"That explains a lot." was the first thing that came to everyone's minds ( except El ) but none of them had the voice to say it out loud.

But now, Dustin had broken his silence and it looked like he wasn't going to stop any time soon.
"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Sh-"

“Could you please stop?” Max bickered. Her eyes were still on the door. The door Will slammed after telling everyone in the house that he was dating a boy. Not that Max minded it, she was from California and things were a little bit different in big cities, people had more freedom and were less mindful about what the other people think. But here, in Hawkins, it wasn't the same.

“He is right though.” It was Lucas, his voice was full of worry. He put his hands on Max’s shoulders in a supporting gesture. “We’re shit. All of us.” He stopped and looked at his friends' faces. A small smile appeared on his face when his eyes met El's.
" Expect El. It’s on all of us expect her.”
And Max realized how much he loved this boy.

“I kind of knew it,” Mike said all of a sudden, and he got the attention of everybody.

"Did he tell you anything?" Max questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it was more like, I noticed some things, you guys… clearly didn't." Mike crossed his arms in his chest.

Lucas rolled his eyes "Great. Congratulations on being the 'best friend Will ever has while all of us have been clueless' ".

El wasn't listening to any of them. She was standing in front of the window, staring at the direction Will ran off.
"Where is he? Is he okay? Why did he run? Why he was angry?" Her mind was full of questions that none of her friends were sharing with her.

“Can somebody please explain what is going on?” El finally exploded, turning her face to others, yelling with both anger and worry she has been keeping inside for fifteen minutes.
Worry for her brother and anger for the rest of the party members, for rambling like idiots and not being helpful at all.

“Why we are not going after Will? What is the deal with him? With all of you?”

“He needs some time to cool off, El. Then we will go after him, I promise.” Mike said in his calming, soothing voice tone. But even that tone, even him didn't help with El's fury at all.

“Okay.” El crossed her arms in her chest and raised one of her eyebrows ( a thing she learned from Max ) “And?”

“And?”
“Why did he run away?” El stopped for a second, took a deep breath and started thinking, remembering what just happened before Will ran off. “ Is it because he’s dating a boy?”

“Yeah…” Dustin said in a "not so sure" tone of voice. " I mean, yes, he run away because we learned that he was dating a boy."

“What’s… wrong with it? I am dating a boy.” She pointed at Mike. “Dating boys isn’t illegal.”

El was so pure that Max almost smiled at her reaction.

“Yeah, of course not, but Will’s also a boy and he thinks… he’s afraid that we will…” Dustin tried to explain further.

“Wait, is it because he’s a boy and he’s dating a boy? Does it change anything? Why he is afraid of you now?” El seemed to catch up with things.

“Cause he thinks we’re like his dad. And Troy. And James. And half of the Hawkins’ population.” Lucas answered, in a sad voice.

“That didn’t explain a lot.” El murmured.

“El, look.” Max started to explain. “ Some boys like boys. Some girls like girls. This is called being gay.”

“So, Will is gay.”

“Yep, and there are people, people like Troy and James who thinks being gay is something bad, something to be ashamed of.”

“Then it definitely isn’t,” El said in a confident voice.

“ She’s the smartest person in this whole town,” Dustin commented, smiling widely.

"Well, there's the thing El…" Lucas tried to find the right words to explain. " You know how some people treat me… like I am less than you guys because of my skin tone?"

"Mouthbreathers " El growled.

"Yeah. Well, let's say that there are a bunch of people who would treat me badly because of my skin-" he sighed, it was a tough topic to talk about to anyboydy, not just El. "- and there are also a bunch of people out there who would treat Will badly because he is gay."

"Oh." El's eyes grew wide. "That's bullshit!"

"Yeah, it is. We wouldn't care if Will kissed a guy but if one of those little shits saw it…" Dustin's face became pale with the thought of it

"We have to protect him!" El yelled. " Isn't this what party is for? Isn't this a party rule? Protecting each other?"

With El's words, all the tension in the house disappeared. Like some sort of a heavy cloud on top of their heads faded away.

They all looked at each other in newfound confidence.
They knew what they had to do.
∞∞∞
While all of this was happening in the Byers household, Will Byers was alone in the woods.
More precisely, he was sitting all by himself in his Castle Byers.
But it didn't last long.

"Will? Are you in here?" Will heard Mike's soft voice coming from outside.

Will tried to be quiet so that his friends wouldn't hear his sobs.

"Byers, we can hear your breathing." Lucas' voice sounded a little annoyed, but it was still gentle.

"Come out Will." Max's stopped her sentence and giggled quietly like she said something funny without noticing " There's no way we will all fit in there."

" Dude you change the password like every week please make an exception for today," Dustin added like the password was the real reason why Will still was inside the Castle.

"Will, please, we're worried about you." hearing El's angelic voice helped him to stop his crying.

Will opened the curtain he used as the Castle's door.

"There he is," Dustin said happily.
"Are you ready to come out?" Max said, she couldn't stop her grinning.
"Max." Mike elbowed her.
"Okay, sorry. For real though. Come on, it'll be a lot easier to talk with you if you just - " Max pointed the empty spot in the middle of the grass they all sit.
Will crawled out of the Castle and sit in the place Max pointed. He didn't know what to say. He shouldn't have run away like that. But he wasn't sure how his friends would react. It didn't look like they rejected him ( a part of him knew they wouldn't ) but still, his insecurity confused his head.

"So, Charlie." Lucas broke the silence surrounded all of them. "What a name."
" Will and Charlie. Sounds good together." Mike commented. " Of course, not as good as El and Mike does."
El laughed and hold Will's hand.
Will didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't this.

"You're not mad at me?" Will almost whispered, his fear of losing his friends didn't allow him to raise his voice to a normal tone.

"For what? Dating a boy? Do we look like bullies to you?" Lucas spoke with a high voice, then lowered it to comfort his sensitive friend. " We don't care what the other people will say. You're our friend. We will stay with you no matter what."

" We would be dead without our Cleric," Dustin added and put his hand on Will's back.

"If people say you're crazy, then we all are crazy with you. We were never normal by their point of view anyway." Mike said with a playful wink.

Will felt like he was about to cry again, but it was from a different reason.
He smiled, his eyes were still wet but his smile was real.

"Wait a second." Max ruined their emotional moment. "Charlie is an English boy from your art class."

"Yes?" Will didn't understand her point

"Are you dating Charles fucking Grayson?" Max yelled and stood up with excitement.
Dustin's mouth opened with shock.

"You know him?" Will asked while his cheeks were becoming red.

"Dude! Charles Grayson! You! Charles Grayson and you!" Dustin's finger was pointing at Will, he was still trying to process the knowledge he just learned.

" Who is this Charles Grayson?" Mike knit his brows.
"Dustin and I share the same math class with him. He has dark brown hair and blue eyes, and of course, an English accent which half of the girls from our class is in love with!" Max cheered. She hugged Will from his back "Will, I am so proud of you!"

"So this is why Grayson never looks at girls from our class because he likes you!" Dustin joined their hug.
“He never looks at the girls?” Will was smiling like the lovesick fool he is.
“Yes, not a single one of them.” Max reassured him.

Lucas, Mike, and El were looking at them with their eyes full of question marks. Nevertheless, they were happy for their friend.

Lucas returned to his investigator mode.
"Is there anything else you think we should know?"

Max and Dustin gave Will some space. Will looked all of his friends' faces with a grin, finally, it was his turn to smile slyly.

"He calls me William."
All the boys, in unison, screamed.
"HE DOES WHAT?"