Chapter Text
By eight o’clock, the house had settled into that soft, cluttered evening chaos that meant everyone had survived the day and now had no idea what to do with themselves.
Max and Jane were on the living room floor with the new skateboard, the wheels removed so it was just the deck while they worked on “balance drills.”
“Feet shoulder width apart,” Max said, nudging Jane’s ankles with the toe of her sock. “Knees bent. You are not a statue. Statues crack and fall over. You’re… water or whatever.”
“Water,” Jane repeated, concentrating. Her arms floated out from her sides a little, fingers spread, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall like Max had told her.
Will sat cross-legged on the couch, sketchbook open on his lap, pencil tapping lightly against the paper as he tried to capture the angle of Jane’s arms, the focused furrow between her brows, the way Max hovered half a step away, hands ready to catch if things went sideways.
He’d started the sketch intending it to be some generic “person balancing” study, but it was already becoming itself: Jane’s new jean jacket with the slightly too-big shoulders, Max’s wild hair, the uneven floorboard by the coffee table.
“Don’t look at your feet,” Max said. “That’s the first rule. You look at your feet, you eat it.”
“I do not want to ‘eat it,’” Jane said through gritted teeth.
“Then pick a spot and glue your eyes to it,” Max said.
Her weight shifted. The board tipped. One arm windmilled.
Max’s hands shot out, steadying her.
“Hey,” she said. “That was better. You lasted way longer than the first time.”
Jane’s shoulders lowered a fraction, tension easing.
“I lasted twelve seconds,” she said, almost proud.
“That’s eight more than Lucas did when I taught him,” Max said. “Don’t tell him I told you that.”
“I will not,” Jane promised solemnly.
Hopper, half-watching from his armchair with the newspaper in his lap, snorted.
Will smiled without really thinking about it. His pencil moved over the paper almost on autopilot now: the arc of Max’s fingers, the tilt of Jane’s chin, the newspaper folded across Hopper’s knee like a shield he forgot he was holding.
He heard the car pull up in the driveway before anyone else reacted—old habit, ears tuned to the specific cough of Jonathan’s engine.
Headlights swept briefly across the living room windows. Gravel crunched. Car doors thunked.
A second later, the front door opened, and cold air spilled into the room.
“Hey,” Jonathan called, voice roughened by too many hours breathing in chemical fumes and darkroom dust. “I’m home!”
“You’re late,” Joyce said, but there was no bite to it. “You were supposed to be done at seven.”
“Boss asked me to stay and help with a rush job,” Jonathan said, stepping into the doorway and pushing his hair back with ink-stained fingers. “Apparently nobody else knows how to not fog the negatives.” He glanced at the clock. “Also, I underestimated how long it takes to scrape dried developer off your shoes.”
“You what?” Joyce said, turning fully from the stove.
Jonathan lifted one foot sheepishly, showing a dark stain on the sole of his sneaker.
“I was careful,” he said. “Mostly. Anyway, I come bearing good news and a potential field trip.”
Max perked up instantly, hopping off the skateboard.
“Field trip?” she said. “If it’s back to the mall, I call shotgun.”
“No mall,” Jonathan said. “Family Video.”
“Pass,” Max said immediately, deflating. “We were just there this weekend. The Steve & Robin Show is reruns at this point.”
Jane, though, looked curious.
“What is the field trip?” she asked. “Is there cotton candy?”
“No sugar,” Jonathan said. “Just capitalism.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a VHS case with a garish sci-fi cover. “I have to return Creature From the Black Lagoon before Keith starts charging me late fees.”
Hopper snorted. “Tell Keith I said he can take his late fees and shove—”
“He knows,” Jonathan said. “He knows. But seriously, if I don’t get this back tonight it’s, like, six bucks by tomorrow, and I am not letting the monopolistic video rental machine win.” He glanced at Will, at Max, at Jane. “You guys wanna come? We can grab something for a movie night later this week.”
“A movie night?” Jane’s eyes widened. “With popcorn?”
“If Hop doesn’t burn it,” Joyce said.
“I will not burn it,” Hopper said. “You set one kitchen on fire and nobody lets you forget it.”
“You set two kitchens on fire,” Joyce said. “That we know of.”
Max grabbed the skateboard, tucking it under one arm.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “I’ll come. Maybe we can convince Steve to let us into the non-lame section.”
“I would like to see the one with the time travel car,” Jane said, very seriously. “Mike told me about it.”
“Back to the Future,” Will supplied. “We can ask if it’s in.”
Joyce shook her head, but she was smiling.
“Be back by ten,” she said. “And no R-rated stuff, please. I’m not arguing with Keith about whether a movie with three murders and one boob counts as ‘light violence.’”
“Very specific example, Mom,” Jonathan said, grinning.
“Don’t you start,” Joyce said, pointing a spoon at him. “If I find Porky’s in this house again, I’m burning it”
Will slid off the couch, tucking his sketchbook under his arm.
“I’ll go,” he said. “I mean, if there’s room.”
“There’s always room,” Jonathan said. “Max, Jane, you in?”
Jane nodded immediately. “Yes,” she said. “I have been to Family Video but I have not studied it.”
“You’re such a nerd,” Max said affectionately, bumping her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
They bundled into jackets and shoes, the usual chaos of mislaid gloves and someone’s scarf going missing (Hopper’s; he accused the dog, who yawned, unimpressed). The air outside had a bite to it that hinted at real cold not too far off, the stars sharp and bright in the clear sky.
Jonathan’s car, older and boxy and perpetually on the edge of needing a new muffler, idled in the driveway, exhaust curling white into the dark. Will slid into the front seat with the returned VHS in his lap, while Max and Jane claimed the back, immediately falling into an argument about which mixtape they were allowed to put in the tape deck.
“No Steve tapes,” Max said. “His taste is punishment.”
“I like some of his songs,” Jane said thoughtfully. “The one that goes ‘just like the white-winged dove’—”
“Fine,” Max said. “One Steve song, maximum.”
Jonathan started the engine, the radio crackling to life before he pushed in a cassette. Tinny drums and a guitar riff filled the car—Phil Collins again, one of Jane’s current obsessions.
The road to Family Video was familiar, lit by a mix of streetlights and the glow from storefronts. The mall parking lot sign loomed off to their right as they passed, neon buzzing. Jane craned her neck to look at it, like she was worried it might vanish while she wasn’t there.
“We will go back,” Max said, reading her mind. “When your feet are less… wobbly.”
“They are not wobbly,” Jane said. “They are learning.”
“Same thing,” Max said.
In the front seat, Jonathan glanced over at Will.
“You doing okay?” he asked quietly, under the music.
Will watched the dark blur of trees and houses out the passenger window.
“Yeah,” he said. “Eddie called the house earlier.”
“Oh?” Jonathan said.
“He wanted to yell about how Lady Applejack is ‘both the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to the campaign,’” Will said, a smile tugging at his mouth. “He’s… excited. And weirdly okay with me not being there every single session.”
“Told you,” Jonathan said. “The world doesn’t fall apart if you miss one game. Or if someone else steps up.”
“I know,” Will said, but it felt less like he was trying to convince himself now and more like stating a fact.
“Still thinking about the game?” Jonathan added after a beat.
“Yeah,” Will said softly. “Chance… kinda invited me again. In the car. Yesterday.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows climbed.
“In the car,” he repeated.
“He gave me a ride,” Will said, voice stumbling over the words. “We… talked. About driving. And the campaign. And… stuff.”
“Stuff,” Jonathan echoed, like he wasn’t going to push but also wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t care.
Will exhaled slowly, watching his breath fog the glass for a second.
“I think I’m going,” he said. “At least for part of it. Worthington let me go early that day. And Lucas… he really wants me there.”
“And you?” Jonathan asked.
“I…” Will hesitated. “I think I want to go.”
There it was. Out loud.
Jonathan’s smile was small and genuine.
“Then you should,” he said.
Will nodded. The words eased something tight and anxious inside him, even if they didn’t magically fix everything.
They pulled into the Family Video lot a few minutes later, the store’s green and yellow sign buzzing merrily above the entrance. The front windows glowed, displays of VHS covers arranged in lopsided pyramids and themed endcaps: “Fall Frights,” “Family Favorites,” “New Releases.”
Inside, the world shifted from cold autumn air to warm fluorescent light and the faint smell of popcorn and plastic.
The bell over the door jingled as they stepped in.
“Welcome to Family Video, where late fees are our love language,” came a familiar voice from the counter.
Steve Harrington leaned against the register, nametag crooked, hair doing its usual gravity-defying thing. He had one hand wrapped around a Styrofoam cup, the other flipping a pen between his fingers.
Behind him, Robin Buckley perched on a stool, label maker in hand, a stack of returns beside her. She wore the vest over a band t-shirt, sleeves pushed up, hair pulled back with a headband that did absolutely nothing to keep the shorter pieces from falling in her face.
She squinted at a tape in her hand, then at the screen in front of her, then banged the label maker once on the counter like that would help.
“Oh, thank God,” she said when she saw Jonathan approaching. “Customers who aren’t weird middle-aged men asking if we have more movies with ‘European sensibilities.’”
“That happened one time,” Steve said. “And the guy was probably actually European, Robin. You can’t just assume everyone is a pervert.”
“Everyone is a pervert,” Robin said. “Statistically.”
She hopped off the stool as Jonathan held up the tape.
“Back to return this before Keith sells your soul?” she asked.
“That’s the plan,” Jonathan said. “I can’t afford to owe that man anything. Last time he made me reorganize all the kung fu tapes as ‘payment.’”
“Truly a fate worse than death,” Steve said, taking the tape from him and sliding it onto the counter with practiced ease. “We still on for movie night Thursday?”
“If we can pry Hopper away from Magnum, P.I. reruns,” Jonathan said. “And if you promise not to bring anything that will scar Jane and the others for life.”
“I have taste,” Steve said, offended.
“You wanted to rent The Thing for her first movie night,” Robin pointed out.
“It’s a classic!” Steve protested. “And it has, like, heart or whatever.”
“It has exploding dogs,” Robin said. “Exploding. Dogs.”
“Dogs?” Jane said, eyes widening as she drifted closer.
“No exploding dogs for you,” Will said hurriedly. “No dogs exploding anywhere near you.”
Jane nodded. “Good,” she said. “I like dogs.”
“See?” Robin said. “This is what I’m saying.”
“We’ll find something PG-13 with no dogs and minimal trauma,” Jonathan said. “In the meantime, can these nerds wander?”
“Wander away,” Steve said, sweeping an arm wide. “Just don’t knock over the horror display again. Keith wrote me up for that.”
“That was you,” Robin said.
Will drifted toward the aisles, sketchbook still tucked under his arm, though he knew he wouldn’t use it here. Family Video was like a library of worlds he hadn’t quite stepped into yet: rows and rows of stories lined up in their battered plastic cases, cover art promising drama and comedy and explosions and awkward romance.
Jane gravitated toward the “Family Favorites” shelf, Max toward the horror endcap with its lurid boxes—dripping fonts, screaming faces, lots of red. Jonathan wandered off to the “Classics & Foreign” section, where Robin would give him grief about being a snob and then recommend something weird but good.
Will wasn’t sure where he belonged in the maze.
He walked slowly down the “Drama” aisle, fingers trailing just above the tapes, careful not to knock anything askew. Covers flashed past: earnest faces, sweeping landscapes, taglines about passion and destiny and war.
Halfway down the aisle, something made him stop.
A dark green spine with a white label. The title in serif letters: Maurice.
He slid the tape partway out, curiosity more like gravity than conscious choice.
The cover showed two men in period clothes. One, dark-haired and serious, in profile; the other, lighter, face turned toward him, expression somewhere between sad and hopeful. There was something about the way they were standing, too close, not close enough that buzzed faintly under his skin.
He read the tagline, lips moving soundlessly.
A story of forbidden love in Edwardian England.
His chest tightened.
He knew, vaguely, that there were… stories like this out there. He’d heard about them in whispers, half-mocked, half-terrified. Magazines with lurid covers in the back of gas stations, paperbacks hidden under floorboards. In Hawkins, it was mostly jokes and slurs scrawled in bathroom stalls.
But seeing it here, on a shelf in Family Video, slotted between some random courtroom drama and a movie about a teacher inspiring his students… it felt different. Less like something dirty and more like proof that somewhere, somehow, people like him existed enough to be put on a box and rented for $2.99 a night.
He traced the edge of the cover with his thumb.
He imagined bringing it up to the counter and dropping it on the stack with whatever Jonathan picked. The way Joyce would squint at the back later, reading about repressed feelings and British boarding schools. The way Hopper would probably make some crack. The way the air might go tight and weird.
He slid the tape half back into its slot.
“Good choice,” a voice said casually over his shoulder. “If you’re in the mood to be emotionally destroyed by repressed British dudes in high collars.”
Will nearly dropped the tape.
He turned.
Robin stood at the end of the aisle, leaning on the neighboring shelf, a stack of tapes balanced against her hip. She’d shed the vest somewhere between the counter and here, leaving her in a faded local band t-shirt and jeans. A label maker dangled from one wrist by its little strap like a bracelet.
She nodded at the tape in his hand.
“That one’s… a lot,” she said. “In a good way. But also in a ‘wow, society is garbage’ way.”
Heat shot up Will’s neck.
“I was just—” He fumbled, shoving the tape fully back into place like it had burned him. “Curious. I haven’t seen it. I was just looking.”
Robin raised an eyebrow.
“Sure,” she said lightly. “Just browsing the repressed gay tragedy section on a casual Tuesday.”
He makes a small choking sound.
“I didn’t— I mean, I didn’t say—”
She winced, lifting a hand.
“Sorry,” she said, voice immediately softer. “That was… blunter than I meant it to be. Habit. My mouth has, like, a head start on my filter.”
“It’s fine,” he lies.
It isn’t, exactly. It’s… exposing. Like she’s flipped on a light in a room he was trying to keep dim.
She steps a little closer, lowering her voice.
“Look,” she says. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I just… recognized the look.”
“The look?” he echoes.
She nods toward the shelf where Maurice sits, innocuous again among its neighbors.
“I used to stare at that box like it was radioactive,” she says. “Before we had it here, there was a poster for it at the Plaza. I think I walked past it every day for a week pretending I didn’t see it.” Her mouth twists. “I’d tell myself I was just… really into British literature. Or, like, male friendship. Or whatever nonsense you tell yourself when your brain is trying not to say the word it actually means.”
Will swallows.
“What word,” he says, even though he already knows.
She looks at him, blue eyes sharp and kind all at once.
“Gay,” she says, without hesitation. “Or… whatever applies.” She shrugs one shoulder. “In my case, ‘lesbian with a panic disorder’ covers most of it.”
His heart stutters.
He knows, in a foggy kind of second-hand way, that Robin likes girls. Part of him has known since that strange summer when Steve came back from a terrible mall job with a new best friend and a new gigantic crush on Nancy Wheeler, Round Two; Robin appeared by his side like she’d always been there, a sarcastic, fast-talking blur.
But no one ever says it. Not in Hawkins. Not out loud.
“You… are?” he says, voice small.
“Very much so,” Robin says. “Trust me, no straight girl spends that much time obsessing over the way other girls’ hands look when they play clarinet.”
“Clarinet,” he repeats, thrown by the specificity.
She smiles.
“Vickie,” she says. “You know Vickie, right? Band? short hair, freckles, smile that could cause traffic accidents?”
Will searches his mental Rolodex.
“Red curls?” he hazards. “Plays with the marching band at games. Always looks like she’s about to trip over her own shoes.”
“That’s the one,” Robin says, fondness dripping off every word. “She graduated with me and Nance last year. Class of ‘86. She’s… she’s my girlfriend.”
Girlfriend.
The word hits like someone dropping a pebble into a still pond; the ripples go all the way out.
“She is?” Will says, too quickly.
“Yeah.” Robin’s grin softens into something almost shy. “It’s… relatively new. We’re still figuring it out. Her parents think I’m her ‘good influence friend from work,’ which is objectively hilarious because I am the opposite of that. But. It’s real.” She shrugs. “We keep it quiet. You know. For… obvious reasons.”
Obvious reasons.
Will looks down at his hands. At the faint graphite smeared along the side of his finger, the little nick near his knuckle from a stray staple earlier.
“I—” He stops. Starts again. “I’m… not…” The word tangles. “I don’t—”
“Hey,” Robin says, stepping closer, voice gentle. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
He sucks in a breath.
It would be so easy to back away. To laugh it off, say he was just curious about film history, make a joke about tragic British teeth and move on.
But the store hums quietly around them, distant sounds from the horror aisle where Max is probably trying to convince Jane that animatronic sharks are fine, the faint thump of Steve messing with the shelves behind the counter. The world hasn’t ended because Robin said girlfriend out loud.
And Will is so, so tired of holding all of this inside like something that might explode.
“I am,” he blurts.
Robin blinks. “You are…?”
“Not straight,” he says, the words coming in a rush, tripping over each other. “I’m not— I mean, I like— guys. Boys. I think. I know.” He winces. “Sorry, that sounded stupid.”
“Totally not stupid,” Robin says. She looks more like herself again now, bright, fast, a little scattered. “Also, welcome to the club.”
He huffs out a laugh that sounds half like it might break.
“I’m not exactly… out,” he adds quickly. “I mean. My mom knows. And Jonathan. And… the guys. Like, the party. Sort of. They know something.” He twists the hem of his sleeve between his fingers. “Hopper and I are still… working on it.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Working on it?”
“He’s… trying really hard,” Will says, complicated fondness threading through the words. “He’s… Hopper. He says stuff like, ‘You know I don’t care who you like, right?’ and then five seconds later he goes on this whole rant about how he’ll ‘kill any boy who looks at my kid wrong.’” He smiles weakly. “I think he forgets I might be the boy in that equation.”
Robin snorts. “Classic dad move.”
“I just…” Will stares at the tape spine again, the word Maurice suddenly too loud. “I’m kind of scared. This town isn’t exactly welcoming to anyone who isn’t—” He gropes for the right word. “‘Normal.’”
He thinks of lockers tagged with slurs, the whispered jokes in the hallway, the way kids like Tommy H. make those slurs sound like a threat and not just an insult. Of the way adults look away when they hear it. Of the quiet, brutal stories that circulate like ghost tales, some kid a few towns over beaten up behind a diner, someone’s cousin sent away to “camp” and coming back never quite the same.
Robin’s face sobers.
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Hawkins is… not exactly San Francisco.”
“Steve said San Francisco is full of hippies and people who don’t wear socks,” Will says, because his brain is an idiot that reaches for humor when it’s close to panic.
“Steve also thinks Footloose is a documentary,” Robin says. “We don’t listen to Steve.”
Will laughs, the tension loosening a fraction.
“I just…” He gestures helplessly, words spilling now because if he doesn’t say them here, in this fluorescent-lit aisle of melodrama and soft-focus movie stars, he might not say them anywhere. “I know my friends aren’t going to, like, hate me. Or my mom. Or Jonathan. But the rest of this place—” He swallows. “I keep thinking if I’m… too obvious or whatever, it’ll just… stick. People will decide, and then that’s all I get to be. The weird gay kid.The one they whisper about.”
He doesn’t mention the other fear, that someone might do more than whisper.
Robin studies him for a long moment, expression softer than he’s ever seen it when she’s not making a joke.
“Can I tell you something kind of personal?” she asks.
He blinks. “You just told me you’re gay and dating a band girl. I think we’re past the small talk stage.”
She huffs a little laugh, then sobers again.
“I told Steve,” she says. “Like, full breakdown. There was… music and vomit and I was crying and yelling at him and I basically screamed it in his face.”
“Sounds… intense,” Will says.
“It was,” she says. “And I was positive he was going to either freak out or, like, pat me on the head and tell me it was just a phase or something. Because that’s what this town trains you to expect, right? Best case, you’re a joke. Worst case…” She makes a vague, ugly gesture. “They make sure you know what you are’s not welcome.”
The fluorescent lights buzz quietly over their heads, someone laughs distantly near the comedy section, a tape case clicks shut as a kid examines the back and then puts it back.
“But he didn’t,” she continues. “Freak out, I mean. He just… sat there. And listened. And then he told me I was an idiot for thinking that I was unlovable and he was an idiot for ever making me feel like that. And then—” She flicks a hand toward the front of the store, where Steve is currently arguing with some guy over the definition of “rewound.” “Now we’re stuck together for life, apparently.”
A smile tugs at Will’s mouth despite the heaviness in his chest.
“Yeah,” he says. “You kind of are.”
“And then,” Robin says, “later, when I realized that the stupid choir girl I’d been singing harmonies with in my head for a year was actually looking at me the same way… I almost threw up.”
“Romantic,” Will says.
“Shut up,” she says, but there’s no sting in it. “I was terrified. Because it’s one thing to say it to the reformed King of Hawkins, whose whole deal is being weirdly chill about this stuff now. It’s another to say it to someone who might break your heart or, worse, say ‘that’s gross.’”
“Did she?” Will asks, unable not to.
“She got so nervous she knocked over her juice,” Robin says, eyes going distant. “Then she laughed, and I laughed, and we both did this really awkward, ‘oh my God, same,’ and then spent, like, three weeks trying to figure out what the hell that meant.” Her mouth softens. “And now she’s my girlfriend. We go to movies and talk about music and complain about our parents and sometimes she looks at me like I’m the only person in the room.” She looks back at him. “And it’s still scary. Every day. But it’s also… really, really good.”
Will’s throat feels tight.
“That sounds…” He searches for a word that doesn’t sound stupid or too small. “…nice,” he finishes lamely.
“It is,” Robin says. “It’s also messy and complicated and there are days when I want to hide under my bed because someone used a slur too loudly in the hallway. But I guess what I’m trying to say is… it’s not all like the sad British movies.” She nods at Maurice. “It’s not all secret letters and ruined lives.”
He glances back at the tape. The two men on the cover seem to be looking at each other differently now.
“You don’t… regret telling people?” he asks quietly. “About you? About Vickie?”
She considers.
“I don’t tell everyone,” she says. “I’m not out to my parents. Or, like, most of the grown-ups in this town. Not because I’m ashamed.” She shrugs. “Because I like having a house to live in. And a job. And the ability to walk down the sidewalk without someone deciding to use me as target practice.” She shifts the tapes against her hip. “But with the people I’ve told? Steve. Nancy. Vickie. A couple of others who figured it out because they actually pay attention… I don’t regret it, no.”
Will wraps his arms around himself, thumb rubbing at a loose seam in his sleeve.
“I keep thinking… if I say it out loud too many times, it becomes real,” he says. “Like, up here—” he taps the side of his head “—it’s still… mine. If other people know, they can… do things with it.”
“Weaponize it,” Robin says quietly.
He nods.
“Yeah.”
She takes a breath.
“It’s already real,” she says. “Even if you never say it again ever. Not saying it doesn’t make it less true. It just makes you lonelier.” She offers a small, crooked smile. “You don’t owe it to anyone. You don’t owe anyone your label or your crushes or your entire internal monologue. But you deserve to not be the only one holding it all.”
The words land with the same soft weight as the ones Jonathan had offered earlier: you’re allowed to like people, whoever they are.
“I have—” Will starts. Stops. Tries again. “There’s this guy.”
Robin’s eyebrows shoot up, but she keeps her voice carefully even.
“Yeah?” she says.
“I don’t even know if I like him like that,” Will says quickly, heat creeping up his neck. “I mean, maybe I do. I think I do. I… feel weird around him. Good weird. And also like my brain forgot how to operate my body. It’s confusing.”
“Sounds pretty like-that,” Robin says. “But continue.”
“He’s on the basketball team,” Will says, as if that piece is the most absurd part. “He’s friends with Lucas. We had art together last year. He keeps... Talking to me.” He laughs, a little breathless. “He gave me a ride home yesterday. Offered to teach me how to drive. Keeps inviting me to this game on Friday.”
“And you want to go,” Robin says.
His eyes lift to hers.
“Yeah,” he says. “I think so. But that feels like… a lot. Like a thing. Even if it’s not, you know? It’s just a game. But it’s also… not.”
“No, I get it,” Robin says. “Walking into the gym is like voluntarily stepping onto a stage you didn’t audition for. There are all these rules about who’s supposed to sit where and cheer for what and you’re just there like, ‘do I clap now or will that get me punched.’”
He huffs out an involuntary laugh.
“Exactly,” he says.
She leans one shoulder against the shelf, tapes balanced on her other arm.
“Okay,” she says, like she’s laying out pieces on a table. “You’ve got this boy who makes your neurons short-circuit, a group of friends who, while insufferable, love you to death, a mom who already knows and hasn’t exploded, and a grumpy cop-dad who is trying very hard not to be a caveman. That is already, like, five things more than some of us had at your age.” She pauses. “And yeah, Hawkins sucks. It’s going to keep sucking, probably, for a long time. But… there are pockets where it sucks less. Like around that idiot—” she jerks her chin toward the front, where Steve is attempting to explain the concept of rewinding to an elderly customer “—and the people he’s collected. Like around your table of dice-obsessed weirdos. Like around… this basketball boy, maybe?”
“Chance,” Will says quietly, before he realizes he’s decided to.
“Chance,” she repeats, filing it away. “Cool name.”
“And you,” she says, “are allowed to see where it goes. Or doesn’t. You don’t have to stamp it with a label or make a big speech on the cafeteria table. You can just… like him, in the privacy of your own freaking skull, and let yourself be happy that he’s inviting you to a game.” She taps the Maurice tape lightly with her knuckle. “And if you ever want to watch the depressing British movie about repressed guys who never got the chance to be together, you can come here and we will put it on for you. After hours. Secret club.”
“Secret sad movie club,” Will says, mouth quirking.
“With popcorn,” she adds. “Steve makes good popcorn. Don’t tell him I said that.”
He smiles, something loosening in his chest.
“How do you do it?” he asks after a beat. “Walk around like… like you are, in this town. Without wanting to… disappear.”
She considers, eyes flicking up to the flickering fluorescent tubes.
“Some days I do,” she says. “Want to disappear. Some days I put on this vest and I stand behind that counter and I feel like I’m wearing a costume of a normal girl. But then… I come around a corner and I catch Steve doing some dumb dance to get a baby to stop crying, or Vickie leaves me a note hidden in a tape case, or I see some kid staring at Maurice like it’s a portal. And I remember it’s not just me.”
He feels his eyes sting a little.
“You’re not alone,” she says, like she’s reading his mind. “Even if it feels like it. And I know that sounds like a cheesy after-school special line, but it’s true. Maybe not in the way you want yet. Maybe not holding hands in the hall or kissing under the bleachers or whatever the hell straight kids get to do loud and proud. But in the quiet ways.” She offers him a small, conspiratorial smile. “In the aisles at Family Video. In late-night campaigns in somebody’s basement. In rides home from basketball practice.”
He thinks of the Nova’s cracked vinyl seats, the plastic dice swinging from the mirror, the way Chance’s hands tightened on the wheel when he said he’d be glad if Will came to the game.
“Yeah,” he says, voice a little rough. “Okay.”
Robin straightens, adjusting the stack of tapes on her hip.
“And hey,” she says, tone lighter now. “For what it’s worth, if that Chance kid ever gives you crap or makes you feel like garbage, I will personally march into that gym and set all the basketballs on fire.”
He laughs, the mental image too vivid.
“Please don’t burn Lucas’ basketballs,” he says.
“I’ll spare his,” she says. “The rest are fair game.”
There’s a beat of companionable silence. He reaches out, almost without thinking, and slides Maurice halfway out of its slot again.
“Do you think…” He swallows. “If I rented this, and… my family saw it, they would…”
He can’t quite finish the sentence.
“Ask questions?” she supplies gently. “Make faces? Freak out?”
He nods.
“Maybe,” she says honestly. “Maybe not. Joyce seems like she’d be more concerned about whether it has a happy ending than who kisses who. Hop would probably act weird about it for, like, a day, then get into an argument with the TV about class politics. Your siblings… I don’t know. But I do know this.” She reaches out and pushes the tape back into place with a soft click. “You don’t have to test the whole world at once.”
He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
She smiles.
“Take something you can pretend is for Jane,” she suggests. “Or Max. Or movie night. And next time—” her eyes flick to the tape “—if you want to add that one to the stack, you can. Or you can wait. No timeline. No exam. Just… you, at your pace.”
He nods, throat tight.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
“Don’t mention it,” she says. “Seriously. Don’t. I have a reputation to maintain.” She jerks her head toward the counter. “If dingus sees me having a heartfelt conversation, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
Will laughs, the sound less brittle now. The fluorescent lights seem less harsh, the aisles less like maze walls and more like shelves in a place that, somehow, belongs to him too.
“What are you weirdos doing back there?” Steve calls. “You’re scaring away the paying customers.”
“There are no paying customers,” Robin says. “It’s eight-thirty on a Tuesday in Hawkins. The only people here are us and the guy in the trench coat who pretends he’s not renting The Exorcist for the fourth time.”
“I heard that,” a voice grumbles from somewhere near horror.
“Good,” Robin mutters, then looks back at Will. “Go grab something before your brother picks the most depressing foreign film in the building. If he brings Eraserhead to movie night, I’m quitting.”
Will snorts.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
He wanders out of the aisle feeling lighter, the weight of the un-rented tape behind him somehow a promise instead of an accusation. Max is indeed in horror, trying to convince Jane that Jaws is “not that scary.”
“It’s a shark,” Jane says, suspicious. “In the water.”
“Yeah, but it’s clearly fake,” Max says. “And the mayor is the real monster anyway, trust me.”
“I do not trust that,” Jane says.
“Pick something else, then,” Max says, huffing. “But no cartoons. I can’t handle another ninety minutes of talking mice.”
Jonathan stands near the end of the aisle with a couple of options already in hand: a John Hughes movie and something older that looks depressing and black-and-white.
“We’re not watching your sad French film,” Max tells him preemptively.
“It’s not French,” Jonathan says. “It’s Italian.”
“That’s worse,” she says.
Will grabs Back to the Future off the “Staff Picks” shelf—he knows Jane will love it, and he’s already seen it twice, enough times to find comfort in the familiar beats. He adds it to the stack in Jonathan’s arms.
“Here,” he says. “Compromise. Time travel and moms making bad choices.”
“Oh, that one,” Max says. “Yeah, okay. I’ll allow it.”
Jane traces the Delorean on the cover with one finger, fascinated.
“This is the car that goes very fast,” she says.
“And also teaches you why you shouldn’t flirt with people from the future,” Max says.
“I would not,” Jane says.
“Great,” Max says. “You’re already smarter than half the people in this town.”
They converge on the counter, where Steve scans the tapes with exaggerated flair, giving each one a running commentary.
“Excellent,” he says, holding up Back to the Future. “Educational. Teaches important lessons about not messing with the space-time continuum and never trusting a guy with that much hair gel.”
“You use hair gel,” Robin points out.
“I use a tasteful amount,” Steve says. “There’s a difference.”
“What about this one?” he says, picking up Jonathan’s more serious choice. “You trying to impress someone with your deep, intellectual appreciation of bleak European cinema?”
“It’s for me,” Jonathan says. “To remind me that things could always be worse.”
“Worse how?” Steve asks. “More subtitles?”
“More existential dread,” Robin says.
“We have enough of that already,” Steve says. “High school exists.”
As they bicker, Robin glances at Will, eyes flicking briefly to the shelves behind him, then back. She doesn’t say anything, but the look is unmistakable: I’ve got you. No rush.
He nods, just once.
On the way out, Jane clutches the Back to the Future case to her chest like a relic.
“Will we watch this tomorrow?” she asks.
“Maybe Friday, before the game,” Jonathan says.
Will’s heart trips.
“The game,” he echoes.
Max smirks.
“You’re going,” she says. It isn’t a question.
He opens his mouth to argue, to hedge, to fill the space with probably or maybe or we’ll see. The words die on his tongue.
“I’m going,” he hears himself say.
There’s a beat of silence, like the universe waiting to see if he’ll take it back.
He doesn’t.
Max grins, sharp and pleased.
“Good,” she says. “Someone has to sit with me and make fun of the cheerleaders’ hair.”
“I will not make fun of their hair,” Jane says. “Some of them have very nice hair.”
“You can be nice,” Max says. “We’ll balance each other out.”
Jonathan unlocks the car with a jangle of keys.
“You sure?” he asks softly as they climb in.
“Yeah,” Will says, surprising himself with the steadiness in his voice. “Chance invited me. Lucas wants me there.” He looks out at the glowing Family Video sign, at the silhouettes of Steve and Robin moving around behind the glass. “Feels… stupid not to go.”
“Okay,” Jonathan says. “Then I will be in the bleachers with you, pretending I understand what a double dribble is.”
Max snorts. “You’re thinking of double feature, Byers.”
“They both sound made up,” Jonathan says.
As they pull out of the parking lot, Will twists in his seat, watching the store recede, the bright rectangle of light in the dark, Robin’s shape passing briefly in front of the window as she restocks a display.
Somewhere behind the drama aisle, a copy of Maurice sits on its shelf, the two men on the cover frozen in their almost-touch.
He knows now that he doesn’t have to take it home tonight for it to mean something. He knows it will still be there later, when he’s ready. When he’s braver. When he’s not so tangled up in his own fear.
For now, he’s got a time travel movie, a loud family, a campaign that won’t fall apart without him, a boy in a green and gold jacket who keeps showing up, and a girl behind the Family Video counter who said gay out loud and didn’t flinch.
The town is still Hawkins. It still sucks in a hundred ways.
But there are pockets where it sucks less.
He leans his forehead briefly against the cool glass of the window and lets the hum of the engine and the murmur of his siblings’ argument about popcorn flavors wash over him.
Friday looms ahead with bleachers and banners and the roar of the crowd, and somewhere on the court, Chance looking up into the stands.
For the first time, instead of dread, the thought of it sends a flicker of something else through his chest.
Not quite hope.
But close.