Author's Note: My original plan was to write something serious, angsty, and a lot longer. But it has not been the easiest couple of months, so that plan's on the backburner for now. This idea has been in my head since before they even announced Kevin was going to be a character on the show, so I thought I'd do something short and sweet instead.
(Also, if someone feels like buying me the Will + Kevin t-shirt they're currently selling, I will be happy to accept your generosity and GIVE YOU ALL THE CHOCOLATE-COVERED ESPRESSO BEANS)
Is it September yet?
I don't own Nashville.
I.
Kevin once told him there was nothing in Tallahassee but drunk college girls.
"There's nothing in Texas but drunk high school girls," Will replied.
"And the Alamo."
Will snorted. "Everyone remembers the Alamo."
"I thought that was the whole point." Kevin raised his beer up to the sky, like a trophy. "Remember the Alamo!"
Will snorted again. Kevin smirked.
"Did you ever go there?" Kevin asked. "Like, on field trips or anything?"
"I'm from Lubbock," Will said, like that meant something, and when it didn't to Kevin he elaborated. "The Alamo's in San Antonio. That's, like, a six-hour drive."
Kevin leaned back in his chair, tipping his head thoughtfully towards the setting sun.
"Texas is huge," he mused.
"Texas IS huge," Will agreed.
They were a little drunk.
"So's Florida," Kevin said, and immediately launched into a story about how he and his high school friends would go to Key West, leaving before sunrise and driving almost ten hours to get to the single-file strip of highway that connected the Keys to the rest of the sandy state, flanked on either side by bluegreen water and giant statues of sea creatures and Key deer, which could be seen if you decided to veer off the highway to the thickets of mangroves and keep very, very still. You might get sucked up by the backwater swampy trees, but then again, you might see a deer or two.
"I could do without the beach," Will said at the end.
(Plus, Key West is supposed to be really, really gay. He just doesn't add that part.)
"Don't go to the beaches at Key West," Kevin replied. "Too touristy. Go to Big Pine or Islamorada. Key West is just a lot of tourists and roosters walking down the streets."
They were both on their third or fourth beer, and Will couldn't believe he said where he was from. He never specified Lubbock – in every interview, he always said he spent time in Austin, and he wasn't lying.
Kevin was still talking about Tallahassee, a town fueled by pockets of state capitol wealth and the parents of rich college students, and football. There was a notoriously sketchy Greyhound station in the center of town where homeless people would scream at anybody who passed by. On St. Patrick's Day, the bar down the street from Florida State would serve green beer, and he and his friends didn't even need fake IDs to get one. On days when the Seminoles had a home game, his mother couldn't even leave the house to go grocery shopping, because so many of the streets were shut down and blocked off, overrun with people and game day traffic. On more than one occasion, shirtless drunks smeared with garnet and gold paint would pass out in their front lawn and throw up in his mom's flower beds. Kevin talked about how he and his friends would go and get drunk by the lake on the edge of town, driving on moonless nights, the rocky strip of land too pathetic to be called a "beach" surrounded by boasting pines that stretched high into the pitch-dark sky, their sharp points tearing at the blackness and spilling silver stars that glimmered off the surface of the oil-dark lake, and they lit fires on the shore littered with crushed beer cans and used condoms. When campuses were closed for holidays, the whole area was deserted, and you could skateboard down the busiest streets in town without running into a single car.
He told Will that the main street in town was called Tennessee Street, and when Kevin was begging all the bars to let him play John Anderson covers for drunk college kids on a Tuesday night, the street name had seemed like an omen, like Nashville was always just in reach. Also, he had his guitar stolen from him at gunpoint one night on that very same street, and the same guys who stole his guitar also robbed a McDonalds later that night.
Tallahassee was a weird place.
Will didn't counter with his own stories about Lubbock. He just listened. The cicadas were out. The air smelled like honeysuckle and onion grass. It was warm and heavy like syrup, soaking over him, freezing everything in place as he leaned his head back and stared at the sky, the lights above them like fireflies. Kevin's words, a warm glow washing over him. He was talking again about that single stretch of highway to Key West, and between the honeysuckle and wild sky and makeshift firefly lights and the beer, he was lullabied into closing his eyes, resting his head, letting himself just take a deep breath and –
"Am I boring you?"
He cracked an eye open. Kevin was grinning at him.
"Here I am just running my mouth and you're over there passin' out. I figure I must be boring you to death."
"No," Will said, trying to sit up. His stiff muscles protested. He blinked himself awake, the whole world coming into sharp focus again. "I'm not, sorry, you weren't, I'm just…"
He stammered again before Kevin replied, "No worries. If you're tired, go to sleep. I didn't mean to keep you up."
"It's still early."
"Then take a nap." Kevin yawned. "I myself find that naps are heavily underrated."
He smiled at Will. It set the world back to blurry haze, warm and light, and he wasn't anchored to the pine and the sun glimmering off the lake water and the soft shifting earth anymore.
Their little getaway to Lake Douglas.
He remembers conversations and moments from that long weekend better than he remembers whole years of his life. Like how he found out that Kevin will sing along to anything on the radio, and makes these elaborate hand motions when he gets really into a song. Or how he drinks more coffee than anyone Will has ever met, and has such a bad sweet tooth Will isn't sure how his teeth haven't rotted out of his head by now.
He remembers those four days. He never stops thinking about them.
II.
It's Sunday.
It's hot and hazy and already in the high eighties before the day's even begun. Maybe some rain will cool the city down, but for the past few weeks they've been sunstroked into obedience and air-conditioning, and no sheets on the bed. The sun is pouring in through the curtains, sluggish beams of dust circling the stale, unmoving air. He blinks himself awake, one gold stripe of light resting lazily across his stomach, and the other half spotlighting Kevin's empty side of the bed. Outside he can hear cicadas screeching in the trees, mingled with birdcalls and the cars driving by; all things living outside the window, the real world he spent so many days and nights hiding from in this bed, with this man.
The past two weeks, he hasn't been hiding so much as bunking down and waiting for the next move – assuming there will ever be one. Luke's team has been handling nonstop media requests ever since Will's announcement, but for now, Luke's only instructions have been sit tight and keep your mouth shut. Which is more or less what he's been forced to do anyway, since Luke officially took him off the tour and replaced him with Juliette.
He runs a hand over his face, wishing he could still sleep. He hasn't had much of it lately.
Luke's already gotten calls, cancelling previously scheduled appearances: the CMT Music Awards, where Will was supposed to sing his single and present Group Video of the Year with Danielle Bradbury and some actor from a television show. CMA Fest, where he was supposed to perform at LP Field right before The Band Perry. A show he was supposed to headline at the Indiana State Fair in August. And Luke officially put the brakes on working on the album, with no official word as to when they can start again.
If he didn't fully understand it before, he gets it now. He's spent enough nights lurking the internet, reading every interview and article and comment he can find about himself. So far, they've all said the same thing: mainstream success is over. No selling out arenas, no more albums going number one. No support from country radio, no more videos being shown in rotation on CMT and GAC. No more being the next Luke Wheeler.
Kevin already told him: stop doing this. It isn't doing you any good. There's nothing you can do except wait it out. Even if he's sick of waiting, there isn't anything he can do about it.
And that's the biggest takeaway he's gotten from the past two weeks: there's nothing he can do. About any of it.
He hates this helplessness. Waiting around for everyone else to make the decisions. Being frozen in place. Having zero control.
He has no idea what the next step should be, but why is waiting on his ass going to get him any closer to it?
He might explode from the total frustration of it, except he has yet to get out of bed.
Will closes his eyes, sighing. It's too hot to move, too hot to breathe.
There's nothing he can do.
A shout from the kitchen makes him sit straight up, a girl's startled voice ringing through the lazy morning. Will jumps out of bed, throws the bedroom door open, and bursts into the kitchen at the same time Gunnar comes running out of the other bedroom.
"Scarlett?" he cries, then does a double-take when he sees Will. "What the hell? I thought you were out."
"I thought you were out," Will says, and then he looks at the scene in the kitchen and wishes he hadn't.
Scarlett is standing in the middle of the kitchen, her hair ratty and her clothes disheveled, looking like she slept in a dumpster. Kevin is at the countertop with nothing but a towel wrapped his waist, holding a pot of freshly-brewed coffee.
"I'm sorry," Scarlett says, mortified, and averts her eyes to the ground. "I didn't realize anyone was home."
"I thought so, too," Kevin says. He sets the pot back on the coffee burner and glances over at Will, who can't look at him right now. Mostly because this might be the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened. Also, that towel is wrapped really, really low. And kinda loose.
Instead, he turns to Gunnar, still staring open-mouthed at the scene before him.
"You're supposed to be on tour." Will's voice just hit a note he's pretty sure it hadn't been able to hit since before puberty.
"Travel day," Gunnar says. "We were in Columbus last night and just decided to drive straight through. Got in around four in the morning. I was too tired to take Scarlett all the way across town to her place, so she slept here. On the couch," he adds quickly.
Will and Scarlett catch each other's eyes over the kitchen counter. She quickly looks at the floor again, and he realizes that Scarlett isn't wearing a bra. She must notice it at the same time he does, because she partially tries to cover her chest with her folded arms. If she really thought about it for a second, she'd realize she doesn't exactly need to cover up in present company, Gunnar excluded. But she's turning bright red as she stares at the ground, not making eye contact with the two practically naked men standing in the sunlit kitchen.
"Well," Kevin says, his voice light and airy like everything's normal and nothing at all is humiliating about this, "does anyone else want some coffee?"
Ever polite, Scarlett says, "No thank you, that's all right." She's still trying to cover herself up.
Gunnar's eyes flicker between Will and Kevin, and as much as Will loves Gunnar he really wants him to fall through a massive crater in the earth right now. Or maybe Will ought to do that himself.
"No," Gunnar says, sounding like a little kid at Christmas. "Nope, I am good. No coffee for me. Coffee is…"
Except the CMA-winning songwriter can't think of a word to describe what coffee is when it's offered to you by the naked man in your kitchen who's sleeping with your best friend, so instead he just makes a weird wavy gesture with his hand, a big stupid grin on his big stupid face, and forget craters in the earth, if Gunnar doesn't evaporate right now Will is going to kick his ass.
Except he just keeps talking.
"I'm sorry, I should have called, except it was so late, and I thought nobody was home, but clearly I…" He grins at Will, apparently not getting the memo that Will wants to strangle Gunnar with his bare hands, and then turns to Scarlett. "Look, um, we've got someplace to be, right? Somewhere we can go?"
Scarlett doesn't offer to chime in, so he plows on.
"Point is, we need to be somewhere and some point," he says, and grabs Scarlett by the elbow, pulling her out of the room." And we will leave you alone".
Gunnar is still giving him that gleeful grin.
I will murder you, Will thinks.
"Take your time!" Gunnar calls, still dragging Scarlett towards the door. "We'll be gone all morning. All day, in fact."
"Is that so," Kevin drawls.
Scarlett reaches for her bra, discarded on the arm of the couch. She's trying to fasten it under her loose-fitting top as Gunnar hustles her out the door.
"You guys need anything while we're out?" he calls.
I am going to kill you. I am going to murder you in your sleep. I am going to have to find another best friend.
"We're fine," Kevin calls. "You sure you don't want any coffee?"
Will almost chokes.
"Nope!" Gunnar nearly sings the word. "We're good! And we're going! Have fun!"
The door slams. Will might not be breathing. He stares at his bare feet on the floorboards and half-expects Gunnar to come bursting back through the door with a marching band and rainbow flag. Maybe showering them with condoms and confetti.
"Knew I liked that guy," Kevin muses, as the car backs out of the driveway.
He barely looks up, and Kevin's still standing there, wrapped in that towel that just barely covers anything, holding a cup of coffee and smiling at Will.
"So," he says. "Apparently we have whole house to ourselves."
III.
They're under the covers and everything's still a mess and the real world is groaning and shrieking and rumbling outside this room like thunder about to crack the sky apart.
Their mouths meld together, deliberate, sweet and warm and long and lingering, purposeful tongue, Kevin gently biting his lip, teeth just barely grazing the skin, wrapped around each other, hands on chests and legs tangled, whispering and shouting and shallow breaths and the world is on the other side of these walls. Every part of Will is on fire and it's like that night at the cabin, where they sat on the porch by the setting sun and he remembers every word they spoke, they're fused together, bone and blood and heart and heat and gracelessness.
He wants to ask sometimes if Kevin knows what it took Will to ask him out that night. How much of himself he had to let go of to lay his cards on the table and ask, "Are you?"
Will doesn't know why he trusts him. Why he loves him. Why he was willing to sacrifice everything for a relationship that had only been three weeks long. He wonders how that's possible, when he's never loved anyone or anything.
He wants to ask Kevin: do you think about those four days at the cabin as much as I do? Because they're all I think about.
Sometimes he wants to ask Kevin why he's still here.
Because when he wakes up he has Kevin's arm across him, warm on his stomach just at his waist, fingers spread out against the skin and it's fingertips running up every space and ridge of his spine and brushing chapped lips across skin and Will's thumb tracing Kevin's cheekbones and sometimes he has to wrap his arms and legs around him and pull him so close they can barely breathe and their heartbeats punch out like fists he wants to tell him not to go, not to move, stay right here, never leave never go I need you here, please stay.
Maybe he'll sleep tonight. Maybe it will be a night where he doesn't get up and spend all night on the internet, reading other people's verdicts on his future, and Kevin won't wake up at three AM and find the bed cold and come into the living room and find Will hunched over the computer. Because he might have come clean, but it's only the beginning and what if everything is just about to hit him. And that's what really scares him, because what if everything gets worse, what if he bet wrong, what if he lost everything and what if he loses this, too, what if Kevin gets sick of slouching inch by inch towards a future neither one of them can guarantee, what if it was for nothing. What if, what if what if, because –
Kevin sees everything he is. Fear and hope and insecurity and frustration and want and fight and stubbornness and grief and love and need and Jesus Christ, Will has no fucking idea how to be a boyfriend, how to be out, how to be known, how to be in love, how to give everything he has to this man, as he goes through the fumbling motions of surrender.
Kevin may feel like they can take it in a stride, but Will is afraid to tell him that it's an uphill fight.
He's already wondering if he's lost everything. What if he'll lose this, too.
But right now, they're locked together, and Kevin's hand is on his face, fingers grazing his cheek, and Will could sink into his fingertips. Will keeps his hands on Kevin's back, spreading his fingers along the ridges of his spine. One, two, three, four, he counts in his head, the spaces in between the bones, the spaces between their breaths, the space in between their mouths when they just barely pull away and then come back together again.
He doesn't want to go anywhere else but there's so much he needs to do, and he grips Kevin harder like he might disappear right now, maybe he could, maybe his whole life is going to disappear and nothing he does will matter and he'll never recover from this and maybe he can't have this, he can't have this, he can't have this and be in love and save his career and it feels like he's been trying to spin the world the opposite direction. What if, what if, what if he can't have this.
But it's not going to be solved right here.
There's nothing he can do about it, except make his lips meet Kevin's. Keep his hands on him, keep holding onto him, keep staying, while Kevin kisses and teases and touches and needs Will back. He's scared and stressed and sleepless and can't stop his head from spinning, can't stop what if, what if, what if –
But their foreheads touch. And it anchors him to right here, for now.
To Sunday.