Author's Note: This story started off as something else entirely, but the mid-season finale sparked a whole different direction. Not sure yet if this'll have more than one chapter, since I had to cut a lot from the first few drafts.
I don't own Nashville, or anything affiliated. The lyrics for the song Gunnar and Layla are singing are borrowed from "High Lonesome" by Jedd Hughes.
I.
He's up before the sun, but waits for it to rise with him. When it does, it arrives like everything else in his life seems to, these days – like it's standing still, then all of a sudden bursting into his life all at once, without any warning. And it comes with a hazy smear of yellows and golds and silvers, beating against the blinds of his window lined with frost. The winter dawn pinpricks its way through the blinds like knives, curling in shadows across his hardwood floor, and when he turns to face the glowing pulse of light it falls across his cheek like a warm, gentle hand.
He pushes one of the shades up, taking a peek outside. The yard is frozen over, the world brown and green and grey, the horizon hardly more than a stripe over the black trees that scrabble their way towards the sky. Their bare limbs look like claws reaching towards the light; they look desperate to reach something that looks like life, when the entire world around them is shushed and freezing and feels like giving up.
The space beside him is empty. Has been since he first woke up, still in the dark. He wonders what time Layla slipped out. Wonders when she got the hint and didn't wake him first, didn't bend over and kiss his cheek or purr some stupid crap into his ear, didn't try to get him worked up.
Apparently she's starting to realize he's kind of a shitty boyfriend.
When they were done last night, he got off her and put his clothes on right away. Normally that was the part when he would go back to his own hotel room and turn the lights on, leave the TV blaring all night long while he stared at the ceiling and didn't sleep and didn't try to. But he had nowhere to go last night, so the only thing he could do was pull his boxers back on and climb back into bed beside Layla, who was still curled under the covers, naked and biting her lip, hair wild and face flushed and eyes downcast, like she was more embarrassed by seeing him in boxers than she was seeing him without.
"Well," she said, and then her voice had trailed off. Like she was waiting for him to fill in the blanks.
Which he didn't, he just turned to the other side of the bed and curled his arms to his side. He felt Layla spoon up against him, her bare body curling against him and her arms slinking around his middle. Normally he would take the invitation to another go-round, but instead he hunched more deeply into himself and pretended not to notice her there, resisting the urge to push her away.
Layla kept that up for awhile, spooning up naked against his stiff body, resolutely trying to cuddle. But eventually she seemed to take the hint. After a while – he hoped he'd convinced her that he was finally asleep – he felt the bed dip as she climbed out, then heard her sighing as she grabbed her underwear off the floor by the foot of the bed. She put on a t-shirt from her bag before climbing back into bed with him, then rolled into a silent bundle that didn't make another sound – this time, on her own side of the mattress.
He couldn't tell what her sigh meant, as she'd been tugging her underwear back on. Annoyed, or resigned, or even sad. Not that it mattered, because she got the message, and stayed on her side without another word. Until Will woke up and found he was finally alone, and the mattress was cold where she should have been lying.
For some reason, something in him felt hollowed out, when he ran his palm over the rumples in the sheets and felt it cool to the touch.
Then he'd clenched his jaw and stared at the ceiling, tracing the lines in the beams of the woodwork, the pattern the bars cut as they held everything up above and below him.
He never spent the night before. Not with Layla, not with any other girl he'd ever slept with. He didn't do that kind of thing. He wasn't a "let's spend the night and then get breakfast in the morning" type. It smelled of commitment, of pressure. Of reality. He preferred the "one and done" technique, and so did the kind of girls he usually took to bed. As for the ones who didn't, well…they got the message soon enough.
Not like he had much of another choice, though, with Layla.
And wasn't that the sum and course of their entire relationship?
Still. Point was, he had a home here in Nashville. She didn't. And if he was gonna act like "the boyfriend who actually gives a shit", he might as well look the part.
So he asked her to stay. Just not for the reasons she thought it meant.
Which is, all things considered, one more accurate summary of the course of their entire relationship.
Relationship. He caught himself on the word. Ha.
He thought back to the other day, the hotel in Minneapolis, when she'd called the two of them "pointless" after his dive off the bar. It was, Will remembers, the first time he ever agreed with Layla Grant on anything, and probably ever would. She'd finally touched on the one nugget of truth that had ever concerned them, ever since this whole hashtag bullshit started. And she hadn't even been talking about the real reason this whole stunt was pointless to begin with.
Go figure.
It was one hell of an irony they had. Built on lies, and not just his own. If there was anything at all between them, it was that.
But he asked her to stay. He didn't stomp off to his own hotel room, or politely extract himself from the other side of the mattress, or drive the girl home at the end of the night. Layla Grant, of all fucking people, was the only person he'd ever asked to stay the night.
Before Layla, there had only been one other person held that distinction in Will's life. And that person, Will didn't have to ask. He already knew he'd stay.
He pushes that aside, swallowing it down while he forces himself out of the bed. When he starts having thoughts like that, it's time to get the fuck up and start getting' busy with something else.
There's music coming from below, and for a moment, it's just like the days of living with Gunnar and Scarlett again. Back then, he'd sometimes woken up to their music, like heat rising through the thin walls and even thinner doors. Not that he ever minded. He loved feeling the vibrations through the hollow ground, like the floor was about to give way to the melodies and plunge him right into the bars of a chorus, perhaps unceremoniously dump him into the middle of a bridge.
He pulls on some clothes, thuds downstairs. His footsteps echo like the house doesn't know him; as if the few weeks he's been away have been enough to make the place purge his memory entirely. Now, it's like he's invading the peace, an intruder in someone else's life.
Still looks like it did when he left, though. Dirty dishes in the sink, empty cans of beer and old pizza boxes piling up in the trash. Piles of Gunnar's random shit everywhere. Damp clothes hung over the backs of chairs to dry, the blinds on the living room window still screwed up from before Scarlett and her ex lived here. The new couch he and Gunnar bought before they'd started fighting (very much NOT on fire and NOT girly, thanks to Goodwill and some cash from Will's record deal) is still sitting against the wall, the coffee table still shaky and on its last leg. His Longhorn is still painted on the wall, right above the space where Scarlett's keyboard used to be.
Layla is sitting on his couch. Gunnar is beside her.
A cup of coffee is in her hand. Her pale, bare legs are curled underneath her as she taps her arm against her knees to the beat of Gunnar's Gibson. His roommate's dark head is bowed as his fingers nimbly pick out the tune, and he and Layla are bobbing their heads in time as they harmonize to a song Will's never heard before.
"And I get that heart achin', on the edge of breakin', the never endin' road that's twistin', takin' me back to where we were back then…"
Gunnar cuts into a beat that stumbles somewhere in the middle, and Layla laughs.
"Nice work there," she teases.
"Yeah," Gunnar says, laughing. "For a moment I almost felt like a rock star."
"Like the next Luke Wheeler?" Layla says, a smile on her face.
Gunnar shrugs. "Minus the mansions and personal masseuse."
"Personal masseuse?"
Gunnar grins, rubbing the back of his head in that stupid way Will knows he does when he wants to flirt but doesn't know how. It's that gesture that makes Will announce himself, clearing his throat and stepping into the living room. For extra measure, he makes his steps a little heavy, shifting his weight on the freezing hardwood.
"Hey, man," Gunnar says. He smiles at Will, like nothing's ever happened between the two of them. Like the last time they saw each other, Gunnar wasn't as cold as the floor under Will's bare feet, still pissed off about the stockholder's showcase and their fight over that damn song, and they parted ways without speaking a word.
Beside him, Layla doesn't say anything. Just stares up at him, expression unreadable. She tucks her feet up underneath herself, and he recognizes the heavy black hoodie that's swallowing her small body whole.
"That's my sweatshirt," he says flatly.
Layla narrows her eyes.
"Your roommate said I could have it," she says, her voice cool.
Gunnar looks between the two of them, and his smile falters.
"I'm…sorry," he says, eyes still flicking between him and Layla. "She was cold, and that was the first thing I pulled out of the clean laundry…"
He tries to grin at Will, who just stares back.
On his couch, Layla shifts. She curls closer into the old, tattered cushions, cup wrapped in her fingers, and pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt down until they almost completely cover her hands. She's got glasses on, and Will just now realizes this. They make her eyes look bigger, owlish, and it suddenly makes her look so much smaller, with his sweatshirt hanging off of her thin shoulders. She looks every inch nineteen, and it makes him angry.
"Whatever," he mumbles.
He turns his back on them, shuffles into the kitchen. Behind him, he hears footsteps in his wake, and he tenses for a moment before he realizes they're too heavy to be Layla's.
Gunnar throws his hands in the air helplessly.
"Sorry about the shirt, man," he says. "I just thought…she's your girlfriend and all…"
Will grunts at the word 'girlfriend'. "Doesn't matter."
He looks at the coffee pot, almost empty. He shakes it, like that might actually make more appear, and then slams it back on the hot plate with a dangerous clang.
"Hey!" Gunnar says. "Are you trying to break that?"
Doesn't anybody in this damn house know how to make more coffee?" Will snaps back. "Or's that too damn polite?"
Gunnar scowls at him. "What're you so pissed about at nine AM?"
Will stares at the dregs in the pot still left, then just dumps the entire thing in his cup. "I come down here and find you singin' with Cruella DeVille, it's bound to make my morning kinda shitty."
Layla is strumming Gunnar's guitar, either unable to hear them or doing her best to pretend that she can't – he'd bet money on the latter. She rests the Gibson in her lap and picks out a few chords, her fingers barely visible under the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Her hair falls like a dark curtain in her face whenever she bends over the strings, but he can see she's biting her lip. He has a flash of her doing the same thing the night before, while he put his clothes on, leaving her flushed and sweating under the covers like she was waiting for what happened next.
"She seems fine," Gunnar says. "Dunno know why you act like you can't stand her."
Will watches the unground bits of his coffee float back to the surface, clinging to the edge of the cold ceramic.
"Cause she's Satan," he mutters.
He should warm it up, but he just drinks it anyway, taking a lukewarm gulp.
Gunnar looks over at Layla strumming a chord, then back to him.
"Then why are you dating her?" he asks.
Will glares at him.
Gunnar shakes his head. "I'm just sayin'. I don't get it. I mean, she obviously likes you. A lot."
"Yeah, well, maybe you should date her," Will mumbles.
Then he adds, more clearly, "Y'know, when you're done screwing all of Scarlett's friends."
He fully expects Gunnar to throw something at him for that comment, and if it had happened before Will left for tour, he knows Gunnar would have. But instead he looks away, gripping the edges of the countertop.
"Zoey and I broke up," he says, after a moment. "Or at least, I think so. I guess." He stares at the ground, and says the words fast, like he's trying to rip off a Band-Aid fast enough to avoid the hurt.
Will drums his fingers against the coffee cup.
"Sorry," he mumbles.
Gunnar's head snaps up.
"No you're not," he says tonelessly.
Will rolls his eyes. "Yeah, you're right, I'm not. I think you're a jerk for doing that in the first place. You knew it was only gonna end up hurtin' Scarlett, so why did you even bother?"
Gunnar's face turns red.
"Where the hell do you get off judging me?" he demands. "'Specially when you're jerkin' Layla around like this!"
Will laughs, and it's as bitter as the cold coffee.
"I'm jerkin' her around," he says, and then laughs again. "Wow. Okay. That's hilarious."
Gunnar just shakes his head. He gives Will one last pissed-off look before pushing past him and going back to the living room.
"It's a great song," Layla says, handing him the guitar with a smile.
"Thanks," he replies. "Hopefully someone else thinks so."
"They will," Layla says.
Will rolls his eyes.
Gunnar takes his guitar and goes into his bedroom. On the couch, Layla hunches into herself, drumming her fingertips around her coffee mug.
He can't help himself. "When did you two get all buddy-buddy?"
Layla looks up at him and blinks. She looks more like an owl than ever. "Since I tried waking you up earlier to go get breakfast."
"You didn't."
"You're a heavy sleeper."
"No'm not."
Layla quirks a single eyebrow in that way he does that always makes him feel like a mouse being toyed with by a cat.
"Didn't sleep much last night," she says, after a moment.
Will doesn't know how to respond to that and doesn't want to, so he just looks away. Stares at the windows frosted over with winter's chill, the cold climbing the panes and the glittery silver of the grass on the front lawn. It's been a harsh winter so far; hopefully, by the time he has to take the stage this afternoon, it'll have warmed up enough to keep them all from freezing under the low winter sun, barely breaking through the heavy clouds.
"We gotta be leave by one," is all he says, and heads upstairs.
He heads up the stairs, feeling heavy and useless, like he could crash through the wood and sink like a stone right through the foundation of the house. With every step, he grinds his teeth, gripping his hands into fists so tight the nails dig into his palm.
He hates Brent for being the only one that ever stayed the night. He hates Layla for taking that distinction away from him. And he hates himself for letting her stay here before the festival, breaking his own pattern.
But most of all, he hates that he doesn't prefer sleeping alone.
II.
He's finished, and she gasps when he slides out of her. He lies on his back, staring up at the strung lights that hang over his bed like stars; the pattern is burned out in the middle, a shortened constellation, a broken promise.
Layla lets out a low laugh, brushing messy hair out of her eyes. Pressing her palm to her forehead, she turns over and curls to his side, kissing along his collarbone.
"I think that's my favorite kind of talking," she murmurs, grinning when she looks up at him.
He makes himself grin back. Slides his arm around her, pulls her body closer towards his. She looks up at him with eyes that make Will want to push her away, because they automatically forgive him for everything; for his inattentiveness during her little fashion show, for his attitude that morning, for refusing to touch her last night more than he strictly had to. Now he peers down at her, Brent's face flashing and breaking behind his eyes every time he tries to catch his breath.
Layla rests her head on his shoulder, sighing against him. Her sharp nails gently run over the space where he thinks his heart should be.
"We better get movin'," he says, trying to keep his tone light. "Traffic downtown's gonna suck."
Layla nods.
"True," she says. Her fingers draw circles over the empty thud in his chest. "But that would include getting out of this bed."
She grins up at him impishly. Once again, he's reminded of a cat; that satisfied look it gets, right after it's swallowed a mouse. "And that's not gonna happen, so long as you're in it."
He quirks his lips into what he hopes is a smile.
"Well, then," he says, and adopts that tone that usually gets him anything he wants. He leans toward her, pressing a few hasty kisses onto her eager, waiting lips, and then brushes a stray lock of curling hair away from Layla's face.
From this close, Will can count each of her lashes, falling against her skin like needles. He can also make out the way that her eyes change from brown to a pale green color the closer they get to the center. It reminds him of stones in a riverbed, the jangle of a kaleidoscope. He never got close enough to really see that before, let himself really focus on her for that long. He never remembers wanting to.
Layla smiles again, like he's really saying something charming; like she thinks what they just did meant something. And it actually makes his stomach ache, to see her look at him that way. Sometimes, it's just so hard to hate someone who looks at you like you're some sort of hero, or something worth hanging a hope on.
He thinks of last night, how she pressed her body up against his, and the way she looked this morning wearing his sweatshirt and those glasses. She's awful, and she's just a kid, and it looks like she's made the mistake of wanting something from him that doesn't just involve gettin' sideways.
Layla is still smiling up at him, and Will gives her a few more kisses because it's what she wants, her mouth more than halfway there to meet his own.
Then he pulls away from her, and reaches around the side of the bed for his pants. He's sitting on her bra, and he picks it up with his thumb and forefinger and passes it over to her. She takes it, mouth sliding into a pout that he promptly turns away from.
They dress in silence, both facing different sides of the bed. Will zips up his jeans, pulls his boots on, and feels the lump his phone makes in his pocket. He doesn't take it out as he buckles and adjusts his belt.
He can't think about how he closed his eyes. Thought of the digits to Brent's phone number as he'd unzipped Layla's skirt; remembered of the shape and shade of Brent's blue eyes as he slid his hands underneath to rub the soft skin between her legs; pictured the tilt and pull and quirk of Brent's smile as he felt her stutter against him, while he buried his face into her neck so he could finish what he started.
When he looks over his shoulder, he sees Layla methodically working with the buttons on her blouse. She stops when she reaches the top button, and then runs her hands down the front, smoothing it over her stomach and studying it the fabric, like she's brushing away invisible lint.
"Hey," Will says.
She sighs when she looks his way, that same sound he heard last night as she climbed out of the bed to dress herself. Her slim profile is half-lit by the wisps buttery of sun that filter in through the thick clouds outside. It's going to be a cold day and a colder night; he can feel it in the chill coming from the window.
He smiles. "I really did like that outfit best."
III.
It messes with his sense of the universe, to see Brent and Layla talking. But there they are, waiting by the edge of the stage where they're about to do Will's soundcheck, leaning against the barricades set up all along the festival grounds and laughing like they're talking about something hilarious. What that is he can only guess, which he'd rather not do anyway. So instead he focuses on tuning a guitar that already sounds just fine, fiddling with the strings and strumming a chord here and there like he's actually going to convince someone that he's focused. Maybe himself.
A ripple of laughter echoes through the grounds; Layla is smirking, and Brent is doubled over the barricades, trying to catch his breath. Will plays the next chord so hard it tears a stripe of skin off his thumb, and wipes the beads of blood on his new jeans.
"There are my Edgehill stars," a voice says, and Will looks up as Jeff comes towards them. He nods to Will, then Layla, and claps a hand on Brent's shoulder. He looks at them, Will thinks, like he's standing on a mountain, looking down at the world below and loving how everything looks so small and insignificant, except as a part to a bigger whole.
"I expect great things from both of you," he says, pointing to both Layla and Will. "Don't let me down."
Layla twirls her hair on the ends of her fingers.
"Wouldn't dream of it," she says, batting her lashes, and Will tries not to groan.
"Will," Jeff says. "What about you? Wowing the crowd, like usual?"
He looks up at Jeff; there's not a smile on his face. He's got his lips curled into what could be a sneer if he tipped his lips up one way or down the other a little bit more, and isn't asking so much as demanding the answer to that question.
Will smiles at him. "As usual."
"You know you got nothing to worry about," Brent adds. He's addressing Jeff, but looking straight at Will when he says so. "No bigger stars than these two!"
The smile freezes on Will's face. He just stands there, guitar strapped to his front, unable to move, and when Brent lifts his chin and smiles at Will, he forces himself to make contact with the ground, feeling an ugly lump in the base of his throat.
Jeff's expression doesn't change.
"I should hope so," he says. "Especially with everything that's going on with their headliner."
He narrows his eyes at them.
"Don't let me down," Jeff repeats, and it sounds something like a threat.
Layla waits until he's out of earshot before saying, "Wow. Sounds like he's had a good morning."
Brent shrugs. "He's just got a lot of crap to deal with. This whole thing with Juliette really blew up. He doesn't want it to bring down the festival for us. Not to mention the tour."
"What Juliette thing?" Will asks, before he can stop himself.
"Yeah," Layla says. "What Juliette thing?"
Brent sighs. "Some 'anonymous source' leaked it to the tabloids that Juliette's allegedly having an affair with Charlie Wentworth. You know, of the Wentworth fortune?"
"Charlie Wentworth?" Layla repeats. "Wait, didn't she play some private concert for him not too long ago?"
"Yeah," Brent groans. "And the PR for this has been a nightmare. Trust me on that. There's already been a huge backlash just on this festival alone. Can only imagine what it's going to do for the tour unless we deal with this shit right way."
A phone goes off, and Brent reaches into his back pocket, pulling his out with a grimace.
"Speaking of which," he mutters. "Sorry. Gotta go."
"You'll be back for our sets?" Layla asks.
Brent looks up from his phone. He smiles, and looks directly at Will.
"Of course," he says. "Wouldn't miss it."
He gives Layla a quick hug, and puts his arm on Will's shoulder before he goes. The expression is frozen on Will's face, and he watches Brent disappear into the crowd of festival attendees, the shape of his shoulders turning away from him and walking into the sun.
"Wow," Layla says. "Can you imagine that? Juliette being a homewrecker?"
Will keeps his eyes on Brent, focusing on his shape as it blends into the crowd. He stares as long as he can, until he can't make him out anymore, until the glare of the sun blinds his eyes.
"I mean," Layla continues, "I kinda figured something was going on when Charlie Wentworth kept just randomly showing up at all our concerts, but I guess I didn't want to believe she'd actually stoop to that level."
She steps beside him. Looks up with a smile, and shrugs her shoulders.
"But I guess," she drawls, "with some people, you just never know."
Will watches her. She watches back. He half-expects her to lick her lips and sharpen her claws, with that self-satisfied smirk, like that night at Luke Wheeler's showcase.
"Yeah," Will echoes. He's turned back to the crowd of people, but everyone blends together in a blur of unfamiliarity. "I guess you really never know."
He pushes past her, gripping his guitar, and heads onstage. The ghost of Brent's fingertips are still searing his skin where they briefly brushed against the fabric, burning a hole right through the bone and sinking in the pit of his stomach. There it freezes, the Everything he can't define. What he does and doesn't feel; can't want to feel, can't admit to wanting to feel. It freezes, colder and emptier than the winter wind and sky.
IV.
Layla has a later performance slot, and her soundcheck is right in the middle of his set, so somewhere between "Wash Me Clean" and "You Ain't Got Me", she leaves. Brent, though, has been glued in his seat from the opening bars, and hasn't taken his eyes off Will since he locked on during "What If I Was Willing".
Apparently, Juliette PR nightmare be damned.
He shakes all the hands at the end of the performance, signs all the autographs, takes all the photos. The entire time, he can feel Brent's eyes on him, even from across the way underneath the Edgehill tent. An entire crowd separating him, and he can still feel it.
He can't let himself. Can't, can't, can't. Every step he takes reminds him of this, every time the words rattle against the cage of his skull and ache like the cold wind wrapping around his bones. Nothing matters when it comes to…whatever this is. He has to let it settle; let the freeze inside him just sit there, hushing still as his heart because it's always been this way.
He's got Layla. He's got the tour with Juliette. He's got a single in the works, a song he loves, and an album on the horizon. He's got everything he needs, and can't let himself lose.
So when Brent comes up to him when he's on his way to somewhere that's not here, he has every intention to keep walking.
"Hey," Brent says. His long legs eat the distance, even though Will's picked up his pace. Soon they're walking side-by-side, practically jogging on the half-frozen earth, farther away from the festival and to the surprising emptiness of the streets. They almost match each other stride-for-stride, the patterns of their steps nearly identical.
Will looks ahead. "Thought you had some Juliette crap to deal with."
"I did," Brent says. "Her manager's on it as we speak."
"Well, good for her."
"Better for you." Brent's shoulder almost bumps Will's own. "You know, since she's basically your boss."
"Guess so."
Will keeps walking.
"That was a great set," Brent says. "Crowd seemed really into it."
Before Will can even begin to check himself, he mutters, "They weren't the only one."
He can't believe he just said that.
Brent, though doesn't look the least bit surprised.
Brent jogs a few steps until he's standing directly in front of him, a hand reaching out. It touches Will's chest, fingers barely grazing the collar of his shirt. For a moment, they just stand there, rooted in place, as Brent's fingers brush gently over the top button.
He could pull away. Back up, turn around, brush past him or turn and head for the festival. Back to the endless crowds of concert-goers, getting lost in a sea of winter coats and cowboy hats, keep walking until all the questions he's ever had for himself and all the answers he never dared seek out calm themselves into a few rapidfire responses he can swallow, carve out a place in the familiar emptiness he's come to recognize, if not live with.
Brent's fingers are still barely reaching for Will. Fiddling with the top button on his shirt, just running his touch over it, rolling it over his thumb. Then he looks right at him, and whatever response Will had or might have had coming dies when he's staring right into the eyes he pictures so well but somehow never managed to get right, not when compared to the real thing. Not when they're looking right at Will with a question that doesn't need an answer, because he already knows it himself. Both of them do.
It's an admission that terrifies him, how honest it actually is. Maybe as honest as he's ever been.
Brent's eyes are still on his. That blue burns, straight to the freeze inside him. His stomach turns as every fight inside him slips away.
Who knew it could all break down so fast; almost like it wasn't ever there to begin with.
V.
He's heard of people losing days of their lives before a bad car accident, or after getting a concussion. He can't blame either of those two things, so he's got no way of explaining – not that he ever would – how he and Brent got from the Edgehill tent at the fairgrounds to his bedroom, under the sheets with Brent's fingers tearing loose the buttons on his shirt and their mouths moving in tandem like this is something they've had practiced for months; as if it's been days, not years, since they were in a similar position.
It would be disturbing to have that telepathy; to match him touch for touch, meet his skin with his own skin, his lips with his own lips. Six years can't erase that, and it should feel strange but it doesn't. No matter how long it's been, Brent can still meet his every move.
Will expected to forget that he missed him. But expected to forget the reason why. Or at the very least, be able to bury it all, which was almost as good as forgetting.
Not so.
There's no hesitation, no adjustment. It's a pattern; one moving after the other, a chain of events that starts when Will shoves Brent against the closed bedroom door and kisses him like he could devour him whole. Or maybe it started before that; during his festival set, back in Houston, or in the laundry room downstairs that night at the party. Hell, maybe it's been as long as when he first saw Brent in the club, all those months ago, and couldn't bring himself to do anything more than shake his head, begging no, no, no, please, no.
Whenever it started, though, it's still the same. This match, this meet, this pattern.
When he's balanced on the mattress over the lean swoop of Brent's chest, pushing his legs aside and bracing his own arms against the headboard for balance, the heat pouring off the both of them in the room's the silent winter chill, it's the closest Will thinks he's ever been to reading someone else's mind. Through all the writhing and pulsing, the way their limbs arch and point, flex and stroke; the way their muscles flex and relax, the way the heights and shallows of their breathing match up, the way they both gasp and cry into each other's skin, like it's a new way to speak their names.
It only falters when Will has to drop; he can't hold himself up anymore. He lies flat against Brent and then the friction between them doubles, triples; he knows he's close, but instead of giving way to what's going to happen, another kind of weight crashes down on him, and almost breaks the rhythm entirely.
He's going to shatter the both of them soon. That's part of the pattern.
Except he knows what happens when something shatters –
And when he's gone, when Will can't hold it back any longer, there's a still, deathless silence as remembers what that is:
there's never enough to put back together again.
VI.
Hasn't it always been about this, really?
Because this, too, is a pattern; the last place he can ever end up, with only him left to decide his fate, and only the moon to see his choice.
"The only way to get over death is to tempt it a little."
Isn't that what he told Gunnar, once upon a time?
But it's not about temptation, Will know, as he steps closer to the tracks. He can already feel the rush of the wind that signals the oncoming train; he's been hearing the whistle for miles, and he wasn't surprised to hear it when it first pierced through the night. It was like he already knew where he'd end up, before the conductor ever blew that first shattering cry.
Because if he's being honest – and that's all he has the luxury to be now, because there's nothing else left – where else was he supposed to go?
He doesn't remember the walk from the house to all the way over here, even though in the back of his mind he knows that it's too long to walk easily, especially in the dead of winter's freeze. He doesn't feel the cold, though, or the distance, the ache that should be in his knees or the icy fist that's supposed to be socking him in the chest, sinking like knives through the worn fleece of his jacket. All he feels now is what's inside him, howling louder than the whistle of the train.
Layla's phone call, lighting up and ringing in his pocket, is the thing that wakes him up. Now, it all comes rushing towards him, even faster than the oncoming train. It makes him realize the scratch of the trees, the sharp ache of his throat as he breathes in the freezing wind, and the tracks of icy tears streaming down his face; the runaway pace of his heart as it hammers beneath thin cloth, and the uneven wood of the tracks beneath his feet.
It was never about tempting death. It's something more simple, primal. This is the most basic choice to make – life or death, with no one to judge you but yourself. No one to tell you what you deserve, or what you should decide to do. Whether or not you live, whether or not you die…it's entirely up to you. The one thing you can control, and it's the most important thing you ever can.
Tears keep slipping down his cheeks and he can't make them stop. They're already freezing in place, but he doesn't bother to wipe them away. Whether it's the light of the train or the shining sky above him, he can't tell, but he's blinded to anything except the rattle of the tracks underneath him, the whistle blasting, and the utter ache and roar inside him.
He always figured he could deal with being broken. Someday. Hell, he'd dealt with it for this long. Sooner or later, he'd make the best of it. He just never figured there wouldn't be enough of him to put back together, until now.
He closes his eyes. Tilts his head up to that moonlight, and it could almost feel warm, the glow it casts on his face. Almost like it felt that morning, when he peered towards the rising sun and waited for it to shine. He hasn't prayed in years – figured if there was a God, not like He'd listen to anything Will had to say, or give him an answer he didn't already know himself – but he can't help it, his lips part as he tilts his head up to the starless black and hopes that maybe, maybe, there's something up there that can forgive him, something on the other side of this rabid, endless, gut-wrenching nothing. Something in the void that means whatever he does now, it's all going to be okay, and that it isn't going to hurt for much longer.
There's a big difference between wanting to live and not wanting to die.
He'll decide what that means soon enough.