title: rough night
author: newtypeshadow
fandom: Sky High
disclaimer: Sky High and associated characters and settings are not my property. This story was written for entertainment, not for profit.
notes: a friend of mine read this and wanted to know "why". hopefully now it's understandable.
They are on the phone, he in a tux with no jacket, hunched over the front desk of a hotel, he in a phone booth half a world away. The streets around Will Stronghold are foggy, gritty, full of ash and the scent of plaster and blood. The streetlights glow like tarnished angels. In the ballroom Warren Peace has just left, gaudily clad people with forked tongues dance and spin on the marble floor. Will's hair is soaked in innocent blood and salty sweat. Warren's hair is pulled back, washed, tamed. His jacket is slung over a chair somewhere. It doesn't matter; it wasn't his father's. Will's dinner jacket is in the hotel room upstairs, the hotel room he left from the high window when the earthquake hit and the president called.
"When can you get here?" Warren asks.
"I don't think I can make it," Will breathes, sagging in the booth. There is dirt under his nails. His hands are crusted with blood.
"I'll just leave then. I hate these fucking things."
"You need the publicity."
"I don't need these people."
"Then leave, I'll meet you at home."
"Thank God." Warren hangs up without voicing the 'I love you' in his heart or the worry in his head. In a phone booth half a world away, Will hangs up wishing for those words, and flies off into the night. He'll reach a Superhero checkpoint that will fly him home in about an hour. An hour of flying and three more in a plane and he'll be home. Alone. Waiting for Warren.
Warren strides back into the ballroom, schooled indifference on his face. He gets his jacket and leaves the soiree, packs up their belongings, and checks out of the hotel. An hour and a half later, he's on a flight back home.
He arrives before Will, unpacks, puts their clothes in the laundry. He showers off the filth of deceit and false pretenses, the residue of all such political gatherings, and climbs into bed. Alone. Waiting for Will.
When Will gets home it is past three in the morning. He stumbles through the house, half asleep, banging his shin on the couch and his hip on the partition between the living room and the hallway. His uniform is left in a trail behind him—he can pick it up before Warren gets back. When he turns on the water in the shower it runs pink into the drain. He washes his hair and body, singing off-key to keep himself awake long enough to make it to bed, and towels off with Warren's towel instead of his own. It smells like Warren. It is damp.
Will hurries out of the bathroom. Races down the hallway. When he flings open the bedroom door, Warren is asleep on the bed, hair fanned across Will's pillow, legs stretched across the entire bed. Will smiles, laughs, laughs so hard he falls against the door and slides to the floor, laughs so hard he doesn't realize he's sobbing until Warren's arms are around him, guiding him into bed.
"Rough night?" Warren asks, closing the covers around them both.
Will nods and hugs Warren instead of the pillow, hiccupping into a solid chest, crying tears that track down his lover's shoulder blades. Warren strokes his hair until he falls asleep, tears drying salty and hard upon his face.