Chapter Text
Well I've been on fire, dreaming of you
Tell me you don't
It feels like you do
Looking like that, you'll open some wounds
How does it start?
And when does it end?
Only been here for a moment, but I know I want you
But is it too soon?"I'm With You", Vance Joy
Will doesn’t technically need any extra money for the summer. In fact, he doesn’t even need a job— he already has one of those. Ordinarily, he finds work on his aunt and uncle’s farm every summer in exchange for some modest pocket money to either save or spend at the pub in the village. There’s no reason Will should be here standing outside the groundskeeper’s cottage at the rear of some estate looking for summer work herding sheep. He should really leave the job opening for someone who really needs it.
Of course, Will can come up with reasons to justify his presence. Maybe it’s because he’s tired of working plows and cattle. Maybe it’s because he’s tired of working for his family— he needs real-world experience working for people he doesn’t call by childhood nicknames. Will Schofield is twenty-three years old, and if he can’t go to university then he might as well do something useful with his life that doesn’t revolve around his family.
The time in the job listing had read 9:00, though his watch says 9:30. Outside the cottage with him is another boy, maybe two or three years younger than himself. There’s not much to make of him other than that he’s shorter than Will and has wavy dark hair. It looks haphazardly styled, almost like he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing judging by the frequency of attempts to brush it out of his face.
Will doesn’t say anything as he stands on the other side of the path from him. In accordance with the long line of justifications he’s making this morning, Will tells himself that it’s fine he’s not said anything save for a quick ‘hello’ because the other boy also makes no move to introduce himself beyond a customary greeting— two-way street and all. The boy does ask Will if he’s in the correct place though, but then there's silence between the two of them for fifteen minutes.
Honestly, Will should just leave. He should just get on the train back to his aunt and uncle’s farm and reclaim his job with them for the summer while he still can. The weekends will be spent in the pub with friends from over the years and he will be helping his family— it’ll be grand. Will doesn’t need this job that the groundskeeper is keeping him waiting for.
It’s even worse too because standing across the way from him is the kid who’s going to interview right after him, most likely. It’s embarrassing as much as it is intimidating. He wonders what kind of background this other kid has. Will doesn’t exactly have an extensive background in sheep herding— does this kid? Is Will really just wasting his own time?
Within the next five minutes though, as he’s on the precipice of leaving, the groundskeeper arrives in an old pickup truck filled with new shrubs and bags of grain and feed. The man, middle-aged but already gray with an old flannel with muddy jeans and rubber boots on, walks past both Will and the other kid and gets all the way to the front door before turning around and grunting out a quick: “You boys here for the shepherd positions? In you come then.” He doesn’t wait for a response from either boy before the door closes behind him, the metal fittings rattling against the old wooden frame.
It occurs to Will as he walks into the small, old building, that the man had referred to the position in the plural form. Positions. As in more than one. Will chances a glance at the other boy and shrugs before holding the door open for him to walk through first.
The groundskeeper’s cottage is relatively bare on the inside— or at least, that’s what Will can immediately see of it. The groundskeeper leans against the front of a simple metal desk that looks out of place among the old architecture. His arms are crossed, watching the two of them get settled. The boy has made his place leaned against the far wall, so Will keeps to the other near the door. Personal distance and all.
The groundskeeper eyes the two of them for a moment in silence before sighing as if this is the last thing he wants to be doing on a Thursday morning.
“Right then. I suppose you two will do— didn’t get too many inquiries. The two of you will be split up for most of the time you’re out there to better watch the herd and comply with the national park guidelines. You can’t technically sleep in a national park, so one of you will keep watch for poachers and stragglers at a base camp about three and a half kilometers away from the herd, just outside the boundary line. Look official in case anyone comes sniffing around. The other will spend most of their time with the sheep— that person’ll sleep out there with them unofficially.
“The one up with the sheep will sleep in a small tent up there with them and head back to base for breakfast and dinner. There’s an old barn at base camp that whoever’s there can sleep in. It sits at the edge of the main pasture, so you’ll be a gatekeeper, so to speak. There will be two herding dogs up with the sheep and you’ll both have a rifle to scare off any unwanted guests.
“Groceries will be delivered to camp about once a week. Do either of you have any questions?”
It’s a lot of information to take in all at once, but Will doesn’t want to see what will happen if he says he doesn’t understand.
The groundskeeper looks between the two, and sighs again. It’s even more long-suffering than the first. It’s as if this process of explaining the duties to them is more taxing than replanting the literal shrubs he has in the boot of his truck. To each their own though, Will supposes.
“Whichever one of you has more experience with sheep should probably be the one out with them. I’ll let you two decide. You’ll ride out Saturday morning at 8:00, so be back here then. That’s all I need from you.” He offers no room for questions this time and instead, walks to the door and opens it— a clear invitation to get out of his cottage. Will doesn’t have to be told twice.
The whole situation is a whirlwind, but Will goes along with it anyway. If anything, the experience will be a lesson in teamwork even if he won’t be seeing the other kid much.
Almost as soon as the groundskeeper closes the door behind them, the other boy turns to Will with a much friendlier smile than he’d previously displayed. Unlike before, it doesn’t look forced. He even goes so far as to hold his hand out for Will to shake. Clearly, the kid had also been suffering from a bout of nerves earlier.
Will is all of a sudden very nervous that this kid is more of a chatterbox than he’d initially thought. Part of what draws Will to the farming life is that it’s quiet— there isn’t a need for constant conversation. But, despite his apprehensions of having to coexist with a talkative person, Will’s parents did not raise a man without manners. When the kid proffers his hand, Will doesn’t hesitate in taking it in introduction.
“Name’s Tom Blake. Looks like we’ll be working together this summer.” If ‘working together’ was even the correct phrase. The groundskeeper had made it sound as if they’d hardly be seeing each other. Will doesn’t contradict him though because he supposes Blake isn’t wrong.
“I’m Will Schofield. To be honest, even though I’ve worked with livestock, sheep have never really been one of them.” He feels embarrassed at the admission like the kid’s going to think he can’t contribute anything worthwhile, but Blake seems to take it in stride.
“I do, don’t worry. If anything, that makes it easier to decide who’ll do what. I’ll take the sheep and you hold down base camp? At least to start. We’ll make a sheep man out of you yet, Schofield.”
Chatterbox indeed. Blake’s smile is infectious though, it seems, as a hesitant smile of Will’s own finds its way to his face. “Would you fancy a pint back in town? Figures if we’re spending the summer together, we should get to know each other a bit.” For a moment, Will thinks he suggests it because he just wants an excuse to drink. He’s alone in a village where he doesn’t know anyone— a pub is as good a place as any to spend the afternoon until his train home.
“Isn’t it only 10:00 though? Bit early.”
Blake’s probably right, but time has never stopped Will before. “By the time we get there, it won’t be. They’ve got food there too, I bet. Don’t have to drink if you don’t want to.” But I will be, goes unsaid. Nevertheless, Blake nods and they begin the trek back down into the village at the base of the estate.
Will knows he should have taken his uncle’s car when he’d offered, but he’d felt a sense of independence too strong to take him up on the offer. Will had told him the train would be fine, and it was--until he had to walk two and a half kilometers to the estate. The slight yet steady incline had nearly killed him.
Now, the walk down is much more manageable. He doesn’t know how Blake got here— Will had been at the groundskeeper’s cottage first. Hell, Will doesn’t even know where Blake is from. Though, if Will had to guess, he wagers it’s from down south of here at least.
Will thinks he should probably care, but a part of him just doesn’t. They’re hardly going to see each other while they’re out taking care of the sheep, and they very likely will never see each other again once it’s all over in September. What’s the point of getting to know the intricacies of each other’s lives? He knows his name, and that’s the only major piece of information Will needs to do his job.
All of this passes through Will’s mind as they walk down to the town— Blake doing much of the chatting. It goes through his mind, and yet Will still finds himself answering Blake’s questions about his family and home life, though vaguely. Even though he doesn’t necessarily want to get to know Blake, to get close to him before they’re inevitably ripped apart, there’s something about the friendly and carefree attitude that doesn’t allow Will to be outwardly rude to him— to tell him he’s not interested in talking to him.
So, he plays along. Once they finally make it to town and into the pub, which is an old and poorly lit building, they settle themselves into a sparsely populated corner to continue talking. Will tells him about his aunt and uncle’s farm a bit southeast of here, about how he normally helps them in the summers to earn some money. He tells Blake about his sister, who was always the favorite of his parents, and after a few drinks, Will tells Blake how he’s a disappointment to his father back home without the gory details as to why. Blake doesn’t need to know that bit.
Blake takes it all in, not saying anything to keep Will talking away. It’s a clever and yet simple tactic.
Of course, Will isn’t the only one who spills the basics of his home life. Blake tells him about his mother and brother, about how he grew up on a small farm with a dozen or so sheep and chickens down near the coast of Essex county.
By the time they part for their respectful journeys home, Will knows way too much about Blake— way more than he’d told himself he needed to know. It’s fine though because at least Will was able to get the sense that he wasn’t about to be sequestered out in the middle of a pasture at the back of some estate with a psycho murderer. Well, actually, Will didn’t confirm that Blake wasn’t a psycho murderer, so he supposes that trait is still on the table.
Will takes the train back to his aunt and uncle’s house to collect the clothes that stay tucked at the back of a small closet for him over the off-months, making sure they still fit from last summer. The place is closer than his parent’s house, and Will tells himself that the only reason he doesn’t go home is because he really doesn’t want to sit on a train for that long. Besides, it’s not like his parents will notice terribly often if he doesn’t make an appearance for the next few months.
When Will tells them the news about his new job, his aunt and uncle appear happy for him. He tells them the details, and that’s about the end of it. There’s only a day of downtime before he’ll need to be back North, and it passes relatively uneventfully. The cows still need tending to, so Will helps out— it’s probably better than going down to the pub and drinking himself stupid because he has nothing better to do. He knows his aunt and uncle appreciate it even if they don’t say anything.
And then it’s Saturday morning and Will’s on the first train back North to begin his new job as a shepherd.
This time, Will gets a car to drive him up to the estate, Blake already waiting out front of the groundskeeper’s cottage. Blake’s face is just as smiley as it was two days ago, and it sets part of Will at ease to see that this must simply be how Blake is.
There isn’t much time for talking once Will gets out of the car. As soon as he watches the car drive away, the groundskeeper walks outside and claps his hands as if he were regaining the attention of small children. Unlike the other day, the groundskeeper seems to be in better spirits— as though he’s eager to get rid of them.
The groundskeeper leads them to the side of the cottage where Will notices, for the first time, two ATVs parked next to the groundskeeper’s pickup, which is packed full of things for them. The ATVs are loaded down with gear as well, a helmet on either seat.
“The sheep are a ways out still. You boys will follow me on these, meet up at the base camp to unload the truck and ATVs. We’ll split there, and Blake and I’ll go meet up with the sheep and take them out to pasture.” And then he’s climbing into the truck cab and not waiting for either boy to follow.
Will readjusts his duffle on his back and then climbs onto the available ATV next to where Blake’s waiting for him on his own before they drive off after the truck.
As the groundskeeper had promised, the first stop is the base camp where they unload the ATVs and the truck, and then Blake and the groundskeeper are off to find the sheep. Blake asks if Will wants him to help set everything up when he gets back, but Will waves him off, reassuring him that he’d be fine.
It’s still early, and now that Will stands for a moment in the quiet, he takes in his surroundings. He takes in how the fog hangs low over the hills in the morning sun, lending an air of gothic atmosphere to the prospect of sheep herding. It’s so quiet and secluded and spooky, that if they weren’t traversing the countryside on ATVs, Will would think they’d been transported back to the 19th century, back into the moors that Emily Bronte had written about.
The fog practically surrounds their campsite, shielding him from view of everything outside of a 20-meter radius. It’s beginning to set in that this is where Will is meant to reside for most of the days to ward off predators and wandering civilians or poachers. He’s meant to look like they’re doing this shepherding thing legally.
The site is at the edge of a cluster of trees like the groundskeeper had described, the open countryside meandering into the distance over an elevated ridgeline.
The old barn that the groundskeeper had more or less described is here— it’s not much, but Will thinks that it’s at least better than spending the whole summer in a tent. He spreads the hay stacked inside in bales across the flood and attempts to make some sort of ground-cover for his sleeping bag and blankets. There are a well and a pump a few meters off the back of the barn, which Will is thankful for as well. Some source of fresh water is always appreciated.
For the most part, everything Will does is a one-man job, but it certainly would have gone more quickly if Blake had been there to help. He could always wait and have Blake help him, but Will told him he’d take care of it, and that’s what he does.
As he’d reassured Blake, by the time he gets back for dinner, now without the groundskeeper, the base camp is more or less assembled. Will’s even got a campfire going when he hears the sound of the ATV’s engine accelerating over the nearest hill.
If the low hanging fog that had faded as the day wound on had made Will feel as if he were in some Brontian fantasy, the sound of the ATV’s motor sure shatters the illusion. On one hand, he’s relieved that his coworker has returned safely, but on the other hand, it means Will’s silence has officially reached its terminus. Blake is way too chatty.
The roar of the engine grows louder the closer Blake gets, and Will closes his eyes and sighs, stoking the fire. Blake seems nice enough of course, but he doesn’t seem to know when Will would rather not talk— can’t seem to pick up on the non-verbal cues.
Will’s not a total dick though— he does respond to questions when he’s asked and offers short-worded return questions so Blake feels as if he’s trying a bit. There’s something about Blake that Will thinks would make the younger boy try to talk more if he knew Will wasn’t trying to be sociable in return.
Sure enough, when Blake kills the engine some ten feet away, he practically jogs into the perimeter of their camp. He’s got a wide smile on his face, his hair freshly tousled from the helmet and mud splatter on the outsides of his jeans traveling up his outer thighs. Of course, Will only notices these things because Blake did not leave dirty like that, and Will doesn’t want him to purposely soil any of their belongings this soon into their tenure out here.
Blake sits down on the piece of log that’s catty-corner to Will’s and sits as if he were an old man with a drawn-out groan that’s entirely too dramatic. Will knows he should turn his gaze away from Blake and focus back on the fire and back on their food, but the exuberant and boyish energy won’t relinquish his attention.
Will forces himself to speak so that Blake doesn’t catch him simply staring. “How are the sheep settling in?”
Blake looks at him, surprised that Will has actually initiated conversation. “There’s quite a lot of them, they all got out to pasture well enough. Dogs are right cute too. I bet they don’t even need us out there— they look to have everything taken care of.” Blake moves on from the fact that Will actually spoke first and launches into a more in-depth analysis of what his routine will likely look like every day with the sheep. Will does his best to nod and hum in the right places. Blake thankfully seems to take at face value that Will’s listening.
By the time they’re finished eating, the fog has begun to creep back in for the evening, and Blake gathers his things to head back out to the sheep, telling Will he’d see him in the morning. Will offers him a half-hearted mock salute and watches Blake until he clears the top of the ridge and the noise of the ATV’s engine fades into the distance.
And then Will’s surrounded by silence again. When Will had thought about the job initially, the aspect of solitude that he’d have for 80% of each day is what drew him in. Yeah, technically he had a partner who he saw every so often back in camp, but the times when Will was alone and had downtime were the times he would really be able to relax and pull out his notebook. May tonight be the first of many, he thinks to himself with a content smile on his face for the first time in a long time.
As the days turn into weeks, Will inadvertently finds himself looking forward to Blake’s visits from the herd. He brings stories with him about the dogs and a few of the lambs that are beginning to give birth. Somehow, he never seems to repeat any of them.
For the most part, they stay away from the topic of the deeply personal, going no further than what they’d discussed back in the pub after they’d first met. Will’s grateful because he can’t bear to talk about his family, a group of people he largely can’t stand. Sure, he’ll make comments here and there about his father and mother, about how their version of parenting might be looked down upon by most, but to reveal too much would be to reveal secrets about himself. Secrets Will would rather keep quiet.
Will turns out to be wrong about Blake too. Whereas Will had originally pegged Blake as one to talk more to fill Will’s silence, to try and coax him to speak more, Blake actually turns out to do the opposite. He seems to only expect a certain amount from him on certain topics, which Will is continually thankful for. Blake doesn’t push a topic, doesn’t push for Will to add more, or reveal a morsel of information that Will doesn’t offer up naturally. The first time that Will speaks more than two sentences consecutively, he finds Blake smiling unabashedly at him.
“What?” Will asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“Nothing. That's just the most you spoke since we’ve been here." Blake doesn’t draw much attention to what Will’s said other than that, preferring to poke at the fire with a long tree branch.
“That's the most I spoke in a whole year, I think." Will glances over to Blake and watches his profile in the flickering light of the fire, objectively admiring the contrast of his features. Will finds that he’s glad that it’s Blake that he’s out here with and not someone else who doesn’t have the time to be friendly to Will. He’s glad he’s not out here with someone like himself.
One morning, a particularly cold and rainy one, Will wakes up to the sound of an ATV roaring in the distance. It’s only slightly earlier than it should be, and Will’s slept a little later than he should have.
Dressing quickly, Will stumbles outside right as Blake pulls to a stop, only, Blake’s not alone. Stuffed into the front of his jacket sits a tiny lamb, much too tiny to have been separated from its mother. Its little head bounces along, though Will can see that Blake’s done his best to minimize the movement.
Will stares, just looking at the pair as Blake walks up to him. He looks as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but a shit-eating grin breaks out onto his face, eyes crinkling when he notices that Will’s spotted the lamb.
“What— why ?” Will gestures at Blake’s jacket and hopes that’s enough to convey all his feelings of confusion.
Blake’s smile doesn’t falter while he affectionately rubs the side of his thumb between the lamb’s ears. In all of his years, Will doesn’t think he’s seen a more contented animal as he watches its little eyes close slowly.
“Found this little one all by itself. I think the mother left it because of how small it was. We’ll take care of you though, huh little one?” Blake directs the last part at the lamb, and Will has to admit that the softness that Blake exhibits is a little disarming. Blake treats everything with a certain softness though, so the fact that Will makes particular note of this instance is somewhat baffling, knocks him back a step.
Odds are definitely not on the lamb’s side, but Will mentally vows to do his part in helping it survive.
To accompany his morning tea, Will watches as Blake feeds the lamb some milk out of a makeshift bottle nipple. Blake looks like a proper mother with the lamb sat on his lap, and the lamb likely thinks so too, tucked into the fleece-lined jacket and suckling from the bottle.
Will doesn’t ask Blake how he plans on keeping the lamb safe— he doesn’t ask what he’ll feed it when it gets too big to be sustained solely on milk. Blake is smart, even if he is young— Will trusts his judgment. For the next several days, every time Will sees Blake, he’s got the lamb stuffed into the front of his outer jacket.
On the second night that Blake comes back to base camp with the lamb tucked away, Will can’t help but smile at the sight. “You keep that lamb there all day?”
Blake shakes his head. “No, not all day. I let her get down and walk, but she’s so small and it’s not very warm out. She seems to like it well enough here, I’ve found.”
“She? Have you named her then as well? That’ll just make it harder to let her go, you know.” Will doesn’t know why he tells Blake this, and it’s clear Blake doesn’t either judging by his narrowed eyes and silence.
Rather than answering for a few minutes, Blake preoccupies himself with stroking the lamb’s head and neck. And then finally, “Until she’s either big enough on her own or I find another mother to stick her with, she’ll be sticking with me.”
Will’s skeptical, of course, but he ultimately trusts that Blake will do what’s right. To go through all of this though without the guarantee that she’ll survive seems like more work than it’s worth. He won’t argue though, there’s no point. It’s easier if Will just sits there on his piece of log and stokes the fire silently.
When Blake leaves that night, he predictably takes the lamb with him. While they’d eaten, the lamb had wandered around the campfire before laying itself across Blake’s boots. The sight itself was beyond adorable, and Will wished he had a camera in that moment to properly capture the sight.
Nights spent at the campfire after long days at work are largely relaxing and open. It’s a time for them both to catch up and freely talk about whatever they want. For a brief moment in time, work slips away and they’re just two young kids from down south. They’re two young kids with complicated families and a longing for money of their own.
After that night a week and a half ago, during which Blake had remarked on Will's newfound verbosity, conversation seems to come easier to Will. He isn’t sure why— perhaps it’s because someone’s finally called him on his shit. In any case, Will secretly likes to watch how Blake’s eyes light up now whenever he replies with any combination of words that are longer than two syllables.
The more often that Blake gets that look in his eye, the more often that Will feels an odd yet unfortunately familiar swoop in his stomach. It’s a little frightening, especially given the fact that now that the lamb has entered the picture for their nightly fireside chats, that fond look with puppy dog eyes never seems to leave Blake’s face.
It’s so easy for Will to drop off from the conversation and just watch Blake talk— watch his eyes light up like an excited kid and soften when he catches on that Will’s watching him without tuning fully into the conversation. Only when those eyes soften does Will realize what he’s done, shaking his head to clear the fog from his brain and bringing him back to the present.
The first time that Will finds that he wouldn’t mind Blake kissing him happens after they both go out to inspect the sheep the day before he and Will switch duties.
Blake’s got the lamb tucked snuggly into his jacket, as usual, the perfect picture of a farm boy as he climbs onto his ATV with his muddy boots. He looks over at Will as the latter stands frozen a few feet away just watching. Will can’t see his mouth behind the chin guard of the helmet, but he can tell Blake smiles that cocky smile of his by the way his eyes crinkle at the sides. Then, he covers the lamb’s ears with one hand and turns the key in the ignition with his other. Will can’t help but shake his head, rolling his eyes and smiling all the same.
But no, that’s not when Will decides he’d quite like to kiss Blake. That comes later when Blake’s showing Will his daily routine with the herd, and they spot a pair of sheep and a freshly dead lamb beside them. The ewe must have given birth recently, the embryonic fluid on the lamb still somewhat fresh.
Will turns to say something to Blake, but before he can, Blake is removing the lamb from his jacket and blindly handing her to Will. He wants to ask what Blake’s doing, but Will stands there in fascination as Blake pulls out his hunting knife from his belt and begins dismembering the dead lamb.
It admittedly hadn’t been what Will was expecting, and it causes him to flinch when Blake makes the first cut. His movements are surgical and soon enough, it becomes apparent as to what Blake’s doing. In an attempt to still save this lamb that Will’s now holding, Blake is trying to reacquaint her with another mother. The only way to do that successfully is if the living lamb smells like the dead one— smells like the ewe’s own kin.
On the ground, Blake’s now skinning the dead lamb to make what’s almost like a little vest for the living lamb so the dead one’s mother will recognize its own scent. Despite having experience with dead and dying animals, Will still finds he has to turn his head away once or twice.
When Blake motions for Will to hand the lamb back to him, he does so numbly and continues to watch as Blake guides the living lamb’s arms and legs through the holes made in the skin of the dead lamb.
The living lamb is frozen at first, much like how a dog or cat would be with a sweater of their own on. Blake rubs warmth into the lamb though, somewhat roughly stroking her on both sides like he’s on a mission to get her blood flowing, which Will supposes he is.
Eventually, the lamb moves in the direction of the lambless ewe. For a tense moment, Will thinks that maybe the lamb will be rejected and all will have been for naught.
Sure enough, though, the mother sheep noses at the lamb’s back and allows her to suckle for milk. Will releases a relieved sigh, his shoulders falling and a disbelieving laugh escaping from his smiling mouth.
Caught up in the moment, in the relief that for some reason feels borderline euphoric, Will glances over at Blake and sees that characteristic full-toothed smile and those bright eyes staring right back. He’s got hair falling into his face— he could really use a haircut soon— but his hands are too dirtied to move it away.
Will is nothing if not helpful, so he steps close to Blake. He steps closer than he thinks he has been yet while not involved in some form of rough-housing. Without asking permission, Will raises a hand to Blake’s face and pushes the curls from his eyes. To make matters worse, instead of pulling his hand away quickly and having that be that, Will finds himself lingering, his fingers brushing against Blake’s temple.
From this close, Will can see all the minute details that come together to make Blake. He sees the light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, wonders if he’s always had them or if they’re new gifts from working in the sun. Blake’s eyes are a lighter blue than Will had originally cataloged as well. And his lips— oh. From this close, Blake’s lips are something else, pink and slightly chapped from the dry air, but no doubt still soft pressed to another’s.
That thought catches Will so off guard that he pulls his hand away and steps back as if he’d been burned. Turning abruptly away, Will presses his cold fingertips to his cheeks to stifle the blush that’s flamed up.
That train of thought is dangerous and terrifying, one that Will’s staved off for the last twenty-three years. Will’s been grilled and conditioned enough to know the dangers of wanting to kiss another boy— has witnessed the destruction that’s come from it first-hand. He discreetly yanks at a piece of his own hair that falls loose across his forehead and tugs, focusing on the spot of pain it produces on his head. This cannot be happening right now.
Minutes pass in silence before Blake clears his throat and tries to speak as if they hadn’t just been balancing on the precipice of something dangerous. “Yeah, not all days out here are that intense. You’ll be fine— just follow the sheep around and don’t let them get eaten or lost.”
Will turns around in time to witness Blake running a hand over the back of his head. From the little time they’ve spent together at base camp, Will has learned that it seems to be a defense mechanism— an outward manifestation of some inner turmoil. Will doesn’t think he’s strong enough to want to know the cause of it. Not while he’s suffering through his own dilemma.
Things go back to normal, or whatever semblance of normal they can achieve after that episode with the lamb. Will spends his days following the dogs and sheep, watching the far off ridges for any sign of predators or poachers. It’s a different kind of peace than spending his days at base camp with the fire and his notebook. This peace is about the tranquility of nature and its animals.
As time wears on, Will even thinks that the role reversal is doing both him and Blake some good. A new normal emerges full of tentative smiles but of no less chatter. One night, Will watches as Blake sweeps the hair out of his face three times in a minute before he decides that it’s time that they both had haircuts. Will wants to think that it’ll be no big deal. They’re friends and coworkers cut off from the rest of society— it’s not like they can be expected to just grow their hair out because they’re not near a barber. So, they make a plan.
The morning they decide to do it, Will sits Blake down on a small boulder away from the fire when Will’s come back for breakfast. Will’s never cut hair before, but his mother has, so he tries to mimic her technique and avoid giving Blake a mullet. Sure, the act of cutting someone’s hair is inherently intimate, but that doesn’t explain why Will’s hands shake— not from nerves, but from something else he won’t admit to himself. He trims the top easily enough, cuts it short enough that his hair isn’t falling into his eyes every few minutes.
It’s quiet between the two of them, Will not speaking so as to preserve his concentration and Blake following suit.
Will thinks he’s doing a good job concentrating on the task at hand and of not paying attention to the way Blake’s hair feels sliding through his fingers— silky and fine despite the rough care taken with it out here. He thinks he might get out of this without any majorly intrusive thoughts before he realizes he has to cut the sides of Blake’s hair, that he has to change positions and get closer.
Without speaking, Will slips his fingers under Blake’s chin and pointedly ignores the boy’s eyes darting to find Will’s. He’s just startled, that’s all. He ignores the stare and pulls the underside of Blake’s chin towards him, exposing the hard to reach side of his head.
Will settles his hand not holding the scissors on top of Blake’s head to keep it steady, the fine hairs and warmth almost making him pull away like he’d been burned. He works around Blake’s head like that, trying to work as quickly as he can while still doing a decent job. Perhaps, if Will cuts it short enough, he won’t be nearly as distracted by watching Blake pull off his helmet whenever he rides out to the sheep with Will.
Blake seems happy once Will’s finished, which is more than he thought he’d get from the other boy. Will even lets himself relax for a moment before Blake takes the scissors from where they’d been placed down on the rock and playfully snips them in Will’s direction. Oh, he forgot that this was a two-way street.
So, Will shuts his mouth before he can say anything and sits down on the rock to be sheared.
The feeling of Blake’s hands on his head, on his neck, is a new feeling that Will doesn’t actually find he minds. They’re comforting and warm in the chilly air, and not for the first time, Will finds that he’s curious to know what those hands would feel like stroking through his hair and not simply holding him to clip at the overgrown ends.
Will loses himself in the push and pulls of Blake’s hand on him. Will forgets about the chill in the air as Blake works, forgets that he should be off with the sheep by now.
Soon enough, Blake’s hands still and he moves away from Will. Will instantly misses the warmth, but that’s just because it’s cold out here and Blake had been blocking the wind, that’s all.
Will’s hair is more or less one length. He doesn’t appear to have a mullet, which is a win in Will’s book, but there is a spot that looks suspiciously shorter than the rest just above his right ear. He supposes this is what happens with an ‘at-home’ barber, but it’s not the end of the world.
Neither Will nor Blake brings up anything about the haircut or their closeness after Will leaves for the sheep shortly thereafter. Will writes the feelings off as being cold and then he moves on with the day.
As they tend to do best now, they don't talk about it. Will does his best to push away the thoughts of Blake's face and what his hands would feel like on Will. He pushes the thoughts away so the intrusive part of his brain doesn't ruin everything for him. He seems to succeed for a bit, and then to Will’s horror one night, when he looks across the modest campfire and sees Blake looking back at him, the orange light from the fire throwing his soft features into sharp relief, he feels like some of the fire has seeped into his stomach. It’s not an uncomfortable warmth per se, not even really unexpected at this point, but it's still startling and takes Will a moment to understand what’s happening, to accept it.
The liquor is flowing heavier than usual tonight, Will having dipped into the stores after a particularly cold day out with the sheep. It’s his personal stash, but Blake doesn’t seem to have an issue helping Will deplete it.
Conversation has flowed freely up until then, laughing and joking more so than ever up to that point thanks to the alcohol, and Will finally feels happy. It may be cold, and he may be sleeping alone with the sheep and battling rain and fog, but it finally feels worth it to have what he could consider a friend come out of this whole thing. They don’t even live too far from each other after all.
But now this feeling, this warmth that’s suddenly bloomed outwards in his stomach again feels oppressive because he’s felt it once or twice before with people other than Blake. Maybe it’s because Will’s drunk that he finally lets himself realize what’s happening, or maybe he’s just tired of running from the feeling he’s felt before and never really forgotten. Will has felt it before with boys he had thought to be his friends— thought it was just a friend thing until dreams of things his father had told him were sinful had started to arise. And now it’s back and Will wants to hide away with the sheep three and a half kilometers over the hill.
Will wants to run because running is what he does best, but he is far too inebriated to stand up, let alone get on his ATV. So, he lets the alcohol continue to course through his system and lets the laughter and jokes continue to find their way out of his mouth as honestly as he can.
By the time the moon is high in the sky and the time is long past that Will should have been in his tent asleep with the sheep, Blake stands, wobbly in his feet, and giggles at Will’s prone form on the ground. Sometime around Blake digging into his own liquor stores, Will had transitioned to laying on his log bench rather than sitting upright. That should have been a giveaway that it was time to stop. But Will is oh so good at ignoring those funny feelings his brain tells him, so he proceeded to do just that and gladly accepted the bottle that Blake handed him, pointedly ignoring the way their fingers overlapped. Sometime later, he’d slid to the ground where he lies now.
Now, Blake stands and announces that he’s going to sleep and that Will should just come to sleep in the barn tonight. Will knows he should listen to Blake— the kid isn’t as dense as he looks after all, but frankly, he doesn’t trust himself. While he may be incredibly adept at ignoring his own feelings, Will’s eyes still work remarkably well, and he’s seen the way Blake’s gaze had begun to linger on Will’s own face as they’d become more and more intoxicated.
If Will goes to sleep in the barn with Blake, he can’t guarantee that he won’t make a mistake. He can’t guarantee that he won’t pull Blake into his arms and love the weight of the younger man on top of him.
So, Will gazes up at the sky and tries not to look at Blake, tries to ignore the way he lingers at Will’s feet. Will figures he has to say something if he expects Blake to leave him alone.
“I’m gonna sleep off some of this scotch and then ride out at first light to the sheep. I’ll be fine out here.” He can’t tell if his words sound particularly slurred, but he’s sure they do because Blake’s do.
“You can’t spend the night out here, Scho. When the fire dies, you’ll freeze.”
Blake’s right, of course, but Will can’t let him know that, so he lies. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I’m gonna ride out at first light. Only sleep a little.” He makes a show of pulling the blanket from where it’s fallen to the ground and blindly spreading it across himself.
Blake sighs at Will’s stubbornness. Judging by a flare of warmth Will feels on his face and the sparks he sees in the air above him, he gathers Blake’s thrown a nearby log onto the fire to keep it going for a while longer. Before long, Will hears Blake’s footsteps retreating slowly before the barn door slams. He doesn’t know if it’s because Blake is drunk or if it’s because he’s mad that Will won’t come to bed with him. He determinedly does not further think of the reason why.
Like he’d anticipated, Will is shivering within two hours as the extra log Blake had tossed on the fire burns down into a charred imitation of what it once was. Will has to tough it out now though since he’d been so adamant it’d be fine. He can’t admit to Blake that he was wrong.
Somehow though, as if Blake has a direct line to Will’s thoughts, he speaks up from the direction of the barn, which should be crazy because Blake should be sleeping. But it’s really Blake and not some hallucination because Will lifts his head and sees Blake leaning towards the outdoors with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and hair sticking up every which way as if he’d been tossing and turning.
“Will,” he calls, voice thick with sleep like a petulant child. “Please stop this and just come inside to sleep. You’re not going to see the sheep for hours, and it’s freezing out.”
Blake’s right and Will thinks he’s stuck it out for long enough, so he gives up and heaves himself to his feet. Upon standing, Will realizes he might still be a bit drunk, his vision swimming for a few long seconds. It clears though and Will trudges across the grass, wet with dew, pulling the blanket tight across his shoulders.
Inside, it really is warmer, and Will feels his shoulders sink at the feeling of it. It’s not heated by any means— they are in a barn after all— but at least it’s warmer and dryer than outside.
Will hasn’t actually been inside the barn at night since he’s switched sheep duty with Blake, and to see all of Blake’s blankets and personal effects out and bare, causes his heart to race just on the side of uncomfortable.
The heavy iron latch on the barn door sliding home jolts Will from his head and his eyes follow Blake as the latter squeezes past Will and collapses back onto the heap of blankets.
Blake mumbles something into his arm, where it’s pillowed under his head again, that sounds suspiciously like, “Stop standing there like a shadow monster, and come lay down.”
And, okay, fair. So, Will picks his way to a spot behind Blake and settles himself down. From this close, he can feel the heat radiating off of Blake, and Will’s so cold. He’s so cold, that with that excuse in mind, Will shuffles closer so that there are only a few inches separating them. Blake remains still for a moment, and Will figures that there’s no way that the other boy doesn’t know he’s there.
Why does it matter that Blake’s not reacting? Isn’t that good? If Blake reacts, it could produce situations where Will wouldn’t like the outcome— whatever that may be. By not reacting, Blake is likely understanding that Will is simply cold and trying to warm up.
Will resolves to shutting his eyes to sleep when a warm hand reaches down to Will’s own and pulls it across Blake’s waist. It’s so warm and sure, that for several moments, Will is frozen. This is not one of the scenarios he’d anticipated happening.
But here he is, his arm pulled taught across another man’s— his friend’s— waist as if it were nothing. Blake’s fingers don’t release Will’s own either, still clutching tight as if letting go would be to lose them. Maybe it would.
Suddenly, the air feels charged with something unexplainable, and Will feels himself tipping closer to the edge of whatever cliff it is that he and Blake are balanced on.
He knows he should ignore all of whatever this is and sleep, but sleep is gone now, out of Will’s reach for the foreseeable future.
Will’s running over everything in his mind again when he feels a sharp, insistent tug on the arm thrown over Blake’s waist. It’s firm enough that it gets his attention to lean up on his elbow to look over at Blake. Is Blake secretly afraid of the dark, and that’s why he’s acting like this? No, his subconscious yells at him, you know what he’s doing.
Sure enough, as soon as Will gets close enough to see Blake in the dimness of the barn, a pair of warm lips surges up to cover Will’s own, his captive arm being pulled closer to Blake.
Will’s so taken aback by the action that he freezes for long enough for Blake to freeze himself, pulling away just far enough that it makes it hard to piece together what has just happened.
“I’m sorry. I thought— you looked— sorry,” Blake breathes. He goes to release Will’s hand, goes to turn over back into his own space, but Will’s still three steps behind.
Blake, kissing him, validating that warmth Will has felt for the last few weeks that still terrifies him— will likely always terrify him, is nearly overwhelming. He’s afraid to feel anything other than repulsion, but he’s also afraid of missing out. It’s fight or flight, and Will wants to fight through it, wants to see what Blake had thought he looked like.
Before Blake can pull all the way away, Will takes it upon himself to connect their lips this time, Blake now the frozen one. Unlike Will though, he doesn’t stay frozen for nearly as long before he puts his own effort into the kiss.
What starts out as hesitant presses of lips quickly escalates from there, Blake pushing and pulling Will where he wants him. It feels like Blake’s hands are everywhere, up the back of his shirt, rubbing along the notches of his spine, in his hair, pulling just on the edge of pain.
The sensations are overwhelming, and Will feels like he’s drowning in their wake, but if this is how he goes, then so be it. Will pushes away the part of his mind that tells him this is wrong, that the prospect of someone he considers a friend making him feel this way should be discouraged, sinful.
The feeling of Blake’s tongue laving at Will’s jaw, under his ear, down his neck— the feeling is making him hard in his jeans.
They don’t spend much time speaking, don’t overcomplicate things other than by getting each other off as quickly yet as drawn out as possible. Hands pull down jeans and find their way into underwear, stroking at each other’s lengths with drunken abandon.
Out here in the middle of nowhere, Blake evidently has no qualms about staying quiet, releasing a drawn-out moan followed by a, “fuck,” after Will strokes Blake particularly hard. They’re panting into each other’s mouths when Blake actually begs.
The very notion of it has Will blushing, the idea that someone would beg Will to do anything, much less to fuck him in an old barn in the middle of the night. It’s incredibly heady and sobering all at once. A surge of adrenaline races down Will’s spine at the thought of being even closer to Blake, of feeling Blake around all of himself.
For all the internal warring that Will has experienced prior to this— and will likely experience again once this is over— it’s surprisingly easy to surrender himself to the feeling of Blake under him. All thoughts of past lectures and scare-tactics are suddenly gone.
Will probably doesn’t prep Blake as well as he should, but Blake tells him to keep going— arches into every movement from Will. Neither one of them lasts for very long, and before he truly realizes what’s happening, Blake’s head is tipping back against his pillow, his one ankle where it’s hiked up around Will’s waist, digging into the muscle.
For as vocal as Blake has been throughout the entire experience, he’s surprisingly quiet as he comes between their bodies, across Will’s hand as Will continues to stroke and fuck him through it. It’s like the words have been punched out of Blake.
Unable to help himself, Will bends forward and seals his lips around Blake’s pulse point— a little bit of teeth sneaking past Will’s tongue. This time Blake does make some noise— a drawn-out moan that finally pushes Will over the edge as well.
For a long moment, they’re quiet, Blake looking up at him, his eyes still somewhat blue even in the darkness. There’s a heaviness in the air surrounding them, but Will’s afraid to say something that would break the silence. Someone is bound to say something eventually, so Will picks himself off Blake with regret and moves to lay down next to him, almost as close as they just were.
Blake doesn’t let his eyes leave Will’s and Will feels it like a buzzing under his skin. It’s a good buzzing, but it’s making him antsy. In an effort to quiet it, Will leans forward and silences his mind with an open-mouthed kiss to Blake’s lips.
They’re in no rush as the night stretches on around them. Blake pulls one of his blankets to more fully cover them both before he ends up falling asleep.
Will takes time to simply look at the other boy. For now, the crippling self-doubt stays away and allows Will to appreciate how Blake’s growing hair has begun to curl at the edges again. He knows his is too even after their last hair-cutting adventure. If the atmosphere had been charged then, Will can only imagine what it’ll be like now. What a life Will has suddenly found himself living.
Will wakes slowly to the light filtering in through the dusty glass windows situated at the top of the walls. That’s the first thing he notices.
The second thing that Will notices is how close he is to Blake. At some point in the night, Blake had turned around so that their position now mirrored their position just before Blake had made his move. Blake has Will’s arm pulled tightly around his waist once again, and his back is pressed flush against Will’s chest.
Under the blankets and up against Blake, Will is unbelievably warm in the best possible way, and if he could choose, he thinks he’d like to stay in this moment forever and not deal with the world outside and the thoughts that come with it.
Will allows himself to settle his head back down against the little pillow and noses at the nape of Blake’s neck. Blake’s still out cold, nothing so much as a quiet noise of recognition from him.
Will wants to stay, but time doesn’t stand still for anyone— the sheep still need tending to at the end of it all. Reluctantly, Will pulls himself away from Blake, taking back ownership of his arm before sliding out from under the blankets as gently as he can.
Will avoids looking at Blake as he pulls on his jeans and dons his multiple jackets. The heavy latch on the barn door squeaks only a bit, but Will can’t find it in himself to look back at Blake to see if he’s been woken because he doesn’t trust himself not to abandon his duties and lie there all day.
So, he doesn’t look back and instead, pushes out into the blustery June morning to see a surprisingly clear sky. Before he rides out to the sheep, Will stokes the ashes of the fire and builds it up enough to set their kettle over for a cup of tea. The kettle’s about to whistle when Will hears the latch of the barn door rattle on its hinges.
Suddenly, it feels like he’s got butterflies in his stomach, like he’s nervous to see Blake. He swallows down the nerves and turns to see Blake stumble out into the open, hair still a mess and huddled down into his jackets.
There’s something so soft and warm about Blake’s presence that it makes Will’s heart feel like it grows two sizes. If he doesn’t count last night, Will hasn’t seen Blake this unguarded after waking, so it’s a lot to take in.
It occurs to Will that he could very easily get on his ATV and avoid this conversation— leave it for later. Will’s frozen in place though, pinned there by the part of his brain that would willingly walk over to Blake and kiss him good morning. The reason he doesn’t? The part of his mind that is terrified and repulsed by what he did last night. Will’s caught in a goddamned catch-22.
While Will’s caught in his head, Blake sits down on the other side of the log as Will and stares resolutely at the fire. The silence that hangs between the two of them is fraught with tension, though whether it’s good or bad, Will doesn’t know.
Finally, after having had enough, Will goes to open his mouth only to be interrupted by the whistling of the kettle. So, to fill the silence, he pours them both cups of tea and turns to look at Blake. Blake’s eyes widen as if he’s unsure of what’s about to come out of Will’s mouth. In all honesty, Will’s also not sure of it himself.
Speaking on behalf of his basest desires, Will does not regret last night because he’s not had sex with anyone in a good two months. Up near the surface, near his conscious thoughts, the indoctrination into hatred, both outwards and inwards, makes him want to recoil back into himself. It makes him want to get onto his ATV and drive out to the sheep with nothing more said about it.
Will tries though, he really does, to pay attention to the part of himself that really enjoyed last night. Not the part that just thrives off the feeling of stimulation, but the part that had looked at Blake laying there wanting and thought, fuck, he’s beautiful. The part that had wanted to lie in the barn with the sleeping boy for the rest of the day and ignore their responsibilities.
“Last night...” Will begins and trails off, unsure of what he wants to say. “I don’t regret it, but it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to. We’re alone out here, it’s only natural if we let off steam in some form.”
Blake stares at his hands, at the steam curling off the surface of their drinks and into the morning air. Will needs him to say something, wants him to say something, but he doesn’t know what. Does he want Blake to tell Will it doesn’t matter, or does he want Blake to tell him that he wants a repeat of last night?
Whatever he wants, Will doesn’t get because without looking up at him, Blake speaks softly. “I think you’d better get to the sheep. Don’t want to put too much pressure on those dogs.”
Fine, Blake’s not wrong per se, but it’s not what Will wanted to hear. He won’t argue though and rather throws back his tea, hissing at the steaming liquid sliding down his throat. The caffeine is necessary though and Will cannot bear to sit there in silence for any longer.
Without so much as a goodbye, Will stalks to his ATV and drives it as fast as he safely can over the rolling hills.
To keep his mind off the situation back at base camp, Will throws himself into herding and inspecting the sheep. Upon his arrival, Will laments the loss of one of the sheep and concentrates on preventing any more casualties. Will tries to tell himself that if he’d been here all night like he was supposed to, he could have prevented the casualty. It doesn’t do any good for his conscience.
Perhaps not discussing the previous night was a blessing in disguise. It eliminates any difficult conversations that they could have— prevents the need to quell these feelings if they happened to grow by the end of their tenure out here.
Will eats his lunch and feeds the two dogs out there with him before he needs to return to base camp. Part of him is dreading the return, dreading seeing Blake again after this morning. Will has closed his mind off from the events of the previous night, but he doesn’t know if he totally trusts himself not to crack if Blake asks him to. If Blake told him to jump, Will thinks he might jump.
Unlike that morning, Will drives slower back to the barn, trying to prolong the inevitable. The barn comes back into view sooner rather than later, the smoke from the fire rising into the air with the promise of hot food.
If Will didn’t know better, he’d think Blake hadn’t moved all day. He’s sitting in the same spot as he had been when Will left that morning, though he looks a bit more put together than he had earlier. Blake looks more like the Blake Will’s grown used to seeing, not the soft and disarming boy he’s seen that morning. He looks like someone Will’s grown to know, and if this continues, Will thinks his resolve might be okay.
Blake’s eyes follow Will as he gets off the bike and makes his way to the fire. Will sees Blake give him a small smile that almost looks like an apology. He murmurs a quiet, “Hi,” seemingly forgetting about whatever is in the pan in front of him.
Will wants to say something, but he suddenly feels like he’s been rendered speechless.
“I’m sorry for this morning,” Blake says, continuing to watch Will as he settles down onto the log opposite Blake and across the fire. Will’s trying to put as much distance between them as he can. “I should have said something else and not just ignored it all, because I don’t want it to mean nothing.” Blake’s twisting the hem of his pullover in his fingers, the movement betraying how young he really is. That, combined with the confession, makes Will’s heart lurch in his chest.
All day, Will has been telling himself they would go back to normal so long as they made no other mention of it, but now, here he is listening to Blake telling him that it’s not nothing— it can’t be. Suddenly, the distance between them across the fire feels like a gulf.
“Blake…” But Will’s words still fail him despite it all. The bit of him that yearns for the other boy has continually grown stronger, and it’s fully in control now as he sits there, pinned to his seat. He’s not pinned there now because of his fear like he was this morning— he’s pinned there now out of the devotion he feels, out of the yearning to be close.
And while Blake seems to have forgotten about their food, he at least hasn’t forgotten how to move, because now he moves and walks over to where Will sits, kneeling in front of him. The fire at Blake’s back casts him in deep shadow in the fading dusk, an orange halo encircling his upper body. It’s otherworldly.
For a moment, Blake doesn’t touch Will, just kneels and looks at him, his hands hovering unsure over Will’s knees. “Do you still not regret it like you said this morning?” Blake’s hands settle on Will’s knees and somehow, it’s grounding.
Will finds his voice. “Yeah, I still mean it.”
A look passes over Blake’s face then, his eyes fluttering ever so much while a small breath escapes, betraying how he’s feeling. It betrays how nervous he’d been that Will had changed his mind in the eight hours since they’d seen each other.
“I spent all day trying to get you out of my mind, trying to force these feelings out of my head, but I knew that if you asked me to do anything I’d do it.” Clearly his words have returned to him because now Will can’t quit spilling all of his feelings from throughout the day.
Against his better judgment, Will leans forward and sweeps the longer hairs that have fallen into Blake’s eyes, away. His thumb lingers at Blake’s temple, and he watches as Blake’s pupils dilate at the touch.
“Can I kiss you now that we’re both sober?” Blake whispers, and Will tries to maintain his breathing while he feels Blake’s hands slide up his thighs.
“Yes, God, yes.” That’s all it takes for Blake to close the remaining distance between their faces.
The sigh that Will releases at the feeling of Blake’s lips on his, of the latter’s tongue begging for entry into Will’s own mouth, is heavenly. Last night, Will had thought it felt good, kissing Blake, but tonight, sober, it feels even better. Blake’s overgrown curls feel even more electric between and under Will’s fingers, the low moans that are pulled from Blake’s throat more musical.
Will’s legs fall open, coaxing Blake closer to him, soaking up the remaining heat from the fire that still clings to Blake’s front.
While Blake’s hands have slid further down Will’s thighs, one of them moves to rest low on Will’s stomach. The weight of those hands has Will squirming where he sits.
Blake is practically on top of him, and it’s still not close enough. Will wants to feel the weight of Blake both over and under him. He reluctantly withdraws a hand from Blake’s face and slides it down Blake’s back, letting it come to rest on his ass.
“Scho,” Blake huffs into Will’s mouth. The raspiness of it, the breathlessness, makes Will whine in the back of his throat. “Let’s go inside. I want to go inside.”
Will nods but doesn’t let up for several seconds.
Somehow though, they both make it inside the barn, the latch sliding home before Will turns and looks to see Blake ripping off his jacket and pullover, his hair a wild mess by the time he’s finished.
Blake stops and looks at Will standing by the door. His cheeks are flushed and he’s breathing a little harder than typical, the shine in his eyes overwhelming Will. Will feels like he’s drowning, so he does the only thing he knows in the moment and manages to rip his boots and outer jacket off, letting them fall to the ground where he stands, before marching across the room and taking Blake’s face in his hands, kissing him as if he were the only source of air around.
Blake’s hands settle at Will’s waist and shove the remaining layers out of the way, his cold hands landing on the bare skin of Will’s hips. A hiss of air escapes between Will’s teeth, but the feeling passes when Blake flexes his fingers and lets his nails bite into Will’s skin. This new feeling, the feeling of Blake’s fingernails sinking into the thin skin, kickstarts something in his brain.
Clothing gets discarded even quicker after that until Will’s got Blake laid out under him on their blankets. Will’s got more up his sleeve for later, but for now, he’s content with working Blake up with the help of two fingers inside Blake and a generous amount of petroleum jelly that the groundskeeper definitely didn’t mean for them to use like this.
Undressed, Will can see the bruises he’d left on Blake’s skin the night before, and he can’t help but add to them now while Blake’s head is thrown back in ecstasy.
“Fuck, Scho,” Blake breathes when Will brushes his fingers across that little spot inside of him that had Blake falling apart the night prior. “Please, God. Scho, I need you.”
And honestly? Who is Will to deny Blake of what he wants?
Will pulls off and out of Blake, ignoring the whine it draws from Blake, and switches their positions, pulling Blake on top of him. “Can you take it like this?”
Blake hardly hesitates before nodding, lining up Will’s dick and slowly sinking down onto it.
Like this, Will’s got his hands clenched at Blake’s hips and lets his head fall back against the pillow. It smells like the other boy, and that combined with the sounds of Blake on top of him drives all thought from his mind. Will realizes he doesn’t even care when Blake bottoms out and clenches down, adjusting to the feel of Will.
“Blake, God, you feel so good. God, you’re perfect.”
Blake nods and bites his lip, a picture of debauched innocence. He’s got one hand on top of one of Will’s own and squeezes encouragingly, the other one resting against his own thigh, nails digging into the skin there.
Will’s about to ask him if he’s okay, if they need to stop, but before he can, Blake rises from on top of Will and sinks back down. It’s a lot, and it takes most of Will’s resolve to lie there and let Blake work at his own pace.
Before long, they’re moving at a quicker pace, breaths and moans feeling like they’re being punched from Will’s chest. And then, Blake is leaning down and forward to press uncharacteristically chaste kisses across Will’s face before his lips find their home on Will’s own. The change in angle as Blake practically lays himself on top of Will, his hands traveling up to sink into Will’s own overgrown hair has Will encircling his arms around Blake’s back possessively and taking over to get them both to their respective climaxes.
Will can tell they’re both close as Blake’s eyes slide closed and his kisses turn into pants into Will’s open mouth. Will also feels the familiar warmth and tightening in his groin as he gets closer.
As Blake rocks back and forth, he rubs against Will’s stomach, chasing the friction and release they both desperately need.
Blake ends up losing control first. Last night, Will had thought Blake was silent during his orgasm, but now with Blake so close to his ear, face tucked into Will’s neck and breath hot, Will can hear a quiet, almost absent whine slipping past his lips as his muscles tense and his eyes squeeze shut. Like last night, the feeling and noise of it all pushes Will over the edge, his hips pressing further up as far into Blake as they’re able to from this angle.
For a good five minutes, they simply lie there mostly in silence, catching their breaths and coming down from their respective highs. Will presses open-mouthed kisses to Blake’s neck where Will has his own head tucked, murmuring little bits of praise into his skin. Blake’s hums sound largely approving until Will gently pulls out to adjust their position, in which case, Blake’s positive hums turn to a discontented huff.
Blake’s still lying mostly on top of Will, his head still largely tucked into the crook of Will’s neck. His hair tickles the underside of Will’s chin only a little, but it’s nothing Will can’t ignore as he runs his fingers softly up Blake’s back as he watches the flickering light from the fire outside throw shadows across the ceiling of the barn. Much to Will’s displeasure, he feels the familiar feelings of self-doubt creeping back in not long after they drift into this new silence.
He doesn’t know why he says it, voices the destructive thought aloud, but it slips past his lips anyway. “This is probably a one-shot thing we’ve got going here, Blake.” It’s murmured into Blake’s hair, but it still sounds like a shout in the quiet room.
Blake’s silent for a moment before he replies. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.” It’s quiet and full of conviction, and Will supposes he’s right. It is no one’s business but their own. Blake doesn’t try and refute what Will says though, just another instance of knowing when not to pick for more information when Will isn’t ready to give it. Those two thoughts fight for the upper hand in Will’s brain for the rest of the night, and he knows he’ll likely dream of it in some form.
Before sleep can creep up on them, Blake turns to Will as they’re now laying side by side and brushes a finger across Will’s bottom lip. A stirring of interest that Will’s too tired to pay attention to rears its head at the action. “We never ate dinner. I left the skillet on the fire,” Blake murmurs, lips barely moving.
Will can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes him. “That’s okay, I’ll go get it and put the fire out. I’ll be right back.” He presses a quick kiss to Blake’s lips before haphazardly pulling on a pair of jeans and one of their jackets— Will can’t properly tell whose in the darkness.
It turns out Blake had been cooking some kind of vegetable, but it’s long turned to a black crisp, and Will can’t help but smile to himself. He works as fast as he can in the cold so he can climb back under the blankets with Blake.
When Will gets back into the barn, Blake is barely awake, so Will slinks under the blankets after only pulling off his jeans and pulls Blake against him, partly to warm himself up and to make the other boy suffer from his coldness.
Unlike the day prior, when Will wakes up, he doesn’t wake up with Blake’s back pressed to his chest. He also doesn’t feel the overwhelming urge to run and hide from this.
This morning, Will wakes up to the weight of Blake on top of him, the latter’s head pressed into Will’s shoulder and their legs tangled together underneath the multiple blankets. Will’s arm that's trapped beneath Blake scratches lightly up Blake’s bare back, eliciting a sleepy noise from him.
Will cants his head to the side to try and focus on Blake, on his unruly curls that are in desperate need of shearing as they near mullet territory.
The smell of last night’s fire still clings to Blake’s hair— Will desperately wishes he could bury his face in it, the smell feeling like home at this point. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to wake Blake up more than he already has with his light touch. Blake will come around in his own time, and Will decides he’s going to be here to see it, his responsibilities be damned.
Within a few minutes, Blake shifts his head, a sleepy noise that sounds like a half-formed question rising from the back of his throat. Will stills his hand when Blake looks up at him, his eyes half-lidded and glassy with drowsiness.
“Is it mornin’ already?” Blake mumbles, and Will can’t help but smile.
“It is, but you don’t have to get up yet.”
That seems to relax Blake a bit, and he lowers his head to rest back against Will’s shoulder. “Are you goin anywhere?”
Will picks up lightly scratching up Blake’s back and feels his heart clench at the vulnerability of those words. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here.”
Blake nods off again shortly thereafter, his breathing evening back out. Besides the obvious warmth that it provides him, Will’s happy he has his jumper on from last night still because now Blake loosely clutches at it while he dreams.
Here, watching Blake sleep in the dim morning sunlight that pours in through the grimy windows in thick beams, Will watches the dust motes dance lazily on their journey to nowhere. He feels at peace here, his mind not wandering down a rabbit hole of dark thoughts for a few blessed minutes. Will even lets himself drift off back to sleep, only coming to when Blake does again.
Blake stretching against Will, muscles flexing under his hand, stirs Will from his light sleep for good this time. He nuzzles his face into Will’s shoulder before raising his head to smile at Will. Blake looks more alert this time, but Will’s heart still seizes all the same.
“Hello again,” Blake mumbles.
Will can’t resist the smile that tugs at the corner of his lips. They’re literally waking up on the floor of a barn, yet those words are so mundane and relaxed as if this were normal. Maybe it could be, Will briefly thinks.
“I’ve thought of something while you were asleep.” Will’s voice catches on the first few words, still rusty from disuse. Blake raises his eyebrows and shuffles himself up so he’s closer to Will’s face.
It’s nice, being able to just look and not worry about the other taking it the wrong way. Without worrying about what he might do himself. They know each other way too intimately at this point to be afraid to look at each other so openly.
“I think it’s about time for another haircut. If you want.” Will tugs at a particularly long lock of Blake’s hair at the back of his head and tries to keep a straight face when Blake releases a snort that turns into a giggle halfway through.
“Yeah? You’re gonna let me near you with a pair of scissors again? After last time?”
Ah, last time. Will rolls his eyes and tugs harder on the lock still in his fingers. What Will doesn’t expect from Blake is for the latter to let his eyes slip shut and sharply inhale. Oh, Will could work with that.
“Yeah,” Will says, voice lower than moments before. “So long as you don’t nearly give me a bald spot again.” Will’s hand creeps toward the back of Blake’s head and tugs just enough to tilt his head up for Will to place a chaste kiss to Blake’s lips.
“I can do that,” Blake breathes and shifts against Will, shifts closer to his body, closer into his space. “Leave a little on the top though, yeah? I wanna give you something to hold on to.”
Fuck, if that doesn’t turn Will on. He hums as Blake shifts against him again, content to let Blake take what he wants.
Will loses track of time after that. He puts his responsibilities on hold and concentrates on pulling those heavenly sounds from Blake.
Perhaps they’ll get up at some point and do the jobs they’re being paid to do. Will should check up on the sheep at some point, but the idea of that pales in comparison to the idea of being here with Blake.
In the end, Blake and Will both end up pulling each other up and out of the barn into the early afternoon light.
The morning fog is long gone by now as Blake goes to rebuild their fire while Will digs out the pair of scissors they’d used last time for cutting their hair.
Whereas the first haircut they’d given each other had been wrought with a kind of tension that Will wouldn’t honestly let himself identify, this time it’s vastly different. This time, Will revels both in the feeling of Blake’s hands on him and his hands on Blake. There’s no tense silence, just their now normal playful banter.
It’s a routine haircut, and if Will’s lips find Blake’s jaw while he’s got it tipped up to clip at the hair on the side of Blake’s head, then so be it.
And then somehow, Blake becomes Tom, and Will stops sleeping with the sheep every night. He stays with the sheep about three nights a week, and those nights are by far worse than when Will sleeps curled up with Tom.
He grows used to the feeling of Tom’s warmth around him, the way their heat gets trapped under the blanket together and adds a protective layer against the cold that seeps through the crack in the barn siding.
The days they spend away from the sheep are days spent primarily in each other’s arms. They take all the time they can together finding new and different ways to take each other apart. As summer wears on, the nights don’t get as cold. The cool air even becomes a nice source of air after a long and sweaty fuck on a night they’re neglecting the sheep.
June turns to July, and Will begins spending four nights a week at the barn with Tom more often than not. Will counts the sheep every time he goes out— covers his tracks with backlogs of missed days. He gives the dogs extra food when he’s out there too to make up for the time they spend alone.
And then one day, the groundskeeper pays them a visit at breakfast— thankfully, a day when they’re both dressed already and Will’s about to ride out to the sheep. It’s not terribly chilly out anymore, but Will still sees Tom adjust the collar on his jacket to hide any marks Will had left that might be visible.
“Boys,” the groundskeeper greets them. “I’ve got some unfortunate news.”
Will feels a sense of uneasiness settle over the campsite and abandons his spot at the fire. They haven’t seen the groundskeeper since the beginning of their tenure out here, and his sudden reappearance hadn’t been anticipated.
“What can we do for you, sir?” Tom asks because Will’s throat has gone tight.
“Schofield, it’s about your uncle. I’ve just heard word that he’s had a stroke and your aunt wants you there to help with the farm while he’s in hospital. Since that would only leave you out here, Blake, I’m pulling you too. I’ll worry about the herd for the rest of the summer.” He sounds remorseful to be telling them, but Will doesn’t hear anything else.
All Will can register is that his uncle may never fully recover now— may die. So what if he loses out on the last month of pay? The only other thing Will registers right now besides his uncle’s health is that this means goodbye to Tom now instead of a month from now.
He’s frozen, unable to utter anything but: “Thank you, sir,” when Will is told what hospital his uncle is in and is handed a slip of paper with the phone number on it. Will’s so frozen that Tom has to take the money that’s meant for Will that the groundskeeper holds out to them.
“You boys pack everything up, take what you can back, and I’ll be around later to fetch the rest. You boys did a nice job.” And then the groundskeeper is climbing back into his truck and driving away in the direction of the herd.
When the truck is over the ridgeline, Will feels the familiar weight of Tom behind him, his arms wrapping around Will’s waist, his lips pressing to the back of Will’s neck. Will feels himself melt in Tom’s arms, can’t bear the thought of having to say goodbye to him so soon.
“I’m coming with you,” Tom murmurs into Will’s neck. It’s so unexpected that Will freezes again. “For this at least. I want to be there for you. You don’t deserve to be alone for this.”
And then Will’s turning in Tom’s arms and looking down into the honest and open face of Tom, of the person he thought he could push away, will away feelings for. No words can encapsulate what he feels right now, so Will does what he can and settles his hands on Tom’s cheeks and pulls him into a kiss, pouring as many of those unspoken feelings he can into it. It’s enough for the moment.
They’re able to pack up the campsite in three hours, and they’re on the train back in the village headed South two hours after that.
Stepping back down into the village, around other people and cars and technology feels almost like stepping through the looking glass. They’ve been secluded for the better part of two and a half months now with nothing but their ATVs to remind them of the modernity of their lives.
On the phone at the train station, Will’s aunt says that his uncle’s stroke was bigger than the doctors had originally thought after looking at the CT images. It takes all of Will’s own power not to collapse there in the phone booth.
Still, his words fail him when he tries to tell Tom, so Will elects for that nonverbal comfort, of the feel of Tom pressed close to him in the seat next to him on the train. Ordinarily, Will might want Tom to sit across from him so that they might have a normal conversation, but these are not normal times. True to form, Tom doesn’t pry, and Will thinks he loves him a little for that.
On the train, Will looks out the window in silent contemplation while Tom draws invisible patterns across the back of Will’s hand out of sight of the rest of the train’s passengers. Will thinks through the past two months and then works his way back through the years.
Will and his uncle aren’t extremely close, but they’re certainly closer than Will is to his actual father. As bitter as Will still is about his inability to go to uni, he always looks forward to working on the farm with his aunt and uncle. Will may have had issues with his uncle, but he thinks that if he’d had his uncle raising him instead of his own father, he might have turned out better— braver.
All this passes through his mind and Will realizes that he’s taken his uncle for granted all these years. He's forgotten to say thank you and forgotten to take note of all the various lessons he’d been taught over time. And now, now it might all be too late.
As the regret and remorse flood through him, Will can’t help but tighten his grip on Tom’s hand, partly to reassure himself that Tom’s still there and partly because he’s got too much pent-up emotion to stay still.
Tom still doesn’t try to tell him that it’ll be okay because he knows that’s not guaranteed— Will is still endlessly grateful for it. In fact, Tom doesn’t say anything for nearly the entire two hours that it takes the train to arrive at their destination.
The hospital isn’t difficult to find even though it’s in the city over from the village he spends much of his summers in— Will still knows the area pretty well. Like all hospitals though, the one they’ve taken Will’s uncle to is too white and smells like antiseptic.
Somewhat surprisingly, Will’s uncle has the double patient room to himself, his aunt sitting vigil by her husband’s bedside.
His aunt tries to smile when Will walks into the room, but the smile is watery at best— a hollow thing accomplished by red-rimmed eyes and a red nose. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t rise from her seat, her hands clenched too tightly in her husband’s to separate. She does notice Tom though.
Her smile falters as she notices Tom step closer to Will. “And who’s this?”
A simple process of elimination would point to it being someone who Will would have met out on the estate, but he’ll forgive his aunt as her mind has undoubtedly been thrown into chaos.
“Uh, this is Tom. He was out on the estate with me helping with the sheep. He wanted to make sure everything was okay.” Will chances a glance back at Tom and sees understanding in the latter’s eyes, his mouth parting prematurely as no sound comes out.
“I’m gonna…” Tom jerks a thumb over his shoulder and takes a few steps away from Will. It’s endearing and not at all the boisterous boy Will has come to know over the past two months. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. Do you want one, Will?”
Will nods and watches him go. Tom won’t really be coming back with coffee though, the question just a courteous escape tactic. Sometime later, when Will wanders down to the canteen, he’ll find Tom hunkered down into his pullover at a table looking out of place with a steaming cup of something in his hands.
For now, though, Will pulls a chair from the other side of the room to his uncle’s bedside opposite his aunt and sits heavily. Now that Tom is gone, Will realizes how quiet it is— his aunt is silent, the only noise breaking up the monotony being his uncle’s heart monitor beeping steadily.
He doesn’t know how she puts up with it— the incessant beeping. It’s reassuring, sure, the sound confirming that life still continues— that all hope isn’t lost. The tone makes Will’s skin itch though. When it finally gets to be too much, Will draws in a breath that feels so loud he might as well have yelled.
“How— how did it happen?”
A pair of blue eyes as striking as Will’s own turn to look at him across the bed. Will knows his aunt means well, but she looks at him as if his question were the stupidest, most inconsiderate thing he could ask. The overhead lights of the room cast a sickly green glow across her complexion, and suddenly Will just wants to run. Screw family solidarity, all he wants to do now is grab Tom from the canteen and run far away from that look.
She sucks on her teeth before lifting her gaze from Will and settling it back on her husband. “Andrew was leading one of the horses back to the stable. I don’t know, I was putting the washing out on the line and saw him fall. The doctors won’t know the extent of the side effects until he wakes.”
There’s nothing to say to that of course. What could he say in response that would be adequate for all of this? I’m sorry ? Okay ? So, Will says nothing. He says nothing until she speaks up again.
“Who is that boy, Will?”
The question catches Will off guard because he could have sworn that she’d already asked it while Tom was in the room. Was he missing some double meaning that he hadn’t answered earlier? Her expression doesn’t change though, remains stone-faced yet not anywhere near as severe as the one that his mother would ordinarily serve him.
“He’s a friend from the estate I was working on. I told you.”
She eyes him as if she doesn’t quite believe him. Will holds his ground though, putting to use his own stone-faced facade he’s spent the better part of twenty-three years perfecting.
“He lives further South, so he came with to make sure Uncle Andrew was okay.”
Pursed lips. Oh God . “Will, I know your father was terribly harsh towards you when you were a child, Lord knows I always chided him for it. But you do know that I don’t hold the same views as him, right?”
Will loves his aunt, he does. Lord knows she was his safe haven during the summers, but he’s no fool to think his conversations with his relatives don’t get back to his parents. He’s no fool to think that even though his aunt has always felt like a safe haven, that his words would be any more protected.
“I know that. What do you want me to say?”
Will can play this game though, can play silent and brooding and stand-offish because he learned from the best. He doesn’t typically lose in a battle of wills— until it comes to Tom.
The topic fades into the monotonous beeping of the heart rate monitor.
An indeterminable amount of time later, his aunt gets up to step into the hallway for something, and then Will is alone in the room with the man who only made his life marginally better than his father did.
A chasm of a few dozen centimeters separates Will from his uncle. He should say something even though his uncle is unconscious and can’t hear what’s going on around him. Or maybe he can, and that’s precisely why Will should say something.
One of Will’s shaking hands reaches out and gently takes hold of his uncle’s limp hand. It’s warm, which is only a little startling. Lying there still, Will half expects the hand to be cold as if it belonged to a corpse— but the pulse in his wrist is steadily beating away.
Will takes a steadying breath in and releases it. He wracks his brain for something to say, but Will’s always been bad with words under pressure.
“I um… I’m sorry I wasn’t with you this summer. Maybe if I’d been, this wouldn’t have happened.” Yes, it would have . “I'll spend the rest of the summer here with you helping you get back on your feet. Because you’re gonna get back on your feet. I just—” The latch of the door to the room clicks and Will tears his hand from his uncle’s.
Will’s throat feels tight, and it’s all he can do to clear his throat and stand as calmly as he can. “I’m going to find Tom,” he says, pushing past his aunt without looking up into her eyes. He doesn’t honestly know what he’d do if he looked at her now.
About halfway down the hall to the lift, Will sags against the wall and breathes as evenly as he can. A few sobs rip themselves out of his throat, but at least it’s an outlet for these warring emotions that Will feels swirling inside him. Getting them out now also ensures that he won’t break down in front of Tom, which the other boy really doesn’t need— not that Will thinks Tom would ever protest.
As he’d anticipated, Tom is sitting at a table in the canteen with a cup of something steaming in a cheap Styrofoam cup with no lid. He’s hunched down with his hood pulled halfway up and his roughly cut hair falling across his forehead— Will’s heart constricts with an odd sense of both hurt and comfort. Only after a moment though does Will see that in front of Tom is a pile of sugar packets ripped open with their contents spilled onto the table. Watching Tom sit there and swirl his finger around the middle of the pile creating a ring of messiness betrays just how young he is in the grand scheme of things.
It feels like an odd juxtaposition with Tom sitting there in the same jackets Will’s seen him in all summer. The lamb sat there for several days in Tom’s jacket, and now here he is sitting in a hospital with the same jacket on. It’s bizarre and disjointed.
Tom looks up and sees Will standing there, his hands stuffed into his own jacket. The bored expression from Tom’s face disappears and is replaced with an empathetic half-smile, beckoning Will over to the table. On his way over, Will sees Tom sweep the sugar from the table and onto the floor and he screams internally.
The cheap plastic chair scrapes across the linoleum floor, but Will can’t find it in him to cringe. He’s much too tired for that. Instead, he clasps his hands together on top of the table and lets his shoulders sag.
Tom stares at him, his own hands lying limp on the table. Will wants to grab them, hold them tight to his chest, and never let go. Despite everything though, there’s still a part of Will that’s terrified about what would happen if someone saw. So, he does nothing. Will sits there in quiet yearning, hurting for his uncle and for his own shame.
It’s Tom that finally breaks the silence though. “I lost my dad to a heart attack about ten years back. I hate hospitals now. We spent about a week in one about nonstop— me, mum, and Joe. I don’t think I really knew what was happening totally. I was ten and just wanted to go home.”
“Tom…” Will’s voice breaks on the short word, but they’ve never talked about Tom’s father. Sure, Tom’s mentioned him, but there was a point in his stories where ‘parents’ became ‘mother’. “I wouldn’t have let you come if I knew.”
Tom waves him away though and leans onto his elbows propped on the table. “It’s okay. How’s your uncle?”
Will debates on what to tell him—if he should bring up his aunt or just leave it alone. Looking at Tom, Will decides now is not the time to add more weight to the situation. “As good as can be expected. We won’t know much until he wakes up. I’ll probably stay at my aunt and uncle’s house while she’s here with him— take care of the animals.”
“You’ll be there alone?”
“Yeah, for a little while at least.” Will thinks he knows where this is going, but he doesn’t want to face it. He doesn’t think he’s strong enough.
“Do you want me to help you? Not that you need the help— I’m sure you’re more than capable of taking care of the animals yourself.”
Will’s stomach feels like it’s twisting in knots because, God, he wants to spend more time with Tom with the added benefit of indoor amenities and a bed . The more time they spend together though, the harder Will knows it will be to let Tom go. There is no world where they’re allowed to continue like this. Life out on the estate was a bubble, not reality.
“Tom, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Screw what you can’t ask me to do. Do you want me there?” His eyes are pleading, and Will can’t help but melt.
So, he chokes out, “Yes.”
Will thinks that might be the end of it until he notices movement and looks down to see Tom’s hands creeping across the tabletop, one finger outstretched. Those hands don’t open to grasp at Will’s, but instead, stop a few centimeters away, that outstretched finger barely stroking across Will’s own knuckles.
It’s such a small gesture, quiet enough that it doesn’t give anything away even in the deserted canteen— doesn’t proclaim to the world what they mean to each other. But it’s enough— it says, ‘I’m not leaving’. Will almost breaks into tears at the sheer tenderness of it all.
His words fail him again, so Will does what he can and nods.
Will doesn’t explicitly tell his aunt that Tom is coming home with him to her house, but Will figures what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
The rest of that afternoon and into the evening passes calmly. Will thinks he’s gotten all of his immediately overwhelming emotions out. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job smiling and talking until he walks out to the barn after dinner to tend to the horses.
Over the past couple of months, Will knows his emotions have been unintentionally heightened, his nerves exposed, and repeatedly pressed upon to elicit a reaction from him time and time again. All of that, compounded with the events of the day causes Will to unintentionally lash out at one of the cows who stubbornly won’t move out of the way.
It’s unfair, really. Will should know better than to lose his temper on the animals when they’ve not done his one arbitrary request— when they don’t read his mind. He needs to invest in a punching bag because this isn’t the answer, and the answer certainly is not to take his anger out on the boy who pulls him away from the cow who huffs at Will, annoyed.
Will goes to bed that night early, leaving Tom to tend to the house until he feels the other boy slip into bed with him sometime later. The incident isn’t brought up again.
Being able to spend time with Tom in an actual house with a bed and running water is more than Will thought he would ever get to experience with Tom. Stolen nights in a dilapidated barn on top of blankets and hay are all Will thought he’d ever get. Now, he gets to wake up in Tom’s arms, and, aside from making sure the animals get fed, they spend their time alone doing whatever they please.
They’re down on the bank of one of the rivers that run close to Will’s aunt and uncle’s property a few days later, laid out and bare of all clothes save for their boxers. They’d come down here on the predilection of cooling off in the ice-cold river after spending the morning with the animals. They had swum and done other things.
Now, under the warm midday sun and laid out on an old blanket with Tom’s head pillowed on Will’s thighs, Will almost lets himself believe that they’re on their own away from civilization and his family. It’s a dangerous thought, one that he’s perfectly content with living with in his head. At least if it’s in his head, no one can hurt him there.
All he needs is to lay here with Tom and not think about what awaits him when his aunt and uncle come home.
And then, of course, Tom has to go and unintentionally ruin Will’s peace of mind. It’s quiet around them, nothing but the buzzing insects and chirping birds contributing to the soundscape around them. And then Tom says: “Come South with me when this is all over?”
Tom must feel Will tense under him because that’s exactly what Will does— he freezes because even though he’d been thinking about something like this in his mind, the thought of it out in the open is different. Out in the open, the suggestion stops being his own private thought and instead gets fed back into his brain from an external source and subjected to his father’s indoctrination from over the years.
At Will’s continued silence, Tom pushes himself up onto his elbows and turns to look at Will over his shoulder, a worried crease now furrowing his brow. Will misses the warmth. “Or North, West, or East. I just want to leave here with you in tow.”
Will wants to hide in that moment— run and hide from Tom who won’t stop staring at him with his furrowed brows and mouth that is quickly morphing into a frown. Tom’s stare is as magnetic as it's ever been though, and Will can’t look away.
He knows the longer he stays silent, the worse Tom is going to think, but Will’s words fail him. If Tom would just look away .
“Unless…” Tom trails off, his voice faltering. “Unless you don’t want that? Am I reading this whole thing wrong?”
Will wants to scream at Tom. Scream that No! You’ve read everything right, but there’s something in my brain that’s broken— that’s still somehow ashamed of this.
The words won’t come right now, so Will shakes his head and swallows a thick lump in his throat. “It’s not that,” he finally manages to say. “It’s just that… When I was younger, maybe nine or ten, there were these two older blokes who lived just outside our village. I didn’t really know them apart from their names. The village kids used to call them everything but their names though.”
Will averts his eyes down to one of his own hands resting against his thigh. “It was ‘80 or ‘81, I think. And it’s not even like they were broadcasting what they were doing all the way out there alone, but people didn’t care. Somehow, I still don’t know who, a group of teenagers cornered them both one afternoon— or maybe it was night. I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter.
“The point is those kids beat those men to death and castrated one of them while he was still alive. They left them out there on the side of the road like they were wild animals. Like roadkill.
“My father dragged me down there and made me look at them before the police were able to clean up the area. That was my father’s idea of a lesson after I’d said something he decided wasn’t appropriate about a friend of mine.” Will clears his throat and chances a glance up to Tom where he sees the latter with eyes wet with unshed tears and lips parted in astonishment.
“Will…” Tom tries, but Will shakes head, eyes squeezed shut against the memories. He’d been doing a good job, he thought, of pushing those memories that had spent so long at the forefront of his mind, away.
“I just need you to know why I can’t jump into something like that. I can’t be the reason some psychotic kids bust down our door and beat you with a tire iron. The thought makes me sick .”
Tom scrambles to his knees and crawls the few feet closer to Will. Tom looks distraught at the idea of Will upset, looks like he’s searching for a wound that he could fix easily.
“What if I don’t care about those… psychopaths ? I just want to be with you. You don’t have to worry about me, let me do that.”
Tom’s right, really, but Will can’t wrap that thought around the irrational part of his mind. “I’m sorry,” Will whispers, unable to force himself to speak any louder. He watches Tom’s eyes fall, a sadness falling over the younger boy that Will wishes he could desperately set at ease.
Sadness on Tom’s face should be outlawed, banished to never to be seen again. It’s almost as if Tom’s eyes take on a personified quality, speaking for themselves.
“I just… I can’t right now. I’m sorry that I can’t do that.”
There’s a finality in Will’s words, and they hurt him as much as they undoubtedly hurt Tom. Tom lowers his gaze, sucking in a deep breath and looking out toward the greenery pressing in around them.
The subject effectively gets dropped, and Will can’t tell whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Regardless, it’s evident that something between them changes. When they crawl into bed that night, it’s somewhat morose and subdued. It feels like they’re officially living on borrowed time.
Will does his best to push away those awful memories and live in the moment. He can tell Tom also tries to push away the hurt after their day at the river, but something has irrevocably changed between them for now.
Within a week and a half, Will hears an update from his aunt. His uncle has woken up and while he’s got some right-sided weakness, the doctors think he’ll be okay. It’s both good news and bad— good because he doesn’t have to bury his uncle, but bad because that means this is all over, right? Will’s uncle coming home means Tom has to leave, fade away back into the English countryside.
Tom’s outside when the inside phone rings and Will feels his legs give out at the news. He manages to keep his voice steady, but his body language betrays his true feelings. Will doesn’t know how he’ll tell Tom, how he’ll bring up that conversation, and what that means for them. Long-distance relationships are still a thing though, right? Are they even in a relationship to keep long-distance though?
Unfortunately, Tom decides to walk into the kitchen for a glass of water right at the moment that Will lets the phone hang up. He’s still collapsed on the floor with the receiver cradled in his hands and a heaviness in his stomach. Tom’s eyes widen in worry, but he remains silent as if he’s afraid to ask what the outcome of that call was.
Instead of outright asking, Tom kneels in front of Will, his hands hovering unsure over Will’s own. “Will? What’s happened?”
“My uncle,” Will whispers, eyes finding Tom’s, pleading for him to understand what he’s not saying when he says, “He woke up today. They think he’ll be okay.”
Tom’s shoulders sink in relief before he breathes out a single, “Oh. When are they coming home?” This time, Tom’s hands fall to Will’s and grip at his fingers, transferring some of his own unspoken understanding.
Will doesn’t know when they’re supposed to come home, his aunt hadn’t said when she’d called, but it can’t be more than a few days or up to a week, surely. Tom’s days are officially numbered here, and Will feels himself panicking slightly at the thought.
He’s so caught up in his head, in the thought of feeling alone again without Tom after growing used to his presence, that he doesn’t realize he’s on the verge of hyperventilating. His chest does feel tight though at the prospect of having to start over with someone new, someone who could never be as understanding about everything as Tom. Will’s mind is racing at what feels like the speed of light until Tom reaches forward and pulls him into his chest, tucking Will’s head under Tom’s neck to stop his racing mind. It actually works, his brain shocked out its line of thinking at the change in surroundings.
“Hey, hey, we’ll figure it out. I’ll be gone when they get home. There’s no reason we have to stop talking, yeah? There’s no reason I can’t ever see you again.” Tom’s voice is soothing through the maelstrom of Will’s thoughts, and Will finds that he can’t do anything but nod into his chest. Tom’s right after all, as usual. They’ll need to be careful of course, but it’s better than the idea of having to say goodbye to Tom forever.
It seems that much to Will’s relief, Tom hasn’t taken Will’s reluctance to leave with Tom as an end to whatever this was between them. The past few days of uneasiness seems to be over in that instant, and Will sinks further into Tom’s embrace. “Yeah, yes. I don’t want to lose you.”
Everything is better in theory though. Tom leaves the day before his aunt and uncle permanently come home, giving Will enough time to make it look like he’s been living in the house alone.
The process of Tom leaving is drawn out and emotional, starting with the both not making it out of their bed until some time past noon that day. Tom’s utterly exhausted Will by the time he’s driven to the train station, the two of them having taken every opportunity they could to undo each other before it was too late. They exchange their phone numbers and addresses, and then Tom is gone as simply as he came into Will’s life.