Chapter Text
Where The Lines Overlap - Paramore
[pov: James]
The line in the sand is under his feet, or under Will's feet, he's sure of it. He's certain there's something, even if he can't hold it tightly, even if it flows through his fingers like running water. He's actually not sure at all, it could all be Will playing up to this image they've created of themselves online, and it's seeping into their offline world.
All he knows right now for certain is that they've made such a fucking mess in the office.
There's plastic wrappers piled up on each side of their desk, ransacked and torn apart boxes litter the space between their feet, the desk itself has patches of sticky sweetness and a pool of what he's pretty sure is candle wax embedded into the surface. It's still liquid in the centre, red and glossy and rippling with each nudge of the table, but its edges are swiftly hardening into a matte sheen.
They always make a mess. It's practically their brand at this point.
The filming is finished so technically this is their break; ten uninterrupted minutes of nothing special at all before Will plays music from his phone and they all start cleaning up, gathering boxes to go in the recycling and sorting items to be kept, returned, and binned. Sometimes Will clambers over the piles to go out for a vape, James may join him, and sometimes Ieuan and Aby start gathering stuff together before they rest. Today though, the sun beams in through the large windows and the whole office has been heated through to an uncomfortable temperature, windows finally flung open and a blessed breeze gently circling their chests. Energy expended with filming, everyone sinks into a much lazier mood; with several fans turned on full blast now it won't screw with the audio, leaning back in their chairs with half-arsed responses.
James is usually on his phone by now, but the office air is still thick with humidity and he's too focused on not sweating through his entire shirt. The fans are only just starting to help the air flow. Will is doing the same thing, reclining in his chair and staring at the ceiling, refilling his mental batteries before they have to start their tasks again. Namely, clean up, so there isn't the threat of a broken ankle in the simple walk from the desk to the door.
“Aby,” Will extends her name petulantly, “can we get air-con for next summer?”
James tuts as he mumbles. “It's terrible for your voice.”
“Sorry, forgot our diva loves working in fuckin’ saunas.” Will scoffs, eyes still closed. “Fine, buy more fans. Like eight of ‘em. For every corner.”
Aby, lounging on a familiar white chair across the room, only hums to respond. It's too hot to think, and there's already four fans just in James’ eyeline. If he stays completely still, maybe the sun will forget he's here. That's probably how it works. The heat is making it very hard to think.
The wax is now dry where it sits on the table, its matte surface absorbing the glow of the box lights in front of them. They'll need to get it off the table before the next video. James stretches his arm forward with good intentions, which is already too much energy being exerted in this heat, and pats the smooth top of the wax. It's a little oily, some kind of essential scent smearing over his fingertip, but it feels nice; smooth corners and a dip in the middle like a worn worry stone. He presses a little harder and the dip turns to a dent, ruining the calm of the puddle; he also anticipates the calm of the room being shattered when Will makes a comment about how easily he's drawn towards anything tactile. He's not wrong, but James isn't really thinking about anything at all as he jabs his fingernail into it, stabbing a smooth line just off-centre.
Will is looking at him, he can see it from the corner of his eye. “Lad. What are you doing.”
He jabs his nail in again at an angle at the top of the line, and again to extend it into a curve. “J. For James.” He smiles at his work and the rudimentary letter carved into the crimson wax. Will's eyes are still on him, he can feel them, and as he glances upwards he can see they definitely are as the tiny monitor in front of them shows it clearly. The cameras aren't recording and Ieuan has left his seat to escape the heat, but he can still see what the camera sees in the small screen. Will is looking at the table and the puddle, bemused and perplexed. So James continues, poking his fingernail back into the wax to scrape another letter to the left of his. “And Will.” He adds a final plus sign in the middle.
Will snorts at his antics. “Gonna do a heart around it, ain't ya?”
He wasn't. He thought the crudely drawn “W+J” would be enough to get a sigh and an eyeroll from the other man, probably an insult, and maybe a telling off. But like most of the comments and small gestures Will has offered that make him consider where that line is between them - they're not being recorded right now. Every sentence uttered is softer, more genuine. Real, in a way James still can't identify with any semblance of confidence. He has an inkling, a gut feeling that vibrates constantly that fills him with warmth as much as it fills him with nerves. Surely he isn't reading into this, it can't be him imagining every gentle action as much sweeter than Will intends it to be.
After everything that has changed between them, how much Will has changed around him, James dreads the idea that it's all been a lie. A figment of his imagination. Just getting his hopes up for them to be crushed underfoot, like that line he can't pinpoint getting swiped away by the wind. His mind and heart swap daily between believing Will loves him, and Will loves him like that - the way James wants him to.
Either way it ends up being, it would be rude to disappoint.
James leans over the table properly and takes his time to get the heart embedded in the wax, slowly smoothing his nail around curves to envelope their initials. The wax crackles at the edges where it's fully dried, but he moves his finger with methodical purpose to avoid it snapping in half. He bites his lip as he concentrates, and the sweat beading on his forehead is half the heat, and half determination.
Will asked for a heart, technically, and he'll be damned if it's not perfect. The last swipe of his nail connects to the center, lines overlapping at the base of the heart. He looks at it with a smile before he turns his head to Will with a self-satisfied and utterly shit-eating grin.
“Cute.” Will huffs, shakes his head and puts his phone down on the table. He looks back at James with pursed lips and a slight smirk, that look he recognises all too well as you're an idiot, but you're my idiot. Will looks at him like that a lot, every time James does something gentle with a fraction of the care he actually wants to give. It doesn't provide any answers. “Are we ready to clean up now?”
James sighs, exaggerating his shoulders slumping. “It's too fucking hot, Will.”
“Well I can't do anything about that, now can I?” James pouts at him, and Will groans back immediately. “Y'can have five more minutes.”
“Thank you.” He practically sings the words as he collapses back to recline into the chair. James grabs his phone and returns to scroll Twitter uncaringly for five sweet, uninterrupted minutes of absolutely nothing. His feed is uninteresting at best, some music updates, a news article, a picture of him and Will from a fan where he's accused of being in love just from the look on his face. He can't do much about that anymore. He keeps scrolling.
Barely a minute goes by, and he briefly glances upwards as Aby shifts in her seat, spotting the tiny monitor in his periphery. Will is looking at the wax with a blank expression. His eyes dart over his side to look at Will's phone in his hand, and he has Twitter open too. Interesting, but nothing special, so he goes back to his phone.
When he peers again a minute later, Will is still looking.
He's not just looking, he's blushing, lips pursed into a slight pout. Will's phone screen is black now, locked itself from inactivity. James glances back down so Will doesn't spot him watching.
Will is entranced by their initials in a heart, cheeks pink enough to be visible in the monitor, phone abandoned enough to go dark.
Surely.
Surely that is a sign of something more.
James isn't even supposed to see that, no one is, so it can't be for show. Maybe he's thinking about how to get it off the table. But why would that make him blush, like a teenager who just carved their first partner's initials into the tree they kissed under? A friend slash co-worker carving their initials into a pitiful puddle of wax on a table isn't on the same level, not enough to make his face warm up like that. Not if there wasn't something else there.
He glances up again, and Will spots him in the monitor and rushes to shy away towards his phone - that he has to unlock. Will bites his lip to hide the smile James wasn't supposed to see.
Surely.
Will clears his throat and drops his phone to the desk. “Right, c'mon then.” He stands up with a groan and immediately starts shifting wrappers and cardboard into the crook of his elbow, shifting around the table to collect more on his way to the bin.
James sighs and looks around to mirror him, before bending towards the wax and pushing at the edge to see if it'll pop straight off the table - but Will stops him.
“I'll do that, you'll only make a mess.”
James whines at being called incompetent in less words but leaves it alone, instead starts collecting products from the good bin to sort them into piles of return, rubbish, and steal. Will doesn't mind him stealing stuff from their videos, in fact he actively encourages it, and he's spotted a few from today that would look nice on his shelf at home.
Cleaning up after a video is an arduous task anyway, but the heat on top makes it unrelentingly heinous. James huffs his way through. Will calls him a diva multiple times. It's their routine.
James is walking back from the trash pile by the front door of the office when he spots Will removing their wax initials from the table, and he stops by Ieuan's computer desk to peek from afar, hand resting on top of some cellophane as his back up excuse for halting his cleaning efforts.
Will has a card out to pry it off the shiny surface. It could be his credit card or the business card, neither matters, gently shimmying it against the edge of the wax seal of their initials. His tongue is held between his teeth as he concentrates, eyes creased and bicep muscle tight as he tries to be careful - because Will doesn't want to break it, clearly. For a reason.
One slightly harder shove and the entire puddle pops off the table and Will grins at his work, immediately grabbing for it and holding it flat against his palm, his fingers curving to hide it from view.
James watches his lips twitch. It was a smile, at first, but it falters and softens until it turns into a grimace. His fingers tighten around it to hide the wax from his own eyes and drops his arm to his side, sighing slowly and measured and closing his eyes, shaking his head softly. It almost looks practiced with how deep his exhale is, like talking himself down from a panic attack. Like he's internally telling himself off.
For getting his hopes up?
No. Because it can't be. Not from Will.
He's probably just calling himself an idiot for wanting to keep something so sentimental considering how often they film together. It's not like James is planning on leaving him any time soon; tour aside, but they already have a multitude of plans for when he's back.
James scrunches the plastic in his hand and fakes continuing his walk back to the desk, clearing his throat. “You okay lad?”
“Yeah yeah, fine.” Will shoves his hands in his pockets in a rush and pulls them out rapidly, immediately grabbing for more rubbish by his feet. “Come on, pull your weight Jim or we'll be here fuckin' hours.”
The wax is in his pocket now. Because he's keeping it.
James watches him grab more until his arms are full and overflowing with utter crap and walk away from the desk with purpose, grumbling as he almost trips over a plush toy on the floor.
James continues cleaning and only mildly sweating with the force of the fans circulating air in the room, liaising with Ieuan and Aby to sort out the rest of the stuff covering the floor and adding a few more trinkets to his steal pile. Will rejoins them after his trip to the bins and starts directing people to tasks, hands on hips and pointing around to the corners of the room.
It's really quite a sight to see Will in full manager mode. He doesn't show it often at all, prefering to sit back and let his producer - aka Aby - do their job and do it well, rarely taking the reigns because he trusts his crew with his life, and it's lovely to be a part of such a well oiled and utterly comfortable machine. But Will is, stupidly, in his element when they're cleaning and organising, his own flat is spotless and straight out of a bachelor pad Pinterest board. And it is kind of hot to see him be his bossy and extraordinarily competent self, even when he's telling James what to do.
All he really wants to do is be a brat about it and see that familiar disapproving face glaring at him with a thinly veiled smirk, but this is the one sacred time that nobody messes with. So he does as he's told, and wanders across to his assigned space and starts picking up even more trash.
God it's boring. They should really talk about how they should do this during the recording to make it easier. How the fuck do they make this much mess in an hour or two?
Arms full, he stands up and looks across to Will's designated spot - by the shelves and the chairs, where most of the packaging ends up from Aby unwrapping it before handing it to them. Because he's a good boss, who gives himself the biggest mess to clean up. But he isn't cleaning up, not right now. He's stood by the shelf in the office that Will has carefully curated over time with aesthetic goodies and memories. Nobody else is looking at him, and his back is turned to the room.
Will reaches into his pocket, and James sees the tiniest glance of crimson wax in his fingers before he stands on his tiptoes and places it at the very back of the shelf. He stands back and looks, assessing. He picks it back up again and crouches, reaching around to place it behind a record on the bottom shelf in the very back corner.
Somewhere James wouldn't look.
Will stands up, his hands return to his hips as he glances over the shelf from different angles, circling the shelf.
Somewhere James wouldn't see.
That isn't just sentimental, that's personal. A secret just for him, hidden in plain sight where no one would notice, no one would even know to try and find it.
Surely James isn't wrong about this.
Will nods to himself before he sighs again, deep and meaningful with sincerity pouring from him visible even from across the room, and finally turns to analyse the rubbish at his feet. James starts lightly treading between cardboard with his own hoard towards the exit, and Will looks up at him making noise. James gives him a grin as he walks past, a big, toothy, and completely bastardous smile, and Will coyly smirks back at him beneath his eyelashes before he continues.
James walks through the office towards the bins thinking of every possible outcome and reason. There are very few that fit.
Maybe the line was never between them at all. Maybe, like the childish heart embedded in wax now purposefully hidden on Will's office shelf, it's been surrounding them the whole time.
Surely.
The real question now is what James is supposed to do about it. Because he has no fucking idea.