Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Four hours.

Two hundred and forty minutes.

That wasn’t so long, was it?

Frederick’s eyes flitted between the clock and speedometer displays on the dashboard.

He could do it. He could get through the next four hours — the final four of their journey — without combusting from sheer awkwardness and embarrassment...

Or so he desperately hoped.

With an absence of conscious thought, his foot placed a touch more pressure on the gas pedal. The needle on the speedometer only turned up a measly three miles per hour before Frederick was forced to ease off again, wary of the speed limit.

Four hours.

* * * * *

An hour earlier:

Will was nothing short of dizzy from their kiss, but he snapped out of his daze when he noticed Frederick looking at him as though he had just grown a second head.

What was going on? Wait, he couldn’t have read him wrong, could he?

"Um —"

"Where did that —" Chilton cleared his throat. "Uh, I didn't..."

"I... fuck, I'm sorry — I thought you had wanted that too."

The problem was that Frederick really had wanted it, that much was evidenced to himself by the fervent manner in which he had kissed Will back.

Long moments passed before Frederick realised he was still silent, that he hadn't actually voiced that reply. None other came either.

"I'll, uh..." Will gestured towards the door, turning on his heels, "go and load the car."

"Will, wait! So help me God, stop right there."

"What?"

"W-why? Why on Earth did you kiss me?" Chilton had his hands on his hips and a blatant refusal to feel embarrassment glinting in his eyes. Once more he chose to gloss over the fact that he had kissed back immediately, nothing short of wantonly, egging Will on.

All the while Chilton's insistence on getting to the bottom of this matter sent Will's stomach swooping once more.

‘You kissed me back!’ his inner voice exclaimed, but not boldly enough to actually reach his lips.

"I was... swept away in the moment. We’ve spent a lot of time in close proximity these past few days and — Clearly it was a mistake, so I'm sorry."

Yet again, Frederick didn’t actually say what he was thinking. That he had felt something too, that he did — but more than infatuated, at this particular moment he felt weak and vulnerable. It was miserable. This whole situation had to be some sort of cruel joke, if not exacted by Will himself then the work of the universe at large.

"Can we please forget it?" murmured Will, eyes darting everywhere but on the other man. "As though it never happened at all? God, I really have no idea why I..."

Why had he exposed himself so fully? What was it about these past two days spent with Frederick that had turned him so direct, so open?

"Yes, okay — Yes, let’s just go back to how things were."

Except they couldn't. That aim was impossible after what had just passed between them. Which was why now, sat in the car, they had been engaged in a continuous silence even longer than when they’d first set off two days ago.

Will picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt sleeve, trying to occupy his mind with thoughts that weren’t directly related to their present situation. He failed, of course.

After all, he had gone out on a limb... and had it chopped off rather unceremoniously. It had been stupid, really, thinking he could find comfort in the other man, in their shared experiences. Closure.

As if it could ever be that simple.

The time they had spent together had helped Will let go of some long-entrenched pain but now?Now it just felt like raking over old wounds, for both of them. Opening doors that were far more difficult to close.

Still, surprisingly, it was Will who first broke the heavy silence between them, coming up to an hour and half into their day’s drive.

"Are we going to sit in silence for the whole ride or is one of us actually going to say something?”

Frederick’s lips pressed together into a tight line, then twitched into a contained expression as he replied.

"I fear that if I break the silence, something will happen. Although I am unsure what that would be and certainly not in the mood for futile conflict."

Will conceded; "Silence is safer, then."

That much they could agree on, though this was quite the anticlimax to what Graham had thought could have symbolised a big step forward on his part. He lacked the courage to dare to push the matter any further.

So this was how it would end.

For the few words that the two were compelled to exchange at gas stations and the like, the formality that they had clung to tens of hours ago was renewed. In fact, it felt markedly stiffer and more unnatural now. Certain acts just couldn’t be undone, words couldn’t be unsaid.

Only at their final state border did the atmosphere shift for Frederick, and it did so dramatically. The sign marking their entrance into Colorado flipped a switch inside of him. Now the display of the satnav on his phone taunted him; counting down to their arrival at their destination and subsequent parting of ways in a form of torture.

Frederick knew that — hypothetically —he would have to be the one to broach the topic of this strange connection between them because Will had already put himself out there once by kissing him and that had clearly not panned out well.

He was damned if he understood why, or even what, but he felt something too.

It was the sight of the sign marking their entrance into the city of Denver that set Frederick's heart racing with a slow crescendo. He checked the satnav on his phone which by now was propped up on the dashboard, another way to avoid conversation.

He had twenty minutes to say something.

Ten minutes.

Then five.

A restless tapping of his foot.

Four.

Hands gripped the steering wheel harder, Chilton’s knuckles whitening.

Three.

A sideways glance.

Two.

The soft skin of his lips was alight once more, as if they had been kissed only seconds and not hours before.

One minute.

Momentous words perched right on the tip of Frederick's tongue. Their exact nature was unknown to him as of yet but he could feel them, feel himself losing balance at some kind of tipping point.

But before he knew it, his phone was beeping to alert him that they had arrived at their destination. For better or for worse, his time was up.

"Finally," Will breathed out, louder than he had expected. "Thank you for the lift."

Frederick gave only a slight, stiff nod in response. The two unloaded their luggage and walked into the hotel foyer before checking in side by side at adjacent counters.

Their suites happened to be on opposite sides of the building, accessed by different elevators. At the top of the steps leading up to the mezzanine where their paths were to diverge, they lingered. They lingered perhaps in hesitation or perhaps simply in anticipation of a farewell, a finite end to this bizarre chapter.

"So."

Chilton nodded curtly once more, then occupied his gaze with the tawdry patterns of the carpet at his feet.

"So," echoed Will. "I’ll see—"

"No. Wait. We cannot just... leave it this way."

"No? I’m fairly certain I've embarrassed myself enough."

And yet Frederick truly didn’t want him to leave, for some reason. He hadn’t the slightest idea how the situation would unfold from there but suddenly was sure of that much at least. 

"Please. Help me understand what in fresh hell has been happening today."

Will paused to think then, critical moments playing over and over in his mind. "Do you really want the truth?"

"I hear honesty is the best policy."

"In that case... I can't bring myself to genuinely regret what happened this morning. It was the only way I could find to express that — that over the course of this trip I have come to feel something rather tangible for you."

Something that Graham suspected would prove to be far, far more enduring than a heat-of-the-moment kiss. Something that had burrowed deeper into his desolate heart than he might ever have imagined was possible.

Nonetheless, it was still disbelief above all else that ruled Frederick's mind.

"You — In..." He twisted his wrist to check his watch, quickly running the numbers in his head, "forty-nine hours?"

"In forty-nine hours." Will shrugged as if to dismiss the monumental nature of his confession, only to then solidify it further. "If you're thinking that this seems unlike me you’d be right." He hadn’t felt anything like this in longer than he could remember, such infallible attraction on so many levels. "It’s unfamiliar but as far as I can tell, real."

Stomach churning, Frederick let that last sentence ring out in his ears undisturbed, finding a mirrored sentiment in himself. As he turned towards the other man, he could no longer deny the presence of some kind of connection. It begged the question, one that perhaps should have remained in Chilton's head but instead flew from his lips.

"How? Why?"

"Damned if I know; I certainly wasn’t seeking this. And yet it seems as though I’ve begun to... allow myself to want."

The profundity of that even more intimate admission wasn’t lost on Chilton. "But why me?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of starting to sound like a broken record but this clarification was more than just important, it was absolutely vital.

"I’ve been wondering the same. For one, I’ve come to admire your joie de vivre. After encountering enough tragedies to turn the best of us cynical, you still have this... fire inside. You're unashamedly alive, leading the life you choose and... I don’t know, it’s more inspiring than perhaps you realise."

"My obstinacy is attractive to you?" Frederick sputtered, bewildered. "My pettiness?"

"Call it what you will. It's your fight. And your compassion, try as you might to mask it with a brash and distanced exterior."

Will hadn’t felt this strongly about anyone in longer than he could clearly remember. Perhaps he never had, not in this way. It made putting himself out there warm and exhilarating, the sweetest effect of adrenaline on his body for years.

“I was under the impression that my very presence is a reminder of the weight of your guilt."

"I hope by now you know that isn’t the case. Being around you has felt... more than just cathartic — fuck, I've smiled more in the last two days than in the two months before. Maybe even more than in the last two years." Only then did Graham pause to actually think over his words. "Christ, I don’t mean to make this sound so dramatic."

"That particular ship has long sailed."

Only now did Will manage to meet Chilton’s eyes, a little taken aback by what he saw there. But honesty seemed to be reaching his lips easily now, he couldn’t think clearly enough to lie, to be guarded.

"Then to hell with tiptoeing about. Kissing you, Frederick, felt — actually, it felt simple. After the shambles of our former lives it felt uncomplicated. The world felt uncomplicated for those few seconds and that's the extent of my understanding. It was relief... that constant crushing weight we both live with, easing from my shoulders."

Following that particular confession, Will felt compelled to look away from the other man once more.

"Y– But you’re... Will Graham. And I —"

"Don’t — please don’t say my name like that. Have you really felt nothing at all, this whole time?"

"Us... there being something like that between the two of us, of all people, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense."

When faced with such an evasive non-answer, Will shrugged his shoulders defeatedly, head cocked to one side. Frederick wasn’t flat out saying he didn’t feel the same way. Will knew exactly what it was to close off like that. He’d made a tired habit of it.

"I’ve spent years overthinking, talking myself out of any opportunity for real connection. I know all about using isolation as a means of protection, and not only protection but... self-punishment. Through the years it grows increasingly comfortable to reside with an ornate blanket of thorns draped around yourself. But the thorns aren’t loyal; they don’t discriminate. They stab at you just as much as those you aim to protect yourself from."

"You do not understand what I..."

"Then let me tell you what I know for sure I do understand. You’ve shown me that... we’re faced with two options here. We can allow what happened to us become us entirely, to define us, or we can use it to make a change for the better."

"Believe me, I am trying to do better..."

Their gazes met and their faces fell.

"I know." Will's previous determination was threatened by overwhelming sympathy at the struggle plainly visible in the other man’s eyes. Was he actually the painful reminder for Frederick? "I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable," he continued, backing down. "If the spark and desire to explore it aren’t mutual there’s nothing left for me to say but sorry, again."

Except the spark was mutual. The desire too; Frederick knew that the rush of feeling it brought — a slowly swelling wave of devotion — was going to be either the end or the making of him.

But now Will went on, his voice flat but far from distanced. "I'll see you around, Frederick. Thank you. I mean it, for everything. I won’t forget this journey easily."

Neither would Frederick.

Darting down the interstate with the stereo turned up high. The soundtrack to their trip, the old 80s mix that stuck at the second verse of Wicked Game invariably. Bad jokes with witty responses, their snappy back-and-forth.

Gas station meals scarfed down under the searing sun. Motel rooms that became far more eventful than expected for the wrong reasons, then the right ones. Late night and early morning conversations that meandered into uncertain territory and yet somehow left them with a lasting feeling of hope and strength. Even — dare he think it — joy.

Although the past gripped Chilton for a good few moments it was now the hazy image of a future that flashed before his eyes, and profoundly so. A future where, perhaps, this unfamiliar connection could blossom into something utterly wonderful and precious.

"Will, uh..."

Frederick thought about going back to the cold and empty house where a lifeless silence echoed through the walls.

Alone.

Again.

Indefinitely.

He would slip back into the same cycle of discontent and unfulfillment that had owned him for decades. And God, he had been the one preaching about living the life you really wanted for yourself, hadn’t he?

What he wanted now was clear, a startlingly crystal-clear apparition in his mind. All that remained now was to chase it into existence.

"With my car being here in Denver now I have no choice but to drive it back east and so... would you, perhaps, like... a ride again?"

Will beamed inwardly, immediately understanding the sentiment behind that gesture. Still, for the moment he remained tentative, if hopeful all the same.

"Don’t worry about it; I have a return flight booked and they should be running as normal by then."

"Right, but, uh... it isn't a bother, I was wondering if — well, perhaps the two of us could... spend some more time..."

Frederick blushed and leaned in, his gaze falling quite blatantly to Graham's lips. The hue of crimson that bloomed on his cheeks only deepening when a confident kiss was placed on those lips, parted in surprise.

"I was really starting to think you’d never ask," Will mumbled against them.

"N-no," Chilton stuttered, the hallmarks of confusion dissipating from his ever expressive features and being replaced by mild irritation in two seconds flat. "No, you knew I would and you still chose to torture me as I did. Smug bastard."

"Seems as though you’d better get used to it."

"Then you can get used to my allegedly monstrous snoring." Fuck. "Oh, um — I didn’t mean —"

"Are we sharing a room again, Fred?"

Will’s jesting smile put Frederick at ease but the glint of flirtation in his eyes stirred something else within him. He steadied himself with a deep inhale and long exhale, the corners of his lips tugging up into a controlled smirk.

"I most certainly do not put out on the first date, what do you take me for?"

Funnily enough, in that exact moment Frederick had half a mind to drag Graham upstairs to whichever of their rooms were closest and put out like he never had before.

Will shrugged. "Well, I’m — I'm in this for the long haul."

The intersection of Frederick’s own sudden wave of desire with Will's bluntness broke something inside of him that for a few seconds he had forgotten was even there.

‘The long haul.’ The three little words rang over and over in his mind and he stepped back. A fraction of a step, then a full one.

It had been a long time since Frederick had been to bed with someone, far longer in a truly romantic context. The prospect of being unmasked by sincere intimacy was terrifying, as bone-chilling as it was enticing.

"Fuck, Will, I— I don’t know if I can— I’m not good at these— It has been—"

I'm scared.

"I can't just wave away your worries. I won’t lie; I’m barely short of terrified myself," revealed Will in a shaky voice, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind Frederick’s ear, rough fingertips grazing bare skin. "That doesn’t help, does it?"

Frederick placed his own hand over where Will’s other lay on his chest, feeling a deep thump-thump-thump that couldn’t be distinguished as belonging to only one of them.

"I want you, this, God I do..."

"— but it could be utterly doomed. I know. It— but it could also be... good. It could be precisely what the two of us never realised we always needed."

"You said that I was the changed one, throwing caution to the wind and chasing the things I really wanted, but listen to yourself."

"I'm like this because of you. There’s no script to follow here; I know we'll make mistakes but let’s make them together. Let us pluck the thorns from each other’s skin and kiss the scars away. Maybe we can do this by taking it one little step at a time." Will paused for breath and studied Frederick’s features closely. "What are you thinking?"

"I am... wondering what I stand to lose."

"I suspect that, like myself, it's very little. So surely it has to be worth a try. You, you — You make me want to try. The fear is still there, yes and it may be for a while, but it... it pales besides you."

Tearful, Frederick almost gawped. "Do you really mean that? That I..."

"Would I be stood here otherwise? After everything we have been through in the past two days, it won’t be easy to get rid of me."

"Who knows? I... I might not want to."

Frederick needed convincing no longer. Possiblity simmered in the blood that coursed through his veins; this could be everything they had never let themselves want. "You... the way you seem so sure — you make me want to try, too."

Will reached out to graze Frederick’s arm, the nervous tension in his spine releasing, rolling off his body in waves. Half frowns melted into tentative smiles and athough their hearts were still racing, they slowed a fraction.

"So."

"So."

"You said something about a first date?" recalled Will.

"Right, uh... would you join me for a drink at the bar?"

A flash of Chilton's former self manifested then, not so far as cocky now but quietly confident in his desires. Will truly would never expected the inner warmth that pleased smile gave him now.

"Make it two and you have a deal. I’ll just drop off my bags and meet you there."

"No, wait, wait."

Graham could have sworn that his heart stopped dead in his chest for a moment then, skipping more than one beat.

"Again?"

Why? What problem could have arisen now? What was left for them to —

Frederick's answer came in the form of a kiss, this time without an ounce of hesitation on either side — once Will realised that it had been his turn to be played with now.

Will was similarly reluctant to shatter the uncomplicated comfort of this precious moment but he knew that their short separation would hold a promise of so much more to come — so he did. As he stepped back it was their linked hands that were the last parts of their bodies to fall away from each other.

"Consider the deal sealed," he said with a completely unbridled smile. "I haven't had a drink in months though so I'll have to take you for their oldest single malt."

Frederick's eyes sparkled as he mirrored Will's grin. "Of course; and a double too, I bet."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."