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Purple club lights look incredible on Will’s skin and George thinks he’s officially spiralling. Will’s not even paying attention, not to any one thing, eyes tracking through the crowd as is typical when he has a few too many drinks in him. Will’s a quiet drunk, but he’s an emotional one. George wants to take him home.
Alex is pulling on his arm, yelling something about drinks or pulling or something equally as unnecessary over the bass and the noise of the club, and it takes nothing for George to shake him off and yell at him to take another shot just to shut him up. The hardest part is, inexplicably, taking the handful of steps it would take to reach Will.
He does. He pulls Will by the forearm until he gets his attention. Will looks at him, dazed and bleary-eyed, and that feeling George has been trying so hard to ignore bubbles up from the bottom of his chest. He pushes it down, tugs Will by the arm again and tips his head toward the door. Will seems to understand.
“W’bout Alex?” his words are slightly slurred, but barely noticeably. George shakes his head.
“James and Fraser’ve got him, he’s fine,” he yells back. He suddenly feels selfish, even if he can excuse his and Will’s absence as them having had too much to drink, either to himself or to anyone who would ask. He wonders if wanting to leave the club with Will and only Will is anything but innocent.
It’s too late now, at any rate. Will’s pulled his hand up, laced their hands together like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t mean anything, and George supposes it doesn’t, not to someone on the outside, not to someone who doesn’t know.
Then they’re outside, walking to Will’s flat because he’s closer and George doesn’t want to deal with a hungover Alex, and their hands are still clasped together, though George could easily blame the cold for wanting to be close. They’re drunk, though at different levels. Will is buzzed, healthily slurring and on his way to being full-on stumbling, and George is just buzzed enough to where he can’t really think straight., just enough to convince himself that this is fine, that his heart wasn’t going to blow itself right out of his chest.
“So, what is it, then?” Will asks out of the blue, and George can only look at him. “Pulling me from the club like-”
“I’m not pulling you, Will, Christ-”
“Pulling me from the club like some common bloke, huh, what’s that? Just want me all to y’self, then?” Will’s voice is teasing but George blushes anyway.
“Shut up, Will,” he grumbles half-seriously, because hell if he can’t stop staring at Will’s mouth, and that alone is making this harder than it should be. He focuses on what’s around him; heading to Will’s puts the Thames on their left, streetlights glitter prettily across its surface, and Will’s hand is big and warm in his and-
Will’s hand. Fuck.
Will seems to notice their hands in the same moment, though instead of the flood of panic that ran through George, Will only looks down absently between them and smiles. He stops walking, George fumbles to a stop beside him. He has no idea how long they’ve been walking, is barely aware of where they are and how close Will’s flat is. There’s a blush high on his cheeks, and even if he could blame it on the cold or the drinks he knows Will would see right through it.
“Why’d you pull me out?” Will’s voice is quiet, inquisitive, his eyes are soft and far too knowing for how drunk George knows he is. George clears his throat awkwardly.
“Figured it’s time to go home, innit?” he mumbles, wincing when Will’s soft smile turns into that rakish grin that makes heat bloom in George’s chest and again at the tops of his cheekbones. He watches half in fear when Will turns to face him fully, just a hair’s breadth between them now.
“I think you’re lying, George,” he says, barely audibly. George says nothing, can’t control it when his eyes flick down to Will’s lips, feels more than sees Will do the same to him. Will’s leaning in, almost absently, and George knows without thinking that he’s doing the same. Will laughs, just a puff of breath, and that’s all it takes for George to finally, finally do it.
He leans up to meet Will, closes the tiny bit of distance, and Will’s lips on his feel perfect, like they were made to be there, on the pavement halfway to Will’s flat with the Thames beside them. He feels a million miles high, better than he’s ever felt in his entire fucking life. He barely registers Will’s hand in his hair, or the one around his middle, and he couldn’t tell you where his hands were to save his life. They break apart, and although the kiss lasted maybe a handful of seconds it feels like they’ve been there for hours, dissolving into the background of lights on the dark surface of the Thames. George laughs, once, embarrassed, then louder and longer and higher when Will beams at him.
“Let’s go, it’s bloody freezing.” Will locks their hands together once again, but this time it’s not nothing. It’s purposeful, it means something, and George wonders if it was this way all along. He can’t help the happy flip his heart does as they start walking again.
-
George manages to keep himself awake twenty minutes more once he’s sat on Will’s couch, most of which is spent leaning into Will’s side with his legs folded up under him and talking in quiet voices about nothing, just like they always had. He figures with the way Will is looking at him and pressing kisses to his head every few minutes that he doesn’t mind at all. He falls asleep there, fully dressed and half on Will’s lap, and it’s perfect.
Will wakes him the next day with a cup of tea and a change of clothes and the duvet from the back of the nearby armchair draped over himself. George smiles at him and at the dimple in the couch cushion across from him, knowing Will hadn’t made it to his own bed.