Chapter Text
Will’s phone lights up. He looks down at the notification, and dread bleeds through his gut, a nauseating mixture of fear and shock and anxiety.
Campus will be CLOSED from March 16 to March 27, 2020, due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Franklin County. In order to protect our community, we ask that all students vacate dormitories before March 15 at 11:59 PM, EST. Classes will be held online pending further updates from the Center for Disease Control. Please remain safe during this unprecedented time.
He resists the urge to bury his head in his hands. This is not good. This is so fucking not good that no word in the English language could possibly describe how not good it is.
Everyone else has the opposite response. “Yo, that’s dope!” Trey Nguyen shouts over the blaring music. Or slurs, more accurately. “Check your phone, bro. No more class!”
“Dude, if my eight A.M. is cancelled, I’m getting so shitfaced!”
Of course the idiots on the track team will take this as an excuse to party more. Will, on the other hand, tries not to think about how hard his coding project is going to be without any face-to-face contact. And how after dorms shut down, he won’t have anywhere to stay. Because right now, he can’t go home.
The guys in the kitchen erupt into whoops and hollers, and Will can tell that all of them are nearly blackout drunk. He scrunches himself tighter on the couch and wonders why he’s here in the first place, pushing down the loneliness that rises in him like a waxing tide.
The team throws a party— team bonding is the official term—after every home meet. Will would rather be anywhere else in the world but here, but no one is willing to give him a ride back to his dorm on the other end of campus. Next time—if there is a next time, and the entire track season isn’t cancelled—he’s going to walk the three miles in the dark. The playlist and the smell of weed are giving him a headache.
Someone yells something above the music. Will looks up to see Horace Altman vault onto a chair, the can of beer in his hand sloshing onto the floor. “Everyone shut up!” he shouts. “Someone reported us!” The room falls silent. In the distance, Will hears the sound of sirens. What the fuck? He thought police breaking up parties was just a thing that happened in movies.
There’s another beat of silence, and then as one, everyone scrambles for the door and their cars waiting by the curb. Will waits until the stampede is over and slips outside, pulling his hoodie up over his hair and hunching against the freezing wind.
The last car peels away from the house. A bolt of panic sends his heart into triple time, but deep down, he isn’t surprised at being forgotten. He’s become used to it . In the distance, the sirens are getting closer. Shivering, he hops the chainlink fence into the next yard and slips into the shadows to wait it out. Really, this is a great metaphor for the rest of his life.
A police car pulls up to the curb. An officer gets out, glancing at the wide-open door, the red Solo cups scattered over the scrubby lawn, and the speakers still blaring music. He switches on a flashlight and does a quick sweep of the yard behind the bushes, shakes his head, and leaves.
Will slips out of the shadows, pulling open Google Maps with freezing fingers, and starts the trek back to his dorm. Sleet stings his face as he walks by the light of scant yellow streetlamps. Will’s feet are numb and his hoodie is doing fuck-all against the weather. He’s bracing himself to endure another mile and a half when a honk splits the night and makes him leap two feet into the air. “What the hell?”
A beat-up white Honda Accord pulls up next to him. The driver rolls down the window, and a hot, familiar anger spikes in Will’s chest. After all, it happens every time he sees Horace Altman’s face. “What do you want?”
“Where are you going?” Horace looks Will up and down. There’s a restrained animosity written in every line of him, from the tight jaw to the slightly narrowed eyes.
Will keeps walking. “What’s it to you?”
“I don’t leave people wandering outside at two in the morning,” he says. “Even–” He cuts himself off, but the unspoken end of the phrase hangs between them. Even if it’s you . Will bites back an angry response and keeps walking. Another fight with Horace is the last thing he needs right now.
“Seriously, where the hell are you going?” Horace presses, like he actually cares. “You live on campus, don’t you? That’s, what, another two miles away?”
“It’s creepy how you know that.”
“Just let me give you a lift.” His voice rises in volume. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”
“Why do you care?” The words come out harsher than Will intends.
“I don’t leave people,” he repeats.
“I—”
“Get in the damn car.” Reluctantly, Will climbs into the backseat, wondering if he’s about to get kidnapped. Getting into a car alone after midnight with someone he doesn’t really know is the exact opposite of Detective JJ Bittenbinder’s street smarts. He hopes to god his name and picture aren’t in the local news tomorrow.
“What’s your dorm?” Horace turns around, wearing a long-suffering expression. Will gives him the address, trying to restrain his own animosity. Horace is the one driving him, after all.
Too late, Will suddenly remembers that Horace was drinking at the party. “Shit, are you drunk?” he asks.
He doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “I had one beer. It’s chill.”
“Oh.”
The awkwardness is so thick he could cut it with a pair of safety scissors. Will keeps his eyes glued to his phone and counts down the seconds in his head. They tick by at a glacial pace.
“Is this good?” Horace asks finally, and he breathes out a silent sigh of relief.
“Yeah. I—thank you.” Will moves to get out of the car when Horace turns around, mouth half-open like he’s on the brink of asking a question.
“I was wondering something,” he says slowly.
“Wondered what, exactly?” Will shuts the car door and pulls his hood over his head again.
“If you had a place to go after dorms close. You live out of state, don’t you?” There’s a bit of real concern on his face, and Will wonders if he actually has a shred of human decency after all.
And then he remembers the months of taunts and cold shoulders and decides that even if there is a shred, even if he does care, Horace is still one of the worst people he knows. So Will opens his mouth to answer that of course, of course he has a place to go. “I…”
Something makes him stop short, the lie sitting heavy on his tongue. There are seven cases of COVID on campus right now. Seven cases he might have been exposed to already. If he goes home, he risks infecting his little sister. His chest contracts at the thought, something in his ribcage snapping tight. Because if his little sister is infected, she will die, and then Will will never, ever, forgive himself.
The hesitation is enough. Horace swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the dim light. “You can crash at my place,” he offers, as if this is something that pains him to say. Which it probably is. “Just for a few days, until you find someplace else.”
If it were anyone else at all, Will would jump at the chance. But he would rather go to a hundred frat parties than stay with Horace Altman. He’d sooner dip a papercut in lime juice or step on a LEGO or attend an opera with the President. But he really, really doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
“I appreciate it,” he says, and his tongue is thick in his mouth.
“I’ll pick you up Sunday afternoon.” Horace rolls the window up and peels away from the curb. Will watches his tail lights recede in the distance, and he wonders if he’s about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
He doesn’t know what he expected Horace’s apartment to be. A hovel plastered with magazines of bikini models, maybe. With dirty underwear strewn on the floor and a pentagram chalked in a corner of the kitchenette. Instead, he gets a second-story apartment across from Whole Foods, all quaint brick walls and black tiled roof. The welcome mat under his feet is faded and the door creaks when Horace unlocks it.
Late-afternoon light streams into the living room, which has an actual coffee table, and the kitchen looks passably clean. Everything smells faintly of espresso and something that reminds Will of his mom’s favorite sandalwood candles.
“Ground rules,” Horace says shortly, watching Will struggle with his bags. “Don’t use all the hot water. Stock the fridge with your own food. No drugs, no pets, no alcohol, no smoking–”
“Didn’t think you were that kind of person,” Will says, unable to stop himself.
“It’s in the lease, dipshit,” Horace retorts, still watching him juggle a pile of textbooks, a pillow, and a desk lamp. Will’s arms are starting to cramp, but he’s too proud to ask for help.
He follows Horace down a short hallway branching off the living room. “Anyway, this is the spare room,” he says, opening the first door. There’s a twin bed, no sheets, and a stack of cardboard boxes piled in the corner. “No one’s used it before, so you get to be the first one.”
“Lucky me,” Will manages, setting his textbooks down with a thump . He officially owns a set of the world’s most expensive deadweights.
“Lucky you,” Horace repeats.
He stands there in the doorway for a second, his expression hard as rock. Will’s hands clench automatically around his lamp, knuckles white against his brown skin. No matter how long he lives here, no matter how long he has to put up with Horace, he’s never going to forget what’s happened between them.
“Just stay out of my way,” Horace says finally. The door closes behind him with a click , leaving Will alone, the desk lamp still clutched in his hands.
For a second on Monday morning, Will forgets where he is. The bed is unfamiliar, the walls blank, the ceiling an alien color. Then the events of the weekend come crashing over his head. Campus has officially shut down. Classes are online. He’s living in Horace Altman’s apartment. 2020 has been one hell of a year, and it’s only March.
He groans and buries his face in his pillow. How did he get himself into this? Will rolls over again and stares at the ceiling. He has to find another place to stay as soon as humanly possible.
There’s only one other option in this entire city: Alyss Mainwaring, his best friend since middle school. She picks up on the first ring. “What did you do?” she asks immediately.
“Who says I’ve done anything?”
“If you need to call a lawyer–”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Will says, sitting up. “Except for, you know, the pandemic outside.”
“I relate.” The speaker crackles as Alyss sighs. “So, what is the purpose of this lovely eight A.M. phone call? Is there a problem with our coding project?”
“The project is fine. I wanted to ask if you had a place I could stay.”
A beat of silence. Then: “Will, do your parents know that you aren’t going home? Does Halt?”
Damn Alyss for being this perceptive. “No-o,” Will says. “They don’t. As far as they’re concerned, campus is still open and I’m ensconced safely and soundly in my dormitory. If they knew, they’d drag me home before I could say virus , and, well.” He coughs. “You know I can’t go back.”
“Oh my god,” she mutters. “You’re hopeless.”
“Thank you dearly. So can I stay over?”
Alyss hesitates. “I’m living with Cass until campus re-opens,” she says. “We only have one bedroom, but I could ask around—”
“No,” Will says quickly. The idea of staying with a random person in a random apartment is physically repugnant to him. At least he knows Horace isn’t a serial killer, even if they hate each other. “No, no. It’s fine. I have a place.”
“Who are you staying with?”
“Uh… Horace?”
Alyss does a passing imitation of a pterodactyl screech, and Will almost drops his phone. “Horace Altman? You’re staying with that Horace?”
“Only temporarily,” he says. “For a few days, or something. I’ll be okay.” He’s trying to convince himself as much as her. He isn’t sure if it’s working.
“Dear Lord,” Alyss says, drawing out the words. “If you need me to kill him for you, let me know.”
“I might kill him first, just so you know. You can call the lawyer.”
“Dear Lord,” she says again, and he can practically see her rubbing her forehead. There’s a sudden crackle from the other end, and Alyss swears under her breath. “Shoot, the time. Okay, I have a meeting in five minutes, so I’m gonna go. I love you, idiot.”
“Love you too.” Will puts his phone down and flops back onto his bed.
The enormity of their conversation suddenly strikes him. There’s no one else he can turn to. Nowhere else he can go, in the literal wide world. How is it that he is alone , a thousand miles away from his hometown, living with someone he literally hates? Will feels like a lifeboat cut loose, facing the open sea alone. No favorable wind and no safe harbor.
There’s a faint ding, and he sees his phone light up with another notification on the floor. He picks it up, wondering who the hell is contacting him at this hour on Monday morning.
For the second time in twelve hours, a sickening dread pools in the bottom of his stomach.
Governor DeWine of Ohio announces “Shelter-in-Place” order. All Ohio residents are to leave home for essential activities only until April 28, 2020, when this policy will be evaluated and revised as needed. All public universities and schools will be closed until further notice.
Shelter in place. In place. This has to be a bad dream. In what sort of hellish dimension does Will deserve to be stuck at Horace’s apartment for the next month and a half ?
“Fuck,” he groans, letting the phone fall into his lap. It comes out louder than it’s supposed to, and Will hears the door across the hall open. About ten seconds later, Horace sticks his head out the door, eyes still dull with sleep.
“Would it kill you to shut the hell up, Treaty?” he demands.
Will is still too shell-shocked to bite back, even though a familiar flash of anger ignites deep inside him. Instead, he holds up the phone and shows Horace the notification.
“Fuck,” Horace repeats, and his head falls against the doorframe with an audible thud.