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It’s ironic, he thinks, as he skates away from Alex outside a place called The Orpheum ; unable to look back because he knows his resolve would break the second he laid eyes on the drummer.
If he could, Willie would rush back and pull him into his arms one more time and never let him go, but Willie knows that in doing so, he’d selfishly doom Alex to a life under Caleb’s rule. Not just Alex, but Luke and Reggie, too. They’d spend the rest of their days trapped in the gilded cage that was the Hollywood Ghost Club and their instruments would be tied to Caleb - and by extension, so would their souls. Passing over before Caleb gets the chance is their only escape now, and Willie cannot jeopardise that.
“I told you, I’d do anything for you,” he’d said as Alex surged forward to embrace him.
He can’t look back. He won’t.
Willie spends that evening hiding out in the museum, away from The Orpheum and even further from the Club. As much as we wanted to sneak in and watch Alex perform, he wouldn’t be able to stomach it. He wouldn’t be able to watch the boy fade from existence before him at the end of the band’s show, no matter how happy he looked as he went.
He also didn’t want to risk bringing Caleb directly to where the boys were playing. They’d all gone to such lengths trying to get this gig, and he didn’t want the boys’ final performance to be ruined with the appearance of Caleb. Although the man had tormented Willie for the knowledge that they planned to cross over, Willie had kept mum about what they were planning, and he couldn’t ruin that for them at the last moment by leading Caleb right to them. No, they were all much safer if Willie kept his distance.
Like I should have done in the first place.
He clambers on top of the bench he helped Alex move, throws his head back, and yells.
All of his anger and frustration and regret and sorrow are exhaled as he screams, but instead of the calmness that usually settles inside him as the echoes bounce off of the museum walls, Willie just feels hollow.
As he collapses back onto the bench, he feels the familiar tug, tug in his gut that tells him he’s been away from the Club too long. Usually he can stand to be away a while longer, but the four-hundred mile round trip (with half of it spent concentrating hard enough to stop the steering wheel from slipping through his grip) and the emotions of the day have exhausted him in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. But he doesn’t want to go back, not yet anyway. He wants more time to wallow in his self pity; to look out at the empty exhibition room and ignore the phantom feeling of another sitting next to him on the bench, of a voice screaming in tandem with his own, instead of scouring the dance floor for a set of eyes he knows he’ll never see again.
Eventually, the tugs become too strong to ignore anymore, and he reluctantly pushes himself to his feet and picks up his board. Caleb hasn’t come looking for him, and he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a really, really bad thing. He poofs back to the Club as the sun begins to rise, and when he steps inside Caleb is nowhere to be seen. There are a few ghosts milling about, wiping down tables and stacking chairs, but when he asks the whereabouts of the man, all he gets are a few shrugs in reply.
“He’s probably in his dressing room. He was seething earlier, we’re steering clear,” Heather, one of the dancers, tells him as she pushes a few chairs past him. “You know what he’s like when he gets in one of his moods, hon - those boys really rattled his cage. I’d avoid him for a while.”
A smile creeps on to Willie’s face unbidden, and he bites down on his lip to try and smother it. It’s good to know though that even in their last moments, the boys were still causing havoc for Caleb. However, he knows that a quiet Caleb is never a good thing. The man likes to make every part of his presence known, all glitz and glamour and ‘look-at-me’s. This is just the calm before the storm, Willie realises, and knows he is not ready to face the tempest that is brewing.
He’s still woefully unprepared when he’s called to Caleb’s dressing room a few hours later.
He closes the door quietly behind him and looks awkwardly around the room, looking at the faded posters adorning the walls instead of the man before him. Caleb is standing with his back to him, teacup in one hand and spoon in the other. For a few moments, the only sound is that of the spoon hitting the sides of the cup as Caleb methodically stirs his tea.
He only ever has tea before a show. Willie isn’t sure he wants to know what this particular show will entail.
"You wanted to see me?"
"I heard Downslide took a surprise detour a few hours before their big show at The Orpheum last night,” he says casually, turning to look at Willie.
“... Oh. That’s… that sucks, huh?”
The spoon stills in the cup, and Willie gulps.
“Luckily, Julie and the Phantoms were able to step in at the last moment! And I can’t feel their stamps anymore… As it turns out, playing there just so happened to be the boys’ unfinished business,” he continues with a dramatic gasp, miming a small poof with his free hand.
“But you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that crazy little happenstance, would you, William?”
“No, of course not…” he says, unconvincingly. “I told you, I wouldn’t check up on them anymore without telling you first.”
“Hm. So this jacket that I found in your dressing room was… what, coincidence?” He holds up the Downslide jacket Willie had taken from the tour bus, and Willie shrugs, looking down at his feet.
Busted.
“I’m a fan.”
That damn jacket! He’d swiped it impulsively, knowing that it would be the last time he saw Alex before the band crossed over. If he could have nothing else from the mess he’d created, maybe he could have this one souvenir to remember Alex by.
Caleb doesn’t say anything. Instead, he throws the jacket over the back of the chair and takes a sip of his tea, before placing the cup down on the dresser. A second later, Willie is on the floor, clutching his temples as a jolt sparks through him. A strangled cry escapes him as he relives the sensation of the car hitting him; his head cracking on the asphalt as though his helmet wasn’t there at all, and blood pooling in his hair and in his mouth and in his lungs. It rushes through his body, a thousand times worse than the first time he experienced it, and he is left fighting for breath he knows he doesn’t actually need.
When he looks up, Caleb has Willie’s skateboard in his hands.
“I think I’ll keep this for now. You know how I feel about liars.”
His heart clenches in his chest. Without his board, he can’t venture far from the club. Caleb has his soul locked away somewhere and he couldn’t be away from the HGC for too long on a good day, but now with his board in Caleb’s clutches, he’ll be lucky if he can make it two blocks without his body screaming at him to return.
“Get out, we’ve got an evening show in a few hours. I need to prepare.” Caleb tells him, dismissing him with a casual wave of his hand. His body responds automatically, and Willie finds himself resisting the urge to walk straight out of the dressing room and back to his own. He hates when Caleb does this - moves them around like puppets just because he can - when Willie would happily run from the room without a second glance. He clenches his jaw as he tries to fight the forced movements, but it's a battle he quickly loses and Caleb looks at him with a sneer, almost as if he's disappointed at how quickly Willie gave in.
He arrives back at his shared dressing room against his will, slumps against the door as the feeling returns to his limbs, and slides down until he’s sitting with his back to it. Exhaling a shaky breath, he looks around the room and quickly realises he’s not alone. A few of the other dancers are already there, chatting quietly amongst themselves, and so he bites his tongue and swipes quickly at the tears that threaten to fall before pushing himself to his feet.
“C’mon man, sit down and talk with us.” Khalil, one of the older ghosts at the club, offers his hand and pats the empty seat next to him with a sympathetic smile. “Or if you don’t want to talk, I’m sure Dmitri can pass the time by telling us something funny.” Khalil grins at the man beside him. Willie lets out a choked laugh and allows himself to be pulled across the room by familiar hands.
As he moves, he feels something inside him fracture. There’s a red hot stab of pain that makes his vision blank momentarily, and Dmitri manages to catch him before he collapses forward into the costume rail.
He knows immediately what Caleb has done to his board.
The next day, whilst Alex is searching the city for Willie to tell him the news - they didn’t cross over, but they’re free, somehow - he stumbles upon a broken skateboard, snapped cleanly in half and placed deliberately on the bench inside the museum.
It's only the third place Alex has looked so far, and the pain in his heart at the sight hurts more than any of the jolts he’d received over the past few days. His body feels like he's been dunked in a bucket of icy water and his breathing begins to pick up, despite the fact that he knows he doesn't need to breathe anymore, he's a ghost . Still, he refuses to immediately accept the obvious message for what it is.
Maybe Willie had just… fallen while trying a trick, or something? No, Alex didn't know much about skateboarding, admittedly, but he knew the board wouldn't be snapped from a fall, never mind snapped so neatly … and he'd be nearby, wouldn't he? The only time Alex had seen Willie without his board was…
Oh.
When they were inside Caleb's Club, and when Willie had escaped to warn them.
"Willie? You in here?" he asks the silence as he peeks around corners and underneath the dust covers draped over the art exhibits, as if expecting to see a bright pair of patterned socks poking out and betraying Willie's hiding spot. Hell, he even checks under the bench, in case Willie is somehow curled up under it and Alex had managed to completely miss him this whole time.
There's no Willie under the bench, but there is a small 'Members Only' HGC card lying there that he hadn't noticed before. There's no mistaking the message now.
He yells alone in the empty exhibition room, screaming himself hoarse as tears flow freely from his eyes, before he poofs himself and the board straight to the Hollywood Ghost Club. He doesn’t stop to think that maybe he should tell the boys or Julie where he’s going, or that maybe he should ask for their help, or that maybe he shouldn’t be going there alone.
The only thing on his mind is Willie.
He’s setting up tables when Alex appears in the foyer of the HGC. Alex’s eyes zero in on Willie, but before he can rush down the stairs to get his attention, Caleb appears in between them. He looks up casually, a cup of tea balanced in his hand.
"Ah, Alex! So good to see you again. Tell me, how did the concert go?" he says with a wide smile. Alex responds to his shark-toothed grin with a scowl.
“Much better once we got the hell out of this place,” he retorts.
Caleb lets out a laugh. “Yes, and how exactly did you do that?”
“Sheer willpower. Not knowing what would happen when we crossed over beat out an eternity with you, easily.”
“Ah, but look at you! Standing here before me now, and from what I can see, no closer to discovering your unfinished business. Looks like playing The Orpheum wasn’t it, hm?” he says with a smug grin. “So, did you reconsider my little offer? Where is the rest of my band?”
“I got your message.” he responds, holding the broken skateboard close to his chest. “I’m not here to join you, I’m here for Willie.”
Almost as if his name has summoned him, Willie ascends the stairs behind Caleb, eyes wide in disbelief. “Alex? W-what are you doing here? The Orpheum, I thought you guys-”
Alex’s face crumples as he sees him. Willie looks exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair tied loosely out of his face, but he’s there; he’s still standing. Alex hadn’t realised that whatever Caleb had done to his board would have such a physical effect on him. He moves to embrace him, but Caleb steps in between them.
“And you can have him, if you choose to stay.”
“Don’t act like you ever gave us the illusion of a choice ,” Alex spits out. “Not when the only alternative was second-death-by-jolt.”
“I gave you two options, and asked you to pick one. That, by definition, is a choice.”
“You knew he hadn’t crossed over?” Willie cuts in and looks between the two ghosts in disbelief, before his eyes settle on his skateboard in Alex’s arms.
His skateboard.
Although his heart hasn’t beat in decades, he feels it stutter in his chest as the implication hits him. He is literally holding Willie’s soul in his hands, cradling it as though his touch alone could join the two pieces back together, and Caleb had left it for Alex to find - as if he knew that the sight of Willie’s shattered spirit would be reason enough for the drummer to rush to the HGC unaided.
“Of course I knew, William. I’ve felt ghosts under my watch cross over many times before. This was something else. Something new.”
Caleb’s plan is obvious now: Alex comes for Willie; the boys come for Alex.
He cannot be the cause of their ruin again.
“Alex,” Willie interrupts, cowering as Caleb turns to glare at him, “you need to get out of here. I’ll be fine, I-”
“Not without you.”
“Alex, please-”
As Alex frantically reaches out to grasp Willie’s hand, he can’t help but notice the number of emotions that cross Caleb’s face in quick succession. He cocks his head, almost comical in his confusion. Alex laughs then - a sudden, surprised sound as he realises what Caleb is trying - and stands a little straighter. “Your jolts won’t work, you don’t have that power over us any more.”
Caleb reaches out and swiftly grabs Alex's wrist before the boy even has time to flinch, pushing the sleeve of his hoodie up his arm and scowling at the blank, unmarred skin there.
"As I suspected…" Caleb hums, before dropping Alex's arm like a hot poker. It swings down by his side and Willie grabs it as their knuckles knock together, entwining his fingers tightly with Alex's. "So, how did you manage that little trick?"
Alex, to his credit, keeps his face neutral, not betraying any information on how it was done. Willie didn’t even have the slightest clue that it could be done, but it gives him hope. If the boys could break Caleb's hold over them without having to cross over, then it was possible for any of the others trapped in the Club, too.
“I’m walking out of this place for the last time, and I’m taking Willie with me.” Alex tells him and juts his chin out with false bravado, but the waver in his voice betrays his fear.
“And you expect me to just… what, unlock the doors for you?” Caleb asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I- we- then we’ll poof out.” He stammers. “You can’t stop me, we broke your club-stamp-control over us.”
“You’re right, I can’t stop you. But your good friend Willie here is still under my employ,” he says with a sadistic smile, and almost as if to prove a point, he jolts Willie.
He doesn’t collapse this time, but the jolt is strong enough that he has to grab the railing next to the stairs for balance. Both he and Alex cry out, and Alex rushes over to help him.
“Why are you doing this?”
"Because, Alex, you boys need my help. You're powerful, but out there you can only do so much. You disappear so quickly! I can help you unleash your true potential here, and you need a little persuading.”
There's a tone to his voice, one that Alex has heard spill from his parents lips one too many times. We know what's best for you, Alex. We're only doing this for your benefit, Alex. We want to help you, Alex.
(Suggestions of church summer camps that barely disguise their true intentions, questions about how good the band is for him, the nagging and why can't he just be polite and agree to meet the girl from church for an hour?)
"You don't know what’s best for us,” Alex grimaces, but deep down he knows Caleb has a point. He and the boys have only been ghosts for a matter of weeks. Compared to the decades that Caleb has on them, if anyone would be able to help them hone their ghostly magic, it would be the dead magician.
Alex decides he’d take unpredictable powers over working with Caleb any day.
“And hurting Willie? That’s got nothing to do with wanting to help us, that’s just you being an asshole.”
Caleb’s face sours. Alex knows that if he still had the ability, Caleb would absolutely be sending a particularly nasty jolt through him right now. He holds Willie tighter, just in case Caleb aims another one at him instead, and is relieved to feel Willie squeeze his hand in return.
“Alex, you need to leave, before the others come looking for you and get stuck here, too,” Willie tells him in a small voice, and tries to untangle himself from Alex’s embrace without letting go of his hand. It’s a mess of limbs and Caleb just watches, amused.
“I can’t leave you here, Willie-”
“Well this is all very touching, but I will admit it’s getting a little repetitive,” Caleb cuts in with a dramatic sigh and a glance at his nails. “You want to leave with him, and he’ll respond the same way each time. As much as I love a good bit of drama, boys, this is one conversation I can see myself tiring of easily. Now, Alex wants to leave with Willie, Willie wants you to leave alone, and I want you both to stay. So, how about a compromise?”
“Nothing about that sounds good, I’ll pass.” Alex purses his lips and glares at Caleb. Willie, however, takes a step forward.
“What kind of compromise?”
“Oh, Mr Mercer, so quick to judge! You haven’t even heard my offer yet. I’d be willing to terminate William’s contract here,” he claps a hand on Willie’s shoulder, and he does his best not to flinch away from the touch, “In exchange for you playing in my band.”
For a moment, Alex looks like he’s seriously considering it. Willie almost screams at him. He’s not worth this, he can’t let Alex do this.
“What’s to stop me from just walking out after him?” Alex asks him, and Caleb’s grip on Willie’s shoulder tightens painfully.
“This is my club, Alex. I control who leaves and who stays. What was it you said again, William? That you’d do anything for him?” Caleb smirks, and the stamp burns bright on his arm as Caleb combs through his memories, sticking on that particular phrase. “Could you walk away from this place without truly knowing if I let him follow you?”
This must be how Hades looked when he offered up his deal to Orpheus, Willie thinks bitterly.
Unfortunately, Caleb hears that particular thought, too. He clicks his fingers and points at the boys as his grin threatens to split his face in two. “What an excellent idea, William. Let’s make it literal, shall we? If you want to walk out of here with him, Alex, just as you said earlier, then I will let you.”
“And the catch?” Alex cuts in, and squeezes Willie’s hand a little tighter. He’s slightly glad he’s dead, otherwise the blood flow to his fingers would certainly have been cut off a while ago.
“Of course, you can’t hear what I can. I’ll let you both walk out of here, right out of those front doors, but Willie will lead the way. You, Alex, will walk behind him. Willie will just have to trust that you’re following him, because if he turns to look behind for whatever reason, then he’s failed. It’s an old trick, but those are always the best.”
“No, we’re not doing this. I’ll stay here, I-I’ll do whatever you want - I’ll recruit more people, I’ll work for as long as you need me to. I’m a ghost, I won’t need breaks! Hell, sap what’s left of my soul from me! But please, let Alex leave.” Willie pleads, eyes burning with unshed tears.
“With all due respect, William, the power Mr. Mercer can promise me is worth much more than anything you could ever hope to.”
“Then you can have me.” Alex cuts in, jaw clenched and fingers curled tightly around Willie’s. “If he fails, I stay. But you let him go free - you said it yourself, I’m of more worth to you. He’s one soul you can afford to lose.”
“No, Alex, you can’t-” Willie begins, but Caleb raising his hand for quiet makes his voice die in his throat. He doesn’t even need to use his magic to do so.
“You’d put that much faith in young William here?”
“I’d follow him anywhere.”
“Even if that place happened to be right back into my hands?” Caleb says, the shark-toothed grin back upon his face. “Come now, Alex, don’t make it so easy. You’ll take the fun out of it all!”
Alex turns to Willie and gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You may have brought us to him to start with, but you’ve gone out of your way to help us even though you knew he was a threat. C’mon, you can do this, you can march right out of here and prove to him that you’re stronger than he takes you for!”
Willie does not feel comfortable with this wager at all. What if Caleb is right, though? What if Willie really is so insignificant, so worthless, that he won’t be able to do something as simple as walking out of the building without messing it up somehow?
But, he thinks, Alex’s soul is on the line. I can’t afford to mess this up.
I’d do anything for him.
He gulps, and nods his agreement.
“Then we have a deal?” Alex asks Caleb, holding his arm out. Caleb takes it, and the purple glow of the stamp burns into his flesh once more; the signing of the contract.
Willie feels wrong , watching the two men shake on what is ultimately his test. Alex has technically given his soul back to Caleb, but like the skateboard still clutched tightly in his grasp, his soul is in Willie’s hands now.
“It works out perfectly for me. Willie fails, you perform here, and the rest of your band will follow eventually. They’re your family, after all… surely they’ll have noticed your absence by now?” Caleb smiles and gestures broadly to the large clock on the wall, like he’s a demented Fairy Godmother and Alex’s time at the ball is running out. “How long has it been since you arrived, Alex? A few moments? An hour? A day?”
Alex blanches. They need to leave soon, before the boys and Julie realise he's missing and come to find him. He hadn't even told them where he was going, and now there's the possibility he might be stuck here again.
If things do go south, he only hopes that Julie can work her magic again and get him out of the predicament he's brought upon himself, before the band is coerced into their own deal to get Alex's sorry ass out of here.
He fervently pulls Willie into a hug, and it’s far too similar to their last hug that Willie feels his arms begin to tremble with an undercurrent of fear. He shivers as Alex pulls him impossibly closer, his breath ghosting over the shell of Willie’s ear as he hurriedly whispers to him.
“Listen, if this is another of his tricks, and I don’t make it out, go to the boys. Just- just hug them for me, and tell them that Alex says ‘They’ll know what to do’, okay? Trust me. And make sure you hug them.” he says in a rush, unwilling to let the thought of how they broke free cross his mind, never mind mention it aloud. The stamp burns bright on his wrist, allowing Caleb access to those thoughts and feelings once more, and he cannot risk him ever finding out. It would put Julie and her family in too much jeopardy if Caleb ever learned about Julie’s hug.
He pulls back and his hands are still tightly clutching Willie’s shoulders as he stares intently into his eyes, trying to convey a message that Willie isn’t quite sure he’s getting right. He nods numbly, and that seems to be confirmation enough for Alex as his hands drop to his side and lets out a low whistle. Any traces of fear have vanished from his eyes as quickly as they had appeared, seemingly content that whatever happened, the boys would understand what he meant. “Okay. Okay, good. So, are we doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
Willie could almost trick himself in to thinking that this would be an easy task. Almost. If he didn’t think too hard about it, it could be like any other day he would leave the club to go and skate the streets of Hollywood - same corridor, same route, same motive; get away from Caleb for a while. Only this time, if things went as planned, he wouldn’t be returning when the sun began to dip. There’d be no more tugs in his stomach telling him his time outside was up, and no more glancing over his shoulder every few moments to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He’d have his freedom and ownership of his soul again.
It had felt like an impossible thing to hope for, but now it’s within his grasp for the first time in thirty-six years.
Alex had given him a reassuring smile and another squeeze of his hand, along with a dorky thumbs up. Willie, despite the nerves he was feeling, had laughed along with him before he turned to face the corridor and took a deep breath.
He takes a step.
And another.
And another.
Alex slips his hand into Willie’s, a silent reassurance that he’s there and following. Willie huffs out a gentle laugh as he feels Alex rub his thumb over the knuckle of his hand, but doesn’t complain about the awkward angle his arm is being held at.
“He said you couldn’t turn. He didn’t say I couldn’t hold on to you,” Alex murmurs, but a second later they’re being thrust apart by a particularly nasty jolt. They both cry out as they fly apart, hands smarting and burning.
“Okay, apparently he doesn’t like that,” Willie grits his teeth and tries to keep his eyeline steady ahead of him. “You still with me, Hot Dog?”
“Yup, still in one piece.” Alex says, and Willie relaxes at the sound of his voice. “Keep going. The quicker we’re out of here, the less time he has to keep doing stuff like- agh! ”
Like that, Willie thinks. He stops abruptly in his tracks and Alex bumps in to him a second later.
“What are you doing? Keep going!”
“What did he do?” Willie asks shakily, fighting every urge he has to turn around and check if Alex is okay.
“He jolted my damn tongue! I’m fine, just keep moving, I think it’s a hint for me to- damn it, for me to shut up.” he gasps out through another sharp jolt.
Willie doesn’t need to be told twice. He picks up the pace and keeps moving forward, reducing the distance between himself and the doors to the club with every hurried step. Usually he would be well out into the street by now, but he knows Caleb has probably altered the layout of the club for this little test.
Maybe that was his plan all along, the little traitorous voice in his head pipes up. Maybe Caleb never truly planned to let either of them go and is content to keep them wandering aimlessly through the hotel, haunting the corridors forevermore - unable to touch, unable to speak, unable to turn and look at each other.
How long had it been since they’d started walking? What if Julie and the boys had already come for Alex, just as Caleb had planned, and had been tricked into a deal of their own, not knowing that he was lost in the hallways just out of their reach?
This never would have happened if you’d just skated away. It’s your fault that they’re trapped here. Give up now, and at least he can spend eternity with his friends, rather than wandering through the empty halls of the HGC with you until the end of time.
He knows it's Caleb's skillfully manipulative ways worming their way around his head, tightening and choking any sense he thought he had. No. I'd do anything for him, and I’m going to do this. Another jolt shoots through his temple at the thought, a painful reminder that he's not out of the club yet - he's not out of Caleb's control yet - and he stumbles, hand grasping wildly at the wall.
Behind him, Alex yells, and Willie doesn't need to look over his shoulder to know he's probably doubled over in pain too, clutching his stomach. He stops himself from instinctively turning at the last second. He wishes he could turn around and check if Alex is okay; take his hand and help him to his feet again, but he brought this bargain upon himself. Caleb knows from digging deep down in Willie’s soul that he would do anything to help Alex, so he must do this for him, no matter how much it hurts him to hear. Caleb knows this, and he's banking on it being Willie's downfall.
He will not turn around.
As he pushes off of the wall and continues his journey down the hallway he tries to focus on the sounds of his footsteps reverberating around him, tries half-heartedly to make them match the beat Alex taught him weeks ago, the day they found an upturned bucket abandoned on the pier. The memory of Alex’s hands resting atop of his own as he guided Willie through the rhythm, his chest pressed flush against Willie’s back, they are all that is keeping him grounded as he counts his steps - one and two and three and four and-
The echoing footsteps of Alex have disappeared, he realises a moment too late. He can only hear his own.
“Alex? Alex, man, are you still there? I know you can’t talk, uh… hit the wall. Hit the wall if you can hear me!” he cries desperately, and his hands anxiously pull at his sleeves as he awaits an answer. “Or the floor, or… something! Please, Hot Dog.”
The silence stretches on, and Willie lets out an anguished cry. Knowing he can’t turn now, not when they’ve gotten this far, Willie does what he does best.
He runs.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” the words spill from his lips like a mantra as he tears through the halls of the HGC, watching the doors get larger as he gets closer to the exit. He can only pray that Caleb hasn’t got to Julie and the boys yet, something Willie hasn’t done in decades. He doesn’t know if there is a God, or if they’d even listen to a soulless mess like him, but it’s an old habit and he needs all the help he can get right now.
He throws the doors open and steps out onto the busy street, and the sun shines high in the sky above him. He doesn’t know if it’s been an hour or a year since he began walking through the corridor with Alex behind him.
He can hear the birds, he can hear the tourists, he can hear the traffic.
He can’t hear Alex.
Willie doesn’t dare turn to look behind him, a memory scratching at the back of his mind that Orpheus turned too soon, she wasn’t out yet and he turned and she was still inside and trapped.
There’s a clattering noise behind him, but still he doesn’t dare look.
He feels strong arms snake around his waist, and a gentle kiss is placed on the back of his head. He’s too scared to turn; instead, he gently grasps one of the arms embracing him and holds it out, slowly pulling back the sleeve of the hoodie to reveal pale, unblemished skin. He lifts his own arm up to sit beside it, and marvels at the near identical sight.
The stamps are gone.
“You did it.” Alex mumbles into his hair as he tightens his arms around Willie’s stomach again, and Willie can’t help but laugh. What starts as a surprised sound soon transforms into cries of disbelief and joy - he’s free. They’re free.
“I told you, I’d do anything for you. And you… you followed, even though I couldn’t stop him hurting you, or turn to help you-”
“And I told you; I’d still follow you.” Alex cuts in, and gives him another squeeze. “He was hoping you would turn when you heard me. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you at all, Willie.” he says, turning Willie in his arms and pressing their foreheads together. Willie glances down and sees what must have been the source of the clattering noise - his board lies on the ground next to Alex’s feet, having been dropped just before the boy embraced him.
Somehow, it’s in one piece again.
Alex follows Willie’s line of sight, and huffs out a laugh before bending down to pick it up and pass it to him. His fingers caress the rough wood and scuffed wheels, and Willie tears up at the tenderness with which Alex holds it - a direct contrast to the way Caleb would grab it from him.
“Uh, this is yours.” he says sheepishly as he holds it out, “Wanna get out of here?”
“More than anything, Hot Dog.” he replies through his tears as he takes the board, his fingers gently brushing Alex’s as he does. “Where shall we go?”
“Let’s make sure I haven’t been away too long and the others haven’t gone looking for me. But after that? Anywhere. I’ll follow you anywhere.” Alex beams, and tangles his fingers with Willie’s once more, gently kissing away the tears that are falling down his cheeks. He smiles as he feels Willie’s face grow warm under his lips, and moves his head back. “Was that okay? I mean, I just thought- I kind of- I mean-”
Willie cuts off his stammers by tilting his head up and softly pressing his lips to Alex’s.
“It was more than okay,” he smiles, and watches Alex’s shoulders relax at the affirmation.
As they walk away from the HGC hand in hand, they don’t look back.