Chapter Text
(Season 1, Episode 5, Plutonium is Forever.)
‘Just over a minute left!’
‘What the hell's the holdup? Just give us the damn code!’
‘Or what? You'll shoot me?’ cried Collins mockingly. ‘That only guarantees you'll fail. Walter, how do you stand for such intellectual inferiors?’
‘The code!’
‘I told you. It's 1199.’
‘One-one-nine-nine.’ Walter barely needed to do the calculations. He knew exactly what day Collins was talking about.
‘One thousand one hundred and ninety nine days ago... it was May 20, it was a Thursday…’ said Walter, thinking back to that day. ‘We stayed up all night in a diner discussing the quantum mechanics of time travel.’
‘We could have accomplished anything together, but you ruined that…’
Thursday 20th May, 2011. 1199 days previously.
The early morning sun was starting to creep up over the city by the time Walter and Collins left the diner. The empty pavement rang loudly with their every step. They chattered excitedly, continuing their conversation.
‘Oh, oh I know! Walter, what if it was possible to reverse engineer the delayed choice quantum eraser, using entangled particles to effectively control an avatar along a historical continuum?’
‘Mark, that is so brilliant. I could kiss you!’
Collins felt a surge of adrenalin, his heart beat fast.
‘Really?’ he whispered. Walter looked confused, Collins gulped in embarrassment. ‘Oh, right. Figure of speech.’
‘Yeah.’ Walter coughed awkwardly. He was going to say something else about entangled particles, but he realised this might be his only chance to see if he was right about his feelings for Collins. He definitely felt different about Collins than he had for anyone else, and he was undeniably exciting to be around. Walter slowed his step and turned to look Collins in the eye.
‘Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to kissing you… if you wanted to kiss me? I mean…’ Walter was now wondering if he’d misinterpreted what Collins had meant.
‘Ah-huh. I’d like to kiss you very much, Walter O'Brien.’
‘Okay.’ Walter laughed nervously.
Collins stepped towards him till they were standing toe to toe. Walter leaned in, tilting his head, Collins tilted his head the same way and they both laughed awkwardly. Once they’d gotten the orientation right they leaned in again and their lips softly connected. Collins felt a swirling mess of unidentifiable feelings somewhere at the pit of his stomach, he couldn’t believe this was happening.
Walter definitely felt something, he wasn’t sure what. He'd have to go think about it for a bit.
They heard a car approaching at a distance. Walter quickly pulled away.
‘Yep. That was pleasant, thank you Mark,’ said Walter.
‘Any time, Walter.’ Collins let his eyes rest on Walter, drinking him in. He might not know exactly what these feelings raging inside him were, but he knew he wanted to do more than just kiss Walter.