Archive of Our Own

I.

Slaughterhouse had been, strictly speaking, obliterated. Collapsed in fire and methane. Unmade entirely. Which the Board of Governors considered an unfortunate but not insurmountable setback. Unfortunate, not because of the dead or maimed, but because the term's fees had already been banked. Refunds, naturally, were not forthcoming. Families were soothed with form letters, journalists silenced with cheques or threats. By the next term, the survivors had been scattered across other elite academies with the same brisk efficiency used to rehome Labradors that pissed on the carpet. Kept alive out of sentiment, but not to be trusted on the rug again.

Which was how Donald Wallace found himself staring at another set of iron gates and stone spires, suitcase in hand, stomach sinking.

St. Peregrine's was Slaughterhouse's mirror: same smell of damp stone and privilege, same grim statues glaring from alcoves, and a uniform that looked like it had been designed in 1883 and never reconsidered. Don sometimes imagined a secret factory somewhere in the Cotswolds stamping these places out on an assembly line, each one calibrated to make boys like him feel small on sight.

He shifted his grip on the old suitcase: scuffed leather, brass buckles his mum had polished to a shine, the one respectable-looking thing he owned. The sunlight caught on the metal, stubbornly bright beside the gleaming trunks of his peers with their crests and monograms. The other pupils drifted past with the unconscious ease of people who’d never needed to check a price tag.

The familiar weight of being out of place settled on his shoulders like a sodden winter coat. He fixed his eyes on the gravel and braced for whatever fresh hell lay inside.

Next to him, Willoughby Blake looked positively radiant—by Will's anaemic standards. His usual sneer bent toward something like genuine amusement. Perhaps it was the thrill of a fresh stage, an audience that hadn't yet learned his lines. He strolled through the gates surprisingly unbothered by having to lug his trunk behind him, scarf flapping in the wind.

"Observe, Ducky," Will drawled, gesturing toward the looming spires with theatrical flourish. "A carbon copy of our last institution, only slightly more damp. Do you feel sufficiently upwardly mobile yet?"

Don snorted despite himself. "I'd rather be back home. Least there you don't have to wear a bloody tie to eat your cornflakes."

Will snickered. "Ah yes, Doncaster Comprehensive, that bastion of educational excellence. Can't imagine why you'd prefer it to yet another breeding ground for aristocratic sociopaths."

"Comp's got sociopaths and all, just skint ones."

"Touché, Ducky. Though I'd argue that makes them marginally less dangerous. Poor sociopaths just end up in prison. These ones end up in Parliament."

"Right cheerful thought, that."

"You're ever so welcome."

Don glanced sideways. The turn of Will's mouth said: You survived literal monsters, Ducky. You'll survive these ones too. And somehow that loosened Don's shoulders a fraction.

The courtyard was chaos: pupils swarming like ants, prefects shouting contradictory orders, trunks being carted about by younger boys drafted into unpaid labor. Don trudged through it all feeling like he was wading through gravy, the ache of déjà vu sitting heavy in his chest. He'd thought, absurdly, that surviving an actual apocalypse might exempt him from further education for a bit. Instead, it had only bought him more of the same torment, now with fancier gargoyles.

The great hall was lined with the portraits of previous headmasters—all glaring down like they'd personally lost money on the South Sea Bubble—a row of Greek columns, and mould. They were marched through orientation like cattle: register, uniform check, no mobile phones policy, lectures about the school's glorious history delivered by teachers who looked like they'd been there for every year of it. Don barely listened. His attention kept snagging on the familiar. Will, slouched in his chair, muttering sardonic commentary just loud enough for Don to catch. Clemsie, bright-eyed and fearless, masking her boredom with just enough charm to pass as polite.

She caught him staring and her grin crooked wider, like they were sharing a private joke he hadn't caught the setup for. Still, Don felt something in him ease, like someone had cracked open a window in a stuffy room. He smiled back before he thought better of it.

Even when she turned away, the sense of relief lingered. Maybe not everything about this new place would be unbearable.

"You're gawping again," Will murmured, breath brushing Don's ear. "Terribly unbecoming."

Heat climbed Don's neck, part embarrassment, part something harder to pin down. "I wasn't gawping."

"Of course not. You were merely… appreciating. From a distance. With your mouth slightly open."

"Piss off, Will."

"Shan't. It's against my nature."

That night, Don lay in the unfamiliar dormitory, staring at the cracked ceiling. The plaster had the same spider-web fractures as their old room at Slaughterhouse. Same faint mildew smell creeping from the corners. Same beds pressed against opposite walls, like they were being punished for proximity; only two this time.

Will was stretched out on his, torchlight catching the angles of his face, a book propped against his knees. Something with far too many adjectives and not nearly enough plot.

"What's that one about then?" Don asked, rolling onto his side.

Will held up the cover without looking away from the page. "Unrequited love, untimely death. Same old."

"Christ, Will. You know there's books with other stuff in them, right? Adventure. Excitement. People who don't all peg it by the end."

"Where's the fun in that?" Will turned a page with exaggerated delicacy. "Besides, I find it comforting to read about people more miserable than even I could contrive to be."

Don huffed. "Proper twisted, that is."

"I prefer emotionally sophisticated."

"Right. That's definitely what I'd call it."

Don waited a moment for Will to volley another barb, but it didn't come. Instead, his fingers tapped restlessly against his blazer pocket, a quick, staccato rhythm. Don watched the motion, a tiny flutter in the periphery. Then they stilled. Don knew that gesture, a nervous tic that used to mean the lighter was coming out. But it wasn't. Not anymore. He could see Will's hand, motionless now against the dark fabric. The light shifted as he bent deeper over the page.

Don swallowed. "Weird, innit? How this place looks exactly the same as before. Like someone just… copied and pasted the whole thing."

"They did." Will's voice had lost its theatrics. Softer now, nearly flat. He turned another page, but his eyes weren't moving across the words. He was just staring at the paper. "That's the British education system. Same stones, same rot. Same boys learning the same lessons about who matters and who doesn't."

The words lingered between them, heavier than his usual quips. Don fidgeted with the blanket in his lap, felt the question clawing up his throat—are you thinking about it too, that night, how close it was, how you almost—but it jammed there, solid as a brick. What came out instead was:

"Yeah, well. At least dinner can't be worse than Slaughterhouse."

Will blinked slowly, as if coming out of a trance. A shadow crossed his face, gone before Don could name it. "Ever the optimist, Ducky."

"Someone's got to be. Balance out all your doom and gloom."

"My doom and gloom keeps us grounded in reality."

"Your doom and gloom would depress a bloody undertaker."

That earned him a small curve of the mouth—not Will's usual smirk, but a thin, startled smile, quick and awkward, like he'd surprised himself by managing it. "You say the sweetest things."

Heat pricked Don's ears. He rolled back to face the ceiling, listening to the whisper of Will's pages. Outside, rain began needling the diamond-paned windows.

"I do find little comforts where I can." Will thumbed the paper. "For instance, knowing fate's inflicted me upon you again."

Don snorted. "Lucky me."

But he was smiling in the dark, where Will couldn't see.

* * *

The food, somehow, managed to be worse than at Slaughterhouse. Which felt insulting, considering this place charged double the fees for half the seasoning. It arrived in dented silver trays, ladled out by cafeteria staff who looked like they'd survived generations of entitled schoolchildren and had long since stopped caring whether anyone actually ate what they served. Today's main course was a slab of beige that might once have aspired to chicken, then given up halfway through.

Don prodded it with his fork, grimacing. "What d'you reckon the odds are this died peacefully?"

"Zero," Will said promptly, dissecting his own portion with surgical precision. "If it had lived a normal chicken's life, it wouldn't look this morose. That's the taste of lifelong captivity, Ducky. Bon appétit."

They'd claimed seats at the far end of one of the long oak tables, as distant from the rugby crowd as architecturally possible. Will had perfected the art of strategic positioning: close enough to observe the social hierarchy, far enough to avoid being crushed by it. Don just followed his lead.

Clemsie slid in across from them a few minutes later, tray clattering down like she owned the place already. "You're supposed to eat it, not conduct a post-mortem, Wallace."

Don straightened automatically, trying to look less like someone poking at roadkill. "I'm just... making sure it's properly dead."

"Thorough of you." She ate a bite without hesitation, seemingly unbothered by the colour. "Most people just hope for the best."

Will paused mid-chew, eyebrows rising. "Ah, but Ducky has a special relationship with poultry. Don't you, Ducky? Very... rustic."

Don shot him a look that could have curdled milk. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing untoward. Simply that you have a more... practical understanding of where food comes from." The corner of Will's mouth twitched upwards. "Very down-to-earth. Literally."

"I'm from Doncaster, not some bloody farmyard. Just because me mum keeps a few chickens—"

"No need to be shy. It's positively quaint, in a proletarian way."

Clemsie glanced between them, fork suspended halfway to her mouth. "Like an old married couple, honestly."

Don nearly inhaled his water.

"The trick is keeping just enough mutual contempt to spice things up," Will said, straight-faced. "Keeps the passion alive."

Clemsie laughed, bright and unforced, the sound cutting through the cafeteria din like sunlight through grime. For a moment, the drab hall seemed less oppressive, and Don felt himself grinning before he knew it.

"Don’t encourage him," he muttered.

"I hardly need encouragement," Will replied, swallowing another lump of meatlike substance. "I thrive on adversity. Rather like this chicken, actually. Both of us enduring unfortunate circumstances with remarkable grace."

"The chicken's dead, Will."

"Exactly my point."

Don kicked him under the table—not hard, just enough to make Will's eyes brighten with that rare spark of real glee, not the usual theatre. It was a small difference, but Don had learned to spot it.

"Ignore him," Don told Clemsie. "He reckons being dramatic makes him clever."

"I am clever."

"See what I mean?" Don gestured at Will with his fork. "Impossible."

There was no bite in it, and Clemsie seemed to notice. Her smile softened into something fond and Don's stomach gave a small, traitorous lurch that had nothing to do with the food.

"How long until you two actually admit you're best mates?" she asked.

Don ducked his head, poking a pea aggressively with his fork. He didn't even know why he felt embarrassed. "I mean, we just—"

"We are," Will said, rescuing Don from himself. "Ducky's just mortally allergic to sentiment."

"Am not."

"Are too."

From across the hall, the rugby crowd erupted in fresh jeers, apparently having found some poor first-year with the wrong accent or shoes or breathing pattern. Don's shoulders went tight on instinct, bracing to be next.

"Look at them," Clemsie said, nodding toward the commotion with clinical interest. "Like a pack of hyenas scenting something lame. It's fascinating how quickly they can smell weakness."

"Charming as ever," Will observed mildly, not even glancing in their direction. He continued eating his mashed potatoes with careful precision, like the food deserved respect it hadn’t earned.

"Can't believe you can just sit there while they're carryin' on," Don muttered, pushing his own around his plate.

"Practice," Will said. "And the soothing knowledge that most of them peak at seventeen, then spend the rest of their lives boring their wives with anecdotes of school glory and weeping into their gin as middle age bleeds them dry."

Clemsie snorted with laughter. "That's bleak. Accurate, but bleak."

She leaned forward, chin propped on her hand. "See, I find it helps to narrate this place like a David Attenborough documentary. You know, observing a particularly vicious species in their natural habitat." Her mouth quirked up. "Makes it less personal when they're just following their evolutionary programming."

"Ah yes," Will said, sounding faintly amused. "Anthropological distance."

"Exactly. Why do you think I'm sitting with you two specimens?" She gestured between them. "I'm observing."

Don's ears rang with a sudden rush of blood. "Specimens, are we? Thought we were more of an endangered species."

"Everyone's a specimen if you look closely enough." She huffed out a soft laugh. "Don't worry, I mean it as a compliment. Mostly."

"Speaking of specimens, Will's got a theory about this place," Don said, pointing at him with his fork. "Reckons it's designed to crush your soul until you stop fighting back."

"It's not a theory, it's observable fact." Will dabbed at his mouth with his napkin like he was at the Ritz, his smile razor-thin. "The only variable is whether you let it happen gracefully or flail about like a beached trout first."

"Load of bollocks, that. I don’t flail, I improvise."

"Ducky, you are the physical embodiment of flailing. It's your defining feature."

Clemsie's grin widened, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "So what's your strategy then, Don? Apart from not flailing?"

Don scratched at the back of his neck. "Uh… don’t get noticed. Stick close to Will, he's more used to this nonsense."

"The buddy system," she said approvingly. "Smart."

"More like the parasite system," Will said. "Ducky latches onto a host organism and hopes for the best. Not that I mind."

"Oi." Don kicked him under the table again, harder this time. "I saved your life, remember?"

"A mere two occasions. I keep meticulous records."

"I'll remind you of that next time you need rescuing."

"There won't be a next time. I've retired from grand gestures."

Clemsie was watching this exchange with growing delight, but there was something thoughtful underneath it. "You two do love the act. But you don't get through all that by being half as useless as you make out."

The words landed heavier than expected. Don shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A tray clanged to the ground on his left, peas skittering across stone.

"Right," he said finally. "Well. Moving on."

"See?" The tilt to Clemsie's mouth was gentler now. "Deflection. Classic survival tactic."

The conversation lulled, all three of them picking at their meals while the cafeteria chaos continued around them, cutlery clattering against plates like a thousand tiny guillotines. It was strange, Don thought, how normal this felt despite everything. He thought he'd never feel normal again.

"You know," Clemsie said, glancing up from her plate with renewed energy, "I keep hearing about this pub in the village. The Swan? Supposedly they do food that won't send you to the infirmary."

"Scandalous talk," Will said lightly. "Next you'll be suggesting we risk the outside world."

"Why not?" She looked directly at Don, something almost challenging in her expression. "I bet they do proper chips. And meat that's actually identifiable."

Don felt his pulse quicken. "That sounds—yeah, brilliant. When were you thinking?"

"Saturday evening? After six?" She was still looking at him, and Don became suddenly, acutely aware of every single part of his body, his limbs hanging uselessly beside him. "Unless you're attached to mystery protein."

"No, I—yes. To the pub, not to this." Don gestured at his plate. "Saturday's great. It's perfect."

Clemsie's smile widened, pleased and maybe a little relieved. "Excellent. It's a date then."

The word date hung in the air for a moment, and Don's skin suddenly felt too tight to contain him. "Yeah. A date. Right."

Will made a small sound that might have been amusement or indigestion.

"Shut it," Don said, but a low chuckle escaped him, that giddy feeling spreading through him so rapidly he almost felt dizzy with it. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him like that: wanted, not just tolerated.

Clemsie stood, gathering her tray with the same brisk efficiency she applied to everything. "Right then. Six o'clock, The Swan. Try not to get lost on the way. I hear the village is a whole forty minutes' walk."

She headed off, and Don watched her navigate between tables with easy confidence, aware his face must look ridiculous.

"Well," Will said after a long moment. His voice sounded strange, colourless. "That went smoothly."

"Yeah?" Don was still watching Clemsie. "You think she actually—I mean, she said date, but—"

"She likes you." Will's words came out clipped, precise. "Obviously. Actually likes you, not just pity or boredom or whatever else you're worried about."

Don turned to look at him then, catching something in Will's profile: the muscle jumping in his jaw, the way his knuckles had gone white around his fork. "You alright?"

"Fine," Will said, too quickly. He gave a brief smile, his eyes darting to the exit of the cafeteria already. "Just pleased to see you won't be moping about your romantic drought anymore. It was getting rather pathetic."

"Cheers, mate. Your support means everything."

"I live to serve."

Will pushed his chair back abruptly, the legs scraping against stone. "Come on then, Ducky. Let's go before you start rehearsing your devastating wit."

Don opened his mouth, ready to press, then shut it again, because Will was already smiling his paper-thin smile and heading towards the exit.

As they walked toward the tray return, Don found himself glancing sideways at Will's face. Whatever brittle thing had passed over it was already gone, like it had never been there at all. If not for the bloodless grip on his tray, Don might've thought he’d imagined it entirely.

* * *

Saturday came faster than he'd thought it would. Clemsie met him at the door, bought the first round, laughed at his worst jokes. Somehow he didn't cock it up.

One date became two, then three, then Don found himself walking back from the village on a Tuesday evening with Clemsie's hand in his. The taste of her lip balm still on his mouth. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to realize he was just some bloke from a council estate who shopped secondhand and whose idea of culture was whatever was on BBC Four.

But she didn't seem to mind that he'd never heard of half the people she mentioned, or that he had to ask her to translate the French menu for him when she invited him to that fancy restaurant in the city. She just laughed, explained, never made him feel stupid. Which was more than most here managed.

"My parents would have a fit if they knew I was dating someone who thinks Waitrose is posh," she said one afternoon, sprawled across his bed while he attempted homework. She was eating chocolates her mother had sent, the kind that came in individual paper cups and were named after cities from across the pond.

"Waitrose is posh," Don protested, looking up from his conjugations.

"Oh, darling." She popped another chocolate in her mouth, the skin around her eyes crinkling with her smile. "You're adorable."

The darling made his stomach flip, even though he suspected it was the sort of thing she'd say to anyone. She had that easy upper-class habit of affection, tossing out pet names like pennies. Still, when she aimed one at him, it felt different. Warmer.

"And what d'you reckon they'd make of me, then?" he asked, because apparently he enjoyed kicking himself in the teeth.

Clemsie considered this, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "Do you want the nice answer, or the honest one?"

"What do you think?" Don said, glaring half-heartedly in her direction.

Clemsie's mouth quirked, but there was a subdued quality to it. There was a beat before she responded. "They'd think you were... interesting. A phase, probably."

The word sat wrong in his chest, sharp as gravel caught in his throat. But her tone was gentle, almost apologetic. Like she knew it wasn't fair but couldn't change it.

"And am I?" he asked quietly. "A phase?"

She leaned over and kissed him, soft and sure.

"If you are, it's my best one so far."

Not exactly reassuring. But not a yes either.

* * *

Will, meanwhile, had developed an almost supernatural ability to be elsewhere. Not that he was avoiding Don, exactly—he still walked him to class, still helped Don with essays when asked. But somehow, whenever Don mentioned grabbing dinner or studying together, Will already had plans. Library research. Meeting with a teacher about an essay. A sudden pressing need to replace the artwork on his walls.

Four weeks into it all, Don came back from an outing with Clemsie to find Will, for once, actually at his desk. A battered notebook lay open in front of him, his pen moving quick and precise. He didn't look up when Don entered, only shifted his hand over the page like a magician palming a card.

"What's that then? Love letters?" Don asked, still flushed and grinning.

"God, no." Will's laugh came sharp, a little breathless. "Just jotting down some thoughts for that Tennyson essay. Due in three days, remember?"

Don flopped onto his bed, stretching like a cat. Essays were the last thing on his mind. "You know, you should come to the village with us sometime. The Swan's actually decent. Proper food. Chips that don't taste like despair."

"Tempting," Will said, eyes still on his page. Then he glanced over, like it cost him something. "Though I'd hardly want to play gooseberry to your romantic endeavours. They'll start charging me voyeur's rates."

"As if you can't afford them. Anyway, wouldn't be playin' anything, not really," Don said. "Clemsie likes you. Always asks where you've scarpered to."

Will's pen stilled for a fraction of a second. "Does she. How... considerate of her."

"Will—"

"Truly, Ducky, I'm perfectly content as a hermit. Someone has to uphold this dorm's proud tradition of lonely aesthetes. Besides, romantic dinners are much more romantic without commentary from the peanut gallery."

That sounded more like the Will he knew, so Don let it go. He leaned back, teeth tugging at his lower lip, where Clemsie's had too, while Will bent over the notebook again. His pen scratched quick and deliberate, as if the page might tear under the pressure.

Will behaved the same otherwise: still provided caustic running commentary about their fellow students, still played his records too loudly after lights-out. If anything, he seemed more Willoughby than usual—his laugh more frequent, his words more biting, his gestures pitched bigger. When he was there, that is. Which, increasingly, he wasn't.

Don told himself this was good. Will was branching out, making his own space. It wasn't like they could be attached at the hip forever.

It was only in the small moments that something felt different. Like when Don mentioned that he might go up to London with Clemsie for a weekend, and Will's "How marvelous for you" came out just a beat too fast. Or when Don found him by himself in the common room one evening, staring out the window, completely still, until Don spoke and Will snapped back into motion like he'd been wound up.

"You alright?" Don asked that time.

"Of course. Just contemplating the exquisite futility of institutional life." Will's smile was perfectly light and mirthless. "Standard Wednesday fare."

Don laughed, because that was what you did with Will: took the joke and left the rest unspoken.

The strangest thing was how, despite Will's perfected absence, their paths seemed to cross accidentally much more often now. Don would head to the library and find Will there, surrounded by more books than any human could reasonably need. Or he would appear at dinner just as Don and Clemsie were finishing, sliding into five minutes of conversation like he'd been there all along.

During those moments, everything felt normal. Better than normal, even. Will would make Clemsie laugh with some observation about their Maths teacher's unfortunate wardrobe situation, or he'd catch Don's eye across the table when someone said something particularly stupid, and for a moment it was like nothing had changed at all.

It was only later, when Don tried to suggest they all do something together properly, that Will would suddenly remember a prior engagement or develop a mysterious need to reorganize his record collection.

"He's an odd one, isn't he?" Clemsie said one evening as they watched Will disappear toward the library with an armload of magazines he was apparently planning to use for some collage project.

"Will? Yeah, he's always been like that. Right drama queen, him."

"No, not that. I meant he's… careful." She tilted her head, considering.

Don frowned. "What d'you mean?"

"I don't know exactly. Just… He's very good at being exactly what people expect. Bit of a chameleon, your Will."

Don snorted, eager to dismiss it. Will had always been a bit of an actor, it was part of what made him Will. But later, walking back through the damp evening air, the words stuck like burrs in his head.

But Will never said anything, and Don wasn't good at reading between the lines anyway. If Will had something to say, he'd say it. That's how it had always worked between them.

One evening in late October, Don returned from dinner to find Will sitting by the window with his headphones on, a fag burning between his fingers that definitely wasn't regulation tobacco. He was writing in that same notebook, but this time he didn't try to hide it when Don walked in.

"You're going to get us in trouble," Don said, but without any real annoyance.

Will pulled off the headphones and took a long drag before stubbing the joint out with careful precision. "Only if you tell."

"When have I ever told?"

"Never." Will's smile was softer than usual, slightly lopsided. For a moment, he looked more like the person Don remembered from that first day at Slaughterhouse. Like he was haunting his own dorm room. "You're remarkably loyal, Ducky. It's one of your better qualities."

Something in his tone made Don's chest tight. "Everything alright?"

"Of course." Will was already putting his headphones back on, but then he paused, one headphone ear lifted. "Clemsie... She's kind to you, isn't she?"

"You know her, don't you?” Don asked, not bothering to hide his bafflement. “She's bloody lovely."

Instead of rolling his eyes at Don's besotted comment, or laughing, or doing any of the things Don expected him to do, Will just fixed him with a half-lidded glance, contemplative.

"She makes you happy?"

"What are you on about, mate?"

"Humour me, Ducky. Just this once," Will said, and the endearment lacked its typical mischievous quality. Instead he just sounded tired.

"Well, yeah," Don said, and meant it. "Yeah, I'm—I'm really, really happy."

Will studied him for a moment, then nodded once, sharp and final. "Alright, then." The words sounded less like agreement and more like the end of a private argument Don hadn't been invited to. He slipped his headphones back on, turning back toward the dark window.

Don stared at him for a moment longer, at the precise way Will sat like he was trying not to take up too much space. Something prickled under Don's skin, the sense that he'd missed a step in a conversation and everyone else had carried on without him. He opened his mouth, realized belatedly he had no idea what he’d even say, and closed it again.

With Will, it always came out like riddles. Don never had the answers, so he stopped trying.

* * *

After that strange conversation by the window, something shifted. Will stopped vanishing whenever Don mentioned plans, stopped manufacturing elaborate excuses about errands or urgent essay crises. Instead, he'd shrug and say "Why not?" when Clemsie suggested they all grab dinner in the village, or he'd appear next to them suddenly, brazenly inviting himself into their conversation.

It felt natural. Easy in a way Don hadn't expected. The three of them volleying back and forth under the village lamplight, or Will and Clemsie winding him up in ways that probably should annoy him more than they did. Don found himself relaxing for the first time since arriving at St. Peregrine's.

It was just... nice. Having everyone he cared about, aside from his mum, in one place. It felt like belonging, which was something Don had never quite managed before.

* * *

"I'm telling you, they do it on purpose," Will said, brandishing a chip like a professor with a stick of chalk. "Look at them. A pack of dogs, only more concussed and with worse table manners."

They'd claimed the least sticky corner table at The Swan, the Thursday evening crowd providing a comfortable buffer of noise around them. The rugby team had descended en masse, apparently celebrating their latest victory over some rival school's team, occasionally erupting into chants.

"He's been trying to chat up the barmaid for twenty minutes," Clemsie observed, nodding toward a particularly thick-necked specimen. "I don't think he even cares that she's completely ignoring him."

Don followed her gaze; the lad had just knocked over someone else's pint mid-lean. "Probably just nervous," he said, though without much conviction.

"Your faith in humanity is adorable. And completely misplaced," Will said.

"I know him, he's an idiot," Clemsie said, cheerfully nicking Will's chip. "Though I suppose that's not entirely his fault. Rugby does tend to scramble what few brains they start with."

Will gasped at the theft like she'd committed high treason. "Robbery in broad daylight. Appalling."

"Mate, it's a chip, not the crown jewels," Don said, grinning.

"Oh, Ducky. It's about the principle of things," Will declared, mournfully eyeing the stolen chip. "Next it'll be my organs. She won't rest until I'm hollowed out."

Clemsie leaned in, resting her chin on her hand. Her voice was sweet as she said: "Oh, please, you should be thanking me. You love playing the martyred victim."

Will blinked, scandalised. "I beg your pardon?"

Don barked a laugh. "She’s got you bang to rights, mate."

Will turned to him, wounded. "Et tu, Ducky?"

"You do bang on about your tortured soul," Don said.

"See that?" Will said, pouting exaggeratedly in Clemsie's direction. "He'll turn on you like that, too, you know. Watch your back. He's a cruel, cruel man."

Clemsie laughed, and Don felt that daft buzz in his chest again, like he'd nicked someone else's happiness and gotten away with it.

"Right then," he said, reaching for his wallet. "Who wants pudding? I'm buying."

"How generous," Will said, but the quirk of his mouth was genuine. "I suppose I could force down one of their brownies. For the sake of politeness."

"And I'll have the cheesecake," Clemsie announced. "The enormous slice. Life's too short for small desserts."

"Profound words to live by," Will agreed solemnly.

Don shot them one last look before getting up: Clemsie leaning forward to steal another of Will's chips while he pretended not to notice, both of them smiling. It made Don beam too, one of the big toothy ones Will always said made him look demented.

He'd only made it a few steps when the pub's noise soured—laughter thinning, boots thudding. He glanced up to see shadows stretching over Will and Clemsie, broad shoulders blotting out the warm pub light like storm clouds. Dread washed over him, burrowing into his core until he felt hollow with it. He knew that formation.

"Well, well," said the thick-necked one who'd been harassing the barmaid. His voice had that particular slur of someone three pints past sensible and he was grinning like he'd found a beetle to pull the legs off. "Look what we've got here."

Don's feet felt rooted to the floor. He'd seen this exact tableau too many times: the predatory circle, the way they spread out to block escape routes, the casual menace disguised as friendliness.

"Evening, Clemsie," said another one, jaw like a shovel. "Didn't expect to find you here. Thought you might want to join the celebration."

"I'm quite alright, thanks," Clemsie said, but her voice had gone carefully flat in a way Don had never heard before. Neutral as Switzerland.

"Your parents know you're slumming it with these two?" The boy's smile was all teeth, no warmth. "Might want to think about that. People talk."

Clemsie's mouth twitched, as if she were going to say something, but she stayed silent.

The boy's gaze flicked to Will instead, who had gone very still, his fingers white-knuckled around his cider glass. Then to Don, and his expression shifted into something uglier.

"You're one of those Slaughterhouse chaps, aren't you?" he said. "The one from up north?"

"Doncaster," Don said, because what else was he supposed to say. His accent felt thicker suddenly, like it always did when he was nervous, traitor that it was.

"Doncaster," the thick-necked boy repeated, like a diagnosis. "Right. And what's a lad from Doncaster doing, attending St. Peregrine's? Bit rich for your blood, this place."

Don's throat went dry. Around them, the pub had gone quieter, conversations dying as people turned to watch the show.

Don opened his mouth, but Will's voice cut through instead, crisp as glass: "Do try not to confuse a postcode with a pedigree. One tells you where the letter goes, the other only impresses people with nothing else to recommend them."

Heads turned toward Will with predatory interest.

"Sorry, who asked you?"

"No one. Much like no one asked you to be a tedious cliché, and yet here we are."

Don's chest went tight. Will's voice was perfectly level, almost bored-sounding, but there was steel underneath it. The kind that said he was prepared to go down swinging; the kind that had gotten them decked before.

The boy sneered at him. "Lip like that, you'll end up flat on your back soon."

"Will," Clemsie said quietly. A warning.

Will ignored her. A red, angry flush was spreading across his cheeks, even as his face twitched into a mirthless smile. "If you're that desperate for it, at least buy me a drink first."

One of the other boys, a ginger one with arms like tree trunks, laughed loudly and jostled his mate. "Cheeky little ponce, isn't he?"

Don saw Will flinch, before the mask slammed back into place.

"Very good," Will said. "Did you learn that one all by yourself, or did a grown-up help?"

The thick-necked boy leaned in, seeming entirely too pleased with himself in a way that blared danger to Don. "Everyone knows about you. You and that viscount. Shame that. Didn't take him long to chuff himself, did it? Reckon he couldn't stand looking at your face anymore."

The words hit like a physical blow. Don's gut twisted, bile clawing up his throat; horrible, because he'd said near the same himself once. Back at Slaughterhouse, when Will was already drowning and Don had pushed his head under.

No wonder Seymour topped himself.

Will had gone paper white, his lips pressed into a trembling line.

Don was moving before his brain caught up, shouldering past chairs until he was planted between Will and the others like a human shield.

"Leave him the fuck alone. He's done nothing to you."

"Ohh," the lad crowed. "Doncaster's defending his boyfriend, is he?"

Don felt his face burn, felt that familiar crawl of shame up his throat. But underneath that was something hotter, a rage that made his vision blur at the edges.

"That's right," he said, loud enough that half the pub could hear. His mouth got there before his brain; he didn't take it back.

The statement hung in the air like smoke from a gun. Don could feel his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest, could feel Will's stare boring into the side of his head, but he didn't back down.

"Look at that," one of them said with a laugh that held no mirth at all. "Are you a fairy too then?"

"Why?" Don asked, fury roiling hot in his chest. "Interested, are ya?"

That killed the laughter. Around them, the pub had gone dead quiet, everyone watching the show.

"Careful," the first one said, stepping closer, breath hot with beer and menace. "Say another word and you'll regret it."

Don's hands were shaking, but he stepped up to him instead. "Only thing I regret is not telling you to piss off sooner."

Behind him, he heard Will make a small, strangled sound that might have been his name.

Clemsie's voice cut through the tension, sharp and bright: "Peter. James. George. I think that's quite enough."

Don turned to look at her. She was sitting up straighter now, her chin lifted in a way that reminded him suddenly of every posh girl he'd ever seen on telly. Authority bred in the bone.

"Smudger wouldn't appreciate hearing that you'd bothered his friends," she continued, and her smile was all politeness.

The boys hesitated, glancing at each other. Don could practically see them calculating. Was it worth it? How much trouble would they be in?

"'Course not," the ginger one said finally, stepping back with his hands raised in mock surrender. "Just having a laugh, weren't we? No harm meant."

"None taken," Clemsie said sweetly. A beat, then the background noise of the pub slowly resumed around them.

They backed off, melting into the crowd with muttered comments and backward glances. Don stood there humming with adrenaline, until his knees noticed how unsteady they were and he collapsed back into his chair.

When he finally turned around, Will was staring at him, wide-eyed, face pulled tight into something Don couldn't name. Half awe, half fright, maybe.

"Brave, Ducky," Will said finally, barely audible. "Utterly stupid, but brave."

"Leave it, Will," Don muttered with no real heat.

He glanced at Clemsie, but she wouldn't meet his eye, her gaze fixed on her pint glass. "Right," she said, clearing her throat. "So. Pudding, then?"

The question dangled there, absurd. Don swallowed.

"I'm knackered," he said, his voice sounding strange even to himself. "Let's head back."

No one argued.

They walked back in silence, frost crunching underfoot loud as breaking glass. Don's hands wouldn't stop trembling, fingers twitching like they were still itching for a fight. His body hadn't caught up to the fact it was over. Every few steps he caught Will glancing at him sideways, as if trying to solve an equation that didn't balance.

Back in the room they moved around each other with exaggerated calm, blazers hung neat as pins, toothbrushes foaming in tandem. Going through the motions, as though it could paper over the crack running under the night. No one mentioned the pub.

Sleep came late, and when it did it turned rotten.

Don was running through corridors that stretched and bent like hot rubber. Something followed close, claws sparking off tile, breath on his neck. His lungs were knives. Then the dorm door was ahead, salvation close enough to taste. He flung it open—

—and Will was there. Hanging. Tie biting into his throat, eyes blown wide, lips moving.

You're the reason, he said. You're the reason I—

Don wrenched awake with a gasp, throat raw, sheets plastered to his skin. Moonlight striped the room. Will was sitting up too, knees drawn to his chest, a half-smoked fag between his fingers. He stared into the dark as though it might answer back.

"Bad dream?" Will's voice was low, almost gentle.

"Yeah." Don shoved sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. "First one in ages. Thought I was done with all that."

"Wouldn't that be convenient." Will's tone was dry, but not unkind. "They like to turn up uninvited. Just to remind you they can."

Don let out a shaky laugh. "Brilliant. Something to look forward to then."

"Oh, absolutely. Builds character."

For a while they just sat there, both blinking into the gloom.

"You alright?" Don asked finally.

"Peachy," Will said, but his voice was hollow. "Just enjoying a spot of insomnia."

"Will—"

"Go back to sleep, Ducky. You're unbearable when you're overtired."

That was the end of it. Don rolled over, heart still hammering, eyes locked on the wall until exhaustion finally dragged him under. When sleep came again, it felt like something crouched just outside the door, waiting its turn.

* * *

At breakfast, Clemsie arrived upbeat as ever, sliding into her seat with a bright "Morning, boys!" and launching into a story about her roommate's hair dye disaster. Her voice was pitched just a bit too high, like glass tapped with a fingernail.

Don tried to follow along, to laugh on cue, but his stomach was still in knots. Next to him, Will picked at his eggs as if they might bite back. Dark circles pooled under his eyes; his posture was wrong, shoulders curled as if warding something off. He might as well have been carved from chalk.

"So I was thinking," Clemsie said, sawing butter onto her toast with aggressive cheer, "The Swan's getting boring. There's that new place in the next town over. More expensive, but better atmosphere."

Don set his fork down. "Are we gonna talk about it then?"

"Talk about what?" Clemsie's smile didn't waver.

"Last night."

"What's there to talk about?" She crunched into her toast, airy as anything. "Boys being idiots. Tale as old as time."

Don felt something hot twist in his gut. "That's it? Boys being idiots?"

"Don, honestly. You're making it bigger than it was."

"They threatened Will. Called him—called us both—"

"And then they left," she cut in smoothly. "No harm done."

But there was harm, wasn't there? Don turned his head, seeking Will's gaze. But Will wouldn’t look up, just stared at his plate. The ache of helplessness burrowed into Don's chest.

"You didn't say anything," he blurted.

Clemsie blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"When they started on Will. You just… sat there. You only spoke up when—" The rest jammed in his throat.

Her jaw tightened. "I handled it, Don."

"Yeah, but only after—"

"After what, Don?" Still bright, but now with an edge of steel. "After you'd made a spectacle? Drawn even more attention?"

The words felt like a slap. The skin on his face prickled. "A spectacle? I was defending my mate."

"I know." She reached for his hand, fingers warm, thumb smoothing over his knuckles. "And it was very brave. I'm not criticizing you."

But it felt like criticism. It felt like she was embarrassed by him, by what he'd done, by what people might think.

"It's just..." Clemsie continued, "these situations are complicated. There are politics involved that—."

"Politics?" Don’s voice cracked sharper than he meant. "What's them actin' like pricks got to do with politics?"

She exhaled through her nose, her tone shifting into something almost recited, as if she’d heard this at a dozen dinner tables. "My brother's on the team. Their families and mine—there are… entanglements, Don. And they have ties to the school board, too. People with influence. We can't burn bridges because some boys had too many pints and got mouthy."

Something cold coiled inside of him, a bruising weight around his lungs. "Right. 'Course."

"Don—"

"No, I get it. That's more important than standing up for your mates."

Her hand slipped away, her expression cooling, like a shutter pulling over her face. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?"

The silence stretched, heavy. Will's fork scraped faintly against porcelain. Don caught the tremor in his knuckles before the fork clattered down for good. He didn't pick it up again.

Don stared at Clemsie. For the first time he felt like he was seeing her not as the girl he'd fancied since he first laid eyes on her, but as someone else entirely, someone who was following rules he'd never been taught.

Then Clemsie's expression softened, warm and familiar, and she was reaching for his hand again.

"Don, please. Don't be like this."

She glanced at Will, who remained motionless, his hands empty on either side of his plate.

"Last night was horrible, but it's over now. Can't we just... move on?"

Don swallowed. Wanted to move on. Wanted to forget. Because this was Clemsie, wasn't it? The girl he'd been dreaming about for a good year. The one who laughed at his jokes, stroked his hair at night, didn't mind that his tie was always crooked.

"Yeah," he said finally, voice small. "'Course. You're right."

Her grin bloomed, bright as ever. She launched back into her story. Don tried to listen. Tried to laugh. But the taste in his mouth was sour, and no amount of tea could wash it away.

II.

Don had been hiding in the library for four hours. Officially, this was "dedication to Latin”. Unofficially, it was rank cowardice. Conjugations swam on the page like dying fish, but at least if he focused on them he didn't have to replay breakfast on infinite loop.

Afternoon sun slanted through the mullioned windows, striping the oak tables in gold. Will had already colonized his usual corner of academic misery, fountain pen scratching with the methodical precision of someone trying to exorcise something with ink. He looked translucent in the light, like parchment left too long in a shop window.

"If I die here," Don muttered, slumping deeper into his chair with theatrical despair, "tell my mum it was the ablative absolute what did me in. She'll want to put it on the headstone."

Will didn't bother lifting his head from his relentless note-taking. "Absolutely not. Your academic martyrdom complex is insufferable enough without Latin lending it gravitas."

Don was seriously contemplating whether death by Latin grammar might actually be preferable to enduring another meal of Clemsie's aggressively cheerful damage control when a shadow fell across their table. A boy hovered nearby: tallish, clutching books like they might flee if he loosened his grip. Dark hair flopped into his eyes with the sort of calculated effortlessness that probably required a mortgage-sized hair product budget.

"Terribly sorry," the boy said, voice carrying that particular brand of confidence that could apologize for existing while somehow making you feel grateful for the privilege. He lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave; there were ink stains on his sleeves. "Mind if I commandeer this corner? Every other table appears to have been annexed by people who've confused the library with a particularly quiet nightclub."

Will's pen froze mid-flourish. He looked up properly for the first time all afternoon, assessing the newcomer with the sort of suspicious interest usually reserved for potentially poisonous mushrooms.

"That depends entirely on your capacity for civilized behaviour," Will said, tilting his head. "Do you breathe through your mouth? Engage in compulsive pen-clicking? Or, God forbid, revise aloud?"

The boy's mouth curved. "I shall endeavour to contain my more barbarous impulses."

"How refreshingly considerate. In that case, please." Will gestured toward the empty chair with theatrical magnanimity. "Willoughby Blake. This tragic specimen answers to Wallace."

"Miles Ashworth." The boy settled beside Don, stacking his books with surgical neatness. Don caught glimpses of spines: The Temple, something by Vaughan, a slim hardback that looked aggressively French. "Much obliged. I was beginning to contemplate establishing a settlement in the stacks."

"Not the worst option," Will said. "Less chance of seeing Chaucer used as a coaster."

Miles made a sound like a deflating balloon, half disbelief, half horrified laughter. "Please tell me that's hyperbole."

"Tuesday last," Will said with the grim satisfaction of someone delivering particularly devastating gossip. "Page 127. The Wife of Bath suffered grievous indignities."

Don leaned back in his chair, watching this exchange with the bewildered fascination of someone being dragged to Wimbledon without knowing the rules. Or the point. Miles seemed harmless enough. Posh as a Harrods window display, obviously, never sweated a day in his life—but then everyone here was posh. At least he wasn't sporting the telltale signs of recent head trauma that marked the rugby crowd.

They settled into the sort of companionable silence that libraries demanded on pain of death. Don returned to his Latin with the grim determination of a man facing execution, while Will's pen resumed its restless scratching. Miles opened what appeared to be an essay draft, making tiny, precise corrections in handwriting so neat it made Don feel a little inadequate.

"What's the damage then?" Don asked finally, more to prevent his brain from leaking out his ears than from genuine curiosity.

"English Lit essay." Miles angled the page: paragraphs webbed with marginalia. "Comparing metaphysical poets. Donne versus Herbert."

Will's pen stopped moving with the abruptness of a record scratch. For the first time all afternoon, his expression shifted from contemplating the void to the void just said something interesting.

"Herbert's criminally underrated," Will declared with the passion of someone defending a maligned friend.

"Completely." Miles leaned forward, eyes bright. "Everyone fixates on Donne because he's flashier, but Herbert's got this..." He paused, searching for the word. "This quiet devastation that hits you sideways."

Something shifted in Will's posture; a subtle straightening, like a cat that had just spotted something interesting through a window.

"Love bade me welcome," Will quoted, "yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin."

"But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me," Miles continued without missing a beat, and his smile was sudden and brilliant.

Don felt like he was watching a conversation in a foreign language he almost but not quite understood. There was something in the way Will was looking at Miles now—not just polite attention, but real focus—that made Don's stomach do something uncomfortable and squirmy.

Don shifted in his chair, his book suddenly feeling like a leaden weight in his hand. "Right," he said, his voice coming out slightly strangled. "Think I'll grab tea from the vending machine before I start crying blood over subjunctives. Want owt?"

"I'm fine," Will said, eyes still locked on Miles.

"Same here. Thanks though."

Don escaped, leaving them bent over their books like conspirators plotting the overthrow of reasonable conversation. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets to stop them doing something embarrassing, like punching the air, or possibly Miles's face. It was just poetry, for fuck's sake. Will talked about books with everyone. It wasn't like they were planning to elope to the Lake District. Not that he'd care if they did.

The vending machine downstairs was a Cold War relic requiring the careful negotiation of a hostage situation, and even then it produced what could charitably be described as scalding dishwater and more accurately as industrial accident in a cup. Don fed it coins with the resigned patience of a man who'd given up on joy, trying very hard not to think about the way Miles had looked at Will when he'd quoted that rubbish.

Unfortunately, avoiding thoughts of Miles meant Don found himself thinking about Clemsie instead, which was like trading a hangnail for sepsis. The way she'd looked at him that morning when he'd had the audacity to expect basic human decency, like he was being unreasonable by not understanding that friendship had terms and conditions.

Maybe he was being unreasonable. Maybe in her world, loyalty came with a sliding scale based on social connections.

By the time Don trudged back upstairs, clutching his cup of what the machine optimistically called "Earl Grey", the entire atmosphere at their table had undergone a complete transplant, like someone had opened a window and let a different season in. He paused in the doorway and stared.

Will had abandoned his Latin entirely and was leaning across the table in a way that couldn't possibly be comfortable. His usual half-bored expression had slipped into something incandescent, pen gesturing through the air like he was conducting an invisible orchestra. Miles was listening with his entire body, their heads tilted toward each other like the rest of the library had ceased to exist.

Don had the odd, relieved thought—oh good, he looks alive again—right before something pinched under his ribs at the sight of their heads tipped together.

"—but that's precisely what makes it brilliant," Will was whispering when Don drew close again, a breathless intensity to his voice that made Don's eyebrows raise. Will's smile was different than usual, like someone had just switched on lights in rooms Don hadn't known existed. "The entire poem is about spiritual seduction. Herbert's being deliberately provocative."

"God as the ultimate rake," Miles agreed, practically vibrating with delight. "It's so much more subversive than anyone admits. All that religious ecstasy barely disguising—"

Don approached the table feeling oddly like he was intruding, though he couldn't say why. Both boys looked up when he sat down, and for just a moment, he caught something in Will's expression—a flicker of something that might have been irritation at being interrupted.

"Found yourself a fellow martyr to the cause then?" Don said, settling back into his chair with the sort of forced casualness that fooled absolutely no one.

"Miles was just explaining his essay thesis," Will said.

"Wicked," Don replied, not quite managing to keep the edge out of his voice.

Miles glanced between them with the sharp attention of someone rapidly cataloguing interpersonal dynamics for future reference.

"Ducky's more of a practical sort," Will said, which wasn't exactly an insult but didn't feel like a compliment either. "He keeps me tethered. Stops me floating off."

"Someone's got to," Don replied automatically, though the words tasted like sawdust in his mouth.

When Miles finally started the elaborate ritual of packing up his things an hour later, Don experienced something that might have been relief if it hadn't been so thoroughly mixed with inexplicable dread.

"I really should make my escape," Miles said, aligning pens, smoothing pages, tucking his books away like he was sealing relics in a tomb. "Thanks for tolerating my invasion of your academic fortress."

"You should drop by again tomorrow afternoon," Will said, as casually as someone suggesting the weather might be pleasant. He tapped his pen against his lip idly.

Miles paused, head tilted. "What if I turn out to be a corrupting influence on your scholarly pursuits?"

"Then at least I'll go down in intellectually stimulating company," Will replied, a little too quickly, voice catching just slightly on down. He pretended to straighten his notes as though he hadn't just said it.

That earned him another one of those quick, genuine laughs, Miles's eyes lingering on Will's face just a beat too long.

"Tomorrow it is then. Pleasure meeting you, Wallace."

Don blinked, startled by being suddenly remembered. "Yeah. You too."

Don watched Miles stride through the library with the easy confidence of someone who'd never doubted their right to exist in any space they chose to occupy. Will's gaze followed him until he disappeared around the corner. There was a new energy crackling around him like he'd just been plugged into the National Grid.

"Seems decent enough," Don ventured, testing the waters.

"Smart, certainly." Will's tone was studiously casual, but he was fidgeting with his pen. "Makes a refreshing change from the usual noise about erg splits, bench PBs, and post-social debriefs about who pulled whom."

"Right. Very... bookish."

Will's glance flicked up, sharp as a blade. "Unlike some people."

"Oi," Don protested, but it came out pathetically weak.

He stared at his Latin conjugations and tried to ignore the uncomfortable sensation that something fundamental had just shifted, like waking to find the furniture rearranged in the dark.

He wrote amaveram and waited. Nothing. After a moment, Will, eyes still on the corner where Miles had vanished, said: "Looks right". It wasn't.

* * *

Miles became a fixture at their table with the inexorable certainty of mould in damp corners, and just as impossible to get rid of.

Not that Don minded, exactly. Miles was decent enough: polite, shared his crisps, helped Don puzzle through calculus when the equations turned into hieroglyphics. No real reason to hate him. It's just that whenever Miles showed up, Will practically levitated with excitement, in a way that was unfamiliar and strange.

"What've you got today then?" Don asked one Thursday, nodding toward the record Miles was cradling like a newborn.

"Joy Division bootleg," Miles said, handling the sleeve with the sort of reverence Don's mum reserved for her good china. "Found it in a little shop in Brighton over the weekend. Practically had to duel someone else for it. Ian Curtis live at the Factory, 1979."

Don watched Will go statue-still, his eyes fixed on the record with the expression of a man witnessing the Second Coming.

"Christ," Will breathed. "Is that the Manchester recording? The one where Curtis—"

"—breaks down during Isolation, yes." Miles's grin was sharp with shared knowledge.

"You beautiful, twisted creature." Will reached for the record with trembling fingers. "How much did this cost you?"

"Don't insult me by asking. This is beyond the reach of vulgar currency."

Don clicked his biro against his notebook, watching this little dance. He'd heard of Joy Division, obviously—bunch of miserable Mancs who'd made miserable music until their singer topped himself. Will played their albums late at night sometimes, when the nightmares were bad. Don had always found them a bit much. Give him something you could actually sing along to without wanting to stick your head in the oven.

"We could listen to it tonight," Will said, still staring at the record like it might disappear if he blinked. "After prep. My player's finally working properly again."

"God, yes. I've got that bottle of wine my sister smuggled in from her class trip to France. Seems appropriate for the occasion."

"You don't mind, do you, Don?" Will asked, flashing a brief smile his way.

The question felt perfunctory, like Will was checking a box marked politeness rather than actually caring about the answer.

"Sounds brilliant," Don said, his pen clicking faster. "Nothing I love more than ending the day wanting to chuck meself off the roof."

Miles laughed, without malice. "It's not about being depressing, exactly. It's about... raw honesty. Emotional authenticity. The sort of thing most people are too afraid to confront."

"Right. 'Course." Click. Click. Click.

* * *

It kept happening. Miles would arrive with some new artifact; a book of photography by someone Don had never heard of, or a movie that looked like it had been shot through a dirty window. Will would light up like Slaughterhouse after the methane explosion, and they'd disappear into increasingly esoteric discussions that made Don feel like he was watching a foreign film without subtitles.

They weren't excluding him on purpose, he knew that. Will would try to rope him in, like when he'd pointed to that photography book last week, eyes shining.

"Diane Arbus," Will explained, flipping through pages of stark black and white portraits. "She photographed society's outcasts. People living on the margins."

He leaned closer to the book, his breath catching. "Look at their faces. So much dignity despite everything. Maybe because of it."

"Exactly," Miles murmured. "She made the invisible visible. Found beauty where others saw only freakishness."

Don studied the photographs. They were good, he could see that. Unsettling in a way that stayed under your skin. He tried to put that into words, but they all came out wrong.

"They look like they'd start talking if you stared long enough," he said finally. "But you wouldn't want to hear what they said."

Will blinked.

Miles gave him a small, polite smile. "Yes. Rather."

Gentle as a paper cut, but it stung all the same.

Don found himself haunting the common room more evenings than not, straining to catch fragments of conversation drifting through the walls. Will's voice, light and animated, sounded like a version of him Don barely recognized.

Clemsie discovered him there one evening, sat hunched over the book open on his lap, eyes fixed on the same line for half an hour while Nick Drake filtered faintly through the plaster.

"Been evicted?" she asked, settling beside him with that amused smile she got when she thought she'd figured him out.

"Nah, just giving them some space." Don plastered on a grin.

"That's nice of you."

Don's laugh came out strangled. "Yeah, well. I'm a saint, me."

She tucked her legs under herself, head cocked. "It's lovely seeing Will so happy, isn't it? More like his old self. You know, from before..."

She trailed off.

"What happened with his roommate really knocked him sideways. It's wonderful he found a… friend."

"I'm his mate," Don said, the words coming out harder than intended.

Clemsie's expression softened into something that might have been pity. "Of course you are, Don. But you know what I mean. Someone who shares his interests. Gets all that stuff he goes on about when he's on one of his tears."

The casual assumption that Don was too thick for Will's interests made his jaw clench. He'd spent months listening to Will's rambling thoughts about anything and everything, and sure, maybe he didn't have access to rare bootlegs and first editions, but Will had never seemed to mind.

"I introduced him to that," Don said instead of arguing, jerking his chin toward the music. "Nick Drake. Ma's favourite. Don't just listen to the charts, you know. I contain multitudes and all that."

Clemsie laughed, quick and genuine. "Of course you do, you sensitive soul. Come on then, introduce me to your current literary adventure."

She shifted closer, leaning against him to peer at his book, her hair falling soft against his shoulder. The warmth of her pressed along his side made it harder to stay wound up about anything at all.

For a moment, anyway.

* * *

Don had claimed his favourite spot under the old oak tree, legs stretched out in the patchy sunlight and back against the oak's ridged bark, when Will appeared like a ghost who'd overslept and missed his haunting.

"Hiding from civilization?" Will asked, settling beside him with that strange grace he had, all sharp elbows and careful movements.

"Reading," Don said, not looking up from his book. "You know, those things with words in them."

"Revolutionary concept." Will leaned over, squinting at the cover. "Laser Death Squadron Seven: The Plutonian Menace. Blimey. You do know literacy is wasted on you, don't you?"

Don tilted the book so Will could get the full glory of the cover art: a woman in what could generously be called armour if armour was made of wishful thinking, brandishing a sword that glowed like a disco ball while tentacled horrors leered from the background.

"It's art," Don said, completely shameless. "Sometimes you want exploding spaceships and people shooting lasers at things instead of the stuff they put us through in class."

"Right, but does she have to be half-naked while saving the galaxy? Bit impractical for cosmic warfare."

"She's not half-naked, she's strategically armoured."

"Clearly."

For a while, the silence was companionable: oak leaves shivering overhead, the thwack of cricket balls, someone shouting about a dropped catch.

"Go on then," Will said eventually. "Read us a bit. I want to hear how literary genius sounds in your voice."

Don eyed him suspiciously. "You taking the piss?"

"Always. But I'm genuinely curious too."

So Don obliged, dropping his voice into a theatrical rasp. By the time he reached a sentence about "her quantum-enhanced battle corset straining against her heaving bosoms", Will was wheezing.

"Quantum-enhanced," he gasped. "Written in cold blood, was it? Man deserves prison."

"Oi, it's social commentary," Don said with somewhat wounded dignity. "About the whatsit. The weaponization of lingerie."

Will wiped his eyes, still snickering. "Whatever you say, Ducky."

He snatched the book from Don and flipped pages until he found a choice paragraph. Then, in his most plummy BBC tones: "The Plutonian warlord extended his writhing appendages, each tipped with a pulsating— No. I'm sorry. Absolutely not."

"You're the one making it sound wrong!" Don said, trying to suppress his laughter. "Saying it like that." He affected Will's accent, sliding over the vowels. "Pulsating."

"It's a gift." Will handed the book back, his fingers brushing Don's briefly. "Though I have to admit, there's something rather charming about stories where the good guys always win and the problems can be solved with sufficiently large explosions."

"Exactly." They shared a conspiratorial grin and Don knew Will was thinking about the same thing: the tunnels, the lighter, the ball of fire.

"Right then, what literary masterpiece are you torturing yourself with?"

Will held up a slim volume. "Coriolanus."

"Christ, not Shakespeare again. Haven't you wrung all the blood out of him already?"

"This one's different," Will said quickly, a little too quickly. "It's about politics. Power struggles. Civic duty. All very… topical."

Don squinted at him. "Politics, is it? You don't usually go pink in the cheeks over civic duty."

Will sniffed, defensive. "Maybe I'm broadening my horizons."

"Or maybe," Don said, grinning now, "it's got something proper filthy in it, and you don't want to admit it."

The flush spread down Will's neck. He lasted about fifteen seconds before caving. "Fine. There's this... relationship. Between Coriolanus and his enemy, Aufidius. They dream about each other, talk about how fighting is like—" He stopped, cleared his throat. "It's charged. Very charged."

"Ah." Don felt something warm settle in his chest—that Will trusted him enough for this, that he didn't have to pretend or deflect. "So they're gagging for it, basically."

"Don't be crude," Will muttered, but he was fighting a smile. "It's literature. Sophisticated homoerotic subtext."

"Right. Sophisticated gagging for it."

Will whacked him over the head with the book, though there wasn't much force behind it.

"Alright, alright," Don put his hands up in surrender, laughing. "Why you reading it again though?"

"There's a new production at the National. Supposed to be incredible. They're really leaning into the... tension between Coriolanus and Aufidius, too. I thought I'd reread it before I see it."

Don perked up. "Oh brilliant, we should go! Be a laugh, that. Haven't seen a proper Shakespeare since they made us go in year nine."

Will froze, just for a second, then shifted. "I've already got tickets. With Miles."

That landed like a kick to the gut. He tried to keep his face neutral, but Will must've caught something, because his tone turned defensive.

"I didn't think you'd be interested. You always said Shakespeare was boring."

"I said Romeo and Juliet was boring," Don corrected quietly. "When I was fourteen."

"Right. Well." Will's gaze dropped back to the text, voice suddenly stiff. "I could ask Miles if there are more tickets."

"Nah, don't bother." Don forced a grin that felt like it might crack his face. "You're right, probably not my thing."

The quiet that followed wasn't the good kind anymore. Don stared down at his lurid cover art, which looked suddenly stupid.

Will cleared his throat.

"The play's good though. If you wanted to borrow it."

"Yeah," Don said, not looking up. "Maybe."

But they both knew he wouldn't.

* * *

"Right," Clemsie announced one Friday afternoon, appearing at their library table with the sort of determined cheer that usually heralded the impending death of someone else's dignity. "I need to go into town tomorrow. Smudger's birthday is next week and I haven't got him anything decent yet."

Don looked up from his essay on Caesar's military campaigns, seizing on the interruption like a drowning man grabbing driftwood. "What're you thinking of getting him?"

"Something horrifically expensive and completely useless, obviously. It's tradition." She perched on the edge of their table, swinging her legs. "Fancy coming along? Make a day of it? There's that new café everyone's raving about."

"Yeah, alright," Don said, already mentally cataloguing which shops might have the sort of gifts that wouldn't make him look completely impoverished by comparison. It sounded nice; just him and Clemsie wandering through shops, taking the piss out of overpriced nonsense he couldn't afford anyway. "Sounds good."

"Brilliant. Will, Miles, you're both coming too, obviously."

Don’s stomach dropped through the floorboards.

"Oh, they probably have—" he began.

"I'd love to," Miles said immediately, snapping his book shut with a speed that suggested he’d been waiting for just such an invitation. "If Will's amenable?"

Will glanced between them, something careful in his expression. "I suppose I could be dragged along for an afternoon of crass commercialism."

"Excellent," Clemsie said, clapping her hands together. "Twelve sharp at the station tomorrow. Bring your wallets and your charm."

Don stared at a half-finished sentence about the Gallic Wars, then struck it out hard enough to rip the paper.

The town was one of those aggressively quaint English market towns where even the pigeons seemed to have conservation orders. Clemsie led their small expedition with the confidence of a general surveying conquered territory, rattling off the names of shops she intended to scour for a gift.

"Antique shop first, then that place that sells ridiculous gadgets, then lunch. Sound acceptable to the committee?"

"Lead on, MacDuff," Will said, which earned him a snort from Don.

"That's not even the right quote, you pretentious git."

"Close enough for government work."

"Close enough for you, maybe. Bet your Shakespeare's spinnin' in his grave."

It should have felt easy, sliding back into their usual rhythm like this. Don tried to muster his usual grin, but it sat wrong on his face, like wearing a shirt that didn’t fit anymore.

The weather was decent for winter. Clemsie looked lush in the afternoon light. He wasn't trapped in a classroom contemplating the finer points of algebra. And instead of enjoying any of that, he found himself trailing slightly behind, watching Will and Miles. There was something about the way they moved together, their steps falling into unconscious sync, heads tilted at the same angle, like they'd rehearsed it.

It was nothing. Less than nothing. So why did it sit in Don's stomach like hot coals?

"Earth to Don," Clemsie said, nudging him with her elbow.

"Sorry." Don shook himself back to the present. "Just... thinking."

"Dangerous habit. What about?"

Don glanced ahead again, where Will was gesturing at something in a shop window while Miles listened with that same rapt attention that was becoming depressingly familiar.

"Nothing important."

He sighed softly, fidgeting with the sleeves of his jacket.

"Sorry, I'm being rubbish company."

"You're being weird company," Clemsie said, not unkindly. "What's going on?"

Don opened his mouth to explain, then realized he didn't have an explanation that made sense. What was he supposed to say? That watching them click made his fists itch for no reason he could name? That he couldn't focus on anything else?

"Just a bit knackered, I think," he said instead. “Dorm next to us was up 'til three singing Oasis. Worst part is they only knew the chorus.”

Clemsie didn't look convinced, but she let it drop. "Right. Coffee in a bit, then. That'll sort you out."

The antique shop smelled of mothballs and generational wealth. Dust motes swirled in the low light while the proprietor watched them with the suspicious attention of someone who'd seen too many schoolboys handle priceless things carelessly.

Don found himself intrigued despite his mood. There was actual history here, not just tourist tat.

"Look at this," Don said, drawn despite himself to a case of military medals. "This bloke was at Somme. Only nineteen."

Will appeared beside him, close enough that Don caught the scent of his lavender soap. "Only a year older than us."

"Imagine being remembered by a scrap of metal," Miles said quietly, joining them. "A whole life compressed into two lines on a placard."

They stood in silence, heads bent over history, shoulders brushing. The weight of shared recognition, the brief solemnity that made them, for a moment, just three boys confronting mortality.

"Boys!" Clemsie's voice cut through the quiet. "Come and see this monstrosity."

She stood beside a stuffed peacock wearing a top hat, grinning like she'd discovered buried treasure.

"It's perfect," she announced. "Smudger will absolutely loathe it."

"It's certainly... memorable," Will said diplomatically.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Don said, straight-faced. "Brings tears to my eyes."

Miles produced a camera and snapped a photo of Clemsie posing with the bird. The proprietor's glare could have stripped paint.

"You're not supposed to do that," Don hissed. "She's plotting our demise."

"Worth the risk," Miles said, winding the film with maddening calm. "History demands documentation."

"Try that line when she confiscates your negatives," Will murmured.

They made a game of finding increasingly awful gifts. Don found coasters shaped like Roman emperors that made Will wheeze with laughter. Miles discovered a ceramic badger holding a tiny umbrella. Will suggested a chamber pot ("It's antique!").

By the time they escaped the shop—without the peacock, mercifully—Don's cheeks ached from grinning. This was good. This was normal. Four friends mucking about on a Saturday afternoon, the sun warm on their backs, nothing more complicated than that.

The feeling lasted until they reached the café.

It was aggressively modern, all exposed brick and plants hanging from macramé holders. "This place is daylight robbery," Don muttered, peering at the menu. "Seven quid for a hot chocolate? Better come with a bloody pony."

"Consider it part of the experience," Clemsie said brightly, tucking her gloves into her bag. "Artisanal cocoa. Hand-ground by monks or something."

The place was crowded, forcing them to squeeze around a small table built for two near the window. Don found himself pressed against Clemsie's warmth, facing Will and Miles across a surface barely wider than a dinner plate.

"So," Clemsie said, slicing through her cappuccino foam with dainty violence, "final vote on Smudger's gift. Something practical but insulting, or completely useless but expensive?"

"Useless but expensive," Will said immediately.

"Practical but insulting," Don countered.

Miles held up his teaspoon like a judge's gavel. "I need a full psychological profile before rendering judgement."

Clemsie laughed, delighted at this failure of democracy.

Don tried to join in, but his eyes kept drifting towards the other side of the table with the inevitability of water flowing downhill. The way Miles leaned closer when Will spoke, as if afraid of missing a syllable. How Will's entire body oriented toward Miles when he answered, like he couldn't help it, a plant turning toward light. It pulled at him like hooks.

"—so I thought maybe cufflinks? Although he's got dozens of those already, too. Don? Thoughts?"

"Mm. Yeah. Brilliant."

Clemsie gave him the gimlet stare. "You haven't listened to a word."

"I am. Smudger. Birthday. Cufflinks."

Clemsie's mouth tightened into an unimpressed line, and she leaned forward, placing her coffee cup on the saucer with a low plink.

"What's got into you? You've been distracted all afternoon."

"Nothing's got into me. I'm fine."

"Don."

"I'm fine, Clemsie."

Clemsie's gaze followed his, flicked to the bench opposite, then back. Understanding slid over her face like dawn breaking.

"Oh."

"Oh what?"

"Nothing," she said, too lightly.

Don felt heat climb his neck. "Stop that. If you've got something to say, say it."

His voice came out too loud, too tense, and Will leaned forward, brow furrowed, mouth opening to say something. Don caught the shape of his name, the crease of genuine worry—but it was drowned out by the rush in his own ears. Because at the same moment, Miles's hand had shifted on the table, sliding over Will's just a touch. Probably accidental. But it was all Don could see, burning neon in the corner of his vision.

He stood up so abruptly his chair scraped against the floor.

"I'm going to get some air."

"Ducky—"

But he was already pushing through the café door, into the afternoon sunlight that felt too bright and too warm now, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking and the uncomfortable certainty that something inside him was coming apart at the seams.

Behind him, through the window, he could see Clemsie's perplexed face, Will half-rising from his seat.

Don closed his eyes, but the image stayed. His chest felt hollowed out, ribs creaking like scaffolding about to collapse. He found a bench behind the café, tucked between two shops where the afternoon foot traffic couldn't gawk at him having what his mum would call a moment. He sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the cobblestones like they might rearrange themselves into answers.

The scrape of shoes on stone announced company.

"Thought you might want this back," Will said, settling beside him with careful distance. He held out Don's jacket. "Left it on your chair. Clemsie's holding the fort with Miles. They've started debating the cufflinks question."

"Cheers." Don took the jacket, grateful for something to do with his hands. He hadn't even realized he'd been shaking from the cold.

Will produced a battered cigarette pack from his pocket, shook one out, and offered it without ceremony. Don took it, though he rarely smoked—Will's habit, not his. But right now he needed something to occupy his mouth before it said something stupid.

Don flicked his lighter, held it out for Will, then lit his own. He had bought one, even if he wasn't the one who needed it most of the time, because Will had been reluctant to replace his. Don inhaled, coughed slightly, then settled into the rhythm of it. The nicotine hit his bloodstream like a small salvation.

They sat like that for a bit, watching the afternoon spill past.

"You know," Will said eventually, smoke curling from his mouth, "I've been thinking about that peacock."

Don glanced sideways at him. "Have you now."

"Mm. Tragic creature, really. Stuffed, mounted, forced to wear ridiculous headgear for the amusement of strangers." Will's tone was conversational, like they were discussing the weather. "Makes you wonder what indignity it suffered to end up there."

"Probably just keeled over after a long, fulfilling life of screaming at gardeners."

"Or maybe it was perfectly content until some Victorian ghoul decided to improve it." Will flicked ash lazily into a gutter. "Turned into a caricature against its will."

Don snorted despite himself, though something about it lodged uncomfortably. "That's a bit dark, don't you think?"

"Life is dark, Ducky."

They smoked in companionable quiet, watching people pass by with shopping bags and weekend faces. A group of tourists clustered around a map, pointing in several different directions with the confidence of people who were definitely lost.

"Really, the birds have it right," Will said suddenly.

"Which bit?"

"Squawk when you want, shit on whoever displeases you, then fly off without explanation."

Don huffed a laugh. "Sounds like your dream life."

"Exactly. I aspire to seagull levels of self-respect."

The cigarette was burning down to nothing between Don's fingers. He stubbed it out on the bench arm, letting the last of the smoke curl away.

"Feel better?" Will asked, voice light, but with a softness underneath. Like a door left slightly ajar.

Don considered the question honestly. The tight feeling in his chest had loosened, the barbed thing that had been clawing at his ribs had settled into something manageable. When had that happened?

"Yeah," he said, surprised to find it was true. "Yeah, actually."

"Good." Will finished his own cigarette, stubbing it out with neat precision. "Shall we rejoin the cufflink debate? I suspect Miles is winning and Smudger will end up with something classy and sensible but awfully boring."

Don found himself grinning a little haplessly. "Can't have that. Someone's got to defend Clemsie's honor."

"Exactly. A noble quest."

They stood, Will brushing ash off his jacket fastidiously. For a moment they just stood there, blinking up into the sky, not moving toward the café door.

"Will," Don said, then stopped, not sure what he wanted to say.

"Mm?"

"Nothing. Just... cheers. For the smoke."

Will's smile was small and real. "Any time, Ducky. Any time."

As they walked back toward the café, Don realized the knot in his stomach had completely dissolved. He felt oddly light, untethered. Through the window, he could see Clemsie gesturing animatedly while Miles listened with that same focused attention that had made Don want to punch something ten minutes ago.

Now it just looked like two people having a conversation.

Funny how that worked.

* * *

Don had been feeling almost normal by Thursday evening. The weekend's jagged edges had worn smooth, filed down by routine and willful ignorance. Class. Afternoons spent with Clemsie. Homework. Dinner conversations where he managed to laugh at Will's jokes without cataloguing who else was laughing. Progress, he told himself. Whatever poison had crawled into his bloodstream was working its way out naturally.

He'd left his history textbook in the common room after prep, a cardinal sin that would earn him a bollocking from the prefect if discovered. The corridors were empty, pupils already settled in their rooms for the night. His footsteps echoed off stone walls as he jogged down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

On his way back, at the bottom of the stairwell, he paused. Voices drifted from above—low, intimate, the kind that made you instinctively hush yourself. Don glanced up through the gap between flights.

Two figures stood silhouetted against the window on the upper landing. The lantern light from outside turned them into paper cutouts, all shadow and outline, but Don recognized the shapes: Will's angular frame, Miles's broader shoulders. They were close. Closer than talking required.

As Don watched, Miles lifted his hand to Will's face, thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone with adoring precision. Will leaned into it, slow and certain, eyes sliding shut.

And then they were kissing. Quiet, unhurried, like they'd always been doing it. Miles's other hand curved around Will's waist, fingers bunching the fabric of his school jumper. Will's arms came up to circle Miles's neck, pulling him in with a gentleness that looked worn, comfortable.

Don couldn't look away. Couldn't move. He just stood there, nailed to the flagstones while something vital inside him gave way.

Will was smiling into the kiss, his face transformed into something luminous and unguarded. Like Don had only seen him once before, after the tunnels, raw and completely given over. His fingers twisted in Miles's hair, and when they broke apart for breath, he laughed softly against Miles's mouth.

The sound slipped between Don's ribs like water through cracked stone.

His stomach lurched, bile rising sour and sharp in his throat. The walls seemed to tilt sideways. Air wouldn't come properly, catching high in his chest like his lungs had forgotten their trade.

He stumbled backward, one foot then the other, moving on autopilot while his vision tunneled to a pinprick. Behind him, he thought he heard something—a question called out, maybe—but the rushing in his ears drowned it out.

The corridor stretched endless ahead of him. His legs felt disconnected from his body. By the time he reached the entrance hall, he was running.

The frigid night air struck him hard. Don doubled over beside the chapel steps, hands braced against his knees, dry-heaving against the manicured grass. His throat burned. His chest felt hollowed, scraped clean.

The village payphone squatted beside the post office like a red confession booth. Don fed it coins with clumsy fingers and dialed the number he knew by heart.

"Hello?"

His mum's voice, warm with surprise. It was past ten, later than he usually called.

"Mum." The word came out cracked, barely recognizable.

"Don? Love, what's wrong? You sound terrible."

His throat seized. How could he tell her that watching his best mate kiss another boy had made him want to crawl out of his own skin? That his first reaction had been nausea, like the rugby lads at the pub, like he was no better than them? That something was wrong with him, something twisted and ugly that he couldn't name?

"I..." His voice broke completely. "I don't know. I just... I wanted to hear your voice."

"Oh, sweetheart." The tenderness in her tone nearly undid him completely. "Bad day?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Want to tell me about it?"

Don pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the phone box, watching his breath fog the surface. The words crowded in his throat like a traffic jam. He opened his mouth.

"Mum, what if..." He stopped. Started again. "What if you thought you knew yourself, right? And then something happened and you realized you didn't know anything at all?"

A pause. He could hear her shifting, probably settling into the armchair by the window, giving him her full attention the way she always did.

"That sounds frightening, love. What sort of something?"

Don's free hand pressed flat against the glass. "I can't... it's not..." The words wouldn't come. What could he possibly say?

"Is it about school? About fitting in with the other boys?"

"No, it's..." He took a shaky breath. "Mum, am I... am I a good person?"

The question surprised them both. He heard her sharp intake of breath.

"Don, love, what's brought this on? Of course you're a good person. You're the best person I know."

"But what if I'm not? What if there's something wrong with me and I just never knew?"

"There's nothing wrong with you." Her voice was fierce now, protective. "Nothing. You hear me? Whatever's got you thinking this way, it's not true."

Don"s grip tightened around the receiver, breath shallow.

"What’s going on?” his mother asked again, gentler this time. "You can tell me anything, Don. Anything at all. You know that, don't you?"

He did know. Had always known. His mum, who'd worked double shifts to pay for his school fees, who'd been patient for so long about how hard it had been for him after Dad died, who'd raised him to be better than the small-minded bastards back home. She'd thrown him a lifeline and he was drowning anyway.

"I know," he said. "I just... I can't."

The silence stretched between them, filled with the crackling static of the phone line.

"Is it about a friend?" she asked gently. "Someone you care about?"

Don's breath hitched. "Yeah."

"Did you have a row?"

"Sort of."

"Don." Her voice was soft but steel underneath. "Look at me. Well, you know what I mean. Listen to me properly. You are not the bad kind. You're the one who mows old Mrs. Patterson's lawn every summer for nowt. Whatever's happened, whatever you've done or said, you can fix it. You hear me? You can always fix it."

But could he? How could he fix something when he didn't even understand what was broken?

"I don't know how," he admitted.

"Start with the truth. Start with being brave enough to tell the people you love what's really going on in that head of yours."

"What if telling the truth makes it worse?"

"Then at least it'll be honest worse instead of lie worse. And honest worse you can work with."

They talked for a few more minutes after that, about Mrs. Patterson's new cat, about her job, about nothing and everything. Normal things. Safe things. When he finally hung up, Don felt somehow both better and worse.

In the distance, the chapel bells chimed eleven o'clock, curfew long gone. He'd have to invent a story. He’d have to look Will in the face and act like nothing had changed.

Don wasn't sure he could.

* * *

When Don finally made it back to their room, Will was sitting cross-legged on his bed, still in his school clothes, a book balanced on his knees. He looked up when Don entered, and something dashed across his face—relief maybe, or concern, quick as the strike of a match.

"Alright?" Will asked, like it was casual, but his voice had gone carefully even.

Don couldn't look at him properly. Every time he tried, flashes hit him like afterimages left against his eyelids by sunlight. Will's hands in Miles's hair. That soft laugh against Miles's mouth. His stomach lurched.

"Fine," Don muttered. He managed something that might pass for a smile if you squinted, and turned to hang up his blazer with hands that wouldn't stay steady. Anything to avoid looking at Will directly, to avoid seeing the mouth that had been pressed against Miles's.

"Right." Will shut his book. "Only you've been gone for two hours and you look like death warmed over."

"Just needed some air."

"Very necessary, air," Will said. "Wouldn't you know, there's rather a lot of it in this dorm room, too."

Silence stretched between them, thick as the dust in the antique store had been. Don could feel Will's stare boring into his back, could practically hear the gears turning in that too-clever head.

"Ducky—"

"Said I was fine!" Don snapped.

Will made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Of course you are. Always fine, aren't you? Even when you’re one good shove from a padded cell."

Don whirled around, something vicious unfurling in his chest. "Yeah? Cheers for that brilliant observation, mate."

Will blinked at Don's anger, like he'd just realized he'd said the wrong thing. "I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, you did." Don's voice was getting louder, but he couldn't rein it in. "That's what you think of me, isn't it? Thick as pig shit. One bad day from the funny farm."

"Ducky, that's not—"

"When were you gonna tell me then?"

Will went very still. Like a deer hearing the snap of a twig. "Tell you what?"

"About you and him. Sneakin' off, makin' eyes at each other. Thought I wouldn't notice?"

The words came out harsh and ugly. Will’s expression shut down like a slammed door.

"Forgive me, I missed the bit where my love life became subject to dormitory oversight," Will said, voice going cut-glass posh the way it did when he wanted to draw blood.

Don's voice cracked like ice. "We're best mates, Will! We share a fucking room!"

"So I should file a report, should I? Provide a detailed account of my every fumble for your consideration?"

"You could've said you were..." Don's hands flailed helplessly. "That you and him were..."

"Were what?" Will's eyes glittered with something dangerous. "Go on then, say it. Use your words, Wallace."

"I saw you!" It ripped out of him raw. "On the stairs. I saw you with him."

Will's face drained white, then flushed scarlet. "Right. And?"

"And what?"

"And what exactly is your problem with it?"

Don's mouth opened like a landed fish. How could he explain the sick twist in his gut? The way watching them had felt like being turned inside out? The only words that came were the wrong ones, the ones he knew he shouldn't say.

"You lied to me," he said instead.

"I never lied."

"You did! All that shit about being over Seymour, about taking time for yourself, and meanwhile you were—"

"I was what?" Will shot to his feet, hands curled into fists. "Living my life? Fucking hell, Don, what did you expect? That I'd take holy orders?"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Then what? What exactly has got you looking at me like I've done something disgusting?"

The words made him flinch. "I'm not—"

"You are though. Can't even look at me properly. Standing there like I might contaminate you or something."

"That's bollocks—"

"Is it? Because you look like you want to scrub your eyes out with bleach."

Don was shaking all over now, vision blurring until he blinked hard. "I just... why him? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because of this!" Will's voice spiraled up, like it had that awful fucking day, after he had gotten drunk and made a neat knot in Don's tie. "Because I knew you'd react like this! Knew you'd get all weird and judgy about it—"

"I'm not being judgy!"

"Of course you are! I can see it plain as day. Poor Will, throwing himself at whoever shows interest. First Seymour, now Miles. What a desperate little slag."

"I never said that!"

"Didn't have to." Will ran his hands through his hair. "It's written all over your face."

"You replaced me!" Don shouted. His heart felt like it had been hollowed, carved out with sharp chisels, and he didn't know where to put what had come out of it. Will froze, his eyes wide.

"What?"

"You replaced me with him!" The words came pouring out like blood from a wound. "Everything we used to do, all our things—now it's all him, isn't it? Like I've been fucking erased!"

Will stared at him. "Are you having me on?"

"No, I'm not—"

"You've been surgically attached to Clemsie since she batted her lashes at you. When's the last time we did anything that wasn't in a bloody group?"

"That's different—"

"How's it different?"

"Because she's my girlfriend!"

"Right, and Miles is my boyfriend!"

The word detonated between them. Will seemed startled to have said it, but his chin lifted in defiance.

Don's insides felt twisted, like parts of him were being bent into shapes he didn't recognize.

"Your boyfriend," he echoed, the word sour in his mouth, like he wasn't built to pronounce it. He sagged back against his desk, felt the edge digging into his spine.

"Yeah. My boyfriend. Got a problem with that?"

Don's throat closed up. The air in the room had turned too thick. "I... no. I don't..."

"How generous," Will sneered. "Donald Wallace doesn't mind that his best mate's a dirty queer. How bleeding noble of you."

"Don't say that."

"Why not? It's what I am, isn't it? What you can't stand to look at anymore."

"I don't care that you're gay!" The words came out strangled.

"No? Then what's all this pantomime about? What's got you so wound up you legged it for hours rather than sit in the same room as me?"

Don tried to force words out. Nothing came. How could he explain any of this when he didn't understand it himself?

"I don't—" he started. "I can't—"

Will's face went blank as paper. "Right. Of course you can't."

He started shoving things into his satchel with vicious efficiency—textbook, toothbrush, spare shirt. Each item thrown in like an accusation.

"Will, wait—"

"No, it's fine. I understand perfectly. Some things are too much for Saint Don's delicate constitution. Well, you won't have to suffer my presence much longer."

"That's not—where are you going?"

"Miles's room. Don't want to offend your moral sensibilities with my degeneracy."

Don flinched like he'd been struck. "Will, I never said—"

"You didn't have to." Will swung the bag over his shoulder. "Some things don't need saying."

He paused at the door, still not turning back.

"You know the joke of it? I thought you actually gave a toss about me." He laughed, bitter and awful. "Turns out you just wanted the house-trained version who keeps you entertained, corrects your homework, and shuts his mouth about everything else."

"That’s not true."

"Isn't it? When's the last time you asked me how I was doing?"

Don opened his mouth. Found nothing there but air.

Will laughed again, flat and joyless. "Don't strain yourself trying to think of an answer."

The door slammed behind him. Don stared at it for a long time after, unseeing.

* * *

Don woke to silence. No rustling sheets, no muttered curses about the alarm clock, no Will sprawled across his bed, limbs akimbo. Just still air and the ghost-scent of cigarettes in the curtains.

For a few seconds he lay there, staring at water stains on the ceiling, half expecting Will's voice to come from across the room despite everything. When it didn't, the wrongness of it settled over him like a shroud. The other bed still held the shape of Will, the pillow hollowed, sheets twisted. Like a chalk outline after a crime.

By the time he was sitting in chemistry, his nerves felt flayed. Will's usual seat was filled by Jameson, elbows and floppy blond curls, and Don's eyes kept drifting over until he forced himself to stop. Lunch was worse. Will and Miles were across the hall at another table, heads tipped together. Don picked at his shepherd's pie and tried not to stare.

It was stupid how much it hurt. Just seeing Will exist in the same space but unreachable, like watching him through glass. Don had sat with Smudger instead, laughed in the right places, but it all felt like he was underwater.

By afternoon, he couldn't take the silence in his own skull anymore.

He found Clemsie in the library, surrounded by neat stacks of history books. She glanced up when he collapsed into the chair opposite, one elegant eyebrow arching.

"You look like you've been dug up," she said, shutting her textbook with a snap. "Rough night?"

"Will and I had a row," Don muttered.

"Ah." She tilted her head, appraising. "Scale of one to biblical catastrophe?"

"Biblical." Don scrubbed his face. "He's… staying with Miles now."

That got her attention. Her brows flicked up, then smoothed. "That bad?"

Don opened his mouth, then closed it. How was he supposed to explain the mess in his chest? Saw him kissing Miles, wanted to puke, haven't stopped shaking since. Impossible.

"He's been keeping things from me," he said finally. "About Miles. About them being... you know. Together."

"Right." Clemsie's tone was smooth as polished stone. "And that winds you up because?"

"Because we're meant to be best mates! We tell each other everything. Or I thought we did."

Clemsie's gaze dropped to her notebook, but she wasn't reading, just running her thumb along the frayed edge of the paper. "Sometimes that makes it harder," she said. "The people closest to you are the ones you most don't want to disappoint."

"I wouldn't have been disappointed," Don snapped, sharper than he meant. "If he can't tell me, who the hell can he tell?"

"Miles, apparently."

"That's not funny."

"Wasn't a joke."

Don glared at the grain of the table until it blurred. "I don’t give a toss that he's gay," he said. Needed it to be true.

"But you're angry now."

"I'm not—" his voice came out harsh, then faltered. "That's not what this is about. I'm angry because he kept it from me. Because he was sneaking around like… I don't know."

Clemsie tilted her head. "You're angry because Miles knew something about him you didn't?"

Don felt his skin prickle uncomfortably. "That's not it."

"Alright." She let it drop with infuriating ease, and turned a page without looking at it.

Words tumbled out of him anyway. "He's replaced me. Everything we used to do, he does with Miles now. Like I don't matter."

Clemsie pursed her lips. "Don, when you started seeing me, you ditched plenty of things you used to do with him. Didn't hear you crying foul then."

"That's different."

"How?"

"Because you're my girlfriend."

Her smile was small, sharp. "And Miles is his boyfriend. Spot the difference."

"It's not the same. Me and Will, we're—" Don faltered, throat tight. "We're not like normal mates. We've been through real life and death shit together. Proper stuff no one else would get. He's supposed to trust me. And now he's just thrown me over for some posh wanker who reads him bloody poetry."

Clemsie's face didn't move. "You really hate Miles, don't you?"

"He's fine," Don said, too fast. "I don't hate him. I just... what's he know about Will? He wasn't there when everything went to hell."

"And you think Miles can't know him now?"

"Not like I can."

"Not like you do," she corrected softly.

Don bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted iron. "Yeah."

"Okay. He may not have been with us back then. But he's here now, making an effort with Will."

Don's fingers drummed against the desk, restless. "You're taking his side," he muttered, and felt petulant even as the words escaped him.

"I'm not taking anyone's side." She leaned back in her chair. "I just don't get why your best friend being happy makes you miserable."

"I'm not miserable about him being happy!" The words burst out of him, too loud. Heads turned. He hunched lower, voice fraying to a whisper. "I just... I miss the stupid git."

It felt like the admission was dragged out of him with pliers.

For a long moment, the only sound was the clock ticking above the shelves.

"Miss him how," Clemsie said finally, her voice careful as footsteps on ice.

Don frowned. "What d'you mean, how? I just do."

She studied him through her lashes. "People miss all sorts of things. Joking around. Feeling needed. Having someone sit across the table every night. Which bit is it?"

"All of it," Don said. Too quick. "Before Miles. When it was just us."

Clemsie's mouth quirked, though it wasn't a smile. Not really.

"Right," she said, almost gentle. Almost. But there was something underneath it, like she'd seen more than he'd meant to show.

It made Don want to be elsewhere. He shoved his chair back. "I'll let you get back to your essay."

"Mm." She gave him a look he couldn't read, that complicated curve of her mouth. "These things sort themselves out. One way or another."

Her words followed him out of the library, light as smoke and just as choking.

III.

Don was halfway through massacring a plate of sausages when Jameson leaned across the table, eyes gleaming with the kind of ghoulish excitement usually reserved for executions.

"Did you hear about Carruthers?" he hissed. "Caught wanking in the chapel vestry. Father McKinnon nearly went the way of the martyrs."

Don barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. "That's begging for a lightning bolt."

"That's not even the worst bit," Jameson said, vibrating with glee. "Communion wine. As lube." He mimed it, eyes round with scandalised delight. "Henderson swears McKinnon was muttering Hail Marys like he was trying to exorcise him."

Don's first instinct was automatic as breathing: turn, catch Will's eye, share that lightning-flash look of horror and hilarity. Will would've smirked, muttered something blasphemous about transubstantiation in that bone-dry way that always made Don laugh particularly hard.

But Will wasn't at his elbow. Will was three tables over, with Miles.

"Don? You going the way of the martyrs, too?"

Jameson was staring at him with the concern usually reserved for people who'd just walked into glass doors. Don realized his mouth was hanging open, fork suspended in mid-air like he'd forgotten how eating worked.

He shoved a chunk of sausage in before words could betray him.

"Yeah. Just... Christ. Poor McKinnon."

It tasted like nothing at all.

The route back to his room took him past the library. Pure coincidence, obviously. Not like he was scanning the reading tables through the tall windows or anything pathetic like that.

Henderson was there, drooling slightly over her maths textbook. Thompson had fallen asleep on a biography of Keats, using Wordsworth as a pillow. But no familiar mess of dark hair bent over textbooks.

Don checked his watch. Two-twenty. Will usually claimed the armchair near the classics section during free periods, territorial as a cat. Maybe he was running late from Latin. Maybe he'd appear any second, grumbling under his breath.

Don found himself lingering by the entrance, pretending to read the bulletin board with the intensity of a scholar deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls. Chess Club meeting Tuesday. Lost: one wool scarf, navy blue. Tutoring available for struggling mathematics students—God knows you need it, Morrison.

A pack of third-years barrelled past him, chattering about something or other. Don realized he'd been standing there for ten minutes, staring at a flyer about fencing lessons, and forced himself to move.

The dorm room felt wrong without Will's chaos. Too quiet, like a museum exhibit: A Boys' Dorm, Mixed Media. Don sat at his desk, pretending to care about the Industrial Revolution, but his eyes kept drifting.

Everything on Will's side of the room was still there: textbooks stacked at impossible angles that defied physics, scattershot pens, that battered, dog-eared copy of Brideshead Revisited. But the bed was still in the same shape it had been that night, untouched since.

He sank down on his own bed, his body feeling heavy. His gaze wandered aimlessly around the room, though it kept snagging on one thing in particular. The snuff tin sat on Will's nightstand, like it often did.

Don stood up without thinking, crossed the invisible border that divided their room now. The tin was old silver, tarnished at the edges, engraved with initials on the bottom that told a story: W.R.B. William Robert Blake, Will's great-grandfather who'd carried it through the trenches in World War I. It was the only thing of his that made it home. Will had told him about it once, late at night when sleep wouldn't come.

Don remembered that day in slices: Will swaying drunk, the chair pushed half out, the tie dangling from the ceiling beam like punctuation.

Both of them crashing onto the sofa like sacks of laundry. Don's arms full of trembling limbs, dead weight suddenly alive. They'd sat there, Will shaking with rage and grief, Don trying to hold the pieces together with words that weren't enough.

Then his eye had caught it. The neat envelope with his name scrawled across it. The snuffbox beside it, silver and final.

Will had noticed. Always noticed. He'd lurched across the sofa, torn the letter up before Don could open it. Ripped it to shreds, furious and mortified.

And Don, absolute idiot that he was, had laughed. Couldn't help it. Did you bequeath it to me?

Will had snarled, cheeks blotchy, but Don had kept laughing. Not because it was funny, he hadn't meant it like that. What he'd meant was: thank fuck I didn't walk in two minutes later. Thank fuck you're still here to scowl at me.

The letter scraps had looked like ashes. He never knew what was in them. Sometimes he thought he didn't want to know. Sometimes it kept him awake at night that he didn't.

Now he picked the snuff tin up, surprised by its weight. Such a small thing to carry so much history, so much of Will's strange, prickly way of loving people.

Don used to mock the habit constantly. What are you, eighty? Going to start carrying a quill next? Will would sniff the powder, sneeze like a Victorian consumptive, and Don would howl with disgust.

But standing here now, turning the tin over in his hands, Don found he wanted to see it. Wanted to see Will's nose crinkle, hear him laugh when Don gagged dramatically, feel like they were the only two people in the world again.

The tin felt warm against his palm, like it remembered being trusted with more than powder. Like it had held Will's pulse once.

He set it back exactly where it had been, as if moving it even a fraction might jinx something. Tried to read about steam engines. Managed half a paragraph.

The next day, Don came back from chemistry to find the tin gone.

Will had been here. Had slipped in like a ghost while Don was struggling through molecular formulas, taken his things, and vanished again. A few textbooks were missing too, and the top drawer of his dresser was half-open like a mouth mid-sentence.

Don sat on his bed, staring at the gap where the tin had been. The room echoed with absence, hollow as a bell.

Days later, Don was absolutely not brooding on his way to History, gaze locked on his shoes, when he collided with someone coming the other way.

"Sorry, I—" Don began automatically, then the words died.

Will. Expression carefully blank, books clutched against his chest like they might protect him from something. Their eyes locked for a second that stretched like elastic.

"Will," he said, and his voice came out wrong, too breathless, like he'd been sprinting instead of just existing in the same space as his former roommate.

"Don." Will's voice was neutral, polite, the way you'd speak to a stranger asking for directions. Like they'd never shared a room, never shared anything.

The silence stretched between them like a chasm. Will wouldn't look at him. Don scrambled for something to say, anything to bridge the distance that felt both enormous and paper-thin.

"How's Miles?" The question tumbled out before he could stop it, and immediately he wanted to crawl into a hole and die there.

A flash across Will's face. Surprise, maybe, or maybe just irritation at Don's spectacular ability to say exactly the wrong thing.

"He's fine," Will said, clipped.

"Good. That's... that's brilliant." Don felt like he was drowning in his own inadequacy. "Yeah. Top stuff."

Will shifted his weight, his eyes flickering down and then back up at Don. His knuckles were white around the spines. He glanced at his watch with the air of a man calculating escape velocity. "I should go. Class."

"Right. 'Course. Can't keep the Romans waiting." Don stepped aside, even though every instinct was screaming at him to block Will's path, to grab him by the shoulders and demand they talk properly, like the friends they were instead of strangers. "See you around, then."

Will nodded once, crisp as a business transaction. No smile, no "See you later, Ducky". Just the kind of polite indifference you'd show to someone whose name you couldn't quite remember.

Don watched him walk away, shoulders straight, pace measured. Not hurried, exactly, but purposeful, like he had somewhere important to be that definitely wasn't here with Don.

The bell rang, sharp and accusatory. Don realized he was going to be properly late for History, but his feet seemed to have forgotten how to move. He stood there like an idiot, watching after him until Will disappeared around the corner, then forced himself to walk like a normal person instead of someone who was marathoning the stages of grief.

His teacher gave him a disgruntled look that promised consequences when he slipped into the classroom, but Don barely noticed. He was too busy replaying the conversation, picking apart every gesture like it might reveal some hidden message, some sign that Will missed him too.

He found absolutely fucking nothing.

* * *

Don stared at the invitation like it might spontaneously combust. Heavy cardstock, the kind that probably cost more than his trainers, embossed with gold lettering that looked like it had been penned by monks.

Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence request the pleasure of your company at dinner, Saturday the 29th of January, 7:30 PM. Black tie.

"Black tie?" Don looked up at Clemsie, who was perched on the edge of his desk, playing with a lock of her hair. "What's that when it's at home?"

She blinked at him. "Formal wear. You know, dinner jacket, bow tie, proper shoes."

"Right." Don turned the invitation over, as if the back might contain a translation into English. "And where d'you reckon I'm conjuring that lot from? My arse?"

Her expression dimmed. "I thought you'd have something. From your school formal or—"

"Clemsie, love." Don set the invitation down carefully, like it might bite him. "My school formal was in the community centre. We wore whatever was clean."

She coloured, just faintly. Then, brisk as a tap shutting off: "We'll just have to get you sorted, won't we? There's a lovely place in town, Gieves & Hawkes. They do proper dinner jackets."

His stomach dropped like lead. "How much are we talking?"

"It's not—think of it as an investment piece. You'll wear it for years—"

"How much, Clemsie?"

She glanced at her nails. "Perhaps eight hundred? For something decent. But you'll need the whole ensemble, really. Shirt, trousers, cufflinks, shoes—"

Don barked a laugh, sharp and mirthless. "Eight hundred quid. For one night."

"Don't be dramatic. It's not just one night."

Don leaned back in his desk chair, heard it creaking with the weight. "What other black-tie soirées have I got lined up, exactly?"

"You'll be going to more of them with me. If they—" She stopped herself.

"If they what? Accept me?" He turned to her, his voice sharpening. "Your parents want to size me up? Make sure I'm not after your trust fund?"

Clemsie's jaw tightened. "My parents want to meet the boy I like. That's what parents do."

"In eight-hundred-pound costumes."

"It's not a costume, it's—"

"What? What is it, then?"

She stood up, smoothing her skirt with sharp little movements. "It's showing respect. It's making an effort."

"Right. Because my normal clothes aren't respectful enough for your family, is that it?"

"I didn't say that."

"I can't drop a grand on a penguin suit, Clemsie," Don said, the words torn out of him, desperate. Shame curled low in his gut. "I don't have it."

"Well..." She hesitated. "I could help. With the cost."

The words hung there, heavy as anvils. Don could feel the flush spreading to his ears.

"You'd pay for it."

"It's not a big deal—"

"It's a thousand pounds, Clemsie."

"I know, but I don't mind—"

"I bloody mind!" It came out raw, louder than he meant. "I'm not your charity case."

Clemsie's face went carefully blank. "I didn't say you were."

"Then what would you call it?"

"I'd call it helping someone I care about."

Don stood up, suddenly needing distance, pacing to the window. "Right. Poor Don needs a handout so Daddy doesn't choke on his port."

"That's not—Don, you know that's not fair." Her diction faltered, anger seeping in. Don could hear the warning, but he couldn't stop himself from ignoring it.

"So I need eight hundred quid for a jacket. What else? New haircut? Elocution lessons? Maybe I should practice my vowels."

Clemsie's eyes flashed. "You're being ridiculous."

"Am I?" Don's voice pitched higher. "Because from where I'm standing, it sounds like they've got some pretty specific ideas about what kind of person is worthy of their daughter."

"They just want what's best for me," Clemsie said, cheeks blotching.

"And that's not me, is it? Not unless I can pass for one of them."

"Nobody's asking you to pretend to be anyone else—"

"No? Then why the costume? Why can't I just be myself?"

"Because sometimes that's just not enough, Don!"

Her voice cracked like a whip. Don stared at her, feeling something cold crawl over his lungs and make a home there.

"Christ," he said quietly. "You really are ashamed of me."

"I'm not—"

"You are though. Aren't you? I'm your bit of rough, yeah? Good for jokes until the parents want a look."

"For fuck's sake, Don." The mask finally slipped. "Do you think I'm looking forward to this? My father will take one look at you and decide you're not worth his time. My mother will spend the evening talking about her charity work with underprivileged youth. And you—you'll sit there getting angrier and angrier until you snap—"

Don reared up, his fingers white-knuckling the edge of the window sill.

"I'm not going to throw a bloody tantrum in front of your mum!"

"You're throwing one now!" Clemsie bit back.

"Because you're asking me to play dress-up!"

"I'm asking you to care enough to try!"

"Try what? To be one of you lot? Family estates and bloody hunting weekends?"

"Try to want to be here!" The words ripped out of her, sharp enough to cut. "To be with me instead of looking like you'd rather be anywhere else!"

That stopped him cold. "What d'you mean?"

Her voice went low, trembling now. "It means you're not here, Don! Even when you're sitting right next to me, you're not really here."

"That's bollocks—"

"Is it? When's the last time we had a conversation about more than just small talk, or went out together like we used to? When's the last time you asked about me? About my classes, my friends, anything that actually matters to me?"

He started three different sentences in his head, abandoned them all.

"I thought if we could just get through this dinner, if my parents could see what I see in you, maybe you'd stay. Maybe you'd want to stay."

"I never said I was going anywhere—"

"You didn't have to!" Tears now, slipping down her sharp, furious face. "God, Don, I've bent myself in knots trying to make this work, trying to be enough, but I'm not, am I?"

His anger drained at the sight. He'd never seen Clemsie cry. Not when half of Upper Sixth had croaked it right in front of them. Not when they'd ran, desperate, through the tunnels, convinced they would never see the next morning. It undid him.

"Clemsie—"

"Sorry I'm not Will!" The words burst out of her like they'd been building pressure behind a dam. She clapped a hand to her mouth as if she could stuff them back in.

Don froze. His ribs felt like they’d been pried open. "That's—this isn't about Will."

"Isn't it?" Clemsie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. They were glassy, ruined.

"I don't know what you mean."

"No," she whispered. "You don't, do you."

The fight went out of her all at once. She looked… tired. Emptied out.

"This isn't working, is it?"

Don's throat scraped dry. He wanted to say no, wanted to promise he'd try harder, wanted anything but this. Only he couldn't.

"I care about you," she continued, voice frayed. "I do. But I can't keep pretending that's enough."

"Don't—"

"We're too different. And maybe it could work if we both wanted it badly enough. But…" She let the silence finish the sentence.

Don didn't know what to say. Never knew what to say, and he hated it. If he could just—

His jaw worked silently for a moment.

"So that's it then?" he said finally.

Clemsie nodded, not looking at him. "That's it."

Don stayed where he was after she left, the door clicking shut with polite finality. The invitation still lay on his desk, gold letters winking up at him like they were in on the joke. He wanted to rip it in half, but his hands wouldn't move. The room felt airless, stripped of colour.

He thought of Clemsie's face breaking open, the sound of her voice when she said Will's name. His eyes burned, but nothing came out. He let out a laugh instead that sounded too much like choking. Imagined it, him playing dress-up for the Lawrences, trying not to nick the silverware out of spite. Eight hundred quid for a suit he'd never wear, a dinner he'd never survive, a girl who wasn't his anymore. Clemsie had been right about one thing: he would've said something he couldn't take back. He always did. At least this way he'd saved them the embarrassment.

Don wanted to smash something, to scream, to scrub the whole day out of existence. Instead, he sat there hollow, throat locked, and let the quiet eat him alive.

* * *

Time moved strangely after that. Don found himself brushing his teeth without remembering walking to the bathroom, pulling on pajamas he didn't recall choosing. The motions felt mechanical, like someone else was operating his body while his brain sat in the corner, stunned and possibly concussed.

He was in bed by half past eight, which was mental even by his standards. But consciousness felt like too much effort, and sleep seemed like the only escape from the echo of Clemsie's words bouncing around his skull like a demented ping-pong ball. Sorry I'm not Will. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

But sleep stubbornly kept away for hours. Don tossed and turned, sheets twisted around his legs. His mind kept cycling through the fight, picking apart every word, every expression. Her tears. The way Clemsie had looked at him like she was seeing something he couldn't, some truth written in invisible ink across his forehead that everyone could read but him.

Usually, when sleep wouldn't come, Will would help. Not always intentionally, maybe, but just by being there. They'd gotten good at it after Slaughterhouse, when the residual terror made proper rest impossible for weeks on end. One of them would start talking, about nothing, usually. Gossip or complaints or increasingly elaborate theories about whether Will's neighbour wore the same tie every day or if he owned seven identical ones, possibly sewn together by underpaid elves. Something so mundane it knocked the edge off Don’s thoughts until rest crept in sideways.

Tonight the room was too clean, too quiet, like he'd been abandoned in a waxwork museum. Don stared at the ceiling like a man awaiting execution, trying not to think about Clemsie, about how wrong the room felt without Will's presence across the gap between their beds. About any of it.

A soft knock at the door made him freeze.

"Don?"

Will's voice, hesitant. Sheepish, even, which was about as rare as unicorns in Don's experience.

Don's chest gave a treacherous jolt. "Yeah?"

The door creaked open like something out of a gothic novel. Will slipped inside, hair mussed on one side and too flat on the other, wearing the cat pajamas Don's mum had bought him for Christmas that he'd initially claimed were an assault on anyone with functioning retinas. He took in Don's obviously sleepless state—the way he was lying rigid as a plank, staring at the ceiling like it owed him money—and something shifted in his expression.

"Christ, you look awful," Will said, closing the door behind him with the careful precision of someone who'd spent years perfecting the art of sneaking around dormitories after curfew.

"Cheers. Really needed to hear that tonight."

"I aim to please. Also to provide brutal honesty in times of crisis."

Will crossed to Don's bed without waiting to be asked and perched on the edge, his weight making the mattress dip. He stretched his legs out, all careless grace, but his eyes were sharp, cataloguing Don's state like a doctor assessing damage.

"Kay messaged me," Will said without preamble. "5AM in Hong Kong, by the way. She's certifiable. Anyway, she said you and Clemsie...?"

Don turned his face toward the wall. Of course Kay already told. She'd somehow managed to stay in touch with everyone despite being half a world away. The girl had a communication network that put MI5 to shame.

"Yeah, well. Shit happens."

"Don." Will's voice was gentler now, losing its usual barbed edge. "What happened?"

Don closed his eyes, tried to find words that wouldn't make him sound like a complete tosser. "Her parents wanted to meet me. Black tie, proper circus. I couldn't afford the kit, she offered to pay for it, and I..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the air like it might contain the rest of the sentence.

"Ah. Your pride reared its ugly head and promptly galloped off a cliff."

"Something like that." Don risked a glance at Will, who was studying him with that particular expression he got when he was trying to read between the lines. "Turns out being yourself isn't enough sometimes."

Will's face darkened. "She said that to you?"

"Among other things." Don's throat felt tight. "She wasn't wrong, though, was she? I'd have gone to that dinner and said something horrible within the first ten minutes. Probably asked her dad what side he was on during the miners' strike just to watch him choke on his beans."

Will huffed a laugh. "Sounds like a public service, frankly."

"Yeah, but that's not the point, is it? The point is I can't play the game. Don't know the rules, don't want to learn them, and apparently that makes me not fit for polite society."

"Good. The game's rigged anyway. Has been since they invented the concept of proper breeding and decided it had anything to do with actual human worth rather than how many generations of inbreeding your family tree could sustain."

Don felt something unknot slightly in his chest. This was what he'd missed: Will's particular brand of acidic validation, the way he could make Don's worst impulses sound almost noble instead of self-destructive.

"She said I wasn't really there," Don continued, the words spilling out before he could stop them. "Even when we were together, I was somewhere else."

Will went very still. "Were you?"

Don thought about it; the past weeks. About sitting next to Clemsie in the common room, half-listening to her talk about her essay while scanning the room for a familiar shock of dark hair. About dinners where he'd smiled and nodded, Clemsie's voice going tinny in his ears like a radio losing signal, while his mind wandered to what Will might be doing, who he might be with, whether he was eating properly or just surviving on tobacco and spite as usual.

"Maybe," he admitted.

They sat in silence for a moment. Will picked at a loose thread on Don's duvet cover with the focused intensity of a surgeon performing delicate brain surgery.

"I'm sorry," Don blurted. "About before. About everything I said."

Will looked up, mouth a thin line. "Don—"

"No, let me say this." Don pushed himself up on his elbows, suddenly needing to look Will in the eye. "I was a right bastard. Didn't mean half of it. I was just—"

"Hurt," Will finished quietly. "Because I hadn't told you about Miles."

"That's not an excuse—"

"No, but it's a reason. And for what it's worth... I should've told you. Should've trusted you with it instead of assuming you'd react like every other public school wanker you've always defended me from."

Don shook his head. "You don't owe me a bloody status report on your love life."

"Don't I? We're best mates. Were best mates. Are we still?" Will's voice went uncertain at the end, like he was genuinely unsure of the answer.

"'Course we are, you twat." The words came out fiercer than Don had intended, rough with something that might have been desperation. "Christ, Will, you think one stupid fight would change that? After everything?"

Will's shoulders sagged with relief, like he'd been holding his breath for days. "I thought maybe I'd properly fucked it this time."

"You didn't. I did." Don scrubbed his face with his hand. "I saw you with him. On the stairs. And I just... I felt sick. Properly sick. And I thought—God, I thought maybe I was like them. Like the arseholes who gave you and Seymour grief."

Will's fingers stilled on the thread. He didn't look at Don, just stared at his hands like they might contain answers to questions he was afraid to ask. "And now?"

"Now I know I'm not. I mean, I am an arsehole, but not that kind. I was sick because..." Don struggled with the words, trying to articulate something he didn't fully understand himself, like trying to describe a colour to someone who couldn't see it. "Because I hated seeing you happy because of someone else. Which makes me a selfish prick, but not… you know."

Will stared at him for a long moment, unreadable. "You hated seeing me happy?"

"No. Yes. I don't fucking know." Don flopped back against his pillows, a marionette with cut strings. "I just missed you, alright?" It was dizzying, how easy it was to admit it now. "Missed having you around all the time, missed talking to you, missed you taking the piss out of everything I say. And then I saw you with Miles, and it was like... like you'd moved on completely. Like I didn't matter anymore."

"You matter," Will said quietly. "You'll always matter."

Something twisted in Don's chest, sharp and sweet at once. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're stuck with me, Ducky. Whether you like it or not. Lifetime warranty, no returns policy."

The nickname he'd always hated made his face warm now, stupidly comforting in a way that made no logical sense. Don's throat closed.

"I missed you too these past weeks," Will admitted quietly. "Even missed you mocking my jokes."

"They're still shit," Don muttered.

Will grinned; sharp, bright, wicked. Not soft like sunlight, like Clemsie; more like the flare of a lighter in the dark. It lit something in Don, some part of him that had been sitting in darkness for weeks.

They sat there a while, breathing the same air again, until Don found himself spilling the whole miserable saga: the dinner invite, the argument, the unspoken gaps that had been widening for months before that, like continental drift. Will listened, interjecting just enough to make Don laugh despite himself, his commentary growing increasingly elaborate and ridiculous.

When the words ran out, Will leaned back against the headboard, his thigh pressed against Don's shoulder, looking oddly thoughtful.

"You know," he said eventually, "I've been thinking about Clemsie's parting shot. The bit about you not being there. I think she was right."

"Cheers, really helpful."

"Not like that, you clot. She was right, but not for the reasons she thought." Will turned to look at him properly. "I think you weren't there because you were too busy pretending. Playing at being the sort of lad who would own a dinner jacket and say things like marvellous claret, Sir—"

"What's a claret?"

"Playing at being the kind of person," Will continued, undeterred, "who belongs with someone like Clemsie Lawrence."

Don frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Will said, with the air of someone explaining basic arithmetic to a particularly slow child, "you’ve been breaking your back trying to prove you fit somewhere you never even wanted to. You're not a black-tie dinner sort of person, Ducky. You're the kind who stands up for someone even when it gets you in trouble, or tells jokes that would get you expelled if anyone else heard them." He waved his hand vaguely. "You can't fake your way through a canapé party to save your life. And thank God for that. It's the only reason you're tolerable."

Don stared at him. "So you think being a social disaster's my best quality?"

Will's mouth quirked. "Not sanding off your rough edges to please a Lawrence family dinner is your best quality. Even if you do trip over them sometimes. It's one of the things I—" He stopped, jaw tightening for a second. "It's why I keep you around."

It was said lightly, but Don felt it to the bone. He shoved his face into the pillow before Will could see the grin tugging at his mouth, stupid and giddy, something like relief sinking into every part of him.

It was way past curfew by now; St. Peregrine's was silent around them except for the sound of their radiator clanking like a dying ghost.

"I should let you sleep," Will said, making as if to rise.

"Don't." The word came out rough, more desperate than he meant. "I mean... stay. Just 'til I drop off."

Will's face went soft, losing all its sharp edges. "Of course."

He settled against the headboard again, slipping into some story about his cousin who used to sleepwalk into the most ridiculous places. Don let the sound wash over him, familiar, steady, his body loosening by degrees.

"Will?" he mumbled, eyes heavy already.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming. Even though we've been fighting."

"Always, Ducky," Will said quietly, and Don thought he might have imagined the way his voice caught slightly on the nickname. "Always."

Will was gone when Don woke up the next morning, but the bed on the other side had clearly been slept in, and on Don's nightstand was a note in familiar, elegant script: Went to breakfast. Meet me in the library later if you want. Try not to have any more emotional crises before lunch. - W

* * *

Don did head to the library later and found Will exactly where he'd expected: sprawled in the armchair by the classics section, legs hooked over one arm, book balanced precariously on his chest. His satchel sat against the chair leg, slouching open a little to reveal a jumble of clothes and the familiar blue handle of his toothbrush.

Don's chest did a ridiculous little lurch. He tried to flatten it, cleared his throat and dropped into the opposite chair with studied casualness, like he hadn't been thinking about this moment for weeks.

"Back in with me, then?" Don nodded toward the satchel.

Will's eyes flicked up. He smiled, but there was something off-kilter about it, like a candle guttering. "Perceptive as ever."

"That sit right with Miles?" Don asked, keeping his tone as casual as possible, which turned out to be not very casual at all.

Will's fingers stilled on the page. For half a second, his face went flat, wiped of expression. "Haven't asked."

Don blinked. "But… you and him…?" Don gestured vaguely towards the satchel, unsure how to finish the question without sounding like he was prying. Which he absolutely was.

"We're not." Will's voice was clipped, final as a door slamming. He turned back to his book as if the matter were closed.

Relief hit Don first, quick and dirty, like a jolt to the gut. Then the sickness came on its heels. What sort of mate got glad about this? Will had patiently sat with him through his own mess, and here he was, near grinning at Will's. Even though Will looked fractured around the edges, like he was holding himself together through sheer bloody-mindedness.

"Right." Don waited for elaboration. When none came, he tried again. "Something happen? You seemed pretty keen on each other."

Will's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Things change."

"That's not really an answer, is it?"

"It's the answer you're getting for now, Ducky." There was something in Will's voice—not quite pleading, but close. A note that said not yet instead of not ever.

Don studied Will's profile: the stubborn set of his mouth, the way his knuckles had gone white around his book. Brittle. Like one prod in the wrong place and he'd crack straight down the middle.

"Alright," Don said, after a beat. "For now."

Will shot him a quick sideways glance, as if surprised by the easy capitulation. Some of the tension leaked out of his shoulders.

"Trust me, it's all terribly cliché and humiliating. You'd only laugh."

"There we go. Back to being a prick. I was starting to worry you'd been replaced by a pod person."

Will's mouth twitched. "Pod people have better posture," he said primly.

They let the silence settle between them after that, the comfortable kind. Don pulled out his History essay, if you could call it that. At the moment it looked like the work of someone who'd spent the last few weeks having emotional breakdowns instead of paying attention to lectures about steam engines.

Will lasted all of thirty seconds watching him struggle before sighing dramatically.

"Right, give it here before you give yourself an aneurysm."

"I'm not—"

"You've spelled 'bourgeoisie' three different ways, none of them legal. Hand it over."

Don shoved the paper at him with what was definitely not relief. Will skimmed it with the horrified fascination of someone rubbernecking a car crash.

"Good grief, Ducky. This is tragic even by your standards."

"I've had a lot on my mind, alright," Don muttered.

"Clearly. The plight of the working class apparently wasn't one of those things." Will was already uncapping his red pen, scribbling mercilessly in the margins. "This bit here—machines improved the life of families—did Dickens write Oliver Twist for laughs, then? While orphans skipped through meadows picking daisies?"

Don rolled his eyes. "The textbook—"

"The textbook was written by Tory vampires who think child labour built character." Will slashed another paragraph to ribbons. "Christ, Ducky, I know you know better than this dreck. You've lived it."

That pulled something hot and fierce out of Don's chest, half anger, half defiant pride. He launched into a rant about pit closures and how his granddad had coughed himself to death on coal dust, about how his mum's hands were still scarred from the factory job she'd worked before he was born. About how every posh historian seemed to forget that progress meant people like his family got fed into those machines and spat out broken.

Will listened silently, his elbow leaning on the arm of the chair, chin propped in his palm. Eyes fixed on Don like he had nowhere better to be. "There," he said when Don finally ran out of steam. "That's history. Not the propaganda in your textbook. That's what goes on the page."

And just like that, they were back. Will lounging sideways in his chair, laying into every sentence like he was cross-examining it in court. Don throwing back half-serious protests, defending his phrasing, adding scraps of memory to fill the gaps. The words ran on without snagging, their back-and-forth as familiar as breathing, a pattern they’d fallen into a hundred times before.

When they finally packed up and wandered back to the dorms, Don's essay was covered in red ink but at least resembled coherent thought.

"Want to hang out for a while?" Will asked as they reached their floor. His tone was casual, but his eyes flicked sideways. "Put some music on. We still have two hours until dinner."

Don tried not to look pathetically pleased. "Yeah, alright."

Their room looked different to him somehow. Smaller maybe, or just more complete with both beds occupied again. Will's jacket hung over his desk chair once more, the snuff tin was back in its place on the nightstand. Will went straight for the record player once he'd finished unpacking, carefully inching a vinyl out of its sleeve.

"This one's brilliant," he said, settling the needle with practiced precision.

The opening chords unfurled into the room, sweet and melancholy. Will collapsed onto his bed, arms behind his head, eyes closed like he was receiving communion. Don perched at his desk, pen in hand, and got about three words into revising his essay before giving up to watch Will instead.

He'd missed this. Their shared space. The way Will hummed along under his breath, completely unselfconscious. The way he'd occasionally mutter commentary about the lyrics to Don in hushed tones, or reach for his journal to scribble something down without breaking the spell of the music.

Don's gaze snagged on his throat, the angle of his shoulders, the line of his wrist. Something stirred inside him, a flutter of awareness he'd been steadfastly ignoring for months. He forced his eyes back to his essay, heart doing something irregular behind his ribs.

"This bit," Will murmured, eyes still shut. "The way he drags out cemetery gates. It's like he's tasting the words."

Don swallowed, hard. "Yeah." His pen wasn't moving.

Will cracked one eye. "You alright? You look like you're planning to elope with Morrissey."

"Just thinking."

"What about?"

About how I've spent the last month feeling like I was missing a limb and didn't realize which one until now. About how your mouth moves when you sing along.

"Nothing important," Don said.

Will's gaze lingered, something unreadable there, then he shut his eyes again. "Good. Thinking never did you any favours."

The record spun on. Outside, twilight gathered against the windows, wrapping the school in familiar shadow. Don felt himself exhale properly for the first time in weeks. Whatever had broken between them was knitting back together, slow and stubborn.

He knows he should've been thinking about Clemsie; the hurt in her voice, the way she'd looked at him like he'd disappointed her in some fundamental way. There was genuine ache there, sharp around the edges when he let himself feel it. But it dulled under the warm weight of Will's attention, like light through glass, magnified and burning.

Relief, sharper than grief.

* * *

The first Saturday afternoon of the semester holidays found them wandering through the village like they'd tunneled out of prison, giddy with temporary freedom. Don had forgotten how different Will looked away from school, less guarded, more himself. He'd swapped his uniform for worn jeans and a jumper that was clearly designed for someone twice his width, sleeves pushed up to his elbows despite the February chill.

"Right," Will announced, stopping abruptly outside the charity shop. "Let's step in and see if they have any good books."

"You bought three last week."

"And read two. The third was rubbish. Some American trying to be Kerouac but lacking both the talent and the pharmaceutical assistance." Will pushed through the shop door with the determination of a man on a mission. "I'm in withdrawal. Might start hallucinating."

Don followed, breathing in the familiar cocktail of old paper and other people's cast-off lives. Will made a beeline for the literature section while Don wandered toward the records, flicking past the usual suspects—Cliff Richard, Cliff Richard, Cliff Richard, oh look, Cliff bloody Richard. Was there a law in the '70s that every household had to sacrifice shelf space for him?

"Ducky!"

Will was crouched by the poetry shelf, practically vibrating with excitement. He held up a slim volume, its cover the colour of weak tea.

"First edition Larkin. The Whitsun Weddings. Sixty-four. Two quid. Do you understand the cosmic injustice of this? This is like finding the Crown Jewels in a car boot sale."

Don peered over his shoulder. The thing looked like every other sad paperback in the shop, but Will was holding it as if it might disintegrate in his hands.

"Good, then?"

"Good?" Will stared at him, aghast. "This is Grail-level. Listen to this—" He flipped through pages, then cleared his throat and began to read in a voice gone quiet and careful.

Don caught maybe half the meaning, something about trains and weddings and the way people looked at each other. But the words weren't the point. It was the way Will delivered them, lips curling precise around each syllable, voice dropping soft on certain lines like he was telling a secret. Will's enthusiasm was infectious, spreading through the dusty air between them like warmth from a radiator.

"See?" Will finished, eyes alight. "Brilliant, right?"

"It's... nice," Don admitted. "Not in the mushy way, just—he actually saw them. All those people, just ordinary as you like, and he makes it sound like it matters. Guess it does, if you're paying attention."

For a second Will just looked at him, the book loose in his hands. Then his grin tilted sly. "There's hope for you yet, Ducky. An actual insight. Alert the presses." The look he gave Don was warmer than the words, proud in a way that made Don want to squirm.

They queued up behind an elderly woman buying a fondue set and a ceramic cat that looked like it had seen better decades. Will clutched his book like someone might wrestle it off him, chattering about imagery while Don nodded along amiably.

"Oh, Ducky," Will said suddenly, "would you mind grabbing me some of those pens? The decent ones by the right of the door."

Don wandered over to the counter, selecting a handful of pens that looked like they might actually write instead of just leaking optimistically. When he turned back, Will had already paid for the book with the triumph of someone who'd just pulled off a heist.

Outside, Will immediately got out his cigarettes and offered the pack. Don took one, their fingers brushing briefly as he handed the lighter over. A nothing moment, ordinary as tap water, but something about the contact made Don's skin prickle with awareness. He shoved his hands in his pockets like he could bury the feeling.

"Food," Will announced with a tone that brooked no argument. "I'm starving. And dusty."

They ended up at the chippy, steaming portions wrapped in yesterday's news. Council elections and missing cats. Will insisted on walking to the little park behind the church, claiming he needed proper air to appreciate his chips, though Don suspected he just wanted to smoke without Mrs. Bailey from the post office conducting her usual disapproving surveillance.

The park was nearly deserted, just two ducks conducting a vicious custody battle over a bread crust. Don and Will claimed the least damp bench and unwrapped their food, the sting of vinegar in the air.

"God, I'd forgotten how good proper chips are," Will mumbled around a mouthful. "School food is designed to crush the human spirit."

"Your spirit seems pretty uncrushed to me."

"Hidden reserves of stubborn bastardry," Will said loftily. "Also, I've been pilfering biscuits out of your care packages. Do send your mum my regards."

Don laughed—really laughed, the kind that left his ribs sore. He couldn't remember the last time. Probably pre–Miles-ageddon.

"There he is," Will said, pleased as punch. "Thought you'd forgotten how. You've been doing this weird little chuckle that makes you sound like Houseman. Chilling."

"Piss off." But Don was still smiling, face warm despite the February air.

They ate, traded insults, drifted into bigger things without noticing. Don found himself talking about the time Clemsie had dragged him to Chez Etienne as he dunked his chips into sauce with his fingers, of how he'd been so terrified of using the wrong knife he'd barely tasted the food.

"Ah yes. Can't have the working classes eating their salmon with the wrong implement. Next thing you know, they'll be demanding representation in parliament."

"Pretty sure we already have that."

"Do you though? When's the last time you saw someone like your mum in the House of Commons?" Will gestured with his cigarette, ember flaring in the thin winter sun. His eyes flashed as he warmed to the rant.

Don watched him, words sticking in his throat. The light caught his irises, making them look almost translucent, pale as the February sky.

"You think too much," Don said finally. "Makes the rest of us look bad."

"Tough. Thinking's my only marketable skill."

"I thought it was resembling a very tall scarecrow."

"I'm perfectly average height." Will looked genuinely offended.

"Right, and I'm the Queen Mother."

They spiraled from there, arguing proportions, accusing each other of being designed by someone who'd only heard descriptions of human anatomy secondhand. By the time they licked the last of the salt from their fingers, both were wheezing with laughter.

On the walk back, as the streetlights slowly winked on, Don caught himself stealing glances at Will's profile, cataloguing details. Like the way he moved with that particular combination of grace and accident-prone awkwardness, all sharp angles and sudden gestures like he was constantly surprised by his own limbs. When Will suddenly grabbed his arm to point out a particularly hideous garden gnome, Don jumped, felt the contact like electricity, warm and immediate and completely disproportionate to the situation.

"Sorry," Will said, dropping his hand with the speed of someone who'd touched a hot stove. "Got overexcited about ceramic lawn ornaments. Sign of a tragically misspent youth."

"No, it's..." Don cleared his throat, which had gone inexplicably tight. "It's fine."

But Will's touch seemed to linger on his sleeve, phantom warmth that made Don hyperaware of the space between them as they walked. When had the simple act of walking beside him become something that required conscious effort not to think about?

They were almost back at the school gates when Will stopped suddenly, patting down his satchel with the frantic energy of someone who'd lost their keys.

"Nearly forgot. I got you something."

He produced a small paper bag, slightly crumpled from being carried around all afternoon. Inside was a paperback, the cover a sepia image of a half-drunk glass, an ash tray, a spill encircling both. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, it said.

"It's not your usual thing," Will said quickly, suddenly awkward. "But I thought of you. I thought it was good."

Don turned the book over in his hands, throat closing around words he couldn't find. Was this why Will had sent him to get the pens? So he wouldn’t see him buy this? It wasn't the book itself, though it looked interesting enough. It was that Will had seen it and thought Don would like this.

"Cheers," Don managed. "I'll give it a go."

"You don't have to if you think it's rubbish. It won't break my heart."

"Said I would, didn't I."

Will's smile was quick, bright, and gone again. "Good, then."

They walked through the gates together, the paperback a secret weight in Don's pocket. He felt as if something underneath had shifted, tectonic plates moving beneath his feet while he was distracted by the surface of things.

* * *

The nightmares still came occasionally, of course.

Don woke choking on the taste of underground air, sweat gluing his shirt to his back like cling film. For a moment he was back in the tunnels; the hiss of gas, the press of earth, Woody Chapman splitting open like rotten fruit. He sat up fast, kicking off the duvet that suddenly felt unbearable.

"You too, eh?"

Don nearly jumped clean out of his skin. Will's voice, cool and amused, drifting from the other bed like cigarette smoke.

"Christ, Will. Put a bloody bell on."

"Sorry, Ducky. Didn't realize you had the monopoly on sleeplessness."

Don huffed, half laugh, half death rattle. The room reeked of radiator heat and stale sweat.

"The anniversary's tomorrow," Will said, words dropping into darkness like stones down a well.

Don hadn't realized Will was keeping track. He should have known. Will kept track of everything that hurt, filed it away in that brain of his like evidence in a case that would never go to trial.

"Yeah. 15th March."

"The Ides of March. How dramatically appropriate." Will's voice had that particular brittleness it got when he was trying to joke away something that wasn't remotely funny. "Caesar got stabbed. We got giant carnivorous moles. History rhymes, as they say. Usually badly."

"Trust you to compare us to Julius bloody Caesar. We're not that special, mate. Just a couple of idiots who nearly got eaten."

They settled back into silence. Outside, something that might have been an owl was having what sounded like an existential crisis.

"D'you ever wonder what would've happened if we hadn't gone back for Smudger?" Don asked eventually, voice thick with something that might have been sleep or might have been dread.

"I try not to." Will's admission was quiet, almost lost in the darkness. "We did go back. That's what matters."

Don thought of it anyway, how relief had cut through terror when he'd learned Smudger was Clemsie's brother, not her boyfriend. Pure and selfish. Funny how simple feelings could coexist with the prospect of imminent death by giant rodent.

"Hargreaves wrote me a letter," Will said.

"A letter? What is this, the 1800s?"

Will ignored him. "He’s planning on Cambridge. Archaeology."

Don blinked. "From nearly being mole chow to digging up old pots?"

"Apparently he wants to prevent any future generations from accidentally unleashing subterranean nightmares. Very noble."

"Smart lad."

"Deeply traumatized, more like. But at least he’s channeling it productively. Quite admirable, really." Will tilted his head, thoughtful. "Wootton, on the other hand, won’t even take the Tube now. Surface transport only. Poor sod. Can't blame him, really."

The image of nervous little Wootton emerging from a London Underground station like it was the mouth of hell, pale and sweating, struck Don as both tragic and darkly hilarious. They'd all carried something out of that night, but each in their own crooked shape.

"Remember when Clegg tried to feed us to them?" Will said suddenly. "Right at the end? Still can't believe that twat thought he could negotiate with them."

"Negotiate's a generous word for what he was doing."

"True. More like offering us up as hors d'oeuvres while he attempted to leg it. Very him, really. Hierarchies all the way down to the centre of the earth."

Don rolled onto his side, facing the shadowed outline of Will's bed. Something about the darkness made questions easier to ask.

"Think he felt it? At the end?"

"God, I hope so." The viciousness in Will's voice was startling, even muffled by darkness. "After what he did to Seymour—what he did to me, to all of us—I hope those moles savoured every bloody bite."

The raw hatred startled Don. He'd seen Will angry plenty—Christ, he'd been on the receiving end—but this felt different.

"He's been dead a year."

"I know." Will's voice went softer, but only just. "I know that. But sometimes I still wake up fantasizing about killing him myself. Pathetic, isn't it? Holding a grudge against someone who's already been converted to fertilizer."

"Not pathetic." Don found himself wanting to reach across the narrow space between their beds, to offer something more than words. Instead, he pressed his palm flat against his mattress, anchoring himself in place. "Bastard had it coming."

Will let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

"Did he, though? I mean, objectively speaking, being consumed alive by subterranean apex predators does seem rather excessive punishment for standard-issue sociopathy."

"You don't really believe that."

Will was quiet for so long Don thought he'd fallen asleep. Then: "No, I don't. I'm delighted he's dead. I'm glad it was agonizing. And if that damns me, so be it. I can live with that particular moral compromise."

The honesty in the words squeezed Don's throat. Nights like these stripped everything down to bone and truth. Things that couldn't survive daylight.

"Remember when Clemsie catapulted one of them through a window with the Bat's Skoda?" Don offered, steering them toward safer ground; the kind of horror they could laugh about instead.

"Oh God." Will's laugh sounded genuinely delighted. "Peak Lawrence. Weaponizing a hatchback."

"Nearly pissed meself."

"To be fair, Ducky, so did half of us."

"You didn't."

"I was too terrified to produce any bodily functions. Complete system shutdown."

Don grinned into his pillow. "You were brilliant, though. When you started yelling about using my tie I thought you'd finally snapped."

"Desperate times, desperate haberdashery. Though you're the one who remembered Seymour's lighter."

The words landed heavier than Will had probably intended. Don saw it again in perfect, painful detail: Will's hands shaking as he pulled that tiny silver thing from his pocket—the last piece of Seymour he had left—and let Don hurl it into the gas without hesitation.

"Must've been hard," Don said carefully. "Giving it up."

Will didn't reply immediately. When he did, his voice had gone flat, stripped of its usual performance. "It was merely a lighter. Piece of metal and flint, nothing more."

"No, it wasn't."

Another pause, longer this time. Then, barely audible: "No. It wasn't."

Don wanted to say more, something smart maybe, about sacrifice, about how bloody brave Will had been then. But the words wouldn't come. Too big for even the dark.

Instead, he said: "We shouldn't have made it out alive, you know."

"Statistically speaking, no. We're lucky bastards. Could be mole manure right now."

"Lucky. Right." Don shifted again, restless. "Sometimes I think about if we had died there. Nobody would've believed it."

"They would have come up with something rational. Gas leak. Feral badgers. Parents would sue, newspapers would tut, and the school would keep running."

"Producing the next generation of Matthew Cleggs. Yeah."

"Exactly. The world's better off without it."

They fell quiet, and he knew they were both picturing the tunnels still humming below, monsters dreaming in the dark.

"Reckon they're still down there?" Don asked.

"Of course they are. Waiting for the next idiot with a drill. Probably have mole schools. Mole prefects. Mole Cleggies."

"Mole cricket. Mole parents sending mole kids to mole Cambridge."

"Somewhere underground a mole boy is being shoved into a burrow."

Don snorted, helpless. That was Will, taking terror and twisting it until it came out funny, bearable.

"You're mental," he said fondly.

"Certifiably. But you're still talking to me, so I'd examine your own psychological state before casting stones."

"Fair point. Half two in the morning, talking bollocks about mole schools. We're both cracked."

"Undoubtedly."

The quiet that followed felt different, cleaner somehow, like they'd lanced something that had been festering. Don traced patterns in the ceiling shadows with his eyes, aware of Will doing the same. Both of them processing the strange arithmetic of survival, the guilt and relief of being the ones who made it out.

"Ducky?"

"Mm."

"I'm glad you came back for me. That night."

Don turned his head. In the thin wash of moonlight, Will's profile was just visible, all angles. Something seized inside him, sharp and overwhelming.

Words crowded his mouth, dangerous ones. Instead he swallowed them and said softly: "Me too."

But his heart was hammering like he was back there, running through those tunnels with death snapping at their heels. Only this time, he wasn't sure what he was running from.

* * *

They were in their room. Nothing strange about it. Will at his desk, pen moving quick and sharp across a page, muttering half-curses at an essay. Don stretched across his bed with a magazine he wasn't really reading, listening to the scratch of the nib, the way Will sometimes clicked his tongue when a phrase pleased him.

"Bloody Henry," Will muttered around the chewed end of his pen. "Half a dozen corpses, and I'm the one paying for it in essay form."

"Could probably get a thousand words out of that alone," Don said, not looking at the page in front of him, not really. His eyes kept drifting to Will's mouth, the faint smudge of ink on his thumb where it pressed against his lower lip.

Will huffed a laugh. "Don't be clever. It doesn't suit you."

He glanced up then, grin flashing, and Don felt something catch low in his stomach. He'd seen Will grin a thousand times, but tonight—was it even night? The light slanted through the curtains wrong, gold and heavy like paint—tonight it did something different to him.

Will looked back down at his essay, said something under his breath—probably about Cromwell or beheadings—and Don laughed automatically. The laugh seemed to echo, folding back into the room like water finding its level.

When Don looked at him again, Will was already watching him. A long, steady gaze that didn't break, didn't falter. The air between them stretched taut as wire.

Don shifted, uneasy. "What?"

"Nothing," Will said. His voice was pitched low, almost amused. But he didn't look away. The room held its breath.

Don blinked. He hadn't seen Will move, but there he was by the radiator instead, as if the air had simply rearranged him. Legs stretched out, head tipped back like he was sunbathing in the lamplight. One hand lay on his chest, rising and falling with each breath. His jumper had slouched low at the collar, exposing the long line of his throat, the hollow at the base where his pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.

Don's mouth went dry. Something in his stomach tightened, sudden and unfamiliar and hungry.

"You alright?" Don asked, and the words sounded muffled, thick as honey.

"Fine," Will murmured, though his voice carried strangely, soft and close, like he'd spoken right beside Don's ear despite the distance between them.

Don meant to look back at his magazine. He didn't. Couldn't. Every detail sharpened instead: the scatter of freckles faint across Will's nose, the dark curls falling over his temple, the way his lips parted just slightly as if waiting for something. As if he knew what was coming.

Don felt his body responding before his mind could catch up, blood rushing hot and insistent, pooling low in his belly. His skin felt too tight, electric with—something.

"Ducky," Will said, very quietly. His eyes were silver in the impossible light.

Don's pulse thumped against his ribs, quick and heavy, so loud he half-worried Will could hear it echoing in the strange acoustics of this room that was their room but wasn't, not quite. Heat was crawling up his neck, gathering under his skin like fever, spreading lower with each heartbeat.

Will sat up slowly, deliberately, as though the air itself resisted him. The movement was liquid, and Don watched it happen with a desperate helplessness. A moment later he felt the dip of the mattress, though Will hadn't moved from the floor. The room folded in on itself.

Something in Don lurched, gravitational. His whole body seemed to lean forward without his permission, drawn by some invisible force that made his bones ache with proximity.

Will was beside him now—when had that happened? Close enough that Don could see the flutter of his dark lashes, the quick bob of his throat as he swallowed. Don's skin burned where their thighs brushed, a shock that spread outward in ripples, lighting up nerve endings he'd forgotten he had. His whole body was awake in a way it had never been before, every inch of him tuned to Will's nearness like a radio finding its frequency.

Will's hand pressed against Don's chest, palm flat, not pushing away. Just there. Heavy and fragile at once, like it might leave a print under his ribs. Don's heartbeat knocked against it, frantic and obvious, and he wondered dimly if Will could feel how fast he was falling apart.

The radiator ticked like a metronome, keeping time with something Don couldn't name. He could feel Will's thumb ghost against his collarbone through the thin cotton of his shirt, such a small touch, but it lit him up like gas meeting flame. Blood rushed in hot, insistent waves, pooling heavy between his legs until he was aching with it, the sensation so intense it bordered on pain.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Don admitted, and his voice came out raw, desperate. His forehead brushed Will's, close enough to taste his breath.

"Neither do I." Will's lashes trembled like moth wings. "But I know I want—"

The words cut off, lost in the space between them. Inches, then less than that. Don felt the warmth of Will's exhale against his mouth, sweet and sharp like the promise of rain. His body was singing now, every cell alive and wanting, the ache so intense he thought he might die from it. He'd never felt anything like this, this desperate, clawing need that made his hands shake and his vision blur at the edges.

Will's lips were so close Don could see the fine lines in them, could imagine how soft they'd be, how they'd taste of tobacco. The room spun slowly around them and Don thought he might actually combust if he didn't close that last breath of distance, if he didn't—

He woke like drowning: sudden, gasping, pulled up from golden depths into cold reality.

The room was dark. Properly dark. No acrylic light, no fractal space, just the radiator clicking as it cooled and the ordinary shadows of their ordinary dormitory. Don lay flat on his back, heart punching against his ribs like it was trying to break free. Sweat cooled on his chest, under his arms. Worse—Christ, so much worse—he was achingly, obviously hard, straining against his pajama bottoms in a way that made his face burn with mortification.

He didn't move. Didn't breathe. Across the room, Will's breathing was steady and deep, completely undisturbed. Finally asleep after their conversation. Unaware that Don had just dreamt about his mouth, his hands, the imagined heat of his skin.

Don bit down on his tongue hard enough to taste copper, trying to stop the spiral of thoughts before they could drag him under. It was just a dream, he told himself desperately. Just his brain misfiring, processing stress in fucked-up ways. Nothing real.

But even as he tried to convince himself, his body was still buzzing with the memory of it. The phantom weight of Will's hand on his chest. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and sink back into that golden-lit space where wanting Will felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Don rolled onto his side, pressing his face into the pillow to muffle the sound that wanted to escape his throat. For the first time since Slaughterhouse, he had a dream he wouldn't be sharing with Will in the morning.

* * *

Don woke to his alarm feeling like someone had bricked him in the face. Shower, clothes, books—he managed it all on autopilot, muttering "knackered, didn't sleep" when Will asked why he looked half-dead. Not technically a lie. Just omitted the part about the dream. The extremely normal, completely heterosexual dream about his best mate's mouth.

Christ, he was losing it.

He kept his head down at breakfast, staring at his toast like it might impart ancient wisdom on how to be a functioning human instead of a psychological car crash. If he didn't look at Will, if he just kept chewing like a cow in a field, then there was no way Will could possibly guess that Don's subconscious had staged a full-blown mutiny overnight.

Will, mercifully, decided not to interrogate, even if he did give him a few strange glances. He filled the silence on the way to class with his usual running commentary on everything from the weather (aggressively uninspiring) to their History teacher's new haircut (like he asked the barber for 'give me something that says I've given up on life but still have to face teenagers every day').

Don nodded, managed to look vaguely human, even laughed once or twice. He avoided Will's profile like it was the sun: liable to burn him blind if he stared too long.

The problem was his mind kept doing this replay thing. Like a broken record skipping back to the same groove, except the groove was Will's voice saying "Ducky" in that soft way that had made Don's stomach flip inside out, and the skipping was happening roughly every thirty seconds.

Normal thoughts, Don told himself firmly as they settled into their Latin lesson. Think normal thoughts. Football. The weather. Whether Mrs. Anderson's moustache is getting thicker.

And then Will shifted in his seat, or reached for his pen, and Don's treacherous brain immediately supplied the sensation of a hand pressing to his chest, heat bleeding through his shirt.

By lunch, Don was convinced he was having some sort of delayed breakdown. Post-traumatic stress, maybe. That had to be it.

He was in the middle of stress cleaning when he found Clemsie's earring under his bed while hunting for a missing sock.

Small silver thing, probably cost more than Don's entire outfit. Must have fallen off weeks ago during one of those study sessions where she'd draped herself across his bed like she owned the place, making clever little observations he'd half-enjoyed, half-endured. Don stared at it in his palm like it might detonate, feeling obligation settle heavily on his shoulders.

He could just chuck it in a drawer. Pretend he'd never found it. But that felt properly dickish, didn't it? Even for him.

Twenty minutes later, he was standing outside her door with sweaty palms and a growing certainty that this was a terrible idea.

"Don?" Clemsie blinked at him when the door opened, clearly surprised. Her hair was scraped back in a messy ponytail instead of its usual careful arrangement, and she was wearing an old shirt that was too big for her. She looked... normal. Like a person instead of a photograph.

"Found this," he said, holding out the earring like evidence in a criminal trial. "Under my bed. Thought you might, you know. Want it back."

"Oh!" Her whole face brightened. "I've been looking everywhere for this. Thank you." She took it, and their fingers brushed briefly; just skin touching skin, nothing electric about it at all, which was somehow both reassuring and deeply unsettling.

"Do you want to come in? I was just making tea."

Don hesitated. They hadn't actually talked since their spectacular blow-up, just exchanged stiff nods in corridors like distant acquaintances. But she looked tired, and something in her expression reminded him of why he'd liked her before everything went to shit.

"Yeah. Alright."

Her room was immaculate as always, books arranged in neat piles, bed made with military precision. Don perched on the chair by her desk while she fussed with the kettle, trying not to look at the photographs scattered across her dresser. Especially the one from Halloween, where his arm was slung around her shoulders and they were both grinning like idiots who thought they had it all figured out.

"How have you been?" she asked, settling cross-legged on her bed with two steaming mugs, passing one to him.

"Fine. You?"

"Fine."

They looked at each other for a beat, then both let out slightly hysterical laughs.

"This is spectacularly awkward," Clemsie said.

"Yeah, well. We're spectacular people." Don scalded his tongue on the tea just to shut himself up. "Fuck. Sorry."

"Don, I've heard you swear before."

"Right. Yeah."

The silence stretched again. Don found himself cataloguing things that stayed the same (the way she'd organized her textbooks by size rather than subject, the fact that she'd kept the terrible mug he'd made for her on the pottery drop-in day they had gone to, mixed in with her proper china) and things that were different (a few more posters, a bed spread he didn’t recognize).

"I keep wanting to tell you things," Clemsie said suddenly. "Stupid things. Like when Morrison wore that hideous tie, or when I saw a dog that looked exactly like Mr. Chips. And then I remember I can't—that I don't get to anymore."

Don's chest did something complicated. "Yeah," he said quietly. "That’s the shit bit, innit? All the little things."

She just looked at him, eyes shining.

He cleared his throat, fumbling. "Listen, Clemsie, about what I said that night—"

"Don't." She shook her head. "We both said things. I wasn't exactly charitable either."

He almost argued, then thought better of it. No point raking over the wreckage.

Clemsie was quiet for a long moment, studying his face. "What we had was real," she said finally. "Maybe not... not the forever kind of real, but real enough. I don't want you thinking otherwise."

"I know." And he did, which was the weird part. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I did care. Still do. Just not the right way, I s'pose."

"Yeah." She smiled, small and sad but genuine. "I think I knew that before you did, if I'm being honest." There wasn't accusation in it. Just fact.

"We could try being mates," he offered. "Maybe. Eventually. When it doesn't feel so weird."

"I'd like that." Her mouth curved a little less frail. "You're not a terrible person, Don Wallace. Just a bit thick sometimes."

"Cheers. Stick that on my gravestone."

They finished their tea with safer topics: their classes, their teachers, their shared acquaintances. For a moment it almost felt like old times. Don was actually starting to relax when Clemsie walked him to the door.

Then she said it, casual as anything.

"How's Will?"

Heat flooded his face so fast he probably looked like a traffic light. "He's—what? Why?"

"Just wondering." Clemsie tilted her head. "You two had that big row a while back, didn't you?"

"We're fine," Don said quickly. Too quickly. His voice came out higher than normal. "Completely fine. Normal. Everything's normal."

"Right," Clemsie said slowly, and Don could see her brain working, her curiosity sparking at his defensiveness. "Well, I'm glad. You're better when you're with him."

Don mumbled something, anything, and all but bolted down the corridor, ears roaring, nearly colliding with a passing first-year.

You're better when you're with him.

The words chased him down the corridor like hunting dogs. She hadn't meant it to stick under his skin. But it lodged there anyway, humming like a live wire.

By the time he reached his room, Don was practically sweating through his shirt. He shut the door and leaned against it like he was barricading himself in. Trying not to think about a warm thigh against his own, Will's voice saying his name like it meant something else.

Don pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw stars, trying to drown out the images with static. He was not having some sort of crisis about his best mate. He was stressed and probably sleep-deprived. Nothing more.

Perfectly normal. Completely explainable.

…Except it wasn't. And he was so, so fucked.

* * *

Don was still slumped against the door, palms pressed flat against the wood as if he could hold the whole world out with his own two hands, when footsteps echoed in the corridor. Familiar ones, measured, slightly impatient, a rhythm Don could pick out blindfolded.

The handle rattled. He scrambled away like a guilty man caught.

"Ducky?" Will's voice, muffled. Calm, but with that thread of curiosity that always made Don feel like he was about to be cross-examined. "You in there?"

"Yeah. Just—" His voice cracked. Brilliant. He cleared his throat, tried again. "Just give us a sec."

When he opened the door, Will was leaning against the frame, rumpled, windblown, smelling thickly of smoke. That should have been disgusting. Instead, Don's stomach flipped over itself like it had ambitions to qualify for the Olympics. Christ, he was unwell.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." Will brushed past him into the room without waiting for an answer, long limbs collapsing onto his bed with the grace of a dying swan. "Everything alright?"

"Fine." Don winced at how unconvincing it sounded.

Will raised an eyebrow, but didn't dig. He sprawled further across the duvet. "Christ, I'm knackered. Newsagent's was shut, had to traipse all the way up the hill to the station for fags." He fished in his pocket until his fingers closed around his packet. Long, pale fingers, which had been warm against him last night. Don caught himself staring, as if the bones and tendons there were the most interesting thing in the world. He looked away fast, ears hot. He needed therapy. Or an exorcism.

"What've you been up to?" Will tapped a cigarette free, held it loosely between his fingers. "Besides looking like you're about to faint dead away."

Don's mouth went dry. He could lie. Say something neutral—homework, washing, staring at the wall. Instead he heard himself say: "Went to see Clemsie."

Will froze. Cigarette halfway to his mouth, unlit. His face shuttered, like a window slammed in a gale.

"Oh."

Silence thickened, the air in the room gone brittle. Don watched him carefully, trying to read that expression. He wasn't good at reading Will—nobody was, Will saw to that—but something about the tightness around his mouth made Don's chest twist with recognition.

"Right," Will said eventually, too carefully, like he was balancing on a wire strung over open air. "How did that go?"

"Alright. Good, actually." Don sat down on his own bed, the space between them suddenly enormous. "We talked. Properly. First time since… y'know."

"Since the spectacular barney," Will supplied, but his voice was still off.

"Yeah. That." Don hesitated. "Found her earring under my bed. Gave it back."

"How frightfully civilized. Heroic, really. Expect the Nobel." Will's cigarette was still limp between his fingers. He turned it, slow, like he wasn't aware he was doing it. "Are you…" He stopped, cleared his throat. "I mean, did you two…"

"No." Don said it fast, too fast. "God, no. We're done. Properly done. Just…mates. Eventually."

Something eased in Will's face, like a knot loosening, before he yanked the cord tight again. He covered it by striking the lighter—Don's lighter, Don realized distantly; when had he stolen it?—and finally lit the cigarette. He took a long drag, let smoke curl toward the ceiling. "Good. I mean—good you sorted it. Closure, and all that."

"Yeah. Closure." Don watched the smoke ribbon and fade, steeling himself. "Speaking of which…"

Will's eyes flicked to him, pale and wary. "Yeah?"

"You never told me. About Miles. Why you broke up."

The cigarette slipped. Will swore softly, snatching it off his duvet, rubbing at the tiny scorch-mark it left behind. "Christ. Nearly set myself alight."

"Will."

"It's not important." His voice was flat now, drained of everything that made it Will. "Just didn't work out. Tragic, I know. Do pass me my sympathy card."

"But you were happy. And then suddenly you weren't." Don leaned forward, chasing it, even though his gut told him to stop. "What happened?"

Another drag. Long, deliberate. Buying time. Smoke leaked from Will's mouth as he said, "We wanted different things."

"What kind of different things?"

"Don." Not Ducky—Don, sharp-edged, a warning. "Leave it."

"I'm just asking—"

"Well, don't." He stubbed ash with too much force. "Some things are rather private, actually."

The words stung more than they should have. Don felt heat rise in his cheeks, embarrassment mixing with hurt inside him. "Aye, right. My cock-up. Thought we were past that."

Something cracked then, Will's face twisting, raw for a second before it smoothed over again. "That's not— I didn't mean…"

"It's fine." Don stood abruptly, needing to move, needing to burn off the restless energy crawling under his skin. "I should get on with work anyway."

"Ducky, wait." Will's voice was softer now, almost pleading. "It's not that I don't want to tell you. It's just..."

Don turned. Will was watching him with a look Don couldn't place; desperate, like he was stuck on a cliff's edge, nowhere to go.

"It's complicated," Will said finally, barely audible.

"Everything's complicated with you," Don answered, gentler than he'd meant. "Doesn't mean we can't talk about it."

Will let out a sound, half-laugh, half something else entirely.

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah. I do."

Will stared at his hands. When he spoke, his voice was so soft Don almost missed it.

"Why?"

Don's brain offered no easy answer, so he fell back on the obvious. "Because I care about you."

Will's smile was small, crooked.

"You care about me."

"’Course I do. You know that."

"Do I?" Will's eyes lifted to his. They were too bright, wet around the edges, but steady. "Because sometimes I think… sometimes I think you've no idea what you do to people. What you do to me."

The words sparked in Don's chest like a misaimed firework, sudden, scorching, impossible to ignore. His pulse stuttered, then kicked into overdrive.

"Will…" He didn't even know what he was going to say.

"Forget it." Will looked away fast, shutting it down. "I'm tired. Not thinking straight."

Don took a step toward him anyway, then another, until he was close enough to see the tremor in Will's jaw, the smoke curling between his fingers like something alive.

"Just talk to us, will you?" he said quietly.

Will shook his head, eyes fixed anywhere but Don. "Don't."

"Please."

At that Will turned. His face was flushed, his expression flayed open in a way Don had never seen before, caught between defiance and something else, something worse.

He took another drag, exhaled slow, the smoke unfurling like a barricade between them.

"You want to know why I broke up with Miles?" His voice was airy, almost flippant, but there was venom under it. "Because I'm a bloody masochist, apparently."

His mouth twisted into something meant to be a smile, but it showed teeth.

"Miles was good, you know. Better than me. Nice. And still I— Still managed to wreck it."

Don frowned. "Wreck it how?"

"Hard to measure up when you're competing with someone who doesn't even know they're in the race."

Don blinked, trying to parse it. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means he wasn't blind." Will's tone was flat, scorched clean of feeling. "He called me on it, and I couldn't lie. Not well enough, anyway. Better to end it before I hurt him any worse."

He ground his cigarette out against the ashtray with unnecessary force, like he wanted to break something. "That's all there is. Two people who wanted different things."

Frustration surged hot in Don's chest. He felt like he had the pieces but none of the picture. "Will, can't you just… talk straight for once?"

That, bizarrely, made Will laugh. Thin and bitter.

"Very like you. So bloody determined to be straight."

Something huge and nameless loomed inside Don at that, like the shadow of a leviathan rising through dark water.

"Will—"

"You want it straight?" Will said, and he sounded like he was back in the noose. "Miles deserved better than someone who was thinking about his roommate every time they kissed."

It was like a floorboard giving way under his feet, sudden, sickening, nothing to grab hold of. Don's breath tore out of him, ragged, his pulse hammering in his throat so hard it hurt. He could hardly make sense of the heat flooding his chest, his stomach, everywhere. "You—" His voice failed, and he had to try again. "You were thinking about me?" The words sounded too small for the enormity of what they carried.

"Christ, Don," Will said. It came out broken, like his throat refused to let it out whole. "I'm always thinking about you. You're the last thing in my head before sleep, the first thing when I wake." He dragged the back of his hand across his eyes, weary, trembling. "Pathetic, isn't it? Falling in love with my roommate twice, and both times it ends in tragedy."

Don found himself moving before he’d decided to, like something unseen had hooked into his ribs and reeled him forward. The space between them narrowed to nothing; he could smell the lavender soap now, underneath the smoke. Will's shoulders stiffened at the nearness, a twitch like an animal bracing for the trap to spring.

"You're in love with me," Don said, not asking.

Will's laugh was shaky, broke on itself. "You always were slow on the uptake, Ducky."

Don's brain shorted out. Static, blank white noise. His mouth moved uselessly for a moment, but the words just kept ricocheting around his skull, too loud, too bright: I'm always thinking about you. Falling in love with my roommate.

"How long?" he finally croaked, in a voice he barely recognised.

Will's smile was the kind a man wore on the gallows. "Since Slaughterhouse. Long before everything went to hell. Rather too close to the day you arrived, if I'm being honest."

He let out a hollow laugh. "Deplorable. You walk into my room, all nervous and obstinate, and I'm done for. Just like that. And then you had to go and be bloody heroic, didn't you? Saving my worthless hide twice over, like some sort of knight in shining armour. It made it unbearable."

His voice fractured, syllables splintering. "Do you know what it's like, watching the person you're in love with fall for someone else? Watching you moon after Clemsie like a lovesick puppy while I'm trying to convince myself I'm happy for you? Christ, I even liked her. Made it impossible to hate her properly."

He scrubbed both hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. The words poured out as if he'd stopped holding the dam shut. "Wish I could hate you too. The way you leave your books full of crumbs, the way you pretend you don't care about marks and then sulk for hours if you do badly, the way you reek of that godawful body spray and somehow I still want to bury my face in your neck and—"

Something in Don gave way, ruptured clean through. He didn't think. He just surged forward, cupped Will's jaw in both hands, and kissed him. Eyes squeezed shut, breath trembling, nothing held back.

And Christ, it was—good. The feel of him in his hands, against his mouth. Terrifyingly good. Like falling off a cliff with no bottom, every nerve flaring white-hot.

Until he realised Will wasn't kissing him back. Just frozen, rigid under his touch, not even breathing.

Don tore back, gasping. "Will?"

Will's eyes were wide, stricken. His voice was so small Don barely heard it. "Are you…are you taking the piss?"

It nearly gutted him. Because he knew Will meant it. He truly thought Don might have been mocking him. That he wasn't worth anything better.

"Fucking hell, Will," Don breathed, forehead pressed close, his thumbs still trembling against Will's cheekbones. His voice was ragged, uncontainable. "Do I look like I'm taking the piss?"

He could feel himself flushing scarlet, shaking, lips slick with spit. "Because I'm not. I swear I'm not. I want—" He choked on the words. "I want to do that again. And again. And—forever, if you'll let me."

Will stared at him for one taut, unbearable heartbeat. Then another. And then—sharp, decisive—he fisted a hand in Don's collar, yanked him down, and crushed their mouths together.

Lightning. Inside out. Don's knees nearly gave. Will kissed him like a man starved, like he was trying to erase every doubt he'd ever had in the press of his mouth. Don gasped against him, hands tangling in Will's hair and yanking, desperate to get closer, closer.

He knew it was sloppy, all urgency and no finesse, his mouth slanting over Will's again and again. Will's lips were chapped from the cold, rough against Don's, tasting of smoke, and blood where he'd chewed them raw. Don wanted all of it. He wanted to crawl inside him.

Will's mouth opened under his, tongue sliding slick and hot against Don's own, and Don thought dimly that this might actually kill him. The world telescoped down to heat and teeth and breath.

He stumbled when Will pulled him back, chased after his mouth blindly until his knees hit the mattress and then he was toppling sideways, flat on his back with Will straddling his hips.

Will was on him instantly, biting his lip until it stung, and Don made a noise he didn't recognise: low, raw, animal. Will swallowed it like it belonged to him, fisting a hand in Don's hair to hold him still like he might try to escape.

Not bloody likely.

"Christ," Will panted against his mouth, hair falling in his face. His knees dug into the mattress on either side of Don, pinning him helpless. Don had never felt so perfectly, exquisitely trapped. "Christ, Ducky, you have no idea what you do to me."

Don tried to answer but Will was kissing him again before he could form words, open-mouthed and greedy. Spit smeared wetly across Don's chin where their kiss missed its mark, messy and undignified and infinitely better than anything he'd ever imagined.

Will's hips rocked forward slightly, pressing down against Don, and Don gasped into his mouth, hands flying up to grip Will's shoulders. He could feel everything, the sharp jut of Will's hip bones, the heat of him radiating through layers of wool, the way Will's breath hitched when Don's hands slid down and pushed his jumper up.

"Will," Don managed, voice completely wrecked. His hands roamed Will's back, mapping the ladder of his spine, those narrow shoulders trembling underneath his fingers.

Will pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes blown dark, lips swollen and slick. "Do you know how many nights I've wanted this?" His voice was hoarse with truth. "Lying there listening to you breathe, wanting to crawl across the room and—"

Don crushed their mouths together again before he could finish, swallowing the words because they were too much, because if Will said them aloud Don would combust. Their teeth knocked together slightly, neither of them caring, just desperate to be closer, to taste more, to feel everything at once.

It was hot and clumsy and almost too much: Will's hands sliding up his stomach under his shirt, Will's mouth bruising his, all of it bleeding into raw relief, into the wild, delirious knowledge that they finally could.

* * *

The world had gone hushed in the aftermath, just the faint hiss of wind through the gap in the window and the steady thud of Will's heartbeat under Don's ear. His fingers were idly combing through Don's hair, slow and absentminded like he didn't even know he was doing it. Each pass sent a warm, heavy ripple down Don's spine, leaving him boneless.

They were a proper tangle of limbs on Will's narrow bed, clothes askew and rumpled beyond belief. Don could feel the ridge of Will's collarbone pressed against his cheek, sharp and familiar now in a way that made his chest tight. The flutter of Will's pulse where Don's lips brushed his throat, quick and rabbit-soft. Will's thumb was tracing absent patterns on the strip of bare skin at Don's hip—lazy figure-eights, circles, nonsense shapes that made Don's skin prickle with awareness.

"Bloody hell," Don mumbled against the salt-sweet taste of Will's throat, not moving. He felt wrung out, like he'd been tipped upside down and emptied. His mouth still tingled, lips tender and slightly swollen.

"Mm." Will's voice was hoarse, satisfied, vibrating through his chest where Don's ear was pressed. "Quite."

When Don finally lifted his head, Will was a state. Hair sticking in about six different directions, the dark strands soft and mussed where Don's fingers had tangled through them. Lips bitten red and slightly parted, still catching his breath. A bruise was blossoming along his throat, purple-dark against the pale skin, and it made Don flush with idiotic pride. Will looked thoroughly debauched and unbearably pleased about it.

"You look smug," Don said, pushing a wild curl off Will's forehead. The strands were soft between his fingers, slightly damp with sweat, and he marveled at being allowed this, the casual intimacy of touching Will's face, of smoothing down his ridiculous hair.

"I am smug." Will caught his hand before it could retreat, weaving their fingers together with deliberate care. His palm was warm, fingers slightly callused where he held his pens, and Don felt the strange thrill of their hands fitting together like they'd been doing this for years. "I've been fantasizing about this for a long time, and reality exceeded expectations. That never happens."

Don's grin tugged wider than he meant it to, helpless against the satisfaction in Will's voice. "'Course it did. You weren't the one setting the bar, were you? All me."

"Ah, there's that legendary modesty." Will's smile was sharp-edged, delighted. His thumb rubbed slow circles over Don's knuckles, grounding. "Though I suppose when one has just reduced one's paramour to a state of incoherent bliss, a certain degree of swagger is rather warranted."

"Paramour?" Don snorted, but he was grinning, drunk on the way Will was looking at him, fond and ridiculous and completely gone. "Christ, Will. Who talks like that? And when have you ever been incoherent about anything?"

"Cultured individuals with proper vocabularies do," Will replied airily, nose tipped up in mock superiority. "Not that I'd expect you to understand, you absolute barbarian."

Don could feel Will's ribs expand and contract with each breath, the way his chest rumbled slightly when he laughed. The scent of him was everywhere now, cigarettes and that posh soap he used, yes, but underneath it something warmer, more intimate. The smell of skin and sweat and want satisfied. Don wanted to bottle it, keep it forever.

"Still had you begging for it," Don said without thinking, and Will choked on a laugh, shoving his face into Don's shoulder to muffle it. Don felt the vibration of it against his collarbone, the hot puff of Will's breath against his skin. The bed creaked gently underneath them with his movement.

"Good Lord," Will wheezed, voice muffled against Don's shirt. "Listen to us. A couple of absolute reprobates."

Will pulled back, still laughing, but his free hand came up to cup Don's jaw, thumb brushing over the hinge of it with devastating gentleness. The quiet that followed was softer, the kind that made Don brave enough to say, after a pause: "So. Before. When you pulled back after I got with Clemsie..."

Will's expression flickered, but he didn't look away. His thumb stilled against Don's jaw, then resumed its slow stroke. He exhaled through his nose, voice going quieter. "I was jealous. Pathetically, destructively jealous. Couldn't stand watching her hang off you, knowing she got the easy things I wanted. Hand-holding. Kissing. All the small bits." He shrugged one shoulder, eyes hooded but honest. "It was easier to keep my distance than risk saying something I couldn't take back."

Don blinked at him, something twisting in his chest at the unexpected, raw honesty of it. Will's fingers were still gentle on his face, like he was afraid Don might bolt if he pressed too hard.

"Guess I was no better when Miles turned up. Absolute misery to be around," he volunteered, to make Will feel better about his moment of vulnerability.

Will's eyebrows shot up with undisguised delight. "Really? You were jealous?"

Don grimaced. "Apparently. Didn't work out 'til now exactly why, ‘course. Just knew I wanted to punt him every time he looked at you."

A dangerous gleam entered Will's eye. "So what does that make you, then? Straight with a single glaring footnote?"

Don groaned, shoved his face into the curve of Will's neck to hide the heat creeping up his ears. Will's skin was warm there, soft where it met his shoulder, and Don breathed in the scent of him, familiar now in an entirely new way. "I don't bloody know. I did fancy Clemsie. But I fancy you too, so..."

"Congratulations," Will said solemnly, his voice vibrating through his throat where Don's lips brushed. "Welcome to the pantheon of bisexual icons. Your membership card should arrive in the post."

"Shut up," Don mumbled against his skin, but he was smiling despite himself.

"W.H. Auden. Virginia Woolf. Don Wallace." Will's fingers resumed their idle stroking through Don's hair, and Don could hear the grin in his voice. "You're in excellent company."

Don lifted his head to glare at him, though the effect was rather ruined by the fact that he was still half-draped across Will's chest, rumpled and kiss-drunk. "Are you done then?"

"Not even close. This is the best thing that's happened to me since you dragged me out of those tunnels." Will's fingers tightened in his. "So when did you know? About fancying me?"

Don felt his face flush hot enough to fry an egg, the heat spreading down his neck. Will's eyes were bright with curiosity, pupils still blown wide, and Don had the wild thought that he'd never get tired of being looked at like this.

"I don't know. Probably longer than I realized, but consciously? Recently."

"How recently?" Will's hand slipped down to rest on Don's nape, fingers playing with the short hairs there. "What made you work it out?"

"Will—"

"Come on, Ducky. Fair's fair. I told you about my tragic pining."

Don shut his eyes and prayed for death. "It's embarrassing."

"Even better." Will was practically vibrating now, a fox who'd scented blood. His thumb rubbed against the sensitive skin behind Don's ear. "Tell me."

"I had a..." Don's throat clicked, his voice barely above a whisper. "...a dream."

Silence. Then Will made a sound like a kettle about to explode, his whole body shaking with near-silent laughter.

"Oh my God," he wheezed, grip tightening on Don's nape. "You had a sex dream about me."

"It wasn't—we didn't actually—it was just kissing—" Don's words tumbled over each other, face burning with mortification.

"When?" Will demanded, eyes alight with unholy glee. His other hand came up to frame Don's face, forcing him to meet his gaze. "How recently is recently?"

Don wanted to crawl under the bed and never resurface. The feel of Will's hands on him, gentle but inescapable, made his skin burn. "Last night."

Will collapsed back against the pillows, laughter bursting out of him in delighted, unstoppable peals. The sound of it filled the small room, rich and infectious. "Last night? You had a wet dream about me last night and that's why you spent all day stomping around like a constipated nun?"

"I wasn't—I don't—shut up," Don groaned, trying to hide his face in the pillow.

"This is the best day of my life," Will declared, tugging Don back up so he could see his scarlet face. His eyes were dancing with mirth, but there was something softer underneath. Wonder, maybe. Disbelief at his own luck.

"Better than when Morrison fell in the lake. You were having impure thoughts about me and then panicking about it like a Victorian maiden."

"I hate you," Don muttered, but he was melting under Will's touch, the gentle stroke of his fingers against his cheek.

"No you don't. You fancy me. Dreamt about my mouth, apparently."

Don made a strangled sound of pure despair. "I'm never telling you anything again."

"Too late. This is going in the diary. Dear diary, today Ducky confessed he dreams about ravishing me—"

Don kissed him just to shut him up, swallowing Will's laughter with his mouth. It worked for about thirty seconds, until Will started grinning too hard to kiss properly, the curve of his smile pressed against Don's lips.

"Never gonna let me live this down, are you," Don muttered against his mouth, but he was grinning too, helpless against Will's ridiculous joy.

"Never," Will agreed cheerfully, hands sliding up to tangle in Don's hair again. "I'm going to bring it up at every birthday until the end of time, your funeral, our wedding—"

Don groaned, but the smile broke through anyway, warm and inevitable. The casual way Will said our wedding made something flutter in his chest, terrifying and wonderful.

"You're the worst person I've ever met."

"And yet you dream about me." Will's grin softened, the mischief shading into something gentler. "Funny, that."

Don looked at him—hair mussed beyond repair, eyes bright with laughter and something deeper, ridiculous and brilliant and finally his—and felt something slot into place in his chest, warm and certain.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Funny."

IV: epilogue.

The cab coughed itself away down the street, leaving them on the narrow driveway. Frost clung to the paving slabs, brittle white under the lamplight. Don's mum's terrace looked the same as ever: red brick a bit weather-worn, lace curtains drawn, faint smell of chip fat drifting in from the end of the row.

Will stood rooted to the spot, overnight bag dangling from his hand. His breath curled white into the air.

Don eyed him. "What's up with you? You look like you're waiting for the firing squad."

Will gave a thin laugh. "It's absurd, really. I keep thinking… what if she doesn't want me here?"

"Don't be daft." Don shifted his bag higher, blunt and sure. "She invited you, didn't she? Would've even if—" He broke off, awkward, then pushed on. "Even if things were different."

Will's mouth twisted at the reminder. "Unlike my father, then." He said it lightly, but the words came out brittle. "Can't exactly picture the old man setting a place at the table for you if he can't even manage for me."

Don shot him a look, sharp as flint. "Yeah, well. Sod him. You've got us now."

That shut Will up, but it didn't soften the tension in his shoulders. He stared at the front door like it might swing open to pass judgment.

"You've met her already," Don said, softer this time. "After Slaughterhouse. She stuffed you full of shepherd's pie, made you watch Strictly. She liked you then, she'll like you now."

"She was being kind to the recently traumatized," Will murmured. "That was different. Back then I was just your friend. Now I'm your—"

The door latch clicked before Will could finish. Warm light spilled out into the night, and there was his mum, slippers and dressing gown, hair tied back, smiling as she spotted him.

Don swallowed, but he didn't hedge or stall.

"Hi, Mum," he said, rough but steady. He caught Will's sleeve, tugged him closer into the light. "Remember Will? He's my boyfriend."