Chapter Text
Will Halstead is a lot of things.
He’s impulsive, always biting at the hand that feeds, always taking more than he can chew just on a whim, on the blind belief that he works best when he’s running out of time. Rash and reckless and can throw one hell of a punch when he has to. Never the first one but he’ll sure as shit throw the last. A quick study. One time is enough and he’ll know, he’ll understand the mechanisms that make the clock tick, how to keep it ticking. A gangly bunch of limbs that have finally grown into themselves, wire thin and pointed edges softened and set into a respectable resemblance of a man.
He’s a brother and a son and a friend—and he’s been fucking terrible at all three before but he’s been good, too, and that’s what he tries to focus on. He’s trying. Always trying to be a good person with every breath he takes.
But above everything else, what Will is is his belief.
Not quite faith—not in that exact definition of the word. It’s there, too, resting beneath his skin like a second stream of blood that’s keeping his heart beating in tandem, but his belief is so much more. It’s what’s driven him this far.
It pushed him through the worst months of med school. When he was up to his eyes in debt and textbooks, when he was made of piss-poor coffee and instant ramen and a little bit of spite towards his old man, it was the pure belief that being a doctor was his calling that kept him from losing it completely. The only thing he ever wanted to do, the thing he was put on this Earth to do. And even when he was aimless for a minute, drifting from place to place, he knew he was still doing something worthwhile. Being someone worthwhile.
It got him through bullies and asshole bosses and the constant nagging voice in the back of his head trying to convince him that it’s all for nothing.
That he’s all for nothing.
The problem comes when these things start to collide.
Reckless belief isn’t a stable thing.
Because when Will comes to believe something that, maybe on a second thought, he shouldn’t, something dangerous, something twisted with delusion until it’s unrecognisable, he can’t drop it like a dog with a bone.
Can’t shake it loose. Stuck in his teeth. He only bites down harder when he’s kicked to let go.
When Jennifer Baker crosses through Med, one foot in the grave with a permanent smile stretching her sunken cheeks, Will latches on and will not—cannot drop it. A reckless, terrible belief that he can fix this.
He can.
Everything up until this point of Will’s life has led to this. This moment. Everything that sent him sprinting away from Chicago in the first place and everything that pushed and shoved and threw him right back has brought him here. With a chance, however small and flickering.
Will tries not to think much about his return to Chicago, a homecoming long in the making that he wasn’t brave enough to ever even daydream about. Until he was. Until he made it come true. Like his life hit pause for the years he was away, nothing in that time seemed to matter anymore. He’s here now and forever. Endless time washed away the moment he saw Jay again in that pub, wary but happy to see him, accepting him back into his life like it hadn’t been a day since they’d last properly talked. Not months.
There had been a bruise on Will’s upper arm that he barely managed to keep hidden until it faded. Instincts and reflexes repressed just long enough for Jay to stop looking at him sideways.
It’s not quite his home again—there’s enough ghosts here, sure, but he hasn’t settled. His roots haven’t set. They refuse to. Not after being so abruptly cut out of New York City, yanked away from the first scrap of stability he’d had in a long time.
Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for him to throw it away for this.
As dangerous as his belief is, hope is so much worse. These poor people need to know that there isn’t any, that this long, horrid journey isn’t going anywhere before it’s all violently ripped away from them. Maybe the Baker children won’t have to be afraid of Chicago streets because the memories of their mother’s voice haunts all the dark corners. They won’t hate the walls of their own home because there’s a missing laugh and no one else seems to hear it.
Whatever it is—whatever sickness makes him so incurable, Will doesn’t think there’s a force in this world that can make him let go.
Will Halstead is a lot of things.
Someone that knows how to quit is not one of those things.
A nerve stripped back, he’s all raw and exposed—a wire set to snap, to break and take everything around him with it. It all starts to slot into place and he realises that this is it. A last chance. All of his mistakes begin to come into focus. His bleak and checkered history that has brought him to this very moment might finally have a reason to exist.
No regrets. Not right now.
Will’s shaking. Entire body trembling, a dog thrown out into the rain because he just won’t stop.
This might just be the worst idea Will’s ever had. And that is a long, long list but he can’t find the care to stop. To think this over for a single second more. If he falters, if he trips even for a moment, Will might never be able to get back up again. His mind is fixed. Realisation slithers down his throat, a snake suffocating him from the inside.
Blowing out a breath, Will packs away any doubt in the far back of his mind.
The elevator doors start to slide closed. This is it this is it this is—a hand jolts between them, snapping them back open.
Connor, breathing deeply, eases inside with hardly a glance at Will. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, his low voice blowing against the cold metal doors.
A fresh spanner in Will’s life, Connor is an unflinching presence that’s slowly taking up space in every aspect. Everywhere he turns, there he is. Connor fucking Rhodes. Gaffney Med’s fresh golden boy, all shiny and new. He’s just another thing that won’t let Will relax, disrupting the fragile peace that Will is barely starting to build for himself. All cocky grins, making half the damn ED swoon, so fucking arrogant and self-assured like he’s the smartest person in every room he ever walks into, of course it’s Connor that’s found him.
The one person that Will wants to hit first.
A hitched breath snags in Will’s chest. “What I have to,” he replies. It sounds weaker than it did in his head, all conviction scratched away and he’s just left with this hollow excuse.
It’s the wrong answer, apparently. Connor slams his hand against the emergency stop button, the box rattling to a stop suspended between floors.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Will,” Connor snaps. They’re shoulder to shoulder, enough space between them that Will should hardly feel Connor’s presence but it’s like a weighted shadow encroaching into his space. “You can pull that with everyone else but I’m not that stupid.”
It’s the casual slip of his tone that catches Will off-guard. He’s talking as if there’s any possible reason for Connor to be here, to care about this at all. That’s what’s bullshit—pretending like he gives a shit, like if Will blows up his career, it won’t be the best thing that’s happened to Connor since he got here.
“You’re not going to stop me,” Will spits, a forceless thing. He refuses to look at Connor, not even from the corner of his eye. It’s a quiet resolution.
Connor scoffs. “This isn’t going to end the way you think it will, you fucking dumbass.”
It only fans the blaze growing in Will’s chest, this simmering heat creeping between his ribcage until he’s choking on the smoke. Thick. Clogging his lungs like chunks of coal. Burning, he says, “You don’t know that. I—I can still—”
“Still what? You can’t tell her she’s on the placebo,” Connor barks. “You’re not even allowed near her!” Turning towards Will, his gaze is tearing holes into the side of Will’s face, so intense he thinks he might combust under the weight of it.
It’s too much. Connor’s too close. Too loud. Burning and aching.
With energy thrumming under his skin, Will’s about to explode if he doesn’t get out of here but he’s frozen.
Sweeping together all the strength he can muster, Will turns to actually face the other man. His eyes are a beat behind, lingering on the unchanging doors a moment longer before he finally meets Connor’s heavy gaze. Too many things rush up the back of Will’s throat in the same instant.
“I have to try,” he mutters, brisk, weak. All his grand bravo has vanished.
A harsh laugh punches out of Connor’s mouth. “You don’t have to do anything,” he retorts, almost sounding amused that Will is still so delusional. “None of this,” he adds. “You just need to stop.”
In what would have been a reassuring motion in any other situation, Connor drops a hand onto Will’s shoulder. A tight grip, holding him down and steady, the deftness of a surgeon curling in the tense muscle. But the touch sickens Will in ways he can’t understand—stomach twisting, stomach screaming. Will pulls back like he was burned, throwing Connor’s hand off. Will glares across at the man, skin tingling with a phantom weight. Heavier than just Connor’s touch.
Connor’s empty eyes hold him captive. Emotions flicker through them, a thousand in a second, before they seem to sharpen. Concentrated. He tries putting the same hand back onto Will’s shoulder but he pulls away before it can land. The third time, Will doesn’t even care what he’s reaching for. He snatches Connor’s wrist midair.
Their arms are in a stand-still, stuck, staring back at each other, and for a second, Will resigns himself for a fist to the jaw—the eruption of pain, the dizziness, the reeling of his head.
Heaving, Will pushes Connor aside, aiming for the emergency stop. There’s still time. He can still—
Hands are all over him. Rough and ruthless, they throw him back. He surges forward, single minded, numb stupid fucking belief forcing his body.
Before he knows it, his weak and pathetic and useless attempt to fight overpowered, Will is flipped around. Chest pressed flat against the wall, Connor wrestles Will’s arm behind his back. His body is flush behind him, snarling voice drilling into his ear,
“Stop. Will, just stop!”
He swallows tightly, unable to get Connor into his turned vision. This asshole doesn’t get it but, then, how could he? His mother’s death was so quick. One day there, the next buried six feet under—he doesn’t know what it’s like to be welded to a slow path towards oblivion, the brutal death march.
The thought is cold and bitter and Will knows how deeply unfair it is to even think it but something even sharper is weasling into his chest. Is it really so bad that Will is trying to help this family? Is he so bad—
“Let me go,” Will hisses, jaw clenched so tightly he’s surprised any sound can get out.
Connor shoves him harder against the wall in response.
After all his confusion with Connor’s attitude, this part Will understands. He knows what to do with this—how to make it easier on himself, if it’s already this far, how to keep it from getting worse. Go limp. Say what he has to. Maybe he’ll get out of this without too many bruises—
Just for that fucking thought, Will bites, “Fuck you.”
“Jesus, will you just think about this for a moment?” Connor demands, all righteous and alight. Not a fucking clue what he’s doing to Will. “You can’t just throw away your entire career over this. Are you insane?”
He thrashes just to keep up appearances, just to pretend like there’s any way he could overpower Connor like this. He never could, never has—never won against— “It doesn’t matter.”
Connor’s scoff is a biting sound. “Of course it matters,” he sneers. “Why wouldn’t it matter?”
“I have to, Connor.” His lips form the name like a prayer, unbidden and desperate, like he’s on his knees in church apologising for all the things he’s too scared to name. If no one else has forgiven him for it, Connor sure as hell won’t, but Will keeps asking for it. Some things fall from his mouth like instinct. “She can go home. At least she can go home.”
Connor’s hands are like vices holding Will down, grunting to keep control over Will’s sudden squirming. It’s too easy for him to do, too easy for Will to give up. “Stop and think about this, man,” he demands, voice lowered to something almost soft. “You’re a good doctor, Will, we need more like you, you ass.”
Will writhes.
It’s not fair. There are options out there for Jennifer. So many ways that this doesn’t end as traumatically as it has for other people. And if Will has to throw away everything he’s built up in Chicago, hard earned and so desperately needed, then so fucking be it. So what? That’s two states that Will has to keep in his rear-view. He’ll manage.
“It’s not. It’s not fair but that’s life.”
Shit, how much of that did Will say out loud? Connor doesn’t press against the latter half so he must’ve kept his mouth shut for the more important parts.
“Will.”
His name sounds delicate in Connor’s mouth. A rolling syllable, all soft edges and deliberateness.
“Will, c’mon, you’re too good to lose. Not like this,” Connor mutters. No more fight in his voice than Will has left in his body. “End this. Here and now. We walk outta here and we both keep doing our jobs.”
How fucked is he that he’s believing Connor Rhodes? Out of everything that’s happened to Will, this is the most unbelievable, the only thing he can’t fathom how he could ever get himself into this situation. It’s not fucking fair but if Will pulls his blind heart out of this case, he might just be able to see that he’s completely fucking insane for even getting this far.
Maybe he is.
His head was knocked loose long ago and he’s never gotten it back.
And, despite the man behind him, Will particularly enjoys his life in Chicago. If he burns it all down over this, where else could he possibly go?
“Fine,” he gasps out, reluctant and choking.
“Fine?” Connor echoes.
Will shifts, suddenly finding that Connor’s hold has lessened long ago. “I won’t. I won’t tell her.”
There’s a second of hesitation, like Connor is weighing the sincerity of Will’s words. “Okay.” With one last shove as if to reinforce the message, he steps away, pulling out of Will’s space. The sudden missing weight is as stark as a lightning strike. “Good.”
Will has just enough time to flip himself around, adjusting his scrubs like they weren’t just bunched up against the wall, before a ding sounds and the doors yawn open. He’s quick to get off, pushing through the nurses trying to walk in. He doesn’t know if Connor follows. Couldn’t really care because all he can feel is the pressure against him—the grip around his wrists holding him down, the curling anger creeping into Will’s ear, demanding, taking from him—all the things Will does not want to remember suddenly flooding back into the forefront of his mind.
The things that scared him off to Chicago in the first place.
All the air is stolen from his lungs and Will just barely makes it into a bathroom stall before his legs give out. Until he’s sitting flat on the floor. The walls are closing in—harsh walls, unforgiving walls—the dent where his head cracked the drywall, crumbling, the blood that pooled from such a tiny cut. It was all force and fury. Just like Connor. Just like—
He’s there again and he can’t leave. He wants more than any craving he can name for his brother to magically appear. Will remembers when Jay graduated from the police academy, when he thought that shiny badge and blue uniform made his brother invincible. Bulletproof. Like he could be the shining hero that slayed all of Will’s demons. Jay was, once upon a time, exactly that. Maybe he was too dependent on his brother—he was always the one Will ran to when he had a nightmare. Not mom or else that risked waking up their dad but Jay. And he’d be there—groggy and yawning but a steady presence in the darkness, and he’d help change Will’s sheets and dig out a fresh pair of pajamas for him. Always Jay’s hand-me-downs. Half the clothes in Will’s wardrobe used to be. He’d be there for Will without a single complaint.
He’s not here, though. He can’t be here.
He was never there. Fists and bruises. The shock of a punch he didn’t see coming.
It’s too late. The darkest night that nothing Jay could do will change anything. He’s stuck and he can’t breathe and he’s going to die on this shitty bathroom floor.
There’s no one coming for him. No one ever has.
Too needy. Too pathetic. He always knew that about Will. Too much for anyone to deal with and it’s outright cruel to expect his brother to take the burden. For anyone to handle it.
Why can’t he breathe? His chest hurts. Why is he here? Why is he—why can’t he—where is—
The walls are closing in.
–
His bones are aching. The molecules of his being worn to a bloody stump. It’s like his ribs have concaved and are piercing through his lungs with the effort it takes to drag in a single breath. Weak, brittle muscles scream in protest as he stretches out.
Cramped in the stall for God knows how long, it takes Will a moment before he can get his body to cooperate. Using the body of the toilet to haul himself up, Will just barely manages to get to his feet. He sways. Pressure sits just beneath his skull, just above his right eye. A headache growing with every second that he’s conscious of it.
Some distant part of him registers what just happened but he’d rather pretend like it didn’t. He isn’t the type of person that—
He drags himself out into the small bathroom. Splashes water over his face. Pretends as thought he knows exactly how much time he lost and saunters back down into the Emergency Department as though he never left.
Does not look in Connor’s direction for the rest of the day.
—
Does not look in Connor’s direction for a week.
Moves on with his life as if it doesn’t feel like his skull has been cracked open and a flood of memories are trying to slither through the opening.
—
In all the time Will has spent in Molly’s bar, he’s never wanted to leave more than he does right now. He’s rarely turned down after work drinks, rarely turned down anything that means spending time with the people he cares about these days. It’s not a privilege rarely given to him but a quiet expectation. Making up for lost time, Will reasons, only just able to cover up his pathetic eagerness to have a social life again whenever he’s invited anywhere.
But now, Will would do anything to not be here anymore.
Hanging off the edge of a booth, he’s already in a rough mood. Another panic attack sent him hurtling for an empty trauma bay—he’d been talking with Ethan, light and casual, when the alarms in one of Ethan’s patient’s rooms started blaring. In his rush to get there without knocking them both off their feet, he’d put a steadying hand on Will’s shoulder to slip behind him—and Will was gone. Thrown out of his body with the flooding memories of hand-shaped bruises and frozen panic and—
Going home just isn’t an option. Not then and not now. The dark of his apartment won’t help him.
Much like—
“Connor, come sit!” April calls, waving the man over.
Fresh off a game of darts, the man of hour apparently saunters over to the edge of their table. His cheeks are flushed with a warm glow, pleasantly buzzed by the look of things. Throwing his eyes between each person slotted into an already packed table because this is not the first person April had invited over, Connor lingers on Will for a beat too long.
“Oh, are you—”
“Will, move your ass over.”
“He doesn’t have to—”
Two hands curl around Will’s arm—Natalie’s painted fingers taking him by the elbow and wrist to pull him closer to her against the wall. Resisting the urge to flinch or snap at her or maybe just walk out of here and let Connor take his place, Will goes with her. He’s too tired anyway, all his energy zapped clean in the trauma bay and left there.
No one would listen anyway. Nothing ever stops when he wants it to…
Connor shuffles awkwardly into the seat. He keeps a sliver of space between them, even if he’s probably sitting with half his ass off the leather. Stupid bastard.
None of their friends notice anything.
The hasty glances Connor sends towards Will like he hasn’t heard of subtlety a day in his life. The way Will clamps his jaw shut and leaves it there, not knowing what’ll come out if he opens it. They don’t notice every tense muscle and the careful way Will is holding himself so as not to attract any attention. No questions or anger or any room to make a mistake.
The drink in front of him is quickly gone without anything else for him to do.
If he’s going to stew in this nightmare combination of conditions, Will needs a real buzz to handle it.
When Will turns to leave, it’s the first time he properly meets Connor’s eyes. There’s a flash of surprise, a chasing look of trepidation that puts Will instantly on edge.
“Right. Yeah, sorry,” Connor mutters, processing Will’s body language. He slides out of his seat, the conversation moving without them as Connor gives Will more than enough room to get out.
Maybe Will should just leave. What’s the point even being here? Avoiding the pits of his own home is useless if he’s already set to spiral here. Full Irish goodbye and walk out. Like anyone would really notice.
One more drink first, he thinks. He’ll still be good to drive but he won’t be at risk of slamming his head into the wall.
Elbow leant on the bar while he waits to be served, Will keeps his head down. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone, as well meaning as they would be. Jaw locked, Will doesn’t want to lose focus on keeping even breaths rising and falling in his chest.
“Hey.”
Yeah. Will should’ve seen this coming.
Stealing the air from the entire building, a firm set in his eyes like he expects the whole world to stop turning for him and his whims, Connor fucking Rhodes is standing there. Washed in the warm glow of the lights. The lively bar around him is a blur of colours and vague shapes of other people, like the world actually is whirling to a halt so Connor can say whatever fucking thing that’ll send Will hurtling into a bathroom stall or out into the deep night.
Blue eyes blink back at him.
Cold. Empty. Harsh things that hold too much. Depths Will is terrified of finding the extent of.
Looks away. Looks back. Holds the gaze that makes him feel sick. “What?” he bites with a tone that would get him wrecked in a previous life.
“Are you okay?” Connor asks, a violent streak of gentleness lodged in his throat.
“What?” Will repeats.
Connor shifts his weight on his feet, looking wholly uncomfortable with this whole show, looking so much like a regular person that Will doesn’t know what to do with it. “You’ve been—a little off, lately. And I just wanted to make sure that—fuck, I don’t know. Are you fucking okay or not?”
“Why do you give a shit?” Will looks him up and down, offended that Connor is asking how he is, offended that Connor is asking it.
“I don’t,” Connor throws back with equal parts disgust. “But I still gotta work with your ass so I need you to get your head out of it.”
Will scoffs. “Yeah. Whatever. I’m fine. You can fuck off.”
A step closer, Connor’s jaw clenches. Regret flickers through the eyes that Will needs to stop looking into. Too familiar. “Jesus, okay.” His voice is scratchy, wound too tight to be good for him. He’s looking at Will like he’s watching a car crash in the making, horrified and too curious to look away. Blinks once. Then twice. “This has to do with Jennifer Baker, right? That you didn’t tell her she’s on the placebo?”
He can’t answer. So close to the heart of it. So far away.
“You can’t keep killing yourself over this—”
“I’m not,” Will says, quickly, hearing the words as they leave his mouth. He needs Connor to leave him alone and lying through his teeth is the only way to do it. Screw it. What does he owe this guy? “Look, I appreciate the concern, it’s great, but there’s nothing wrong so you can get off my back. I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That isn’t my problem.”
With a sharp sigh, Connor looks ready to snap, the muscles in his jaw working.
The music is suddenly too loud in this place. A swarm of people that could be witnessing this so Will needs to keep his chin up, his hands loose, the air of unfetteredness that he so desperately needs Connor to believe.
“If I crossed a line,” Connor says quietly, knowing just how dangerous his words could be if someone does dare to eavesdrop, “you can tell me. I’ll make it right—or leave you alone or whatever you want. I just need to know.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Will asks, suddenly losing the thread. He’s never going to understand this man but this is the furthest Will has ever been from knowing what the hell is going on with him.
Rueful and bitter and oh, Will misread the amount of venom he needed for this, because Connor is suddenly too real. The world bends under him not because he thinks he’s entitled to it but because Connor is just that type of person.
Briefly, Will thinks he would have to spill all his rotten guts if Connor pressed him for it.
“The elevator.” That’s all he needs to say but still, Connor continues, “When you left, you were just—off.”
That word again, as if Connor knows what Will is like when he isn’t off.
Does anyone here? Will changed so much beyond what he used to be and when he washed up, coughing New York water and salt, he was a facsimile of the person Jay would remember. He’s built himself up around that outline but it still isn’t right.
It’s off.
“I didn’t think you’d listen to me if I wasn’t a little physical.” Connor seems to at least stand by it, not regretting his actions as much as their results. “But it was an asshole move and I meant it to be so I get it if you're pissed at me.”
Will didn’t think Connor would even remember that, let alone still be thinking about it.
It leaves him off-kilter, swallowing down feelings before he can name them, things he’s never thought capable of.
He leans back on the bar, back on a twisting mindset he never wanted to use again. A safety net that he despises to feel the bounce of again as he falls and falls. “It’s nothing like that,” Will says, the bitter lies on his tongue like embracing an old friend. “I don’t even think about that—and yeah, you’re right. Wouldn’t have listened to you if you just asked me to. You did what you had to. We’re fine.”
“Will—”
“It’s fine, Connor.” The name feels strange in his mouth.
Doctor Rhodes is sharp and derisive.
Connor is deliberate.
Will pulls his lips into a plastic smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes but it’s convinced people of a whole lot worse. “You know, sometimes not everything is about you. Not everyone is thinking about you twenty-four-seven.”
The ball sits entirely in Connor’s court and they’re both aware of it.
It’s up to him to decide whether this keeps going, if it’s worth the risk of Will exploding and taking the whole bar with him. The weight of choice. When to stop this misshapen CPR and let the body flatline.
“Not everyone,” Connor agrees, head tilted curiously. “But you sure as fuck do.”
A sharp laugh leaves a mangled path of wreckage as it bubbles up his throat. But it’s good and it’s out there and a little gleam in Connor’s eyes finally gives Will a distinction between the two.
“Guess I was overthinking things,” Connor relents, a perfect way out.
Will shrugs. “Cute that you care so much.”
“Okay, shut up, douchebag.” Connor firmly plants himself at Will’s side at the bar, flagging over the bartender that Will couldn’t before. “I’ll buy you a round. Whatcha drinking?”
“Uh, actually, I think I’m gonna head out,” Will says.
“Don’t go just ‘cause I made it weird.” Why does he sound disappointed?
Shaking his head, Will pulls the ebbing edges of his smile back up. “No, it’s not that. I just think today’s catching up with me. Better go home before I fall asleep on Natalie’s shoulder.”
Connor laughs, this soft little sound that is so different from the feat he stalked up to Will just minutes ago.
“It’s okay, go to bed, grandpa.”
“Jerk,” Will mutters, still grinning, still this epitome of careless and unguarded.
Maybe Connor notices that Will doesn’t say goodbye to anyone else, that he’s slinking out of Molly’s like he’s running from something. Maybe he doesn’t—but with the way he’s apparently noted all the little ways that Will has been off, it’s more likely that he has. And he just won’t bring it up.
Either way, Will doesn’t care. At least for now, it’s the least important thing on his mind.
There’s a brick in his chest and the six pack in his fridge is the only thing that’ll knock it loose. Get it out of him. This deep, fearful thought: he won tonight. Pushed Connor away from the terrible truth with expertise Will crafted painstakingly over time. A distraction. That’s all his words and plastered smiles are for. Distract and run.
Will’s convinced people of a lot worse. So much worse. But this feels weighted in a way none of those lies did.
—
Jennifer Baker dies on a Thursday.
Will gets the news midway into his shift the next day. She was with her family, her kids, surrounded by love and comfort and the world hadn’t stopped spinning just for her, Will didn’t drop dead with her from across the city. It happened and Will never would’ve known about it if she never came to Med that day.
Nothing changed with her death.
None of it mattered—every restless second Will spent trying to keep her alive meant nothing. If he had just ignored Connor like he was so prone to doing, if he had just been faster, smarter, found the right way to convince Jennifer that there was never a reason to give up—not when she was loved, not when she had people that needed her—not when he wasn’t there when his mom rattled her last breath—
He’s going to be sick. Mutters something about the bathroom to the nearest person to him.
It was useless. All this medicine, all this technology, and for what? People still die. People still can’t be helped and waste away until they’re ruins and the world has to keep moving on. If he’d just been a better doctor—if he’d been a better son—
If he’d been there, maybe it would’ve been different. Maybe she would’ve pulled through.
He could’ve been with her. Held her hand. Told her he loved her—told her anything at all but he had run off to New York the second he could.
Blindly, chest heaving like he’s trying to expel the rotten truth trapped inside of him, Will bursts through into a bathroom stall. The door slams against the wall before slamming shut. Shaking hands struggle with the lock for a few moments—was she scared? He doesn’t know who he means but he gags at the thought either way.
Everything aches and he can’t—he can’t breathe. He’s not breathing. The stall is too small, crashing down on him, but if he leaves, he thinks he’ll die. His trembling body won’t be able to hold together in the open bathroom and he’ll fall and die on the tiled floor and no one will find his body.
He can’t—can’t keep doing this—hiding away the moment things get difficult. The second his gut sinks and his hands tremble, Will just what? Disappears? Leaves the floor and everyone on it to have a fucking breakdown—shakes about with the weight in his chest. Jesus, he needs to get a grip. Needs to get control over himself like a normal fucking person. Needs to breathe. He can’t breathe. Why—why can’t he—
Knees buckling. Elbows digging into thighs. Head in hands. Pieces of a body that isn’t his. Fragments that don’t match no matter how hard he tries to force them.
Breathe. He knows how to but he can’t. Can’t get his lungs to listen, to follow him—stubbornly hitching, staggering, breaking whenever he tries to drag air in.
Will’s fingers dig into the roots of his hair. The pain is like a bullet underwater. Muffled and distant—all momentum lost. He knows how to breathe. He hasn’t forgotten it—it’s still there—where is it? Where is he? Maybe no one will notice a missing vial of Haldol and he can let himself drop into a heap in the on-call room.
He’s been here too long. He should go—but he’s already a clump of tangled limps on the closed toilet lid, there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere he can breathe.
Please just breathe.
“Hey, you okay in there?”
Oh God, no.
The voice comes from right outside the stall. Shadows creeping underneath the lifted door, a still body hovering just on the other side.
Respond. Fucking say something—anything will work but his jaw won’t budge other than biting down on his tongue.
A steady knock at the door breaks over the sound of Will’s heaving breaths. Hesitance sits thick and heavy in the voice, unconvinced of each word as it says, “Look, I can go get someone for you—if you want or something?”
And Jesus, why the fuck did it have to be Connor? Of all people in this stupid hospital it just had to be him. Will tries to swallow a steady breath but it catches in his throat, jagged edges and hooked curves latching into the flesh.
What kind of cosmic joke is this?
The first sound that isn’t a gasp to escape Will’s mouth is a twisted laugh. Low, gruff, soaked in so much bitterness that Will tastes stomach acid on his tongue. Of course. The one thing that drives Will in here more days than not is now standing on the other side of the thin door.
“Okay, well, I’m not sure what that means,” Connor says. “I—uh–”
“I’m fine,” Will chokes suddenly. It rides on the back of another aborted breath, nothing clean or steady enough for Will to recognise his own voice but somehow Connor does.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Do you want Natalie? Or Maggie—someone?” Maybe it’s Will’s own roaring heart drowning out the sound of Connor’s voice but he swears there’s a shaking tenor somewhere in his steady words.
“No.” Nothing sounds worse than that, actually. “Just go.”
“I’m not leaving you like this, Will,” he says firmly with a resolute edge in his tone that Will can’t even begin to comprehend right now.
Something solid presses against the door, the hinges whining with the sudden force. Why can’t he just leave? Why does Connor insist on fucking with Will in every goddamn way? Why can’t he breathe—why won’t—he just needs Connor gone—out of his life like he was never there. No etchings on the walls of Will’s life. No shadows that he’ll have to paint over just to function.
Go. Just leave—just—
“Please.”
Will does not beg. Does not get down on his knees and plead like he’s some helpless, godless thing. He swallows and takes and withstands but he has always refused to ask, and yet Connor can reduce him to such a desperation without even seeing him.
Without even knowing it.
Effortless. Like some innate ability was triggered the second Connor rolled into his ED.
“Open the door, Will.” It’s a soft sort of demand. There’s no urgency to his tone like when they’re in a trauma bay battling against a ticking clock. No bite like those times Will found the ends of Connor’s patience within seconds. He’s almost asking. Almost caring. “C’mon, man, you know I’m not going anywhere.”
A strangled laugh trips over his teeth.
“Okay, okay—” hesitation swims in Connor’s voice but he keeps speaking. Maybe he’s just trying to cover up the awful sounds of Will’s clipped breaths “—wanna hear about the surgery I did with Downey today?” He doesn’t wait a second for Will to piece together any words. “I swear that man is actively trying to make me lose my mind sometimes—”
And he talks.
He talks for what feels like hours. A steady hum trickling through the stall door.
Will really just wants Connor to go away, to let this play out on its own time without the horrific knowledge of being perceived. Now Connor is always going to remember this. Every flickering tense interaction, every quick glance across the floor, every beat where Will is sure this will be the time Connor finally snaps and smacks some sense into him—it’s going to be tainted with this.
“—so I’m elbow deep in this dude’s chest—”
What chance Will had—however slim and impractical—of winning Connor’s respect have crumbled to ash. He’s always going to be this heaving thing in the pale light of the bathroom. Something needing a borderline stranger, in all effect that they don’t really know each other, to calm him down because he’s too helpless, too pathetic to do it himself.
“Got him closed up in the end but, shit, I really thought I’d lost him for a minute.” A pause, a beat of silence. “There you go. That’s better,” Connor’s muttering—what? What does he—
Oh. Will isn’t heaving quite like he was.
How did Connor manage that?
His mind is still rushing through half-formed thoughts but there’s something unravelling in Will’s chest. The shifting shadow hasn’t moved from beneath the door. Unrelenting in his position right there. Hardly a foot away. By all accounts, this is the furthest thing that could be Connor’s problem.
In all honesty, Will is surprised that Connor didn’t immediately back away before Will ever knew he was there.
“Still with me?” Connor asks.
Will doesn’t think he can wrangle his voice again just yet, not enough to convince Connor of it anyway. Instead, he leans forward from where he’s sitting, and flicks the lock open. The click echoes in the quiet.
A long, odd few moments pass before the door is softly pushed open from the outside.
Whatever scrap of dignity Will thought he had remaining vanishes before his eyes. He’s peering up at Connor, just a step out of the actual stall itself, hands hanging uselessly at his sides. Not for the first time, Will can’t decipher what the creases around Connor’s eyes mean, the downward curve of his mouth, the dark cloud in his expression as he blinks back at Will.
Connor presses his lips into a fine line.
For a moment, Will’s scared that Connor is about to try and talk about what just happened. Worse, Will thinks he might just do it. If he’s asked, he thinks he would scrounge up the answers that Connor is seeking just because it’s Connor asking.
“Get up.”
“What?” falls from Will’s mouth.
Connor repeats himself, “Get up. You look like shit, let's get you cleaned up.”
Unable to find a reason to say no, Will pulls himself to his feet. If his legs shake, hollow bones and cramping muscles, he swallows the grimace he wants to give—or, at the very least, Connor doesn’t give any indication that he notices it.
With a respectful distance between them, Connor leads Will over to the sink. He can’t quite bring himself to look into the mirror, to see the blotchy pink tint his skin takes or his red rimmed eyes or the dried tracks down his cheeks. Will knows how he looks. What he cares about is what Connor is seeing, what he’s thinking as he moves with deliberateness. Any inch of air that he moves through is taken with such attentive care. Turning the tap on. Looking and considering for a beat before scooping Will’s arms into his hold and thrusting his hands into the sink.
Will sucks in a breath as cold water runs over his wrists.
A shock to the system. Oh right. The release of endorphins, relaxing the nervous system, grounding him—Will doesn’t realise how far away from his body he is until he feels the splattering of coldness over his heated skin.
Throughout it all, Connor doesn’t move away. Body turned to press against Will’s side, one hand stays with Will’s hands and it might just feel natural for the other to crawl into the small of Will’s back.
It doesn’t.
It sits plainly at his side as they stand here.
Will still can’t quite speak but he’s here. He’s with Connor and isn’t running away in embarrassment like he thought he would. His very bones scream with an exhaustion that won’t go away, the world is threatening to tip him over at a moment’s notice, but Will hasn’t quite felt this real in a while. Longer than just today.
“Alright, that should be good,” Connor says, drawing Will’s hands out. He steps away only for a second but losing the solid presence is as abrupt as cutting off a limb.
Listless, Will pours his entire weight into the counter at his hip.
Connor returns with a handful of brown paper towels, passing them over. He takes the damp papers once Will’s hands are dry and disposes of them only to return with a few more.
At Will's confused look, he explains, “Get them wet. Put them under your eyes for a few minutes and it’ll help with the puffiness.”
“How do you know that?” Will asks, the suddenness of his own voice startling himself.
He shrugs, brushing it off all too easy. “Just picked it up somewhere.” Connor pushes the towels into Will’s hand. “Are you gonna be alright if I head out? Downey isn’t big on bathroom breaks and I’ve definitely taken too long.”
“Yeah, no, it’s fine. Go. I’m good here.”
Connor hesitates.
“Seriously. I, uh—I’ve got it from here,” Will says, gesturing with the paper towels.
With a nod, Connor starts to step away—they’re both unsure of how to navigate this. Thank God Will isn’t the only one off-beat. A little lost. A whole lot confused and wary.
He’s just reaching the door when Will calls his name. Instantly, Connor’s eyes meet his, open and unwaveringly kind.
“I owe you a drink,” Will says in lieu of an actual expression of gratitude.
Connor grins. “Looking forward to it.”
Once he’s gone, Will damn near collapses. How the fuck does he even start to carry this? Half the fucking time, Will is locking himself into a stall because Connor brushed past him too closely or the curve of his voice was far too familiar or he just looked at Will with too much emotion in his deep eyes—God, those eyes. That’s the fucking problem isn’t it? He’s seen them before. Tumbled into them before and now he’s doing everything he possibly can to keep himself upright.
He’s holding the fucking paper towels to his own and thinking about the ones that have brought him here. Both sets. A cold blue. A billowing ocean luring him in.
Everything has changed now. Will can feel it. The fabrics of his reality have altered and it’s all Connor’s fault.
Ever since that man came to Med, Will’s life has been in a free-fall. This is just another catching ledge. Another bruise but God, isn’t Will used to that? An ugly littering that he needs to keep hidden from everyone in his life—he won’t let anybody see this new wound so long as Connor doesn’t.
When his eyes aren’t as swollen as they were, Will finally manages to drag himself out of the bathroom. He’s been gone far too long to be normal, too long to be allowed to come back without a solid excuse.
And yet—
He is swallowed back into the hustle and bustle like he was never gone. Never missed.
It’s good. It’s what he wanted. No questions or worried looks.
It’s all fine.
—
“That was actually the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Will whines.
The wind whips at his face as they leave the theatre. Jay’s shoulder bumps against his as they trickle out in the stream of people on the sidewalk. It’s normal now—always was normal, Will corrects, growing up they were thoughtless with affection and any sense of personal space, didn’t know better, didn’t care to learn—and Will has to remind himself of it. It’s taken a minute for him to get used to it again. A long minute, really. Will thinks it was a few months of being back in Chicago that he finally remembered what it was like to have someone reach for him without any intention of hurting him. Living with Jay for a little while helped speed that along. Close quarters and all that, just like when they were kids.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Jay counters, completely unaware of how effortlessly he’s able to send Will into a short spiral.
He’s still got the bucket of popcorn in his hand, unwilling to throw it away until he’s finished the last remaining kernels. Will grabs at a couple, even as Jay tries to shove him away. Another thing Will is getting used to—being unafraid of annoying someone because normal people, sane people don’t throw a fit when they’re slightly irritated. Will can steal his brother’s food without being scared of the reaction because there won’t be one.
“If you thought that was good, I’m scared to see what you’d consider a bad movie,” Will says.
“I never said it was good—”
“You just liked it ‘cause the main girl was in a bikini half the damn time.”
Jay laughs at that, a bold, unabashed sound that has Will grinning. This helped, too. This insistence on Jay’s part that they actually act like brothers—in the back of his mind, a traitorous voice supplies again. They act like brothers again. An hour’s time difference grew larger and larger like a black hole until Will stopped picking up the phone and Jay stopped calling—and they go to the cinema on a Monday evening just because they can.
Will hasn’t felt so normal in years. A breath of fresh air, he remembers the person he used to be.
“What was her name?” Will asks despite just having seen the damn movie. A loud action flick with a few too many explosions where they both could turn off their brains for a few hours, it was Jay’s pick.
With a scoff, Jay shoots Will a heatless glare. “You think I was paying attention to learn her name? Will, c’mon,” he scolds.
“You’re a pig.”
“She’s not real.”
Will aims to steal the rest of the remaining popcorn but Jay sees him coming this time and twists out of Will’s reach. “Get your own, you leech!” he calls, laughter clipping his words as Will keeps swatting at the bucket.
Lacking any real strength, Jay shoves him away and Will goes with it. He swallows tightly, focusing on the fact that if Jay really wanted to, he could’ve done a lot worse to Will. This is normal. This is how it used to be before New York. Why would Will think any different?
Still, Will can’t help but clear his throat against the rising thickness in it. The streets are still warmly populated at this time, enough bodies that Will feels safe enough that nothing will happen to him.
There was always safety in being in public.
“Asshole,” Will mutters, just loud enough for Jay to hear it.
He gets a laugh in response. Jay takes the bucket, throws his head back and tips the remaining kernels into his mouth. Will has to grab his brother by the arm and pull him aside before he walks straight into a goddamn telephone pole like an idiot. Uncaring, Jay follows Will’s guidance, stumbling only slightly with the pull.
Wiping salt from his mouth, Jay says, “What’re you doing this weekend?”
Will shrugs. “Sleeping for forty eight hours straight, probably.”
“Wanna be awake for like, three or four of those and grab a drink?” He asks it without any sense of emotion, almost as if he’s waiting for Will to decline.
In the span of a skipping heartbeat, Will understands. Jay stopped calling because there wasn’t any point, because Will couldn’t talk for much longer than a few minutes and there wasn’t anything of substance he would say. And there’s still residue left over from that. Jay’s expecting Will to leave the phone ringing, to say he’s busy and it isn’t a good time, and placate with enough excuses that sound good in the moment.
He’s waiting to be turned down.
The whole reason Will came back to Chicago is right beside him. Like hell is anything going to keep him from making up for lost time.
“I’m sure I can find the time,” Will remarks.
Jay bumps their shoulders together on purpose, not quite grinning in pleasure. “Okay, good.” He nods a few times. After a beat, he leans in, voice lowered and says, “Do you remember anything that happened in that movie?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Will mutters back.
His brother just laughs, dumping the popcorn bucket into a trash can they pass by. “Same time next week?”
“Absolutely.”
—
The foundation of Will’s world is…shifting. Micro-shakes slowly but surely altering the ground he walks on everyday.
Isn’t this what he wanted, though? Isn’t this why he came back to Chicago? To have something different. To be different. Sure, there are aspects that he likes, the pieces of this new life that have him excited to wake up in the morning, things that are gently replacing his nightmares with nice things, with good things. He likes that it’s normal to talk to Jay now, that sending a text in the middle of the day is just a reflex rather than a carefully constructed message proving that he’s still alive. He likes finding new ways to make Natalie laugh, to impress her in completely subtle ways that make her eyes shine a little more when she looks at him. Nearly everything about his life is everything he dared to daydream about. Safe. Happy. Surrounded by people that would never hurt him.
But still, the only goddamn thorn in his side is Connor Rhodes—and it’s for entirely different reasons now.
If anything has shifted, it’s them. Him and Connor.
Will isn’t exactly sure what it is, though. He was expecting pity above anything else. He thought Connor would suddenly turn and start treating Will with kid gloves, like he’s some fragile little thing that can’t be trusted not to have a meltdown whenever it gets hard. Hell, Will is actively trying to find a trace of pity in Connor’s expression whenever his steely eyes flicker over to Will.
There isn’t any.
Not a drop.
By all real accounts, nothing has actually changed in the manner they treat each other. They aren’t at each other’s throats—they haven’t for a while, Will realises suddenly, time stretches too long and wide for him to remember when that change happened. He thinks about that tie tucked delicately into his dresser—but they’re not suddenly good friends, either. Will knows that something is different and it might just drive him insane until he can figure it out…
Not—not that he hates it or anything.
This unnamable give in their even more undefinable relationship isn’t strictly a bad thing.
When a group of them from Med stagger into the bar after a shift, Will doesn’t think anything about the way they’ll sometimes end up pressed shoulder to shoulder at a table. Or in the rare times Connor isn’t swept into surgery with Doctor Downey and gets to have an entire shift in the ED, it feels natural to shove a bottle of water or an energy bar into Connor’s hand. The same way Will would if it was anyone else clearly in need of a pick me up.
He hands it over with a curt, “Don’t pass out on me,” or full on chucks it at him with a grinning, “You look like shit,” but the sentiment is still there.
This sense of: if you take care of me, I’ll take care of you.
Connor doesn’t blink if he thinks it’s weird or anything, grumbling his own sort of thank you depending on how Will gives it.
Will settles on never quite putting the pieces together, letting them float and mesh together in the endless days of sick and hurt people.
It’s fine—really, this time.
And it’s only because of this, this precarious balance they’ve found themselves caught in, that when Will sees Connor across the parking lot, a setting sun casting him in a golden ray, stuck in the universal position that screams car troubles, he hardly questions it before crossing over to him.
The hood of Connor’s car is propped open, half of Connor’s body leaning over into it, his tuft of black hair disappearing into the engine.
“You alright, man?” Will finds himself asking even though he’s already regretting speaking. Someone else can help the guy out. His shift ran long over the scheduled time, naturally, and he’s exhausted. The promise of going home is so alluring he might still leave Connor here to deal with this shit alone.
He doesn’t, though.
Connor’s head lifts out of his car and turns towards Will’s voice but it takes him a second for his eyes to follow the path. His creased brows above his glaring eyes burns for all of a single second before dissipating—his upturned lip in a frustrated scowl softens as he sees that it’s Will. A rush sigh tumbles out of Connor’s mouth as he rubs a hand over his face. All the muscles in his arms are held tense.
“Yeah, uh—” Connor sighs again, deeper, a heaving sound. “I don’t know, it was making a weird noise the other day and now it—it won’t fucking start.” He gestures with a flippant hand towards the engine as if that explains everything.
Will smiles a little, joining Connor’s side to peer down. “Let me have a look.”
He feels the weight of Connor’s eyes on the side of his face, watching with this expectant hum. For some reason, more than the crisp evening air, Will can feel heat start to bloom through his cheeks.
They stand there, a sliver of distance between them, for long enough that Connor clears his throat.
“So, what’s wrong with it?” he asks. “More importantly, how much is it gonna cost me?”
Will stands up straight, realising just how close the small gap really is, how close he is to Connor’s face. “Oh, no fucking idea,” he says lightly.
Connor’s expression falls—tension drained from him in a blink as his annoyance turns into confusion. A part of him looks ready to laugh while the other wants to scream. “Why would even pretend to be helpful?” he groans loudly. “Jesus, I need to call a tow guy, get it to the shop, and get a cab and—”
“Never said I’d be helpful, just wanted to have a look,” Will interrupts, stopping the spiel that Connor is about to fall down. “Why would you think I’m a car guy? I went to med school.”
Eyes raking up and down, Connor shrugs. The tip of his nose is a faint pink—he’s been out here for a while, then, hopelessly trying to solve a problem he has no idea about. “Just what I needed tonight,” he mutters in this aching tone, all but collapsing against the front of his car.
Something in the slight whine of his voice, that bone deep exhaustion mixed with one inconvenience too many that pushed him over the edge—something in the familiarity of it has Will speaking before he can stop himself.
Before he can think better of it.
“Call the tow truck,” he says, and Connor doesn’t react until Will adds on, “I’ll give you a lift home.”
Looking at Will like he’s grown a second head, Connor replies, “You don’t have to do that.”
Will gives a half-hearted shrug, trying to brush off the inherent strangeness of the offer. Sure, something has definitely shifted but that doesn’t make this any less weird for Will to do. It doesn’t mean they’re suddenly close enough coworkers to be giving each other lifts from work. There’s a number of people in the hospital that Will wouldn’t even blink an eye at doing this same thing but when it comes to Connor, everything feels bigger than it should. Like it means a little bit more.
“It’s not a problem. Honestly. Anyway, a cab at this time would cost you an arm and a leg.” Will forces the words out as politely as he can manage, as uncomfortable with the whole display as Connor clearly is.
Perturbed, almost, that Will is delusional enough to even think that this is something Connor would ever want.
“Yeah, okay. Actually, that would be great,” Connor says eventually. He drops the hood down, pressing it until it clicks into place. “Give me a few minutes and we’ll be out of here.”
“Right.” Will blinks. Shit, he really wasn’t expecting that response. “Okay, sure, no rush.”
They sit inside Connor’s car—that probably costs a few months of Will’s paycheck—while they wait, swapping small stories of their patients from their shift. It’s horribly strange how utterly easy it is to talk to Connor. This brief, idle conversation is also one that Will kind of wishes would get to keep going. He doesn’t want the interruption of the tow truck to break the flow.
It’s just talking but whenever other staff members come and go through the lot, Will feels like he’s been caught—like everyone knows how deeply off center yet comfortable he feels in the passenger seat of Connor’s car.
When the truck does arrive, to Will’s unwanted chagrin, it doesn’t take long before the vehicle is dealt with, towed away to his usual uptown mechanics, and they’re tucked into Will’s shitty little rust bucket that he hasn’t cleaned in a month.
When he was young, Will was always embarrassed by his family’s financial situation. It’d been beaten into him, both metaphorically and literally, that it was a source of shame, a source of ridicule. Most of his closet was made up from hand-me-downs from Jay, worn and stained, riddled with holes that their mom would try desperately to sew and patch up until a simple shirt became the Ship of Theseus. Their rattling car would break down halfway to church, the spluttering and wheezing thing heard from down the street. It was something to hide. Some inherent weakness about him, something to run from. It twisted into a dark ball in the pits of his gut that only ever managed to lessen through time and experience.
He thought he outgrew the childish instinct to be embarrassed but having Connor—Connor fucking Rhodes of all terrible people—in his shitbox car, Will can feel it rising up in him again.
“I’m gonna need some directions here, man,” Will says, trying to force a playful edge to his tone to cover the way his throat is tightening.
“Yeah, yeah, take a left once you’re outta here.”
With Connor’s occasional input of directions, Will drives them away from Med in the unbreathable air of his car. He doesn’t think it’ll be that long of a drive and it isn’t that Will is regretting his offer. Not exactly. It’s just—
Something about being so close to Connor like this is making his heart stumble. They’ve been closer than this, been wrist deep in the same patient’s wound for Christ’s sake, but this is more than that. This is normal. There’s no patient dying so they throw away any care of personal space. Will isn’t falling apart in a bathroom stall with Connor being the unlucky person with bad timing.
There’s no outside force making them spend time together.
They don’t have to be doing this and yet, they are.
As they’re stopped at a red light, humming engines and the static whine of the radio, Connor says, without lifting his nose from his phone, “You know, catching a cab wouldn’t have been a worry for me.”
“Congrats?”
“I’m just saying you didn’t have to do this,” he continues like a fucking asshole. “I can afford the fare.”
Will’s fists tighten around the steering wheel. “So, do you go around rubbing your money in people’s faces all the time or am I a special exception?” he says, harsh and bitter. He should’ve known better than to let someone like Connor see his car that’s past its registration.
Connor huffs. “Of course you’re an exception, Will,” he says sweetly, shooting Will a crooked grin before refocusing his attention. He hesitates, throat contorting for a moment or so. “I don’t want you to think you have to feel bad for me or anything.”
It hits him as soft as a punch to the gut.
“You?” Will says incredulously, just barely fighting back a laugh. “Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.”
“Okay, don’t have to be such a dick about it.”
“No, really,” Will presses, unsure how much he really means it with the curve of Connor’s lips in his peripheral. “You are the last person on the whole planet that I’d feel bad for.”
And Connor, like the douchebag he is, laughs, a deep-chested sound that could shake apart the frame of Will’s car. “Okay, okay, I get it. No more apologising for me.”
The light turns, Will slowly presses onto the gas as he asks, “That’s what you think an apology is? Jesus, maybe you should work on that.”
“I don’t need a chauffeur, is what I’m saying. Alright? This is a—a one time thing.”
“Relax. It’s a lift home, not a fucking marriage proposal.”
Connor shifts. “I know you’ve got better things to do than drive my ass around.”
There’s a bite in Connor’s tone that Will can’t ignore. It’s unearned, rising up the back of his throat without thought, without intention. And it’s less that he’s reading Connor—he doesn’t know the guy, he doesn’t—and more recognising the same sense of being prone to defensiveness.
Keeping everyone at arm’s length. Afraid to rely on anything or anyone. God, it’s like looking in a fucking mirror. One of those at a funhouse—a twisted image but he knows in his chest that it’s him.
Focused on the road ahead, because he knows that guys like Connor—guys like them don’t like making eye contact during tough things to hear, Will gently notes, “You know it’s okay to let other people help you, right? It doesn’t have to be a big thing to get a ride from a friend.”
As hypocritical as it feels to say, he thinks it’s important for Connor to know.
Does Connor really think that a single day of needing someone else, of having goddamn car troubles, makes him a thing of inducing pity? That this will somehow change Will’s opinion on him?
God, does Will sound this ridiculous?
Connor doesn’t respond. Will is grateful for it, he doesn’t want to think too hard about how superficial his advice really is when he can’t even take it for himself.
Following the mindless stream of traffic, Will finds himself needing something to fill the silence, suddenly curious about what has had Connor’s attention enraptured this whole time. “Are you grocery shopping right now?”
Grateful and eager for the change of topic, Connor flashes his phone in Will’s direction to let him have a better look at it. Sure enough, he’s scrolling through the website for some store, perusing through images of vegetables.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking up again. “I was going to make a stop on my way home but I’ll just get it delivered for tomorrow.”
“Alright, how far away are we?”
“No, it’s fine, it’s not even a big deal—”
“Oh my God, Connor,” Will interrupts loudly, throwing his head against the headrest dramatically. He glances towards Connor briefly, watching in amusement as the muscles in his jaw work to refrain from cutting in. “Just tell me where we’re going or else I’m gonna take you to my store and I can tell you right now it doesn’t have any of that organic, non-GMO, blah blah blah that I’m sure you’re into.”
Connor’s eyes narrow, settling on Will with suspicion.
“I’m already wasting my night,” Will continues. It’s obvious, isn’t it? To him, it is. “Stop being a distrustful bastard and just accept it.”
There’s a long pause. In the distance some asshole is blaring their horn. Connor watches him like Will is about to turn around and say it was all some weird joke, Will eases through the traffic and resists the urge to fill the quiet, and the world still moves forward as if this is an ordinary night.
Dropping his phone into his lap, Connor turns his attention out the windshield. “You’re gonna want to make a right up here,” he instructs.
Will doesn’t grin all smug and victorious like he wants to—he has some humility, after all—but that’s mostly because he’s trying to push away the voice in the back of his head wondering, much like Connor must be, why the fuck he’s doing this for someone he despised not that long ago.
–
Designated for cart duty, Will trails behind Connor as they wander through the grocery store that’s so far beyond his budget, he can hear all the price tags calling him poor. He claimed he’d rather come inside with Connor than just sit out in his car for however long this’ll take but now, he’s starting to change his mind.
Too late, though. The cart is half-full and Connor has been saying, “One more thing,” for ten minutes now.
Despite the evening creeping away outside, the last stretches of warm orange clawing to the darkening horizon as the streetlights start to flicker on, the store is reasonably populated. Low music plays over the sound system in some instrumental beat that Will chooses to focus on rather than the rows of items he’ll never afford.
Connor crouches low to the spotless floor, searching intently for a particular type of egg noodles.
“Can’t you just get a different brand?” Will asks impatiently, parked in front of Connor as he leans his weight against the cart. This is the last time Will ever decides to be a good person.
Throwing his bored gaze around, there’s a woman with one of the large carts on the other side of the aisle, brow furrowed bitterly as she also searches for something. Maybe it’s a rich person thing. Will’s never had the privilege of being overly picky, usually taking the cheapest option available without even reading the label.
“Nope,” Connor says, popping the word.
“It won’t kill you.”
“It might,” he throws back genuinely.
“You’re an idiot.” Will is pretty sure the lady is listening to them when she breathes out sharply.
Connor reaches his hand into the near-empty shelf, rustling through the surrounding packages. “Okay, look, this ex of mine a few years back introduced me to them, and now I literally can’t eat anything else,” he explains, looking up at Will with such an open expression as he scrambles blindly. “I mean, they are life changing and I would do unspeakable things to get them.”
“Again, you are an idiot,” he says in the same tone as Connor.
Yeah, they’re definitely being listened to. The woman makes a stifled noise, covering her mouth as she carefully reads the nutritional information on a packet of penne pasta. Will is tempted to ask for her opinion.
“They’re clearly out of stock,” Will points out.
“Well, I would’ve known that if I’d ordered online.” With his face pressed against the shelf, it’s a little hard to take him seriously.
Will would give anything to go back to Connor’s first day at Med and tell his unsuspecting old self that this man is a complete and utter dumbass. Don’t take him so seriously and by God, don’t ever think he is ever capable of violence. He thinks about the man below him and wonders how he could have ever felt fear around him. The elevator feels like lifetimes ago.
This mental picture is going to sustain Will for a long, long time. Especially when Connor is being an asshole, which will likely be soon.
A surprised clip of laughter erupts out of Will’s throat. “How did this become my fault?”
Connor shrugs as much as he can in his position. “Dunno but I wouldn’t be here if you had just—” his eyes shoot open wide “—yes! I told you so.” He reels back, pulling his arm out with a red lined package of noodles clutched tightly in his hand. “There’s always one pushed right to the back.”
He shines when he’s this happy. Will’s never seen it before, never thought it was a possibility, but as the light of soft fluorescents beaming across the linoleum floor, Connor is holding onto the shelf for stability and holding up his prize proudly for Will to see, it—it’s like a different person. Will can’t help but grin. He wants to be annoyed and ask if they can finally leave now but what comes out instead is a warm laugh.
It’s been a weird day, he thinks blearily.
Connor pushes himself to his feet smoothly. He moves towards the cart to deposit his trophy but the aisle is tight between them and the woman. Connor twists to sidestep through, his steady hand comes to rest in the small of Will’s back as he passes by.
He—
Will holds his breath the entire time the touch lasts. Nearly gasping for air when it lingers longer than it needs to. So casual and thoughtless. Like it means nothing.
And he passes by Will with that same wide smile on his face, bright and warm and oh, he’s starting to understand why so many women at Med swooned when Connor started working there. It was more than having some fresh meat to cut up the monotony. He is annoyingly handsome, Will can admit that much, with those deep blue eyes that shimmer in the light like the sun cascading against the ocean waves, and the curve of his smile that he throws around so effortlessly, and the sharpness of his jawline—
Breathless, Will stutters through, “Those better be worth it,” and prays that he doesn’t look as red as he feels.
“Those are the only good things I got out of that relationship,” Connor says offhandedly, clueless to Will’s twisting gut. He grabs the edge of the cart, more of a gentle hold to occupy himself. “Well that and his lo mein recipe.”
If it weren’t for his grip on the cart, Will would’ve tripped over his own feet. Face flat on the tiled floor. Limbs askew and heart battered.
Because, that—that is the last thing Will could’ve expected to come out of Connor’s mouth.
Connor never seemed like—
But then Will never thought he was—
This information does nothing for Will but he can’t stop hearing the sentence echoing through his head, the ripples of a stone thrown into water disrupting any stillness he was trying to possess.
It changes nothing. This doesn’t make sense. Why can’t he just let it go? How did Connor give it away so easily? Not even looking at Will directly as he said it, like it doesn’t even matter, as inconsequential as if his ex was a woman.
It is, though. For Connor, it isn’t some great deal to talk to Will about a previous partner.
But the idea of Will having the same indifferent brush in his tone talking about an ex-boyfriend like that…
An ex-boyfriend. As if he has more than one. As if Will could ever mention him in some passing droplet of information.
“He stole all of my shoelaces after I dumped him, too,” Connor adds without warning.
The sheer absurdity of it is enough to snap Will out of his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
Connor shrugs as if that’s a normal thing to say, as if the ease in his tone isn’t the sole thing that stopped Will from spiraling. “Yeah, I think I might have missed some red flags from that guy.”
“Oh, some?” Will repeats, disbelieving and suddenly warm with amusement. “Dude, you have to have missed a giant flashing sign saying run.”
Finally, Connor is guiding them towards the checkout lanes. Will can stop feeling like he’s in too low of a tax bracket to even be in here, maybe then he’ll forget about this night and all the things he didn’t want to learn. Or remember.
“Alright, calm down,” Connor says defensively, his gaze bouncing onto Will all teasing and soft. “I bet you’ve got your own checkered dating history. I mean, you look like you’d attract the crazy ones.”
Will’s chest tightens a pinch. He shakes his head. “I’ve got nothing on you,” he says, lying straight through his teeth.
Connor laughs, rolling his eyes. “Sure thing, Halstead.”
–
By the time he’s dropped Connor home, the sky is completely dark. A blanket of inky black already swept over the city as Will makes the trek home.
Connor had declined Will’s offer to help him carry the load of brown paper bags stuffed to the brim, insisting that Will finally stop wasting his night. He agreed after only a little back and forth. It’s Connor’s home, it’s fair enough that he doesn’t want Will in there. Hell, it feels weird enough just knowing where Connor’s building even is, like this is a stretch of intimacy he hasn’t earned the right to.
Two days later, he’s in the break room, putting away his things before the start of his shift when Connor walks in with his car keys jangling in his hand.
“Finally got it out of the shop?” Will asks.
“No thanks to you,” Connor remarks, grinning that stupidly attractive smile.
Will rolls his eyes, clearing his throat. “So, what was wrong with it?”
“Not a clue. I just paid the bill and forgot everything the mechanic told me as soon as I walked out.”
“You’re an idiot,” Will says, feeling warm all over as he leaves.