Chapter Text
W
Will wakes up in the morning to the sound of his own heartbeat pumping in his ears. Okay, not good, he thinks. Last night, his heart wouldn’t stop pounding and pounding ever since that horrible intrusive that had made him fall off the counter. Or whatever it was.
If he’s honest, it was way more than just a thought. One moment he was looking at Austin—looking at his neck, watching—and then the room was squeezing in on the two of them and everything was red and there was a whole carnal explosion in Will’s chest.
He still saw the vision behind his eyes. Ripping into Austin’s throat… his blood…
It was all over and gone in a single breath. But it hadn’t left his mind.
His eyes dart to the side—Austin’s still there, still asleep face-down in the pillow. Will watches him, and another confusing memory returns.
He just remembers feeling really hungry, and then the next moment, Austin was standing over him looking like he saw a damn ghost, which… yeah, it’s an understandable reaction. Will knows he was awake, technically. He wasn’t sleepwalking—there’s like, the vaguest memory of getting up and going to the fridge. Like he was watching himself do it. But it was like he came to when Austin said his name. Like he came back to himself? And then for a minute, he was totally lost and confused, sitting there on the floor. Like his brain was free-falling through jelly, and it took fucking effort to reel it back.
Austin had cleaned him off and told him he had to puke the meat up, but after the fog in his mind cleared, Will felt completely fine. He’d told Austin that, and went back to bed. That was it. And he still does feel fine. Actually, he has a lot of energy.
He’s about to get up when Austin groans a little and shifts around. He throws an arm out toward Will, hitting him in the chest.
“Ow,” Will coughs.
Then Austin rolls slowly over to face him, eyes still closed, and mumbles, “how you feeling?”
“Good.” Will says quickly.
Austin opens one eye to look at him. Will takes a breath—his pounding heartbeat is distracting. He puts on a convincing smile.
“I’m okay. I feel good. See?” He springs out of bed and stands up, spreading his arms like, see how okay I am?
Austin’s eyes follow him, just staring. Thump thump thump. Ugh, his chest. Will can’t help it; he puts a hand over his heart.
With a long groan, Austin hauls his sleepy ass out of bed and stands up too to get a good, long look at Will.
“Okay. Well… are you sure? Cause you ate like, half a pound of raw beef. You’re not supposed to just do that, so.” His face is totally neutral as he questions Will, but Will isn’t fooled; Austin’s suspicious of him. Which is kind of annoying, actually. Will’s fine.
“Yeah… I don’t know what to tell you, man.” Will rakes a hand through his tangled curls. “I don’t know what the hell happened last night—I didn’t mean to, but like, I feel normal. I think I’m good.”
“Alright.” Austin walks past him into the bathroom and doesn’t bother closing the door. While he’s pissing, he calls out, “Maybe you wanna get out of rehearsal today just in case. Cause it’d really suck to have to clean a bunch of puke off that carpet.”
And that pisses Will off, suggesting he shouldn’t show up to rehearsal. He’s trying to figure out what to say to make Austin understand that he’s fucking fine when he comes back out and crosses his arms at Will.
“Seriously, Will. That shit cannot be healthy.”
“Come on, dude. I said I’m fine.”
“I’m just saying! Sometimes food poisoning takes like a full day to really—”
“I’m not fucking sick!” Will doesn’t mean to snap or raise his voice, but his heart is hammering against his chest and he hates the way Austin’s looking at him.
Austin sighs, takes a step closer to Will, and takes a good hard look into his face. Will forces himself not to look away.
“Did you maybe take something else after I went to bed?” he asks.
What the hell, seriously?
“Every drug I do is with you, asshole.” Will’s gonna start vibrating with anger. Thump thump thump.
Austin gets out of his face. He grabs his pants from off the floor and starts putting them on.
“I’m just trying to help,” he says, voice harder now.
“There’s nothing to help! I’m fine,” Will nearly shouts, and turns away to leave the room before he fully loses it, but adds on the way out, “I’m not fucking missing rehearsal!”
“At least give the guys a heads up that you maybe fuckin’ poisoned yourself then, right? Just in case, right?” Austin raises his voice now too.
Will whirls around. “I don’t need to tell them shit, because I’m fucking fine.”
Austin glares at him, silent for several full heartbeats.
“Yeah, whatever, Will.”
And he grabs his glasses from Will’s tiny white nightstand and brushes past him out of the room. Will doesn’t follow, and a second later, he hears the front door slam, the clearest show of anger out of Austin yet.
Fucking dramatic ass.
Will returns a hand to his still slamming heart. He’s shaky all over, and, he realizes, absolutely starving. He goes to the kitchen to get something to eat, stewing and muttering to himself.
===
He paces his apartment all day like a caged animal waiting for rehearsal. It’s still an hour to go, but he can’t wait any longer, so he heads to the studio early.
By the time the rest of the guys show up, Will is fully warmed up and feeling good and ready to fucking go. He’s already been screaming for like, forty minutes, working especially on his highest highs, trying to get the screech from his dream. He almost gets it.
When Austin shows up, he doesn’t stop to say hi like normal, just goes right to the kit. Will feels his heart pound in his chest. Whatever, doesn’t matter, but he does notice Moke’s eyes dart between the two of them while he’s tuning. Ugh.
Will throws himself into the vocals at the first fucking note they play, and by halfway through the first runthrough, he’s already ascending away from the bullshit, lifting off the ground and leaving everything else far below. It feels good. He could be on fire.
When they finish, Adam is like, “Nice, guys. That was really clean,” as if it’s usually not. He keeps talking, and without meaning to, Will makes eye contact with Austin, who rolls his eyes as Adam talks to Andrew and Moke about guitar stuff that neither of them give a shit about. He almost snorts a laugh, but stops it short.
Adam has them do the chorus to Hellfire like, three times in a row. Finally on the fourth run, they keep going into the guitar solo and Will takes his chance to hack up the cough he’s been holding back for five freaking minutes. Actually, it feels like there’s something down there. Gross, but he’s got time. He leaps over to the table with the tissue box and works it up and—out of nowhere he fucking chokes on something—his throat totally closed for one long, scary moment—and then he gags up something slimy.
It’s a huge fuckin’ blood clot.
Like, a dark glob a few inches long, already leaking through the tissue and smearing blood on his hands.
He just fucking stares at it.
There’s more blood in his mouth, though, so he spits the rest of it up. Behind him and very far away, instruments cut out one by one as the guys must notice something’s up.
“Will, you good?” says Moke.
Dammit. How the fuck does he explain this?
“Yeah, I’m good,” he rasps.
He turns to face them, and Adam’s like, “Christ, is that blood?” and throws his guitar down in its stand and charges toward him.
Moke comes over too, and looks at the blood clot tissue that Will’s still holding in his hands cause he doesn’t know what the hell else to do with it, and says, “dude.” Even Andrew puts his guitar down and wanders over.
Austin stays sitting on his throne, hands on his knees, watching, waiting.
“Will, what did you do? I thought you warmed up,” Adam says, voice tight.
“I did,” Will snaps. He’s shaking a little, but he doesn’t feel weak or sick. It’s more like a pent-up energy rippling underneath his skin.
“Well obviously something just went wrong in there.”
“Bro, I definitely didn’t hurt my voice, okay?” And Adam scowls at him like he’s stupid or something.
“Maybe you just pushed too hard when we—”
“God dammit, do you not think I would know if I pushed too hard? I’ve been doing this fuckin’ long enough, dude.” Will is gonna explode. He wants to keep screaming their songs like planned.
Adam just shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, turning away.
“You coulda taken the day off,” Austin pipes up, still eyeing him from behind the kit. His face and tone are even, but Will knows him. He’s pissed—it’s burning in his eyes.
“Asshole, I said I’m fine.”
Adam looks at Will, then Austin, then back at Will, and says, “okay, look, let’s just call it for today. We’ve got an off day tomorrow to rest and we already sound great for the show, so.”
Austin, ignoring him, stands up and rounds the kit, looking only at Will.
“Yeah okay, since you’re so fine, can you explain why the fuck that just came out of your mouth, huh?”
Will glares at him. he glares at Will. No one else says anything.
Adam is looking between the two of them, gears obviously turning hard in his head.
A few feet away, Andrew and Moke are muttering something to each other. Will wants to snap at them, too, but then Moke stiffly says, “oookay… so, if rehearsal’s actually over, we’re gonna go get food or something…?”
Will wants to make them stay and pick their guitars back up, but it’s looking like a losing battle.
“Yeah, we’re done,” Adam says, nodding at them. “I mean, after seeing that come out of you, Will…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to. Nobody believes him that he’s fine. Thump thump thump.
Moke and Andrew shuffle out of the room in a hurry, passing through the standoff between Austin and Will without a goodbye.
Adam says, “so, it seems like, uh—I mean, am I missing something here? Austin?”
“That’s a good fuckin’ question, man.” Austin is still staring daggers at Will. Why is he being such a dick?
Will’s had enough. He marches up to him and gets in his face.
“You wanna say something?”
Austin’s shorter by a few inches, but he’s not small, and he definitely doesn’t act small. He’s stanced, glaring up at Will.
“Guys,” Adam pleads. Like it’s his personal responsibility to put a lid on everything. He’s got no idea, though. He doesn’t say anything more, but he doesn’t leave either.
Finally, Austin deflates.
“No, I don’t wanna say nothing.” And he walks out on Will for the second time that day, leaving him with just Adam, who looks straight up devastated. Will doesn’t care.
Before he has to sit through a lecture, he turns and leaves too, fucking raging, leaving Adam calling his name.
A
Austin starts to feel like shit as soon as he pulls out of the studio parking lot. He didn’t mean to lose his cool, it’s just, he doesn’t fucking get it. It’s not like Will to be stubborn and bitchy, and if he’s sick or something, it really pisses Austin off that Will would try to bear it without help. Not to mention, he never sees Will angry like that. It’s honestly shocking. And he’s letting himself get provoked by it.
By the time he’s home, all the anger is gone, leaving only the guilt. Austin deflates on his cheap couch, not bothering to turn on the TV.
He should apologize. Whatever it is that has Will fucked up like this, he’s obviously… sensitive about it, and being accusatory isn’t gonna help him. Austin really doesn’t want Will to have to deal with it alone. He doesn’t want Will to have to deal with anything alone. And then, it’s also….
It was the look on Will’s face last night, when Austin caught him. Like he wasn’t there, and then he was. Like his face was empty for a minute; like it wasn’t Will at all. It made Austin’s fucking hairs stand on end.
He decides he needs a new approach.
Less than an hour later, he shows up to Will’s unannounced, and actually knocks on the door, which is something strange in itself. Will opens it and doesn’t say anything right away, just sizes Austin up like he’s waiting to see if he should start getting mad or not. Before he can make that decision, Austin pulls out the joint and holds it up for Will to see.
“Apology smoke?”
Will’s lips press together in an almost-smile. Then—Austin’s heart lurches—he grins. Will shakes his head like he’s exasperated, ears flopping, and moves to let Austin in.
“Alright, man, c’mon.”
Will isn’t someone who will stay mad for long, and it’s always pretty easy to win him over when you fuck up. Austin likes that.
They go to the balcony again and sit on the ground with their backs against the wall, watching the street below. Austin lights and takes the first hit before passing it to Will and speaking up.
“Alright, I was being a dick, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve gotten pissed like that. I wanna help, okay? So… talk to me. I know something’s wrong. I know you.”
His words echo as Will takes two big pulls from the joint, taking his time. Maybe he also thinks the weed will make the words come easier. But instead of speaking, he grabs Austin’s hand and pulls it to his chest.
Austin’s like, “um,” but Will cuts him off.
“Dude, just feel it. You feel that?”
Austin focuses, pressing his hand on Will’s chest firmly, finding his heartbeat. And he does feel it—Will’s heart is racing. Is that what he’s talking about? Austin looks at him confused.
“It’s been like that for the past like, full day, nonstop,” Will says.
“Oh, damn. And… you really don’t know why?”
Will shakes his head, ears flopping again. Without thinking about it, Austin reaches his free hand up to finger at a curl behind Will’s earlobe, and Will lets him.
“No, I don’t— I— I just feel like, freaking fight-or-flight all the time right now. And I keep getting angry, and… and so hungry too.”
Austin searches his face, his dark eyes, and finds something in how his eyebrows are scrunched—Will’s scared. Another pang of shame bites at Austin’s stomach. He removes his hand from Will’s chest and puts his arm around his shoulders.
“That’s… weird.” He doesn’t know what to say. He knows he doesn’t want to admit that he’s scared, too.
“And, um.” Will takes another hit, doesn’t pass it to Austin, and continues. “The… you know the dream I had the other night?”
Austin nods, his chest feeling heavy.
“Well, it wasn’t like… okay, it was scary and violent. I don’t know, we were fighting, and there was blood, and—and the weird thing that happened last night when I fell off the counter was um, cause I had like, a vision of that. So that’s why I got freaked out.” Will is looking down at his lap now.
“A vision…” Austin repeats. None of this sounds good at all. If he was smarter, he’d probably be able to put together the pieces. The gears in his head are turning at a snail’s pace.
Will just looks at him and blinks. Like he’s reading Austin’s mind, he offers the joint, but doesn’t let Austin grab it—Will brings the joint to Austin’s lips for him. That works too, he thinks, and takes a hit, accidentally breathing out most of the smoke in Will’s face since they’re so close now.
“What are you gonna do?” Austin asks him. “I mean I guess you should like, go to the doctor, right?”
Will shrugs. “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. But I really don’t…” he sighs. “I don’t know, man. Physically, I feel fine. I feel good, actually. Like, healthy.”
Austin doesn’t have anything to say anything to that.
They’re both quiet for a minute before Will says, “and my insurance is kinda ass.”
Austin snorts at that. “Yeah, well you know I fuckin’ hate hospitals. I’m not gonna rag on you about going.”
“Yeah, I know, your ass was sick for like three weeks last year.” Austin remembers. Will had whined a lot about not being able to see him. He smiles at the thought.
Then he thinks about how he had only gotten better after Andrew invited himself over and made him drink this steaming, bitter concoction that his partner had made. It knocked him out for like twelve hours, but when he woke up, he felt healthier than he had in years.
“Or…” he doesn’t know how to say it. “Or you could talk to Andrew?”
“Andrew?” Will seems surprised.
“I mean, him and his partner, they know like every potion and spell there is…”
Will shoots him a nervous look.
“Just, I don’t know, I don’t get any of that stuff, but I know it works. They’re legit.”
“Yeah…” Will says thoughtfully, but he doesn’t say more.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the sun hang lower and lower in the sky. Austin lets his mind go blank. There’s just the orange glow of the sunset, the weed flowing through him, and the warmth of being up against Will. Will’s stomach starts to growl.
Austin knows that this problem, whatever it is, isn’t getting fixed tonight. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still help soothe the pain.
He squeezes Will’s shoulder and says, “you wanna go get food somewhere?”
And Will nods hard enough to send his curls spilling all in front of his face.
===
They end up at a shitty Jersey dive bar walking distance from Will’s—one of Austin’s favorites in town. He orders a long island, because they’re fucking fantastic here, and then a burger. Will orders a plate of wings, onion rings, and the mid-tier steak they have on the menu for some reason. Austin stares at him as the server walks away. He’s all jittery, bouncing a leg under the table and wringing his fingers. He frowns when he notices Austin staring.
“Dude, what?”
“You are hungry, huh?”
Will looks down. “Yeah, man, I’m fuckin’ starving.”
A server comes with Austin’s long island. He takes a nice, long sip. “I think I figured it out.”
Will’s eyes snap back up to him. “Shut up,” he says, frowning.
“Yeah, I think you’re pregnant.” He punctuates that with another deep sip. “The weird cravings, the mood swings…”
“Oh, of course,” Will says flatly, leaning back. “I should have thought of that. My dumb ass.”
Austin can’t actually hold back a smile. “I’m glad I told you, then. Big responsibility and shit.”
Will flicks his balled-up straw wrapper right into Austin’s forehead.
The tension between them finally feels dissolved. Austin’s glad it’s over before he let himself say something he would have regret. He feels like an idiot for wasting any time making Will upset when now, his loud, obnoxious laughs are making heads turn in the bar.
By the time their food comes, Austin’s head is spinning a little from the long island—which he downed in just a few minutes, oops—and from Will, sunny and smiley and loud as he should be. The total volume in the bar actually goes down a little when Will starts digging into his three piles of food. He works through it ravenously, and Austin can’t not stare in between bites of his burger.
Will is tearing into a wing when his nose starts bleeding.
He’s like, “oh, goddammit” as a big drop of blood splashes onto the plate. Austin, not very shocked, throws him the least greasy napkin he can see, and Will stumbles off for the bathroom.
Austin waits, heavy in his seat, for five entire minutes before getting up to check on Will. He’s actually kind of drunk, more than he meant to get, and he bangs his hip on a chair as he walks through the bar.
The bathroom is a single, so he has to knock on the door and be like, “Yo it’s me, c’mon, let me help” before Will lets him in.
The bathroom is cramped and harshly lit by one florescent light above the mirror, and Will stands there awkwardly. Austin spots a small streak of blood on the white sink.
“I tink iss stopping,” Will says though the wad of toilet paper he’s got pressed to his nose. Austin feels a little warm flush in his chest. He’s fucking adorable.
“Here, lemme see.” He puts a gentle hand over Will’s and pulls just a little so he’ll take the toilet paper away. There’s a lot of half-dried blood caked on his upper lip and nostrils. He sniffs loudly.
“Okay yeah, I think it’s done—” A bead of blood trails out of his nose, pooling at his cupid’s bow. “Aw, shit—”
Will jerks his hand to cover it with the toilet paper, but Austin is still holding that hand, and he grips it, keeping it where it is. The warmth in his chest is gushing down into his stomach, focusing him through the haze of the alcohol. He reaches his other hand out to hold Will’s cheek, and then slowly smudges his thumb through the blood on his lip.
Will doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t move. Just looks up with dark eyes, lips parted, as Austin pulls his hand back.
Will’s blood coats his thumb. Will’s blood. He brings it to his mouth to lick it off. And god, he want to savor it, cause the sharp taste is fucking doing something to him. And the look on Will’s face, that fucking look, and with the blood still leaking out over his lips…. Austin needs to drink him down.
Someone knocks on the door, and Will jumps, pulling his hand off of Austin waist—whenever it got there, Austin doesn’t even know.
“Fuck,” Will whispers, and starts mopping up the blood on his face with the already bloody toilet paper wad, turning around to face the mirror.
Yeah, fuck. That’s about the only word Austin can think too.
===
The whole walk back, Austin feels like he’s running on all cylinders with nowhere to go. They don’t talk, but Will is pressing into him, pushing him off the damn sidewalk trying to get the most physical contact he can with the pace they’re going. Austin is hauling ass. He doesn’t know what for, he just has to fucking hurry.
Like. He didn’t imagine Will would react that well. And now his mind is flooding with the thought of, if Will would let him do that, how much else could he do? He knows he shouldn’t think it. But he wants to forget why he shouldn’t.
When they get to Will’s apartment complex, they both linger awkwardly outside, unsure what to say. Will still has one finger wrapped around Austin’s index, just a tiny bit of warm skin contact.
Austin wants to go inside with him fucking bad. He doesn’t know exactly what would happen, but all the sudden he has a lot of ideas.
And the memories, of course, they’re coming back up, unlocked where they sat deep, deep down.
Will’s looking at him with some of that same dark energy in his eyes from the bathroom.
“I, uh. I think I’m gonna go home tonight, man,” Austin hears himself say.
“Oh. Alright.” Will unweaves their fingers and run his hand through his curls. “Are you good to drive though?”
“Yeah,” Austin says firmly, before Will can invite him inside to “sober up.”
“Okay.” He steps toward Austin, then hesitates, then closes the distance with a hug, wrapping his arms around Austin’s waist. He gets to drink in the smell of Will’s hair for one sweet moment before they break apart.
With fucking miraculous levels of self-control, Austin pulls himself away and into his truck, watching Will disappear through his front door.
He has to sit there in the parking lot for about twenty minutes, cause he lied about being sober enough to drive. Once he feels okay, he starts his truck and is shifting into reverse when he catches movement through Will’s bedroom window—a shadow on the blinds. Will, moving around. Probably getting into bed. Austin lets out a long breath, tears his eyes away, and drives home.
As soon as he’s in bed, his hand finds its way down his pants. He’s been fucking worked up since the bar so he doesn’t waste any time, stroking fast and breathing heavily and actually fucking moaning out loud in his dark room as he cums over his hand. This is fucked, he thinks. I’m fucked.