Chapter Text
“Are you happy?” she speaks finally, folding her arms tighter. Will finds he doesn’t want to meet her gaze, piercing and almost accusing.
“What?” he asks, numbly.
“Are you happy, William?” Kym’s voice is nearly steady, with only the barest of quavers to it, a hairline fracture in her armor. She takes a step closer, challengingly, and Will swears her eyes are going to burn right through him, melting the ring straight off his finger and leaving him singed in the face of her anger. Why is she so angry with him?
“I-” he begins hoarsely, already knowing that argument is useless.
“Because based on what you’re saying,” Kym begins, “it sounds like you’re not doing this for yourself at all. Are you happy?”
“I- why are you-” he notices that her fists are clenched.
“Obligation to your father,” Kym says slowly, tension showing in her shoulders, in every telltale line of her small frame. “Some kind of twisted pity for your mother-”
“Shut up.” Will feels a sudden vicious jolt of anger at those last words, and he steps forward too, jaw clenching as he meets her gaze at last, facing her down. He’s not angry with her, not really- where is this anger coming from? “You don’t know anything about this. You don’t get it-”
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“I don’t get it?” Kym cuts him off, her voice deadly quiet. She looks absolutely livid now, and Will considers the very real possibility that she might punch him, or possibly shoot him. Maybe that would be simpler, he thinks a little dazedly.
“ You don’t get it, Will,” she says, voice breaking, and Will thinks he feels his heart crack a little at the way she says his name.
And what happens next is not a gunshot, or a punch to the jaw, but it might as well have been for how Will is sent reeling when Kym unballs her fists, yanking him to her by the collar of his coat and kissing him, hard.
It’s not gentle by any means- Kym is angry, and desperate, and he can tell by the way she presses her lips to his, the way her nails curl into his coat, maintaining a merciless grip. And yet somehow- despite the rage behind the warmth, he feels himself catching a little bit of that flame, melting into it nonetheless, the smallest of groans escaping him as he finds himself kissing her back. His hands come up to cup her face, holding her to him while he nips at her bottom lip, not caring for once what the consequences might be or who might see- and the weight of the ring on his finger seems to melt away in the face of this blaze, not even quenched by the rain around them-
-and then Kym is pulling away, breathing hard, her face reddened and eyes swimming with what seems to be every emotion at once.
“I-” she says, releasing his coat and backing away.
“Kym,” Will breathes, feeling the heat of her fading fast from his palms, wanting to draw her back to him and explain properly, and maybe kiss her again afterward if she’ll let him-
But she’s out of reach now, adjusting her raincoat around her shoulders, determinedly not meeting his eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she says, voice shaking. “We- I can’t, I shouldn’t-”
“Wait-” Will finds his voice, pleading with her, his voice rough in the aftermath of their kiss, still his lips still warm from her touch.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
And then she is gone, sprinting into the storm, and Will is left to burn in the wake of a want he can’t satisfy.