Chapter Text
2026 starts as it means to go on: stupidly.
Will’s fresh off a fairly mundane Christmas; six days of relative relaxation up North. His younger cousins make fun of him for his dissolving hairline, his older cousins make fun of him for things he doesn’t remember doing at past Christmases, his aunts and uncles don’t understand what he does as a job - it’s the same as usual, really, but he welcomes the joy of nothing at least for a day or so. Strange not to have any deadlines, but refreshing to be hazily drunk, surrounded by family, minimal worries.
His mates are all pretty quiet for Christmas too.
Mikey’s in China, pissing around, doing whatever he’s up to, and the rest of the office drops various merry christmases in the group chat across the day. Chris doesn’t send him anything, but he’ll probably get a delayed greeting on Sunday, the day when he replies to all of his texts.
James, knee-deep in his orphans’ Christmas with his cousins and sister and Persi, texts him merry christmas and then a series of deeply baffling emoji: 🧑🎄👪☕👚 - but that’s not especially new, so Will replies crismuch too xx and leaves it.
(Later, Persi sends him a selfie of them both, pink sweater pulled up tight around James’ neck, the pair pressed together at the dinner table, which at least solves some of that mystery.)
New Year’s, back in London, is when it gets really dumb.
Some party, another one of those parties. Five people Will knows, thirty people he doesn’t, crammed into a flat too small to house them, but at least there’s enough drink to go around that the experience is almost worth it.
One of those influencer dos, though the liquor’s a bit nicer than it usually is, and he’s pleasantly tipsy before too long, knee deep in feijoa vodka soda and feeling not so bad about it. Yeah, he barely knows anyone, but so what. The alcohol’s got his back, and three drinks shave off the edges and all of the anxiety, so he’s chatty and a bit flirty, wandering around the party without a care in the world, shirt a little open, knowing he’s got it.
Meaningless sex is a bit less of a draw these days, but he wouldn’t mind getting off with someone to ring in the new year. It’s been a bit, and things are always worse if his own hand’s doing the work; especially considering the dry spell of the last… forever? Seems like forever.
Which is why it makes no sense that he stumbles into a conversation with another man. He’s fit, maybe, if Will’d ever be into that, clearly built under his cardigan, brilliant green eyes and dark hair and faintly Greek if he’d had to make a guess.
He’d forgotten his name as soon as he heard it, words fading away in the haze of the drink, but it’s possible it started with a G? Or a D? Besides, it hardly matters, there’s no chance he speaks to any of these people after tonight anyway; they’re a bit too famous, the sort of influencers who end up on the front of gossip mags, and that’s not his sort.
But this man is… charming. Nice to a fault. Maybe into business? Something about marketing? He hardly cares, pleasant and easy conversation melting on his tongue, gaze caught on the length of the other man’s eyelashes, how his jaw tenses as he swallows.
12am draws closer. They wander out to the balcony, which is expansive, and expensive, ringed by shrubbery and partitions, settling down on the furthest edge, behind a hedge of dark leaves. The city looms large in the background, beautiful and horrible as it always is.
“Nice place, this.” Will remarks, batting away a leaf as it threatens to go for his nostril.
“Yeah, we moved in for the view, but the leafy greens were a bonus.”
“Oh, so this is your gaff?”
The other man’s eyes crinkle, endearing. “Will. I think I've said that twice.”
“Sorry.” A hurried ramble of words, supposed to be a joke. “Too lost in your eyes.” It lands wrongly, comes out more sincere than he means, cause it's true, really, he's been staring down this man since they met, and something silly and a bit flustered rises within him as he can’t get his stupid mouth to shut up. He hammers his fist against his forehead for a second. “Arghhh, Will.”
“Sincerity, how dare you.” The man replies, but leans forward a little as he says it, knee coming to rest alongside Will’s own, dizzying cologne washing across his face. “Tell me more about your company?”
Cum, Will finds, tastes really different when it’s not his own.
In hindsight, he truly, genuinely, has no idea how it happened.
It wasn’t even drunkenness, he’d been three drinks down, enough of a buzz to keep him going but nowhere near the point of suggestibility or blackout, but somehow, something had happened, they’d fallen against each other, mouths wet and hands wandering, and ludicrously, he was in the other man’s lap before he’d even had a chance to blink.
Not a bad feeling. Thick, built thighs under his, big hands on his ass, pulling him tight against the other man’s cock. Any other time he’d question it, stop to worry about the ramifications. But they were surrounded by hedges, it’d been New Year’s Eve, and he couldn’t give a single fuck as the man’s fingers bit into his hips.
Caspian, he’d remembered, as he’d slipped onto his knees, the London sky lighting up with fireworks behind him.
What a pissing stupid name.
January first, 2pm, finds Will banging his head against the wall. Metaphorically, though the wall’s looking fairly attractive mid-crisis, and he might just risk the brain injury if it slams some thoughts into his moronic head.
Sex with a man. It happened. It happens. People do it all the time, so it’s not like it was that hard to figure out. They fit together. Sort of. Maybe slightly too well. He gives up and actually thumps back against the wall with a sigh as his cheeks heat. Maybe definitely too well. But he can deal. The issue is…
That he’s pretty sure he was bad at it.
Somewhere in the blurry mess that is his thoughts, between a spray of fireworks and the unfamiliar ghost of cum at the back of his throat, he’s almost entirely certain he didn’t do a very good job.
That is, in a lot of ways, a problem.
Will’s not some kind of slutty sex god. He’s not, contrary to popular belief, slinging it around entirely without purpose and without reason. Yes, there’s a few times they’ve skimped out on condoms, when maybe they shouldn’t have, but he gets his tests (reluctantly, resolutely looking away from the needles as they draw his blood), is fairly choosy with his partners, and he’s only had a couple of STIs in his life.
What he is, however, is a perfectionist. The part of him where the job and the home life crosses over runs deep in his bones. Videos have been delayed due to tiny things not seeming right and he was once caught in a web of indecision for hours when getting dressed for a photoshoot.
The idea that he fucked up a blowie grates at him. Ignoring all the shame, and the anxiety, and the yeah-that-was-pretty-gay of it all, it itches at him until he’s supposed to be knee deep in video planning and he’s instead staring down the barrel of a Reddit post titled Blowjobs: A Comprehensive Guide.
“This is humiliating," Will grumbles, to himself, but keeps reading. His chest heats as he does, a wave of arousal shimmering across his skin, and the room feels too open all of a sudden, far too public, so he gets up to close his curtains. It sort of doesn’t help.
“Fuckssake.” He mutters, when he’s done, glaring down at his phone, resolutely ignoring the elephant in the room that’s making merry near his crotch, sweat marking a trail down his back. He’s not into this.
He refuses to be into this. It’s a public service, if it’s anything. A learning opportunity. Upskilling. Training on the job. Fuck!
He thumps his head back against the wall again and downloads Grindr.