Semi-Late response to Challenge: Late
Title: Marginal Characteristics (Too Late to Turn Back Now)
Set pre S5, spoilage abounds.
Will fic! I realized with this how damn hard it is to write a Will fic in the future. Will will want to go where he will have gone...etc etc.
When they ask Will if he will change his face, he asks if it means he can see Sydney.
Yes, they say, without hesitation.
Then yes, he says, without hesitation.
It takes months. Months of pain, of scary machines and sketchy Eastern European doctors and Will feels a tiny bit uncomfortable that he’s there doing it, doing what led to Francie’s death, what almost killed Syd, that first time.
But he changes anyway.
He grows taller, he gains muscle.
His skin changes color.
DNA is a marvelous thing, Will knows, but he hadn’t thought this was possible. He shares marginal characteristics with the guy he is becoming, he knows-he has to, for this to work-but his face is slowly, slowly not his own.
It aches at night, his skin/not his skin, stretched over his bones/not his bones, and Will wonders if it was like this for not-Francie. Will it ache afterward? Will he lie awake at night for years, no longer Will the reporter or Jonah the construction worker but another man in another life?
“Will I have to kill the owner of this face?” Will asks, when they are almost done and even his toes aren’t his anymore.
“No, of course not,” she says. “He’s working with us, disillusioned with his job, you see.”
“Ah,” Will says, and something uncomfortable grows in his stomach. It’s too late to turn back now. “What will my job be?”
“You’ll tell us what’s going on with Bristow, of course. Nothing specific. We don’t want to hurt her, or anyone. We just want to know.”
“I think I can do that,” Will says.
The chair he’s sitting in, the chair it feels like he has sat in for years, rises up towards the mirror.
“Of course you can,” Derevko says, running her fingers through his new, short hair. “You start your new job tomorrow, Agent Grace.”
Set pre S5, spoilage abounds.
Will fic! I realized with this how damn hard it is to write a Will fic in the future. Will will want to go where he will have gone...etc etc.
When they ask Will if he will change his face, he asks if it means he can see Sydney.
Yes, they say, without hesitation.
Then yes, he says, without hesitation.
It takes months. Months of pain, of scary machines and sketchy Eastern European doctors and Will feels a tiny bit uncomfortable that he’s there doing it, doing what led to Francie’s death, what almost killed Syd, that first time.
But he changes anyway.
He grows taller, he gains muscle.
His skin changes color.
DNA is a marvelous thing, Will knows, but he hadn’t thought this was possible. He shares marginal characteristics with the guy he is becoming, he knows-he has to, for this to work-but his face is slowly, slowly not his own.
It aches at night, his skin/not his skin, stretched over his bones/not his bones, and Will wonders if it was like this for not-Francie. Will it ache afterward? Will he lie awake at night for years, no longer Will the reporter or Jonah the construction worker but another man in another life?
“Will I have to kill the owner of this face?” Will asks, when they are almost done and even his toes aren’t his anymore.
“No, of course not,” she says. “He’s working with us, disillusioned with his job, you see.”
“Ah,” Will says, and something uncomfortable grows in his stomach. It’s too late to turn back now. “What will my job be?”
“You’ll tell us what’s going on with Bristow, of course. Nothing specific. We don’t want to hurt her, or anyone. We just want to know.”
“I think I can do that,” Will says.
The chair he’s sitting in, the chair it feels like he has sat in for years, rises up towards the mirror.
“Of course you can,” Derevko says, running her fingers through his new, short hair. “You start your new job tomorrow, Agent Grace.”