Bribes, they...sort of work?
Well.
I'm up to 4377 angsty words of Will without Helen and no porn. And he kept me up most of the night writing them. Fortunately there was Declan being LOVELY and Kate being vaguely hilarious and OCs hitting on Will and KITTENS to make it less painful.
I'm not even kidding, you guys, there are glowing kittens. It's a very short appearance. I may have to expand it because they're too cute for their little wee paws. Will, I do not even know. HOW ARE YOU MAKING ME WRITE ABOUT GLOWING KITTENS?
This is NOT sex with Helen! On the other hand it could be sex, I mean, for me, you with a bunch of glowing kittens is sex for my heart and my eyes and I look like this: <3_<3
However, on the sexy upside, thanks to a late night burst of talking with cata_clysmiic I have FIGURED OUT THE PORN. And Will is going to go along with it, without even being too troublesome.
For future, if you are having problems, apply this formula: Helen + lingerie + tears. It is MAGIC. He can't resist. I mean it's like porn catnip!
* * *
Since I'm tormenting you with my trials and tribulations again, have some words for your pains:
It makes sense when he leaves Old City that Magnus sends him to the UK first, to Declan. Declan’s head of his own house, but he’s also become part of their team. He’s tight with Magnus, got on well with James (sometimes Will wonders how well, but he’d only be envious, he thinks, even though he’s not into guys, so he never asks) so he “gets” Will when he’s up in his head and profiling or tracking mysteries or needing to know everything, and he’s friends with both of them. A bridge, someone who will ease Will out of Old City and into his own.
Will’s glad, more glad than he can ever put words around that Declan comes to get him himself. Even when Declan’s first words are, “You look like hell, mate. What happened?” he still would rather it be Declan than some stranger, because ‘hell’ is underselling it. Will’s seen himself in the mirror and he looks like he did when the Makri had killed him and he just hadn’t died yet: scruffy, pale, and the only thing alive in him are his eyes, and those burn with that weirdly intense, fevered clarity that the dying sometimes have. He might be a psychopomp now, Hermes with a message for the Underworld, or the Lampades lighting the halls for Hecate (only Magnus is Hecate, and he’s not lighting the way for her since she’s not with him, except for the ways she is, she always is, and he’s trying to escape the ‘always will be’).
Declan asks and Will feels himself crumple like an imploding building. Henry and Kate and the Big Guy all knew. Even Tesla knew. But Declan doesn’t, and Will breaks down, no pride, it’s like Clara all over again, tears and clenched fists and locked jaw and all. He’d be embarrassed if there was enough of him left to feel anything but that ripping ache, the hole through his soul that is Magnus.
“Ah.” Declan claps a hand over Will’s shoulder, steers him into a car, and then out of the car again into a pub. He talks about his family - his Da, his Gran, his sisters (Clare, the solicitor; Fiona, the doctor; Bethia who’s brilliant at marketing and turned the local into a right tourist trap; and Moira, the artist who they all think is a bit daft but a gas anyway) - through the first two pints and Will listens, remembers, nods and doesn’t say much. Midway through the third, Declan says, “Magnus, yeah? How bad?” proving once again a gift for politics Will just doesn’t have.
Will shrugs and rubs a hand over his gritty eyes. “Professionally? Not at all. Right as rain. Personally?” His voice catches in his throat, and stays caught through his fingernail scraping an eternity symbol in the sticky accretion of years of spilled beer, maraschino cherry juice, Bailey’s and coffee among other things. “It’s... fucked.”
Declan’s eyebrows climb faster and higher than Sir Edmund Hillary, because Will really doesn’t swear like that. Not about Magnus anyway. “Ah, shit, mate. You slept with her finally?”
Maybe he should be pissed that Declan zeroes in, but he can’t be. It just goes to prove what he already knows. What everyone knows. It isn’t just him. Wasn’t. Besides, it’s a relief to be asked outright, so he can tell someone, “No,” and be sure it’ll get where it needs to go.
I'm up to 4377 angsty words of Will without Helen and no porn. And he kept me up most of the night writing them. Fortunately there was Declan being LOVELY and Kate being vaguely hilarious and OCs hitting on Will and KITTENS to make it less painful.
I'm not even kidding, you guys, there are glowing kittens. It's a very short appearance. I may have to expand it because they're too cute for their little wee paws. Will, I do not even know. HOW ARE YOU MAKING ME WRITE ABOUT GLOWING KITTENS?
This is NOT sex with Helen! On the other hand it could be sex, I mean, for me, you with a bunch of glowing kittens is sex for my heart and my eyes and I look like this: <3_<3
However, on the sexy upside, thanks to a late night burst of talking with cata_clysmiic I have FIGURED OUT THE PORN. And Will is going to go along with it, without even being too troublesome.
For future, if you are having problems, apply this formula: Helen + lingerie + tears. It is MAGIC. He can't resist. I mean it's like porn catnip!
* * *
Since I'm tormenting you with my trials and tribulations again, have some words for your pains:
It makes sense when he leaves Old City that Magnus sends him to the UK first, to Declan. Declan’s head of his own house, but he’s also become part of their team. He’s tight with Magnus, got on well with James (sometimes Will wonders how well, but he’d only be envious, he thinks, even though he’s not into guys, so he never asks) so he “gets” Will when he’s up in his head and profiling or tracking mysteries or needing to know everything, and he’s friends with both of them. A bridge, someone who will ease Will out of Old City and into his own.
Will’s glad, more glad than he can ever put words around that Declan comes to get him himself. Even when Declan’s first words are, “You look like hell, mate. What happened?” he still would rather it be Declan than some stranger, because ‘hell’ is underselling it. Will’s seen himself in the mirror and he looks like he did when the Makri had killed him and he just hadn’t died yet: scruffy, pale, and the only thing alive in him are his eyes, and those burn with that weirdly intense, fevered clarity that the dying sometimes have. He might be a psychopomp now, Hermes with a message for the Underworld, or the Lampades lighting the halls for Hecate (only Magnus is Hecate, and he’s not lighting the way for her since she’s not with him, except for the ways she is, she always is, and he’s trying to escape the ‘always will be’).
Declan asks and Will feels himself crumple like an imploding building. Henry and Kate and the Big Guy all knew. Even Tesla knew. But Declan doesn’t, and Will breaks down, no pride, it’s like Clara all over again, tears and clenched fists and locked jaw and all. He’d be embarrassed if there was enough of him left to feel anything but that ripping ache, the hole through his soul that is Magnus.
“Ah.” Declan claps a hand over Will’s shoulder, steers him into a car, and then out of the car again into a pub. He talks about his family - his Da, his Gran, his sisters (Clare, the solicitor; Fiona, the doctor; Bethia who’s brilliant at marketing and turned the local into a right tourist trap; and Moira, the artist who they all think is a bit daft but a gas anyway) - through the first two pints and Will listens, remembers, nods and doesn’t say much. Midway through the third, Declan says, “Magnus, yeah? How bad?” proving once again a gift for politics Will just doesn’t have.
Will shrugs and rubs a hand over his gritty eyes. “Professionally? Not at all. Right as rain. Personally?” His voice catches in his throat, and stays caught through his fingernail scraping an eternity symbol in the sticky accretion of years of spilled beer, maraschino cherry juice, Bailey’s and coffee among other things. “It’s... fucked.”
Declan’s eyebrows climb faster and higher than Sir Edmund Hillary, because Will really doesn’t swear like that. Not about Magnus anyway. “Ah, shit, mate. You slept with her finally?”
Maybe he should be pissed that Declan zeroes in, but he can’t be. It just goes to prove what he already knows. What everyone knows. It isn’t just him. Wasn’t. Besides, it’s a relief to be asked outright, so he can tell someone, “No,” and be sure it’ll get where it needs to go.