#ra fic

crowley was hesitant at first to let gilan take will on since gilan was pretty inexperienced and rather young for an apprentice. but gilan was the one who welcomed will back from skandia and cared for him 24/7 through that initial week back filled with a constant onslaught of night terrors and flashbacks and panic attacks. not that they stopped then, but the healer they were working with had suggested they try going back to a gentler training schedule to put some normalcy and structure into will’s life. and when will had said that he really, really didn’t want to be apprenticed to anyone besides gilan, gilan had been determined to move heaven and earth to make it happen. so crowley resigned himself to the fact that halt passed on his stubborn, fierce protectiveness to gilan (and was secretly warmed to see the strength of love and family created between the two apprentices of his, uh, his lifelong best friend), and let gilan take will on, so long as gilan regularly kept in touch with crowley and another nearby senior ranger (in a neighboring fief), in case gilan ever had any questions or wanted advice.

and after the first months of gilan being will’s mentor went amazingly well (within the context of will continuing to work through the trauma of skandia — halt’s death as well as all the canon things)), crowley moved the two of them back to redmont. because honestly, they both know the fief very well from their time with halt, and the duo were proving very capable. and not that crowley said it in his reasoning, but redmont was closer to araluen than meric fief, and this way crowley could visit them much easier.

at some point, will takes to rubbing at halt’s oakleaf on his wrist as a sort of comfort/nervous fidget, and some of the scuffing on its surface left by halt’s everyday wear starts to fade, polished away by time and will’s rough fingertips. will panics when he first realizes this because he feels like he’s erasing the evidence of halt from it, and gilan finds him on the edge of a panic attack one day, going back and forth between saying it’s a stupid worry then sobbing that he had failed halt — which was really about will’s survivor’s guilt, his deep fear that he hadn’t done enough and it was his fault, that he should have saved halt or halt shouldn’t have had to save him in the first place. gilan knows that deeper issue isn’t something he can solve right then, but he could sit with him and help will at least see that no matter how the oakleaf changed, it was and always would be halt’s oakleaf — and one day, also will’s, because there was never any doubt about that. and gilan and also is like. well maybe rub the back and edges more since most of the scratches and dings and stuff are on the front right? and will is like. oh. right. yes. (and then gilan jokingly affects a stern look, reminding will of what they’d just said about how, whatever he does, will is not erasing halt from the oakleaf either way — gilan’s way of gently and humorously making sure will got the point of their talk, which he did).

and later, halt’s oakleaf turns into a sort of anchor point of halt’s memory for will and he starts staring at it as he has the whole ‘hearing the voice of someone you know very well in your head randomly popping in to give you advice or respond to something’, and then also when he thinks ‘what would halt do?’. (though he often stares more at his wrist and sleeve since he keeps the oakleaf tucked away a fair amount of the time so it isn’t dangling about and getting in the way of everything he did). then will starts more directly engaging with his mental!halt and uses the oakleaf as a conduit for that, eventually sometimes even talking out loud to the pendant and lowkey processing a lot of his grief by talking to halt via the oakleaf.

gilan finds will doing this one day and will is rather horrified and embarrassed until gilan pulls back his sleeve and shows will a bronze oakleaf around his wrist — gilan’s old apprentice necklace. gilan quietly explains how he wears it as a tribute to his mentor and father-figure, as a way of saying halt will always be gilan’s mentor and gilan always his apprentice, to hold close his memories of him time spent with halt (much of it happening when it was that necklace around his neck), and as a way of taking halt with him wherever he goes. and gilan says the oakleaf has come to represent halt for him too and that, sometimes, he also talks to halt through it, holding the pendant in both his hands and closing his eyes. gilan then reaches and takes will’s hand to lead him back to the cabin. their clasped hands are the ones each chose to wear the oakleaf on (will’s right and gilan’s left), and the bronze and silver metal gently bump against each other with a light ting! as they walk back together.

will almost doesn’t make it through his own graduation. gilan and crowley decided to keep to just the three of them, guessing that will wouldn’t want to have to deal with a big party. it would be hard enough already with halt’s painfully obvious absence at what was one of the most important events in will’s life, one where halt should have been present more than anyone else. will is eternally grateful to them for it. he decides to celebrate with his friends with a night out a few days later, and it doesn’t hurt as badly then.

after his graduation, with the familiar weight of halt’s silver oakleaf now pressed over his heart, will’s wrist felt oddly bare and untethered, so at gilan’s suggestion, he also begins wearing his old apprentice oakleaf on his wrist.

crowley smiled when he saw this. all those years ago, pritchard had fashioned a rough sort of bronze oakleaf for halt at the one year mark of halt’s unofficial apprenticeship. one night after duncan et. al. had chased morgarath back to the mountains of rain and night post-hackham heath, crowley and halt were alone back at castle araluen and with a night to themselves. halt quietly told crowley the story behind that oakleaf and then gave it to crowley, telling him he wanted crowley to have it. and crowley gives halt his apprentice oakleaf in return. crowley saw gilan with his apprentice oakleaf tied around his wrist when gilan and will had stopped by castle araluen on the way to redmont from meric, and when they left, he took halt’s apprentice oakleaf from where he had kept it in a little box and tied it gently around his own wrist.

halt’s death changed them all, forever. crowley would never again love like he had loved halt with his entire being and then more. will would never feel the love of a father, see someone like his father as he had in halt. gilan would never again trust so wholly, in unfettered totality, like he had trusted halt.

but it would be okay.

on the first anniversary of halt’s death, crowley had ridden quietly to halt’s old cabin and spent the night with gilan and will. at first, they just sat together in silence, alone together around the crackling fire. then, crowley pulled back his sleeve, showed will and gilan the rough little oakleaf dangling there, and told them its story. they spent that night crying and laughing with each other in turn, telling stories about halt, remembering the mentor and father and love of a lif-uh, best friend, that he had been to them. and so, they found they had created their own little family in one other. they were gathered at the start by the almost magnetic quality of halt’s presence that drew them all in. they were bound together by their love for halt and their grief at his death. and now, they saw their love for each other was beginning to grow and fill in the cracks. in time, it would become enough to glue them back together into something new. not quite whole. not quite broken. but okay. loved.