#wiltman

Will: wait but what if someone left it there and planned on coming back for later? what if they just thought "well, I don't see why someone would take some random candy on the side of the road"

Horace: ...This is empty! *throws can across room*

Thanks so much. Probably not the “fluff” you meant but it’s still really cute. It’s not terribly long but I hope it’s good anyway, and it’s going up on my collection of stories, Carefree (ff.net, AO3) with the title I Knew I Could Trust You. :)

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What were they so afraid of, anyway?

They knew for a fact that all their friends would be more than accepting of them. Maybe they already knew.

What they were afraid of was how the people outside of their friend circle would treat them. For example, being on the football team, Horace was supposed to be a “manly man”, which meant chasing after cheerleaders and volleyball girls, and being the toughest, most heterosexual man he could, not crushing on his own best friend who also happened to be a boy. There was no way his teammates were going to be okay with it.

But it didn’t discourage Horace one bit from falling in love with Will.

And, through some miracle, Will felt the same way. After accidentally putting himself into an awkward situation, Will was forced to confess he liked his best friend of five years, without a clue that Horace had been thinking the same thing since the beginning of their freshman year.

It had been a month after they started dating, so their relationship was only getting started. They hadn’t yet said “I love you”; hell, they hadn’t even come out. Not even to Jenny, George and Alyss, otherwise known as The Squad. It was the way the other people in the school would treat them that frightened them. So they kept putting it off.

Will and Horace agreed, one night up texting at one in the morning (like usual) that they would come out to their close friends first before the entire school. That included The Squad, an older friend of Will’s, Halt, who was in college, and Will’s other friend Gilan, in his junior year of highschool. Those people, they knew they could trust and rely on to keep their secret until Will and Horace got the courage to tell the school. Aka, when the sun burned out, probably.

But ever since they agreed on that, they’d never set a date to actually tell them.

Which could be awkward at times.

The cafeteria was loud, so The Squad usually are in Will and Horace’s fourth period class, which was English. The teacher didn’t mind. He was off eating lunch somewhere else; they were good enough students that he could trust them.

“He forgot to remind us about the test tomorrow,” Will said, referring to the teacher. He sat on the very edge of his desk, half sitting, half leaning; checking his phone for messages. Horace was in the desk next to him, getting out his lunch and phone.

“Oh…” Horace mumbled. “I knew that.”

“Well it’s his fault, anyway. Aren’t teachers supposed to remind you of that stuff?” Will glanced up quickly from the screen.

“In high school we’re supposed to keep agendas. Or something,” Horace added. “But I think they should.”

“Hm. High school is still weird.” Will turned back to scrolling through various social medias, and let silence take over for a minute or two. Most of the other squad was still on the other side of the school, so it could take them a few minutes to get to the classroom. Will and Horace waited until then to eat their lunches. By now most people had cleared out of the room, and there were only about five other people still in there besides them.

So it was empty enough for Horace to bring it up.

“You know, I was thinking us and The Squad could go out this weekend,” Horace said. “Or… go to somebody’s house. Just to hang out. Maybe then, we could…” He paused, but Will knew what he was going to say. Horace finished anyway: “Tell them about us. If you’re okay with that.”

Will smiled just a little, without knowing really why. Maybe he was relieved Horace felt he was ready enough to do it that he could bring it up out of nowhere like that. Even though none of their friends were the least bit homophobic, neither Will nor Horace had even come out as gay to them before, let alone as a couple. They’d be doing both at the same time, and that was twice as difficult. Horace seemed to be ready now, or maybe he just wanted to get it over with before he never told them.

“I think we should,” Will said. “Let’s go out to lunch at Jenny’s restaurant or something and tell them. At a movie it’s kinda hard to talk to people.”

“Mm, true,” agreed Horace. “Let’s do that, then. If they can make it.”

“Alright.”

Jenny’s parents owned a restaurant, and she frequently worked (more for fun than for money) there and helped with cooking, taking people’s orders, or managing it. So they went there often, because Jenny was a talented cook, and also because she gave them a discount if they asked nicely. Usually there were a good number of people in there, but it wasn’t too crowded that they couldn’t talk about something privately.

Just the thought of coming out to them, and the fact that now they had set a date (a vague date, at least) to do it was now making Horace start to regret saying anything. But in his heart he knew that was just because of his own paranoia, and not because it was a bad idea.

If nothing else, he could trust Will. If Will said it was going to be okay, then Horace was willing to go into anything unsure. Because if Will was so sure, then it would be okay, and Will would be there to catch him if it wasn’t.

Interrupting his thoughts, the door to the classroom opened, and the two boys looked up. Jenny and George walked in, headed straight for the spot of the desks near the front corner, where they usually stationed themselves.

“Hey hey!” Jenny greeted cheerily. “What’s happenin’?” Her trying to be “cool” by saying “what’s happenin’” was completely ironic, of course.

She swung her backpack back off her shoulder, but it swung so fast she had to grab the strap to keep it from flying away from her. The sudden stop still gave the backpack power, though, and it smashed into the leg of the nearest desk.

For a moment it looked like the desk was going to fall. Horace gasped; it came out almost a yell, like he was frightened so the desk didn’t have to be.

“Jenny!” Will said. “Don’t break the desk!”

“Sorry!” she exclaimed. It was hardly apologetic.

Alyss came in a minute later, and they started eating.

Luckily for them, they had the classroom almost all to themselves. Only three other people were in there, too, and they were doing work quietly in the back. The teacher usually went out to eat with the other teachers, so it was almost as if they’d privately rented their own room for lunch.

They treated it like the pivot in their day. All of them never had any classes where all of them were together, only two, or, if they were lucky, three of them. Lunch was the point on which they rotated; a checkpoint to keep them all knitted tightly together, outside of the things they did after school together.

Not too long into the period, Horace brought up the idea of the five of them going out to eat on the weekend.

They were totally on board, except…

Jenny said, “That sounds fun, but actually…” she looked from George, on one side of her, to Alyss, on her other side, with a not so much sneaky but rather excited smile, “somebody… may or may be asking Horace out to a movie this weekend.”

Alyss’s eyebrows raised. “Ooh,” she grinned, and put down the salad she’d bought from the cafeteria. “Who is it?”

“Can’t tell. I may love gossip, but I don’t start it. She’s my friend and I said I wouldn’t tell.”

“We’re your friends too.”

“If you were my friends you wouldn’t pressure me into it, would you?” Jenny asked.

Alyss rolled her eyes. “You know I’m just kidding.” She pushed Jenny, lightly on her shoulder as a playful gesture. “I wouldn’t tell if I were you, either.”

“What’re you going to say?” George asked Horace.

Horace chewed on his sandwich very, very slowly, to buy himself as much time as possible. Seconds passed, and everybody still stared at him, waiting, intent on hearing his answer when he got enough courage to say anything.

Will was staring at him, too, but Horace couldn’t look back at him or it would be too obvious. Plus, Horace didn’t have to see Will’s face to know what it looked like. He was probably trying to keep his cool, but Will was so easily jealous that he wasn’t going to do a very good job of it. Horace had to choose his words carefully.

Finally he swallowed, and quietly spoke, “W-Well… I don’t know who she is. I couldn’t say.”

“She’s really cute,” said Jenny.

“She probably is, but I just…” Horace shrugged. “I don’t know if I'm… interested in dating gi- I mean, dating, at this point. I’m busy, and…” Horace realized, at that point that if he convinced them he didn’t want to date anybody, it would be even weirder to them if he came out with Will. So he had to phrase it differently.

But Alyss said something before he could: “Why not? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m curious.”

“No reason in particular. I just don’t think I’d be interested in her,” Horace answered, half honestly. (There was a reason in particular, but the second half was true.) “I like to get to know someone before I go out with them. You know, be good friends for a while.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Horace could see a fleeting smile come to Will’s face.

“With most girls, I agree,” George replied. He dropped out of the conversation for now and resumed eating.

“But she’s definitely going to talk to you anyway,” Jenny said. “What’re you going to say?”

“I guess I’ll turn her down. I mean, I…” Horace trailed off, unsure of what to say anymore. “I don’t really like…”

Jenny’s eyes widened, and she gasped. Horace’s heart stung and he worried for a second he had gotten too close to the truth that she could figure it out.

“Wait!” she said. “Do you have a crush on someone already?”

So it wasn’t what he thought she was going to say. But Horace couldn’t even be relieved, because what she asked was hard to answer without screaming at her, “I’m gay and I’m dating Will”.

“No, no, I mean,” he stuttered. “Kind of- no, I mean, it’s not…” Horace pursed his lips together in frustration. Well, e was going to come out that weekend, wasn’t he? Maybe this was an easier way to than having to bring it up himself.

“Who is she?” Alyss asked. “Do we know her?”

“Is it me?” Jenny asked.

George glanced over at her and rolled his eyes. “You wish,” he said.

“Oh, shut up.”

“I-I…” Horace started, and all eyes were on him again. “You do, but it’s like… I don’t know if I can…”

Then Will stood up off the desk and leaned over to Horace. It occurred to them suddenly that Will hadn’t said one word during the entire conversation. They hadn’t seen him steaming with jealousy.

With one arm supporting him, he bent his head down, angled Horace’s head one way with his hand, and then kissed him.

It all hit them like a speeding truck. Nobody knew what to say for a straight (not-so-straight) five seconds, while Will kept kissing Horace and Horace didn’t pull away. Somewhere in the middle of the kiss, Horace accepted that they had already gone too far to go back, so he let himself kiss back and relished in how good it felt to be kissing Will in front of other people. It was like throwing his hands up in the air and saying “oh well, screw it”, but instead of being frustrated afterwards, he just felt at home.

When they finally stopped, they looked back at their friends’ reactions and got pretty much what they were expecting.

Shock. Vague confusion. But no disgust.

More time passed, and nobody moved a muscle.

Alyss was, surprisingly, the first one to burst out into laughter. That broke the ice, and the tension in the room crumbled. Jenny grinned from ear to ear, no longer shocked but instead staring at them in adoration. “Ohhh my god,” she giggled.

George’s initial reaction didn’t change one bit.

Will smiled. These were the best reactions they could’ve gotten. “So, no,” he said, “Horace won’t be getting asked out by anyone but me, because he’s mine.“

Jenny was about to squeal aloud, they could see it in her eyes.

“I just…” Alyss said, sounding like she was crying with laughter, “Will, only you would just- I…”

George’s face still hadn’t changed. “Huh?” he whispered.

Horace lifted his eyes up at Will, who was already looking back at him with the same smile. “Sorry,” he said, “but it sounded like you were going to tell them, and… I hope that was okay.”

Heeyy I know I haven’t updated HYUT in a while- if anyone’s still reading it, sorry about that. I’m still going to continue it. But for now, here’s a short Hill fic for Wiltman week. It’s for yesterday’s prompt, “scars”, and it’s late, so , again, sorry :) I didn’t spend too much time on it so don’t expect it to be amazing or anywhere near my best works, so, again, sorry... Okay I’ll stop being depressing, hope you like it :)

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Wiltman week will run from Sunday, February 7th to Saturday, February 13th and will be followed by Alyssandra week which will run from Sunday, February 14th to Saturday, February 20th. You can create any pieces for Will & Horace during Wiltman week and any pieces for Alyss & Cassandra during Alyssandra week. Visit this page to find out more about participation.

The official themes for Wiltman week are:

Day 1 ~ Green & Silver Day 2 ~ Rain  Day 3 ~ Scars Day 4 ~ Safe Haven Day 5 ~ Haunted Day 6 ~ Smile Day 7 ~ Blow Me Away

The official themes for Alyssandra week are: