crash course in flexible attraction

charlie: I see you've been interviewed to take over my spot on the sandwich!
will: Yeah the interview was kinda sprung on me. Don't worry, I don't think I'm gonna get that callback
charlie: That's too bad! It was a good episode
will: Oh thanks? I wasn't trying that hard. I talked about fake candies a lot
charlie: I'm still wishing some of those were real
will: I don't think I have the power to make new candies. I'll see what I can do, though

So, Charlie's back in the UK for a little over a week, with a shooting schedule for video ideas he has planned that's pretty fast-paced, including taking part in some of Tommy's vlogs again, a few collaborations with the others in the area for other videos, some time to record a couple of his own videos, and all in all it barely leaves any time to catch his breath, and he gets his first break in the evening of his second day there, at Wilbur's apartment, which is about when the everything begins.

There's this awkward moment when Charlie realizes he has a boner and that Wilbur knows he has a boner and hey, having boners around your buds is weird.

In fairness, though, Wilbur was the reason for the boner. Like, intentionally. Still awkward, though.

Wilbur is sitting there over Charlie, eyes blown wide. It's like neither of them expected to be this close to fucking each other, but commitment to the bit has led them both to genuinely considering the prospect and they're kinda into it.

Like, okay, they WERE just joking at first. Standard two-bros flirting stuff, mostly innocent. Then they started escalating, because that's how funnies work. Just having a laugh, except that laugh was about, like, what if we made out, haha, what if we kissed and we, like, enjoyed it.

And then they did kiss, and they. Did? They did enjoy it?

Charlie blames the alcohol. It happens. After drinking less he's become a bit more of a lightweight. Not his fault. Maybe.

So. Wilbur is catching his breath above Charlie, eyes wide and hair kinda messy in front of his eyes. Charlie's head is turned up a lot, because Wilbur is, check the numbers, more than half a foot taller than him and currently looming over him like a. Sail on a sailboat. What?

"Did you just call me a fucking sail?"

Charlie freezes and then laughs as the realization that he said that aloud sets in. Wilbur laughs along, eyes squinting shut as he does. Charlie can't help but notice with the way the two are positioned that Wilbur is really pretty when he laughs.

He does not say so. He just watches him as the laughter dies down. Eventually, Wilbur starts paying attention again, and sees Charlie just watching him. It's a nice little moment where they just kinda watch each other. Charlie hesitates, but decides to move a hand up to rest it on Wilbur's cheek. "Hey," he says, softly.

"Hey?" Wilbur says back. "Nice to see you."

Charlie runs his thumb along Wilbur's cheekbone. "Like, not to step outside of the bit for a second, but. All good? 'Cause we could stop." He almost doesn't want to say it, because his dick is extremely interested, but due diligence and all that.

Wilbur smiles. "Gentle. Yeah, I'm all good. You?"

"Oh, dude, more than good."

Wilbur leans his face against Charlie's hand. "You're sturdy."

Charlie's hand jitters a little bit. "Weird compliment."

"Ah, you know what I mean." He rests a hand on Charlie's arm, appreciating the muscle there. "Built."

Charlie feels a little flush threatening to appear on his cheeks. It's not that he's that into being praised(?), but given the previous tone was essentially just the two of them taking the piss out of each other, the genuine gentleness startles him.

He does a little laugh. "Thanks, dude. You're not too bad yourself."

It's not untrue. Wilbur is a skinny guy, a lanky dude, but he's not completely lacking in muscle mass.

Wilbur grins. "Why, thank you, my dear slime." He moves a hand a bit down, then shakily back up. "I'm gonna be honest. I'm not sure where to go from here, but I really want to... I want something."

Charlie nods, faintly, mentally trying to go through a list of things he thinks are involved in gay sex. His list is not expansive, and most of what's on the list is conceptually distressing to him. "I'm not sure either. I guess we could, like." He pauses, unsure of how to continue, and then remembers the art of gestural communication. He lowers the one hand from hovering up near Wilbur's face, does a kinda crude hand motion that he thinks pretty clearly represents jacking off.

Wilbur blinks and then shrugs. "Yeah, okay," and then there's another fucking pause while they wait to see if they actually are gonna do this.

Because at any point before a hand ends up in someone's pants, this is arguably just some drunken messing around. Like, a little awkward later, but easy to eventually forget about. Touching your own dick in front of your bud is different.

The moment hangs still, and then Wilbur slowly, nervously moves his hand down, undoes his button. Charlie feels his dick jump a little bit at the sight, and he moves to follow suit, undoing his own button and getting his hand wrapped around himself. Wilbur catches up, and from there it kinda just plays itself out.

Charlie fucks into his own hand as he watches Wilbur do the same. Their breathing gets heavier in sync, and Charlie is realizing as he feels Wilbur's breath over his cheek that he kinda really likes this. Like, this specific intimacy. For some reason. Clothes and hot breath and jacking-off sounds and it being Wilbur, bent at the waist and curled over him, only letting out the softest of sounds occasionally, clearly trying to not make too much noise.

Charlie lets out a little gasp in response to one of Wilbur's. God. Will adjusts himself, shifting a bit to the side, and the hand he's been using to prop himself up, behind Charlie's shoulder. He bends that arm, switching to resting on his elbow, and his hand ends up resting on the back of Charlie's head. It's comfortable, soft. Wilbur sighs, and Charlie makes a weird little squeaky noise.

He can see when Wilbur speeds up, hand changing speeds, the shape in his pants moving visibly faster. Charlie follows suit, speeding up to try and match the pace.

He hears it when Wilbur comes, a choked gasp from beside his head, and then he sees it, hips stuttering and jerking forward. It feels like a shot to his spine. But he's still going, chest heaving heavy breaths, back starting to rise from the couch back. Will's breath comes out heavy for a bit, and then as it starts to stabilize- "C'n I help?"

Charlie sighs when he feels Wilbur's fingers hook into his waistband, nods as his hand moves further down, and then gasps when he feels Will's fingers close around his dick alongside his and start to move at the same pace.

It isn't long after that he tips over the edge, and the thought which grips him then, and which follows him for a while after that, is that he really wants to return the favor.

A bit afterwards, Wilbur says that it doesn't have to mean anything, and Charlie barely hears it in the moment over the blood rushing through his head, but it plays on loop later- it doesn't have to mean anything, it doesn't have to mean anything- when he gets himself off in his hotel shower the next day.

The day after that, there's a group hangout.

Charlie is terrified to show up, still guilty about getting off to Will in the shower the night before, but he shows up anyways. It's a pretty normal hangout sesh, even if he is a bit jumpy.

At some point, Charlie separates off from the group, to zone out by himself, when he's scared absolutely shitless by somebody coming up behind him.

He's not afraid to admit he yells when his shoulder gets patted. When the laughter dies down, though, he turns around to see Wilbur, grinning.

"Did I scare you?"

"Of course you scared me! You came out of nowhere! Like a ghost!"

"Boo," Wilbur says. Charlie rolls his eyes. Wilbur stands there, looks into his face. "Hey, are you alright?"

Charlie pauses, looks up at Wilbur, and steels himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

After a while, people start filing out, leaving only a few stragglers to find their ways home. Wilbur points out to Charlie that his place isn't too far from where they are now, and even though he feels like it's probably a bad idea to go home with Wilbur, he still wants to. He's got a favor he needs to return.

He manages to keep the combo of nerves and horniness under wraps on the way back to Will's, and once they're inside it stays pretty much the same. Wilbur even offers him some water, brings him a glass.

Charlie contemplates getting a lift from a rideshare app to get back to his hotel, and Wilbur shrugs at the idea, noncommittally. It's another out he's being offered, so that's nice, it's appreciated. But he knows he's gonna fold when Wilbur offers to let him stay the night here.

So Wilbur offers, Charlie shrugs, says he might as well, since it's pretty late and he always feels bad ordering a ride when it's dark out. He sits himself down on the couch, glass of water in one hand. Wilbur sits beside him, kicking his legs up on the coffee table in front of him.

Charlie drinks his water extremely normally and tries his best not to fixate on the sense memory of Wilbur jacking him off on this couch, the feeling of his fingers wrapped around him, and okay, he's failing.

Wilbur looks over at him after a while, hand kinda nervously tapping on the armrest. Charlie looks back, takes it in, and then moves to set his glass of water down, setting it on the coffee table.

Wilbur watches him. He watches Wilbur. It's like they're both trying to figure out whether the other is into it. And eventually, from Will: "So, do you wanna-?"

"Yeah."

This time, Charlie is kneeling over Wilbur, who's sprawled out on his back, lying on the couch with a little smile on his face.

Charlie tries to breathe slowly, watching Will closely as they just wait. There's a lot of waiting with Will, he's noticing.

After a bit of weighing, Will moves a hand up to tug at the bottom hem of Charlie's shirt. "I think I'd like it if you took this off."

Charlie nods and tugs it over his head. Wilbur whistles when he does, and Charlie rolls his eyes and snorts.

"Lookin' good, Charlie."

"You're looking good too," Charlie says back. "Hair looks soft."

"Washed it this morning," he says. "Probably smells good too."

Charlie shifts and leans down, bracing himself with his elbows. Wilbur's nose flares when he sucks in a breath, but Charlie doesn't see anything else, tucking his head against the side of Will's and sniffing. Wilbur giggles when he realizes what's happening, and Charlie nods as he leans back up. "Yeah, smells nice and fresh."

Wilbur is still snickering, and Charlie cracks a smile too.

"You sniffed me. You're so weird."

"Hey, you brought it up," Charlie says, and then he leans down to kiss Wilbur, sighing as he opens his mouth to let Charlie in.

Charlie can see Will's face when he pulls away, the pink that's starting to burn on his cheeks, and he smiles, self-satisfied, going back in for more.

He can feel Wilbur starting to get riled up, the hands resting on his back starting to shake, the chest under his starting to rise and fall with heavy breaths. Most importantly, pinned under his hips, he can feel him hardening.

He's honestly still kind of dealing with the fact that he likes this, wants it at all. The head rush that comes with the feeling of Wilbur, hard and nearly panting under him, hits a hell of a lot different.

He presses his own hips down as a bit of a test, and is rewarded with a gasp against his lips. God, that's addictive. He grinds down harder, and smiles as Wilbur pants out against him and wriggles, trying to get a bit more friction.

Charlie is transfixed by this for a bit, keeping that going until Wilbur breaks away and lets out a "God, Charlie, can I please-?"

"Hm?" Charlie asks, head foggy.

Will reaches a hand down to unbutton his pants, and Charlie feels blood rush through his head again when he realizes how hard Wilbur must have been straining against the denim.

"Shit, sorry," he apologizes, instinctively, and Will huffs.

"No need to apologize," he replies. "Genuinely, I think you're hot enough that I barely noticed."

"Oh," Charlie says. I mean, what else are you gonna say to that.

"Yeah," Wilbur laughs.

Charlie leans up, frowns at the way Wilbur's hands scramble a bit at his sides to try to keep him in place. "Hold on, dude," he says, and he shimmies around a bit until he has easy access to slide a hand into Wilbur's pants, wrapping his hand around him and even giving him a little squeeze.

Wilbur's hips twitch up, a little gasp coming with them, and then he settles as Charlie starts a rhythm, trying his hardest to figure out how to mirror the movements he'd normally be doing for himself.

It seems to be working well enough, because Wilbur is clearly into it, managing to roll his hips up into the movements and match him. Charlie keeps the pace until he sees Wilbur start to get restless, remembering the way he had to suddenly speed up the other day, and he does his best to mimic that, moving faster, trying to keep the pressure constant. Wilbur's eyes squeezed shut ages ago, but when Charlie speeds up he opens them to look up at him, and. God, does he look pretty.

He does verbalize it this time- "You look really pretty, Wilbur,"- and gets a nice reaction from that, feels it in the way his dick pulses in his hand, oh my God yeah he's touching his dick. Fully getting his buddy off. And really into it. Okay.

He must fumble a bit, because Wilbur looks up at him, pupils absolutely blown out, and rests a hand on Charlie's free arm, skating a thumb across it. "All good?"

Charlie nods quickly and gets back into the rhythm with a new vigor, even faster than before. Wilbur swears under his breath and drops his head back, just focusing on fucking up to meet Charlie's hand on the downstroke, and then he feels it. A pulse or two, and then his hand feels wet, sticky. Wilbur's face pinches a bit, letting out a whining sound that breaks off, moving too high for him to even produce, and then he catches his breath.

Charlie wants to be grossed out by the jizz now coating his fingers, but he can barely feel it over the sensation of his own dick straining against his jeans.

After Wilbur seems to have recomposed himself, he slides back a bit so that he's sitting, leaning against the armrest, and he gestures for Charlie to come forward, waiting for him to shuffle up so that he's over his lap.

"Got your hand a bit messy, didn't I," Wilbur says.

Charlie nods, words kinda hard to come up with while he still feels like he's floating. Wilbur watches him closely, takes his hand and moves it up to his face, and before Charlie actually processes what's happening, licks a bit of the cum off of his fingers.

He must say something, or make some kinda noise, 'cause Wilbur grins and presses his fingers into the soft skin of his palm, licks a stripe up to swipe more cum off. Fucking Christ.

"Nah, you're fucking Wilbur," he says. Said that one aloud too. Oops.

Charlie nearly chokes when Wilbur presses a little kiss to the back of his hand. It's gross, shouldn't feel as nice as it does, but God damn does it, the soft press of his lips next to his jizz, spattered across his fingers and smeared across the back of his hand from Charlie pulling his hand out from Wilbur's underwear. There's spit starting to cool there too. Charlie is bewildered as to why he's into this.

Wilbur looks back at him, blinking slowly. "Want me to help you out again?"

Charlie's brain is still buffering, partially from horny confusion about the. Huh. The that. The hand-mouth-jizz-fingers-licking incident. The other reason it's still buffering is that he's painfully hard. He must take a while to process, because Will starts to press his fingers into Charlie again, massaging his hand as he wipes some spit away with his thumb.

He gets there, though. "God, please, yeah."

Wilbur smiles like he's a cat who's been given permission to pour himself a bowl of cream- haha, cream- and immediately undoes Charlie's button and fly. His fingertips dance around the waistband of his boxers, and then- "Can I- can I get your dick out?"

Charlie nods, and then swallows. "If you want to?"

Wilbur hooks his fingers in and pulls them down, and Charlie feels his dick fucking spring free, feels his cheeks darken a little bit more with embarrassment. Wilbur doesn't hesitate to get his hand around him, start with a pretty quick rhythm, which Charlie is so thankful for, because if he doesn't fucking get off now he might fully explode and die.

He doesn't even hear himself panting with Wilbur's strokes, only realizing he's doing it when Wilbur leans in to slide his tongue into his mouth and he doesn't need to open it.

It's quick work when it comes down to it. Charlie keens into Will's mouth as his vision goes blurrier than normal, and then the fog clears and oh, Will's hand is still moving, carrying him through it. Charlie's kind of starting to feel like putty, extremely squishable.

Charlie has a bit of trouble catching his breath, what with Wilbur still pressing into him, the hand of his with the least jizz on it tangled in his hair and holding him close for an extended kiss. He doesn't try to pull away, though, just closing his eyes and leaning into it. It takes Will a moment to let him go to catch his breath.

When he does, the first thing he can think to say is "Dude, we are gonna need to move off this couch or all this jizz is gonna get on it."

Will nods like he agrees, but still takes a second to move, and then- "You're on top of me."

"Oh, shit, right."

Charlie sleeps over that night, after hunting on the floor to find his shirt and lying down on the couch. He wakes up in Wilbur's bed, confused until he remembers Wilbur waking him up to ask him to come join him.

Charlie figured people might end up noticing eventually, if it kept happening, but he did not expect it to be the next day, and he certainly did not expect Philza Minecraft to be the one to notice, and he ESPECIALLY did not expect the method of noticing to be so fucking stupid. Literally goes like this:

Charlie wakes up and goes to the bathroom to pee and to freshen up, wash his face. He's an early riser, but jet lag can still hit hard, so he wakes himself up with cool water, rinses his hair, even.

There's a knock at the door, and he tries to listen to see if Wilbur is gonna get up and get it. When he doesn't hear any movement, he figures he's safe to leave the bathroom and either head back to the bedroom to see if Will's awake or to get his phone and order himself some breakfast, 'cause he did just fuck Will but he's not sure about the etiquette of eating his food.

Wilbur is in the front room. He must have already been awake, maybe stirred by Charlie getting out of bed.

The door is opening. Phil is there.

Charlie blinks and stares at Phil. Phil blinks and stares back. Wilbur turns to look behind him and sees Charlie.

Charlie waves hi to Wilbur. Wilbur waves back. Phil looks between them, and then says "Oh! Okay. Sorry to bother you, then. I was just supposed to pick you up for breakfast if you wanted to go out."

"I'd have breakfast," Wilbur says. "Charlie?"

"Yeah, I'll have breakfast. Hey, Phil!"

Breakfast is nice. Charlie eats a truly upsetting quantity of waffles and manages to be so normal about the fact that Phil definitely knows that he and Wilbur fucked. Although he technically doesn't know that they've fucked twice, so there's some small comfort.

Charlie figures he should probably go back to his hotel room today after the shit they have planned, mostly just because he knows he's gonna be tired and he wants some good solid sleep.

Wilbur follows him to his hotel room.

They actually don't fuck again - Wilbur just sleeps in Charlie's bed. It's nice.

Charlie's gonna be in the UK for three more days.

He knows he should probably try to have a sit-down with Wilbur and talk about things, but he's afraid of the conversation.

One part of it is that throughout his entire life up until making out with Wilbur, he's believed he was straight. It's a simple conclusion to make. He really likes women, and has never been particularly attracted to men. Straight!

Except for the part where he and Wilbur have got each other off twice in the past four days. Not straight!

He knows about bisexuality, knows that it's fine, it's its own thing and it's not just gay or straight and it's all okay either way. He just. Doesn't think he's bisexual.

Because so far in his life Wilbur is the only man he's wanted to fuck. Isn't that crazy? Surprise, that British guy you met through Minecraft shit is your awakening or whatever this is.

Another thing is that he's worried trying to discuss whatever this is is gonna break it. So far, they've been doing fine just. Getting off and then whatever.

Except that Will had him come sleep in his bed. And came over to his hotel room to share a bed again. And that seems... domestic, or something. Like they're one of those couples who haven't moved in together yet but basically should because there's no point in paying both rents.

But that doesn't work, because, again, Charlie is going back to Vermont in three days.

Shit. He sighs and drops his face in his hands, standing at the bathroom sink. Fuck.

Charlie showers, brushes his teeth. Gets ready for the day of Shit To Do again. He made way too many plans for this week.

Today's shootings actually went by pretty fast, and he has the whole second half of the day free.

He and Wilbur go out for a late lunch, and he remembers to eat normal food this time, having a chicken salad that makes Wilbur make a kinda sad noise when he sees it.

Charlie has to admit it's a pretty sad salad. Boring iceberg lettuce. Limp shredded carrot.

They go home together again, because of course they do.

Charlie and Wilbur actually take most of their clothes off this time, and they make it to Will's bed instead of the poor couch that's been used for non-relaxation activities too many times over the past few days.

Charlie is nervous for sure, but Wilbur looks pretty nervous too, eyes flickering around from Charlie to the bed to the wall to ceiling and then back to Charlie, like what he wants to do is look at him but he's worried it's too much.

Charlie tries his best to project confidence this time around. Will is a nervous enough guy that Charlie is a little worried that if he gets too nervous he'll have a heart attack. Mood killer, at best.

Wilbur is sitting at the top of his bed, back against the headrest, shirt off and jeans undone. His legs are folded up but angled out awkwardly. Charlie has, at the moment, his shirt off, pants off, boxers still on. Both of them took off their glasses earlier, and they're on Will's dresser.

Needless to say, Charlie feels a little exposed. He seems to keep being the one to lose an article of clothing first. He would mind more if Wilbur hadn't made him blush with praise when he took his shirt off, and blush even more when he took his pants off and Will commented on how nice his thighs are. It just wasn't something Charlie had considered an attractive or even really noteworthy part of himself.

Charlie gets on the bed, shuffles up forward so that he's kneeling in front of Wilbur's nervous half-crouch.

"You look good," Charlie says.

Will nods, still not really looking at Charlie. "Thank you," he says, softly.

Charlie reaches out to rest a hand on Will's knee. "We don't actually have to do anything if you're having second thoughts."

"No, that's the-" Wilbur ducks his head and laughs. "That's the thing, I do want this. Want you. I just... y'know, it's not like I have a lot of experience with guys sexually."

"Neither do I, man." Charlie laughs and tilts his head to the side a little bit. "We don't have to move too fast. I mean, if you wanna stick with handjobs or whatever, that's more than fine with me."

Wilbur turns back to Charlie, pupils pretty significantly dilated, and looks at him, genuinely scans his face. "... I think I wanna suck your dick."

Charlie laughs for a second, startled by the suddenness, and then the words actually hit him and he remembers he's over here for a reason.

Will smiles at him. "I mean, if you want me to. You don't have to laugh."

"Dude," Charlie says. "Fucking yeah, of course I want you to." He glances around the bed, the room. "Where do you want me?"

Will contemplates, and then the two get to shuffling around as Wilbur rearranges the two of them so that Charlie is sitting on the edge of the bed and Wilbur is kneeling in front of him.

Will tilts his head up to look at Charlie, hair falling out of the way so that he can see his eyes, wide and no longer nervously bouncing around the room.

Charlie's underwear was discarded during the shuffle, so he is just kinda. Free. Wilbur slowly moves a hand up to hold Charlie's dick by the base, running a thumb along the seam for good measure. Charlie feels his breath pick up, feels his hand twitch a little.

He moves it to rest in Wilbur's hair. Not in a gripping or guiding way, just a little point of connection.

"So. Obviously, I'm new to this, so I just wanna say if I accidentally scrape my teeth on your dick I am so fucking sorry."

Charlie starts to chuckle in response, but the sound dies in his throat as Wilbur goes in to lick a long stripe along him, leaves a wet line of spit that's already threatening to cool in the slight chill of Will's apartment. He presses his fingers into Wilbur's hair, earning him a quiet sigh as he goes back in.

After a few repetitions, Will looks up at Charlie to see how he's responding. He looks really pretty. Charlie is still taken aback by that. The tip of his tongue is still kinda poking out from between his lips. Charlie rubs his hand in Wilbur's hair and nods, not trusting his voice.

Wilbur takes that as the cue it is and, after slowly kissing his way from base to tip- Charlie sighs- he closes his mouth around him. He's got the basics of it, at least- tongue resting over his bottom teeth, lips angled so that the top teeth don't come anywhere near his dick. Charlie hears a soft rustling from out of his eyeline which is, judging by the way Will's breathing changes around him, the sound of his hand finding its way into his briefs.

From there the movement starts to be regular. Charlie's breathing starts to sync up with the movement of Will's mouth around him. He knows his dick isn't particularly big, so he's not surprised when Will manages to take a decent amount in his first go.

And from there it builds pretty quick. Not absurdly quick, it's not weird how quick it is, but it's decently quick, and Charlie pants, finally twists his fingers in Will's hair, tugs him back with a "Wait, hold on-"

Will whines when he lets himself be pulled back, nods and starts to just move his hand, and Charlie's cheeks start to burn when Will looks up at him, mouth hanging open, as Charlie comes, spattering across his face and a significant amount hitting his lips and tongue.

Charlie closes his eyes and catches his breath. He can hear the sound of Will getting himself off now, kinda feels guilty for finishing first this time. He mumbles praise, soft and unsure about it, and gets back Will letting out the cutest, prettiest whimpering noises as he finally finishes, eyes squeezing shut. A little strand of drool is hanging from his lips, and Charlie lets go from his grip on his hair to wipe it away.

Will sighs and leans into the touch, slightly. Charlie hesitates to move his hand, but does after a moment.

"Hold on, stay here. I'm gonna go get a washcloth."

Wilbur doesn't even nod. Charlie wonders if this is what he was like last time, the brain fog that hit, but doesn't dwell on it much, moving quickly to get the washcloth he promised Will.

When he comes back with a warm, wet washcloth in his hand and wipes at Will's face, he sees something change in his expression. A slight furrow in his brow that relaxes. He even smiles when Charlie wipes the rag across his chin and lower lip, sighs as he cleans off his hand.

After a moment, once the cleanup is as done as done can be while half the mess is still in Will's underwear, Will looks up, eyes kinda watery.

Charlie looks down, his heart doing a weird little pang. Wilbur smiles up at him.

Ah, fuck.

It's one thing to realize you're kinda into men because of some drunken fooling around with a friend. It's another thing entirely for that to keep going far after the alcohol has worn off and the bit's run dry. And it's again something entirely different that when Charlie looks at Wilbur he feels his throat close up and his heart beat and he cannot help but smile, and Wilbur always smiles back.

Jesus Christ.

Again, something to mark in the category of 'not straight', with extra underlines because God is he into Wilbur.

Two days before he goes back to Vermont, but reasons to stay are starting to pile up.

Charlie wakes up the next morning with Wilbur's arm wrapped around him, tucking him into a little spoon position. It's comfortable enough that he considers just relaxing and going back to sleep, but he's hungry, starting to crave breakfast. It's a bit later than he normally wakes up.

But Wilbur's face is tucked into his shoulder, almost like a nuzzle. He smiles and moves a hand up to ruffle his hair. Wilbur makes a sleepy noise and presses his face down.

Charlie is so fucked.

He tries to extricate himself from Wilbur's arms, manages it after a moment. He immediately misses the warmth that came from Will wrapped around him, but he gets up anyways, sorta fumbles around to try to find his clothes on the floor, finds his glasses on the table. He shuffles off to the bathroom, does his business, and then he sees himself in the mirror, swamped in a shirt that is... too big for him.

He stares at himself for a moment, and then he just. Nods and continues. It feels safe, somehow.

He shuffles over to the kitchen and pokes around in Wilbur's fridge for about two minutes before he realizes there's nothing in here that he would eat for breakfast on any day where he isn't literally on his deathbed.

He gets his phone out to open up some delivery service, and notices- three missed texts.

phil: Hey, Charlie. About to swing by and pick you up from your hotel room
phil: Are you here???
phil: Ah, right. I'm on my way to Wilbur's.

Oh, yeah. There's shit to film today. Y'know, the entire reason he's here in the first place.

That's when the knock comes at the door. Charlie panics, kinda looks around to make sure Wilbur isn't up to get the door, and then hurries up and peeks out of the peephole to see Phil.

He sighs, gathers himself, and opens the door. Phil just kinda quirks an eyebrow at him.

"You wanna go back to your hotel room to get one of your shirts?"

"That's probably a good idea, yeah," Charlie says. "Might be weird if I show up like this!"

Wilbur stumbles out of his bedroom wearing one of his other, cleaner shirts, and then turns to look at Charlie. There's a hang as the two stare at each other, and then Wilbur just smiles. "Doesn't really fit you."

"Nope!"

"Hi, Phil."

"Hey, Will."

Charlie snorts. "Let me go get my shirt from your room."

"Already got it," Will says, tossing it across the room to Charlie. "Today's that vlog Tommy has planned, right?"

"Yeah," Charlie says. "Were you supposed to be there for this one?"

"I think so," Will starts to say, but Phil interrupts-

"Yeah, I would've been on my way here anyways. I'll drive Charlie to his hotel so he can get changed and then swing back here to pick you up?"

"Yeah, okay," Will says. "See you later, Charlie!"

"See ya, Wilbur!"

The drive to Charlie's hotel isn't awkward at all, but that kinda makes him nervous. The immediacy with which Phil has accepted this is stressing him out, and he isn't sure why.

Again, intellectually, he knows that there is nothing wrong with being gay, or bisexual, or wanting to have sex with men. Gay rights. But it still doesn't quite click with him as being himself. So the complete no-sell from Phil is causing some mental friction. He's gonna have to figure that out on his own.

While he's in his hotel room changing into his own clothes, he googles "How to accept that I'm attracted to men", but most of the results are too religious for them to really connect with him. The issue he has is just that it doesn't square with his understanding of himself.

He folds up Will's shirt and lies it on his dresser.

Filming does take a lot out of him today, a high energy vlog with Tommy and a pretty short lunch break that was also part of the vlog, and he is exhausted when he goes back to Wilbur's apartment instead of his hotel room and flops facedown on the couch.

Will laughs at him when he hits the cushions, pats his head. "I mean, you can sleep in the bed again," he says. "I don't mind."

Charlie groans and sits up on the couch, groggily blinking. "Dude, I'm so tired."

Will smiles and leans down to kiss the top of his head. Charlie looks up at him and feels that twinge of affection mixed with apprehension.

He must let it show on his face, because Wilbur starts to look nervous as well. He sits down beside Charlie, bounces his leg.

Charlie rubs his eyes. "I'm gonna have to go home soon."

Wilbur sucks in a breath, exhales slowly. "Yeah. I know."

"My flight is in two days."

"I know."

"Y'know, I thought I was straight until five days ago."

Wilbur turns his head and blinks. "Really?"

"Well, yeah. I don't-" Charlie laughs. "I don't typically... I'm not normally into men. You're kind of the first guy I've wanted to. Y'know."

Wilbur watches Charlie closely, voice quiet when he talks. "... Me? I'm the-?"

"Yeah," Charlie says, trying to avoid eye contact entirely. "Like I said, I entirely thought I was straight."

"Oh," Will says. "I... I mean, I guess I kinda knew I was... I dunno, bisexual? But I didn't really plan on pursuing it at all either. Until, y'know."

"Huh." Charlie looks up at him. "So, mutual... awakening?" He laughs a little. "So that's... what is that?"

"I don't know," Will says, leg absolutely bouncing up and down. "I wanna say we don't have to label this. I feel like that's probably what I'm supposed to say. And then we go back to normal."

"Honestly," Charlie says, quietly, "I'm not sure I want to go back to normal."

"Yeah, neither do I," Will agrees, relaxing a little bit. His leg even stops bouncing for a moment. Charlie has the momentary urge to kiss him-

Actually, fuck it. Charlie leans in and kisses Will, on the mouth, hand moving up to his hair immediately, not to hold but just to rest in it, feel the warmth and ground Charlie to this point.

Will jumps a little bit, raises a hand up to Charlie's chest. He doesn't push him away, but Charlie still pulls back quickly to make sure everything's alright.

"What was that for?" Will asks, eyes wide.

"I dunno! I just wanted to kiss you."

Will blinks, clearly thinks for a moment, and then grabs Charlie's shirt and pulls him back in.

Unlabeled vs "It doesn't mean anything" vs "We aren't sure what it means" can all feel pretty different, Charlie is realizing.

One more day before he flies home.

Some nervous hindbrain part of Charlie is convinced that if he goes back home before he and Will manage to name this thing, it'll break apart, and it's a part of him he's only just discovered. He's not ready to lose it this soon.

He doesn't have anything planned for this last day - it was kind of a break day so that he could just spend some time in Brighton without having a shooting schedule driving him.

Phil left to go back home last night, so the likelihood of somebody seeing Charlie at Will's apartment is slightly lower than it was before.

Charlie actually checks out of his hotel room a day early and drags his pretty light baggage to Will's this morning, so he can leave from here instead of having to go back to his hotel.

Will is awake and lying on his couch when Charlie gets back, legs dangling over the edge of one armrest, and he's doing something on his phone.

"Hey! Brought my luggage like you said," he says, and Will jumps, fumbling his phone a little. Charlie laughs. "Hey, this time I scared you!"

Will frowns. "I don't know how I didn't hear you come in."

"Damn millennials on their cell phones," Charlie says, and Wilbur shrugs in acknowledgment.

Charlie tries to figure out how to sit on the couch, but Will is taking up a lot of it. He's taking back everything he's said about Wilbur, tall guys have no rights.

Will looks up at him from whatever mobile game he's playing and just lifts his head up so that Charlie can sit underneath him.

Charlie rolls his eyes, but sits down anyways, realizes he's smiling when Will drops his head down on his lap.

What a nice moment. The dread of the incoming deadline is creeping down Charlie's back.

Later that day, after Charlie and Will order in for lunch, Charlie wonders if he should try to bring up this particular problem he's having to Will. Looking at him, though, he just seems so contented to spend a day in just curled up on the couch with Charlie, eating Domino's, and Charlie is also worried he'll break the spell.

He keeps it quiet for now.

A bit later in the day, once the sun is starting to set, Will clearly gets some kinda brain weasel, and he gets up and cleans up all of the containers, plates, plasticware from their order. Charlie stands up to help, but Will waves him off and does it himself.

Once the area is clear of any pizza-related debris, Will kisses Charlie on the top of the head from behind. "Wanna head to my bedroom?"

"To sleep?" Charlie asks, turning to look at him.

Will shrugs. "If you want."

"I'm starting to think you just want me for my body," Charlie jokes as he takes his shirt off once again.

"Maybe I just really like how you look shirtless."

"You don't like me when I'm wearing a shirt?"

Will makes a thoughtful face. "Depends on the shirt."

"You're a dick."

Will giggles and takes his shirt off too. "There, now we're even."

Charlie rolls his eyes before leaning in and pressing his hand against Will's chest, running his fingers along every line and curve.

They sit facing each other for a bit, just taking the time to take each other in. Will seems to like Charlie's arms, which he figures makes sense.

With Will, though, Charlie is more interested in the places where skinniness meets softness. A soft touch to the soft place by his ribs, and Wilbur does a little jump before he gets used to the contact there.

They're slowly getting closer, too, mostly just for ease of access, but it does make it easier for Charlie to eventually move in and, while Will is paying more attention to Charlie's chest than he is to what he's actually doing, knock him over onto his back.

Will yelps when his back and head hit the mattress, bouncing back up and landing again more softly. Charlie snickers.

"Just because I scared you once," Will starts, but Charlie tries to let his instincts run at the forefront and touches Will's dick through the outside of his pants, and that interrupts Will pretty easily.

Well, at first. Once Charlie actually starts moving, Will starts to make some noises, soft and pretty.

He hooks his leg around Charlie after a moment, grabs for his hand and pulls it away to just kinda hold it, and then he rocks his hips forward and up, pressing up against Charlie.

Charlie nods and starts to rock his hips to match pace. Will mumbles something that sounds like a "fuck yeah".

After a moment, Charlie realizes he's gonna have to readjust his position or his entire leg muscles are gonna be killing him for days, and so he slows and stops, gives a quiet "Hold on," and he rotates himself, braces himself over Will with his elbows again.

Will looks up at him, spreads his legs a bit wider to try to accommodate him, and once Charlie manages to start moving again, Wilbur starts to talk.

At first it's hard for Charlie to make out what he's saying, but his volume increases once it seems like he's got a handle on where it's going, and-

Well, it's mostly about how good Charlie is, and how pretty and sturdy and cute he is, and Charlie needs to make an addendum to one of his earlier notes that he's not crazy into praise- post-script, he is really into praise when it's Will, breathy and soft in Charlie's ear, a hand slowly making its way down into Charlie's pants and wrapping around him, making a loose fist.

Charlie hisses out a quiet fuck as he drops his head down to his arm and tries to focus on keeping his hips moving, but Will seems entirely intent on distracting him from that, enjoying throwing him off balance with his words about as much and possibly even more than he wants to get off, because seriously, this is making it hard for Charlie to focus on getting them both off.

"Trying so hard," Will says, turning his head to the side so Charlie can hear him better. Charlie can feel that rush again, manages to scrape out a general warning. "Go on, then, come on, please?"

Yeah, okay, Charlie is not immune to the cotton-soft way Wilbur asks for him to come. His hips do stutter and roughly grind against Will's when he does. Will whines and rolls his hips up, and Charlie can feel that he's still pretty hard underneath him.

"Good," Will breathes, still focused on Charlie, clean hand running through his hair.

Charlie closes his eyes and tries to catch his breath quickly, because he needs to see Will's dick now, dammit.

Will gives a little gasp when Charlie sits up and shifts positions at first, lets out an actual whine when Charlie grabs his hips to rearrange him. Charlie hooks his fingers in Will's waistband and looks up at Will for permission. Will nods quickly, engaging his core to hold his hips up while Charlie pulls down his pants and- oh! No underwear. That makes sense given that they haven't left the apartment, Charlie isn't surprised.

Will's got a nice dick. Admittedly, Charlie doesn't have a huge sample size, but in context it is a pretty nice dick.

He takes hold and starts moving pretty quickly, not bothering to build up much. Will takes to it immediately, relaxing his hips again and dropping his head back. Wilbur finishes up without much effort, muffles a louder moan with his hand when he comes. Charlie has jizz on his hand again. Bleh.

Will pushes himself up into a sit, rests his forehead against Charlie's. "You fly out tomorrow."

"Yeah," Charlie says.

"We'll call, then. Or video call."

"Oh," Charlie says, and Will nods slightly. "Never done a long distance relationship before."

"Neither have I," Will says. "Also haven't had a relationship with a guy, so we'll be treading a lot of new ground."

Charlie smiles, feels the weight lift off of him. "Like, bisexual explorers."

Will laughs, loudly, and then nods more energetically. "God, I like you."

"Gaying where no man has ever gayed before."

Will bats at his shoulder, but Charlie can feel his smile when he leans in for a kiss, and Will can feel Charlie's grin too.

Charlie is just staring at his screen and smiling. He's sure he looks silly, but he feels happy, so silliness doesn't matter.

Anyways, Will is doing the same, so he feels fine.

It's their first video call since Charlie got back home, is the thing, so yeah, maybe Charlie is feeling a little bit soft about it, Will greeting him with the softest 'hey, Charlie', the fact that the affection is managing to show through all 3000 or so miles separating the two of them. Also, Charlie is wearing that shirt of Will's that he took from him. He brought it back home.

"You have to come up here more often," Will says, and-

"Maybe you should come visit me,"  Charlie says, and the banter is already there.

So. Another nice moment trapped between the two like a, uh, like a fly in amber.

"Weird simile," Will says.

"Oh, I said that out loud?"

Will wakes up from deep sleep in the middle of the night to the sound of his phone ringing, and he isn't annoyed when he picks up, just, y'know, tired. This isn't exactly a regular occurrence, but it's happened enough by now that he's not surprised when it happens. Charlie's about four hours behind him, so a time that's a pretty normal time to call for Charlie is not necessarily a time that's normal for Will.

He mumbles when he picks up. "Hey?"

"Will, I'm freaking out," he hears, immediately, and not in a playful way.

He sits up and rubs his eyes. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"I'm sorry for waking you up, Jesus Christ. I just- I kinda need- I'm sorry."

"No, it's..." Will clears his throat. "It's fine, Charlie. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Well. Yeah, I'm good, I'm okay, like, physically."

"Okay, so a mental thing?"

"Yeah. Yeah, shit. I need you to know when I say this- it's not, like. I'm not trying to break up with you," Charlie says, and Will just nods on his side of the phone, because.

It's not that they've had this conversation several times before or anything, but Will's not stupid, he's noticed that Charlie's got some issues about the gay thing. Bisexual thing? Pansexual thing? Charlie hasn't settled on a label yet, mostly because of the aforementioned issues.

"Yeah, don't worry," Will says. "I'll be fine."

"Okay. It's-"

Will could see himself being annoyed by this conversation, but he's not, and even though that might be because of the brain chemistry involved with new relationships, he's just concerned, that frustrated sleepiness melting away pretty quickly into supportiveness.

"Because, like, and I know we already talked about this, but I am so insecure right now about. Y'know."

"Men?" Will offers.

Charlie laughs, strained. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Well." Will prepares himself for talking more coherently, leaning away from the phone to yawn and clear his throat again. "I think if you're attracted to men at all, you automatically count as somebody who, y'know, is attracted to men. If that's the issue."

Will's kinda speaking from experience. He's got the feeling that he doesn't belong on lockdown, okay, and he's fine with that. He's moved past feeling like he doesn't fit in and worrying about that, he's made it to the point where he doesn't really care that he might not fit in. It's not like he's out, anyways, so other people thinking he doesn't count isn't really a factor.

"I dunno?" Charlie sighs. "It's more like- how do I- how do I square that with the- the me I thought I am the whole rest of my life?"

"Oh," Will says. "You know-"

"The funniest thing is," Charlie interrupts, "is I read a wikihow article about how to accept being bisexual and it made me feel worse."

Will blinks, trying to figure out how to react to that. "Charlie, I don't even... have you actually talked to anybody about this? Other than me?"

"Oh, absolutely not," he says. "I'm pretty sure that other than me and you, the only other person who has any idea that I'm not totally straight is Phil, and that's literally only because of circumstance."

"That doesn't sound healthy, man," Will says. "I'm not saying rush out of the closet- that'd be pretty hypocritical-" Charlie laughs over the phone, and Will smiles. "But maybe... talk about it with somebody you know really well?"

"I mean, I guess I could. How do I even talk about it when I don't really know what it is, though?" Charlie asks, and Will doesn't have an answer for that.

"I-" Will is so tired. "I'm not trying to be rude, but I really don't know, Charlie. I'm also not the- the most, y'know? It's not like a bisexual guy who's been ignoring it for ten years is the best model for it."

"That's... fair," Charlie says, and he sounds soft and confused, so much so that Will almost wants to reach through the phone just to pat his shoulder.

"I wish I were over there to help," Will says.

He can hear the smile in Charlie's voice when he says 'Good night', when he hangs up, and Will knows that's definitely not the end of that discussion, but it's something for now.

He wakes up the next morning to a wall of links from Charlie on Discord.

He glances over the list, cannot immediately parse any of it, and decides to do morning shit before he starts going through all of that.

After Will's routine maintenance, teeth brushed and food eaten, he gets back to Discord and starts to actually look at what Charlie's sent him.

First, it's a handful of links about bisexuality, spaced out with about thirty minutes in between each. Then, at what Will thinks must have been around three in the morning for Charlie, it seems that something like a dam broke, and there are about twenty-five links to pages about queer impostor syndrome, heteroflexibility, and unlabeled attraction, including links to websites by advocacy groups and the occasional link to queer theory papers, where the very meaning of what it is to be queer is explored, and Will is no stranger to hyperfocusing on certain things, and he knows that it hits Charlie sometimes, but he doesn't think he's seen the results this concretely before.

At the end of the link spam, from about twenty minutes ago, far after the link spam ended, there's a single actual message from Charlie that says "Shit".

will: Morning
will: Did you sleep at all?
charlie: Two hours
charlie: It's fine, I'll take it easy today and get to sleep early
will: God I hope that works.
will: And how'd the research go?
charlie: Holy shit, dude.
charlie: I almost didn't remember reading all this shit when I woke up
charlie: So I think it was a net zero?
will: Some of this is really interesting, though
charlie: Yeah, I mean. Sorry for lighting up your messages with my breakdown.
will: No, it's seriously not a problem
will: I haven't actually dug into any of this before, so you're good.
will: Did any of it help?
charlie: Kinda. I think?
charlie: I mean, I know now that it's more complex than either you're bisexual or you're not.
will: Then it's not a net zero
charlie: I guess?
charlie: Yeah, no, you're right. Not a net zero.
charlie: Net one at the very least

Will closes out his tabs after that conversation, glad at the least that Charlie's got some place to start. He's not typically very assured about his place as a bisexual guy, but Charlie sometimes manages to make him feel pretty secure by comparison, so that's funny.

It sits a little weird, though, just having to be here for it while he's freaking out.

He reopens the pages about queer impostor syndrome to look at later.

It's not that Will is bored, but he's confused by how quickly he and Charlie settle into a routine. It might be a long-distance thing- kinda hard to be spontaneous when you live this far away from each other, when the time difference is four whole hours.

Calling each other before Will goes to bed ends up a big part of the routine. It's not as sexy as 'nightly calls to your overseas lover' makes it sound- although he will admit it does sometimes end up a little sexy, but he's not thinking about that right now, shut up- it's mostly just a chat to end the day. It makes the phone kinda feel like coming home.

Except. One day, something like four months into their relationshipwhatever, he calls Charlie about twenty minutes before he's planning on passing out, and Charlie does not pick up for the first time in five weeks.

Not only does he not pick up, but Will sits and stares at the phone in his hand, the call not picked up, and tries to figure out how long he should wait to call him again- and when he calls him again, it stops ringing before the last few rings are done.

will: Are you busy?
will: It's fine, b

He erases that before he sends it and waits for a while, something like ten minutes.

will: Sorry if you're busy. I'm heading to sleep, night

And he uneasily lies down, ends up lying on his back doing other shit on his phone for another thirty minutes before he finally gets to sleep.

He wakes up to-

charlie: Sorry, couldn't answer. I swear to God I will be there for the phone call tomorrow.

And that's pretty much enough for Will to cheer up, getting shit done that day completely unimpeded.

The phone call that night, Charlie does not explain why he couldn't answer. Will doesn't probe, reminds himself that it's not always about him, manages to keep his shit together.

And shit goes back to normal. The routine is restored.

A few days later, the phone call gets sexy. Not that Will is as matter of fact about it as that makes it sound, but.

There are only so many ways to have phone sex. Which is why they don't actually do it that often, the both of them actually pretty much fine with just taking care of their shit themselves and having a fairly chaste relationship otherwise.

There are only so many ways for Will and Charlie to listen to each other jack off, only so many ways to hear the gasps and the moans and the grunts that feel personal in a weird way over the phone, the occasional harsh breath that makes the phone crackle with static. There are only so many ways to imagine as strongly as you can without forgetting to actually stay in the moment, without accidentally falling quiet and hearing the confused sound from the other end of the line.

There are only so many ways for Will to tell Charlie how much he wishes he could see him before it stops being phone-sex-dirty-talk and starts being a genuine plea for the two of them to see each other in person again soon. There's a certain level of neediness that Will doesn't want to let show over the phone, sometimes to the point that he can't show it. He's found his voice caught in his throat when Charlie says something soft and sweet enough that it should prompt a soft and sweet response, and it makes him hurt that he can't give that level back.

So the phone call gets sexy, and Will tries his hardest to keep the talk as light as possible, because he really, really doesn't want to scare Charlie away.

About a week after that, when Will is in his kitchen in the morning, there's an unexpected knock at his door.

He takes a while to answer it, shuffling around his kitchen to put his milk back in the fridge and his box of cereal back in the cupboard, putting pants on as quickly as he can without tripping over himself, and then shakes himself awake and opens the door.

And Charlie's there.

He is pretty embarrassed to admit this, but he doesn't react in a particularly sweet or adorable way. His brain halts in place, and he lets out a flat "What."

Charlie looks embarrassed immediately, rattled, even, and turns to look away. "Oh, I definitely shoulda asked first."

Will does not respond, blinking. Charlie is here, a suitcase behind him.

"Like, you were saying something about routine a while back, and I had enough to pay for a flight here and back, so I just kinda... did that, and I kinda thought it'd be a fun surprise, but now I'm realizing, like, hey, shoulda asked first!"

Hey, Charlie is here, holy shit Charlie is here. Will knows for sure that he probably isn't visually as excited as he feels, so he just steps back and holds the door, eyes wide open.

Charlie turns back to look at Will, then looks at the door, and then looks back to Will, like he's not sure.

"Oh my God, please come in," Will says, and the embarrassed, nervous face Charlie was wearing, that was kinda cute but also made Will feel bad, breaks off into a smile.

It takes literally no time for them to end up with their shirts off, like the two of them have just been waiting for an opportunity for months, which, okay, arguably they have been.

It's easy for them to get back into the swing of things. Will isn't even troubled by the immediacy with which he will spread his legs when Charlie's involved, especially when he lets himself get tossed around a little. He's not really into being dominated, that's not it, and anyways Charlie is soft and precise enough with the way he presses him down that there's no way Will could mistake it for anything but gentleness.

Charlie's leaned in close, arms bracing himself, and Will's got a pretty good view of his face from here. He leans up and bonks his forehead against Charlie's, and it startles him into moving again, hips snapping down against Will's.

Will jolts, getting himself back into the rhythm, quick and kinda sloppy, which Will chalks up to the two of them missing each other. In fact, it's actually definitely because of that, because Charlie seems to be distracted by looking at Will, which is sweet, but oh my God.

Will grinds up particularly harshly, the hand he's using to grip Charlie's hip tightening, and he can actually watch Charlie's face go slack, eyes go fuzzy like the thoughts Charlie was having are being immediately chased away, and then Will hardly has to work for it, because Charlie is moving faster than he was before and hardly letting up in pace. "Good," he mumbles, and Charlie huffs.

He doesn't want to bring it up, because he's pretty sure Charlie's got enough on his plate with his whole am-I-bisexual thing that he doesn't want to add to it, but Will is noticing how much Charlie seems to like it when Will tells him what to do, tells him he's doing it well, and he's starting to suspect that it's a little more than just liking Will.

Case in point, Charlie has turned this lovely shade of pink, and Will's just been fucking saying shit. At some point, the words he's saying hardly matter as much as the tone of voice he's using, and he's kind of getting to a point that he doesn't particularly need to focus on it- he hasn't said anything too insane yet, at least- and yet. Charlie makes this distressingly cute noise when Will mumbles that he's doing good, heaves breaths when Will asks him to move faster, and stutters to a stop, dropping his head down and letting out another pretty noise, when Will asks him to come.

He's starting to shake when Charlie reaches down to finish him off in return. He doesn't even notice when he stops talking.

Charlie's hair is incredibly messed up when Will gets back from the bathroom with a wet rag in one hand, and he cannot resist the urge to ruffle his hair with his hand. Charlie starts and looks up at Will, tilting his head a little with confusion.

"What?"

"Your hair was messed up," Will says, settling back down to wipe Charlie's hand off.

"Well, it's probably worse now." Charlie watches Will closely, blinking.

"Nah, I totally fixed it," Will replies, folding the rag in his hand.

"Y'know, funnily enough, I don't believe you."

The next day is pretty nice. Will wakes up wrapped around Charlie again, and this time he even wakes up enough to let Charlie get up first, rather than, as he vaguely remembers from when he was here last, Charlie having to pry himself from his arms. After he gets what feels like another maybe fifteen minutes of half-sleep, Will hauls himself up and out of bed.

Charlie is sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand, legs up underneath him. Will ruffles his hair again when he passes him, and Charlie looks up at him with his face scrunched up.

Charlie clearly has something on his mind, has been visibly mulling it over since yesterday, and Will would be content to let that steep, but Charlie is clearly stressing about it, and that makes Will upset, so. He sits down on the couch next to him, arms pressed up against each other. Charlie leans in a little bit and then leans back to look at his phone again.

"What's going on?" Will asks, looking at the precision-focused expression Charlie has fixed on his face, and there's a beat before Charlie responds.

"Unlabeled," he says.

Will has to stop for a moment and buffer, not expecting that to be the answer to the question he asked- although, in fairness, it is an answer to the question Charlie must have been asking himself, so that's close enough. "Yeah?"

"I didn't even know that was an option," Charlie says. "I thought labels were the whole thing."

"Oh. Yeah, it's a thing." Will doesn't know much about it, but he's always ready to learn. "Is it your thing?"

Charlie's voice is so quiet when he responds. "I think it might be."

The rest of that day is quiet - they decide they wanna watch something, which turns into flipping through Netflix and the two of them being extremely indecisive about what they want to watch, and they eventually settle on some new show that Charlie's pretty sure he saw somebody talking about on Twitter semi-recently which might end up being a good show to watch if just to have opinions about it for the internet.

It's a weird way to consume media, is all, so Will half-tunes-out while they watch, getting his phone out when he's particularly bored. Charlie laughs when he sees that, scoots so that he can lean over onto Will's shoulder. It doesn't make it any easier for Will to pay attention to the show, but it is nice, so he doesn't complain, pointing his eyes towards the screen and letting his brain do fucking whatever instead of focusing on it.

The next day, Charlie does actually have to pry himself out of Will's arms to get out of bed. He doesn't even remember that, but Charlie informs him when he gets up and makes his way back to his kitchen, lightheartedly poking fun at him.

For some reason, it sits weird over Will's head. He doesn't think of himself as clingy. Maybe he's clingy.

Okay, yeah, so what, maybe he is clingy, he's thinking to himself by the end of the day. He's sure he's been an absolute mess to be around today, because he can feel his heart rate pounding, can feel his leg jittering and bouncing, can hear his own voice when he's trying to respond to something pretty innocent Charlie says.

Eventually, Charlie raises his hands up and looks away after Will doesn't-snap-but-kinda-snaps at him, and Will feels immediately bad.

"Fuckin'. Shit. Sorry," Will says. "I don't know what the fuck's wrong with me today," which is about eighty percent true. The other twenty percent is the part of his brain chanting at him to ask Charlie why the fuck he couldn't answer the phone two weeks ago. Too much, Jesus Christ, not about him, he's reminding himself, and it's barely working, and he is not gonna scare Charlie away.

"It's fine, dude," Charlie says, but he does sound hurt, and Will's pretty sure it isn't fine.

"No, seriously, I-"

"No, it's fine. I mean- hey," Charlie tries. "Some days are just shitty days for no reason, it happens."

Will sighs and drops his head into his hands, pressing a couple fingers into his temple, where a headache is starting to make its presence known.

Charlie's hand on his shoulder feels pretty reassuring, helps Will ground himself, and after a moment he looks up and smiles at Charlie, who smiles back, eyebrows still furrowed. Will catches his breath and goes to get a pain pill, take care of the headache before it gets worse, and he's almost settled himself back down to normal when he comes back.

When he and Charlie lie down, facing each other, he can't fucking help it.

"Why didn't you answer the phone the other day?"

Charlie furrows his eyebrows. "On our nightly call?"

"Yeah," Will says.

"Um." Charlie looks embarrassed. "I was buying tickets for the flights here and back, and I was worried I would get too excited and spill the plan."

Will's nerves fray out and he presses his face into his pillow, frustrated with himself for the stress he's been under since then for what ended up being no reason. "Fuckin' idiot."

"Me?" Charlie asks, quietly. Will shakes his head as quickly as he can while still having his face pressed into the pillow.

"Me," he says. "I've been freaking out about it for no reason, and even though I knew it wasn't really my business I couldn't stop thinking about it-"

There's a hand in Will's hair, suddenly. "Hey, don't worry about it. Sometimes brains pick weird shit to focus on, y'know?"

Will tries to calm down, and it doesn't take long for him to relax enough that he's about ready to fall asleep.

He's not quite asleep when he hears Charlie mumble something short, and then he's out completely.

He wakes up with a start when he feels Charlie's weight land on the bed suddenly.

"Guh, fuck," he says, and Charlie laughs when he hears him, turning to look as he pulls on a fresh shirt. "Huh?"

"Morning. We were gonna go out for lunch today, remember?"

"Huh." Will reaches to the nightstand and fumbles for his phone. "Oh. Jesus, I slept in," he says, when he unlocks it.

"Yeah, a little! I was gonna wake you up in a bit, but." Charlie shrugs.

Will nods and blinks as his brain boots up, and then he remembers. "Hey, what'd you say before I fell asleep? After I stopped freaking the fuck out?"

"Oh! Oh, I said that-" Charlie turns his head away, but not before Will notices him start to blush. "I said that out loud?"

"Mhm," Will says, smiling.

"It's nothing," Charlie says.

"Aw, Charlie," Will says, definitely not laughing. "If you confessed your love to me while I was half asleep you have to tell me. It's like being a cop."

Charlie huffs and pulls on his shoe in a hurry, not turning to look at Will, and then it hits.

"Oh, shit, did you actually?"

"Hm," Charlie says, and that pretty much answers it for Will.

"Oh. Huh." Will yawns and starts to push himself up. "I love you too, Charlie."

Charlie's fingers freeze as he ties his shoe, and then he starts to tie it faster, fumbling worse than Will thinks he's seen any adult fumble with a shoelace.

Will snickers to himself as he gets himself ready to head out, and very politely doesn't poke fun at the way Charlie's turned a fun new color, but he's not entirely prepared for-

"I love you," Charlie says, as they leave the apartment.

Turnabout is fair play. He can't even be mad that he fumbles and drops his key.

Once they're done with lunch with the two of them and a few friends, and they make it back to Will's, Charlie wants to talk about the unlabeled thing again, and Will's fine with that- he really doesn't mind being the sounding board for Charlie's whole sexuality crisis.

It's honestly not a long conversation. Charlie talks for a little bit about how he's realized that he never really interrogated himself before everything, so it's not like he had such a strong attachment to the label of straight in the first place, and so sticking with a lax relationship to labels is pretty much just a continuation of that.

The fact that the conversation is so short is a surprise to Charlie, who's just relieved to hear from Will that he doesn't sound weird, but it's nearly a bell toll for Will, who's realizing he still doesn't have a very good grasp of his own- like, yeah, no, he's genuinely really happy that Charlie's struggle with labels ended up having the decently satisfying ending of him choosing to not use a label at all, but he's been reading the queer impostor syndrome articles over and over for a while and there's something crawling into the back of his head.

He doesn't do such a good job of hiding that something is stressing him out, and he's grateful that Charlie figures pretty quickly that it's not about him, but he's also a little bit startled by the speed at which Charlie figures out what's going on.

Not that he thinks Charlie's not smart enough to figure that out. He's not a dick. He just thought it would be impossible to explain properly. Instead, though, Charlie recalls the conversation where Will tried to reassure him that he counts, and it's really not hard for him to extrapolate that Will's been having an issue with that.

At this point, though, Charlie's pretty good at understanding how Will's brain works, so he doesn't bother with reassuring him. Will's been trying that himself, and it really hasn't been working. Charlie just opts for closeness, and after a while of that, of Will trying not to freak out wrapped in Charlie's arms, a calmness settles over him again.

Charlie eventually presses a kiss to the top of Will's head. Will smiles. "I love you, man."

"I love you too," Charlie says, ruffles Will's hair. "And don't worry, I think you do like men."

Will sits up and bats Charlie's arms away, laughing. "Fuck off, dude."

Will lies down in bed that night and goes out pretty quickly. He wakes up when Charlie's phone alarm goes off, arm thrown over him, legs trapping one of his.

Charlie mumbles something incoherent and unlocks his phone to turn his alarm off, and Will voices his agreement, pressing his face into Charlie's shoulder.

Charlie laughs. "Morning, Wilbur."

Will makes another noise that isn't a word.

"You wanna move to let me get up, or-?"

Will sighs and lifts his arm up, shuffles to free Charlie, and, expecting to be about to fall back asleep while Charlie gets up, is appropriately startled when he's suddenly rolled onto his back, Charlie kneeling in between his legs.

That does wake him up pretty quick. He laughs and shakes himself awake, blinking to clear his eyes. Charlie's sitting back on his heels, looking down at him, clearly pretty eager.

Hm. Will's not typically a morning sex guy- he's weird about brushing his teeth, alright?- but he's good with making an exception.

"Yeah, okay," he says, and Charlie springs into action- there's approximately zero time in between Will giving Charlie the go-ahead and his boxers already being off, Charlie taking no time at all to tug them down.

So, Charlie's still kind of awkward and uncoordinated when it comes to giving handjobs, which isn't really a problem- Will likes Charlie, so yeah, he does also like it when Charlie touches his dick, regardless of the skill involved. That being said, he's not paying attention to himself, really, and Will likes it when Charlie gets to pay attention to himself. He sits up and gets Charlie's attention- "C'mon, move up here."

Charlie nods quickly, and Will gets Charlie's boxers down as he moves up, and something does click in Charlie's head when he does that- "Oh!"

So again, Will doesn't have to work for it much, which he really does appreciate from Charlie.

Charlie sticks his tongue out a little bit, visibly focusing, and he sets a decent pace. It's not particularly slow or fast, but it is steady, and after a bit he speeds up, twisting his hand a little bit, which is nice, that's nice, that's good.

Charlie's eyebrows furrow, and Will is momentarily confused until he realizes he's already started rambling. Christ, he cannot shut the fuck up. He is so lucky to have Charlie, who apparently likes that he cannot shut the fuck up.

"Lucky to have you," he mumbles, and Charlie rolls his eyes a little bit. He doesn't mind too much, though, pulling Will in for a kiss with his free hand in the back of his hair.

Will sighs into Charlie's mouth when he comes, and says softly when he pulls back to catch his breath- "I love you, Charlie," and Charlie's chest jumps when he sucks in a breath and comes.

After a moment, Charlie lifts his hand up and scrunches his face up, displeased with the current quantity of jizz on it, and Will laughs.

"Don't laugh, asshole," Charlie says. "I'm prepared to make this your problem."

Will yelps and fails to scurry away fast enough to avoid getting jizz wiped on his side, batting at Charlie, who sticks his tongue out at him, and Will is honestly too charmed by that to be upset.

He still makes Charlie get up to get a washcloth, though.

It's time for Charlie to go again, and Will is extremely upset that it came and went that fast.

He tells Charlie as much while they're at the airport, and Charlie frowns and shrugs.

"I mean, what are you gonna do," he says, but he's also clearly a bit sad.

"You could just stay," Will suggests, mostly jokingly.

"I have a house I gotta get back to, man," Charlie says. "Y'know, not to be a broken record, but you could come to Vermont sometime."

Will's probably gonna do that at some point, but at the moment it's funnier to pretend he won't. "Next time, you gotta warn me before you show up."

"Oh, well. Yeah," Charlie says. "Yeah, I'm definitely gonna. Not that the surprise wasn't fun, but."

It's just about time for Charlie to board. Will checks his phone, bounces his leg. The announcement comes in over the intercom for the plane to board.

"I'll call when I land," Charlie says. Will nods. "Y'know, if there wasn't a non-zero chance that somebody would recognize us, I'd kiss you."

That does actually get a smile from Will, and he breathes in deeply, pats Charlie on the shoulder, and turns to leave.

Charlie's hand wraps around his wrist and squeezes a little bit as he leaves. "Bye, dude."

"See you later."