Work Text:
William Lenney walked into the studio like he owned the place. Because he did, technically.
The air felt familiar, almost like that feeling you get when stepping over the threshold of your bedroom after you’ve been away to somewhere sunny. It felt… warm. Safe.
Orla and Mikey both yelled some form of greeting from the editing suite, early risers as they were, and Will finally set his tote bag down on the side of the desk he was going to have to sit at for the next two hours.
Consequences of arriving at the office early because he couldn't bear to face the silence of the flat, he supposed.
Pushing aside his already-growing boredom, Will planted himself in one of the ergonomic desk chairs Aby had ordered for them, insisting on the fact that they were amazing and would work wonders on his back and honestly? He had switched off from that conversation around 10 minutes prior.
He quickly said his polite ‘Mornings’ and ‘Hellos’ to the two, with all the energy he could muster, attempting to conceal his disappointment over the fact that the reason he was here so early was not a sudden burst of productivity, but a desperate attempt to get away from the deafening silence at home. An attempt that was currently not working. He kept finding his brain wandering back to the sly comments at the charity match from Stephen, or the comments on the countless TikTok edits, or the whispers and glances they got when they were out in public together, or…
Aiming to quell some of that constant whirring of his mind, Will opened Premiere Pro to actually try and do something with his spare two hours before the shoot. He was greeted with his own face plastered across the dashboard, contorted in ways that only the YouTube algorithm would find appealing. How he had any semblance of self-confidence left after this job was beyond him.
Opening his latest edit, he was greeted by a familiar face, not his own but someone who was essentially an extension of himself.
Of all the many employees at WillNE industries, only Will himself was entrusted with this precious footage. It was one of their most personal videos yet, and Will knew that one wrong step with this editing would have Twitter blowing up and all of their mutual friends calling to question Will more than they already did. He had to be careful with this, and there were a few moments that, if they accidentally made their way onto Will’s own personal hard drive instead of the video, well, that must just have been a slip of the mouse.
The video was titled ‘Running 1m Every Day, But Every Day It Doubles’. To anyone else, this was just another big-shot WillNE main channel video. The same as the one before and the same as the one after (Will hoped); but for him, and maybe for James, this was the one that decided everything. The one that defined their relationship to the masses. The one that defined their relationship to themselves.
But no pressure, right?
That's what Orla had said, anyway. She had been there from the beginning of Will’s little crush, and she was sure as hell going to be there for the make-or-break of it. Whatever Will decided to keep or cut from this video would show the world how close he and James had become over their years. All of the times the camera had caught Will staring at how well-defined James’ arms had become in the past few weeks, or how his laugh swept up the entire room, or all the times Will had clutched onto James for that second too long after he was the cause of another full belly laugh.
Will wasn't quite yet ready to face the fact that the only times he had laughed like that in the past year or so had been with James.
—
James Marriott walked into the studio with all the grace of a rather cumbersome cat with a plastic bag stuck on its head.
His arms were adorned with, yet again, far too many things for the average human to carry; iced coffee orders, keys, and Waitrose’s originals bags to name a few.
“Come ‘ere, let me help”, Will said, getting up from the position he had come to be stuck in for the last hour, bones creaking and protesting as black converse hit the floor.
“Utter Buffon, honestly, lad”, whispered with care, and kindness, and
…
Something else that Will was not ready to face on a balmy Tuesday afternoon, under the sterile studio lights and piercing glare of a camera that managed to capture all too well the longing in his heart and aching in his chest.
As James launched into his debrief of the week, Will couldn't help but get lost in the other’s eyes. Hazel with gold flecks, the twat always used to say, and Will, despite all efforts to prove the contrary, had to finally give in and agree. He got lost like a child got lost up a particularly large oak, though.
He knew the way out, but he was content just to stay here and let the world go by without him.
Before he knew it, James was guiding him over to the studio, tempting him with a fresh (almost spilt) iced coffee, milky as he liked it, and with just one sugar. It warmed Will’s heart in a way that could’ve brought a tear to his eye that James just knew without thinking what he ordered, and had the thought to bring it to him even if he was already set to get in the door 15 minutes late.
“Will, have you actually absorbed a single thing I've said in the past ten minutes? Or have you just been staring into my gorgeous eyes, hmm?”
Now that jerked him back to real life. The real life where they joked and flirted, nothing meant by it of course. They bickered like an old married couple, to the delight and disgruntlement of their friends, co-workers, and what often felt like the entire internet. Nothing more, nothing less for Will and James.
“I was not, lad, honestly we need to start getting you up here less, or your massive ego isn’t gonna fit through the door”, he said, secretly unable to bear the thought of the day when James can't make a shoot date because he has something better to do.
“Although I don't know how you do it, anyway, with that enormous head of yers”, he says. In jest, of course.
“Alright, pipe down you two, with all the yapping going on in this video, you're gonna want to save your voices," came from Ieuan around the corner, just arrived after some trouble with the West London traffic.
Orla had done a brilliant job of getting everything set up all by herself (with no inclination of help from Will, who had been poring over the details with all the care of a microbiologist), albeit with some snarky comments tossed towards the three other people in the room. But hey, who can blame a girl?
She had her task manager loaded already, type A as she was, to tell the boys that today they were filming three videos, to start stocking up for James’ tour. All the same sort of slop that the algorithm likes nowadays, but hey, it meant that Will still had the money to do his Big production videos, and James still had enough money left over to tour the world with his music.
As they got situated against the blue lights, in their strangely comfortable chairs on their respective sides of the table, Will relaxed, for the first time in a week. He took a deep breath and smiled at his other half, and settled into his own skin for what felt like the first time in a long, long while.