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He’s in the HQ gym when Ethan comes looking for him. It’s lunch hour on a Thursday, and he’s only been off restricted duty for two days, but Ethan likes to think he knows him and Will’s not about to disabuse him of the notion. He’s been in here for an hour already, first lifting weights, then having a go at the heavy bag, and now finally sparring with Johnson, one of the off-duty security guys, just because he asked so nicely.
Ethan’s last mission wrapped two days ago in Jakarta, which means he only got back sometime last night, which means he’s probably just logged about thirteen hours in the Alexandria safe house that he calls home these days. Enough time to wash up and eat and sort the mail and maybe to juggle all the little chores that tend to stack up on you when more than half your life is spent living somewhere else. Run the laundry and decontaminate the fridge and reprogram the thermostat and sweep the whole place for bugs and triple-check each strategically placed cache of small arms - you know, the usual. In deference to Ethan’s seniority as an agent and the sickening number of time zones he just crossed - and the fact the mission was a milk run that went off without a hitch - he wouldn’t have been due back for formal debrief until this afternoon, but if Will knows Ethan (which of course he does) he knows he’ll want to get it over with as soon as possible, which means Ethan probably has it scheduled for thirteen hundred. Or at least as near to it as the brass can manage, though for Ethan they usually do. Perks of being the IMF golden boy.
When the back door to the gym swings open at 12:15 exactly, Will doesn't even have to look. It's Ethan, (almost) exactly right on schedule.
Originally he'd figured Ethan would've taken the luxury of sleeping in, staying in that small nation of a custom king bed probably til seven or so before his innate inability to just sit still and relax for five minutes when it's not mission critical finally drove him out of it. Then it'd be one of those horrid protein shakes with pretensions of breakfast and the coffee pot programed for whenever he planned to be back from his morning run. First day home after a successful - if boring, and it was boring, Will knows; he made sure of it - international mission, he'd be aiming for sometime nine-ish. Time enough for his habitual seven-mile circuit (of nothing in particular; no one at IMF is dumb enough to run anything even remotely resembling a planned route) and a stop at one of the bodegas or coin-op paper venders for a copy of the Post he won't actually read until the next time he’s on enforced leave. Figure coffee and a shower and Ethan would've been in the car by quarter past. Add forty-five minutes for a late morning commute and he should've arrived somewhere around ten.
Of course Ethan being Ethan he probably went straight for the range, because Will figures he spent the last five days waiting for the other shoe to drop (and it’s a sad commentary on Ethan’s life that an easy mission can and will fuck with his head almost worse than some of the hard ones; a sadder one still that Will has no trouble relating) and the run alone wouldn’t have been enough to burn through all that pent up adrenaline. The range would help with that.
So too would the twenty minutes he probably spent in R&D, harassing Benji for the sake of it until the geeks threatened creative revenge if he didn’t get out of their hair. And Benji being Benji he would have shared the geeks' coffee without permission while waxing poetic about R&D's latest and greatest like Junior-Q to Ethan’s Bond - and without worrying about whether or not Ethan's cleared for it, too (he is; he's Ethan, but still Benji should learn to have more care), but somewhere in there he would've found time to ask vague but leading questions about Ethan's latest 'trip' and whether or not Jane was planning on coming in at all. And Ethan would have smiled and nodded and found just enough words of his own to make it look like he was actually interested in the tech and not in confirming with his own eyes that Benji would be off restricted duty in time for the next mission.
All that would've put Ethan at loose ends somewhere around 11:30, and since it's a ten minute walk from R&D to this particular gym that still leaves half an hour of Ethan’s morning currently unspoken for. It’s a discrepancy. Will doesn’t like discrepancies as a general rule, but especially not when they come from Ethan. Discrepancies and Ethan usually mean secrets, and Ethan and secrets usually mean Will’s life’s about to get fucked in the ass again.
Well. Maybe Ethan guessed wrong on where Will'd be - not likely, but Will can dream - or Benji kept him later than he'd figured, but he doesn't think so. Geeks and field agents generally don't mesh and besides, the labs tend to an odd sense of claustrophobia. Not pleasant for an agent on his first day back from - abroad - and still quietly itching to let loose. Will knows Ethan wouldn't have been there at all if Benji hadn't been hiding out. Much more likely he just hit worse traffic than Will had figured on. After all Ethan's driving routes are just as off-the-cuff as his running ones, if not more so.
Not that it matters now, anyway, seeing as Ethan's here. Twenty past twelve and he's got his back to the gym wall, just inside the doorway. His arms are crossed and his ankles are crossed and he’s the picture of calm collectedness as he watches Will and Johnson go at each other. Will steals a glance at him over Johnson’s left shoulder as he drops him, a neat Judo toss that Johnson left himself wide opened for by overbalancing on his left foot when he tried to dance inside Will’s guard, but he doesn’t see anything particularly worrying in Ethan’s stance in the three seconds of clear view he’s got before Johnson is kicking out, forcing Will to dive and roll to avoid a nasty ankle lock, so he’s not too particularly worried. This is just Ethan touching base, like he'd just done with Benji, like he would have done with Jane if Jane hadn't been with him in Jakarta. Nothing but a field commander checking up on his people. For his first sight of the boss it’s actually a pretty good sign.
While Will’s down Johnson goes for a standard wrestling pin, and Will lets him because it’ll mean the match will end. To the untrained eye Ethan’s presence here means playtime is over, but this is the moment Will’s been waiting for ever since he "analyzed" both Ethan and Jane out of his hair for a week. Perks of spending his own downtime moonlighting at his old post. Occasional field trips aside he's still the best analyst in the whole of IMF.
Ethan waits patiently while he and Johnson disengage, climb back to their feet and trade soft barbs and handshakes. When Johnson disappears to the locker room Will makes a show of walking over to his gym bag, steady and unhurried, proving to Ethan that his leg is just fine, thank you, as he leans over to grab his towel to wipe his face. He hears Ethan move behind him because Ethan is considerate like that, when he wants to be, and as soon as he’s not quite dripping anymore he turns around to see Ethan holding out a water bottle, still sealed, beaded all over with condensation. He must have brought it in with him.
“Thanks,” he says, accepting it. There's a bit of a film on the plastic - gunpowder residue; Ethan must have been playing with homemade shells again - and there's a faint whiff of gasoline on top of it. That accounts for part of the missing time. Not all, but some, and that's better than nothing.
Ethan waits patiently while Will uncaps the bottle and drains half of it in one long pull. “How’s the leg?” he asks, finally, when Will’s done. They both know his answer will be much more telling than even the evidence of Ethan’s own two eyes.
“Sore,” Will answers. It’s the literal truth, and he knows Ethan will hear that, and that it’ll match up with the quiet assessment he’s been running on him since the moment he walked in the door. “Lunch?” Will offers almost immediately thereafter, before Ethan can think to ask him anything else.
“Sure,” Ethan agrees, smile flashing quick and easy. It’s better for him if Will’s the one to offer, makes Ethan look more like an actual friend and less like just another CO out to assuage his own guilt. “I’m in with Bromwell at one.”
Will checks the clock again. 12:24. “I’ll grab a shower,” he says. “Meet you in the canteen in ten?” Three for the shower, one to dress, six for the walk thereto.
“Sounds good,” Ethan says, blandly, but Will knows he means it. It's in the way his smile actually reaches his eyes.
Will grabs his bag and heads for the locker room. He doesn't hear the back door again before he gets there (and he knows he won't, after) but he doesn't think anything of it. Front door is just that much closer to the canteen, and Ethan is nothing if not practical. Or that's what Will tells himself, at least. Perfectly rational.
Johnson is just about done with his own shower by the time Will's stripped for his own, and he grunts a goodbye on his way back out the door. That leaves Will all alone in the showers - hell, probably all alone in the entire locker room, but he's only got his own sixth sense about the space to tell him that.
Well, that's all he has until all of a sudden he's smelling gunpowder and gasoline on a ghost of air at his left side. Even knowing that it's Ethan he can't keep himself from reacting, badly, and then it's four seconds of elbows and knees and the sharper edges of both his hands before his brain catches up with his instincts and he throws the hard stop, forces himself to still and boneless and non-threat and lets Ethan muscle him into the cold, hard tile of the shower wall. His shoulders hit first, then his ass, finally his head with a dull thunk, just hard enough to sting. Ethan keeps pressing, shoves a knee between Will's legs and leans in at an off angle, and Will feels the scrape of denim against the inside of his thighs and the cool bite of leather and belt buckle pressing into the right side of his hip. His wrists end up in Ethan's left hand, pinned above his head in a grip that means business without actually being in any way painful, because Ethan's leaning the bulk of his weight on the wall by Will's left shoulder, elbow locked, forearm not at all perturbed to be propping him up like that.
Will freezes, holds himself absolutely still, wary but not particularly worried, and that more than anything is a mark of how much he trusts Ethan. It's still a shock each time he realizes it. After all he never wanted to trust Ethan - still doesn't. Ethan's a hero and a madman and one of the best damned agents in the IMF, and those are all strong arguments for why he shouldn't trust Ethan even a fraction of how far he can throw him. Ethan might have had the pull to get Will's field status reinstated, might have decided there's something in Will that's worth putting at his back in all the worst kinds of shit, but he still set Will's entire team up for the absolute worst kind of failure without a second thought, lined them up like sacrificial lambs because Will knows damned will that it was only through some kind of divine grace that kept them all from getting killed. Not that some (Will) wouldn't have preferred to have died anyway, once knowing just what their failure cost.
Or what it didn't, really, and the emotional vertigo of that little revelation still knocks Will for six sometimes, whenever he catches himself thinking back on it.
Will's a good analyst; damned good. Better at that than anything he gets up to in the field, you ask him. He knows Ethan's plan was solid, well-thought and well-executed and absolutely everything Ethan needed it to be - and that he counted absolutely nothing of the cost. Not to Will's team. Not to Will himself. And he would do it all again in a heartbeat if he had to. Will understands that, analytically; he gets it. He does. But the minds that come up with plans like that - minds that politely ignore the fact you still sometimes have nightmares about that ridiculous farce of a fake mission - do not belong to the kind of man you should ever dare to trust. Will knows that for truth.
He himself is one of those men, more often than not. Best damned analyst in the IMF, after all. Comes with the territory.
Too bad it doesn't change the fact that trust has somehow happened anyway, even without his consent. Will tries not to examine that fact too closely, either. He's pretty sure he won't like what he finds.
And right now Will's standing stock still, waiting patiently for whatever the hell Ethan's got planned (and what does it say about him? That he doesn't particularly care one way or the other for what that could be) because Ethan's right there, solid and steady and smelling of gunpowder and gasoline and Benji's fancy Italian roast, and Ethan's - not calm, not at all; not even close. Rather he's riding that frozen sort of tight-wound tension known mostly to snipers and the guys in EOD. And, of course, IMF field agents with enough time in-grade as Ethan's logged. Enough time to pare his good self down to the kind of man who doesn't at all mind being responsible for everything that happened in (and around, and because of) Croatia.
“Jakarta?” Ethan asks, incredulous but not quite scathing. His eyes are dark, but there's not a hint of arousal in them.
“It--” needed to be done, Will tries to say, only Ethan leans in, captures his lips in a precision strike. The kiss is fierce, like it's meant as punishment. Will would credit it more if Ethan wasn't being so very careful of how he's pressed into Will's personal space, tip-toeing right along the line without ever going over. Will's wary, yes, but he isn't panicked.
It's really a hell of a lot hotter than it should be, all told. Will blames Ethan for that, too.
Ethan pulls back a moment (an eternity) later, just a bit. Just enough to grumble “I hate the easy ones,” before dropping his forehead onto Will's shoulder. His skin is dry and fever-hot, and the wrist he's leaning on is ever so slightly trembling.
Will hmms, kisses the side of Ethan's neck, feels Ethan's pulse jackrabbit along his jugular. Ethan isn't as unaffected as he's pretending; it's just what exactly he's reacting to that remains to be seen. Will has a guess, and it's got very little to do with the press of his own naked body so snug against him. (But very little is still little enough, and Will likes to think (has to think) that they wouldn't be here now, like this, if the sight of him naked didn't do anything at all.)
“You were needed,” he says this time, and he's surprised that Ethan lets him.
Ethan though just grunts and drops his bracing hand. He sags a bit, leans more fully into Will, and breathes; just breathes, as that hand finds the scar just above Will's hip. His thumb brushes soft circles against the puckered flesh. Will registers a faint the pressure there but not much else: most of the nerves are dead. Frangible rounds will do that. It takes Will a moment to remember Ethan hadn't been there for that one; one of the very few times they'd been sent on separate missions.
“Says you,” Ethan counters, and anything Will might have said in turn is swallowed by another kiss, strong and thorough. The soft, soft cotton of Ethan's faded henley brushes faintly against Will's chest and he hisses a quick breath in. Goddamn sensitive nipples, and God damn Ethan for knowing that.
“I'm not sorry,” Will says. Whether or not it's the truth is immaterial (and something Will lost track of a good while ago, besides) because it's something Ethan can respect. Ethan's respect has always mattered a lot more than it should. He refuses to examine why.
Ethan doesn't answer in words. Instead he drops his hand, goes from lightly palming Will's hip to lightly palming his cock. Will can't help but react, gasping quick and harsh, rocking up onto his toes and pushing himself more fully into Ethan's hand. Ethan waits just long enough to prove his point before closing his hand into a fist. Maddeningly light and holding still, but Will can feel each and every nick and callus where Ethan grips him.
“I know,” Ethan says, eventually, and kisses him again. He times the kiss with the closing of his fist, forming a proper grip at last.
Will hmms again, lower this time, and throaty; half acknowledgment, half sheer spinal reflex. Ethan's hands are just as skilled in this as they are in everything else.
“I hate Jakarta,” Ethan says, conversationally, even as he builds into a rhythm. Will does his best to keep his hips still and not thrust into the warm, rough tunnel of Ethan's hand. Ethan doesn't want that, he knows; and besides, the friction is bitch enough as it is.
“No you don't,” Will gasps out, breathy and thick.
Ethan swipes his thumb across the head, once and back again. “What do you know?” His voice is a low growl; a dare, just as that thumb was a sharp reproval. This time Will's answering hum is more of a whimper, not that he'll ever admit it aloud.
“What do you know?” Ethan asks again, though really it's more of a demand. He tightens his grip, just enough to skirt the razor's edge between the end of pleasure and the beginnings of pain. He speeds up, starts varying the strength of his grip between each finger like Will's cock is some kind of musical instrument and he's set to playing scales. It's annoying, distracting, and pleasurable all at once. He can feel his own pulse scudding beneath the grip Ethan has on his wrists. He's vaguely aware that his hands have started tingling.
“You don't,” Ethan snarls, low and angry. He drops Will's wrists and presses his palm into Will's chest, fingers splayed. Will's hands fall to Ethan's shoulders, forearms resting there as feeling rushes back into his fingers. It's uncomfortable to say the least, but Will strangles any sound he might have made deep in the back of his throat, refusing to give in, or give Ethan the satisfaction. Instead he meets Ethan's eyes again. They're wide, and dark - and just as unfathomable to Will as his own reasons for allowing this, each time.
“Know you,” he says, once he's sure he can say anything at all without making a complete fool of himself. He can feel his orgasm building deep in the pit of his belly. He won't last much longer. He's pretty sure Ethan doesn't want him to.
Ethan growls, and it's somehow both approval and disapproval - and filthy hot on top of that. Even though Will's the one who dared it, his gaze has got Will pinned, and it's all he can do not to writhe below the hand that's pressed strong and deliberate right above his heart, or to buck into the hot, tight grip around his cock as Ethan works him. He locks his fingers behind Ethan's neck, holding onto himself because he can't quite (can never quite) bring himself to hold onto Ethan. Ethan stares at him, cold assessment, and a second later he's swiping his thumb across the head of Will's cock again, pinky shifting up just so to tease the soft flesh underneath.
“Come on,” Ethan encourages, a soft, warm rumble of sound Will feels more than he hears. His focus has narrowed to the steady tightening in his balls and the slide of Ethan's palm against his cock and the wild beating of his heart as it tries it's damnedest to leap out of his chest and into Ethan's hand. Then Will gasps, sudden and sharp, and - just as ever - obliges.
Ethan's grip slackens as he gentles Will through the aftershocks, but that hand keeps hold of Will's cock just as the other stays pressed against Will's heart as it slows, calms down gradually from it's frantic rhythm and settles into something that's creeping up on normal. Ethan's fingers flex, just slightly, at the very first knuckle; the pads of his fingers drag against Will's chest as his palm presses in and flattens out. When Ethan's eyes slip closed Will knows he's keeping time.
Their last mission together Will took a knife to the fleshy part of his thigh, no lasting damage but the blade was dipped in a synthetic neurotoxin. That was forty-three days ago, but Will knows the stench of Krakow and the unsteady beat of his own arrhythmic, failing heart will live forever in Ethan's mind.
He empathizes, really. Ethan's had more than a few brushes with death in the sixteen short (long) months of their acquaintance.
“Don't send me there again,” Ethan says at last, once Will's finally got his breath back. It's a request just as much as it's an order.
“No,” Will says, and it's agreement because Ethan needs to hear it and it's argument because it's the one promise that Will can't make - and neither of them acknowledge that this not-conversation has nothing to do with Jakarta at all.
Ethan closes his eyes, leans in and kisses the corner of Will's mouth, quick and chaste, just barely there. “No,” he echoes, and for once Will can't figure what he means by that. The uncertainty leaves an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach where his pleasure once lived.
Ethan drops his hands then, and Will reels a bit from the sudden loss of contact. “No,” he says, again, a half-formed protest for a half-formed thought he's too afraid to finish. Ethan though just smiles at him, soft and fond and somehow hollow, and backs out of Will's very loose embrace. Then with a wink he's turning around, and he walks back out the door without another word.
Will almost doesn't let him, almost decides to jog ahead, catch him before he leaves, but almost isn't enough when he's standing naked in the showers, watching Ethan walk away and not look back. So he stands where Ethan left him, sweat and come cooling on his skin and tired in a way that not even the hardest of missions and the worst of injury recovery can touch; tired in a way that only keeping up with Ethan makes him. As soon as he's sure that Ethan's well and truly gone he slumps back into the cold tile wall, drops his head, and breathes. Just breathes. Sometimes (most times) that's all they can ever do.
Sometimes it's even enough.
-fin-