Archive of Our Own

"I'm supposed to meet him tomorrow," William says, looking up at Eddie with nervous anticipation twisting his stomach into knots as he waits for an answer from the boy he loves.

"I'm adorably trusting?" Eddie scoffs in disbelief.

"I have to go." William tries to keep the desperation out of his voice. "I have to find out what he knows about Westview. He's the only one who will talk about it."

Eddie gazes at him for a long moment, but his mind is quiet. It's one of the things that drew William to Eddie in the first place; the serenity in Eddie's thoughts give William peace, too. It's stressful—burdensome—to be around people who think loudly all the time, think loudly enough to intrude on William's own thoughts, which are frenetic as a baseline. Eddie is often a relief from that. His inner monologue is typically calm, his thoughts usually measured against logic instead of emotion. And most of the time, the non-intrusive nature of his thinking is a comfort. It allows William space to breathe.

Right now, William is holding his breath—because he doesn't know what's on his boyfriend's mind.

He was excited to show Eddie everything he found, but as he waits for a response, he feels raw. Exposed. A livewire sparking for connection, threatening to light William up one way or another—because Eddie isn't just his heart, he's William's barometer for normalcy. Meaning that if Eddie thinks this is insane, it probably is insane.

And that might just shatter William.

What he'd said in the car is true; that nothing in his life felt normal until he met Eddie. William wouldn't have said it if it wasn't the truth, because he clings to honesty the way that most people cling to their loved ones.

He seeks it out when he's frightened or stressed, when he's confused about the world around him—when there are gaps in the timeline of his own reality, or he's overwhelmed by others' thoughts and needs a touchstone for his own sanity.

Because before he had Eddie, all William had was information—and he still stops at nothing to unearth as much of it as he can. Uses maps and dossiers and color-coded notes to form theories based on evidence that most people would write off. Hoards information like dragons do gold from the snippets that slip through the cracks of the Avengers-backed media machine.

He inks annotations into the margins of each book put on his shelf, and has spent hours upon hours over the past three years searching for answers by spiraling down through the dark tangle of the internet that the government cordons off. He cross-references old grimoires with archived news articles, studies witchcraft like it's a second religion, and keeps everything he learns carefully recorded in journals—most of all, the spellbook on his hip.

It's important to William that when he draws conclusions, they're not false. That his theories, while maybe far-fetched, aren't laden with lies or assumptions. That when he puts all the pieces of the puzzle together, each one of the pieces can hold its own weight...because William is under no delusion; he knows his theories sound insane.

And normally, William doesn't care. He lets his mind run wild, connecting the dots and tying together loose ends that others would typically write off, because there's nobody around to pass judgment on the ideas he formulates in the privacy of his bedroom.

But that's not the case anymore.

Now, he has a source—a firsthand source. An opportunity for real answers to help solve the biggest question of his life, and the urge to take it is something he can't deny himself. But as he kneels in the mess of his research, he's suddenly struck with the revelation of just how much he needs something else, too—his boyfriend's faith.

It's overwhelming, just how much he feels like he needs Eddie to be at his side on the morrow. What he's going to do is something he hasn't done before, and it's both inexplicably terrifying, but vital to his research into learning who he really is.

Because if everything comes crashing down, there's only one person that could save him from the crush of the fallout...and everything just might come crashing down when William meets the guy from Reddit willing to speak about Westview. It's a risk. A huge one. But if there's any chance that the stranger willing to speak has even one, single thing to say about the anomaly in Westview that might shed truth on it, William needs to hear it.

Needs to know the truth.

See, of all of William's queer quirks, the least of which being his sexuality, there's one aspect of William's being that strangles his every breath and haunts his every step. One peculiarity that isn't simply eccentric, but rather, is a flaw he can't buff out—one that he tries his best to combat with the truth as often as he's able, but one that he knows now, three years in, is a fight he'll never win;

That despite his best efforts to the contrary, William Kaplan is a liar.

And if he's completely, utterly honest?

The only truth he knows is his love for the boy beside him.

Try as he might to live honestly, it was never fully in the cards for him. He's known it from day one of this new life in this new body—because William isn't actually who everyone thinks he is. He's not William Kaplan, natural son of Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan. He's William Kaplan, lost soul clinging to the identity of the boy whose body he stole.

William Kaplan; witch, abomination, and liar.

(The first, only barely. The second, he's nearly certain. The third, undeniable.)

It's a secret he's kept to himself for the past three years—until tonight, that is. Because the William that exists now was someone else, first.

Something else.

He just doesn't know what or who.

But the man from Reddit might be able to help, and William is desperate to find out what he knows. More desperate than he can articulate. There's excitement, sure, but the anxiety is eating him alive—the idea that he might actually find a clue that could lead him to answers...that could lead him to finding out who he really is.

That could point him towards the missing piece of himself.

Because the fact that William is someone other than William is a fact he can't quite prove, but that he knows isn't fiction. And maybe if he couldn't sense him, couldn't sense his lost brother's presence, he'd be able to convince himself otherwise—convince himself that he's not cosplaying the life of Jewish teenager living in a small suburb called Eastview. But unlike Judaism, which he's been able to learn about through studies and time at the synagogue, William has been completely unable to find a guide on how to decipher his soul's truth and lies.

There's simply no book titled 'How To Proceed When You Can Sense Your Twin Brother, But Not Find Him' published in this universe. No scripture that gives insight into what it means when someone is transported into a new body still tethered to the mind of the old. Ideas like reincarnation and past lives criss-crossing in the present were a good start to William's research, but he doesn't fit neatly into the box of either.

Because Tommy is still out there, still brushing across his mind—nonverbal, sure, but out there. Somewhere in this realm, existing in this universe, but existing just out of reach.

Tommy; his twin brother, the other half of his shattered soul.

It'd be easier, he thinks, if he had woken up with a clean slate; blissfully unaware of what he left behind when he seized William Kaplan's corpse and reanimated it for himself. But William—the name he stole right alongside of the body he snatched—didn't just awaken different.

He awoke in a new body. He awoke as a new person. He jolted awake in the backseat of a totaled car with blood on his face, a bruise on his cheek, and his twin brother's name upon his lips.

He was also confused enough to believably be diagnosed with amnesia.

But William didn't have amnesia—not in the way the doctors all thought. Because he didn't forget anything, he just never lived the life everyone thinks he did. Instead, he awoke in a new body, fully aware of the fact that it wasn't his own. He has no memories from the life of the boy whose vessel he claimed; none, zero, zilch.

But why would he? William awoke with something else, instead; the burning awareness that he had—has—a brother. That his soul, blanketed by new skin, had stolen something that didn't belong to him and that Tommy had failed to do the same.

At first he tried to ignore it. Bury the facts under the rug and move forward with his singular lie. In the first few months as William Kaplan, but not William Kaplan, he tried to ignore the sensation—resented the fact that Tommy was all that stood between himself and his new life. Tried as hard as he could to fit in with the Kaplans and seem like the boy they lost in the backseat of the car that fateful afternoon.

William felt horrible about what he'd done once he'd realized exactly what heppened—but he couldn't help it. He doesn't consciously remember making the decision, and it's not one he could reverse. So he worked as hard as he could to fit into the gap he'd claimed for himself, listening to their thoughts and adjusting his behaviors and seeking out information until they stopped looking at him like a stranger. Stopped stopped asking one another why he was so different, wondering loudly what had happened to their son—stopped fretting that he might be possessed, despite the fact that he was—is—possessing the body of their son.

But while he was able to fool the parents he claimed for himself, it was never a possibility that he might fool his own mind into forgetting his brother. Not with how strongly he and Tommy remained linked, and certainly not when the fragments started appearing.

Fragments, because they're not quite memories, even as they come to William in flashes; blips through his mind the way that Netflix flips through video reels when you're scrolling for a new show to watch. A trailer from the 70s here, a teaser from the 80s there—sometimes a scene cut straight from the middle of a daytime soap episode that he doesn't recall. That logically couldn't have possibly existed. Because no child could ever stop a moving bullet with the power of their mind, right?

William hears peoples' thoughts, but he's never been able to perform anything other than analog magic. Not since the car crash. He couldn't possibly stop a moving bullet and tame an entire military—there's no way that's a true memory.

And there's no reason that episodes of classic television shows like Malcolm in the Middle or Modern Family should trigger visceral nightmares about a woman in pink tights fighting a man in green spandex.

(He's gay—a campy Halloween outfit giving him nightmares is actually insanely embarrassing.)

But most of all, there's simply no possibility that the woman whose face he can never recall wearing the blue plaid robe he's never seen in Rebecca's closet was actually telling him—William—that she's starting to believe that everything is meaningless ever actually existed.

Much less that she was his mother.

He'd sense her if she did—if she was.

Just like he senses Tommy.

And yet, knowing that hasn't stopped him from trying to make sense of it—so he writes down the memories that are but aren't his own. The disorienting dreams, too. Dutifully records the snippets that flutter through his head into a small journal he keeps tucked between his mattress and his box spring. Researches—god, does he research. Everything from amnesia to witchcraft to any and all information that he can find about people who aren't quite people; mutants, walking gods, and aliens—not that he's any of those.

Spends more nights than he would ever admit aloud trying in vain to weave the threads together, despite the fractured nature of what his mind recalls. Despite how asinine the story told when the fragments are pieced together.

Seeks truth while untangling the lie.

But until recently, there's been a gaping hole in William's research the size of the Westview anomaly. He knows that it holds answers, he just doesn't know what those answers are. Strings have come together around it, but nobody has been willing to speak a single word about it to help him deduce what really happened there.

At least, not until now.

So much is riding on the conversation with the man from Reddit that William can't possibly not go. He has to go. His entire life—the truth about The Lie—depends on it.

"Where'd you go?" Eddie's voice, filled with concern even as it soothes him, draws William back into the present—as does the gentle way Eddie cups his jaw, giving William a physical touchstone to press into.

Heat washes up the boy's neck even as he leans into the reassuring touch. He didn't mean to get lost in his mind like that. It just happens sometimes.

He clears his throat. "Um, nowhere. I just—" he glances towards the scattered papers, towards the ones with words like reincarnation and disambiguation scattered around him—the annotated clippings from news articles and digitized books that he printed out to patch together "—just kind of wishing I had maybe organized this a little bit better before showing you." His laugh sounds false, even to himself.

"But then you wouldn't be my William," Eddie teases.

William ducks his head. "It's a lot, I know."

He means, 'I'm a lot.'

"I don't—" William begins, nearly answering Eddie's thoughts with denial, despite that being exactly what he had been saying, but he's cut off by his boyfriend.

"It's the perfect amount," Eddie says, pressing his thumb into William's jaw as his lips slide into a half-grin. "Do you want to get milkshakes beforehand?"

William's heart flutters with hope. "You mean it?"

"You don't think I'm going to let you go play detective all on your own, do you?" Eddie laughs, straightening up—tugging William up as well, away from the mess of the uncertain, into the arms of the only certainty in William's life.

The only person who knows he's not someone else.

The only person who loves him, not the boy he says he is.

"Thank you," he breathes, his entire body thrumming with warmth from Eddie's easy acceptance—from Eddie's persistance in proving to William that he cares. That he doesn't find the twink insane. Relief floods William's body, replacing the tension he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. He slides his palms up Eddie's chest, and feels a little guilty at having doubted his boyfriend in the first place. It's just that William's mind is always spinning faster than everyone else's, and sometimes it starts to spin into panic—at least, until Eddie grounds him back into reality. Into the here and now.

"If we get murdered by a man from Reddit—"

"Oh god," William groans, collapsing into his boyfriend's chest. He feels slightly exhausted now that it's all out there—now that Eddie has agreed to go with him to meet the stranger, that Eddie hasn't called him crazy or anything.

That Eddie loves him.

The reminder sparks something warm in William's belly. He pulls back to look his boyfriend in the eye—and as he does, he curls his fingers around the denim lapels of Eddie's jacket. "I'm done freaking now," he decides with a wry grin, "so if you want to take this off, you could."

"Oh, could I?" Eddie's half grin spreads into a full one; lighting up his face, the room. Making the butterflies flutter faster in William's belly.

"My parents won't be home for awhile," William breathes, tugging at the jacket as his exhaustion gives way to something warmer, more delicious in the pit of his belly. "How late can you stay?"

Eddie slides his jacket off his own shoulders, revealing his strong arms to William's greedy paws. "Late enough," he grins, reaching for William's own black jacket as the twink wraps his fingers around Eddie's biceps and squeezes like he's a heathen (he sort of is—Eddie is, like, really, exceptionally attractive and sometimes it's hard to believe he chose William out of all of the sane, normal people out there.)

"Good." William pushes his disbelief away and strokes his thumbs up the inside of Eddie's arms, already feeling lighter. "It wouldn't be a real date if we didn't try to push curfew—and I need to apologize to your muscles for forcing them away, even if only for a moment." He drops a kiss to Eddie's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, muscles, you can come out to play, now."

Eddie laughs at the lame joke, but then their lips connect in a heartbeat and the mood morphs into something more heady; William clinging to his rock as Eddie pushes at William's clothes. Unlike the conversation before, their shared touch is solid—completely reassuring. Something built off of a solid foundation, not facts pieced together to create a story from whispers from the deep web or information gathered from archaic tombs laid out for evaluation.

This, above all else, is familiarity.

Is comfort.

Is real.

William chases Eddie's lips with his own as they strip down and tumble into the bed, and the kisses remain innocent until they're cocooned together beneath William's sheets. Until the weight of what's spread out across his floor is pushed to the back of his mind to make room for the weight of their shared arousal.

Normally, they fuck on top of the bed; lights on, bodies visible. William loves to look at his boyfriend—the smooth, brown skin pulled taut over thick muscles as Eddie flexes with each thrust—and he knows that his boyfriend feels the same, because even if Eddie's kisses weren't typically interspersed with compliments, the bleed-through that brushes across William's mind whenever they're having sex confirms exactly that.

But Eddie knows William almost better than the boy knows himself, and so it's no surprise that they wind up closed into their own world by the time all is said and done; Eddie on his back, William draped across his chest—their hard lengths pressed together, trapped between their bellies. Sliding against one another in a tease as the boys make out with a faux-laziness underpinned by the sort of horniness that only two teenagers could ever manage to conjure on the spot after such a heavy admission having been made.

William parts his lips, moaning softly as he grants Eddie's tongue entrance, and wonders how in the world he got so lucky as the tension from earlier melts away, replaced with the thrum of liquid desire.

God, you feel so good on top of me.

William shivers as he listens to Eddie's bleed-through, and the affection twisting through the twink's body is matched by something else as well; marvel.

So many aspects of William's life were determined by elements outside of his conscious control—including the body he stole for himself when he didn't truly realize what he was doing, because while he knows in the deepest recesses of his mind that this was technically his own power at work, it was not a conscious decision that he made when he assumed William Kaplan's body.

It was a desperate act of chaos.

And he's never come close to repeating it.

But Eddie? Eddie is someone that William chose for himself. And Eddie chose William, too. Out of all the people in the universe, Eddie chose him—the weird, witchy twink with pale skin and skinny hips and an inability to ever stop yapping unless he's stuck in his head with his thoughts a thousand miles away from the present (something almost as bad as the yapping, he's been told many a time.)

And sure, there's part of William that genuinely believes they would find one another in any universe—that their souls are intrinsically tied in a way not entirely dissimilar to the way that William is linked to Tommy. But even with believing that there's no universe out there where he and Eddie don't find one another, he still knows in his heart that it remains their decision. And that means it's the one thing in this life that fully belongs to William.

When it's no longer possible for William to breathe and keep kissing his boyfriend, he drags his lips along Eddie's jawline. Uses his teeth to gently tug at the man's silver hoops as they pant against one another in their safe cocoon of sheets. Presses his forehead into Eddie's temple and reaches up to twist a single black coil around his finger as he speaks low into Eddie's ear. "I want you to fuck me," he whispers, darting his tongue out to taste the silver hoops again—loves his boyfriend's piercings so much.

Yeah. Eddie exhales something that sounds like a strangled laugh. Please.

William grins into Eddie's neck as his boyfriend's response rings through his mind loud enough that it's almost as though Eddie spoke it aloud—just like it was in the car. He needs to explain that, still, but he can't. Not right now. He got a little distracted earlier. Doesn't want to get distracted again.

The world spins so fast sometimes. Faster than William can keep up—and Eddie makes that spinning slow into something manageable. He feels greedy, but he needs this right now. Needs everything to melt away into EddieandWilliam and nothing else so bad, he might perish without it.

"Eddie," William groans dramatically, tugging at the tight curl and squirming—feeling a little petulant as his boyfriend teases him with touch, "want you so bad right now. Come onnnn." He bucks his hips, drinking in the hiss from Eddie when their cocks slide pleasantly together.

"I always want you," Eddie replies, near-breathless. He drags his fingertips down William's spine, raising toe-curling goosebumps along the length, massaging William's skin—chases more blood into the twink's cock. "How do you want me to open you up?"

As he asks, Eddie slips his fingertips between William's cheeks and grazes the hole there—sends a little thrill of desire twisting through the boy like he expects William to be able to function when his ass is being fondled. God, he's so fucking perfect that it makes William insane—but in the best way possible.

"Mouth or fingers?" Eddie rests the pad of his fingertip against the entrance and presses gently. "What's there time for?" As he asks, he kneads William's cheeks; spreads them apart only to add a little more pressure right between them—does it all with slow, languid movements, like he's willing to wait all evening for answers, even as the evidence of his own arousal throbs heavily between them.

I need to say it. I have to say it. I love you so much. I can't not say it soon.

A powerful wave of affection washes over William, drying out his mouth and making him feel weak with need. "Fingers," he manages to choke out, nose pressed into Eddie's neck as he hitches his knee up higher on his boyfriend's hip—grants easier access. "Want you to kiss me."

"Okay," Eddie agrees easily, nudging the tight furl once more before he flips them; lays William down on his back and crawls up over the top of him. Then he pauses and gazes down at William—looks as though he's the one who can read minds.

"What?" William asks, feeling so seen it makes him a little nervous. He reaches for the lube tucked into the drawer of his bedside table, but when he tries to give it to his boyfriend, Eddie steals his lips for a kiss instead.

It's slow and easy; gentle thing that says so much more than even his thoughts do—and it fills William with another surge of affection as the weight of Eddie's cock falls to his belly, resting there like a promise. As their tongues tangle together and fire licks through the twink's body, stirring hotter arousal and even greater desire.

When they part, Eddie is panting. His pupils are blown, his lips swollen and wet. His necklace hangs down low enough to rest against William's chest, and the twink reaches up and cups Eddie's ear; gently runs his thumb over the hoops. "What?" William asks again.

"You're beautiful." So beautiful—god, what did I do to deserve you?

The return of Eddie's voice, both aloud and in his mind, is a welcome one.

"So are you," William replies. "And you don't mind that I'm crazy. So that's another bonus."

Eddie cracks a grin, shaking his head. "I love your crazy," he murmurs, sliding a palm down William's thigh and adding pressure. I love you, William Kaplan. A pause. Not-William.

"I'm still William," the boy breathes, "you can still call me William."

Eddie furrows his brow, but nods, and with his physical encouragement, William releases the shell of his boyfriend's ear and tugs his own knees into his chest. Eddie uncaps the lube and squirts it onto his fingers quietly.

Then they're kissing again. This, at the very least, is routine—something that two teenaged boys with parents who aren't strict have learned well by now. They trade slow, languid affection that rolls through William like molten lava; like Eddie's love is a physical thing that William can feel sliding through his veins, more visceral than the blood of the boy whose body he claimed.

They don't need words when it's like this; William's knees in his chest as he's worked open by the boy he loves. As Eddie uses plenty of lube to stretch him with one, two, and then three fingers. Wet, slick sounds accompany the stretch of William's rim, the thrust of tongue against tongue—the moans shared, the affection that passes back and forth between them.

William closes his eyes, relaxing into his mattress as Eddie whispers praise. "You take me so well, you're so good—spoil me so much." He loves this part, loves being opened up one finger at a time by his strong, protective boyfriend who moves with such gentle intention, William knows he's being taken care of.

He also knows that the I love you that keeps drifting through Eddie's mind is a far cry from marriage, or even living together one day, but it's in moments like this, when the world narrows to his boyfriend's careful touch, that William knows on a level that goes deeper than his soul that there's never going to be anyone else for him. Ever.

So as he lays beneath Eddie, he turns himself over to the man completely; just lets go. Goes weightless and thoughtless, focuses on the schlick, schlick, schlick of Eddie's fingers working him open, on the sting of the stretch—on just how incredible it feels to be taken care of like this, to be worked open and kissed and loved.

To be filled with nothing but the fingers and the wayward thoughts of the boy that means the world to him; gentle, precious exclamations of love and gratitude. It all washes through him, anchoring William into this body, into this timeline, into this present—anchoring him into life the way that a body was supposed to do, but that he never felt was true until he met Eddie.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

After a time, Eddie removes his fingers and nips William's lower lip. "Ready?" He asks, pulling William out of his reverie. "You with me?" Where does he keep going tonight?

"I'm here," William gasps, forcing his eyes to flutter open, "just...feels good." He releases one of his thighs so that he can reach for Eddie—manages to get his fingertips wrapped around one enormous bicep to squeeze. "'m ready."

The blunt head of Eddie's cock is already at William's entrance, and once their eyes meet, Eddie slowly sinks into William's body. It's the last thing he needs to feel completely full. He has Eddie's thoughts, his affection, his love—and now he's physically filled as well.

Desire burns in Eddie's gaze, and he's so unbelievably beautiful that William's breath catches in his throat.

Eddie pauses, halfway in, and cups William's jaw. "You okay?" He bends low, kisses William soft. "Feel okay?"

Just say it, just fucking say it—

"Yeah," William nods, "c'mon—all the way."

Eddie chuffs out a laugh and sinks the rest of the way in with a groan—and for a single moment, the entire world stops spinning. "William," he groans. "William." I love you.

William shudders, emotion blooming so bright in his belly that he feels slightly insane. He reaches up with a whimper, curling the fingers of one hand around the back of Eddie's neck, gripping Eddie's hip with the other. "I love you, too."

Eddie's length twitches inside of William's sensitive hole. "Sometimes," he begins slowly, not quite moving in or out—but just holding himself inside of William, "sometimes it's like you can read my mind." He reaches between them, but William stops his boyfriend's path—stops Eddie from taking his cock.

"Eddie," he breathes, knowing that it's probably the worst time ever to admit this—but also feeling like he can't lie about it anymore. He won't lie about it anymore. This won't be the one thing keeping him and Eddie from full honesty. He tangles their fingers together. "I sort of can."

To his credit, Eddie goes still—but he doesn't pull out. "You can read my mind." You can read my mind?

"Some of it?" William says, blinking up at him. "This was horrible timing, oh god." He squirms, trying to pull away—but Eddie squeezes his fingers.

"Hey," he says gently, "stop—just." You can read my mind?

"This was the horrible timing," William repeats, feeling even more raw than he did outside of their cocoon. "You literally can't escape and here I am, revealing a massive, massive secret. It's not like I can hear everything, just the really strong thoughts and emotions. But that probably isn't very reassuring because I'm definitely still a freak—"

Eddie cuts him off with a kiss. Somehow, he sinks deeper into William. Deep enough that his balls press against William's taint as he presses his tongue into William's mouth and drinks the insecurity away with one, single thought; if that's true, you're my freak—and I love you.

William groans, his own balls aching at the pure, indiluted affection that washes through his body as Eddie kisses him and his thoughts fade into somewhere William can't hear. He pulls out and presses in a few more times, thrusting into William with strong, capable intention—like he's proving that he doesn't care, or rather, that he does. For William.

And then he pulls halfway out again and rests his forehead on William's.

"I'm sorry," William breathes, allowing his leg to be hitched up around Eddie's hip even though part of him still wants to run.

"I love you," Eddie says firmly, cupping William's jaw. "And I want to know how it works—but I need—" to fuck you before I lose control. Eddie laughs. "Oh god, did you hear that?" That was dirty.

"I liked it," William laughs, heart spinning in his chest, "and I want that. From you. Please?"

"You want me to fuck you?" Eddie asks, somehow making it sound even more lewd than when it was undiluted in his mind. He presses into William slowly before pulling out again, moving at a pace that allows William to feel every, single inch of himself that's being stretched out to accomodate Eddie's cock.

"Yes," William whimpers, his pulse quickening—blood rushing in his ears, cock dripping against his belly. "I really, really, really do."

"Okay," Eddie grins, setting a slow, steady pace. "You feel so good, William." So tight, so warm. So slick.

"Because of you," William moans, cheeks burning as he casually responds to Eddie's thoughts instead of his words. "Because you took care of me."

"I'll always take care of you," Eddie murmurs, growing more serious. "I love you."

William can't respond. The emotion is thick in his chest, in his throat. His body is floating somewhere up in the ether as hope blossoms in his chest—reassurance. Security he's never felt at this level before. It makes him feel raw all over again, but in the best possible way.

Eddie's hips move faster with each thrust, his cock pressing deep into William as they tangle their fingers together and breathe against one anothers' lips—and the deep, steady rhythm matches the mantra whispering through William's mind from the boy that he loves so much it almost hurts.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

At some point, Eddie untangles their fingers and gets his hand around William's cock, and the twink feels like he's completely lost control of everything in his life, because he comes so hard he shouts loud enough that he's certain the neighbors can hear it—but he can't help it. Eddie is holding him like he's something precious, fucking him like he's something precious, and as the William is fucked over his edge—filled to the hilt, overwhelmed with sensation and pleasure, there's something else, there, too.

Belonging.

Truth.

Moments after William's peak, Eddie follows suit; shattering with a low groan, painting William inside with ropes of cum as he floods the twink's mind with praise and desire and disbelief. He collapses on top of William, a huge, sweaty blanket, and normally the twink would complain about feeling crushed, but instead, he wraps his limbs around Eddie and tucks his face into the man's neck.

"I'm insane," he whispers.

Eddie's laughter is a vibration that moves through his cock and into William's sensitive body. "You're not," he murmurs, "but you can really read my mind?" This is wild, holy shit.

"This is wild, holy shit," William parrots back quietly.

Eddie tries to pull away, but William clings to him tighter—terrified of seeing his boyfriend's face.

"It's okay if you hate me now."

What?! "I could never," Eddie tells him. "I promise." He pauses. "But your parents are probably going to be home soon, and while I love it when you octopus around me...maybe some clothes so we can talk?"

William relaxes his hold a little bit. "Are you going to leave me, now?"

"Hell no," Eddie laughs, with an ease that is more reassuring than William deserves. "My boyfriend can read my mind? That's so cool."

"Are you sure?" William asks quietly. "It's kind of freaky."

Eddie untangles their limbs and pulls out with a wet squelch, but he's quick to press his fingers up where his cock just was—quick to fill William again, and the twink's heart aches at how Eddie is still being so attentive, so caring in the exact moment where it would make way more sense for him to flee.

"I meant it," Eddie says, removing one finger but leaving the other two inside William's oversensitive ass while they both come down from their orgasms; sweaty and wet but unbelievably in-sync, even now. "I love you, William—even when you're freaky."

William clenches around the fingers gently plugging him up, keeping him from feeling empty and bereft, and makes a sound that would be embarrassing if it were heard by anyone else. "You're everything to me," he whispers. "I know we're young, but—" William licks his lips, squirming a little as he searches for something to say that isn't even more asinine than everything else he's shared.

But like the steady rock that he is, Eddie understands without an explanation.

"I get it," Eddie murmurs. "There's plenty of time to explain." His lips are soft when they steal another gentle kiss from William. "But you're stuck with me now, Kaplan."

Forever.

And William?

He's okay with that.

He may be a liar, but at least now with Eddie, there's nothing but truth.