This was apparently lost in the great web host fiasco of 2015. Here it is again!
“What Will Derrie Did…” takes place on 26 June 2015. Because I had too many feelings and needed Will and Hugh and Tru to express them for me. SFW.
It didn’t matter that it was a Friday morning, that Hugh and Truman both had to work. It didn’t matter that driving all the way to Oakland for a kiss (or, specifically, two) was a stupid idea and a waste of gas.
Molly blinked tear-filled eyes across the kitchen at Will and said, “What’re you doing still standing here? Go!”
“And give them our love!” Ads called after him.
He still had his Superman PJ pants on. And his keys. He didn’t have his wallet, so if he got pulled over, he was totally fucked.
Traffic was normal, which is to say pretty awful, and 80 was a clusterfuck. Will tapped the steering wheel, willed time to go slower and cars to go faster, and assured himself that at least if he missed them, they’d never know he was ridiculous enough to drive all the way to the house before work just for this.
Well, okay, Ads would definitely tell them. Anyway.
He was so freaking stressed by the time he got there that he almost jumped the curb and landed in the cement retaining wall.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Christ, he was sweating. Like why was he sweating?
His keys, right, he had keys to the house, which he even managed to both find and fit into the door, bracing for silence, emptiness.
That wasn’t silence. That was voices. Will’s entire body filled—joy, maybe, or something way more nebulous like home—and he found them in the kitchen, listening to NPR.
“Hello,” Hugh said.
But Truman grabbed him and spun him through the kitchen. “I’m so happy to see you, William. Kiss me. Dance with me. Celebrate with me.”
He buried his eyes against Truman’s neck. “I’m so happy for you. I know it’s not a thing, and you’re already married, but I just—”
“Shh, love.” Truman pressed him to the counter and raised his head for a kiss. “I am so glad you’re here. Grumpy-your-boyfriend is a wet blanket.”
“Hardly. But this has no actual effect on—”
“It does, though.” Will turned, safe in Truman’s arms, to face Grumpy-his-boyfriend. (And yeah, that was definitely gonna stick.) “It does. Because you can go to conferences in Kentucky and be married there. Because if anything happened to you, no matter where you were, Truman would be able to act as your husband. It matters, Hugh. Because our kids—like, the next generation of kids—will be raised like they can marry whoever they want. It matters. To some little kid somewhere who hasn’t even started school yet and doesn’t even know today will define their whole life.”
Truman hugged him, hard, and kissed the back of his neck, the side of his face, but now he was crying and he couldn’t turn back, couldn’t look away from Hugh.
Who stood. Regally. Like he did sometimes when he was controlling himself.
“All right,” he said. He stepped forward and Will held himself still. “All right, Will. You’re right.”
Will caught his breath and lost it again in the kiss that followed, only Hugh’s fingertips guiding his face down, only Hugh’s lips and tongue opening him.
“I resent the notion that nine judges can elect to validate us or not, depending on their interpretation of a document that existed alongside slavery, ruthless child labor, and the inability of women to own property.” His hands moved down, squeezing Will’s shoulders. “I resent that anyone is thinking about this trivial thing when cops keep killing black teenagers as if they’re disposable.”
It did sound stupid, next to all that. Especially because they were already married. Before Will could say anything in response, Hugh kissed him again.
“But I delight in your joy, and Truman’s. How can I do anything else when the two men I love most in the world are celebrating?”
“It feels big. I know what you’re saying, I know that there are, like, people dying in the world, that marriage is just this small thing when you compare it, but—”
“It’s not a small thing,” Truman said. His hand came from behind Will to cup Hugh’s cheek. “If it was, we wouldn’t have bothered, Mr Reynolds.”
“I would never say that our marriage, yours and mine, was insignificant.”
“So it’s just everyone else’s?”
“Of course not.”
And oh god, Truman pulled Will’s body back flush against his. All the better to reach for Hugh.
“I think about being married to you, being your husband, every day of my life, Hugh Reynolds. I think about it when we wake up in the morning, and I surely think about it when I’m falling asleep, beside you, in our bed. I think about our marriage when I see couples holding hands in line for coffee.” He paused to kiss the skin in front of Will’s ear, and maybe they’d never stood this way before, or maybe Will only just noticed that both he and Truman were taller, that even now, wrapped in his certainty like an extra layer of muscle, Hugh had to look up to see their eyes.
“I realize—” Hugh began.
“I think about our marriage when you are inside me, or when your hands touch me, when your lips brush mine. You are my husband in every one of those moments. And until today you were only my husband in thirty-six states. William, please kiss my stubborn, terrified husband. Preferably until he reshapes his worldview to include being happy for himself even when all problems for all people are not yet solved.”
Hugh closed his eyes and Will obeyed. He obeyed with his lips, and with his hands, with his entire body, fingers running up the back of Hugh’s neck and into his hair.
I’m bigger than you. So is Tru. And we can protect you, even from your own stupid self.
Truman shifted, moving behind Hugh, his hands landing at Hugh’s waist.
“You two are starting something we can’t possibly finish right now,” Hugh murmured, still not opening his eyes.
“We don’t have to finish it. The Supreme Court says we can be married forever now.”
“I’m not married,” Will said.
Now. Now Hugh opened his eyes.
Oh shit.
“I didn’t think you and Molly planned to have children.”
“We don’t. Moll doesn’t want anything to do with kids.”
“Just Molly?”
“I—I meant our in the sense of our generation and the next generation, okay? Don’t—don’t make this—” Will flushed under their mutual focus. “I didn’t mean—”
“I think you meant exactly what you said, whether you realized it or not.”
“Honestly,” Truman said. “Leave Will alone. Stop acting out, Hugh, because we see right through it.”
Hugh smiled, at Will, as if to say I had you going, though, didn’t I? “I changed our reservations tonight to fit a few more people. Is your household available by speakerphone for me to invite them all at once?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably.”
“Excellent. Call them, please.”
Will dialed Ads, since he was most likely to be sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee, and everyone said yes to dinner, even Ads and Beccs on their “alone” night at the house.
And through the entire call, Truman ran his hands up and down Hugh’s body over his clothes while Hugh sounded totally and completely together, with no hint of the hard-on currently making Will’s mouth water.
The second the call disconnected Hugh turned on his husband and pushed him not all that gently against the wall.
“Good morning, Mr Jennings. Something you wish to say? We’re already running late.”
“Apparently legal recognition makes me amorous.”
Hugh laughed. “I love you. I would love you under any conditions on earth.” The smile faded, as his smiles sometimes did, replaced by something far too serious. “I would love you even if they wanted to lock us up for it. I would love you even if they could kill us for it, Truman.”
“I know.”
They kissed and yeah, Will was crying again. He couldn’t help it.
“Get over here, you.”
“No, I—”
They enfolded him, both of them kissing him at once.
“Thank you for coming over, Will,” Truman said.
“I suppose it would be wrong of me to bind Will to the bed and make him wait here all day for us?”
“Yes, Hugh. That would be very wrong.”
“How unfortunate.” Hugh pinned Will’s hands to the small of his back. “Later, Will. Later.”
“Mm, promises.” Truman’s fingers snaked under his waistband, never going deeper than that. “I can’t wait.”
Will groaned. “You jerks. I gotta drive home now.”
“Stay here. Eat breakfast. Wait out the commute.” Hugh paused. “Get yourself off in our bed with your eyes closed, pretending that you’re performing for us. Text us when you’re done.”
“Asshole.”
“That would be acceptable. In fact, that’s a great idea. Go ahead and plug yourself for the rest of the day, Will.”
This time Truman laughed, and both of them kissed him again. But they really were running late, so Will kissed his boyfriends goodbye in the garage and retreated to their bedroom to do what he’d been told.
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