![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
β π π¨ π§ π π π π
NOTE: I am forever backtag friendly and absolutely open to doing things from past events that won't really have an effect on things at any given time. For example, if you'd like to do something with Peter aged down or when he was his spider dream guide, etc.
no subject
Something flashes across his dark eyes, black and inky, slips into place like the click of a film reel. It's a layered awareness, first something else, but then Peter. And once it's Peter, his mouth parts with a loud gasp, one that sounds like he's taking a needed breath after being trapped underwater, lungs at their limits. It's painful in his chest, that gasp; he's struggling through something. ]
Willβ
[ His tight grip on his cousin's wrist relinquishes immediately, loosening from him, but it's just as immediately replaced with his other hand moving to catch hold of the front of Will's clothing. Not aggressive now, but clinging childlike, fingers tangling into the material, fretfully curling and uncurling. His words break through more gasps, quicker ones inbetween the rise and fall of his chest. ]
What... Whereβ am Iβ? [ He's freed from the oppression of the nightmare and theβ thing, and panic and upset are swelling in like a floodgate in place of them. It's cold, windy, night, and he's up here on deck, he realises that as he looks quickly around, absorbing these details but not understanding them. Peter's grown... accustomed to his odd spells, to the fact the wanders and gets lost; he even anticipates that happening now, but..... in moments like these, his youth and weakness truly presents itself. Perhaps it's the presence of Will there that allows him to become childlike, whereas he might usually have to handle this on his own. He's been doing that up until now, obstinately trying to keep this to himself, whatever it truly is.
The fact Will's here now... unlocks something in him, something small and very willing to sink into weakness, needing to. They aren't particularly close, but Will's still family... still a familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones. The wet glaze that swells in the boy's eyes now is already starting to escape down his cheeks β a shameful, embarrassing thing usually, emotion is meant to be kept within, but in the moment it's too much. His other hand reaches to join the other, clasping against his cousin's clothing. Hanging on as though afraid to lose him if he lets go. ]
What's happening, Will?
no subject
But he's never seen something quite like whatever occurs to Peter's gaze for the split second before recognition and Peter return to it.
Will knows better than to show fear, than to lean away and telegraph disgust or judgment, but he can't help it. For a split-second it's all human intuition and animal instinct, and Will flinches from his cousin like he's just run across a venomous snake in a pond.
It's Peter that tethers Will in place, grasping at him the way he does. Will's jacket isn't buttoned at the way, and Peter gets a fistful of stiff winter jacket as well as softer button-up. The fabric's warm with Will's own body heat, and he feels the chill of Peter's fingers sapping it instantly.
It's pure instinct, snapping like a rubber band; Will stops leaning away and leans in, and one of his hands comes up and thenβ flounders, uncertain but wanting to help. Bone-deep desire for a family has always warred with Will's impulse to distance himself, but as Peter speaksβ stammers out questions, shows without a doubt the confusion he's dealing with, shows he wants guidance and that he wants it from Will β Will feels that hesitation melt.
Will's hand gently lays against the back of Peter's, while Peter fusses with the front of Will's shirt. ] You wereβ sleeping. Up here. [ Will almost says 'dreaming', but thinks better of it. Something about that word feels...familiar. Like a warning.
Will often makes assumptionsβ but usually while he has more information to go off of. He has the strangest sensation that he's wrong as he says it, but it's his only guess and it's also the only way he can think of to show how he's completely alright with whatever has happened: ] I think you were sleepwalking. That'sβ that happens. I've, uh. I've done that too. [ Solidarity. That's what Will suddenly wants, with an ache that can't surprise him anymore but still hurts.
His other hand comes up and reaches for Peter's upper back, wants to brace him into sitting up. Orβ It brings Will closer to him to try, close enough that he can urge Peter closer to his chest, towards where he's grabbing for some sliver of support. The two of them haven't actually ever hugged before, but Will...wants to, now. Every signal from Peter seems to like up with the shameful want for family in Will, and it makes it easier to skirt the social lines and try to wordlessly offer it. ] Whatever happened, Peter, it's fine. Okay?
HIT 'POST COMMENT' TOO EARLY LAST TIME, good job self.....
And yet it's what he needs. The hand that rests behind his own, the warmth of the older man's palm soothing Peter's ghost-flesh; he submits into it, his fretting ever-so-subtly less fretful, fingers no longer so painfully tight in their ensnare against the man's clothing. ]
Sleepwalkingβ [ He repeats the word, wet eyes wide and flitting from one of Will's to the other, searching them with a particular desperation that grounds him. 'That'sβ that happens. I've, uh. I've done that too.'
It does help, to hear that, it does form some sort of solidarity, something that takes away the... aloneness, makes Peter feel grouped into the same category as someone else. Sleepwalking. Like Will's done. He's remembering, remembering... what happens to him, though it's never been so extreme as this β he's woken up across his room, out on the floor or wandered into the hallway, but never out on the deck. Still, this isn't... without explanation. He knows that. He... knows, and he knows he needs to calm down like he always is, to numb himself over to displaying outward emotion, keep this dark thing a secret inside himself.
And yet...
'Whatever happened, Peter, it's fine. Okay?'
Assurance. Will surely can't know just what that does to him, the way it untwists what's been securely wound in his chest, loosens it right up. The ache of that feeling almost leaves Peter unable to breathe.
To hear a simple phrase β "it's fine" β is not a thing he's heard in... Well, since it happened. The accident. All of this. Some part of him knows how Will means it; he's trying to calm him down about this situation, but... for Peter, it runs more deeply, and it isn't quite gently that he, sitting up now, tilts into his cousin. Falls into him really, into the chest that's exposed for him, with force. It isn't anything he's displayed to him before this incident; Peter's been quietly, albeit politely detached towards his cousin, if anything. But now he's burrowing against him, as though he can't get close enough.
It isn't fine, nothing's fine, and he can't say that, doesn't know how to, but with those simple words, Will's opened the boy up to wrap himself up in that assurance, and so Peter does β literal attempts to, with the way he presses into the other man. Insists on being held, with an almostβ unsettling fervour. ]
Nightmares, [ he fumbles with the words, as though his tongue's too thick to reason with it. ] I can't escape them. I wake and I'm trapped in another... Even this could be....
[ He hangs onto the anchor that Will's provided for him, afraid to let go, and in his weakness, voices honesties he normally might not. ]
You could be. I don't know what's real.
no subject
Peter goes still for a moment before the slump, and that stillness frightens Will almost as much as sensing something dark in Peter had - the threat of rejection is real and heated. And then Peter doesn't just allow the awkward embrace. He falls into, crushes himself up against Will's chest with a force that means Will has to really root into his half-kneeling stance, has to ground himself to stay upright for the both of them. It's all instinct to hold Peter in turn, to clutch at him like Will's worried he's actually falling over - and briefly, he is - but then it's a much slower, cautious process to wrap his arms more widely around Peter's upper back. To embrace him, really, into the sort of hug Will's never offered to someone of Peter's age and build before. He's bony and tall like a teenager ought to be, Will supposes, but he's strung through with tremors that don't fit what that age should be dealing with.
The words unsettle Will, but they're familiar in a way that unspools honesty from Will without force, just natural gravity. ] This is real, Peter. I promise. I'm-- experiencing this too. With you. [ Why do these words sound familiar? Why does Will feel like he's reassured someone back from dissociating before...?
He blinks and the associations vanish, a glimpse maybe into one of his own past dreams. He tucks his chin, experimentally, lets his cheek rest against the top of Peter's head. Hair tickles up against his nose and mouth. ] If you-- if you ever need to ask if something's real, you can... [ This is breaking so many social contracts, breaching so much etiquette of how Will's ever allowed himself to talk to anyone. Acknowledging that feeling of standing on a knife's edge between sanity and insanity, between freedom and an asylum, is not something he's ever done. But hearing it chip away from Peter in fragments tugs at Will immediately, and he's overwhelmed by this urge to help. ]
You can talk to me about it. [ More softly, aligned with a fear of Will's more than what Peter's said: ] I won't tell anyone else.
no subject
Therefore, being held by him now feels appropriately foreign in its way, but Peter stays where he is, needing someone's arms round him, someone solid and real β or, real-feeling. All of it could be false, a figment of his own mind. He quivers with fear of that uncertainty, the one he's just voiced aloud to his cousin, butβ Will's arms are around him, and the words absorb inwardsβ
'This is real, Peter. I promise. I'm-- experiencing this too. With you.'
The words of reassurance somehow feel like a thumb pressing upon the bruise in his chest; they ache as much as they soothe, something poignant that steals his breath for a moment or two. He's reminded of the fact he really is so very alone, anβ orphan, cast into some unknown, filled with some unknown. He feels the loss of his family, of his home, and of himself. Peter shuts his eyes as he presses himself up against Will, hears what he's saying β additions to the promise that this is real, that he can ask, that he can share.
In his childlike spell of crumbling inwards, Peter almost could voice to the only person he has left what's truly at the soul of this: a curse upon him somehow, the strange events and dreams, the hellfire burning under his skin. Peter knows, even if he doesn't know the intricacies to it, that some sort of demon has gotten him. He's heard it, felt it. It's even spoken to him before, it's taken hold of him.
'You can talk to me about it. I won't tell anyone else.' ]
I'mβ ill, cousin. [ He's trying to gather himself, swallowing hard, voice shaking around the edges. ] I'm not well. It may be God's punishment, if there is... a God. Perhaps I was meant to die with them.
[ He pauses, feeling hollowed out with those words. It's the first time he's openly addressed the accident, addressed... their mutual loss. ]
There's something wrong with meβ! The ailment.. the ailment leads me to do strange things, to... wander, to become lost. It steals my body.
[ All of that is true. He's simply leaving out the supernatural aspect of it β and it isn't easy to, for Peter finds that everything in him longs to... tell someone, to share it, to voice it, what he's been keeping swallowed down and carrying on his own.
But he can't.
He can't.
...And with that awareness, Peter stiffens suddenly. He doesn't wrench backwards, but moves slowly β letting go of Will, his fingers slowly uncurling from where they've been tightly held on to his clothing. If he hangs on, lets himself continue to be small and held, he might divulge too much. He has to pull away. He does, enough to create a fair bit of space between them, the chilly wind immediately felt after the break of warm body contact. ]
I shouldn't be close to you. It's notβ contagious, but it's hardly pleasant for others around. I shouldn't... [ The word stammers, catches in his throat, apologetic. ] You should leave me here.
no subject
Might lose himself, like an over-bold swimmer caught in a riptide.
But holding Peter right now, feeling someone so tall shrink themselves down to curl in against Will and cling to his shirtfront...it feels like it might be worth that trade.
And then Peter starts speaking, and Will is horrified by the words β he couldn't say if he's more afraid of Peter being correct or Peter being wrong. Both possibilities point towards Will's greatest fear for himself, don't they? Losing a grip on reality. Wandering, becoming lost. Will thinks they're metaphors...but Peter wandered onto the deck and didn't know where he was. Does he mean this all literally?
Will's lips are parted but silent, dismay clear on his face...and that's before Peter starts to pull away. Will's expression splits with sorrow as soon as he realizes what's happening β denial of what they both just barely discovered β and Will can't help his own reflex to look down, to stare at Peter's face to look for why.
It's almost, but not quite, like looking into a mirror. Shame, a sense of pestilence; of contamination. Will usually fears catching it from others, but Peter fears...passing it along?
Will is too far removed from belief in God or the supernatural to see through the thin lines of Peter's implications. Andβ too impulsive and hurt, for a moment, to let go. Will's hands pull from Peter's shoulders when Peter leans away, but Will catches at his sleeves, at the fronts of them, as Peter moves. ] I don't care if it is contagious, Peter. I'm notβ [ What's true? What can go here, so early into learning about his cousin? Will's expression is open even in the poor lighting on deck; distressed, uneasy, maybe a little more scared than an adult his age ought to be by cryptic refusals and self-condemnations. ]
βI'm not afraid of you. [ It's not always true, hasn't even been true just tonight. But what Will means, what's under the soft white lie, is something more akin to a dirty secret than a reassurance: 'Even if I was afraid, I don't think I'd be smart enough to leave in time'. ]
...I can, um. Take you back to your room. [ Will hasn't let go, still. The gap with cold air between them feels impossibly wide, wider than his arm span. ] You shouldn't be out in the cold.
no subject
He does fear affecting anyone else. Causing grief or loss or ache β his cousin has already experienced those things, but what if it doesn't end, there? What if this... malady could influence Will further? He may hardly know the man but Peter wouldn't want to devastate him more. As much as he fears what's inside of him, he almost prefers to keep it there, inside. Locked away.
As childlike as he'd clung to his cousin, it's easy to release him β even if it's at once incredibly difficult. He's used to this, to setting himself apart from others. It wrenches something in his chest, but he can still do it, and knows he must. And yet, as Will maintains that grasp on his sleeves, keeps the tether between them there at the very ends, Peter isn't pulling away from that, just remains sitting there, his own expression as miserable as the one of the man's reflected before him. He doesn't know what to do, what'sβ right or wrong, butβ
'I'm not afraid of you.'
He blinks, rapidly, visibly surprised. He hadn'tβ expected that, despite the frenzied warnings he'd spilled to the other man, despite the fact that it could have seemed he was encouraging Will to be afraid of him. Peter hadn't even quite realised that's what he had been doing, so now it stuns him to hear Will respond in that way. His mouth parts, then closes again, too many thoughts battling themselves to form a string of fully coherent, logical thought. He's exhausted, and freezing, and still incredibly confused, and despite what he's divulged to his cousin, the offer has already wrapped itself around Peter warmly andβ expanded further, into something else. A request. Perhaps it's selfish of him, perhaps too childish, but the fear he's felt for so long is suddenly met with someone who has... outright said they're not afraid of him, and whether that's true or not, whether it's just something Will's telling him now to calm him down or to be able to keep an eye on him, Peter has needed to hear that.
...The request spills hurriedly from his lips before he can think to stop it. Whispered like a secret, brow pinched, his tired body tilts forwards again like he might topple once more into the man's chest. ]
Can I stay with you tonight?
no subject
Will is rapidly overwhelmed, but it's the type of overwhelmed you can get from a hot bath. Comfort, too much of it all at once, unsure how to let yourself relax into it.
The words are enough to stun him. Will's silent, caught by his own sudden riptide of emotions. Peter wants...to stay. To stay close by, closer than their rooms, booked at the same time in first class, already are. It's a signal of trust returned that Will would never have anticipated. He feels like he's holding something too fragile, that he might break it.
Will swallows and realizes it's because his eyes are watering. He hopes the lone tear that he feels spill over onto his left cheek goes unnoticed in the half-light. ] βYeah. Yes, you can. You can, you can have the bed, I'llβ [ It's only now, as he readily and instinctively goes to excuse some distance β 'I'll take the sofa' β that Will recognizes what he's doing. And recognizes the fact that he first thought of a much younger child, sharing a parent's bed. Will hasn't ever provided that for someone else.
He's shifting to stand, is still hanging onto Peter, offering support in getting to their collective feet. He's also instinctively stripping off his outer winter jacket, leaving just a blazer on underneath. He thinks of the man he'd met the other night who'd helped him β Benedict β doing that same thing, as Will presses his coat in around Peter's shoulders. ] βI'll just, uh. Stay as close by as you want me.
no subject
Wordlessly, the link between them that Peter had temporarily attempted to break is re-formed, and now he's relenting entirely to it. He nods, reaches for Will again, standing with him. Two bodies act as one; in his exhaustion, Peter's freed from his usual anxiety affecting his movements and behaviours. He's usually stiff, tense; now he's gone lax, sloping against Will, one arm slipping inwards around his cousin's waist. The coat draped over him is instantly a warmer buffer against the crisp night ocean air β a breath of warning as to how cold the ocean beneath them truly is. Peter's been drawn to the waves since he boarded this ship, but just now he finds he only wants to get away from them. They threaten to swallow him up, hungrily.
Will's body is solid, and firm, and warm against him, and Peter moves with the man, head tilted sideways to rest against his. It.. was only a nightmare, it isn't like he's been physically wounded, but his energy is drained in the familiar way by now, depleted, as though a parasite has taken everything from him, or just enough that he's able to keep moving onwards, but only that. He knows better than to try to fight it. He doesn't fight it.
The journey will be a slow one, but he won't offer any resistance while moving alongside Will from the decks, a relatively easy latched-on guest for his cousin to deal with. It's strange to come back down these polished halls after what's happened, when everything's so still and quiet, most people asleep behind their doors β it's like stepping into a dream, but a melancholic one. There's an odd pinch of something in his chest again as the soles of his oxford shoes make dull thuds against the floor, a loneliness: this place isn't home, and he can never really go back home. Returning to America isn'tβ home.
But for the first time since the accident, he'll be with family through a night, and there's an odd sensation of awareness when they get into Will's suite: Peter knows that much, is aware of it. He breathes more slowly, the waves of emotion and panic coming into something more downwards. More quiet. ]
Did you take a suite byβ by yourself? [ He hasn't known any of the details of Will's arrangements; most people do have solitary housing unless there's a spouse or children involved, but some had been assigned roommates, and the thought creeps into him now, looking along the silent, grand space as they move into it. ]
no subject
Peter is surprisingly...mobile. Slow but trusting. He doesn't ask directions, although surely he's just used to the route down to first class quarters by now, right? Surely it's not just a blind trust that Will can't bring himself to believe he's earned...?
Will's key turns in the lock, a false signifier of safety and home. Or that's what it's felt like, until now - Will doesn't trust this room the way he does the ones back in his real home, but with Peter following himself...he can almost believe it's a safe place. That it's a nest to hide in.
Will's heart rate kicks up at the question. He makes a concerted effort not to look at the coffee table, on which sits a book that was gifted to him by Molly before she-- ]
I wouldn't have taken a stranger in as a roommate while I was married. [ Will swallows. Locks the door behind them, turns on another lamp. ] And I can't...bring myself to take one now. [ Will would rather be directly alone, than reminded of how lonely he feels around other people he can't be close to.
The fact that he's found possibly the only possible way to sate loneliness on this ship is occurring to him, right now. ] Come on, it's just-- right in this room.
no subject
Though it isn't something he's dwelling on just yet, for the moment still only just coming down from all of it. He's looking almost dazedly around the room β almost identical to his and Louis's β yet... emptier. Something to it is emptier. Could it really simply be the absence of a suitemate? The fact that Will and Will alone stays here, and they're returning to the space that was sitting here without him for however many hours? His cousin's room isβ cold-feeling.
It's an odd... heaviness, an odd energy to the air. Peter nods just as hazily at the words, moving with him to the next room, and slips to Will's bed, not as tentative as he'd usually be, moving clumsily down on the luxurious space, unsteady. His fingers finally release from his cousin's clothing as he does so, detaching himself β he sits, upright but precarious, eyes wide and betraying his daze.
'I wouldn't have taken a stranger in as a roommate while I was married.'
Peter's head turns to look up at the man, the words slow to sink in. Heavy to. It feels like cement, gradually filling up and up. It's a simple statement on the surface; to the pair of them, it's something much more. It's.. past tense. Married.
A small, aching reality presented in a form that almost feels tangible.
'And I can't...bring myself to take one now.' ]
You don't like strangers? [ It's soft, not questioning, not demanding. Even almost curious in its softness. A strange thing to ask at this moment, maybe. But Peter doesn't know. He hardly knows anything about Will. ]
I don't... I don't like them. I didn't want to room with anyone. But because I'm seventeen... [ It trails off. Because he was only seventeen, they'd assigned him to someone. Surely the natural thing would have been to stay with Will, but... had either of them even considered that? ]
My roommate's kind though. He's... kind.
[ Peter's voice is so quiet, it's almost like an afterthought, his eyes still dazed. Like a child quietly sharing their thoughts at perhaps an inappropriate time, he lets them spill, ineloquent. His hands rest in his lap. Compared to the fretting, tense thing β with soft growls rippling his throat β he's become quite docile. ]
no subject
With Peter in it, the echoes of their voices feel different. Will hasn't actually spoken out loud in this space before, which is something he realizes with some surprise and shame.
'You don't like strangers?' It's so simple but damning. Will's first reaction is to feel caught, looking up at Peter like he's startled. ] ...No. [ Putting up walls now doesn't feel fair. Is this entirely Will's own decision? He thinks...he does want this. Whatever it's tentatively growing into.
Watching Peter sit in his bed and slide under the covers, ones that might just barely still be warm from Will's own body heat from before, aches. It doesn't feel wrong or too much, but it hurts in a way Will can't find a word for. ] If you ever change your mind about the kind roommate, you can...stay here. Whenever you'd like. [ Too much, maybe, but Will sees an open door and can't help but enter. Or is he begging Peter to be the one to come in?
Will hasn't thought about this large bed having sides to it before, usually sleeps directly in the center where it becomes something that he can hardly reach the edges of - his own version of a nest - but now he carefully goes to the side Peter didn't enter from. He pulls the sheets away enough to join Peter, sitting up in the bed still. Thankfully, the room service here means there's enough pillows for-- far more than even two people need. ] Is kind-- the most reassuring thing your roommate could be?
cw: religious themes / ideation of Hell and Heaven
He stares over at Will as though he's never quite seen him before. For a moment. And then, it... passes, slowly, gradually, like Peter's realising something. Whatever that may be goes unspoken, and perhaps the boy isn't even fully aware of it. But he's learning, in this strange situation that seems to have fallen into their laps, more about his cousin than he's ever known for all seventeen years of his life.
The offer... resonates in his mind. What it means. What it's saying. A place to come to, if he wants β or, more importantly for him, if he needs. And Peter's eyes grow wider, surprised by that offer, after what frightful things he's divulged to Will. Even if... his cousin had said he was not afraid of him. Peter wasn't expecting this, an invitation into his space. 'Whenever you'd like.'
It loosens something coiled tight in the younger's chest, and he dips his head suddenly, breaths soft and shaky. The wet film over his eyes returns, and he blinks against it, fists the covers still split on either side of where he's sitting up in Will's bed. ]
He'sβ patient. With me. With what's... wrong with me. [ The reality of this hurts. It hurts because he'dβ skirted around his deep darknesses when explaining them to Will, had explicitly avoided betraying them for what they are: something unholy. He's...
Evil.
Isn't he? He's briefly wondered it, but timidly. Flinching back from the prospect like it hurts to think about, because it.. does, it hurts, and it frightens him, wounds him with how much it frightens him. His soul is surely damned, and if so, that means he must be damned for Hell as well. Doesn't it? It meansβ he'll not see his family again, even in the Afterlife, if there is such a thing. ]
He's not worried to be near me. [ Another shudder ripples through him, something deep and dark and wet, unpleasant. Peter's arms slip around his torso, hugging himself as though cold, shoulders hunching upwards. ]
...Do you believe there's a Heaven? [ Almost whispered, Peter stares down at the fabric of the luxurious bedspread, lids heavy, half-opened. He should feel terrible asking Will something like that. After what's happened. Guilt does gnaw at him, again, creeping its way from the deepest trenches of his gut, but out of everyone left in his world, it's only the opinion of his cousin that Peter wants to hear from on this sort of matter. ]
cw: religious themes / ideation of Hell and Heaven
Outside the boundaries of Will's awareness, something shifts; he'd never been religious as he truly is, back home and back in Deerington. That means that this fabrication of himself, even if it might have been more historically accurate to shift his views...hadn't. Will is only as devout as he'd been back home.
Inside the boundary of Will's awareness, he hears the plaintive allegory in those words. In that question. In the metaphor of Heaven. Will swallows like the weight of it's suddenly resting on his sternum; he can feel the dread in Peter's voice like it's snuck into bed with them. ] I...believe that I could think of a better reward for me than living forever in a house I didn't build.
[ Blasphemous. If Peter were older, or had more social power than Will, Will wouldn't risk saying it. But this isn't like shocking a relative at a dinner party so they'll stop talking to you. This is Peter, afraid of something Will can't quite connect to, that Will isn't sure he even believes in, and Will feeling finally certain that the worst possible outcome isn't true.
Will shifts closer. Not enough for their knees to touch, even though Will crosses his legs and widens his stance that way, but it's enough that on a mattress, the movement is both sound and sagging motion. It's not easy to miss, and Will feels self-conscious followed by the rush of having been allowed to the last few times he's just reached out.
He carefully stretches his hand over to rest on Peter's shoulder. ] Is it actually heaven that you're worried about?
cw: continued ideation of Hell and Heaven, #FunSleepoverTopics
'I...believe that I could think of a better reward for me than living forever in a house I didn't build.'
The boy glances back up at the older's eyes, a unique colouring; Peter hadn't quite noticed before. Difficult to really pinpoint the hue of them. Likewise, it's difficult to tell what nuance of his cousin's reply to follow, how to... absorb that.
He stares, silently, intently. It isn't a clarification one way or the other, towards belief or nobelief, but rather... something else.
The ambiguity to it unnerves Peter slightly, the part of him that's still childlike β seventeen but still so young, and all of that even further regressed by the loss of his family. That part of him seeks... certainties. "Yes" or "no".
....But certainties are no longer a luxury he can afford to cling to. Peter is changed, forever, and answers aren't something that can just easily be grasped in the palm of the hand. They slip through fingers, they change form as they do. The reply unsettles him and yet is also... appreciated. Because it isn't his cousin telling him something concrete to appease his fretful mind. This is... Will's honesty, isn't it? Even if difficult to read. Peter's still staring at him silently when the hand moves to his shoulder. The spell upon the boy breaks, he blinks, seemingly always on the edge of slipping away somewhere else. ]
...No, [ he admits, voice smaller than he means for it to sound. Here is another honesty of Will's presented to him, and the reality of the question sinks into Peter like the frosty chill of the night air all over again. But how to put it into words, what he's truly afraid of? Without saying too much? ]
I'm afraid of... not going.
[ He draws in a sigh, instead of releases one. A breath sucked inwards through his teeth. ]
IβI mean. What if... what if there isn't one? What if... when people die, they... just disappear?
[ He's thinking of his family. Of course he is β the thought of never seeing them again. That upset stirs in his eyes, but muted: he hasn't been able to start processing their loss, not really. Peter's throat clenches. ]
Or what if someone goes to Hell, instead?
cw: continued ideation of Hell and Heaven [ sleepover menu: hot cocoa and....existential despair ]
And some of the ways in which he's structured himself to bear the load of so many minds and drives is...a perilous honesty. Probably not useful for bedtime stories, to announce that the classic idea of Heaven sounds more like a prison to you.
It's just never sounded personalized enough, private enough, to be appealing to Will.
Afraid of not going. Will was expecting the cut-and-dry Catholic answer - just afraid of going to Hell, afraid of eternal punishment. This is...more nuanced. Will's expression pinches, eyes on Peter's face. ] So this isn't just fear of not being good enough.
This is a fear of being...wrong. [ Peter said it earlier, 'Something's wrong with me'. Will assumes he's thinking of himself when he mentions Hell, even if 'what if they just disappear' sounds like it could easily be worry for his recently-dead parents.
Will shifts again, and this time he isn't afraid of letting his knee nudge Peter's. His hand moves over to Peter's other shoulder, his opposite one from Will's side, brings them closer together in a half-hug. Every movement is a careful thing, waiting for a sign Will ought to stop exploring boundaries they've never acknowledged before. ] I'd like to think something that powerful and infinite wouldn't punish people for being...confused. Or afraid. [ And this, right here, is where a switch is beginning to happen in Will...because this is wishful thinking. This is reassurance, triggered finally by catching on to Peter's worries (or so he believes) and from...sharing those worries, just a little. ]