Work Text:
The Gay Thing
Chris swung himself into the seat across from Will. Will had gotten there first—fitting, because in the February chill, Chris was certain hell had frozen over.
“Shouldn’t have bothered sitting,” Will teased. “Your turn to buy. Iced latte, please.”
Chris rolled his eyes and pushed himself up. “As you wish, your highness.” Huffing and puffing was part of the fun, he thought; Will would be disappointed if he didn’t deliver.
Chris returned, his own seasonably appropriate English Breakfast sending little spirals of steam through the illusory sunlight slanting in through the window.
Will’s phone clattered onto the table as he accepted his drink.
“You were early,” Chris remarked, raising an eyebrow. Will was never late, really, but his brand of punctuality meant he arrived right on time, while Chris’s meant that he arrived ten minutes early.
Will wrinkled his nose. “Need a bit of a therapy session, me.” He fiddled with his coffee, hands wrapping around the glass as if it were warm.
“I am not qualified, I can tell you that much.”
“Yeah, but you go, at least.”
Chris couldn't hide the frown that stole across his face at Will’s admission that he wasn’t going to therapy anymore, but he’d made his feelings about the importance of therapy abundantly clear to Will over the years, so he didn’t push the subject.
“I’m here for you any time,” Chris said, in his best therapy voice.
“Every two weeks.” Will was referring to their biweekly coffee dates at the café in their office building.
“And more!”
“If you ever reply to me bloody messages.”
“Now, now.” Chris had no retort. He was fucking abysmal at getting back to anyone within 4 business days.
A different time, Will might have mocked Chris’s lack of a comeback, retained the light tone they were accustomed to. Whenever they met, they chatted about easy things. Work. Youtube. Football. Racing, if Will got his way, or hiking, if Chris got his.
Now, Will’s gaze was downcast, flicking back and forth across the table, and there was a visible tension in his shoulders.
“Anyway,” Will started. “I, er. James is going to Pride this year, you know.” His eyes darted up to Chris’s, gauging his response.
Chris hadn’t known James was going, because he didn’t speak to James apart from passing greetings when they crossed paths in the office. All he could think to reply was, “It’s only February.”
“He asked if I want to go.”
And that was interesting. Chris and Will had a bit of an understanding with each other. Chris had realized he was bisexual a couple years back; although he’d never properly come out, he thought most people sort of knew. Through a series of comments in passing or stories told when buzzed, Chris had gathered that Will, too, was bi, but Will was a bit more protective of…whatever he had going on.
But Chris was certain Will was some flavor of queer. It had pretty much been the nail in the coffin for them both that, in their 2022 post-charity-match debrief, they’d gushed for ten minutes about the virtues of Noah Beck with far too much vigor for straight blokes.
But they’d never spoken about it directly. Every time Chris brought it up with any degree of sincerity, Will shut down, so Chris had stopped trying.
“People go as allies,” Chris said cautiously, though he agreed with Will that attending Pride was contingent on coming out first. He personally wouldn’t be caught dead there otherwise. It would raise too many questions, risk too much.
Will scoffed. “Only way I go is if I’m in disguise. Memeulous mask and a twatty posh accent.”
“I take offense to that, actually.”
“‘Chris admits he’s a posh twat,’” Will pretended to write. He put down his pretend pen, all business despite the way his fingers trembled ever so slightly. “Now shut up, man. We need to talk. Because we don’t, about…” Will stopped and swallowed, ran his hands through his hair. “I know I’m awful to talk with about myself, or anything about myself that I…Agh. We always just have our chinwag and go our separate ways and nothing’s different. It’s familiar, but it doesn’t matter. I’m sick of surface-level bullshit.”
He finally raised his eyes to meet Chris’s. There was anxiety in them—no, it was fear, and Chris’s heart broke a little. Sure, he and Will weren’t the closest, but they were still mates, and he’d seen enough of Will’s struggles over the years that any reaction this strong was cause for concern.
“I’m here to listen. Whatever you want.” Chris sat back and uncrossed his arms, trying his best to look receptive to whatever the hell it was on Will’s mind that was so intense that it needed a prelude.
Will took a fortifying drag of his iced coffee, looked out the window at the sun slanting across bricks, and said, “The Pride thing. It’s thrown me.”
It would throw anyone, Chris imagined, but especially a closeted bloke who seemed to have zero intention of changing that.
“You never imagined going before.”
“No. Have…have you?”
Chris shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right. Not for me, not now. And—well.” Chris was embarrassed to admit, “I don’t have anyone to go with.”
Will frowned thoughtfully into his coffee. “James’ll let you come with.”
It wasn’t an actual invitation, so Chris ignored it in favor of a more interesting follow-up: “James…knows, I presume?”
Will rolled his eyes. “He knows I’m a bender, aye, if that’s what you’re on about.”
The words cut like glass. “Positive self-talk,” Chris said, only half joking. Will dealt him a lethal glare at the patronization.
“He wants me to be more like him. More accepting of myself and all that shite. Which is why I’m...” Will chewed his lip and stared out the window. The sun glinted off the mica in the stone windowsill outside. When he spoke, his voice was fragile. “You seem more…okay. Than I am. Unbothered.” In a near-whisper, “It’s always been so big for me.”
From the bits and pieces Chris had picked up over the years, Chris was sure that was true. The difference was that Will had always known. Chris had had the opportunity to become a fully formed human before having to confront the complexities that were much easier to accept when the world had changed to celebrate them. Will, by contrast, had known himself through every era: through schoolyard taunts and problematic TV shows, mates’ teasing and the upheaval of legality. So it was no wonder that things were a little more tangled for Will.
Chris’s heart ached for a young Will who’d been unsure and fearful of himself, so he allowed, “You had years of it being big, before you were big enough to handle it. I was an adult before I knew I was bi. I was ready to handle it then.” Chris was proud of himself for not stuttering over the label. He was unused to using it out loud.
“You’d think you’d be the one having a crisis.”
“There’s always space for crises,” Chris said. Maybe his was imminent, but he didn’t think so. Bisexuality hadn’t really been a surprise for Chris. More of a revelation. Like, oh my god, I unwrapped the book-shaped present under the Christmas tree and it turns out it’s…a book. He figured his subconscious had accepted the truth before making his consciousness aware.
“I’m not coming out,” Will said. “Nor going to Pride. I like my life!” His tone bordered on defensive. “I want nowt to change.”
“I don’t know if that’s quite realistic. The one constant in life is change. Or whatever.”
“I fucking knew you were going to quote that shite,” Will huffed. “I mean, you get it. That’s why you’re not out.”
Chris’s breath quickened. Although he hadn’t meant to mention it to anyone beforehand, Will was giving him the opportunity on a platter.
“Actually, I was thinking…”
Will sat back, jaw dropping. “You’re not. Really?!”
Chris rolled his eyes. “I am, actually.”
He’s been turning the thought over in his head for several months. First as a hypothetical, and then with genuine interest. He’d run all the analyses of how coming out might go, and, even in his worst-case scenario, the pros beat out the cons. All that was left to do was think through the logistics.
“And what brought this on?” Will was all too eager to turn the conversation away from himself. “You’ve not got a fella, have you?”
“No! God, you’re just as bad as the rest of them.” Chris took a moment to sort out his thoughts. He’d spent a lot of time first teasing everything out in his own head and then discussing it with his therapist. He landed on, “Everything I do is for me, you know? I do what I want to do. Make what I want to make.”
“Thirteen servings of soup,” Will snickered. “We all saw the clip.”
Chris looked pointedly at him. “I don’t care what people say, people take the piss, but this massive part of me is missing from everything that I do.”
Will nodded. Joke as he might, Chris saw Will processing what he’d said, eyes flicking back and forth across empty space like he was reading his own thoughts.
“To you, it feels like lying,” Will began. Chris nodded. “See, it doesn’t me. It feels irrelevant. No one else should care. I don’t go about telling people every little unique quirk of mine, why should I tell them this?”
“Queerness is more than a quirk, Will.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Will retorted. “It doesn’t need to be a bigger part of me than I want it to be.”
Chris didn’t think queerness was a big or a small part of a person, it just was. Like Will’s brown hair wasn’t any less him than the jumpers in his closet or his love of F1. So he told him so.
“My brown hair, I don’t think about,” Will said. “It doesn’t bother me. It’s there and it exists. F1 I think about all the time. F1 takes up much more space in my mind, and it bleeds into my life.” Will looked out the window. Clouds had swept in, spreading a greywash watercolor across the city street. Chris looked back at Will, as vibrant as ever under the yellow overhead light, but with dark circles shadowing his eyes.
Will was lying if he said queerness didn’t bleed into his life. The conversation they were having was because it did. Chris had been on enough nights out with Will, heard enough of his drunken ramblings, to know that it couldn’t not be significant. And he knew Will—Will couldn’t just ignore something. His mind didn’t work that way.
“Just thinking practically,” Will said, “it’s a fucking massive risk. There’s nowt in me that feels like I need to be out. And everything outside of me is telling me not to.”
Chris felt like his own insides pushing outward had begun to overwhelm the outside forces pushing in. He’d never minded difference as much as Will did. Growing up, Chris had never been popular, nor had he tried to be. He’d always fallen into friendships based on shared nerdy interests, and his job was happenstance, a happy outcome of an obsession that had caused Chris to excel in his niche. By contrast, Will seemed locked in a perpetual game of catch-up, always trying to prove his worth in whatever space he was in. Consequently, Will had more to lose. Others’ perception meant more when you didn’t have your own self-belief to carry you forward.
“If you think I’m going to agree with you, I’m not,” Chris said. “I’ve been trying to drop hints for years.”
“You cannot say years as if it’s more than two.”
“Two is years! Plural, I mean.”
Will mocked Chris’s English, which was horribly hypocritical of him, before continuing. “I don’t know if there’s a world where it feels like me and not like a dirty little secret.”
“There is,” Chris said firmly. “It’s within reach. For both of us. We’ll get there.”
The Coming Out Thing
Come March, the weather was heating up incrementally, mornings muggy with the promise of an almost-moderate midday. The sun shone at a steeper angle in the café that morning. Chris watched Will return with their drinks. His stride bore irritability, and Chris wondered what he was getting himself into.
“I’m not going to bloody fucking Pride,” Will began, aggressively unwrapping the extortionately expensive breakfast sandwich he’d bought himself.
Ah. That explained the angst. “No one said you had to.”
“James doesn’t fucking get it. Well, wouldn’t. I haven’t told him yet.” Batted between his fingertips, his mug scraped the wood tabletop. Chris had never understood the appeal of bitter Americano.
“It’s just so different for him. He’s got different mates, a different audience—”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Chris began, “but—”
“It’s not the same bloody audience!” Will slumped in his seat, staring morosely at his sandwich, which was dripping fried egg out the back. “And I’m stuck with bloody you, because it feels wrong to talk about any of this with him, because of what everyone says about…” He trailed off, misery obvious in his voice.
“You’re not dating, then.” It was a little mean, but curiosity won out.
“No!” Will’s cheeks flushed. “God, obviously, no.”
“If you were, maybe you wouldn’t be so weird and repressed.”
“I am neither of those things! Except maybe a little bit of both. Quit being nosy, it’s fucking infuriating.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “So I’m hearing that Pride is a hard no because if you went as an ‘ally’, people would read into things, and to go like normal, you’d have to come out, which you refuse to do. And you won’t get advice from your best friend—out and queer, might I add—who would be able to talk some sense into you.”
“Nope,” Will said, like an ass.
“This is why you’re useless. I, on the other hand, have actually made a decision, so.” Chris couldn’t hide the pride he felt at saying it. Logically, he knew he wasn’t any better at being human than Will, but fuck did Will make it hard not to feel incredibly well-adjusted in comparison.
Will’s eyebrows lifted. “Decision? What kind of decision?”
“I’m coming out. Messaged my management and spoke with production and got it all sorted.”
With utter delight, Chris watched the surprise reeling across Will’s face. Surprise, then curiosity.
“You’re making it a thing, then.”
It mattered to Chris, and it would matter to millions of other people—of course it was a thing. That it had to be a thing was a whole different story, one that apparently-deadbeat James Marriott would be better suited to explain. (Reverse deadbeat? Whatever.) He couldn’t be arsed to get into it.
“It’s sort of inherently a thing, given that, as a concept, it exists.”
Will heaved a sigh. “Shut up, man. You’re really prepared for the ‘resulting shockwaves’?”
He was referencing the tweet that had suggested Chris’s coming out was inevitable and significant, the one that had made Chris’s stomach go a little funny as he stared at his screen, terrified at the realization of his transparency but reassured at the same time by the calm acceptance of the replies.
He’d done a lot of thinking, especially in relation to the tweet. “Braced and ready,” Chris assured him. “Life would be a bit boring without shockwaves.”
“If you insist,” Will said, looking like shockwaves were his worst nightmare. “Do your other mates know?”
Chris’s outer circle of straight YouTube mates didn’t, but his closest friends had an idea. “The ones that matter.” Chris grinned. “It would be really funny if all of us came out at once.”
“All of us?”
“You know, me, you, Harry, Chip. One after the other. Everyone would think the world had gone mad.”
“Both of them, really? I didn’t know for sure.” His lips quivered thoughtfully in his frown. Chris wondered how Will hadn’t known. He’d been friends with them for just as long as Chris had. Maybe it made some sense; although Will wasn’t self-absorbed per se, his interactions with others were tainted with an anxious self-consciousness that Chris thought might overcome his ability to notice the intricacies of others’ interactions. Besides, the homoeroticism of their extended friendship group would throw off anyone.
Chris shrugged. “I’m ready. Others aren’t.”
“I’m not. Before you try to convince me.” The skin around Will’s cuticles was picked red-raw, and even as Chris watched, Will’s finger dug into his thumb. Chris nudged Will’s drink towards him, hoping that it might occupy his hands. Sure enough, Will’s fingers held the mug like an anchor.
Only half-unserious, Chris voiced the thought that he’d been turning around in his head: “Most of my jokes will get a little too real.”
“That there’s the real reason I’m not saying shit.” Chris looked at him, intrigued. “I kind of like the in-between. There’s a freedom in the limbo. Everyone stays happy, and everyone stays engaged.”
“You can’t base your life off your audience.”
Will’s jaw worked. “The audience pays the bills.”
“You’re fine. We’re both fine. You don’t need any of it.”
“Chris,” Will said tersely. “My work is my life. If I lose my audience, I lose everything I care about.”
Chris sighed. “There’s your problem. The audience aren’t real. The people in your life are.”
“You do your thing,” Will said, resolute, “and I’ll do mine.”
Chris couldn’t have been more surprised when, two weeks later, Will sat down with him for their coffee date and announced that he had spoken with Chip about queerness. Chip was worse than Will on the topic—or at least, former Will, before he’d got to thinking—in that Chip’s attraction to men was solely made real through jokes. Will at least had a shred of sincerity; he didn’t act like his bisexuality was just something funny that had happened to him. Chris couldn’t envision a world where Chip would allow such a conversation, so he could barely contain his eagerness as Will settled in to tell the story.
“Chip and I were outside in the smoking area, even though it was fucking baltic.”
Will and Chip had always liked to be contrary, to tiptoe just close enough to danger that they couldn’t be blamed if they fell into it.
“And, out of nowhere, Chip said he’d be fourteen, if he could go back knowing everything he knows now.” Will shook his head. “I was fucking stupid at fourteen. I had too much shit going on to…pay attention to what I should have, even if I knew better.
“And Chip said every fourteen-year-old’s like that. How the world’s so small when you’re fourteen.”
Will swallowed and took a careful sip of his drink, slow, as if it were dutch courage. Chris imagined there was a pause, too, before Will replied to Chip. Maybe he’d stamped out his cigarette and the ritual of tapping out a new one, the click of the lighter, and that first draw soothed him, gave him the confidence to say,
“I wouldn’t go back, not a chance. I’d do nowt different, and I told him so. Even knowing everything…I would have ignored it. And Chip looked at me like I was crazy, and went, ‘So your life ends up the same, then?’ And I thought, aye, probably, you know?”
Will’s jaw clenched and he looked around the café. “‘Cause it’s not just about knowing. I’ve always had voices in my head, like. They’re not real, before you start, but…People around me have an opinion. Recordings playing in my mind ‘you must do this’ ‘you mustn’t do that’ ‘this is right’ ‘this is not.’ It was worse when I was younger. That’s why I know nothing would change.”
Chris could understand that. Plant him in another environment, he’d change, too, if incrementally.
“So I told him, if I went back, I still don’t think I’d kiss a bloke until I was twenty-two.” Will’s voice quivered, and there was a sad resignation in his tone.
“Chip didn’t even react. Slapped us on the back and said, like, ‘shit, better late than never.’ Seventeen for him, he said, but it was during spin-the-bottle, so maybe it doesn’t count. Giles, he said his name was. I told him bullshit, and he said he’d forgotten the name.”
Will looked dead at Chris. “I remember all of mine. They burn, like, in my chest, more than the lasses ever did.” Looking at the table, “Chip said it’s the gates of hell.”
“It’s—”
“Hush, man,” Will sighed. “I know. Chip gave me a little speech about how none of it matters, carp diem or whatever the fuck—”
“Carpe diem.”
“I asked him if he ever regretted realizing. Ignorance is bliss, you know? We could have done it. And Chip got all guilty and said, yeah, he wished he hadn’t realized. He said he never made a big deal—”
“Any deal,” Chris inserted bitterly.
“—out of it because he knew he’d end up with a bird. And I just stood there smoking, and all I could think about was how the smoke was scratching my throat like it probably should. I said something dead stupid like ‘oh.’ And Chip was like, ‘do what you want, but it’s not important to me.’ I didn’t fight it. But it—Ah, fuck.” Will’s fingers tap-tap-tapped where they wrapped around his drink. Misery painted the lines of his face. “Not to be all woke, but he’s fucking stupid—it is important.”
“So he sort of made you think about things differently,” Chris summarized.
Will leveled his gaze at Chris. “He made me realize you’re right. There’s so much more to life. I don’t want to pretend like this isn’t important to me, like I don’t care if who I am is cut in half, public and private. I do care. And I know why Chip doesn’t, but him pretending it’s not there at all…I just don’t like that.”
It wasn’t a commitment. Will still scoffed at Chris’s suggestion of coming out, but there was a thoughtfulness in the way he gazed into his coffee.
As the conversation continued and Chris explained his coming out plan to Will, Will couldn’t hide his genuine delight at the idea. His face lit up with hope, with excitement. A year ago, Will would have reacted so differently, and the change warmed Chris.
Progress. Chris was leading by example. Like bloody always.
Anchored to the Intangible
To come out, Chris had been half-tempted to make increasingly less obscure statements and see how long it took football Twitter to catch on, but he ultimately decided, based on responsibility to the youth, etc etc, that he should make a proper statement.
Maybe not proper.
It was a short-form video shot on a football pitch, and he stuffed it as chock-full of puns as possible. Beginning with a missed shot (intentionally, of course) and the quip, “Aw, I really thought that was going straight. Much like me when I was 14 until I discovered Taylor Lautner,” and ending with, “Well, bi now!”
He was quite proud of it. He’d thought of waiting until Pride Month to film and release it, just to be festive, but once he’d made his mind up, holding off a minute longer seemed ridiculous.
The clock ticked over to noon. The videos disseminated, the weight of secrets had dissolved. His acquaintances and coworkers now knew what his family had known for a while, and no longer would he have to dodge a question or make a joke, anything to take the attention off the fact that he’d never explicitly say he was straight.
During down time at a shoot, when Chip and Will asked how the experience had been, Chris told them it was good. And it was. He felt like he was properly influencing, the way he did when promoting Movember or CALM. Unfortunately, Chip and Will made it abundantly clear they were not open to being influenced.
However, Chris may have been lying by omission by saying the experience was overall good. He genuinely didn’t regret it, and the positives had, as he expected, outweighed the negatives, but comments calling him a degenerate and blaming him for wokeifying the UK YouTube scene weren’t the most pleasant in their thousands.
On the bright side, his coming out video had become his most-viewed short-form on all platforms.
Chris saw Will thinking. He was reserved in the clip Chris came across during his daily 30-minute TikTok scroll, refusing to put on the matching shirts with James, gesturing at the camera and saying that ‘those lot’ would take it and run with it. James and everyone else in the room protested, frustration permeating their jokey responses, and even Chris could see that Will was deading potential content. But he’d crossed his arms and stood his ground, and surely he couldn’t be happy, hiding like that.
Chris imagined that Will might have it easier than Chris did. More forgiving audience. Audience who already suspect. But the James of it all would intensify matters significantly.
That seemed to be what Will was thinking, too, as he sat across him at their now-weekly coffee, bags under his eyes and hair messy like he’d been pulling at it.
“It’s the expectations,” Will said eventually. “People think they know me, and the annoying thing is that they do. But they expect me to be gay, so what, am I supposed to let them be right?”
Chris sipped his blueberry tea. “You’re not supposed to do anything. Do what you want.”
This was easier said than done, but in Chris’s opinion, it was a skill issue if someone couldn’t manage it.
“I want people to give it a rest.” Will looked so very tired, shrunken in his seat, withdrawing his fingers from the warm May sunlight.
There he was, desiring the impossible. Will knew it was unrealistic as he mumbled something to the extent of, Oh, Chris, great and powerful, how do you manage to follow your heart given the line of work you excel at?
Therapy, he’d say, if Will were open to it, but he wasn’t, so he’d have to do solo self-reflection. He told Will there were two questions to answer: 1, what do you love, and 2, how can you pursue it?
Identifying what he loved had always come easy to Chris, but his method of pursuit had been trial and error. He eventually determined that he was best suited to quantifying things he liked. Dividing his time, ranking his hobbies, balancing his diary until everything was ordered and routinized.
Not so with Will, who, it seemed, struggled with the opposite.
“The things I love,” Will repeated. He laughed softly, derisively. “That’s a bit soppy, like.”
“Will—” It came out chastising before Chris caught himself. He sometimes felt older than his friends, like he was secretly fifty and had figured out the secret of life. Which wasn’t a problem, except it led to him thinking everyone needed him to parent them. So he adjusted his tone to something gentler, more encouraging:
“It’s what life’s all about, mate. The things you like, it’s just as okay to love them. Or to allow like to deepen into love.”
Will looked stricken by the thought of allowing sentiment to intensify.
“Loving things can’t hurt you,” Chris said gently. “You can love walks in Autumn. You can love a hot tea before bed. You can love coffee with me—”
“Never,” Will laughed. “I despise you.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “You can.” He pointed a finger at him. “And you do. I can see straight through you.”
“Then tell me about myself. I forget that I exist.”
Chris’s eyes skated over Will. Shoulders hunched in his black tee, cap pulled low over the sad curve of his mouth. The rings on his hands looked like a line of little shields to deflect blows.
He remembered Will laughing, hair windblown, lit up by the sun as he made another horrific pun that nevertheless had their whole group in hysterics. He recalled Will, far after his staff had left, reworking a video timeline on the whiteboard, marker in his mouth and brows knit.
He knew Will’s determination. His ferocious love. His kindness and attentiveness and the way he’d check in on people whenever they were a little quieter. When Arthur was new on the scene and looking lost at a party, Arthur’d told Chris that Will had introduced him to just about everyone there. Will always adopted Becky whenever they were out together among people she wasn’t friends with. He had an eye for those on the fringes, probably because he’d felt like one a few too many times.
“I noticed a few years ago that you always hold the door for people. You hold the door for them and insult them as they walk through, and it doesn’t hurt because you’ve already been kind, however you try to dress it up.” The steam from Chris’s tea danced in his breath. He owed Will honesty. “Most of us are allergic to saying how we feel. It’s so much easier to joke about things or downplay them, pretend they don’t matter. Safer, I guess. But, Will, I need you to realize that you wouldn’t be where you are if people didn’t love you. You can blame a million things—trends, right time/right place, guests, friendships—but people don’t stick around if they don’t like you. It’s true of fanbases, and it’s true of friendships.”
Will let the words breathe for a long-enough moment that Chris could be certain he’d absorbed them, then said, with a teasing little smile but a posture expecting a response, “I knew you loved me.”
“Allergic,” Chris accused.
“So are you,” Will insisted. “You refuse to say it.”
Chris leveled his gaze at Will. “I love you,” and couldn’t resist adding an amicable, “man.”
Will laughed out loud. “Love you too. Man.”
“Arsehole.”
“Twat.”
They grinned at each other, then, for the first time, Will bade him farewell with a hand on his elbow. The touch, foreign as it was from a sober Will, burned. Chris lingered on his last sips of tea before heading up to his own office.
The next time they met was an unseasonably dreary day. Chris’d had to wear a fucking waterproof to work, the concept of which put him in a pissy mood. But the prospect of seeing Will each week had become a bright spot; at the very least, he’d get a half-decent chat which would hopefully set his day aright.
Will swung into his seat, dropping his umbrella on the floor. “Hiya, mate. Cappuccino and chocolate chip muffin, please.”
“You’re extorting me for my money,” Chris complained, but he’d buy the sodding muffin anyway. At a certain point, surely someone deserved some luxury.
A mere minute after Chris sat down with their orders, he was regretting his decision — not about the muffin, but about succumbing to the wiles of the cute barista who he’d thought to impress by ordering a matcha. It hadn’t worked, and now he was stuck with a drink tasting of lawn clippings.
They made their small talk, but inevitably, the conversation circled back to Will’s reticence about coming out.
“I hate expectations. I’d rather everyone just knew nowt about us so that they don’t expect nowt. Could just…crack on with whatever I want.” He sighed. “I think about that a lot.”
Chris went to take a sip of his matcha, thought the better of it, and set it down.
“Not a fan?”
“Not especially.”
“Trade you,” Will suggested. He slid his barely-touched cappuccino over to Chris. After a moment’s hesitation, Chris accepted it.
Will took a big sip of the matcha and made a show of how delicious it was. The performance was convincing enough that it threw Chris when Will’s face dropped suddenly into a more serious expression.
“You know people say I’m queerbaiting?”
A surprised laugh escaped Chris, capturing the attention of the other café patrons. Will glared at him, annoyed at all four eyes now on them.
“Queerbaiting? What is this, 2015? People can get a life. Have…have you spoken about this with James? He gets some stick, surely, no?”
“Not like me.” Will raised his eyes to Chris’s. The implication in Chris’s question—Why the hell are you here talking to me about it—was clear to Will. “I know he’s…involved. But—ugh. It’s stupid, never mind.”
Will’s head hung, dangling hair hiding his eyes. He twisted a ring and looked moments away from springing up, leaving the conversation before it reached somewhere he didn’t want to go.
“I want to hear,” Chris said gently, trying not to scare him off. With overplayed sincerity, he added, “Your thoughts matter to me.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Sap.” Chris tried to hide his smirk, proud to have provoked a response.
“It’s just, it’s easier to talk about this with you. You’re outside of…everything. Things roll off James’s back. Not mine. And, a little bit, not yours.”
“Not mine,” Chris agreed. It had caused him some distress growing up that he’d never felt kindred to others, and never fit in any tidy social boxes. He saw it now as an asset, but recent developments had shaken things up: even now, considering all the gay and bi men he knew personally or had seen online, he felt a deep disconnect. Wasn’t there supposed to be a natural congruence? Then again, Chris honestly—guiltily—didn’t think he wanted to be like them.
Maybe Chris wasn’t as well-adjusted as he’d thought, but at the very least, he could understood where Will was coming from. James was a little too close to home. James’s ability to be himself, fuck what anyone else said, was a little too foreign. His world was too separate. Chris was more similar to Will. Similar friendship group, similar personalities, similar fears.
So Chris did his best to calm Will, to remind him that life is what he makes of it, and he shouldn’t make his world smaller than it needed to be. As he spoke, Chris wondered if he was being hypocritical, because he didn’t particularly want to expand his own world by foraying into queer spaces. But, baby steps. Will needed help now, so Chris would give it.
He didn’t know if his encouragement was working. But it was something.
Rainbow Laces
In early May, they filmed Stephen’s virtual £10 vs £1000 birthday party video. Will and Harry were each assigned to organize and host a themed party for the guests of honor, Chris and Stephen. Harry had Chris, and the theme he’d decided on was, apparently, vomiting leprechaun—Harry was decked out in a rainbow suit, Chris’s bedroom was a mess of mini pride flags, and the whole thing was an assault on the senses.
Of course, Chris spent the whole video complaining that he actually quite liked the bisexual flag, so why did Harry have to go full-blown Club-Heaven-during-Pride-Month?
The theme extended to the gifts and food: Chris was now the less-than-proud owner of a temperature-sensitive mug that changed from a male pole dancer to read “everyone knows I’m gay”, wearing flashing hair clips that prompted Stephen to call him cute no fewer than fourteen times, and chewing on a recreation of the M&S LGBT sandwich.
The rest of his gifts were more of the same, most of them blending right into their garish wrapping paper. As Chris unwrapped rainbow shoelaces, he darted a look at Harry, whose eyes had squinted into a hint of anxiety. It looked like another ridiculously gaudy item, but everyone in the call knew that rainbow laces weren’t just laces. That they represented something a little more to a footballer—sure, a forced, corporate attempt at inclusion, but nevertheless, one that had made Chris’s chest glow each time he’d watched a match.
“Again with the bloody rainbows,” Chris murmured, but he put the laces aside, along with the rainbow captain’s band that he wondered if the Sidemen would allow him to don in next year’s charity match.
The following morning, he threaded the laces through his football boots. On his next shoot day, he wore them proudly.
About a week later, Will barged into Chris’s office, perched himself on his desk, and announced, “Am I a sheep if I say I’m thinking about it?”
Chris’s head jerked up from his laptop and he grinned. “You are?!”
Will ducked his head. “Yeah. Would you…would you recommend?”
“Yeah, it’s been good, to be fair. Got a couple decent brand deals lined up. There’s actually more jokes for videos. And…” He’d saved the sappy one for last. “I feel more like myself, weirdly. Like how after you break up with someone but before you announce it, it just feels a bit off. You’re not lying, you’re just…withholding something that’s important to you and about you.”
“So it’s amazing. Got it.” Will was looking at his hands, twisting them together, sounding anything but enthused. “And subs?”
Chris shrugged. “Up to you if you give a shit. You’ve seen my channel, though. Nothing major.”
“Everyone will think it’s a joke.”
“Not unless you imitate my series of football puns.”
Will cracked a half-smile. “F1, me.” With too much enthusiasm: “I’ll Lando on your dad’s cock.” He coughed. “Nah, probably just a tweet. Really, you’re fine?”
“I am now, yeah. Listen, Will? It’s not all been good.” Chris swallowed, pitching his voice down. “You saw how there’s negative comments. There always will be, but the idiots get dogpiled. But the DMs—I didn’t open DM requests until it had been a few weeks, and of course for every arsehole there’s a dozen nice people, but. It’s not easy to see those.”
Chris had faced more criticism than he’d let on to anyone except his closest mates, the straight ones for whom someone’s coming out was a news headline and not a monumental thing reflecting on themselves and everyone like them. He’d shown Arthur Frederick the dm’s he’d gotten, and Arthur had scrolled through them, eyes getting progressively wider until he looked about one RSPCA advert away from tears.
“We’ve got to do something, Chris,” Arthur had exclaimed, burying his nose in the phone as if he were about to construct a reply. Hate was a weed and extermination futile, so Chris had yanked his phone back.
Will looked surprised at Chris’s bringing up the comments.
“I didn’t want to put you off,” Chris murmured, “or anyone else. But you should know.”
“I came up on ripping into other people. It’s only fair to get it back, like.”
“No,” Chris said forcefully. “Two wrongs don’t make a right. You don’t deserve that.”
Will seemed to have a martyr’s mindset, that suffering was inevitable and necessary for him. Like maybe, if he was in the fire long enough, he’d be purified. Or that surviving pain was proof of his worth.
Chris wouldn’t be surprised if Will was weighing up the merits of each version of suffering: this one, a known torment, where his true self was a secret, lines firmly drawn but his place in the world concrete. Or an unknown world where he’d be rewritten and stretched into uncomfortable contortions due to his own admission.
Will naturally seemed inclined to the latter, pushing his limits and, through sheer determination, keeping himself from breaking. Consequently, Chris wasn’t surprised, necessarily, that Will was considering it.
Also, Will could be a competitive bastard when he wanted to be. He would not let Chris beat him in this.
A couple weeks after Chris’s latest main channel video was released, he and Will were leaving a studio shoot together, blinking in the harsh sunlight, when they spotted a kid sprinting over from across the street, overlarge backpack bouncing.
“ChrisMD! WillNE!” he panted, red-cheeked and enthusiastic.
“Hi, mate. How are you?”
“I love your videos!” He shifted between his feet, looking up at the two of them. Will had that gentle smile that he liked to hide, the kind that reminded Chris that, more than anything, Will wanted to be a dad.
Chris returned to the kid. “What’s your name, mate?”
“Paulie. Hey, where’s your boots?”
Chris looked down at his white trainers. “I don’t actually live on the football pitch.” He softened the words with a smile.
The kid frowned. “Dad says it’s a good job they’ve done away with the rainbow bollocks in football, but I saw you wearing rainbow in your boots, so maybe it isn’t that bad.”
Will had suddenly gone all solemn.
“It’s not bad at all, mate. Sometimes people like me have it hard, so I want my videos to show everyone that they’re welcome.”
Paulie hesitated, thinking. His face cleared abruptly, and he looked up at Will. “You need to be in more ChrisMD videos!”
“I’m not nearly good enough at football for that, fella.” His eyes danced as he glanced over at Chris.
“But he gets Arthur in videos!”
The reply shocked Chris into laughter. Paulie then had to leave to return to his cross-looking mum, but the interaction left Chris smiling.
Will stared at Chris, running a hand through his hair. “Fucking hell, man,” he groused. “I’m on the fucking fence, and here comes Paulie, rubbing it in how you’re being a good influence on the youth just by coming out.”
Something New and Beautiful
June had just turned. The temperature hit 22º, and the London streets felt celebratory as Chris went on his morning run and did his errands. The mood only continued through JJ’s birthday party that evening. Chris was giggling with Will, both sat on the sticky floor, a bit too drunk to be amongst those moshing by the DJ booth and a bit too drowsy to be chatting in the smokers' area.
Will’s head was tipped back against the wall, eyes shut, uncaring that Chris was a puddle against his side; the only thing keeping Chris from sinking into the floor was his gaze hooked on Will’s face. He traced his strong features like a meditation, and jolted when Will spoke.
“I’m gonna fucking do it. Got the post in me drafts already.”
Chris bolted upright. “Really?”
Will nodded. His sweaty hair bounced, and he still didn’t look down at Chris. Chris ran a hand along the floor, feeling grit roll against his skin. He was too gone to care.
“Was just thinking, though…” Will shifted, put his hands behind his head, still staring off into the bass-drenched conglomerate. “…My blue-haired lot’ll be dead annoying. They’ll all think they were right.”
“Your blue-haired lot?” Chris teased. “Finally taking responsibility. God.”
“Piss offf.”
Chris couldn’t resist asking: “Anyway, weren’t they right?”
“No.” Will dropped his arms, took a sip of his drink, and finally looked at Chris. “Not about me and James. So they’re half right. A quarter, really, because I think most of them think I’m properly gay.”
“You are not responsible for people’s reactions,” Chris proclaimed. “You do it for you.” He shoved a finger at Will’s chest.
Will laughed and hit his hand away. “Your therapist better be paid fucking p’s.”
Chris rolled his eyes and rested his head on Will’s shoulder. “Just keep that in mind.”
“I know,” Will whispered. And, after the briefest hesitation, his head dropped onto Chris’s.
Then followed a week of silence. Not a word from Will in public, and in private, he didn’t say anything—at least, not to Chris.
Until Chris opened Twitter to a photo of Will, prism of rainbow light dancing across his cheek as he fucking beamed.
celebrating June a little extra now read the caption.
His heart stuttered, and he stared for a long moment before typing a reply:
We should start a club
big club, Will responded dryly.
[Bi]g club. Actively recruiting! Chris replied. And then shut off Twitter.
Will had posted the photo on his Instagram as well.
Chris messaged him, “You know your angles, don’t you”
Will responded, “me one asset is me jawline gotta show it off where I can”
“We can’t all be perfect”
“fella you’re 5’6””
The James of it All
Assuming Will might be overwhelmed with the novelty, Chris resisted pestering him about the reaction, his feelings, and any future plans concerning his newly announced queerness. He could hardly restrain himself; the second the clock hit ten on Monday morning, Will’s usual arrival time, Chris darted next door. Will was just setting down his coffee and pastry.
“Hiya, mate!” Will greeted, not minding the disruption. “Didn’t bring you anything.”
Chris waved it off. “I’m just here for a cheeky chinwag.”
Will wrinkled his nose at the phrase. “Might not tell you anything,” he suggested meanly.
Chris placed a delicate hand on his chest in mock offense. “After all my coaching?!”
Will rolled his eyes and took a bite of his pain au chocolat before ushering Chris into the hallway, away from curious employees’ ears.
“After you’ve listened to me whinging for an hour every week, some would say—not me, mind, but some—that you should be up for sainthood.” His cheeks darkened. “Thanks,” he muttered. “For everything.” Will stopped, and normally Chris would directly respond to Will’s compliment with, of course, the humility he was known for, but there was a fragile cut to Will’s expression that made Chris say instead,
“It’s good to see you not quite so miserable.”
Will’s face flickered into a smile. “You’ve always…Even when I was an arsehole, you never—”
“Don’t,” Chris interrupted. “That doesn’t matter. Right now, how are you?”
Will still looked shaken, but in his smile, there was freedom. “I never expected this,” he admitted. “Everyone’s been weirdly sound. Even the blokes.”
“Didn’t know you had any of those left,” Chris teased.
“53%, I’ll have you know! I mean, obviously there’s the morons, but mostly it’s just loads of people being nice.”
The disbelief in Will’s voice saddened him; like Chris, Will had probably braced himself for hate. And where Chris found it, it seemed Will hadn’t, or at least, not so intensely.
“Not that it’s changing anything, mind.” Will continued. “Or, not yet, at least. This was the easy part, which is grim. I’ve got to decide how to live now. Does this change anything? Do I let it?”
“I think it does.” Sure, the core of who they were was the same, but it was undeniable that coming out would affect friendships, dating, life experiences, goals, desires. They hadn’t explored much privately, much less publicly; so as they entered this new world, they would themselves be changed by the truth of themselves they’d allowed others to see. “It will change things. Comments, news articles, group chats. New isn’t bad, though.”
“Obviously not,” Will said. He shook his head, grinning out of nowhere. “My tweets get an extra 2k likes on them.”
Chris huffed a laugh.
“And everyone keeps sending me heart emojis.”
“Don’t rub it in. They also keep telling you you’re dating James.”
Will’s smile wavered. “Now now, mate.” He glanced over at the window, where his team were giving their slacker boss dirty looks.
Abruptly, Will asked if they were still on for their regular coffees, as if he’d worried that Chris was only spending time with him to coach him through crisis.
“What, and miss out on all the tea about your dates?”
Will’s head reared back. “Tea? You’re actually forty.”
“Well, you’re actually older than me.”
Will laughed and shook his head. “No dates yet. I know you’ll harass me until I tell.”
“You can’t be rid of me,” Chris smiled warmly. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
And then he relinquished Will to his office. Chris lingered a moment before turning back down the hall. Will was settling down at a desktop, replying to something Mikey was saying. There was a tiny smile on his face that didn’t disappear, and Chris was filled with optimism.
Chris hoped Will would be alright. By all accounts he seemed fine, but the James situation was a raw nerve, and Chris had seen just how much the heat had intensified. Will surely had to feel like he was being boiled alive—every single comment on every single platform mentioned James.
Chris wasn’t surprised when, during their coffee date, Will said his newest second-channel video was top-performing by a mile.
“Twice as many comments as usual! Fully 100% more. All about how me and James are shagging, mind, but still.” He sat back, sipping his cappuccino.
“Whatever pays the bills,” Chris allowed. He’d signed off on some dodgy fucking compilations for his own second channel recently.
“The issue is that people fucking believe it. How am I supposed to get a date if half the world thinks I’m in love with my coworker?”
Coworker was a stretch, but Chris would excuse the diminution. “What people think doesn’t matter. It’s like that hypothetical: Would you fuck a goat and no one knows, or you don’t fuck a goat but everyone thinks you did?”
“If I could fuck Ronaldo, everyone would know about it,” Will muttered.
Chris ignored him. “Obviously, you don’t fuck the goat. Whatever people think happened doesn’t matter when you know the truth.”
Will frowned. “I mean, truth’s whatever most people agree on, isn’t it? Like, any history book is probably mostly bollocks, it’s just the version enough people backed.”
“Mate, history books are not remotely a problem,” Chris said firmly. “While you’re alive, what you do is the truth. And once you’re dead, who gives a shit?”
“I know. And I don’t care, I really don’t. It’s just…it’s wrong. I came out because it was doing my head in to keep hiding this part of me. Is this any different, really?”
“Yes. Your relationships are your private business. Saying you’re queer actually helps society; keeping people updated on who you’re seeing does not.”
“It’s just weird,” Will decided. “Not bad, but weird.”
Chris couldn’t help himself; he watched the first video Will posted after coming out. He didn’t typically watch his friends’ videos, although Will was becoming a bit of an exception, but on the few occasions he caved, he acknowledged that it was fascinating just how much a persona could change with a push of the record button.
His YouTube mates fell into two camps: either they claimed to be authentically themselves during filming, or they said they were themselves but amplified.
Chris had always believed that was bullshit. He’d been filming himself long enough to know that emotions weren’t just exaggerated for the camera, they were created. When the camera turned on, so did Chris’s alter ego: half presenter, half entertainer. His jokes became meaner, his cadence snappier. He reacted strongly to things that didn’t matter and made choices he wouldn’t otherwise.
Will seemed quite similar in that, in order to be a personality worth watching, he believed he had to create a new version of himself. For this reason, Chris was curious to see how Will would address (or not) his announcement on camera.
Off camera, Chris felt in Will a release of tension. A new gratitude to the world at large, seemingly.
But on camera, there was a tremor of timidity, minutia of hesitation that no one but his closest friends—of which Chris realized he was—would pick up on.
Towards the beginning of the video, James held out an elephant hand towel for Will’s inspection and Will had stared down the lens and said he would not, in fact, address the elephant. There was the self-protective sarcasm juxtaposed, like usual, to James’ carefreeness.
The comments were a list of time stamps of eye contact, of when James touched Will’s shoulder, of when Will brushed James’ hand. Hopefully Will, like Chris, generally left reading the comments up to producers.
He pressed play on the video again.
A few minutes later, they unboxed a rainbow backpack that James tried to get Will to put on. Will vehemently protested, and James teased him that he was homophobic.
Will glared at James. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”
James laughed. “Yeah.”
Will rolled his eyes, overdramatic but not nearly like himself. “Just because I’m a bit gay does not mean I have to wear the Pride backpack.”
James, cackling like Will had fallen into his trap, said, “It’s not a Pride backpack, Will, it’s got fucking pink in it!”
“I tell you what’s fucking pink,” Will said cheekily. “Your mam’s—”
Chris paused. It threw him, the way video-Will swung from blasé to over-invested, cautious to careless. Real Will was so much more measured, and his deep genuineness made it less conspicuous when he so easily dodged questions and comments that felt too invasive to him.
Will was adjusting to being known in this way. Of course he was. So was Chris; it had been a surprise when Danny had said during a shoot, “You’re fucked, mate. Like Chris every weekend,” and the group had laughed.
Beneath the lazy joke was the quiver of judgement that Chris had been right to anticipate. As the frequency of comments in that vein heightened then leveled for Chris, and for Will in his turn, it was natural that Will disguised his insecurity with sharp edges. It was kill or be killed in a world where everything was content and jokes got clicks if they pushed the envelope.
Will wasn’t going on dates for the time being. He hadn’t ever stated he was bisexual. Secrets were his protection; with the divulgence of one, he held even more tightly to others. Chris hoped that, like breaking in new football boots, Will living in his new identity would ease the chafe.
Pride and Joy
Will sat across from Chris at their favorite spot in the café. Sunbeams fell on the table, wavy through the thick glass. Will’s cheeks were sun-kissed; he’d been out for a run yesterday, he explained, and wasn’t quite used to the summer yet. Chris could just make out the light freckles poking through.
They chatted about the FPL holiday, the last season of Severance, general gossip about their mates, upcoming activities.
Will was saying, “—and the Pride parade goes down James’ street, you know, so I’m going to help him hang up flags—”
“Thinking of going to Pride with him, then?” Chris interrupted.
Will grinned. Chris had always loved the way his smile lit up his whole face.
“I am, aye. Secured me ticket yesterday.”
After a twinge that might have been jealousy, much stronger was the rush of joy that ran through Chris. Despite the crowds, Will would certainly be recognized; going to Pride meant Will was no longer sweeping it under the rug and hoping no one cared enough to pry. He was happy to be seen as queer. Chris was thrilled for Will to be taking this step, and told him so.
“You’re welcome along, mate,” Will offered, but Chris knew he wouldn’t go. This would be fucking monumental for Will, not only to be going to Pride, but to be going with James. He wouldn’t come between them. As close as he and Will had become, the position of best friend was securely James’s.
So Chris declined.
Will’s lips curved down. “We’re meeting James’s mates at the bar after. It’s pretty cool, mostly non-alcoholic shit. Supposed to have decent underground music.” He pushed his iced matcha around and watched its sweat leave trails on the lacquered wood. “I know Brighton’s quite far. But…” He raised his eyes to Chris. “It’s basically been a team effort. If you can make it…”
Chris’s heart swelled at Will’s invitation, at the thought of attending the Pride afterparty in a city so welcoming as Brighton, surrounded by people for whom their identity was something to be celebrated.
He didn’t even ask Will for the date before agreeing to go. If he had anything on, he’d move it.
God. How he was going to wait another two weeks, Chris didn’t fucking know.
Sound increasingly pummeled Chris on the journey to Brighton as the train filled with others destined for the Pride afterparty. Buzzing energy throbbed in Chris’s ears and set his heart rate alight. Cheers, laughter, unrestrained joy—everywhere Chris looked, he saw flags and rainbows and people just like him.
He realized, looking around the train, that for all he’d been worried about Will’s self-acceptance, he hadn’t much explored this world himself. A month ago, George had taken him to a gay bar where George got hit on once a minute and Chris was largely ignored. It hadn’t been the best introduction—gay men of London severely lacked taste. The strange fashion sense, pounding Charlie XCX, and topless bartender made Chris antsy. He was embarrassed that George seemed to be having a better time than him.
Pride felt entirely different, less about sexuality and more about identity, celebration, beauty in diversity.
Sure, there were some harnesses and bright pink hair, lisping voices and everything foreign to Chris. But, too, he saw some blokes who looked just like himself. A man with some flag Chris didn’t recognize tied around his neck took a photo with him and said he loved the videos. Another, in an outfit eerily similar to Chris’s, dapped him up with the ease Chris usually associated with his footy mates. This community that Chris had thought he might not align with was vaster than he’d imagined.
Over the fifteen-minute walk to the bar, he noticed the intimacy of couples he passed, arms wrapped around each other, faces close together. He ached for a life he hadn’t lived, a life he hadn’t even seen. It was so beautiful, the flow of people guided by mutual love. Strangers shouted compliments at each other, and even a few at Chris. He felt like a duck out of water, but each word spoken to him was a reminder that he existed. That he’d made it. That he belonged.
The bar was full, but Will’s laugh, loud and clear, guided him to the corner where James’ group had set up camp in and around a booth far too small for their number.
“Chris!” Will exclaimed, almost knocking him over with the force of his hug. His cheeks were pink, either flushed or sunburnt, because despite his enthusiasm, Chris could tell he wasn’t drunk. Especially as Will’s voice dropped in volume and he added earnestly, “It’s brilliant, isn't it?”
Speechless, Chris nodded. His eyes flicked up and down Will. “Where are your rainbows, mate?” Will was in a blue button-up short-sleeved shirt and black trousers. He raised a pant leg and displayed black socks with little embroidered bi flags on them.
“Class, right?”
James materialized next to Will. “They’re from a Temu video,” he said, humor curling around the words.
“No chance I’m spending more than 5 quid on something I’m only wearing once.” His eyes skated up and down Chris. “Unlike you, it seems.”
“You know full well all this shit is from a video,” Chris hurriedly defended. He was wearing a normal tee and jeans, but rainbow sunglasses perched on his head, a rainbow belt cinched his waist, and rainbows laced his shoes. (And, yeah, maybe he’d bought a couple extra pairs of laces. He wasn’t about to take them out of his boots every time he wanted to wear them.)
He settled into the group. Will ordered him a non-alcoholic cocktail that he said the girls all liked which meant Chris would, too. (Unfortunately, Will was right on the money. It was delicious.) Everyone was high-energy, even after a day of festivities. There were a couple people he vaguely recognized from online, maybe someone’s Instagram story, but most were new to him. Everybody was sort of alternative, with funky hairstyles and multiple piercings. If he looked closely, it seemed a few of the guys were wearing eye makeup. It was all a little bit outside of his comfort zone, but Will stuck by him—trusty Will, who, outside of content, wouldn’t touch makeup with a ten-foot pole.
Despite the lack of alcohol, they had a blast. James’s mates were outgoing and kind, and Chris couldn’t drain his glass without someone pushing a new one on him. A seat in the booth opened up, so he sat. A moment later, Will was beside him, arm pressed flush against his.
“Got you something.” The relaxed lilt of Will’s voice was uncommon but welcome; surprisingly, he seemed more at ease, here in what felt like a foreign environment, than Chris had ever seen him.
“Yeah? I don’t know if I can bear more rainbows.”
“Well, it’s not rainbow. It’s stupid. I, er, I dunno.” He shoved the gift into Chris’s hand— hard edges but warm from his pocket—and watched anxiously as Chris uncurled his fingers.
It was a keychain, a silver and enamel football. The football had patches in pink, purple, and blue. The center patch was heart-shaped.
It was, he realized, the first item he owned featuring the bi flag.
“Thanks, mate.” He swallowed, something undefinable bubbling in his throat. “Thank you for thinking of me. I love it.”
“It’s just tat, probably from Ali Express—”
“I don’t care,” Chris said firmly. He dug his keys out and, even in the dim bar light, set about attaching it to his keyring. His current setup was, admittedly, a bit sad—just plain metal keys and peeling barcode key tags. Nothing personal until now, as, victorious, he admired the new addition. “It’s perfect.”
“No need to lie, like.”
“Not lying.” Chris stared at the football, and some unidentified emotion flickered in his chest. He nudged Will’s arm. “Thanks for inviting me. James’s mates are great.”
“If you insist.” Chris knew Will well enough to know he was bluffing. “That one tried to put eyeshadow on me.”
Chris laughed. “What, and you said no?!”
“Ray!” Will called. “Chris wants eyeshadow!”
“I do not,” Chris laughed, but he allowed Ray to dab some face paint—which they apparently also had in their bottomless Falsettos tote bag—on his wrist. Three little dots, matching his keychain.
After eating their weight in hummus and pita, the group filtered outside and made their way toward the train station. The party outside was winding down, although people still waved flags at every passerby and music pounded out of the bars.
Chris looked over at Will, walking between him and James, and imagined this life for them. Instead of walking beside mates, walking beside partners. Hand-in-hand. In his pocket, he gripped his keychain.
They passed a mural that was a kaleidoscope of Pride flags in front of which couples posed, kissing, embracing.
Chris thought that, whoever he ended up with, even if it was a girl, they’d come here. He’d show them how much this meant to him.
Although their whole group had walked to the train station together, a few were Brighton residents, and Will was staying over with James. So Chris boarded with acquaintances who all knew each other better than they knew him. It suited him fine.
Bored on the journey, it was only as he scrolled through his photos that he appreciated Will’s fearlessness for what it was. He’d got a picture of him and James walking next to each other, Will talking and James listening. Now, he saw the scene from an outsider’s perspective.
Will, in his shy pride socks, and James, in his glam rock attire, together at Pride. Twitter would have a field day, but Will had gone anyway. Will’s progress was a surprise and a reassurance. Chris wanted to pat himself on the back; but, turning the keychain over in his hand and recalling the beauty of Pride, Chris thought maybe he’d had a long way to go as well. As much as he hated to admit it, it was all thanks to Will that he’d become the man he was.
Chris put on his headphones. Lights faded into the distance out the window like stars as he shot through space. He ran his fingers over his keychain. If a genie popped out, Chris thought he might not have anything to ask for. Biting back a smile, he held the keychain tightly enough that its pattern debossed his palm.
EPILOGUE
Chris arrived early to the café and claimed their table. Instagram passed the time well enough—he scrolled, absentmindedly liking his mates’ photos, when he happened across a recommended post. Some fan had tagged Will in a photo taken at Pride.
The fan was holding up half of a bisexual flag, Will the other half. He glowed with sun and happiness, grinning so widely that his eyes were almost shut.
Chris paused. Before he could think too hard, he screenshotted the photo. He’d crop the fan out. But Will—
How healing to see in your audience a celebration of that thing about yourself that you feared. To see it held up in flags and proclaimed in face paint. To hear hundreds and hundreds of times how much your coming out has meant to innumerable people.
Chris found he’d been smiling stupidly at his phone. He decided he didn’t care.
As Will sat down across from Chris, Chris’s smile only widened.
“Why’re you looking at us like that?”
He was happy about a million things. The easy way Will swung into the seat across from him. The sun on his face. The overlapping edges of his and Will’s lives, and the way they’d both grown.
“I’m proud of us, you know.”
A complicated expression crossed Will’s face, like he was trying to decide whether to mock Chris for the, admittedly, sentimental comment. He refrained, a cautious, almost uncertain smile appearing as he admitted, “Yeah. I mean—yeah. We’ve done alright, haven’t we?”
“Not as alright as we’ll be after some caffeine.” Chris tipped his head and batted his eyelashes and got a spectacular eyeroll in return.
“Right, go on then.” Will pushed himself up from the table. “What d’you want?”
After solidifying their orders, Chris watched Will head up to the counter. Still himself, with the funny walk and his shiny, stupid shoes. But he held his shoulders high.
They’d come so far, Chris thought, chest aglow. And together, they had found peace.