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Susan had been a good mother to him. Really. Will had been given love and protection that, even as a twenty-four year old, he craved like a little kid. Susan gave him that, holding him against her when he woke up screaming from nightmares that he couldn’t remember details of.
There were times, though, that she may not have been as good. But even when he returned to Salem, those times were kept under lock and key, the therapist his grandmother got him to see was the only one who knew about them, and it had taken a month or so of sessions for Will to even hint at the instances where Susan scared him.
There had been one night that Susan had come to the bar around closing time. Sitting at the bar was a handsome guy with dark hair and cute little moles dotting his face and neck. Will found himself wondering if the moles continued underneath the man’s sweatshirt, and he bit his lip as he refilled the man’s glass. He had tried not to stare, really. But Susan noticed. When they got home that night, she hissed at him, “You are not a homosexual.”
“What?” Will said, his heart thumping hard in his chest suddenly.
“I saw you looking at that man at the bar and I will not have it, you hear me, EJ?” She pointed a bony finger at him.
“I-I wasn’t! I—”
“Don’t you lie to me,” Susan said. Will swallowed as she continued. “It’s disgusting! Don’t let me see you ogling a man ever again. My son is not a homosexual.” She looked hard at him, until his gaze dropped to the floor in obedience, then spun around and slammed the door to his room, leaving him alone in the deafening silence.
Will sat on his bed as is breathing sped up and his chest began to heave as he panicked. Susan had never talked to him like that. He’d never given Susan any reason to.
But soon Will found that there were more and more things he would do that set Susan off. Sometimes, afterwards, Will couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he’d done at all that would anger Susan enough to lock him in his room or slap at him wildly. Whenever she hit him, it really hardly ever hurt him physically, but he was always burst into tears the second she was gone. Will wanted to be a good son, really. He just didn’t know how to be sometimes.
Rochelle, his therapist in Salem told him that it wasn’t his fault at all, though it’s hard for him to believe. It was probably something that made her remember that this wasn’t the EJ that she had known, so anything Will said that contradicted the EJ she created disrupted her fantasy and set her off.
At night sometimes, Will would walk outside their house and just stare up at the sky. Sometimes the house just overwhelmed him so much it made him want to burst into tears just being in it. He cried so much in that house. Never in front of Susan, though. She hated it when he cried. He hated it too. It made him feel weak and pathetic. And yet it happened so often at that time, just spilling out of him like he was just full of tears from head to toe.
One night there was a group of friends in the bar and they were having a good time and they were loud and rowdy. It never really bothered Will when people were like that because he was good at fading away in the background, filling their drinks and taking away empty glasses without hardly being seen at all. He was comfortable being hardly noticed at all.
But when one of the girls in the group laughed loudly and said, “Will stop!” Will felt the hairs on his neck stand up. Eyebrows furrowing, he cleaned the glasses and searched his blurry memory for someone named Will.
When he got home that night, Susan was sitting in the living room reading a book. He came and sat down next to her.
“Hi, son, how was work?” Susan asked, smiling at him.
“It was fine, but – um,” Will began, trying to figure out how to explain what happened in the best way. “Was there anyone in my life named Will?”
Susan’s eyes darted to the side. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, today I just… I had a really strange reaction when someone said the name ‘Will’. I just wondered if that triggered something in my memory.”
Without thinking very long at all, Susan shook her head, “No, EJ. There wasn’t anyone named Will in your past.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“You don’t trust your mama?” Susan asked, tone becoming icy. Will tensed where he was.
“I do! I just—”
“After all I’ve done for you,” she stood up and shook her head at him. Will’s eyes filled with tears. “You don’t believe what your mama tells you. I just – Well, I just think you’re being ungrateful! I raised you!”
If Will hadn’t been caught up in his own sorrow, he would have noticed how suspicious she was acting. But guilt filled him instead. “I’m sorry, Mom, I know. I am grateful, I’m sorry for not believing you.”
Susan was quiet for a while. Will’s panic rose.
“Mom, I’m sorry. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.”
Susan looked at Will and sat back down next to him. She pulled him into a hug. “I know, sweetheart.”
Will hugged her back as relief washed over him, and quickly he wiped away the tears that fell before Susan could see them.
Rochelle said that Susan’s cycle of abusing him emotionally and then comforting him was a way to keep him cooperative. Will just felt it was news to him that he was abused at all. It didn’t feel like that. But…
Nightmares begun at Salem, but this time he could remember them. Susan’s yelling, the strangling, all these people who supposedly knew who he was yelling at him to remember when all he could do was cry and cry and cry. Telling his therapist about the nightmares and finding out what they could mean helped.
Will felt good seeing a therapist. Someone objective who he could tell everything to. He told his therapist about his depression while staying with Susan and his anxiety around everyone, people who knew him but not him. He feels a great disconnect with the Will people talk about and the Will he is now. He doesn’t know if he wants to get his memories back, doesn’t know if getting them back would change him into someone he didn’t want to be.
He told Rochelle that sometimes he got so frustrated with people expecting things from him and with himself for not being able to remember people like Sonny and Arianna and his own family that he scratched the skin on his upper arm until they bled or leaked clear fluid. Sometimes he turned his phone off and just laid in bed and felt so tired and through with everyone.
Other times, though, he felt so happy and lucky to have people that loved him and that he got away from his sheltered environment with Susan. He could have a real life here and go and get coffee whenever he wanted to and watch any TV and movies he wanted and use the computer to do whatever he wanted.
But he is good at pretending. Pretending like this wasn’t affecting him so much. From pretending not to be gay with Susan and pretending to be exactly the way she wanted him to be to Salem? He can pretend well.
Rochelle told him, though, that he shouldn’t have to pretend. That he should be able to be who he is right in the moment and that getting memories back of the past won’t change his present. Rochelle also referred him to a doctor who prescribed him a mood stabilizer and something to take for anxiety as needed.
The medicine definitely started to help after about a month, and he didn’t feel horrible about everything anymore. Still felt horrible about some things – like Sonny, for instance. God, that guy loved him, and yet Will felt nothing. Sonny loved a man who wasn’t around anymore, and Will didn’t want to hurt Sonny or anything, but didn’t love him. How could he be expected to love a man he didn’t remember at all, didn’t feel anything for? Sure, at first there were these moments where he knew… he knew he and Sonny had something special, felt it around them when they were together, but it was nothing to base his life around. Nothing to hang his life on when there was no feelings there based on anything real to Will.
There was feeling for Paul, however. Sure, Will knew it started out purely sexual. Not being able to even look at a guy too long and now he lives in a small town and now even the same building as one of the most handsome men Will had ever seen (then again, he wouldn’t really remember if he did see someone more handsome before he died).
It became more than just physical attraction, though. Once Will actually started talking to Paul it was like… it was like Paul was everything! He was funny and a little goofy but sensitive and kind as well. Not to mention understanding. Paul was also not at all pushy or expecting of Will to be something. It was like he’d said to him and to Marlena both. They let him be who he was in the present, not trying to make him be something that he frankly couldn’t be anymore.
And so Will found himself finding his new life less overwhelming and full of sorrow and instead full of making new memories. He watched Paul’s face pull into a smile and a laugh escape him when Will asked if he had known Japanese. Will watched Paul fret over his father and not only trust Will to help him, and fuck if Paul didn’t swoop in like a damned superhero to save him in that mausoleum (though “save” is a kind of stretch since Will wasn’t ever in danger of dying or anything, but still, Will could fantasize).
After will kissed Paul a few times, before Paul actually showed any mutual interest, Paul showed how fucking loyal he was – worried more about Sonny’s feelings than about anything else. Honestly, it almost made Will want to just try and forget about Paul completely. But the night Paul came into his apartment and Sonny caught them confirmed something for Will. There were mutual feeling there. Maybe Paul wasn’t feeling what Will was (which Will wasn’t exactly sure either except to say it was more than a crush and less than being in love) but he was feeling enough to make Will feel confident that they could come to something. That all that pining would come to something.
But, God, the day after Sonny caught them and threw out that comment, “I hope he doesn’t cheat on you like he cheated on me.” That fucking hurt. And he apologized for it later, yeah, but still… the fact that actions he couldn’t even remember were being thrown in his face made him feel damn helpless. Paul was wonderful on their date right after that, taking his hand and comforting him even though it was kind of hard for Will to meet Paul’s eyes and all he wanted to do was apologize and make things better.
God, and not being able to pay for the date? It was humiliating, but there was Paul being an angel, so understanding and nonjudgmental, making Will feel fine about everything. Will swears that was the moment he started to fall for Paul, really fall.
Rochelle thought it was good for him to be dating, but cautioned Will that he should try and tell Paul about his mental issues. He wouldn’t have to tell him everything, but could, and should tell him some things. Not because Paul had to know, Rochelle said, but because it would be good for Will to open up to someone that isn’t a therapist.
And, well, Will didn’t tell Paul right away, but he did have sex with him after the second date, which was better than spilling his fucking heart out about his mental stuff any day.
Will had to remind Paul once they were laying on the bed, getting really hot and heavy, that he was basically a virgin again. Didn’t really know what to do. Paul just kissed him, and used just enough tongue in the kiss to get Will’s dick really interested.
Paul went so slow with Will that he kind of wanted to cry. Will can’t believe he’d ever been treated so well before (so lovingly, dare he say?). Paul caressed and kissed him all over until Will was whining and gasping and Paul just smiled, just fucking smiled at him as he started rubbing a hand up and down Will’s dick. Will gasped and threw his head back against the pillow.
Will stroked at Paul’s dick too, and fuck if he didn’t feel like he was going to ascend to another celestial plain when he heard the beautiful noises that Paul made. He was so close to coming already that he had to grab Paul’s hand and say, “Please, slow down, fuck.”
“You okay?” Paul asked, concerned.
Will squeezed Paul’s dick and made him jerk his hips just the smallest amount before saying, “Yes, I’m better than okay, it’s just been a while and I don’t want to come already.”
“Okay,” Paul said with that smile and Will just felt like he was going to melt from inside out.
When he stretched Will’s hole he was the most tender being on the whole planet. He let Will adjust but also made sure he brushed and touched Will’s prostate as much as he could without sending Will over the edge. At one point, when Will was so close and felt like he couldn’t look at Paul without crying about how fucking kind he was, Paul whispered, “Hey, look at me.” Will had his arm covering his eyes, but lifted his arm away to look down at Paul between his legs. Paul’s fingers, that had been thrusting in and out of Will and making him almost sob with want, stilled, and Paul asked, “Do you want me to fuck you?”
Will just about short circuited for a second. “Uh—Yeah, yes, please, please.”
Paul leaned over Will, coming face to face with Will as he lined up his cock at Will’s hole. “You are so beautiful, Will,” and he pushed his dick into Will before Will could say anything.
Will didn’t try to hide it when he started crying. He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t exactly overwhelmed either, it was just a deep, deep sense of joy and love. Paul began to ask if he was okay, but Will reached up, with tears running down into the hair on his temples, and brought Paul’s face down to his to kiss him, open mouthed and desperate.
Maybe it was because in his mind he was a virgin before this, but Paul fucking him felt like an almost religious experience. He felt like this was proof that the world was good that pleasure and sensation like this existed and that someone cared for him and could touch him so tenderly. The pressure in his lower abdomen built up and up and up and grew almost painful with pleasure and he broke the frenzied kiss with Paul to whisper, “Oh, Paul” before he came so hard he saw white and felt tingles go down his legs and arms.
And of course when he slowly became aware of his surroundings again, Paul laid next to him just holding Will’s cheek in one hand and smiling softly. Will reached up and touched Paul’s cheek too and then slowly fell asleep.
In the morning, Will woke up being held by Paul, one of Paul’s arms around him. No nightmares that night. Will smiled.
And they talked, and Will realized that Paul is fucking perfect, making Will feel nothing but reassurance and more love than he ever knew.
When Paul got up to go to the bathroom, Will sat up and took the pill bottles he had out of the drawer and looked at them briefly. He put the anxiety medicine away, because that was only to be taken if he needed it and he’d never felt contentment like this as long as he could remember. But he popped open his mood stabilizers and swallowed it down dry as Paul came into the room.
“What’s that?” Paul asked, and before he could catch himself and apologize for being intrusive, Will smiled and shook his head, gesturing for Paul to sit next to him so he could tell him.
“It’s a – uh – mood stabilizer,” he began, and looked at the bottle instead of at Paul. “I started taking these maybe a week after I got to Salem. Apparently the – um – trauma that I experienced triggered really unstable moods and so. Yeah. I have anxiety medicine to take if I feel, well, anxious, but I don’t take that unless I need it.”
Paul watched him for a while, saying nothing, waiting to see if Will would say more. And he did.
“Um… my therapist told me that I should start telling you a little about my mental health. She said you didn’t have to know, but it would help me to tell some people that I’m close to. And I wanted to tell you.”
Paul watched will, saw how Will couldn’t meet his eyes, and reached forward to touch Will’s face and bring his face up to look at Paul. Will knew his eyes must show everything, because his eyes always showed his emotions. And if they were showing what he was feeling, they were looking damn scared and yet… hopeful.
“Will,” Paul began, and leaned forward and kissed Will softly, and Will breathed shakily as it happened. “You should be damn proud of yourself for getting help. Thank you for telling me. For trusting me. If you ever need to talk, I’m here. Nothing about what I feel for you has changed.”
Will smiled slowly and laughed even though he wanted to cry with relief. “You always know what to say, huh?”
Paul smiled too. “I hope so.”
Will nodded. “You always do. Really. And I just… Thank you.”
Shaking his head all while smiling, Paul asked, “For what?”
Will shrugged. “For being here. For being you.” Will leaned forward to kiss Paul, and Paul met him halfway.