up all night

[immortalized]

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will's actually just two dogs in a plaid trench coat

[wontgraham]

[ The sound is a bit weak. Will frowns and presses futilely on his own volume button before realizing it's because they've each put the other on speaker.

Will thinks of the echo of two voices in an empty room and feels his throat tighten. ]

Uh. [ He needs to make the sound to convince himself he can speak. Will swallows and keenly feels the empty seat next to him as he heads for the highway. ] Better.

Which isn't...an ideal measure for me right now. [ He swallows and takes closer stock of the truly important things - nausea, how he's perceiving temperature. How much he'd cracked his window when he first woke up, and how he rolls it up against the chill now. ]

But I'm not... I feel-- clear. J-just, um. Distracted. Sorry, I'm not--

[ His voice loses some of the little power it had collected. ] There's a reason I wanted to call someone.

[immortalized]

{ Will sounds...fractured. scattered. slowly pulling the separated pieces back together, trying to shut out the sudden gaps in him. Ambrose doesn't have the old natural response to feel his heartbeat tick up, but...he swears something slowly constricts in his chest, winding in like a serpent, a concern that builds gradually.

it's almost worse than a sudden pang of adrenaline. }

That's all right. { Ambrose moves to lay carefully down onto the floor, pulling his phone up to rest against his unmoving chest, just under his relaxed hands. he will feel it from the device when Will speaks, though, vibrations rumbling through the bones and the hollow spaces. } I just want to be here with you.

{ Ambrose stares at the ceiling, with the tops of these tall north-facing windows just in view, that let in some ambient light, white and red and yellow. he isn't a doctor, or a psychologist, but he feels awareness and care for Will buzzing just over his growing worry. he isn't sure what he wants to ask is a potentially dangerous one, or the splint that Will needs. all he can do is ask. } What is the last thing you do remember?

[wontgraham]

[ There's something in Ambrose's voice that always lets Will have a moment, just a single moment, of absolute quiet. Ambrose has many unearthly qualities, lots of little fractures in his image or presence that set him apart as otherworldly, but Will's never chalked up this to his vampirism. It's some innate softness that Ambrose possessed already and will maybe possess forever - the sense that whoever he's talking to is the only thing he's focused on, in that moment. Will feels caught by him, but not in a trap - caught as if from mid-fall.

Cushioned. ]

Um. I was on my way... Way back to my office. I'd just gotten a call from Jack about--

[ Photographs, not his, never his. Will doesn't take photos, just looks at them. He remembers the email he'd opened up when he'd touched his laptop, that he'd been thinking he should go over to the Bureau to look at evidence... ]

I need to go to work, [ he says, nonsensically. It takes him several long seconds to realize how ridiculous that statement sounds, and yet the frustrated guilt that crashes up in its wake isn't any relief. ]

[immortalized]

{ little pieces of Will's life that are familiar to Ambrose, things he can still vividly imagine as Will gives them out in his answer. the familiarity is a comfort; they have lived separately for months, gone without speaking for weeks at worst, while Will has slipped off a map from time to time. to think that nothing much has changed is somewhat is a reassurance.

but Ambrose thinks he would rather find out that he has instead missed a mountain of change, if it meant that Will was no longer suffering from his own mind, all by himself. }

Stay with me, Will. You're not going to endure this alone. { Ambrose feels like he has just been given the wheel of a ship, without a crew to navigate, and he's hitting the eye of a storm. he could appear relaxed here, lying on his living room floor in the silence of his apartment, hands up and resting on his chest, but he feels nothing but anxious tension. he can't go to Will, he can't fix his mind for him. he can only sit here, and wait.

and talk. }

Is that the last of what you remember? Before coming to? { Ambrose thinks he rather hates this, it feels like scrambling in the dark for something he doesn't know he is looking for. it's dreadful. he stares absolutely motionless at the ceiling for a terrible moment, struggling for something better.

he sits up slowly, turning to look out the window, the night tinted with the dark ambience of colorful neon. it had rained an hour ago, and the droplets collect up every color into little round gems across the glass. }

How are the dogs? { it is so painfully simple, it might almost sound stupid. not to Ambrose, and he hopes, not to Will. it's a very calculated and specific intention, coming from him. he hasn't been in Will's home for most of the year now, that little spot in the universe amidst a quietude that reminds Ambrose still of sleepy mornings. his chest aches to remember it, rising just at dusk and catching Will sitting silently on his porch. }

[wontgraham]

[ He feels like a child being lead through a tantrum. And yet none of that is coming from Ambrose himself - his tone isn't condescending. Nor is it similar to most of the tones Will's head directed at himself over the years. No, Will's hearing his own internal fears narrated internally instead.

The tunneling concepts of such things distracts him, until Ambrose keeps speaking. Will snaps out of it enough to pay more attention to the road, too, and do more than just stay in autopilot as he starts following signs to the interstate. ]

The-- they're fine. They're... [ Ambrose isn't asking about the dogs. Will's intake of breath can't decide if it's a laugh or a sob. He feels a pulling in his cheeks and thinks his expression can't decide either. ] They miss you.

Ambrose, I don't-- [ Back and forth, but it doesn't feel like going off-track to Will. He's following what he's been shown. Affection, away from work, talking about his home, proving that Ambrose isn't afraid of his continuing gaps from reality... ]

Work isn't helping. [ It comes out painfully small but sharp, shards of glass in his throat. Will can do nothing in the aftermath but swallow and try to make sure his voice will be clear once he knows what to do with it. ]