wilbran fic part 2 <3 For a while, neither of us moved. The movie kept playing in the background, some actor saying something dramatic that neither of us heard, because Brando was still close enough for his breath to touch my mouth. His fingers were still curled loosely in my shirt like he had forgotten to let go, and I was afraid if he did, the whole thing would disappear. “Say it again,” I whispered. Brando’s mouth twitched, soft and nervous, nothing like the loud, careless grin he wore around everyone else. “I love you,” he said. Then, quieter, like it belonged only in my room, only between the heat and the spinning fan and the sheets that smelled like him, “I love you, Wil.” My chest hurt so bad I almost laughed. I wanted to ask how long. I wanted to ask why he never said anything. I wanted to ask if this meant he was mine now, if I was allowed to touch him without pretending it was an accident, if tomorrow at school he would still look at me the way he was looking at me right now. Instead, I asked the smallest, scariest question I could manage. “What happens now?” Brando looked down at where his hand had slid from my shirt to my wrist. His thumb brushed over my pulse, and the touch was so gentle it made my eyes burn all over again. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know I don’t wanna take it back.” That should have been enough. Maybe for a normal person, it would have been. But my brain had never known how to leave happiness alone. It had to pick it apart, search for the trapdoor under it, check every corner for the part where it all went wrong. “Do we tell people?” I asked. I wanted to ask if we could. I wanted to tell people. I want the world to know that Brando is mine and nobody else’s. The question changed something. Not in a bad way, exactly, but Brando’s face shifted. His eyes flicked toward my closed bedroom door, then the window, where the evening was turning everything outside the color of rust. The light hit his eyes in just the right way. “Not yet,” he said. Two words. That was all it took for my stomach to drop. Brando noticed, because of course he did. He caught my hand before I could pull it into my lap. “Hey. It’s not like that.” I stared at our hands. His fingers fit between mine too easily, like they had been waiting there the whole time. “Then like what?” He swallowed, and for the first time since I’d known him, Brando looked scared of saying the wrong thing. “Like… this is ours first. Before everybody gets to have opinions about it.” My throat tightened. I hated how much sense that made. I hated that part of me was relieved too, because saying it out loud to the world meant making it real in a way people could ruin. - - - By the time Brando finally left, the sky outside my window had gone dark blue, and the heat had settled into the walls like it planned on staying forever. He’d kissed me softly on the forehead before he left, holding my head close to him. I had begged him to stay here with me, just to hold me a little longer, because I felt safe. “I have to go home, Wil. My mom doesn’t know where I am, and you know how she gets,” he countered. I watched his taillights disappear from the driveway through the blinds. One hand pressed to my mouth like I could keep the memory of him there if I held still enough. My phone buzzed before I could even sit back down. Brando: I love you so much
