Do I Know You? || James Marriott AU

6: Time Runs Faster Than The Mind

Will was a mess as he was stumbling home. Correction, to James' home. He was uncoordinated and swaying, grabbing onto the scrappy metal bins or lampposts for stability, and just looking around in his pure fuzziness, and not even aware of bystanders halting and looking at him like he was some animal or some drugged dickhead, but he kept walking nonetheless.

He felt his phone buzzing every so often, but he couldn't really fix up enough to be able to grab it, and ended up slipping his hand to his pocket and just letting it linger idly while Will was stumbling, squinting and searching for James' place in this altered mind he'd forced to himself to numb out the pain of his face.

"Jim's place seems farther than expected.. mm fucks sake.." Will says while again looking out, tripping over himself or his untied shoelaces on his Nikes, causing him to fall into an uncomfortable crouch that he held until his laces were tied up again to avoid this a second time, groaning once he was on his feet again.

His phone yet again buzzed hastily, and his clutched hand on his phone seemed to even feel the vibrations through his entire forearm let alone his palm, and he ended up looking up to a block of unfamiliar flats and just grounded there temporarily to try and see who texted him so desperately and with unfathomable urgency.

And sure enough when he opened his phone, all the messages belonged to James. Every one. Asking where he'd gone, why his location wasn't searching on his own phone, and why the flat was empty yet again proving the first point. Again, Will saw it only as, a drink. Nothing more, and he could just apologise later.

He just quickly responded, as he was still online by the threat of another message being typed yet never sent out, [I'm coming back, I just wanted a breath of fresh air. Don't worry Jimbo.]

Sending that message so perfect and making it make sense somewhat baffled Will as he was tipsy like aforementioned, but that gave him somewhat confidence to go up to the flat again and restart walking, passing by the busy roads and getting waft after waft of exhaust from cars or motorbikes and it was quite frankly a bit disorienting to him, but he just ducked down continuing on, and after another few unheard pints from his phone once again, Will looked up and breathed fresh air noticing James' flat just a few paces.

"Thank god.. thank fucking god." Will said in almost a swash of relief, as he would then approach the flat building and since the door seemed notably locked, he just took a moment to compose himself, adjust his hair a bit in nerves, and finally after the faffing about, knocked on James' door, waiting to be let in again.

Back at the bar however, and after the drink sagas were sorted, there was Tommy partway through a ranting about seeing Will in such a state, while Toby and Jack were attempting to catch up.

"Jack no, I'm.." Tommy started, "I'm sure something is slightly wrong or at least off with Will." He was fiddling uncomfortably with his fingers against the smooth wooden table.

Jack seemed to nod softly toward Tommy's words of concern, and sipped a bit on his cider that he got, tipping up the bottle to gain a swig before his response. "Wait, Will? That northern one right?"

"Fucks sake, yeah I mean the northern one! The other one's nothing but a sick dickhead anyway, as we've known." Tommy exclaims, all while Jack's and now Toby's eyes seemed to widen from the snap the blonde offered.

"Yeah, okay that's true. Anyway, those from Newcastle seem like a friendly bunch, so.." Again he took another drink, then Toby who had remained silent like being in interrogation finally seemed to pump up and speak as well, against Tom's worry.

"But, to be fair he has a bit of logic. There's been a hell of a lot of scraps in Brighton. Like, James could've been warning him of it and you're assuming it was him?" Toby was trying to find words that weren't offensive to his friend, but rather as an assumption?