Work Text:
Will Darling spent most of his adult life expecting to die.
He hadn't wanted to, of course. But when one came of age in the midst of war, one did learn to accept mortality as due course. His days scrambling and hungry on the streets of London had infused in him a scrappy sense of survival that had never quite left. And then, of course, had come Zodiac, with their murderous threats, and that survival instinct had dug in its heels and stubbornly refused to let go.
But along with Zodiac, there had been Kim. Kim Secretan—that nervy, twisty aristocrat—who gave him all the reasons he'd been missing to live, rather than simply survive.
Kim, who kissed him and offered him starlight, and a bloody, dangerous job to go with it.
Kim, who was supposed to outlive him.
Will had expected to go first. That was his role, as the Angel. That was the way it was supposed to work. He was the brute, the pigheaded one who tried to solve every problem with his fists or his knife. Kim was slippery, and cunning, and too beautiful to be felled by something as mundane as a wasting sickness.
But life didn't follow the rules Will set for it, and Kim was just as contrary in his own way. Despite Will's raging, and pleading, and desperate bargaining with the God he abandoned in the trenches of Flanders, Kim continued to get weaker.
Will didn't fight now. He had nothing left to offer, except scarred hands ("sturdy like English oak") and a steady presence at Kim's bedside. Those slender, pale hands clenched his, and every rattling breath from Kim's mouth settled into his own chest. Kim's beautiful dark eyes were distant, and Will could only hope they saw the moments of love and tenderness between them, rather than whatever demons had chased Kim before Will came along.
A final gasp, a flutter of dark lashes on pale cheeks, and a clench of fingers in his warned Will when it was time. He tipped his head down, pressing forehead to forehead, and kissed Kim through his final moment, saying goodbye in the only way he could.
Will had expected to die. He'd never expected to live, with all the starlight gone.