The Docks [OPEN, tw: marriage break up, drunken behaviour, violent tempers]

[willcabot]

Sitting at the end of the dock, Will's legs draped into the cold water as he finished the last mouthful of the bottle. Turning the bottle in his hand, the amber glow made him for one awful moment think of Corry's hair in the fading sunlight- throwing the bottle impulsively at the wall, he let it smash satisfyingly before pulling another bottle towards him.

He couldn't feel his toes any more, he couldn't remember how long he'd been sat here for like this. He hadn't been home yet, hadn't been to the boat just in case she was there. Everywhere he looked it reminded him of her, of the life that they'd promised each other and the life that was now in ruins. Because she loved him. Ha!

Glancing at the ring on his finger, he pressed his forehead to the rim of his drink and took a gulping breath in. Her smile as she said I do. Pulling the ring off he stumbled up and backwards before throwing it into the deep waters of the cove. Turning his back on the water, he took another few mouthfuls and heading towards the shore.

"Shit," Will swore, dropping the bottle to the floor before he turned and ran towards the end of the dock. Tearing off his shirt, he jumped into the water and dived into the deep, ice cold waters. Shifting, he swam deeper and deeper until he found the band of metal down in the dark bottom. Clutching it in his hand, he swam back to the surface before pulling himself onto the docks. Collapsing on the wooden planks, he stretched out his hand and ignored the feet of someone else standing there. "Pass me a drink, will you?"

His hand curled round his wedding ring, letting the metal bite into his palm as he stared up at empty grey skies.

Comments

[trinamoon]

His marriage.

Trina is usually so quick on the uptake too, but she actually has to check his finger as he reaches out to help her onto the upper part of the boat where he's standing. It's easy to see the shiny gold wedding band is missing from his hand. She's beside herself for a second because this would be quite the scoop. The scoop of the year, hell. Her own fingers itch to reach back into her purse, pull out her phone, and give Dani a heads up. Her head is going to explode when she finds out.

Cabot-Flynn. Done. Less than two weeks after that oh-so-fancy and expensive wedding reception. She, herself, is even bearing witness to the fall out. Will Cabot seen drunk and heart-broken on his boat, calling for lawyers to take his ex-wife for every cent. A little bit of the truth stretched. That's how the gossip worked.

She puts down her purse on the deck's bench and goes over to him. He's drunk, probably rightly, but he looks like he's had enough. "Will, come on, let's sit down for a second," she offers, grabbing his arm and wanting to help him over to the bench, but he's bigger and not really going to move unless he wants.

[meowhistory]

"I hate when you can't escape a smell, like you rubbed your fu- like it's clinging to your clothes."

Lena cast around for anything to help. "I could get you a hot coffee with some booze in it so you'd smell something else?"

[edcabot]

"We'll have the lawyers do that. I'll get them started on it, I promise. Don't worry about that right now," he promised Will. Times like this made him always think about what Henry would do so Will's compliment about how much he looked like Henry was touching. But Ed knew he was a poor substitute for their oldest brother.

"I'm just going to take care of you for a bit, okay?" Ed asked, hugging Will close. It seemed ridiculous that his brother, as big and immovable as a mountain, would need anyone to take care of him. For a moment he hated Corrine Flynn in a way he hadn't hated anyone since that fleeing driver. "Which means coffee and breakfast and then maybe a swim."

[willcabot]

"You can tell them, I don't care... might as well benefit someone." Burying his head in his hands, he leaned forward as he took a breath and tried not to think about the last time they were together. How happy they had been, how in love she'd seemed but then she always was a good actress. He just never believed she was acting with him.

Following Trina's urging, he lets her tug him along before falling into a seat. "I thought she loved me, she said it enough. What an idiot."

[willcabot]

"I don't think coffee is going to help, she's everywhere I look. Maybe I should do what she does best, run away." Will said thoughtfully. Except he couldn't do that because he had commitments, because he'd committed to her and to this town because of it. Because he thought they were putting down roots. Together.

[willcabot]

"I was going to marry her before that, I knew she was the one for years. Alex stopped me buying a ring before," Will said. Alex stopped him but Henry would have told him why it wasn't a good idea. All he wanted was her to be happy. "Yeah, but she did know. She didn't just wake up on Christmas day and think today is the day I'm going to end my marriage. She made plans. She knew and she didn't tell me."

She lied. She left. He was alone. Because she loved him.

[asharpertongue]

"You know better than that, Will." Lara said quietly, filling his glass with watered whiskey again. "There's a difference between knowing and accepting it. Maybe she knew but she couldn't face it. It was wrong, Will, but I don't think she planned anything."

[willcabot]

It was easy to steer Will, another alcohol had made him incredibly pliable and manoeuvrable. He pressed a hand against Wren's shoulder before heading in the direction Wren pushed him in.

"Good, I'm glad. I don't like fighting people, that's not who I am." Will murmured. He had never been someone, despite his size, to solve things with his fists. It didn't mean he wouldn't defend himself but he tended to not go starting things. Except maybe with Les. He'd like to slug him just once. "She said she loved me. That's why she 's leaving me."

[willcabot]

He doesn't want their lawyers to take care of it. He knows what will happen. He knows that his father will make sure that Will is protected from that 'gold digger Flynn', that he drags Corry's name through the muck, that he will financially ruin her if possible. And he doesn't want that, he doesn't want any of that at all. She loves him.

"No, I don't- I don't want to. I don't want to start anything, I don't want to have to do that but if- when I do, I'll do it. Not the family lawyers," Will said, taking a deep breath in to draw in more air and not make it too obvious how close to tears he was. He hadn't cried since Henry. He didn't want to start now. "Sure, you can look after me. And I'll make sure you don't fall in with the Flynn's."

[fairywren]

Wren nods. "I know." When he'd first seen Will it had been easy to write him off as the privileged pretty boy. Handsome, rich, boisterous: between his size and his looks he'd pinged easily as the adult version of the kids that tried to kill Wren for fun when they were all in school. But he isn't like that, aggressive and arrogant for the hell of it; if anything he's kind of an idealist.

He winces when Will says what Corrine told him. He's been in situations where he's said similar things, that he couldn't let someone else be with him for their own good. It doesn't mean he thinks, now, that it was valid. "That's not fair," he says slowly. "If she doesn't want something, if she needs something else, or to be alone, that's her decision, much as it might hurt." They've crossed the short distance to his loft, and he unlocks the door and shoulders it open for Will, quieting Inari as she comes curiously over. "But it's not fair to mix it up with still loving you."

[meowhistory]

"Oh. Can I sit down?"

Lena never really had to deal with anyone's trauma before. Not enough friends, too much love inside the family to ever get bad. But she can't just ignore this without trying to help. "Maybe you can run away for a little bit, like the weekend?"

[trinamoon]

Maybe she should be offended or something that Will knows her so well, that he knows the string of thoughts that just blew through her head at discovering the end of his marriage, how it could help her sell papers or earn a commission from Dani if she sold the story to The Cove. She's the writer and he's her subject, and she tries to keep it that way but Will does make it...difficult at times.

She takes the empty space beside him, keeping a hand on his shoulder and his arm, trying to comfort him, relieved that he follows her request. She just tries to forget the papers for a moment because Will looks more torn up than she's really ever seen him. He is normally so bright and charming. He is wasted and clearly devastated right now.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," she says, because he probably shouldn't. She doesn't know what she would do with the information. If she'd keep it or do worse. "But you're not an idiot, Will. If she lied to you, it's not you. It's her."

[edcabot]

"Okay, we'll do it later," he said. Because there was no way he was going to let Will handle this stuff on his own. Their parents might insist Will do it all if he was so insistent on not letting the lawyers do it, but Ed couldn't do that. They were Cabot boys, they stuck together and were their for each other.

"I've already been in a Flynn, and it was fun, thank you. But don't worry, I'm not going to get into any sort of relationship. Not with her or anyone. Maybe in a few years I'll marry whichever girl mom keeps trying to set me up with that I can stand and just do that. No offense, but long term relationships are a disaster waiting to happen."

[willcabot]

"She planned a trip away, she decided to leave. She just made me do the leaving," Will said wondering when in that morning. When they were in bed together, when his mother had rung about the afternoon's arrangements, when exactly it was that his wife thought she was just going to quietly slip away. Except she'd wanted to give him a present, one last meaningless thing. He'd never cared about presents, not from her. The only thing he'd ever wanted was her in his life and happy. Apparently he couldn't even give her that.

[willcabot]

Her hand presses against his shoulder until he turns and draws Trina closer. Hands at her waist, he presses his face against her shoulder uncaring that she should see him like this. He doesn't cry but it's enough just to rest his head against her shoulder, to feel the warmth of her body near his. It wasn't a hug from him but it was almost just as close.

"I'd tell you if I knew, if I knew what I'd done. She just was cooking lunch and then gave me a present and then that was it, she was going to leave." Will said. He still, days later, did not know what he had said or done to make his wife so miserable. To make her compare how he made her feel to her father and mother's relationship. "I'm the one who believed her."

[willcabot]

"It's a free dock," Will said, gesturing wildly to the whole dock as if there were queues of people wanting to sit down. "Wouldn't that be nice? Want to run away with me? Make me forget all my troubles?"

[willcabot]

"I don't need to know how you bedded my wife's little-" Will cut off, remembering that she wasn't going to be his wife not for very much longer. However long it took a divorce or an annulment whichever became the most obvious answer. He doubted they'd let their marriage be annulled, not when their relationship and sex life was constantly splattered all over the pages of the newspapers. "Maybe I should have let her do that for me. Then this wouldn't have happened."

[edcabot]

Normally Ed would have kept pushing with the relationship between himself and Abigail. Not that there was much of a relationship. Mostly it was friends with benefits. Never mind how recently they had become friends. This time though, he hadn't see his brother this hurt since Henry. He wasn't going to tease him right now.

"Would you really have rather had that than the short time you had with her?" he asked instead. "I ask this as someone who has never been in love, not someone trying to be all zen or something. Would you trade the happy bit away because of this?"

[trinamoon]

Trina gives him a concerned look, brow creasing with worry, as Will leans his head against her. She lets her hand rest against his back, patting his shoulder, which probably looks awkward since she's half his size. More than that, no one would ever consider Trina a warm comforting person, and really she isn't. She's too self-absorbed and cold for that. However, Will doesn't really give her a chance to be herself about it. He just kind of latches on, and it's not like Trina can tell him off and toss him on the ground. He's heartbroken.

Besides that she wouldn't. She likes Will. They aren't like the best of friends, but she's always had a soft spot for him. She's really never seen him this way, and she isn't quite sure what to do.

"Will you didn't do anything," she says, leaning back a little to look at him. "I saw you. You were happy and in love. I don't know what Corrine's thinking, but you didn't make her leave." Trina has not had the pleasure of knowing his wife well, and she probably never will now. At the moment she wishes she did because she wants to know what the hell the woman is thinking. Will Cabot is not someone you just ditch. His father is a U.S. senator. "Sometimes we can't explain why people do the things they do."

[meowhistory]

"I can't, I've already been away for four years because someone turned me into a cat and my parents thought I was dead because no-one told them."

"Oh shit I didn't want to say that." She sat down. "But you totally can, right? I'm pretty sure you have the money for just going and buying what you need along the way. That's how it works, right?"

[asharpertongue]

Lara shook her head but she couldn't dispute it. The flights might have been booked at the last minute but Corry would have run the scenario over and over in her head a million times before she acted on it. That's how she worked.

Making a drink for herself, she watched Will for a second. "Would you rather not have know? Waited years and years and maybe had kids or something before she figured it out?" She asked quietly.

[willcabot]

"Yeah, that's how it works. If you don't have people who rely on you." Will said. He could do it. Just run. Maybe he would.

[willcabot]

"I don't know. Maybe... No. I love her, I thought she loved me. Her not... doesn't change how I feel." Will said, rubbing his face. It was such a mess. What she'd done, how she'd left it. How she thought buying him a present might make it all better. He didn't know why she'd done it, why she'd made it seem like she loved him back too. Why she kept saying it even as she was telling him she was leaving. She loved him, that's what she had said. "I wouldn't trade a second. I just wish she hadn't... lied."

[willcabot]

"I don't know. I think I'd rather she just- told me. How she was feeling. Instead of just hiding it. She never used to do that," Will said. He had always been there for her, wherever they were if she needed him then he'd be there. Because even back then he'd always loved her, even if he was dating one or two of several models. He'd always drop everything for her. He wasn't sure what to do now that she didn't want him especially when she told him she loved him.

[willcabot]

It's kind of like when they were kids, except instead of pressing his face against Trina's neck to leave marks on her skin or trying to slip his hand beneath her tiny cheerleading skirt. For once he was actually leaning on her for support. Nothing else.

Sighing as she pulled back, Will rubbed a hand through his hair. Even if it wasn't something he had done, then it had to be because he was something she didn't want.

"Think I probably did, I'm not... him. That's who she loves, guess the papers were right about that too." Will said sighing as he wrapped his arms around Trina. "Wish we could explain it, might make it hurt less then."