Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Under XANA’s possession, William’s suit was sexy. Unnecessarily so. William already had his handsome face and hair, but that skintight suit showed everything. Every muscle, as well as the curve of his ass. Not that he was particularly buff; he was the tall and lean type. Yet another one of XANA’s ploys to use the lyoko warriors’ sexualities against them. (No one admitted it, but they were all thinking it.)

It certainly distracted Aelita.

One of the times he subdued her with his Supersmoke, she woke up on the floor of the Overwing; and the first thing she sees? A couple of useless belts wrapped around his left thigh. She wasted a few moments just staring at his butt, wondering what purpose those buckles had while admiring the aesthetics of it, as he drove the Overwing closer and closer to the edge of the desert sector. She barely jumped off in time.

There was that time in sector 5 where she had gotten the upper hand for once. She sent William flying back with a well aimed energy field, and placed her foot on his fallen sword. As they exchanged a charged look, Aelita realized the phallic implications of her action. It distracted her enough to lose balance when William summoned his sword.

And then there was that other time where she charged him with her wings and they both fell to the ground, rolling about until she ended up straddling his waist and her hands framing his face. (In hindsight, such a position between them was inevitable. It had already happened between her and Odd and Yumi and Ulrich. Multiple times.) She stared down at him like an idiot, a moment which he quickly took advantage of.

Additionally, besides her nightmares, she would have …dreams… of him.

She’d be in the tower, imputing the code Lyoko. A hand would touch her shoulder, and she’d turn to find William centimeters away with that look on his face. Sometimes the dream would end there; and Aelita would chalk it up to being just another nightmare. But other times it continued, with them wrestling each other to the ground and unzipping each others’ suits.

Or she’d dream of being on top of him again, her hands on his wrists. With the help of dream logic, she’d hold him down while grinding against him until he forgot all about his mission and gave in to her desires.

The power dynamic between them in these dreams were quite fluid. One moment he’d be in control, on top, with her in his mercy. The next moment she’d wrest control from him and had her will. Whether she was on top or bottom, Aelita just wanted more. She’d wake up sweating, heart racing, and her panties damp. She eventually decided that these dreams were a lesser evil than the nightmares. But only just. She didn’t tell anyone else these things, not even Yumi. It was a crazy, stupid thing to think of willingly, but with Jeremie ignoring her again in favor of working on his multi-agent program, Aelita decided to latch onto another candidate for her desires.

And then they finally got the real William back.

Chapter Text

But the real William had changed. It was like William could be categorized as three different people. Pre-XANA, XANA, and Post-XANA. Aelita was relatively indifferent to pre-XANA William, and sexually attracted to XANA William. The jury was still out for this latest version of him.

In the days and weeks after his rescue and the shut down of the supercomputer, William seemed haunted. Tired. A bit twitchy. Brooding. A young man with history, a history that no one but Aelita and the other lyoko warriors could even begin to understand. But the others were afraid and wary of him. Aelita didn’t blame them; she felt a thrill of fear whenever he was in the same room. But she also knew it wasn’t his fault. While the others stubbornly ignored him, Aelita reached out.

It was tricky at first, though. William didn’t remember everything right away, but he knew enough to try avoiding her.

“That’s nonsense,” Aelita said flatly when he tried making excuses. “You didn’t do anything to me. It was all XANA.” She then told him about her own experiences under the Scyphozoa’s control, and he relented. And so, they started to have lunch together a couple times a week.

Gradually, Aelita got him to open up a bit. He was impressed to hear that she played the opening act at a Subdigitals concert, and she gladly showed him the recording. He nodded along to the music, smiling.

“I wish I was there,” he said wistfully.

“You were,” Aelita said without thinking. “Well. Um. Kind of,” She ducked her head, berating herself for such a careless comment.

“I don't think I was there for the music,” William said. Aelita laughed, and then stopped herself. But William apparently thought it was funny too, and chuckled. And so they began to laugh together. No harm done, it seemed. Aelita supposed they could afford to laugh about some of it now; it was in the past, where it couldn’t really harm them.

Aelita promptly got him a ticket to the next Subdigitals concert, as well as a backstage pass. It wasn’t like she had to pay for them anyway; after her performance as the opening act, and how she gelled so easily with the band members, they told her she only needed to ask and they’d gladly get her free tickets. The way William’s face lightened up when she showed them to him was perfect. A wonderful change from the slight frown he wore all the time. He looked at her and leaned forward a bit like he wanted to hug her, but stopped short. She rolled her eyes and embraced him. He tensed, and for a moment Aelita thought she must’ve made a mistake, but then he reciprocated, relaxing drastically under her hold.

They spent a few months like that, like friends. Slowly but surely, the others began to warm up to William until finally, finally, he could sit with them without rousing any kind of fuss. The awkwardness lingered, though.

He spent a lot of his free time at the school library, catching up on months on schoolwork. He read for fun a lot more too. Interesting, since the old William never stepped foot in a library unless it was for detention. He confessed to Aelita once that he didn’t like being alone in his room, or his thoughts, any more than he had to. She understood.

It concerned her, though, to see the circles under his eyes, day after day. Nightmares, obviously. She still had them too. They all did. But Yumi had Ulrich, and Odd had Kiwi, and Jeremie had his endless projects.

One night, by chance, they stumbled upon each other in the laundry room at 2AM. Having the same idea to get some clothes washed since they couldn’t sleep anyway.

“Nightmares?”

“Yeah.”

It was the beginning of their cuddling sessions. Platonic, of course. And it wasn’t every night. They’d hold each other, taking comfort in the other’s presence and warmth. When the nightmares did come, the effects wore off faster with having someone else there to talk about it with, who’d understand.

Jeremie eventually found out about them and got disturbed and possessive, the hypocrite. They had a heated argument about it, and Aelita left his room, realizing that they were over. They have been, for a while now. Especially since Jeremie quickly found other projects to obsess over after XANA’s demise. Perhaps he’d always been in love with the tangled web of computer problems that had surrounded Aelita, instead of Aelita herself. The ancient supercomputer that was her home, her materialization, solving her anti-virus, crafting her fake identity, allocating funds for her tuition…

She made her peace with it, but only after crying about it for a couple of nights.

And then XANA came back.

Chapter Text

Not only did XANA come back, but they discovered a new enemy as well. A human one. Processor Tyrone and his own virtual world: the Cortex. The lyoko warriors had their hands full even with William on their side.

Despite herself, Aelita flinched when she first saw William in virtual form. She had her energy fields out and ready, and William had to disperse of his sword and assure her he was himself before she calmed down. It was a little embarrassing, though it didn’t help that his form was a similar dark style to his XANAfied form. Hell, even the useless sexy buckles were still strapped to his thigh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing…”

Shortly after they turned the supercomputer on again, a new student transferred to their school. Laura. Nosy as Sissi, as well as being a savvy programmer to rival Jeremie. Now they were a perfect pair, their ‘dates’ spent happily coding on their laptops side by side, still as statues (except for their rapidly typing fingers, of course).

Aelita felt a little bitter, watching their relationship blossom, but ultimately wished them luck. Jeremie deserved some happiness. And she didn’t get a second chance at life to waste it pining over the first boy she laid eyes on, anyways.

She took out her sexual frustration during her sparring sessions with Yumi and Ulrich. Energy spent made her feel better, at least for a few hours. At night, though, she couldn’t help but ponder about dating. About the lure of a casual hookup. Was that for her? The discomforting ache between her legs merely told her to do something. And unfortunately, masturbation wasn’t enough. The nights she and William cuddled only made it more confusing. She still felt a kind of attraction to him. She didn’t know if it was romantic. Did it need to be? And was he the type to think less of her for thinking so? Besides, she was still getting over Jeremie, and he was probably still getting over Yumi. She brought up the question to him one night. Was he interested in, well, being friends…with benefits?

William was silent, for a while. “I’m…I’m not sure,” he said carefully.

“I’m not your type?” Aelita teased, to hide the fact that her heart was in her mouth. “It’s alright-”

“No, it’s not that…” William said quickly. “I just…I don’t want to hurt you.”

Aelita rolled her eyes. “Well that’s sweet of you. But what if I tie you up? Then you can’t hurt me. Problem solved.”

William laughed so hard that heavy footsteps headed straight to their door, and the person outside knocked menacingly. William promptly hid under the bed - which was the first place that Jim looked.

They got detention and a stern talking-to from Principle Delmas. It was embarrassing, but whenever Aelita met William’s eyes they struggled not to laugh.

“I never took you for the kinky type,” William told her sometime after.

“I’m not really,” Aelita shrugged, hiding her blush, “It just seemed like the obvious solution at the time…”

“Of course,” he said, voice cracking as he tried not to laugh. “The obvious solution.”

But after a week or so, when Jim couldn’t afford to keep wasting time watching William’s every move, they met in his room. And started to explore each other’s bodies, bit by bit. It felt amazing, being so close to someone in such a way. They didn’t go all the way that night, not even close. But it sated Aelita, all the same. Their ensuing intimate nights together were quite the effective antidote for all the stress XANA and Professor Tyrone threw at them during the day.

After the first couple of times, the dam broke and they took every opportunity to find an empty space to feel each other up and make out - the janitor’s closet, the musty corner of the library, a secluded spot in the forest… For Aelita, it was a side effect of being trapped and conscious in a world of primitive 3D graphics for over a year. And William had the memories of the few but intense short months of total isolation in the digital sea that he wanted to overwrite, desperately.

They did experiment with rope, but only once. She had tied his wrists to the bedposts and started to kiss him. William’s initial relief and comfort with being restrained quickly dissipated. He wanted to embrace her, bring her as close to him as humanly possible. To put a hand in her hair, and another on her curves. To pull her back when she drew away teasingly. He only stopped from blurting out the safeword because of his shame of being easy and indecisive. So he suffered until Aelita sensed what he was thinking and untied him. But not before scolding him to communicate with her, dammit.

A few months later, XANA and the professor defeated, they celebrated by going to a Subdigitals concert together for an official first date.

Aelita had procured the tickets, of course. He was waiting by her door when she finally came out, ready to go.

William whistled softly as Aelita turned to him. “Nice outfit, Angel.”

Aelita smiled. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Honey.”

William made a face.

Aelita put her hands on her hips. “Well I think it fits.”

“It’s too mushy.”

“Like Angel isn’t?” she challenged.

William rolled his eyes but Aelita saw him smile for a moment there.

“We’ll find something,” William promised her. “But not honey.” Then he revealed the small bouquet he was hiding behind his back.

Aelita gasped and marveled over them. The group of flowers had petals of pinks and purples and oranges - and the pinks matched the shade of her hair. “Thought I’d get you something,” William said. “ I’d get you a drink but we’re kinda underage…well at least, I am. ”

Aelita laughed at that. She gave him a kiss and darted back to her room to lay the flowers in a safe spot.

And then they were off.

The concert was amazing of course, and they danced into the night. William’s hands on her hips, Aelita’s arms around his neck, swaying and kissing like the rest of the world didn’t exist. They left with a sheen of sweat on their bodies, their hearts feeling infinitely lighter. Taking full advantage of the moment to enjoy their youth. To be themselves.

Together.