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They agree, before Emil and Kristian even go to Norway, before Emil even knows for sure he’ll be in Sweden, that it’s for the best: they’re still friends, best friends, probably even best friends who kiss when they’re home from university. But, as Leon says, they’re still really fucking young, and as Emil says, they’re secure enough to come back to it later. They want to be together. They will be together. Just — not yet.
When Emil goes back to London to help Søren move into the Kensington house, Leon catches him and they kiss, and it’s like nothing’s changed, and it hasn’t. It hasn’t. When Emil goes to Stockholm, weeks before Leon’s term starts, they laugh about how Emil will fit right into art school — and about how Leon will be much less at home on his law course.
They sleep together the night before he leaves, and Emil is expecting some kind of sense of finality, but — he just wants more. He needs Leon, in the same sort of way that a vase of flowers needs a table to stand on. Suddenly, he’s standing on nothing, and then he’s falling and crashing and breaking and he realises that oh — everything’s changed.
A month or so in, Emil leaves a note on his cupboard in the kitchen: ‘Going home for a few days. If there’s any post for me, please leave it outside my door. Have a good weekend, everyone.’ It’s genius, because this way, he doesn’t have to speak to anyone.
Leon was right. At university, he doesn’t stand out. In London, his Americanised English was far more noticeable than his occasional Swedish mispronunciation or odd intonation in Stockholm. Here, his brightly-coloured jumpers aren’t unusual. Worn DMs and thick leather satchels are common. He fits in in Sweden — or perhaps that really is just art school — and Emil realises now that actually, that’s fucking disastrous.
“You define yourself by your differences,” Kristian tells him as he stirs basil into their pasta. “In Norway, you’re Icelandic. In the U.K., you’re Norwegian. You deliberately keep a British accent in Swedish — yes, you do, don’t try to deny it.”
“I am Icelandic,” says Emil, ignoring most of his brother’s words.
“You’re as Icelandic as I am,” Kristian replies, and Emil takes a second to think about that, because his brother just is Norwegian, no matter where their mother is from. But Emil was actually raised in Iceland, which surely makes him more Icelandic— “And you’re uncomfortable now that you’re not the only who one looks like he came from an indie album cover from the eighties. Obviously, there are healthier ways of constructing your own identity, but it’s probably easier just to make yourself stand out than to completely change how you define yourself.”
“You know, most people ask how the flight was before launching into a discussion on identity and self-definition,” Søren says as he walks into the kitchen, throwing his arms around Emil and ruffling his hair.
Kristian shrugs. “If his flight wasn’t fine, he’d say so. Why bother with small talk?”
“Small talk is important. It might actually help you to get to know people,” he says as he releases Emil.
“Nothing eventful happened on my flight,” Emil says, rearranging his hair. He doesn’t really see how that would help get to know someone.
“I can’t believe your problem is that you fit in too much,” says Søren, hypocritically skating over the small talk. “That’s just so you. But listen, Emil, I don’t think it has to be a problem — even in a crowd of pretentious art students, you’re going to stand out in some way. How many of them can recite obscure Icelandic poetry, after all? What really matters is that you find someone else who, like you, is even more pretentious than the rest of them, and you stand out together.”
“So I need to be more individual, and then find someone like me?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds more complicated than it actually is. You just need to attract your kind of people who, incidentally, tend to be like you in the sense that they don’t quite fit in either. From what I understand, that’s how you found that group of absolute hipsters in sixth form. It’s really a credit to the narcissism you’ve picked up from Kristian.”
“Watch it, Andersen,” says Kristian. “Or you won’t get any gnocchi. You need to talk to people, Emil. They’ll find you as soon as you find them.”
Emil has absolutely no intention of talking to people in his classes, but nods anyway. Kristian’s cooking smells good, and he’s missed home-cooked food, so he goes along with it. He’ll wear a brighter jumper, or something, but he’s only at uni for a few years, anyway. There’s always Mathieu, who he spent most of the first week with. Emil isn’t sure he has a personality, but it’s not like he was expecting the same kind of crowd he had in London — at least it’s not like how it was Norway. And Emil does have a bad habit of mixing up not having a personality and genuinely just being a nice person.
Søren puts on a Domenico Modugno vinyl, and they eat. It’s good to be home.
EMIL (00:09): miss you ❤️
LEON (00:09): miss you too, ‘mil :( xxx
Leon’s talking to him, showing him his room, asking him about his course, but all he can think about is the feel of his smooth skin, his soft lips, kissing him.
“It’s — going well,” he says.
Leon beams. “I’m glad,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie, I was worried about you, ‘Mil. Thought you might retreat into yourself again, go back to the closed book you were when you first came to London, or something. You’re stronger than that, though.”
“Mmm,” says Emil. “Are your flatmates here? Do you get on with them?”
“Most of them have gone home for reading week, but yeah, they’re decent. No one makes too much noise, too much of a mess in the kitchen, or anything.”
“That’s good. I think mine are pretty similar.”
“Are they all international students too?”
Emil doesn’t actually know if any of the people he lives with are Swedish. “Uh, yeah. Mathieu’s French-Canadian, I think, and Feliks is Polish, and I’m fairly sure both Conrad and Emmet are German. Maybe German-American.”
“That’s cool, though. Do you speak English or Swedish with them?”
“Um — mostly English.” He doesn’t speak with them, full stop.
“That must be nice, like you haven’t even left London.”
“Mmm.”
Emil’s lips are tingling, as if they remember the feel of Leon’s. His chest aches at the space between them on the bed. His hand twitches as it takes everything he has not to put an arm around his — ex-boyfriend.
Why are they doing this, again?
“Do you want to get a coffee or something?” Leon asks, standing up just as Emil leans in to hug him, hold his hand, something. “We could go back to Kensington, or — do you fancy a drink at the V&A?”
“Sure.” Emil will admit he’s missed the V&A.
He’s pretty sure he’s missed Leon more, though.
EMIL (18:02): today was nice, we should do it again ❤️
LEON (18:19): get home safe, ok?
When he gets home, after an afternoon of overpriced lattes and under-appreciated art, Kristian and Søren are sitting at the dining table in the kitchen, photos strewn over the marble.
“Emil, come join us,” Søren calls as Emil throws his coat and satchel on the sofa.
They’re mostly Polaroids, over-exposed shots of the same five or six people. From the quality, Emil would say they’re from the mid-two thousands — oh-six, maybe, or perhaps oh-seven or oh-eight. The subjects: assorted arrangements of the six young men — all tall, clad in similar country-club appropriate attire, washed out by the flash.
“You dressed so badly in uni,” he tells his brother.
“It’s what everyone wore,” Kristian shrugs. “If Jack Wills sold it, we wore it.”
Despite the Oxbridge twattiness of the photos, Emil has to admit — Kristian looks good in them. He barely remembers his brother as a teenager — he was seven when Kristian moved to England — but the untamed hair, the sharp cheekbones, the thin shoulders all look like they belong in the pages of Emil’s sketchbook.
“Jesus Christ, you were a pretentious dick,” says Søren.
“I was a damn sight better than Kirkland. He wore his hair gelled back like that for the first three years of uni.”
“These are from your first year,” Emil says, looking closer at them. “Aren’t they?”
Kristian nods. “Most of them are from the summer. You know I didn’t come home during that break, so Arthur and the others stayed in Cambridge a bit longer, too.”
Considering all Emil remembers of the spring of Kristian’s first year is being flown out to England in a hurry and clutching his brother’s hand, crying, it certainly makes sense that Kristian would be wearing a somewhat dishevelled look in the summer. He looks so young here. Emil guesses it’s maybe two months before Kristian’s eighteenth, and before he rescued Emil from their parents.
Emil can barely look after himself, let alone a seven-year-old and a medicine degree.
“You were easy to take care of.”
“I didn’t even say anything,” Emil says, raising an eyebrow.
“He can read minds, you know,” says Søren. “The other day, I’d had a really bad day, and all I wanted to do was lie on the sofa and eat dangerous amounts of Chinese food. And, get this — when I got in, Kristian was literally already there with an Italian period drama on Netflix and the Deliveroo app open.”
Kristian shakes his head, lips twitching into a smile. “It was a coincidence, I swear. You have insufficient evidence to incriminate me.”
“I disagree. You’re like Carrie. No, wait, you’re Edward Cullen! Yeah, actually, you being a vampire explains a lot.”
As Kristian and Søren bicker like a pair of old women, Emil goes back to examining the photos. They’re just so — aesthetically pleasing. Emil knows he drew the short straw, bone structure wise, and he knows that the Kristian in these photos wasn’t exactly healthy, but — god, he wishes he had his brother’s features. He’s fairly sure all his problems would be solved if he had the same chiseled jawline his brother had at his age. Years of hockey have made him broader and stockier than Kristian has ever been — he wouldn’t call himself muscular, exactly, but god knows it’s been a while since he fit into a size small — and he’s a good ten inches shorter, too. Kristian stands out in these photos, even among the other Oxbridge twats. He’s wearing the same clothes, but where Kirkland wears his cashmere jumpers and duffel coats like a middle-aged father, Kristian looks more like he walked off the pages of a French Vogue piece on the most eligible and insufferable bachelors rather than a golf course.
It occurs to Emil — not for the first time — that maybe what he needs to stand out in art school isn’t a different outfit, but a different silhouette. He pushes the thought down — again, not for the first time — but as he keeps going through the photos, looking, analysing each one, he can’t stop the flames in his stomach that flick and lick at him, yearning for the same willowy figure in the photos.
“Emil? You okay?” Søren asks, and Emil realises he’s been in his head for too long.
“Mmm, fine. I’m going to get some sleep, I think.” He pauses and looks at Kristian, twenty-eight with a degree and a house and a boyfriend and a heart that is no longer trying to kill him and yet still, delicate shoulders and thin arms and carved, porcelain cheekbones that are just in every way imaginable more elegant, more beautiful than Emil’s freckled cheeks and sturdy build. “Can I take one of these?”
“Of course, I was planning on throwing them away. I look like such a mess, it’s embarrassing,” Kristian says. Søren protests, trying to save memories that aren’t his.
Emil picks up a couple of the photos. Later, he slips them carefully into one of his sketchbooks. He does not sleep well that night.
EMIL (09:17): hey, want to get coffee?? x
LEON (17:33): got a deadline, sorry
As he sits on his bed in his room in Sweden, he stares blankly at the photos on his pinboard. It’s pretty fucked up, he realises, to romanticise the malnourished body of someone dragged back from the brink of death. It’s pretty fucking disgusting, in fact, and Emil hates that he’s doing it. He hates himself for it.
He understands now why the photos fit in so well in his sketchbook. Emil has a style — his sketches are good, obviously, but more importantly, they’re beautiful. It’s taken him this long to realise that the two aren’t necessarily synonymous. His sketches, his paintings, all his art is beautiful, because goddamn does he want to be beautiful. Traditionally, classically beautiful. Beautiful like the human works of art covering the pages of Vogue, beautiful like the subject of a Sicilian sonnet; quella c’a blonda testa e claro viso, lo suo bel portamento. And Kristian is that.
Emil is so hungry.
His hands are shaking pretty fucking badly when he’s painting in the studio the next day. He skips choir practice that day, and hockey the day after. Mathieu manages to catch him just he’s leaving the flat Friday morning.
“Emil! Are you okay? I meant to ask sooner, you weren’t at practice,” he says, with what seems to be genuine concern.
“I’m fine, don’t worry. Just wasn’t feeling up to it.”
“Oh, I hope you feel better soon!”
“Thanks,” says Emil, and he goes back to the studio. He only has one class today, so he spends the rest of his working on his next assessment — acrylics, a large canvas in darker tones. He has an overdue essay on the Ferrarase art tradition, but he just doesn’t fucking care.
He sleeps through Saturday, finishes his essay on Sunday and eats breakfast on Monday. He can’t remember what else happened on Monday.
And all of a sudden, he’s noticing his jumpers are slightly too big. He’s digging out a belt from the back of his wardrobe. He feels disgusted. He feels like an absolute fucking mess, and he hates it. He hates knowing that he’s lost control now, there’s no way of getting it back and he’s on a slippery slope. But, he finds himself thinking, he can count his ribs and that’s all that matters.
It’s worked — Mathieu notices. Mathieu notices his absence from the kitchen and hockey practice and his bonier wrists and slimmer waist and it’s worked. Emil’s managed to find someone he can depend on to catch him when he falls, like he had in London. But everything’s changed, again. Mathieu notices, so Emil hides it. Because Emil doesn’t want to be helped. Emil doesn’t have a problem. He doesn’t need to be helped.
“Emil, you’re shaking — are you sure you’re okay?”
“Caffeine rush, got a deadline tomorrow. Thanks for checking in, though, Mathieu. I’m fine, honestly.”
Mathieu doesn’t seem convinced, but his phone rings and he gives Emil one last worn smile before taking it into the kitchen.
Emil locks his door behind him, collapses onto his bed and sleeps for ten hours before he gets up again, showers vigorously, throws on the one pair of jeans that still vaguely fits him and goes to class again. He eats dinner that night, and can’t sleep. He doesn’t have a problem. He hasn’t lost control. He’s just tired, and stressed, and that’s why he can’t sleep — it’s stress. It would be pathetic if he was anxious because he ate a plate of pasta. It’s just stress from his five deadlines.
He goes out-out on Friday. Mathieu knows someone from a Canadian society or something who works at one of the nicer clubs in Stockholm, so they go together because they both need a break, and Mathieu has started to grow on Emil.
They predrink bad vodka while listening to Spanish music in the kitchen, and Emil gets very smashed very quickly and Mathieu is giggling far more than usual and Emil thinks he remembers Feliks hovering nearby and the sch-nap of an iPhone camera.
In the club, it’s all kind of a blur of bright lights and pounding bass and Emil welcomes it because it’s a considerably friendlier kind of numb than he’s used to.
Mathieu looks pretty nice tonight, all acid-washed denim and eighties vibes that rival Emil’s, so it’s no surprise that he disappears pretty quickly with this friend, leaving Emil alone and drunk on the dance floor. He’s drunk enough to dance without inhibitions, and it feels fucking good — and so do the lips of a shorter, dark-haired young man. It’s not Leon, he has to remind himself. He doesn’t even look much like Leon — the eyes aren’t so warm, the jawline is weaker, the mouth and nose are completely different — but later, in the guy’s apartment, it’s Leon’s name he wants to scream, breathless and flushed. It’s nowhere near what it was like with Leon. It’s full of desire and desperation, and it’s a fucking mess — neither of them know the other’s name — and Emil isn’t entirely sure if it’s what he needed or if it’s just made him crave Leon more.
He gets a taxi home, texts Mathieu to reassure him he’s still alive and alright, and passes out on top of his duvet at four a.m.
EMIL (18:21): what are your term dates again? i’m back in london on the 15th...
Christmas comes around pretty fast, and before Emil knows it, he has three essays, two projects and a presentation due. He’s heard Stockholm is gorgeous during the festive season, but he wouldn’t know, because he barely even leaves campus.
Being busy is good, though. It’s inertia that fosters anxiety. Emil likes being busy, because when he’s busy, he can’t lie in bed thinking about Leon. When he’s busy, it’s understandable that he doesn’t have time to make dinner. He goes from rarely seeing the people he lives with to not even seeing Mathieu more than twice a week.
In the last week, though, as everyone is either crashing or close to crashing, Mathieu suggests they do something with the flat.
“It’ll be fun,” he says, watching Emil sip his fourth green tea that day — it’s meant to help with stress.
“So is getting a good grade.”
“I know you don’t necessarily know the others that well, but they’re nice, honestly — I mean, I don’t know Conrad and Emmet that well, either, they have kind of split off from the rest of us, so it could just be us and Feliks?”
In the entire first term, Emil has spoken to Conrad and Emmet fewer than three times. If he saw them out of the context of the flat, he knows he wouldn’t be able to identify them.
“Why can’t it just be us?” Emil asks, well aware that he sounds like a needy boyfriend. In truth, he’s only just got used to Mathieu, and throwing someone else into the equation sounds simply terrifying.
“Feliks doesn’t socialise much, either,” Mathieu says, and it’s a surprise to Emil. Feliks is just the type. “He’s probably worse than you, if I’m honest.”
“But he’s so — ostentatious.”
“And you’re pretentious, but that doesn’t mean that you like socialising.”
“I mean, I suppose that logic follows. I’d rather Feliks than the other two.”
“Good, I’ll tell Feliks. Pizza and Netflix, Friday evening?”
“Mmm, sounds good.” Emil is already doing calculations in his head — half a pizza is socially acceptable, and if he goes for a run the morning after—
Friday comes quickly, because the only other thing Emil has to focus on is Renaissance art techniques. He and Feliks sit at opposite ends of Mathieu’s bed, neither visibly comfortable with the situation — and Mathieu was right, Feliks is awkward when they’re talking. It’s a less falsified, less vivid side to his flatmate, and if he’s honest, he probably prefers it. Feliks seems more real, somehow, when he’s not trying to be a paler, Polish Kim Kardashian. Emil gets it, though — having a mask is a better way of dealing with social situations than avoiding them.
“The cinematography in this is gorgeous,” says Mathieu through a mouthful of pizza. “And god, the characterisation — it fucking gets me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about what I’d do if I was in Walt’s position. I mean, obviously I wouldn’t cook meth. But like, would I try to hide everything? Would I lash out? I have no fucking clue.”
“You can’t handle that kind of thing on your own,” says Feliks. “You can’t hide it, it’ll destroy you. I mean, it’s mostly what’s destroyed Walt, kind of. I’d have to tell someone. But I guess, like, ultimately? I’d want it to be graceful, I’d want to, like — fade away, I guess. So I’d probably just end up slowly cutting myself off eventually.”
“I’d be angry,” says Emil. “At first. Then I guess I’d just get impatient.”
“Impatient? You mean, you’d—?”
“Probably. It’s less painful, anyway. My brother’s boyfriend is an oncologist, and — I’ve heard enough, you know?”
Mathieu and Feliks are silent as the characters on Mathieu’s laptop screen scream cutting abuse at each other.
“I think I’d do the same, actually,” Mathieu says. “It’s just — hearing it from someone else changes it, I think. Maybe we’re more selfish when it’s other people. I wouldn’t want you to do it, but I would. The hypocrisy of it, eh?”
“Yeah,” says Feliks. “I see what you mean.”
Mathieu yawns and stretches and goes to get a few bottles of cider, leaving Emil and Feliks alone. The silence is broken only by the characters on the screen, and then—
“Emil, do you think — do you think Mat’s okay?”
Emil raises an eyebrow. “Okay by normal standards or by Mat’s standards?”
Feliks bites his lip. “Listen, please don’t mention it to him, but, like — god, I don’t want to say it — I’m not sure he’s eating properly.” When Emil raises his eyebrows higher, he seems to panic and hurriedly elaborates. “I mean, he’s so skinny, and like sure he’s probably naturally skinny, but I rarely ever see him eating, and I’m just — I’m just worried the stress is getting to him, or something.”
Emil actually finds the irony pretty funny. “I don’t think you need to worry. Mathieu is probably dealing with the workload the best out of all of us. Besides, he’s usually out when everyone is in — hockey practice is pretty intense.”
“Okay,” Feliks says, still biting his lip. “Okay. You’re probably right. I’d just — I’d feel awful if someone was doing something like that to themselves and I didn’t even notice. Like, that kind of shit is just so much worse if you’re alone.”
It stops being funny and starts to kind of ache, and Emil wonders how far Feliks’ perceptiveness goes. It’s wrong that he sees it as a threat, and he knows it’s wrong, but he’s pretty glad he’s going home next week anyway. He doesn’t need any keen eyes on him. Or maybe he does, but — he doesn’t want them. He craves the shaking hands, the fuzziness in his head, the ache in his chest — it’s a better kind of ache than when he thinks about Leon.
Mathieu comes back with another whole pizza that he and Feliks eat between them, and Emil tries to bite back the bitter taste that Feliks’ words leave in his mouth for the rest of the evening.
EMIL (22:34): i’m flying home tomorrow, do you want to do something together? i miss you, leon
It’s strange: Emil loves art school. He loves spending his time painting and writing bullshit essays and trying out new techniques. Yeah, the people situation dulls it, and yeah, his mental health has seen better days, but — art school itself, Emil absolutely adores. The course content, when compared to his A-levels, is phenomenal.
But every time he comes back to London, he just wants to drop out and work in the bakery on the corner and keep living with Kristian and Søren forever.
Kristian is working late the day Emil arrives back in the U.K., but Søren meets him off the plane, and honestly, when he and Kristian started sleeping together, and when that twisted itself into a relationship, Emil was wary of him, mistrustful with his precious brother, but now Søren’s greeting him with a tight hug and really bad Icelandic — and Emil wonders, who are those people in Norway to him? These are his parents. This is his home.
He doesn’t say any of that, of course, but he hugs Søren back pretty fucking tightly and even engages in his small talk, just to indulge him. When they get back to the house, the Christmas tree is already up in the living room, there are brightly coloured throws draped over the sofas and Søren lights a fire. When Kristian comes home, they drink hot soup together while (re)watching Amélie.
The next day, Søren makes pancakes for breakfast. Kristian makes sushi for lunch, and they order pizza for dinner because it’s Saturday and there are bad films on TV that are a far bigger priority than cooking. On Sunday, Kristian makes French toast for breakfast, quiche for lunch and Søren makes linguini for dinner. On Monday, they leave him in bed reminding him there’s food in the fridge for breakfast and lunch, and that they should both be back for dinner. Emil goes to the gym for two hours and tells himself he’s fine even when his vision begins to blur and he can barely stand anymore.
It’s stir-fry for dinner, and Emil’s stomach is so unused to any kind of fried food now that he ends up in pain for the rest of the night.
He goes to the gym pretty much every day, and goes twice on days where Søren and Kristian are home. After all, it’s not like he has any other plans — his group of friends from sixth form has kind of dissolved, and his only friends now are either in the same house as him or in Canada. Perhaps even Poland, if he’s stretching it. When he’s not at the gym, he’s thinking about being at the gym while doing work for his course.
His old friends do organise one house party, though. It’s on a Wednesday, and Emil very nearly doesn’t go when he thinks about the possibility of disturbing his brother and Søren when he gets home in the early hours of the morning, but he washes up anyway. Leon doesn’t answer his text asking if he’ll be there. He’s not there, anyway.
Emil feels sick even before he drinks — as he’s thinking about the calories in alcohol, the sheer unhealthiness of each drink — and doesn’t feel much better once he starts, either. He’s not a lightweight, but there isn’t exactly anything lining his stomach to soak up the alcohol, and before he knows it, he’s dancing — then he’s dancing with someone — then he’s kissing someone — then he’s being fucked hard in a guest bedroom.
He throws up six times in the adjoining bathroom, alone. He doesn’t even remember which one of his old friends he fucked.
Someone finds him eventually, in the early hours of the morning. Carinne, he thinks. She was always closer to Leon than to him — and yet she’s there, helping him up, handing him a glass of water, supporting him as he loses his balance again, and he can’t stop himself from asking, whispering, pleading—
“What did I do?”
She looks at him in confusion. “Like, tonight, or...?”
“Leon,” he chokes out, before throwing up again.
Her look softens. “Emil, you didn’t do anything. Leon’s being an idiot. I’ve tried to talk to him, I’m sorry, he’s trying to help but he’s got it all wrong—“
And Emil’s vision blackens and he passes out and the day after, he remembers nothing.
EMIL (08:12): merry christmas eve
Christmas Eve is the first time both Søren and Kristian have a day off, and thus Emil wakes up to an enthusiastic tenor rendition of Ding Dong! Merrily on High and the smell of roasting pork — because in his own words, Kristian is ‘strictly vegetarian until it’s just wrong not to eat meat’. Søren Skypes his parents in Copenhagen, and Emil and Kristian receive an onslaught of excited Danish compliments when he flips the camera around to them lounging in front of the fire, each with his nose in a book. Christmases with just Kristian were never lonely, per se, but Emil enjoys having someone else around.
Predictably, both Søren and Kristian are tipsy by dinner and upon handing Emil his gifts — a new camera, new watercolours, new iPhone that isn’t cracked beyond recognition, the William Blake DMs he’s had his eye on — Kristian giggles and says, “Fulfil your art hoe dreams, skatten min.”
Søren raises his glass to that, laughing and handing them both plates of food. It’s a veritable feast, and Emil’s anxiety levels are higher than the tree in Trafalgar Square. He forces one plate down, is faced with another and chooses instead to pour them both another drink. Søren’s cat happily eats his pork under the table, unnoticed. Crisis averted, and more importantly, Emil wins charades.
Kristian and Søren drift off in a wineful haze sometime around eleven, and Emil doesn’t have the heart to wake them up before twelve the next morning.
EMIL (00:03): ...merry christmas, leon.
Christmas Day passes uneventfully; they go for a walk in the park, all parties complain about the lack of snow, plans are made to move to a country with better weather. Kristian seems to spend the day trying to sleep the alcohol out of his system before he has to work the day after, while Søren and Emil entertain themselves with an over-enthusiastic game of Scrabble which Søren wins — unfairly, in Emil’s opinion, and Kristian’s testimony that there was no cheating is frankly quite clearly biased.
In the evening, Emil sits down with his laptop and his essay and knocks out one hundred, maybe two hundred words before it gets to him. His resolve is weaker at home and he knows the fancy chocolate in the kitchen would make the history of German printing less painful.
And so at one in the morning, Emil finds himself in the kitchen, drowning in his own conflicting thoughts and reaching for the snack, dissociated from his surroundings, and he almost misses the figure in the study — almost —
“Kristian,” he breathes, and his brother jumps violently. “Kristian, what’s wrong?”
Through quiet sobs that wrack his entire body, Kristian shakes his head and stammers out some sort of deflection. And suddenly, Emil is seven years old again, standing in the doorway of an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar country in an unfamiliar language, while his brother cries, raw and ugly. Their parents whisper grimly to each other, but Emil can’t hear them — his own thoughts are too loud, his heart is pounding in his head as he tries to tell himself it’ll be okay, Kristian will be okay, Kristian said he’ll be okay so he has to be okay.
“It hurts,” Kristian had said then, and Emil had hurt, too.
Now, as Kristian is curled up in his desk chair, clutching his chest, Emil feels it again.
“Is it — is it from when you were stabbed? I thought it had healed? Should I be calling Zwingli? I’ll call Zwingli—“
“Don’t. It — didn’t. It didn’t heal. Not really. It—“ Kristian cuts off to cough weakly, and seven-year-old Emil sees blood spatter into his hand, and eighteen-year-old Emil forces himself to blink the image away. “I — it couldn’t heal properly.”
Emil doesn’t understand. “You mean — for what, ten months? — it’s been—?”
“Hell,” Kristian coughs. “I’m fine during the day, mostly, but when I’m tired — it hurts, Emil, it hurts so fucking much.”
Emil pushed Kristian to go back to work, to stay in England, to keep practicing. The guilt — but Kristian said—
“It couldn’t heal? It — it won’t heal?”
Kristian freezes, eyes wide with — guilt? Fear? “I didn’t mean — I — fuck, Emil.” He takes a deep, long breath, one hand still rubbing his chest. “It won’t. I won’t.”
“I don’t understand — you mean — but Zwingli said he could fix it — I don’t understand.”
“He did, but — it was already damaged, so he couldn’t — oh, Emil, this is not how I intended for this to happen.”
Emil is crying now, too. “So — so that’s it? You’re dying, Kristian?”
Kristian flinches, and whether it’s from pain or Emil’s words, Emil doesn’t know. Emil doesn’t care. “It’s not — it’s — I’ve probably got about nine years, maybe a little more, maybe a little less.”
Emil registers Kristian’s words, but his ears are ringing, and nine years echoes in his head. Nine years — his brother, his only brother, his only family — he doesn’t understand. He wishes he didn’t understand. He wants to wake up now, please. He wants the nightmare to be over now.
“Emil, pack your things. We are going to England because your brother has got himself sick.”
“No, Emil, Kristian is too frail for young visitors. I can’t let you see him.”
“Emil, you understand that your brother might not make it.”
He isn’t seven anymore. Kristian is fine, Kristian will be fine, Kristian has to be fine.
“Emil? Can you hear me?”
Emil blinks, and some of the tears in his eyes clear. He nods.
“Emil, I’m sorry,” Kristian says, pulling him into a hug.
“Why — why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
Emil sniffs into Kristian’s shoulder. “When were you going to tell me? Does — does Søren know?”
“Emil, you can’t tell Søren.”
“That’s — that’s fucking stupid, he’s your boyfriend.”
“I know. But I can’t tell him. I just — I just can’t.”
“You’re being stupid and stubborn.”
“I know.”
“But Arthur knows.”
“He does.”
“Your ex-boyfriend shouldn’t know that you’re dying before your current one does.”
“I know.”
“Then—“ Emil pulls back from the hug, and stares blankly into his brother’s red-rimmed eyes. He feels like he should be angry about this, in Søren’s defence, but he doesn’t have enough energy left for that. “Then tell him, Kristian. He deserves it.”
“I know, Emil. I feel fucking awful about it. But — but I’m just — I’m just scared he’ll decide he wants someone who isn’t broken, who isn’t slowly falling apart.”
Leon. Leon doesn’t want to deal with Emil’s shit — he’s had enough of his anxiety, his panic attacks, his nightmares, his self-doubt. He wants someone who isn’t broken, who isn’t tearing themselves apart. Emil understands now. But—
“But Søren — Søren isn’t like that.”
“I know. Deep down, I know that, Emil. But I can’t—“
“Shake the feeling,” says Emil. “That he wants something better. Someone better.”
“Yes,” says Kristian. “That’s it. But we’re not talking about Søren anymore. Emil, why are you here? Why are you awake?”
Emil shakes his head. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He will do anything to avoid this conversation. Especially now. God, he just wants to die — let Kristian live to see his fortieth birthday, and take Emil instead, because what the fuck is the point anymore? What the fuck is the point without Kristian? What the fuck is the point of a fucked up art student, the disappointing younger brother of a genius? Why is it Kristian, and not him?
“God, we’re a pair,” Kristian says. He coughs out a laugh, but it sounds bitter. “Can’t even talk to each other about our issues.”
Emil closes his eyes. “I haven’t eaten today.”
“What? Why?”
“I didn’t want to.”
Kristian frowns. “You weren’t hungry? Do you feel sick?”
“No, it’s not—“
“Oh, my god,” Kristian says suddenly, and Emil knows he doesn’t have to say any more. He feels as if his guilt is about to swallow him whole. Kristian doesn’t deserve to have to deal with his problems. Emil is disgusting, starving himself to try to look like Kristian, who is actually in pain, actually suffering — he’s disgusting.
Kristian stands up and winces. “I’m making you food,” he announces. “You look like you’re about to pass out, God — how didn’t I see?”
“I’m fine,” says Emil.
“You’re not fucking fine, Emil, Jesus — fucking Christ, this is my fault. Søren fucking said you looked thinner, and all the bullshit with Leon — fucking hell.”
Emil feels as if he’s watching Kristian through a thick pane of glass. He’s not really sure what’s happening now. He’s not really there. Kristian is dying, his brain tells him, and he’s just worked out Emil’s self-destructive habits.
This is bad, his mind supplies. He’s been found out.
He doesn’t want to do anything about it.
He watches as Kristian boils pasta, and then makes a cup of tea, and places it in front of him. He stares at it.
“Eat,” says Kristian. “Please.”
And Emil realises, suddenly, he’s hurt Kristian. Kristian is worried about him. He’s fucked up. He’s fucked up. He’s fucked up — he never wanted to hurt Kristian, he just wanted to be prettier, he just wanted Leon to like him still, he just wanted his old life back, before he went to Sweden and before Kristian was stabbed and before Leon suggested they take a break—
“I know,” Kristian says softly, and Emil realises he’s crying again. “I know, baby. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“It will be okay. Leon will realise he’s made a mistake, I promise you.”
“It — it wasn’t a mistake, he deserves better than—“
“Emil,” says Kristian. “Eat. It will make you feel better. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
Through his tears, Emil smiles. He eats the pasta, and then he drinks the tea, and he does feel better — even though it’s not okay. But it might be okay. Someday.
“You need to tell Mathieu, okay?” Kristian says. “It’ll be hard, but you can overcome this, I promise.”
“Okay.”
“You’re strong, Emil. You’ve survived a hell of a lot.”
Emil hugs Kristian, burying his head into his shoulder.
It’ll be okay. Kristian says so.
EMIL (02:17): i need to talk to you.
LEON (02:22): ok
LEON (02:22): now?
EMIL (02:22): i’ll call you.
Emil nearly throws up after eating a full three meals on Boxing Day.
“Your body is craving nutrients,” Kristian says. “Your mind may disagree, but you need this.”
Emil knows he’s right. He listens.
LEON (03:11): fuck, emil, i’m really sorry.
They get coffee in the V&A again.
“I’m really fucking sorry, Emil. I fucked up.”
Emil sips his mocha. “Why did you — I mean, I get why we broke it off when I went to Sweden, that made sense, but, like, not being friends at all?”
Leon sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. Emil is pretty mad at him still. But god, he’s in love. “I was being an idiot. I thought — I thought that if you had a new start, in a different country, you could move on properly from your parents, and from Kristian being injured, and things.”
Emil supposes that makes sense. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”
“I know, I’m so fucking sorry — I should’ve supported you, I should’ve listened to Carinne, she told me it was a stupid idea, but I was so certain — but it was stupid. I love you.”
“I love you too,” says Emil, but bites his lip anxiously. “I’m — I am a mess, though, and I get that that’s probably pretty hard to deal with—“
Leon looks horrified. “‘Mil, no. I wouldn’t break up with you because of a mental illness — god, that sounds so shitty. We’re both fucking wrecks, anyway. You dealt with me when my parents split, even though it fucked me up. What the fuck kind of boyfriend am I if I can’t support you?”
“I guess you’re right,” says Emil. “I’m — I’m glad I have you back.”
“I’m glad to have you back, too, ‘Mil. I missed you so fucking much.”
Leon’s hand finds his under the table.
“I missed you too, Leon.”
EMIL (17:34): mat, do you mind if i talk to you about some stuff?
MATHIEU (17:34): Go ahead!! Anything I can help with??