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Grief is strange. Wilhelm isn’t any good at it.
The tight feeling in his chest has only gotten worse with each passing hour since his forced return to Hillerska. Being there, surrounded by so many people who have seen him at his most vulnerable and laughed, makes him nervous, jittery, like he’s watching his life happen to him from a bird’s eye view. It’s terrifying and surreal and he can’t make it stop.
The choir sings and even Simon’s voice, clear as a bell, doesn’t stop the swarm of bees in his head, the sheer rage he feels when he sees August, the frustration of all these smiling, sympathetic, hypocritical faces.
Wilhelm doesn’t recognize the hands he shakes, the people he smiles at, everything on autopilot like someone has flipped the switch between human being and royal. He’s a robot, a robot with the heartbeat of a hummingbird beating out its bony cage.
He wants to finish this and go home. Except home is hollow too, filled with expectations and disappointed mothers and dead brothers.
The air is too thin inside. Outside the air is crisp; his breaths puff like clouds of smoke from a dragon’s nostril, but he can breathe. He rubs his hand against his breastbone, applies enough pressure to hurt.
It isn’t getting any better. It isn’t getting any -
That voice. There. His whole world narrows to a single point.
Simon.
Everything is hazy, obscured in a haze of panic and need. He doesn’t remember complementing Simon’s singing, calling it - him - beautiful, like an idiot, like that’s even in the list of top ten things he needs to say. But his mouth won’t work, won’t form apologies, won’t apply its filter, and neither will his arms that work against his better judgment and pull Simon into a hug, warm and familiar and perfect.
Stop that, he hears his mother scold. He feels the phantom slap at his wrist even when Simon’s hands are gentle on his back.
“I love you,” he confesses to the skin of Simon’s neck, face buried there as if he could smother the truth inside him, a tomb for all the affection the world would not allow him to feel.
But he does feel it. He feels so much all the time. And it’s not fair that he’s expected to be strong.
Strong kings don’t need affection. Strong kings cast aside their emotions for their people. Strong kings don’t have breakdowns in the arms of their secret lovers.
Wilhelm isn’t strong. He is weak. And he is so very tired.
Panic crawls into his throat the longer Simon stays silent. Rejection stings worse the second time, a knife to his raw, bloody heart. Simon just keeps staring and staring, his eyes glistening with tears he’s too stubborn to shed, and he’s muttering something under his breath and Wilhelm is dying, Wilhelm is -
Wilhelm is being kissed.
Simon’s lips are on his, soft and sure, kissing Wilhelm the way he’s been craving for days now, the way he kissed him in his bedroom while the fish swam round their bowl, the way that promised this kiss and many more. Years of kisses. Decades.
Relief sends Wilhelm’s head spinning. He can’t keep his balance, has to grip his fingers into the red of Simon’s jacket to stop himself from falling. His whole universe shatters, scatters, reforms into vibrant technicolor, and it’s well worth the feeling of falling. Because Simon is there to catch him, to hold him up, to kiss him like he can’t get enough in front of their entire school.
The school…
Murmurs and camera clicks are what breaks them apart, Wilhelm’s head landing heavy on Simon’s brow. Their noses bump as they catch their breath, aware that their every move is being documented, live streamed, posted to some platform that will circulate the entire country in an hour.
“I’m sorry,” Simon starts to apologize, and Wilhelm cuts him off with another kiss.
“Don’t be.”
Wilhelm is so giddy he’s high, even higher than the night at the field. For the first time since this whole mess started, he cannot be bothered to worry. With Simon in his arms, everything is so blessedly simple.
“They can see your face,” Simon points out, chancing a glance at all the nosy onlookers, students and staff alike. “There’s no denying anything now.”
True. The Queen will be furious. All her hard work, all her talk about family and the crown and responsibility…
Wilhelm can’t be assed to care.
“I’ve had my fill of lies.”
He takes Simon’s hand and weaves their fingers together for the whole school to see. The voices in his head go quiet as the ones around them grow louder. Shout all they like, he only has eyes for Simon.
“Come home with me?”
Spur of the moment decisions born from rash acts of rebellion were hardly the right choice, but Wilhelm could not bear to see Simon walk away from him. He could face his mother’s wrath, the swarm of paparazzi, the online attacks, if it meant getting to spend that time with Simon in his arms.
Simon’s face splits open, a ray of sunshine through the bleak and grey winter day. “I’m pretty sure I love you too.”
Fuck if that doesn’t make Wilhelm’s heart skip a beat, fit to burst. Heat rises to his cheeks, and he knows he’s an undistinguished shade of scarlet, but his face is too busy splitting a grin to care about what the cheeks are doing.
He just has to kiss Simon, and he can now. So he does.