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Spring is blooming, bright and lovely across campus. It feels almost like a mockery to Simon’s ever darkening prospects. Each vivid blossom is a personal vendetta, a twisted reminder of fiery autumnal leaves and the easy warmth of Wilhelm’s palm in his own.
They had stood at this very lake, then, Simon pitched forward to nuzzle into the soft wool of Wilhelm’s scarf. In those fleeting moments before disaster, Wilhelm had laughed more than he ever had before, his mouth perpetually quirked up at the corners, eyes filled with mirth as he shamelessly raked his gaze up and down Simon’s frame every chance he’d had.
Simon sinks a rock into the still water, watching the ripples of his action spread.
There’s hardly any snow around the mouth of the lake now, tufts of green reeds and grass springing from the cold earth. In the distance, a flock of birds quail loudly, flying low above the rippling water before disappearing up and over Simon’s head.
The world is moving on. Rotating past the hurts of an insignificant, sixteen-year-old boy and the love he’d so desperately and foolishly tried to protect.
You keep letting people piss on you.
Simon sinks another rock into the lake, the plunk of it settling like lead in his own stomach. Everything he’s done, every barrier he’s constructed, every bit of misery he had inflicted upon himself, upon Wilhelm – beloved Wilhelm – borne from the wayward words of the person Simon had trusted most in this world.
Simon thinks of his mother, work weary and weathered because of the very man who had sworn to protect her. Of his father, who used to help Simon fight the invisible monsters that inhabited the dark corners of his room with a voice made of honey. He thinks of Sara, supposedly born from the same stock as him, hands supposedly creased with the same hard work, heart supposedly sore from the same bruises.
He thinks of the time they were all together, the four of them under one roof. Of a fleeting childhood and a house that once felt like a home.
And finally, he thinks of Wilhelm.
Wilhelm, who walked into his measly, shoebox of a bedroom one night, and lit it up from the inside out. The warmth of his teasing laughter reverberating the very walls, sweet smiles sparking life into Simon’s weary bones. A whispered can you suck me off, Simon?, a watch haphazardly tossed onto the bed, the burn of carpet beneath his knees, the curl of Wilhelm’s fingers in his hair, the stutter of their shared breath –
The way Simon fell in love, between one moment and another. The way, just for that night, he had had it all, all under one roof, in a house that felt like a home.
In the end, he lets the last stone in his hand drop soundlessly back onto the bank. The water has smoothed out now, the need to disturb it, to stand up and make a fiery declaration before the world, is no longer present.
Simon’s phone says he still has more than an hour before his first class even begins so he sinks down by the water, letting his hair frizz out in the frosty, morning air. Soon, Simon will try to make things right. He’ll attempt to do what he probably should have done weeks ago.
But for now, for just this fleeting moment, he tips his head back in the dewy sunlight and wills himself not to cry.
. . . . .
Wilhelm is regal and lovely even in sweats and a puffer. His hair stands up in soft tufts from the wind and he’s breathing hard, shoes beating out a steady drum beat against the hard, packed earth as he rounds the bend towards the front entrance of the Forest Ridge dorm building.
Simon watches him conspicuously from his seat on the bench by the door, purposefully waits until Wille has spotted him in return. “Hey.”
Wille pulls out his headphones at once, fingers fumbling in his haste to slide them into his pocket. “Simon. Hi.” He opens his mouth like he wants to say more, but he must think better of it because nothing else comes forth.
Simon lets the silence hang between them for a moment, his own nerves nearly rendering him mute as they often do in Wilhelm’s presence. “Did you have practice?”
Wilhelm shakes his head, huffing out a strained breath. “No, just – just a run.” He looks lost, cheeks flushed and eyes flickering between Simon and the door to the dorms behind him.
Simon nods, wets his wind chapped lips. “Right. The weather’s been a little better lately.”
Wille’s mouth pulls up in a ghost of a smile. “Yeah.” He takes a jerky, half-step towards the door. “Did you – uh. I need to shower before class.”
“Can you stay for a while?”
Wille sinks down on the bench beside him at once, both knees bounces rapidly until Simon puts a hand atop one to sooth the motion away.
“Are you okay?” Simon asks him quietly.
Wilhem nods, gnawing at the inside of his lower lip. “Yeah,” he says, then lets out a breath like he’s been punched. “No. I – listen, Simon, I want to apologize for what happened on the shooting range. I just. August makes me so fucking angry and all I could think about was how much I wanted to – ”
“You don’t need to apologize for that,” Simon scrapes his thumb over the ball of his knee, “Not to me, anyway. It was – actually nice of you. To stand up for me, I mean.” He looks at Wilhelm, whose gaze is still tightly shuttered, fixed on an unspecified point across the school grounds. “Thank you.”
Wilhelm hums, but he sounds distracted, far away and unreachable. Not for the first time, Simon wonders what’s on this boy’s mind lately. Is the it jubilee celebration in a day’s time? The speech? The fact that his parents will be attending? August? Or perhaps, it could be Simon himself, burrowed into the back of Wille’s thoughts the same way Wilhelm has made a home for himself in Simon’s own.
“Listen – ”
“You don’t owe me anything, Simon,” Wille interrupts him at once, words all but falling out of him. Like he can no longer hold them at bay. “I can appreciate the other day for what it was. But we can forget about it if that’s what you want.”
Blood roars in Simon’s ears, something sick burning in his chest and clawing its way up his throat.
I think we should maybe forget about it.
He pulls his hand away from Wilhelm’s knee abruptly and clenches his fingers together in his own lap. Simon will never understand how he keeps managing to tumble into these situations. Perhaps it really is him, always laying himself bare and unwanted at people’s feet.
His voice is a lot smaller than he would like when he asks, “Is that what you want?”
“Of course it’s not what I fucking want,” Wille snaps, eyes turning on him with full force, “How can you possibly think that’s what I want? Do you know how much I – after everything that’s happened between us.” He shakes his head, “You know how I feel about you.”
And here in lies the very crux of the problem, the epicenter of all the doubt that Simon lugs around on his back. “Do I?”
Wilhelm’s jaw clenches, a shadow of something dark slanting over his face. “I’ve told you.”
“You also told me you wanted us to forget about it when I first kissed you.” Simon draws his knees up to his chest in a desperate attempt to keep his voice steady. He sees Wilhelm’s expression falter, but he plows on nonetheless, “And then when I tried to text you to see how you were doing after the funeral, you told me you didn’t want to see me anymore and told me to delete your number. And then we were – we were having sex and you said you liked me, but you would’ve let me get kicked out of school for those pills – ”
“ – that’s not true – ”
“ – you said you weren’t going to lie about the video, but you did anyway. And then you showed up at my house when I said I didn’t want to see you, and basically asked me to keep having sex with you – ”
“That’s not what I said, Simon, stop putting words in my mouth.”
“I’m sorry, you asked me to keep having sex with feelings with you, that we couldn’t be seen together. We’d basically never be able to do anything together except have sex in your room and you know it.”
Wille startles, his shoulders beginning to hunch with hurt.
Simon wants to scream, wants to take this terrible, wonderful boy in his arms and peel his skin open until he can feel what Simon feels. And then he wants to hold him, to see him soft and happy, to press gentle kisses into the splotchy skin of his cheeks and tell him how loved he is, how much Simon adores him.
“You – ,” Wille rubs at his mouth weakly, presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, “Are you just trying to make me feel bad right now? Because you know you hurt me too. I told you that I – and you. You didn’t even wait a full month. How the fuck do you think I felt?”
Simon shakes his head, “I never lied to you about it. It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” Wilhelm stands, and he’s breathing harder than he was when Simon first asked him to sit. “You were kissing Marcus in front of me on purpose. You did it to hurt me. And then you had the audacity to act like it was all my fault when the thing with Felice happened.”
Simon presses his face into his knees and fights the growing lump in his throat. He’s not sure how this conversation has managed to run so far away from where he’d intended for it go.
Wille’s voice is hoarse now, soaked with pain and anger that Simon himself has inflicted upon him once again. He wishes he could take everything he’s said in the last five minutes and cram the words back down his throat, wishes he could take everything he’s done in the last few weeks and erase it from existence. Wonders briefly if he can take himself back to whatever miserable hole he came from and simply disappear.
“I’m sorry about the thing with Marcus,” he offers wetly, voice muffled in his jeans, “and with Felice. And about the solo thing. I didn’t – I’m sorry I hurt you.”
Immediately, Wilhelm moves to stand before him and puts a hand through his hair. “Simon,” he begs, and his voice cracks. “No, Simon. I’m sorry, too. I’m so fucking sorry. Hey, look at me,” his other hand tips Simon’s face up, cupping his jaw. Simon’s not sure what his expression is saying, but Wille’s mouth twists sharply downwards at what he finds. “Hey, please, please don’t cry, Simon.”
Simon shakes his head, fresh embarrassment coating his underbelly. He frees himself from Wille’s hands, ducking his head and huffing out a laugh. “I’m not – going to cry.”
But Wilhelm’s concern doesn’t waver. He sinks to his knees before Simon’s seated form, warm hands breaking Simon’s grasp on his legs and sliding forward until his head is buried in Simon’s stomach. Wille’s elbows dig into the tops of his thighs, his fingertips press into the small of his back, and Simon shivers from the onslaught of precious memories they dreg up –
Wilhelm, only a few days ago, sitting on his cramped, single bed, legs dangling over the side while Simon perched in his lap, knees spread on either side of his hips. Wille’s playful hands sticky with their come, pressing the mess into Simon’s spine, his ribs, reaching up to his mouth while Simon squirmed, cackling, and tossing his head from side to side in an effort to avoid him.
“Shhh, stop struggling,” Wille had teased, grasping at his jaw with tacky fingers, “C’mere, I’ve got something for you.”
Simon had tried to shove away, but between Wille’s fingernails digging bruises into the small of his back and his own breathless laugher, he’d been helpless, Wilhelm’s middle and pointer fingers managing to catch his half open mouth, swiping bitter against his tongue.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” Simon had complained at once, leaning in to press a kiss into Wille’s mouth.
Wilhelm had let him without complaint, shoulders still shaking with laughter, even when Simon pressed his bitter tongue back into his mouth.
“You’re fucking disgusting,” Wille had murmured, eyes soft and bright, looking at Simon like he was the question and answer to everything he’d ever want to know. And then Wilhelm had kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, again and again and again –
Simon buries a hand in the short hairs at the nape of Wille’s head and gently tugs. “People are going to see us if you don’t get up.”
Wille shakes his head. “So? Everyone here already knows the truth.”
Simon sighs, tips his back. The sky is bluer than it has been in months, the chirp of birds sweet enough that he wants to pluck each of their miserable feathers out one at a time. “We have class in like forty minutes, Wille.”
Wille groans, rocks back to rest on his heels. Now that Simon is looking at him head on, he can’t help but notice the way Wilhelm’s cheeks are gaunt, darkness smeared under his eyes. He tries to talk himself out of it, but the way his hand moves to cup Wille’s face is as second nature as inhaling. The way Wille leans into the touch feels like exhaling.
Simon steeps forward to knock his forehead against Wilhelm’s, tries to manage a smile. “You really need to shower.”
Wilhelm laughs and the gentle timber knocks something loose in Simon’s chest. He would gladly bleed for that sound, Simon thinks hysterically, would bleed for just a smile even.
“Alright.” Wille stands, offering Simon his hand. “Wait for me in my room?”
“Okay.”
. . . . .
Wille really does have a nice room.
It’s twice the size of the one Simon lives in, sparsely decorated, and it even has a spare bed. If he squints at it hard enough, Simon thinks he could do it. Perhaps he could successfully confine all of his precious memories to a box that would live under Wille’s bed, collecting dust and cobwebs as the years slipped by.
Learn to make a home out of just this little room.
Simon watches as Wilhelm rummages through the wardrobe by the door, pulling out a towel and a wad of clothing. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Wille tells him, tripping over his words in that horrifically endearing way that he does. He gestures vaguely to the bed, the chair, the desk that’s still absolutely littered with half-eaten fruit. “Uh – make yourself at home or whatever.”
Simon can’t quite hold back his grin. “I’ll be waiting.”
Wille nods, throws him one last glance, before the door clicks shut behind him.
And then Simon is alone.
He takes a hesitant seat on the edge of the desk, tucking his socked feet up onto the chair and swiveling it back and forth absentmindedly. He likes the way Wilhelm’s room smells, sharp and clean like soap. Underneath it is something distinct, something that Simon thinks is probably nothing more than Wilhelm’s sweat.
But he adores it, could peacefully drown in it if Wille allowed him to.
Love truly was the strangest of drugs.
To his left lies the still cracked snow globe, the glass shards that Wille had managed to scour carefully piled atop a stolen breakfast plate. He thumbs at the little bronze crown on the figurine, remembers the first time he’d really noticed it –
It had been a dreary afternoon, right on the miserable edge of autumn and winter. Not even the colorful foliage could brighten the day, but at the time, Simon had barely noticed. He had been entirely caught up in a flare of burning nerve ends from a simple come by after class?
Wille’s door had been unlocked and Simon had found him sitting in this very chair, spinning aimlessly with a pencil in one hand and the snow globe in the other. They’d stared at each other, baited breath and affection stringing them together like beads.
“Come here,” Wille had been the first to break the silence, always so bold and brave behind closed doors.
Simon had crossed over to him, losing his shoes, jacket, and backpack in favor of warm hands sliding around his waist and a head buried in his stomach.
“Hi,” his voice had come out all choked and shivery, fingers trembling as they carded through soft, golden hair. The sun had already begun to make its way down the horizon, backlighting Wilhelm in a haze of fiery orange. “Are you okay?”
Wilhelm had nodded, leaning back to peer up at him. “I need to see your lab notebook. I have a percent error of over six hundred.”
Simon had snorted, catching Wilhelm’s hands and prying the pencil and snow globe away from him. “That’s what you get for working with Henry.”
“I swear we only missed the equivalence point by like one drop,” Wille had pressed his face back into his stomach with a groan, fingers dipping under his sweater, “C’mon, Simon, help me.”
Simon had shaken his head. The fondness he had always felt around Wilhelm rose in his chest like the morning sun. “Sure. Let me get my backpack.”
Wilhelm had kissed his stomach, hands smoothing down his sides. “You’re the best. Thank you.”
Then, Simon had taken a step back towards the door where he’d dumped his bag upon entering, only for his eyes to catch sight of the ridiculous little item he was now in possession of. At the time, he’d laughed. “What is this?” he’d asked, delighted as Wilhelm matched his laughter, albeit a bit more embarrassed. Simon shook the little globe, watched as tiny, plastic snowflakes rested gently atop a crowned frog. “It looks like you.”
Wille had flushed, pink and gorgeous and lovely, looking like everything Simon had ever dreamed of having, “Just some dumb toy.” There was something nebulous in his gaze as he’d looked up at Simon then, honey-brown and molten. “Do you want it?”
“I can’t take this from you,” Simon had replied at once, carefully pressing the globe back into Wille’s grip. “It’s ugly.”
“I thought you said it looked like me, jackass.”
“Exactly.”
Wilhelm had stood then, quiet laughter shaking his chest. He pulled Simon in by the waist, the glass globe digging into his side. “Go get your book,” he pressed the words directly into Simon’s mouth, “I need to see that fucking titration lab before I get distracted.”
“You? Get distracted?” Simon had smiled into the half-kiss, “What could possibly – ”
Now, Simon wonders how the adorable little thing had managed to shatter. He hopes it can be fixed, if only because the memories it brings forth are so achingly sweet.
He’s half contemplating cleaning out Wilhelm’s desk for him when the door opens again and a flushed Wille slides through. He’s rubbing a towel through his damp hair, eyes trained on Simon from the moment he steps in the room, tossing his running clothes on the floor. “You waited,” he says, smiling.
“And you missed breakfast.”
Wille shrugs, drapes the towel across the back of his chair. “I’m having a big lunch. My parents are on their way for the jubilee thing.”
Simon nods, Wille’s words plucking him out of whatever remained of his reverie. “Cool,” he tries to sound encouraging, “Are you ready for your speech?”
Wille shrugs again, a motion far too deliberate to be casual. “Mostly.” He twists his hands together, picking absentmindedly at the skin of his hands, “I – um. I tried to talk to Jan Olof about your solo, but he shut me down. I’ll try asking again when Mama and Papa get here.”
“That might not be a good idea,” Simon tells him wryly, “I don’t think your parents want to hear anything about me.”
Wille tips his head back. He huffs a breath of laughter. “A little late for that. I’ve been talking to Mama about you all term.”
A match lights under Simon’s skin. He blinks at Wilhelm dumbly, “You have?”
Wille shoots him an embarrassed look. “She’s a little sick of me to be honest.”
Simon nods, more than a little shell shocked.
“What about – you? Like did you talk to Sara,” Wille winces, “or, someone - or, I mean, Linda?”
Simon shakes his head, his dread pooling in his stomach like acid. “No – why would I talk about – I mean. No. I don’t want to worry Mama about stupid stuff. She’s busy, you know?”
“Yeah, sorry, makes sense.”
Wille takes a seat to pull on a pair of mismatched socks and Simon watches him go through the mundane motions as if he didn’t just shake the foundation of Simon’s world. It’s becoming too common of an occurrence these days.
“And your Mama,” Simon presses on like a fool, because he can never leave well enough alone, “She was like – what did she say?”
Wille hums, frowning down at where one of his toes pokes out of his sock. “The usual. I can come out when I’m eighteen, I need to be careful about my image – nothing bad about you, don’t worry.”
Simon swallows, watches Wilhelm pull out his shoes from under his bed. Something strikes him all at once, hot iron sparking against metal. “You weren’t lying when you told me you wouldn’t say anything about the video, were you?”
Wille looks up, one of his feet half-way shoved into a shoe. His eyes are wide. “I – no. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t lie to you, Simon.” He sounds devastated, “It was all just so much more complicated when I got to the palace and I somehow convinced myself that it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. It was my fault – I wasn’t thinking.”
Simon hops up to stand at the same time Wille does, reaching for his shoulders to draw him close. “And you’re not – lying about the two years, either, are you?”
Wilhelm grips at his elbows. “I would never lie to you,” he tells him fiercely.
Simon looks up at him, takes in the steely glint in his eyes, the stubborn slant of his jaw. The softness that lingers under, only for him. Always for him.
The royal court might lie to Wilhelm, Simon realizes with a kind of gut-wrenching clarity, but Wilhelm will not lie to him, not intentionally.
“I know,” Simon whispers quietly, just for the two of them. The last of some long-made resolve drains out of him. “I trust you.”
Wille steeps their foreheads together, nuzzling into his nose. “You don’t owe me anything,” he says again, and this time the words don’t feel like barbed wire.
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.”
“I know.”
Wille smiles, just a soft uptick of his lips, and presses his mouth against Simon’s forehead for a moment in a mockery of a kiss, before he steps away. “Good.”
They make their way towards the door, Simon scooping up his bag on the way. Right before Wilhelm moves to open the door, he stops him with a hand on his arm. “You said two years, right?”
Wille searches his gaze intently for a long, long moment. “Yeah,” he says at last, “Until I’m eighteen.”
Simon glances back at the room. A home. Here. With Wille. He thinks of Wille in his own room. Another home. Curtains drawn, away from prying eyes – all eyes – just the two of them relearning each other with fingers and mouths and hearts. With Wille.
He nods, the vice around his heart loosening for the first time in eons. “Okay.”
To his credit, Wille doesn’t press him for anything more. Simply ushers him out of the door with a gentle hand on the small of his back.
Later, from the darkened edge of a hallway, he watches, entirely by accident, as Wilhelm falls into the embrace of his mother, curling his arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck. His eyes are squeezed tight, face tightened with an unspeakably complicated set of emotions.
I could be free –
His mother holds him equally as tight, her only remaining child. Her hands tremble as they caress the back of Wille’s head, smoothing over his hair and cupping his cheeks.
– free with you.
But here Wilhelm is, just another boy who desperately needs his mother, his family.
Simon thinks of Sara, of his mother, of his own father. And he feels a new resolve blooming within him, as tentative and fragile as the first spring flowers.