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Wille and Simon sit on Simon's bed, watching a horror film on his laptop. The two of them are bundled up in a blanket and Simon sits in Willes lap, something Wille is grateful for. It allows him to cling to the smaller boy in terror during jumpscares while the smaller boy in question laughs his ass off. Simon will never ever be permitted to choose the film for movie night again.
“Here it comes…” Simon teases, laughter filling his voice as the music begins to build.
“Not again!” Wille scrunches his eyes shut and tightens his grip around Simon's waist. He can see the unfortunate fate spelled out for the jock on the screen.
Right as the music swells and a scream rises from the speakers a loud buzzing fills the house before cutting out, taking the movie's audio with it.
Wille opens his eyes to see that the room has been plunged into darkness. All he can make out are dark shadows and the movie has been replaced with an “ unable to connect to the internet ” message.
“Oh for fucks sake,” Simon groans. “That was the best part.”
“What was that? What happened?” Wille has Simon in a death grip.
“Just a power outage. But, uh, you’re really squeezing me right now.”
“Sorry. I got scared.” Wille mumbles guiltily and loosens his arms.
“It’s fine. C’mon, we can grab a flashlight from the kitchen to use as a nightlight.”
“ Hell no. Did we not just watch the same movie? I am not leaving this room.” Wille shakes his head and Simon twists around in his lap.
“Wille, come on, if there was a killer in the house he could get you here too.” Simon pauses, as if coming to the conclusion that that was the worst possible thing to say. “But there isn’t. You’re totally safe.”
After that it takes a lot of coaxing to get Wille to do anything other than freeze in place. Finally, he allows himself to be pulled out of the room. He clutches Simon's hand in both of his while Simon whispers praises of his bravery and shines his phone flashlight down the hallway.
“¿Mi amor? Ah, there you two are. There wasn’t a bang so I think a branch landed on a power line. The electricity should be fixed by tomorrow morning,” Lindas cheery voice startles Wille so bad he jolts and wraps his arms around Simons. “Wilhelm, are you ok?”
Embarrassed, Wille manages a little nod while Simon fails to hold back a laugh.
“He's fine mamá. We were watching a horror movie, that’s all.”
“Simon, not everyone likes those movies like you do.” Linda scolds her son.
“ Yo sé, yo sé mamá.”
“This boy, he thinks those movies are funny.” Linda says to Wille, shaking her head in endearment.
“Some of them are!” protests Simon. There are no flashlights to be found but he picks up an electric lantern and switches it on. “Like Jaws .”
Back in Simon's room the lantern lights the room up much better than a phone flashlight but Wille almost wishes it didn’t.
His imagination provides him with a monster or ax murderer in every corner he can’t see. The coat hanging off Simon's door is a person and the fish tank is a hunched over creature. Even after Simon has done a sweep of the room with his admittedly shitty phone flashlight for him, (Wille refused to relinquish the lantern) making a point to check under the bed and in the closet, Wille isn’t convinced.
“I promise there’s nothing.” Simon soothes, sitting beside Wille on the bed and stroking his hair.
“I know, I know. I know it’s my imagination. It doesn’t make any sense for something to be there, it's just… ugh.” Wille groans. “That comment about the killer getting me here too didn’t exactly help.”
Simon chews his lip guiltily. “I’m sorry. Here,” he reaches behind where they sit on his bed, “you can hold onto Bear.”
Bear is Simon's childhood toy, a very literally named teddy bear. Bear is a well loved stuffed animal. His glass eyes are a little damaged, his fur matted in places, and his yarn smile frays at the ends. Whenever Simon lets Wille hold onto Bear he can feel the love the old toy carries being given to him as well.
“Thank you.” He smiles at Simon and plants a kiss on Bear's head.
“I’ll protect you too.” Simon gestures for Wille to lie down and when they’re both under the blankets he drapes himself on top of him. “See? Safe.”
“Yeah.” Wille puts his arms over Simon's back. “No more horror movies.”
“Ok, no more horror movies.” Wille can hear a but in his boyfriend's voice. “But have you ever seen Tremors ?”
“ No . No more scary stuff.” Wille shakes his head firmly.
“It’s not even scary! Do you hear how stupid the name is? It can’t be scary.”
“That’s what you said about
this
movie.”