Faroe Gone Final Chapter Sneak Peak
So there's still lots of editing I need to do before I can post the whole thing, but with tomorrow looming I thought I'd share something "happy" and "cheerful" to distract y'all.
Have fun reading the beginning of the final chapter and hope you enjoy! 😇
Simon doesn't know if it's the sudden fog, his tears, or the fact that all he wants to do is be a fool and turn back around again—the first one, definitely the first one—but he drives back to Tórshavn at almost a snail's pace.
It doesn't matter. He has well over a day until the ferry makes its return journey to Denmark and nothing else to do except go over his time with Wilhelm again and again, replaying the good times and the pleasurable times and wondering if he could have said or done anything to change the outcome of his journey—other than realizing that all of his feelings were mere nostalgic illusion and fantasy, which of course turned out to not be the case.
Quite the opposite. Real Wilhelm was so much more than what Simon made him out to be in his head. There's so much he's missed. So much he doesn't know yet and which he desperately wants to find out.
It hurts, and yet there's nothing else Simon can do, no other choice which wouldn't hurt more sooner or later.
No. Simon tried. He did the best he could and that is enough. It has to be enough.
Simon had to leave while he still could.
The road ahead of him is empty, no one else in sight. No people, no cars, no sheep. Nothing except the wet, cold fog swallowing up everything and a rushing noise in his ears which might be the wind or the ocean or Simon himself.
Simon blinks away another tear and keeps driving, turning up the heat and hoping it will help.
On the next island he passes a camper van. It's parked, and Simon thinks he can make out a brave tourist trying to take a picture, but he isn't sure. It's not as if there's much to see except an endless wall of grayish white.
Maybe that's the fascination.
Wilhelm told him that there are thirty-seven words for fog in the Faroese language, and while Simon laughed and told him to stop kidding, he's sure he's already experienced half of them, and it's only been two days.
Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but contemplating the uselessness of taking pictures of fog is a lot more bearable than lingering on the fact that he'll never get to be with Wilhelm again, never feel that satisfied ache in his muscles, not like this, and really how long can a grown man cry before he's all out of tears?
Simon once stopped Ayub's baby daughter from attempting a daring escape on all fours, and Simon swears she was crying forever. Not that he blames her.
Crying is cathartic if it's anything, but if she could produce that many tears because of nothing more than a foiled plan to explore the stairway, then how many will Simon be able to shed before he's all wrung out? He’s a lot taller than her after all and guaranteed to not forget the reason for his tears even after being presented with some candy.
Simon doesn't want to know.
Simon wants to keep driving through this fog forever, because all that's waiting for him at its end is the mundanity of his never-changing life and a scandal revealing the Crown Prince to have been the victim of underage revenge porn thanks to his second cousin and presumed successor, and that is guaranteed to make it worse, to drag Simon’s name back into public awareness.
He should probably call home and warn his mom, warn Sara, but facing them will be torture of an entirely different kind, and also the investigative journalist they chose is a good one, one bound to build a case and not blindly believe her sources before going public, so there is still time.
Not too much though, as there is an impending deadline if the Royal Court and the Prime Minister are to be believed, or at least Simon would really prefer news of August’s deeds to overshadow him being taken into the line of succession.
Not that he’s so naive as to think a mere article can do more than delay the proceedings at best—although one can always hope—and ideally the journalist and whoever else gets a say in choosing the right time will see it the same way, but all of that is still more than half a week away, so why burden his family before he absolutely has to?
No, he's not going to call home yet, but maybe he should reserve a room before he gets back to the capital.
He decides to do it the old fashioned way and pulls over at the next opportunity. A viewpoint, or so he presumes the sign a few meters away from him would tell him if only it was clear enough to see.
He wipes at his cheeks and opens his phone. There are plenty of options for him to stay at. Small, privately owned places, holiday homes with kitchens and living rooms, quaint little hotels doing their best to sell their Nordic, rustic charm to tourists wealthy enough to make it there, and of course a camping ground, because unlike Sweden, the Faroe Islands don't allow one to set up camp anywhere else.
Simon doesn't choose any of them. He wants a warm but bland room, boring and inoffensive and as likely to be in Tórshavn as on the other side of the world.
Something as far from Wilhelm's colorful and most definitely handmade and expensive wooden furniture as he can get, and so he books himself a room at the first—and only—international hotel chain he can find, something he'd never do otherwise, and pretends that he's looking forward to it. The hotel has a fitness center after all and well over a hundred rooms. Simon is almost going to feel like back home in Uppsala.
He sighs and makes sure he received a confirmation for his booking, before he throws his phone onto the passenger seat and sighs again.
Somehow, magically, or rather because he's on a windy archipelago in the middle of nowhere, the fog is starting to clear. He can see a few meters of grass now, and then a cliff, and below it the cold, dark ocean pretending at being calm.
Simon wants the fog back, but when has he ever gotten what he wanted, and by the time he's back on the road he swears he can see a tiny patch of blue sky up ahead.
The hotel is on the outskirts of town and exactly as impersonal as Simon hoped it would be. He isn't hungry, and so he goes straight to his room and falls face first into bed.
The sheets are white and the pillows are white and they smell bland and clean and inoffensive, nothing at all like Wilhelm, and why would they?
Simon hates them. Simon also hates the hotel, but it's not as if he's in the mood for sightseeing, and as he isn't willing to take a shower yet—what? He's alone, no one's going to smell him, and isn't that the entire problem?—all that's left to do is turn on the TV, because he's for sure not touching his phone again any time soon.
Not when that would mean having it confirmed with every passing minute that he was a fool to leave Wilhelm his number. Wilhelm isn't going to call, but Simon would rather live in denial for as long as he can.
The TV does not greet him with an info screen as Simon expected, but an English speaking news channel, the volume turned up way too loudly, and Simon turns it off again as fast as he can.
Wallowing in self pity it is then.
Unfortunately Simon's usual answer to bouts of self-pity—angrily jerking off to thoughts of Wilhelm—is not an option right now, because Wilhelm is the entire reason for his misery, and so he grudgingly reaches for his phone after all and starts up a game which would work much better on a computer screen.
He's just about to finish off the newest boss, when a text message pops up.
If I do it, it reads. Then can we
The sentence stops halfway through, and Simon almost has a heart attack.
The delay in his reaction is enough for him to be killed instead, but it's not as if Simon notices.
Wilhelm. It has to be Wilhelm.
He taps the message, and while that makes it larger, it doesn't change the words.
He almost calls Wilhelm back right away, because Wilhelm is swaying, is reconsidering, and Simon wants that, he wants it so bad, to have Wilhelm back in his arms and his life, but also Simon already told Wilhelm that he can't be the only reason Wilhelm returns, that this is a life changing decision if there was ever any, and that Wilhelm needs to make it for himself and not for a hope of them maybe working out, and so he doesn't.
Instead he waits an excruciating minute and then another, just in case Wilhelm wants to add something or pressed send too soon, but no further message follows.
Simon curses and swears and kicks up his feet, because now he has hope again and that is great, but also torture. He doesn't want Wilhelm to get the wrong impression, doesn't want him to think that Simon wouldn't be willing to pick right up where they left off if he could—in the bedroom that is, not when it comes to fighting—and maybe they could also go on a date which has been nineteen years in coming.
Simon wants that. Simon really wants that. How can he not, now that he's had a taste, has spent time with Wilhelm, just Wilhelm, has had breakfast with him and done chores with him and played with his dog. Simon wants Wilhelm back, now more so than ever.
Simon knows he's an idiot, thinking of romance and dating when he just left the love of his life behind, and even if he hadn't, a returning Wilhelm would have much different things on his mind. He'd have to. He'd have no other choice. Things like his dying mother and the throne and the public reacting to his return after ten years in exile.
Wilhelm wouldn't have time for Simon, no matter how much Wilhelm would want him. Not for weeks and not for months. Simon would have to sneak into an assortment of palaces with the eyes of the entire nation on nothing but them if he wanted any time with Wilhelm at all, and Simon wouldn't want that. Simon doesn't want secrecy and sneaking and lies. Not that'd even be an option, what with the press and curious bystanders everywhere.
There is another option of course. The only one Wilhelm would ever consider coming back for. The one which at first glance sounds perfect because it means being with Wilhelm and standing by his side. It would also mean giving up everything else in Simon's life though, but what has he really got to lose? Why stop being foolish now?
Wilhelm told Simon that he's it for him. Wilhelm loves him. Simon's already traveled across an ocean. What's one tiny text message compared to that? Why can't he be selfish just this once and fuck the risk and the idiocy and the fear of what will be in one year? In five? In ten?
It all might end in disaster, but it might also not, and why should he be miserable if there's even the slightest chance at some fleeting happiness. After all it's not as if the email Wilhelm sent isn't bound to upend Simon's life anyway, and it's not as if Wilhelm is actually going to come.
Simon wants to be happy and now there's a chance for it and so why not take it? He's done stupider things before, like coming here in the first place, so he might as well go all the way.
He doesn't text Wilhelm a yes, doesn't make any promises. He texts one word and one word alone, followed by a number, the name of the hotel and his room number, and maybe that's the biggest promise of all.
He doesn't regret it. He couldn't stay, not without making his inevitable departure even worse, but now he's done his part and the ball is in Wilhelm's court, all the balls are, and Simon is here and waiting.
For a ferry. For Wilhelm. For the life they could have had.
