For the Wilmon ficlet...
What about number 35: “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”
Thank you💜
Thank you for the prompt! 💜 And sorry for the delay. I was trying to force a bit of smut for this one, but I just couldn't make it work - my brain was determined to take it in an angsty direction instead. So have a very angsty one instead, and if you were really hoping for something more fluffy/smutty/fun, @almostlake, let me know and I'll write another one!
35. "You heard me. Take. It. Off." 891 words, content warning for Erik grief and Wilmon arguing.
~
Simon’s trying to be okay with staying in the palace more often. He’s put it off as much as he can, but sometimes it’s unavoidable if he wants to ever actually see his boyfriend. Especially since the move to Göteborg. He can’t always expect Wille to come across country to him.
So Simon puts up with the weirdness, and the awkwardness, and the vague, nagging sense that the very building itself objects to his presence. If it does, well, screw it. That only makes him more determined to stamp his presence here every way he can.
What’s harder to put up with is the cold. Ancient plumbing and high ceilings are apparently no match for a particularly chilly Swedish winter. Wille and his parents seem oblivious, wandering around in regular clothing when Simon’s so cold he’s half-convinced he can see his own breath when he speaks.
He only brought one proper jumper with him, and it appears to have vanished somewhere, possibly collected by an over-zealous maid collecting the prince’s laundry. So while Simon was waiting for Wille to finish his shower, he’d raided his wardrobe for a replacement, finding a thick, warm hoodie that’s several sizes too big for him. He can’t remember ever seeing Wille wear it before, but it’s absolutely perfect to wrap himself up in while he tucks his cold legs under the duvet and waits for his boyfriend to return.
“Take it off.”
Simon looks up from his phone in surprise. He hadn’t heard Wille come in. Then his automatic flirty response dies on his lips at the sight of Wille’s face.
“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”
“What?” says Simon, half-laughing in shock. He hasn’t seen Wille’s anger like that in months. Not directed at him, anyway.
“Now,” snaps Wille through gritted teeth. He looks like a different person to the one who’d left Simon alone in bed not twenty minutes ago, loving and attentive and carefree.
Silent, disbelieving, Simon pulls off the hoodie and throws it over with bad grace. Wille picks it up slowly, almost reverently, stroking the worn fabric with trembling fingers. He sits down on the edge of the bed, back to Simon, and begins to fold the sweater into a neat square.
“Seriously, Wille. What the fuck?” He’s laughing again, a nervous reaction, because it’s either that or pack up his stuff and leave. All the old anxieties he thought they’d left in the past had flooded back at Wille’s words, reaching down somewhere deep inside and flipping painful switches.
There’s a pause before Wille replies, still not turning round. “It was Erik’s. I took it from his room after…” He trails off, takes in a shuddering breath. “Before the funeral.”
Well, it’s an explanation at least, if not an excuse. Simon exhales, heart rate beginning to settle back down and no longer two seconds away from fleeing the room. He’s still hurt and confused, but he can hear the hurt in Wille’s voice too now. It’s that which makes him slide across the bed to sit next to him, their feet dangling over the edge.
Simon doesn’t get too close though, keeping a careful distance between them as he waits.
“I’m sorry,” says Wille after a pause, and that’s something. He never used to apologise for his outbursts. “I shouldn’t have shouted. You didn’t know.”
Simon looks at his own hands, clasped together in front of him to stop himself from reaching out too soon. “No, I didn’t,” he says eventually, before raising his gaze to Wille’s pale face, seeing the tears in his eyes. “You really scared me there.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be sorry, just…” Simon sighs. “Explain it to me. Please.”
He’s fearful for a moment that Wille won’t answer, his jaw set and face unmoving. Every instinct Simon has longs to close that gap between them anyway, to take Wille’s hands in his and to forgive and forget. But he waits instead while Wille finds the words.
“I’m scared.”
“Scared?”
“Of forgetting.” He turns to face Simon with a watery, twisted smile. “Because I keep forgetting all the time now. Like this morning, I woke up with you and everything was perfect and I didn’t think about him once. And that’s most mornings now. And then when I do remember, I feel so fucking guilty.”
“He’d have wanted you to be happy,” says Simon, firm but cautious. He can feel himself edging out over a thin sheet of ice, knowing the wrong movement could break the fragile surface at any moment.
They almost never talk about Erik. Considering what happened the last time they tried to have a serious conversation about him, Simon has never been brave enough to raise the subject again. Perhaps that was a mistake, on both their parts.
“He loved you. He wouldn’t have wanted you to be stuck in grief forever.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” says Wille, staring at the hoodie on his lap. Gently, he smooths out the fabric with long fingers.
Simon inches closer, cutting the gap between them in half. “You never talk about him,” he says, greatly daring, and Wille looks up in surprise. “You can, you know. If you want to. You could tell me about him, what he was like. If it helps you to remember.”
“I’d like that,” Wille whispers. As his tears start to fall in earnest, Simon finally pulls him close, pouring as much love and comfort into the hug as he can.
oooh!!
Please, tell us more about:
if Sara had interrupted August
That sounds just so interesting.
I had a dream about this fic the other night! I thought I'd written the first few hundred words, but I haven't. Maybe only in my head!
But (again), it's just what it says. Basically a canon divergence if in s1e5, when Sara and August make eye contact before Lucia, if she'd had gone over to talk to him and it made him either change his mind about posting the video, or made it so that he didn't have time.
Then Wilhelm pays his fees, August realises he doesn't want to do it, and... where they all go from there.
I kind of thought it would be good to explore Sara and August's relationship and how it was impacted compared to Wilmon. But... I struggle to write Sargust, and it felt disingenuous for some reason to just write it as a Wilmon story.
I still mull this one over from time to time. Maybe I'll have an idea at some point and the story takes shape properly in my head.
From something that is brewing and cooking quite some ways outside of my comfort zone. And Wille's.
Drying himself off Wilhelm avoided the mirror. He had promised himself it wouldn’t happen again. He was just supposed to get some of the urge out of his system before work. Rubbing one out to minimize the risk that he would get a hard on in class.
He wasn’t supposed to think of Simon.
His morning wood had been well established already so it should have been a quick fix. And still, it had happened, again. And as with the previous times he hadn’t been able to keep the thoughts away.
Sighing he ruffled his hair. It would probably be a mess today, no time to style it before work when he had indulged this long in the shower, mentally circulating Simon around in several positions. Ending on the desk.
Maybe he should get a buzz cut again? Would Simon like that?
Closing his eyes he took a big breath in. He could get through this day also.
hiiii!💜
For the fanfic wrapped, would you maybe wanna answer numbers 3, 12, 15 and 26?
hej! 💜
me starting to type my answer: i'll keep it short this time
me now: oops. that is to say, i'd very much would like to answer these.
3. favorite « classic » fanfic you’ve read for the first time this year
i have to admit now that i think about this more, i have no idea what classic means in this context. fandom classic? the one everyone had read but me? anyway, going with a fic that popped into my head first when i saw this one: there are many names in history by aqua_rius. it had sat on my to-read list for a good while and after some gentle nudging (🤍), i read it over the summer. a huge emotional rollercoaster both for wille and simon as well as the reader, moral grey areas, angst and the sweet satisfaction of seeing them get back together.
12. kid fic recommandation
not really something i read (but somehow did write). however, i very much enjoyed my reread of the great hope for a dynasty by notalotgoingonatthisinstant, part 6 of the his royal fucking highness series. the kid is there in the later chapters but a large chunk of this is about simon and wille deciding to have a child, how to go about it and since they’re the crown prince couple here, what the limitations of their options are - and how to tell kristina to shut up when she has opinions and demands. very much recommend the whole series, it’s a lot of fun and mainly fluffy.
15. craziest AU you’ve read
these aren’t crazy as in very out there, but crazy as in so well done i’m ready to drop everything whenever a new chapter gets posted. and both are crime AUs because i fucking love genre stuff. running with wolves by @enjoythesilentworld: CEO/crime boss wilhelm and detective simon and oh boy, are these two obsessed with each other, to the point it’s unhealthy. there’s tons of subplots, a good dose of violence, SO MANY messy feelings and absolutely insane world building.
the other is darling, lost in the darkling woods by ripki. a true nordic noir story with detective wille, journalist simon, a backstory between the two we know very little about, and a mystery that slowly unravels. what makes this story crazy is how astonishingly well the author understands the foundations of the genre, how to build the tension and suspension, how to rhythm of the story and how to tell a lot with few words while also making wille and simon feel like the characters we know.
if running with wolves shares a table with jens lapidus and stieg larsson, darling, lost in the darkling woods is kept company by ragnar jónasson and jane harper, maybe also julia phillips’ disappearing earth even though it’s not a crime novel. (come for the fic, get bonus book recs.)
26. a fight scene (verbal.. or not ?)
land between our bodies by @phneltwrites. i can’t pick just one scene this time, because every time wille and simon fought in this one, i felt it in my soul. the way they argue feels extremely true to their characters, their reasons and actions make sense in the context of everything they’ve lived through and the way they’re teenagers who have been forced to mature too early also manifests in the way they fight is just incredible.
please ask me things about fic i've read this year
Sneak attack!! send this to your favourite blogs and mutuals and ask them to share one nice thing (big or small) they’re looking forward to in the coming week(s) 💜💜💜➰✨💕🦄🦐
Hey ☺️ sneak attack very much appreciated.
One thing I'm looking forward to in the coming week(s) is happening this week, actually!! I'm off to see a ballet performance for the very first time!
Wish me luck, though, because there's a chance that I'll fall asleep in the second half after the intermission... I'm not used to staying out so late in the big city 💀
For the writer asks, if you wanna answer:
Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?
🙏
Hi! Thanks for the ask!
Oh this is an easy one: dialogue all the way. I love writing dialogue, it's hands down my favourite bit.
I severely dislike writing description because what do you MEAN you can't all see into my head and know exactly how everything looks? I find it really hard to know if I've managed to convey the right things. I can't tell if something is grounded in reality or not. I'm not a wordy person and they just feel like superfluous words. I know they're not. But I still roll my eyes like a teenager with an unwanted homework assignment every time I have to flesh out my scenes.
hey, for the questions to authors about writing their fics.
For: Ally Wherever You Land,
5: What part was hardest to write?
Hi!
[Ally Wherever You Land]
Definitely definitely the last chapter. I could see the whole fic play out so clearly (which is fairly unusual for me), but then wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to wrap it up. I wrote this fic so fast, but that last chapter gave me a lot of grief.
And I think I've said before, but the very last bit (the interview) was a very last minute decision! And I'm so glad it came to me because I think it tied up the story much better than the previous ending.
