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For as long as he can remember, Wilhelm has felt too much of everything.
Growing up, his parents—but mostly his mother, wrote it off as him being a “sensitive child,” and at times, a particularly “over-sensitive child,” a dismissal that never failed to occur when they caught him crying at the smallest graze on his knees, or that time he curled up into a ball and hid behind the Christmas tree when he was three because he didn’t like all the flashing cameras being shoved into his face.
(Mamma had hauled him out then, telling him to smile for the cameras like a good little boy, and deposited him in front of Erik—who was told to “make Wilhelm behave” as they sat in smiling, royal unison; the perfect image of a perfect family—the first of one of the many lies Wilhelm has told in his life.)
(The beginning of the lie that is Prince Wilhelm of Sweden starts then—him, a toddler barely old enough to speak in proper sentences, an older brother whose bright smiles looked stretched thin between two ears, and parents who'd rather talk politely in stiff sentences than sleep in the same bed.)
It has always been like that, Wilhelm muses, as he stares unseeing at the high arched ceiling of his bedroom, where below a portrait of his great-great-granduncle hangs listlessly over an ornate, unused (useless) chest drawer. The eyebrows are flat, accentuating the downward slope of the nose, a mouth pressed into a flat, unamused line, and Wilhelm thinks about the fact that generations of his family have lived in this castle.
Dozens of men and women have breathed and walked these halls, inhabited these rooms, assumed the roles of heir and spare and the other spare as if it were as natural as breathing.
And perhaps it was, to them, but how should Wilhelm know what that felt like? Simply being feels unnatural to him, his soul residing in the wrong body, flesh and bones not corresponding with his brain, his thoughts and actions not syncing themselves like it should.
(Had any of them been like him? Wilhelm dares to hope that maybe someone had ever been in his shoes before—confused, anxious, the constant overwhelming sense that he’d been born into the wrong family. Did any of them ever feel like strangers in their skin? Did these walls ever close in on them, the air stifling, the pressure suffocating, until it hurt to take the simplest of breaths?)
(Well. He supposes he will never know. The little voice inside his head makes its presence known once again, and the carved out hollow inside Wilhelm’s chest feels wrong; he feels tainted, he itches to turn himself inside out and cut out all the wrongness, and he thinks—he thinks—)
(It shouldn't hurt this much to exist.)
He thinks yet again of his family, his ancestors, and wonders if any of them knew what they really were. Who they really were. Wilhelm from one year ago would've said a puppet, maybe.
The Wilhelm of today thinks that he (and maybe even they) is not so much of a puppet as he is a paper doll, one good blow away from crumpling and tumbling away like scattered reeds in the wind, but even that wouldn't hold a candle to the truth.
What he really is—what generations of those in his place have always been—is an investment. His mother would probably slap him right then and there for daring to describe something as precious as life—royal life, at that—in such clinical, businesslike terms. But what is life—a life like his, one that he must live—then, if not business?
Wilhelm was created as a fail-safe. That’s what he is. What he’s always been. A spare. The extra, unwanted part, the useless decoration. His sole purpose in life was to be there—at his mother’s side, to make the family look good, at his brother’s, to be the perfect example of everything a replacement should be.
He existed solely to be ready to step up on the off chance that his older brother—the heir, the wanted son—died before he could produce heirs of his own.
Wilhelm has never held any qualms about his place in the royal succession—rather, his place in his mother’s heart. For her, he was the chore, the job she didn’t want to do, but invested time and money in anyway, because she would rather have two sons than one in case anything went wrong.
Wilhelm’s life just didn’t hold the same value as Erik’s did.
And then, the accident happened.
Erik’s precious life was swapped for Wilhelm’s undeserving, slightly pathetic one, and everything else went to absolute shit.
Suddenly, Erik—Wilhelm’s older brother, his everything—was dead (his corpse six feet under, dirt and worms cloying his mouth and his eyes, the earth decaying whatever was left of him), and there was nothing anyone could ever do about it; his big brother was never coming back.
With Erik’s death, Wilhelm’s meticulously planned-out life spiraled out of his control—no, not his control, his life has always belonged to his mother’s, ever since birth—but those initial months after Erik’s death had held Wilhelm as witness to a completely new side to his mother he hadn't known she was capable of.
Those few weeks, Wilhelm had seen her restless and frantic, almost manic with grief. Save for the five measly days she had spared to publicly mourn the loss of her preferred son, the rest was spent grasping at whatever straws were left to desperately regain control of Wilhelm.
And, well. Back then, at least, the hurt had been too fresh, the wound too deep, for Wilhelm to feel anything other than mind-numbing sorrow, soul crushing guilt, and the ever present thought of I wish it had been me—it had been almost shockingly easy for Wilhelm to do whatever was told of him, easy and obedient, like the perfect little crown prince.
(It was one of the only times Mamma had looked to him with something resembling pride in her usually cold, flinty gaze.)
(Sometimes he resents himself just a little bit, when he thinks of how easily he melted into the warmth of her palm, the heat searing and uncomfortable, but vastly preferred over the typical old indifference of her body whenever faced with Wilhelm.)
The hurt of losing Erik is still there, aching and ever-present in the back of his mind, the whole of his heart. Losing his brother feels like losing a limb, a part of Wilhelm that he’s always just had, a presence just shy of a hand away to reach; Wilhelm is left teetering off-balance whenever he reaches out to his left and his hand grasps empty air instead of Erik’s warm, safe, hands.
He wonders if it will ever stop hurting so much, the brutal reminders of the fact that Erik is just—not here, anymore. No longer with his little brother Wille. Gone.
Sometimes Wilhelm wonders if his mother misses Erik as much as he does, if the loss of his warm, breathing presence cuts into her as deeply as it breaches into Wilhelm, disregarding the layers of flesh and muscle and bone and heading straight down to pierce into his heart.
Other times, Wilhelm thinks that maybe all his mother mourns is the loss of the perfect heir—maybe all she sees when she looks at Wilhelm is the legacy of Sweden going down the drain.
Disappointment.
That is all Wilhelm is to his mother—he may as well have it permanently tattooed onto his forehead for all the times her gaze catches onto Wilhelm, cold and disapproving and always, always, somehow emanating, Not enough.
Wilhelm has resigned himself to coming up short—and sometimes, even empty—in others’ expectations for himself.
Mamma. Pappa. Simon. And probably Erik too, because why not? Why not disappoint yet another member of his family? Why not let the disappointment and grief and shame and guilt all muddle up together, coagulate into a dense orb that sits right over Wilhelm’s sternum, one misstep away from expanding and strangling his lungs?
(In some strange, repulsive way, Wilhelm is grateful that Erik had died before Wilhelm had gotten a chance to tell him about Simon—because, as wonderful as his brother had been, what if that would have disappointed him too?)
(In hindsight, maybe it was better that this whole… thing… between him and Simon ended before it could get too serious—before Simon could start to expect more things from Wilhelm he didn’t know how to deliver in the slightest.)
(Still, he hadn’t been quick enough. Hadn’t been fast enough to stop the very real feelings forming, at least on his side. And Simon—maybe his feelings for Wilhelm were nowhere near as deep as Wilhelm’s feelings for Simon, but they’d been at that precarious stage where Simon had come to expect things from him as well. Simon had expected Wilhelm to be honest. To admit to the truth. To not let Simon take the fall for Wilhelm's stupidity.)
(Wilhelm did neither of those things. Wilhelm thought he was used to letting the people close to him down, but Simon’s disappointment in him had felt different. It had burned, had scorched him from within, tearing through his insides.)
His duties aren’t about to disappear simply because he’s grieving, though. Disappointment or not, he is the crown prince now, and there is more riding on his shoulders than ever—as Mamma had been so keen on reminding him ever since Erik went and left Wilhelm all alone, ever since he went and died.
A knock on his bedroom door startles Wilhelm upright, voice almost croaking as he says, “Come in.”
It’s Malin, holding the door half open, her face carefully neutral as always, but she’s been with Wilhelm for too long for that to fool him.
Her eyes look almost pitying, and Wilhelm hates it.
“The guests are due to arrive in forty minutes. Her Majesty expects you to be downstairs in thirty.”
Right. There’s no time to grieve when Wilhelm still has his duty to fulfill.
He closes his eyes and counts to ten. Usually, this settles him, calms him down just enough so that his words don’t come out in a panicked, rushed hurry, stumbling over his tongue in a race to see which one of them comes out first—today, it takes longer. He has to count all the way to twenty for his breath to even out, and when he opens his eyes, Malin is still standing in his doorway, still staring at him in that way that irrationally makes Wilhelm want to rip her eyes out. Or maybe he’s the one who wants to rip his eyeballs out of his face.
“You can let her know I’ll be there. Tack, Malin.”
Wilhelm turns away as Malin nods silently, closing the door behind her.
Time to face the music, he supposes. He dons the ill-fitting mask of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, where there is no room for grief, and certainly no room for boys who liked other boys. He is an empty slate, a blank page. He is whatever Mamma needs him to be.
++
He stands in the corner of a ballroom—the one Mamma exclusively reserves for the holidays and all the parties and pomp that come in association with those holidays—and tries not to draw attention to himself.
It’s supremely ineffective because of the scandal that has been floating around everyone’s heads, because all Wilhelm feels are the lingering gazes of the aristocracy. None are openly hostile, but the curiosity, the lingering intrigue, might actually be worse.
He’d done his part—really, all Mamma wanted him to do was stand at the entrance and shake hands, exchange small pleasantries with the guests that had started to filter in with her—and he’d “performed it beautifully” according to her, which had been accompanied by a gentle pat on his cheek, the look in her eyes even warming a few degrees.
(Wilhelm is ashamed to admit that for those few precious moments, he’d felt like ice cream on a sidewalk in summer, love warm and syrupy in his chest, a shy smile peeking out from underneath the mask, basking in his mother’s infrequently given praise.)
She hadn’t expected anything else of him through the night, for which Wilhelm was grateful—he didn’t think he could stomach talking to the nobility when his head was a jumble of conflicting and overlapping thoughts about Erik, about Simon, about kissing near the edge of a lake, about getting that phone call that changed but maybe ruined his life, about his fingers tangled in dark brown curls, about the feel of his brother’s casket on his cheek when he leaned to embrace him one last time, about sun-kissed skin, thin limbs wrapped around his, about August, about betrayal, about getting high on some drug or another to forget the pain, the ache that festered inside—
And suddenly, he feels exposed, as if someone has stripped him of his clothes and skin, not only naked, but bare in every possible way.
Wilhelm wonders what they see—are they watching him shiver in nothing but his tangled arteries and veins, blood and muscle—do they notice a heart too big for his chest? A brain too small for all the thoughts that occupy room in it?
Or is it all just that fucked up brain of his making it all up—is he only imagining the feeling of his heart pounding too loud, too full, like it is about to beat right out of his chest?
He wants to throw up. The prickling sensation underneath his skin intensifies every second their eyes are on him, and he almost can’t hear the sound of his mother’s voice over the roar of blood pounding in his ears.
Wilhelm is going to die, he’s sure of it. His throat is closing up, and he can't breathe, his heart has stopped feeling full and now his ribs feel like they're compressing on his lungs—and he’s going to die.
Before the situation can escalate even further to the point where Wilhelm makes a show of embarrassing himself in front of all his mother’s important guests, a steady hand is gripping his elbow and leading him out of the ballroom. Distantly in his head, he thinks he should probably say thank you, which would be something he’d have done already if it weren't for the fact that he can’t breathe.
Slowly, his mind comes back to him. The buzz in his ears fades, and he faintly hears the sound of someone saying, “... Breathe with me, Your Highness, in and out, steady, deep breaths.”
Wilhelm blinks, trying to rid his vision of the spinning, starry lights that have seemed to have affixed themselves to his corneas.
He makes out the vague, blurry shape of Malin, still holding onto his elbow, touch a warm, heavy grounding weight that only helps Wilhelm feel less and less like an unmoored boat. Time ticks forward, and the rush of blood in his ears is no longer the only sound Wilhelm hears.
A few heaving, gasping breaths later, Wilhelm is cognizant enough to realize where he now stands, hunched over and holding himself up on a wall so as not to fall over.
Malin has led him beyond the party, not right outside the doors so that people may see him in his state of distress and have grounds to speculate even further on their nation’s tragic, broken prince, but to a few halls over. They’re close enough that it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to walk back, but far enough that no one meant for the party can run into them, accidental or not.
“Do I have to go back, Malin?” he asks, no, more like rasps, out. His entire body feels drained of energy, like a battery that’s been completely used up.
Malin is quiet for a while. Then: “Her Majesty did not say you were required to be here all night. There is nothing else you have to do, Your Highness.”
Wilhelm takes that in.
“I miss him,” he whispers, determinedly not staring at Malin. He doesn’t want to see whatever look she’s got on her face.
Who is the ‘him’ he’s even talking about? Simon? Erik? Who knows? Maybe both. He ruins everything. He’s a plague, poison, a horrible curse inflicted on all the people that care about him—he can’t even love without it turning into the nation’s next scandal, and he hates it, he hates his life, he hates himself, he hates that Erik died, that Simon left, and more than anything, he wants it to stop.
He wants everything to just—end.
“Malin—” Wilhelm croaks out, tears blurring his vision, holding out a hand that Malin grasps in her own. She squeezes firmly, and that, more than anything, helps Wilhelm not feel like he’s drowning in an ocean of unprocessed grief, even though he very much is.
“My room, Malin. I just. Want to sleep. May I?” Wilhelm asks, half delirious with misery, and Malin only squeezes his hand more firmly.
“You don’t need my permission for anything, Your Highness,” she says carefully, because if Malin is one thing, if she has always been just one thing, it is careful, and Wilhelm whines.
“But—d’I have it?” he asks, the words catching on a sob, and he feels rather than sees Malin nod.
(She, more than anyone, understands that in the kind of state Wilhelm is, he needs to be allowed before he does, a side effect of his fucked up brain, his fucked up life, the fucked up way he was raised; a side effect of dying and wanting to die.)
“You do.”
“Okay,” Wilhelm rasps out, and it doesn’t sound like a sound a human makes, he feels so far removed from his humanity that it could almost be funny, if it didn’t feel like he was dying, or drowning, or something—but really, he is in love with a boy he is not allowed to have, he is a person he is not allowed to be, and what is the point? What is the point of existing when you are not allowed to exist the way you are?
“Get me to my room, Malin.” He tries not to make it sound like he’s begging, because crown princes do not beg, but Wilhelm is not like most crown princes, is he?
He likes boys when he shouldn’t, he thinks too much and too loudly, he bites at his fingernails and picks at the skin around them, he is neurotic and obsessive, rash and impulsive. His best friend (for what is a best friend but the person who knows you best in this world?) is probably his bodyguard, his brother is dead, and he was never meant to be a crown prince but life is both funny and terrible like that—so now Wilhelm exists, continues to exist in the skin of someone three dimensions to the left, someone he is not and will never be, no matter how hard he tries, or pretends, or lies. (They’re all the same thing in the end.)
Malin does so without further prompting.
Wilhelm loves her.
(He has tried not to, has tried to be careful with his heart the way Mamma had taught him to be cautious when he was younger, but Wilhelm is easy, too easy—his heart is perhaps the easiest thing about him. He gets attached much too quickly, to people who are different, people who treat him with the barest semblance of effort, without the slightest care to whether he will be burned or not.)
(Malin is his in the way Erik had been his—in the way he imagines an older sister to have been his. She is not quite his mother—he hasn’t known her long enough for that—and yet. Malin is something between a sister and mother, a babysitter and guardian, a special third something Wilhelm can’t find the words to name, and maybe doesn’t even want to, because then it’d be real, and things always get taken from him when they’re real.)
Love has no place in Wilhelm’s life—he knows this very well.
That doesn’t stop him from loving and falling in love anyway.
++
Wilhelm doesn’t even make it to his bed before he breaks, shattering like cheap snowglobes on polished marble floors.
The door shuts behind him, and Wilhelm knows Malin is there, will remain there until she is needed elsewhere—except her place is never anywhere else, is always by Wilhelm’s side, at his back, protecting him from things he thought he’d never need protecting from.
The thought does little to calm him, because Malin is here, but Erik is not, Simon is not, Mamma is not, and it hurts so bad he can feel it in his chest, white-hot and aching, burning the flesh inside with the weight of his insufficiency, his inadequacy.
(He did not know it was possible to both drown and burn alive all at once, but the body and mind are curious things. How aweing it is, to feel both such sensations simultaneously.)
Wilhelm slides down his door, his legs finally giving out, desperately trying not to suffocate under the weight of all his grief, left unspoken, left to fester like fungi in his brain.
Not for the first time, he wonders what it would be like to die.