Chapter Text
Wille isn’t eavesdropping on Sara and Felice’s conversation. He swears.
He just happens to be in the vicinity when he hears a certain trigger word of his. Or a trigger name, rather.
Simon.
Honestly, Wille could’ve been on the other side of the party and he would’ve heard that name. Hell, he could’ve been down the block at the 7-Eleven and his ears would’ve perked up like a dog hearing mention of a treat or a walk.
For well over a decade, his ears have been finely attuned to the specific cadence of that particular name because, well…it just so happens that he’s been in love with the owner of said name for just as long.
So yeah, Wille wasn’t eavesdropping before he heard the name, but he certainly is now. But don’t worry, he’s being subtle about it.
Sure, his drink is already full and no, he technically doesn’t have a reason to be standing here in front of the drink station anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching for a lime wedge and slowly, meticulously squeezing every last drop of lime juice into his glass of red wine (absolutely incorrect and possibly illegal) while he carefully hangs onto Sara’s every word.
“—told him he has to start on Monday, so he’s scrambling to figure everything out now.”
Felice makes a sympathetic noise. “I bet he is stressed.”
“You have no idea,” Sara says, letting out a humorless laugh. “He’s probably having a panic attack as we speak.”
Sara’s phrasing piques Wille’s attention, despite it already being max-piqued at the mere mention of Simon, because what could possibly be stressing Simon out so much that he’d be nearing panic attack territory? Even if it is an exaggeration, that sounds very out of character for Simon, so it must be serious.
“Where will he live?”
“That’s the big question,” Sara says, lifting her white wine for a sip. “He’s gonna stay on my couch until he finds a place here, and he still has his lease in London he needs to break.”
Until he finds a place here. Wille freezes mid-squeeze of a second lime wedge. Simon is breaking his lease in London. Is Simon moving to Stockholm? Wille doesn’t think there are adequate words to describe how fucking piqued his curiosity is, nor how fucking high his heart is soaring right now.
Simon is coming to Stockholm.
Simon, who hasn’t lived in Sweden for years, is going to be living within driving distance of Wille. Possibly within walking distance. Inexplicably, Wille, who never sings, even along with the car radio if he can help it, finds himself wanting to burst into song.
Felice’s voice cuts into his euphoria, “I’d say he’s welcome to stay at my place, but…” Her face contorts into an amusing mixture of a grimace and a wry grin.
Sara laughs, looking pointedly down at Felice’s extremely pregnant belly. “I think you’ll have your hands a little too full for a house guest.”
Felice groans, holding her stomach. “I can’t believe this. There’s going to be a baby living in my apartment soon.”
Sara snorts, “You make it sound like you’re gonna have a squatter.”
“I mean…” Felice grins, “Is it really that different?”
“Besides the breastfeeding, I guess not,” Sara replies with a giggle.
“Anyway,” Felice says, waving a hand, “Wasn’t Simon living with someone in London?”
Upon hearing that question, Wille nearly knocks over his wine glass and the entire drinks table with how violently his body jerks at the thought of Simon living with someone…with a man. It’s like a fight or flight response. His body physically does not want to know, but at the same time, desperately needs to know every detail.
In his peripheral vision, Wille sees Sara shake her head as she says, “That’s been over for quite some time. He lives alone.”
Oh. thank. fuck.
Wille briefly wonders if anyone would notice if he did a cartwheel in the middle of this party right now. Has he ever actually done a cartwheel? No. But right now feels like an excellent time to learn.
“Wille, quit squeezing limes into your wine and get your ass over here.”
Wille’s head whips over to where Felice is now standing alone, cradling her stomach, watching him with an amused, quirked eyebrow. He looks across the room just in time to see Sara disappear into the bathroom.
Wille picks up his wine and walks over to greet Felice with a one-armed hug.
Instead of a ‘hello’ or a ‘how are you’ or any kind of normal greeting, Felice levels Wille with a knowing look and tilts her chin over to where he was standing. “Did you think you were being subtle over there?”
“Sorry?” Wille asks, putting on an innocent expression.
“So it’s just a coincidence that you were hovering silently while Sara and I were talking about Simon?”
“Oh, were you?”
“Cut the shit, Wille.” Felice smacks his arm. “Sara will be back any minute. What are you going to do about this?”
“Huh?” Wille asks, genuinely confused.
“Simon is moving back to Stockholm. This is your chance.”
“My chance to…?”
Felice rolls her eyes, “Wille!”
Cheeks flushed with embarrassment, Wille drops his eyes to the ground and shuffles around, taking a long drink of the disgustingly tart wine to avoid a response.
Is she right? Is this really his chance? Seems highly unlikely. He gave up on those dreams a long time ago.
Felice is the only human on the planet who knows about his feelings for Simon. During their third year at a party at Palatset, he’d drunkenly confessed his crush to her, but even she doesn’t know the full truth.
As far as Felice is concerned, Wille always thought Simon was kinda cute with a nice singing voice and if Wille had been anyone else on the planet, not the Crown Prince, he might’ve invited Simon to watch a movie in his room or on a date to the pizzeria in Bjärstad.
What she doesn’t know is the hours spent scouring Simon’s social media.
Or how sitting adjacent but not right next to Simon in every class and at every lunch was carefully calculated every time.
She doesn’t know about the solo trips to Bjärstad under the guise of buying snacks from Pressbyrån, when really, he was just hoping to run into Simon.
She certainly wouldn’t have a clue about the staring/drooling/ogling in the locker room after rowing and gym class.
Nor does she know about the countless hours spent daydreaming about Simon in the years since they graduated, wondering what he’s up to, if he’s happy, if he’s found someone, if someone’s been lucky enough to find him.
And worst of all, she doesn’t know how fucking close he’d been to telling Simon about his feelings before Erik’s accident, before he’d become crown prince. How along with the profound loss of his brother, he’d also lost whatever chance he had with Simon and how he’d carried that regret for so long.
But that was then.
Then, there was nothing he could do with the heavy weight of duty on his shoulders, holding him down and crushing any hope he’d had of something more. Now, though…now, his shoulders are weightless. Light and carefree like he’s had the best fucking massage in the universe. And single. Very, very single.
And so are Simon’s. Or so it would seem.
The knowledge of this, combined with Felice’s challenge ‘what are you going to do about this?’, must be what leads Wille to have a full mental breakdown and make a very bad, extremely terrible, exceedingly dumb, tremendously stupid, immensely idiotic, decidedly foolish suggestion, without putting a single second of thought into the logistics, the moment Sara rejoins their circle and picks up her glass.
Turning to her and offering a wobbly smile as a greeting, Wille clears his throat. “Felice just told me about Simon. He could - um - he could stay at mine,” Wille offers as casually as he can manage, throwing in a tiny shoulder shrug for good measure. “I have a spare room.”
After a moment of awkward silence, he adds, “Three actually.” Dammit, no one needed to know that.
Sara blinks, “Oh.”
“Just…” Wille blushes, fiddling with the stem of his wine glass. “Just - if he wanted some space and - and privacy. Something to make the transition a little easier.”
Sara’s forehead raises in surprise, before settling on a look of vague amusement. Wille is just starting to wonder if he should take it all back when she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone. “Let me ask him.”
Oh god.
“No!” Wille cuts in quickly. He waves a hand, trying (and probably failing) to be casual. “Ask him later. Don’t - you don’t need to bother him right now. It’s late.”
“He won’t mind,” Sara says, ignoring him and tapping away at her phone screen.
She lifts it to her ear while Wille panics, because this is all happening very, very quickly. Too quickly and it’s overwhelming to say the least. Wille hears the phone ring once and then somehow over the thrum of the party, he picks up the distant, garbled sound of the most perfect voice - one he hasn’t heard in ages.
Sara speaks into the phone, “Hey Simon, I’m here with Wille.”
Wille’s head spins, unable to believe that this is even happening right now. That Sara is talking to Simon about him.
Sara lets out a short laugh, “Yeah, that Wille.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Sara laughs again.
Wille glares at her. God, this is the most fucking infuriating feeling in the fucking world - listening to half of a conversation - especially when the half you can’t hear is the person you’ve had a massive crush on since you were 16 years old and they are talking about you.
Wille watches Sara’s face carefully as she proposes his idea to Simon. When she’s done, she is silent for a long moment. Quite possibly the longest moment of Wille’s entire life.
“Okay,” she says into the phone. Then she nods (what the fuck does a nod mean? Is it good? Bad?), and then nods again (stupid fucking nodding - complete bullshit and should be punishable by death), and then she does a little shrug (Wille is going to jump off the roof), and finally she says, “Yeah, he’s right here. Hold on.” Sara holds the phone out to Wille. “He wants to talk to you.”
Wille stares at the phone like it’s a trap. Like it’s a highly sensitive explosive and one touch starts the countdown to detonation.
She can’t be serious? He can’t talk to Simon right now. He’s not prepared. He would need like fourteen business days minimum to prepare for a phone conversation with Simon Eriksson.
“Earth to Wille,” Sara says, waving the phone in his face. “Simon wants to talk to you.”
Oh god oh god oh god oh god. How does he get out of this?
He can’t get out of this. He has to talk to Simon on the phone. This is the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to him. Does he have time for a tequila shot first? He tries to catch Felice’s eye to mouth at her to bring him a tequila shot stat, but she’s busy picking a piece of fuzz off her shirt. Dammit, Felice, you have one job and that is to be prepared to provide best-friend-emotional-support-tequila-shots at all times!
Guess he’ll just have to chug the fucking lime wine as an exceptionally shitty substitute for a tequila shot.
Sara pushes the phone toward him again, staring at him like he has four heads. Oh fuck. Okay…
With shaky fingers, Wille takes the phone from Sara and cradles it in his sweaty palm, staring down at the name on the screen. Jesus Christ. He needs to chill the fuck out. How is he going to survive Simon sleeping in his house if he can’t have a simple phone conversation with him?
Steeling himself with a deep breath, Wille lifts the phone to his ear and manages to choke out a quick, “Hello?”
“Hello, Wille?”
It doesn’t make any sense, but Simon’s voice, with its achingly familiar, smooth timbre, instantly puts Wille’s manic thoughts at ease, as if a soothing balm has been applied directly to his jumpy nerves.
“Hey, yeah. It’s me,” Wille answers softly, stepping away from Felice and Sara toward an empty alcove near the window, craving a little bit of quiet to be alone with Simon’s voice.
“Hey,” Simon replies, equally soft, “It’s been a long time.” Too long.
“It has. How, um, how are you doing?”
“Well,” Simon lets out a short giggle, which to anyone else would probably sound like any other laugh, but to Wille…it’s music to his ears. He’s missed that sound so fucking much. A little Simon giggle used to be one of his favorite sounds in the entire world, and it would appear that nothing has changed.
Simon goes on, “Things are a bit hectic right now, but good I think? How about you? I’d imagine you’ve been dealing with your own chaos since—?”
Wille smiles, hearing the burning curiosity in Simon’s voice, mingling with a hint of mischief. “You could say that, yeah.”
“We’re gonna have to talk about that,” Simon chuckles. “But maybe when I have a lot less packing to do.”
Wille huffs out a laugh, “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Please do,” Simon says with what sounds like a smile, and there’s not a chance in hell of Wille not holding Simon to that conversation.
Actually, he’s dying to hear Simon’s no doubt outrageously strong opinion on his newfound status as Ex-Crown Prince, and he’d be lying if he said that he hasn’t wondered a ridiculous number of times what Simon’s reaction may have been when he learned of Wille stepping away from the monarchy.
“Now…Sara told me about your offer.” Simon pauses, as if for dramatic effect, like he’s specifically trying to torture Wille, who is holding his breath like he’s waiting to find out if he’s won an Oscar. “Wille, are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother.”
Oh, if Simon only knew. “Absolutely sure,” Wille answers immediately, full of so much hope it’s threatening to burst out of him at the seams. “I have too much space as it is.”
“I wouldn’t be able to pay much.”
Wille waves a hand even though Simon can’t see him. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Wille,” Simon says sternly.
Wille snorts. “Sorry, forgot who I was talking to.” They share a laugh and Simon throws back at him, “And don’t you forget it.”
Pausing to think for a second, Wille makes a suggestion. “I could actually use your help with a project I’ve been working on. Maybe that can be your contribution to the rent?”
“What kind of project?” Simon asks suspiciously.
“I’m afraid that’s top secret,” Wille answers with mock seriousness. “I’ll fill you in on the details when you arrive.”
It’s not a secret, but Wille doesn’t really want to get into the details in the middle of a crowded party.
“Okay…” Simon agrees weakly. “I hope I don’t live to regret this.”
Wille’s stomach swoops. Did Simon just agree to live with him, even if only for a short time while he searches for an apartment? Is this real life?
“You won’t. I promise,” Wille says firmly, still hardly able to believe he’s even talking to Simon, let alone talking about Simon staying in his house.
“Thank you for the offer, Wille.” Simon’s voice comes through the line like pure honey and Wille has never heard anything more perfect. “It was such a surprise to hear Sara say your name.”
Wille can’t help himself asking, “A good surprise?”
Simon is quiet for a beat before his voice comes back whisper soft, “A good surprise.”
Wille’s heartbeat picks up in his chest. “I’ll - give Sara my details so you can be in touch.”
“Sounds perfect. Thanks again, Wille.”
“See you soon, Simon.”
“See you…day after tomorrow. Oh my god, I have to pack. Okay, bye!”
And just like that, Wille’s entire world has been turned completely and utterly upside down. Thank god.