Actions

Work Header

long nights to befriend the moon

Summary:

A realization draws in Wille; he remembers describing this exact picture to Simon once, when they were talking about things they wanted to do. Simon not only made the main idea come true, he made every detail of Wille’s imagination about it come alive.

Notes:

This entire thing was born out of the idea of Simon having a nightmare and Wille comforting him, but then my fingers kept writing, and then there were suddenly so many words and new ideas popping up in my head?? Chapter 2 is already halfway done, so manifest for me to actually finish it!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Thursday

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Simon is running. A man is chasing him across the field that has just been covered in freshly fallen snow. His breath comes out in white puffs. The wind pushes at his face with every step. It’s particularly cold and his feet hurt. He can hear footsteps behind him. They are coming closer. He turns to look over his shoulder. The man is still there. He runs faster. Snow flies up around him as he does so. The trees ahead loom. A gust of wind knocks one down, sending it crashing to the ground. Then something slams into Simon and sends him sprawling onto his hands and knees. A sharp pain stabs through the back of his head. He lets out an involuntary whimper.

The footsteps fade off. He’s alone again. He sits on his knees for a few minutes, waiting for the ringing in his ears to stop. He exhales deeply and gets to his feet. His house isn’t far now. When he gets to the road, he can see a dim light coming from the kitchen window.

Mom is home; she's sitting by the table eating dinner. She looks up as he walks in, a carefree smile on her face. "Oh, you’re finally home."

"Got caught in the snow."

The smile fades into a grin as she nods. Her eyes flicker across his face as if assessing it for injuries. Simon doesn't feel good. His head feels heavy. Mom puts the plate aside and walks over to him. "How are you?" She pulls him close to hug him, but he doesn't like how tight her hug is. It feels wrong. "You're shivering," she says, but her voice barely reaches Simon's ears, muffled like he's underwater. The feeling in his head intensifies. He wants to tell mom to let go. But he can't. Not even as she rubs his back and tells him everything will be okay. The room starts spinning and then suddenly he falls back, crashing down hard on the floor.

He jolts awake in a cold sweat. The little red light on his bedside table is on, and a wave of nausea washes over him as it appears to make the walls bleed. But because he can't close his eyes, he turns off the light and lets the moon paint the walls and the ceiling instead. He checks his phone. The time is 3:35 AM. Wille's name is glaring at him under the clock. They had been chatting until they got sleepy, and Simon must have fallen asleep first. The text is simply a goodnight message, with way too many hearts after it.

Impulsively, Simon taps on it to open.

| simon: are you awake?

He waits for a minute, still trying to take deep breaths to shake off the lingering fear, but it doesn't help much. Impulsively again, he hits the call button. It rings for a while before Wille picks up.

"Simme?" His voice is hoarse, Simon pretty much woke him up.

"Hey." Simon tries and fails to swallow the lump in his throat. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. I just… I had a weird dream, and…." he trails off. "It's stupid."

There is a silence there; Wille probably trying to process what's happening. "You okay?"

"Yes. No. Sorry."

"Not stupid. So you had a bad dream?"

"Hmm. Could you please just talk to me? For a little while?"

Simon hears the rustling sound of sheets being pushed aside. "Talk to you? Talk. Oh, sure. Yes, of course. I can teach you how to make a paper frog. Do you have a piece of paper with you?"

"Hold on," Simon says as he stands up. He digs through the pile of papers next to his desk until he finds a sheet of blank paper and goes to flick on the ceiling lights. "Okay."

The next hour goes by with Wille and Simon making origami frogs together. In the end, the frogs end up all different colors and sizes, with some having extra legs. They are all cute, though. And it successfully distracted Simon from the panic he initially felt after he woke up.

The conversation shifts to them talking about their day after school, even though they had already discussed it before falling asleep the night before. Simon tries to fall back asleep, focusing on the calmness of Wille’s voice over the phone, but every time he closes his eyes the trapped and choking feeling comes back. After several failed attempts, he completely abandons the idea and is about to tell Wille to go back to sleep, so he can at least sleep a little until school when Wille interrupts his own monologue in the middle of a sentence.

"Simon… Will you let me in?" He asks carefully.

"Wille…"

"I may have not listened when you said everything is fine, and there's no need for me to come over. If you don't want me here right now, I can leave; that's completely fine too."

Simon sighs, but there's a soft smile on his face as he ends the call. Wille came to comfort him. His stupidly sweet Wille came to comfort him. Came all the way just for him. The more Simon thinks about it, the more his heart overflows with love. He's so loved. Wille loves him so much, huh?

He pulls aside the curtains by the dining table to peer out the window on his way to the front door and sees Wille standing there. Wille's attention is drawn to the movement, and they exchange a look before Simon goes to unlock the door as quietly as he can. But of course, he manages to accidentally drop the keys in the darkness, and they land with a loud clacking sound. He stands silent for a couple of seconds, praying that the loud noise didn't wake up anyone, and upon the house remaining completely silent, he quickly lets Wille in.

"Idiot."

"It's nice to see you too, Simme," Wille responds as he walks in, his hand reaching out for Simon's arm. Their fingers interlock and squeeze together. It's reassuring and comforting. It makes everything better.

"How did you even get here? There are no buses at this hour."

"Oh, there aren't? Good thing Malin caught me before I walked to the bus stop then."

"Stupid idiot," Simon says again, but he pulls Wille in for a bone-crushing hug anyway. The hug is warm, and it makes Simon feel safe.

"You okay now?" Wille asks. He gives Simon a gentle head pat and a shoulder squeeze. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Simon decides after thinking about it for a second. "I feel better now. I just woke up with this horrible feeling, and it was overwhelming."

"Alright." Wille leans back to get a good look at Simon's expression. He gives him a reassuring smile and squeezes his shoulders once again. "I might have brought marshmallows and chocolate," he holds up the bag hanging on his arm. "Should I make Erik's special hot chocolate for you?"

Simon smiles fondly at him, a warm sensation spreading through his chest. Erik's infamous hot chocolate that he made for Wille when he had nightmares or couldn’t sleep. Wille said it made all his worries go away for a while.

"That sounds great." He lets go of Wille just when the creaking of a door interrupts the otherwise comfortable silence.

"Simon?" Linda's voice comes out in question, and soon the lights in the room come alive with a flicker. Simon kind of forgot it was the middle of the night. It takes a bit for his mama to assess the situation—given she just woke up—, but there's realization, confusion, and question in her gaze a second later.

"Wilhelm?"

"Hi, Linda."

"You know I don't mind if Wille sleeps over," Linda says, and doesn't forget to add that Wille is always welcome, "…but it's four in the morning, Simon."

"ihadanightmareandwillecame," Simon mumbles his way through that sentence.

"What did you say?"

"He had a nightmare," Wille decides to say when Simon buries his head back into the space between his chin and chest. For some reason, finding it embarrassing to have nightmares?

"Does Malin know you are here?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then," Linda comes beside them and strokes Simon's face, who in the meantime pulls back from Wille. They exchange some hushed words in Spanish, and Linda goes back to sleep after that.

The night is quiet, save for the occasional creak of the house. There's still a lingering feeling of dread in Simon, but it's mostly faded away. He looks up into Wille's bright brown eyes, and Wille smiles gently down at him, so full of warmth and affection. They stare at each other, until Wille speaks, breaking the silence with a whisper. "Hot chocolate?"

Simon nods and they walk over to the kitchen. He takes a seat at the kitchen island as Wille gets to work preparing the hot chocolate. Simon watches him move around the kitchen, getting ingredients and utensils for their drink from one cabinet and another. The domestics of the fact that Wille spent enough time over to know his way around the kitchen hit Simon suddenly. "Thank you for coming over," he says, looking away and focusing on the counter. He starts fidgeting with his hands under the counter. Wille makes him feel so loved, and he's not sure how to handle it sometimes.

Wille doesn’t respond verbally, instead, he walks over and hugs Simon from behind. Their drinks are ready in front of them. Wille squeezes Simon and kisses the back of his head.

They decide against sleeping because they aren't sleepy to begin with, and they would need to wake up in like 3 hours to go to school anyway.

After finishing their drinks, they both lie down on the sofa to watch TV, with their legs tangled with each other's. Simon wraps his arms around Wille. He snuggles close to Simon, resting his head on his chest. "I'm glad you called," he murmurs into Simon's shirt.

"Me too." Simon kisses the top of his head, to which Wille curls up closer to him. There's a sharp contrast of the phantom feeling of winter and Wille's warm skin surrounding Simon.

They snooze off for a bit, and they should have probably tried sleeping properly too, but it was so comfortable wrapped up like that on the sofa, and they probably couldn't have fallen asleep deeper with the knowledge that in about two hours they would need to wake up anyway for school.

Simon wakes up without the comfortable weight of Wille crushing him, and without the soothing scent of his boyfriend permeating the room. He looks at the clock to see that he had slept for about half an hour. The TV is still on, albeit completely muted now. He finds Wille sitting at the dining table, the main light is switched off, only the kitchen lighting is on. His boyfriend is hunched over the sketchbook he always carries with himself to everywhere, looking concentrated on what he's working on. His hair is slightly messy; the handiwork of Simon's fingers running through it repeatedly earlier.

The sketchbook idea came up during a therapy session with Boris, he said it might help Wille to get his thoughts under control and to be able to express them whenever he wants to—kind of like an outlet for venting. The catch though is that Wille is not particularly gifted when it comes to the arts and drawing, and at the beginning, he was self-conscious and blanked when it came to just the thought of opening the sketchbook. It got better over time and nowadays, he uses it on whatever occasion; maybe he's feeling overwhelmed and sad, or maybe he's just bored or has an inspiring idea that he wants to sketch or write down.

"Morning," Wille looks up, setting his pencil down and lets Simon to sit on his lap sideways. Simon closes his eyes and leans into Wille a bit more.

"So clingy," Wille teases lightly, but Simon retorts back easily: "You are the one who talks."

The morning light peeks through the blinds, bathing Wille in golden rays. Simon sighs deeply and presses his nose further into Wille's shoulder, relishing in the familiar scent.

"Look, I draw you!" Wille exclaims excitedly, holding the sketchbook for Simon to see.

"Are you sure that's me? It looks like you spilled something on the paper…"

Wille laughs out loud—way too loud, so Simon puts a hand on his mouth with a hushed "Quiet!"

"First of all, wow, rude!" Wille complains, pretending to be offended, before adding: "But actually, I had been thinking about this piece of curl…" his hand goes up to gently brush over the hair hanging messily just a bit above Simon's left eye "…here, ever since I woke up, and I wanted to draw it."

Simon hums, touched, his gaze going down to look at the sketch, and he traces over every line and (attempted) shading. The whole drawing itself looks funny because Wille didn't manage to quite get the shape of his face, or any face to be honest… But Simon adores it all anyway.

"Look if I just cover the rest of you," Wille continues, covering the rest of his drawing, only letting that one single curl to show, "I managed to capture like half of the beauty of it, I think."

He sounds very proud of himself, and Simon chuckles. "You are right, it looks pretty."

"Not as pretty as the real thing though."

"Shut up," Simon mutters quietly, leaning forward and pressing his lips against Wille's in a sweet kiss.

"Would Linda kill me if I were to kidnap you for breakfast?"

"Elaborate on that, please," Simon responds with a playful smile, tilting his head curiously.

"I checked the bakery you always talk about, and it opens in a few minutes. We don't usually have much chance to go out uninterrupted or be allowed to do it in the first place, but it's super early right now, so probably not many people there? And we can like take the bus to school after."

"All the fights with your drivers and guards about you not wanting them around, they'll start to think you hate them, darling," the pet name just slipped out without Simon realizing and actually paying attention to it. They have ridiculous pet names for each other and cute ones too, but they never said "darling" to each other before, and Simon said it in such an affectionate way that Wille malfunctions for a second there. Thankfully, Simon hadn’t noticed because he got distracted with the cross necklace around Wille's neck; the chain got stuck on the fabric of his shirt, so Simon tried to free it at that moment.

"I like taking the bus."

"Yeah?"

"You aren't allowed to laugh, but taking the bus is very exciting to me. I can't explain, but it's great."

"Well then, give me a few minutes to get ready, and then we can go."

"Okay."

Simon hops down from Wille's lap and leaves to his room, returning a few minutes later after he changed.

"I'll say goodbye to mom."

He slips into his mother's room. She still very much looks like she's sleeping, but Simon tries anyway. He could just leave a note or send her a message later, but that seems so not them. Plus, this way she can sleep longer before getting ready for work.

"Mama, we are going out to have breakfast with Wille, then straight to school from there."

She stirs, but mostly for Simon’s touch on her arm than because of the noise. "My love, did you have a good sleep?"

Simon hums in response. She doesn't need to know that they barely slept.

"We are going out to have breakfast with Wille," Simon repeats himself because he isn't sure she was awake enough to fully understand before.

Linda nods. "Okay. But don't even think about skipping school!"

"Would never!"

"Have a good day!"

"You too!"

Wille and Simon leave the house soon after. It's a chilly spring morning, and just as they predicted, there are not many people out and about just yet. The distance to the bakery is very short, so they take their time to enjoy every second of it. After all, they can’t really go out together without people staring or bothering them. It’s not even about the "what if we are recognized and people take pictures, and it ends up in the media", but more so that it’s just annoying that they can't enjoy themselves and be completely carefree.

"Look, there’s a cat!" Simon shouts excitedly when they turn a corner, and he crutches down to get the cat’s attention. He succeeds, as the cat cautiously perks up, but then it lets Simon go closer and pet its head. "Looks just like you," Simon smiles. The cat’s fur is exactly the same color as Wille’s hair right now. "Take a picture of us."

Wille does so, and before he could put his phone away, Simon stands up to tell him to let’s take pictures together too, and goes on a little rant about how he always wanted to be that person who takes an unhealthy amount of reflection selfies in shop windows with his boyfriend in the future. And here he is now, with his boyfriend, right in front of a shop window. Simon gets distracted by the cat trying to rub itself against his leg again, so he crouches down to pet it one more time. "Do you want to take a picture with us too, huh?" He was contemplating for a second to pick it up, but by the time he made up his mind, the cat ran off because the car speeding up beside them scared it.

Wille’s focus is, however, not on Simon or the cat anymore; he is focused on the nail polish ads rotating in the glass window of a drug store right in front of them. Simon stays silent for a bit, and he himself also studies the advertisement before he looks at Wille again. "You like it?"

"Hmm?"

"Nail polish."

"I'm not sure, this color looks so pretty though," he says when the pastel blue one appears on the screen again. Simon hums in agreement. And at the end, they take a bunch of pictures of their reflection in the glass.

They reach the bakery in no time and walk inside. It's quiet at this hour, except for a group of girls who are seated at one corner table talking loudly while tapping on their phones. They look up when Wille and Simon enter.

"Simon, hi," one of them shouts. Her hair color is a soft shade of orange, matching her light brown eyes. Her smile is bright and cheerful as she stands up. She basically runs to give Simon a hug, who catches her easily and spins her around.

"What are you doing in Bjärstad?" He asks.

"We have a school break, so we came," she points behind herself, to her friends. "To visit family, and my friends came because they had never been to Sweden and wanted to see what it's like."

She then looks at Wille curiously, not wondering who he is, but probably wondering why he is with Simon. Lena used to be obsessed with Erik when she was way younger, annoying Simon about her dream wedding she planned out in her head and everything, but she grew out of it when she was around 13 or so. Simon isn’t sure how much and what kind of information reached her about anything regarding his relationship with Wille and if she even knows about the fact that Erik died. But of course, she knows who Wille is without the need to introduce him.

"Oh, sorry," Simon looks between them. "Lena and I went to the same kindergarten and school until they moved to Germany a few years ago," he explains to Wille before turning to his childhood friend. "And he's my… Wille. I mean my boyfriend."

"His boyfriend," Wille repeated with a proud grin. "Nice to meet you, Lena."

"Likewise, Simon's Wille," she mirrors Wille’s grin, but then she drops her head for a second. "Sorry about your brother. Must be really hard."

"Yeah," Wille agrees, and his smile falters for a second. "Thanks."

"I'd ask you if you'd like to join us, but we're leaving for Stockholm today, and mom has already been yelling at me over text to hurry up."

"Until when are you staying? It's been ages since we have seen each other, it would be nice to catch up."

"For a couple of more days, we are flying back on Sunday morning, I think."

"Oh, Simon is coming over for the weekend. So you can meet on Saturday if you want."

"I would love to," Lena says excitedly, and Simon sees that she has already started to plan the day in her head.

"Yeah, but it's your birthday, Wille."

They have a silent conversation there. One without a conclusion though, and Lena’s phone starts to ring. Probably her mother telling her to hurry up again. She ignores the call, but says: "Okay, I really need to go. Send me a message if you are free and you want to do something together. I have missed your stupid face." She kisses Simon’s cheek as a goodbye and runs off after a goodbye wave to Wille. Her friends had been already waiting for her by the door.

Simon and Wille sit down at a table after they order. They spread out the food on the table; a couple of chocolate rolls and butter croissants. They only need to wait for their drinks; cappuccino for Simon and mango & strawberry flavored black tea for Wille.

Wille brings up the topic of meeting Lena on Saturday again while they wait. "It's really okay, Simme."

"But it's your birthday. We have that whole official unofficial whatever that is your mom organizes and I planned stuff."

"Oh? What kind of stuff?"

"This and that." Further questions already started to form on Wille’s lips, so Simon shoots them down quickly. "Which I won't tell you now, obviously."

"Then how about I add it to my birthday wishlist—that you meet your friend who clearly means a lot to you and who you haven't seen in ages?"

"You are so annoying." There’s a dramatic sigh with a pause. "But okay."

Their drinks arrive and they start eating.

"Do you want to paint your nails?" A question comes from Simon after a bit of a silence, and because Wille looks at him with a bit of a lost expression, he adds: "You were so mesmerized earlier, so I thought…"

There’s a half nod, half shoulder raise. "I don’t know. Maybe. Have you done it before?"

"Yeah. It felt good, for me. Having it on. But I’m not really that into wearing it like every day or so."

"Yeah?" Wille chews on his lower lips as a conflicted expression runs through his face. He’s always been very wary of getting out of his comfort zone, so it was not new to Simon. Probably has a lot to do with how he was hardly allowed to explore his own interests and ideas so far in his 16 years of life.

"We can ask the girls to bring one, and I can paint it for you today if you want?"

"Just like that?"

"Yeah, Wille. Do something if you want to try—and if that something is not like illegal."

"I don't know… The boys at school don’t paint their nails ever."

"You can paint mine too, so we can match."

"Oh," Wille beams over the idea. "Okay."

Simon quickly sends a text to their group chat with Felice, Maddie, and Sara to ask. A "sure thing!!" comes almost instantly, with a request for a picture of Wille’s outfit, so they can bring matching colors from which Wille can choose from. He looks over at Wille, who is currently trying his very best to not choke on the powdered sugar he accidentally inhaled when he took a bite of the chocolate roll they ordered.

"Give me your phone, I’ll send the pics we have taken just now to the group chat."

Between two coughing fits, Wille fishes his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and hands it over to Simon. It takes a bit of multitasking for Simon to navigate the phone with one hand and tap Wille’s back with the other at the same time, but he manages. And by the time the message goes through, Wille is not on the verge of death anymore either, so that’s great.

The hand previously hitting Wille’s back goes up to brush over his hair. "You okay?"

He gets an answer in a form of a nod. Just to be on the safe side, Simon taps off the sugar from the rest of the food in front of his clumsy boyfriend, while said boyfriend drinks some water, and they get on to finish their breakfast.

"If it isn't the crown prince around us mere mortals?" Ayub jokes the moment they sit down beside him and Rosh on the bus. They go with the same bus when they start at the same time in the morning because both schools are on the same line.

"Shut up, idiot!" Simon slaps his friend's arm with a laugh.

"Is he in his rebellious phase?” Rosh joins in, noticing the absence of bodyguards.

"That's his default way of being, I think. Just needed a little nudge to get a start on it."

They are sitting at the very back, Ayub at the very left and Rosh beside him. But Simon asked her to change seats because he has important business to discuss with Ayub. He drops his bag on the floor and puts up his legs on the raised platform of the seats in front of them.

"Actually, he said he likes to ride the bus because it's exciting," he adds while looking over to grin at his prince.

That statement gets a good-humored laugh out of both of his friends and Wille smiles about it too.

Despite the joking, everyone understands why someone who never needed to use public transportation before would find riding the bus new and exciting. It's such a mundane thing, but Wille was never allowed to do it before. Well, he's still not exactly allowed, but that's not important now. Simon's childhood friends, especially Ayub, and occasionally Simon himself too likes to joke about the whole crown prince thing. Simon was worried at first if maybe it's a bit too much sometimes, and some things might unintentionally hurt Wille for real, but when he asked, Wille said it doesn't bother him at all. Regardless, Simon made him promise to say if something is too much (even if Simon is aware that the jokes are never really personal or against Wille, and they aren't being made to hurt Wille's feelings—exactly the opposite actually) and Simon also asked his friends to tone it down a bit.

The bus ride goes by with Simon and Ayub getting into a heated conversation about this new game that came out and starts to excitedly plan out a game day to try it out together. While Wille and Rosh exchange playlists and discuss the new songs they have found (and think the other person would love) since the last time they have spoken.

It was kind of very hard to get Rosh to forgive him, or more so for her to start to not look at him like she's just waiting for him to slip up. Simon did his best to mediate and to give them lots of opportunities to make up. Which honestly wasn't that hard, given that Rosh and Felice became friends over a short period of time too, and given that Rosh is one of the most important people in Simon's life, so they all naturally hang out together quite a lot. The making up part was, however, definitely a challenge. In the beginning, there had been lots of tension and awkwardness, Rosh being dismissive toward him while he didn't have a clue how to behave around her in return. Wille is still unsure what exactly he did to change her mind—maybe over time she got to see how much he cares about Simon and how he absolutely doesn't plan on hurting Simon ever again?—, but that tension started to lift off after a while. And he remembers this very clearly because he was very surprised that during a karaoke night, they organized among themselves, Rosh started a conversation with him about music. It turned out that their music taste matches a lot, and ever since that day they had been sending each other songs and playlists, and discussing them in depth. As the awkwardness disappeared from between them, they started to joke around and tease each other too. Simon was the one singing at karaoke night that day, and Wille vividly remembers how his boyfriend—upon finishing the song—came to sit down, and his face lighted up like a Christmas tree when he realized the two of them were talking, and it's a normal conversation without any snarky remarks.

They say goodbye when Ayub and Rosh need to get off, and the rest of the ride goes by in relative silence. Wille occasionally pushes on Simon’s tight with his own, Simon pushes back, and they play that for a while with huge grins on their faces until they get bored and just leave their legs pressed together after. Somewhere in the middle of doing that, Wille pointedly ignores his buzzing phone, deciding to deal with a possibly angry Malin in a few minutes when they reach Hillerska.

Malin does, in fact, look quite angry when the bus arrives and they get off. She’s waiting at the bus stop and it makes Wille feel a bit bad about not even sending her a message or something. Before he has a chance to say anything, Simon takes it upon himself to apologize. "I’m so sorry, Malin. Wille wanted to take the bus and you wouldn’t have liked that either way. It was dumb to not tell you where we were though. We feel awful about it, for real! Next time when we are doing something stupid, we’ll tell you right away!”

Wille snorts but nods along. “Promise!”

The thing is that Malin has kind of a soft spot for Simon—and it’s not like she can scold him or be mad at him anyway, because even so her job kind of extends to Simon when he’s with Wille, Simon doesn’t need to listen to her or tell her where he is and what he’s doing—and Simon definitely gets them out of situations because of it, even if he denies it every time Wille brings it up. That’s kind of what’s happening now too, the moment Simon started to talk, Malin had no chance to turn it back into scolding Wille anymore. She just shakes her head at them and tells them, like she always does, to not do it ever again, and there was something about her needing a raise for all the shit she needs to deal with because of them.

They have a half hour long break after their third lesson. By the time it rolls around, Simon already feels exhaustion creeping in. He stays in the classroom while most of the students filter out to go to the study room or to eat or whatever. Wille also goes to buy a Bounty and the lemon tea they sell at the canteen. He brings back some tangerine flavored candy as well. It must be new because Simon doesn't remember seeing it ever. "I think the canteen lady adores you. She pointed out this candy to me, specifically because she knows you love tangerines a lot."

Simon grins, taking the candies that are offered to him and pops them into his mouth.

Next, Maddie drops a makeup bag on the table and she takes a seat opposite of them. "Brought the nail polish you asked for." She opens the bag to line up the different colored nail polish.

"Which one do you recommend?" Simon asks.

"Hmm," she takes a good look at both of their outfits before deciding. "Purple to Wille, and the blue for you, Simon. So it matches your clothes and you match with each other. Or! I have baby blue," she announces suddenly, and she digs for it in the bag for a second, then holds it up like it's a rare gem. "I think it's exactly the same brand you described in the chat, Simon."

Wille looks at the options in front of him but it's pretty evident he likes the baby blue the most, his eyes keep going back to it. Simon reaches out for it. "This one is okay, Wille?"

Felice and Sara are joining them at the table before Wille could answer. They get into a conversation with Maddie, about the girl who confessed to Maddie the other day.

Wille is still just quiet, so Simon just unscrews the nail polish and starts to paint his own nails with the baby blue Wille likes so much. That seems to get his boyfriend out of his trance.

"No, wait. Can I do it for you?"

"Yes, of course. Here," he gives the polish to Wille, who pauses for a second before getting into work. It's a bit way too messy, even the table gets a bit of a polish, but Wille is endearing, and when he finishes he smiles to himself: "Pretty." And then to Simon. "Do mine?"

And Simon does. When it's all done, Wille smiles softly before leaning forward and pressing a kiss on Simon’s cheek. "Thank you." He inspects his nail with clear joy on his face, and Simon notes down that apparently his boyfriend’s favorite color is this darker shade of baby blue or powder blue.

They join in to the conversation with the girls and Henry, because he came to their table somewhere along the line. Simon only noticed when he complimented the color choice for their nails.

"Are you guys okay? You look like you will fall asleep any minute," Felice directs her question to them after a while when they quiet down significantly, and Simon closes his eyes while resting his head on his arms on the table.

Wille shrugs. His fingers absentmindedly playing with the curl he tried to draw in the morning. Simon usually hates when people do that because it messes up the pattern if done in the wrong way. But Wille is super gentle and doesn’t try to separate and pull apart individual curls his hands find. (Just like his mama, and Rosh.) Most of the time he just brushes over them or makes them curl around his finger. It's actually very handy when he’s over when Simon washes his hair because he can just ask Wille to play with his hair and Wille gladly helps to define his curls by simply playing with them. It’s a win-win; Simon doesn’t need to do it on his own, Wille likes doing it, and Simon likes it when he does it.

"We didn't get much sleep last night."

"Oh?" Maddie looks at them with a suggestive glint in her eyes. Simon is too tired to notice and care, but Wille turns red as a tomato.

"It's not like that!"

"Sure, sure."

"It's REALLY not like that."

"Alright," Maddie giggles at Wille's flustered state, but she drops the subject. They start to talk about schoolwork, from what both Simon and Wille tune out of. Instead, Wille turns his focus on scraping off the dried nail polish from Simon's skin, while Simon opens his eyes to supervise the process with great concentration.

The little gathering by their table disperses when the teacher comes and the lesson starts. It’s Math, and Wille gives up on it after a minute of not knowing how to solve the equation he just scribbled down. On the other hand, Simon gets the honorable task of solving it on the blackboard in front of the entire class. He isn’t exactly sure if the fact that it’s usually him who is asked to do that means the Math teacher hates or loves him, but yeah, that’s a thing that happens consistently. He used to hate it because it meant being perceived in a place he already felt like an outsider by people who already looked down on him for various reasons. But nowadays, he’s not so bothered because when he looks out to the class there are multiple friendly faces looking back at him, and ready to help him cheat when he’s stuck. Plus, Wille’s there, and no matter how cheesy it might come across, Wille makes him feel safe with his lovesick eyes and proud grin. The one Wille has on his face now too when Simon sits back after solving the problem, and Wille’s hand comes to rest on his waist.

And Simon can't focus on the teacher anymore. Tiredness washes over him and he sees it in the boy beside him too. The warmth radiating from his body made Simon want to melt even further into his embrace. It took everything in him to not let his head drop onto Wille's shoulder and fall asleep right there.

In the end, Wille is the one who ends up falling asleep; halfway through class he rests his head down on the table and after a few minutes his hand, which previously provided a constant warmth on Simon's waist, goes limp. Simon glances at the teacher and notes that she appears completely focused and isn't paying attention whatsoever. Simon places his elbow on the table and combs through the blond hair spread out there. Wille is growing it out again, and Simon is obsessed. It's not like he didn't like the short hair, but he likes to play with his boyfriend's long locks. And Wille has this peaceful look whenever he does, so it's mutually beneficial. Their classmates around them occasionally shoot curious looks toward their direction. The teacher notices after a while but just carries on with the class until the end.

When the bell rings is when she comes over to check on them. Thankfully, Simon has enough time to nudge the sleeping boy beside him awake before she reaches their table. "He's not feeling well," he lies, not wanting to tell the teacher that Wille simply fell asleep in her class. She doesn't ask many questions, just tells Wille to go back to his room. Simon wholeheartedly did not expect her to turn to him next and ask him to accompany the crown prince back. So this is a thing now.

They go back to Wille's room and despite the teacher notifying Malin about him not feeling well, Malin just walks back with them without asking questions.

"Stay," Wille reaches for Simon's hand after he unprincely collapsed to the bed the moment they walked inside the room. "The teacher said we will just go over the previous lesson today, for the test, and you already know it like the back of your hand. You won't miss anything."

"Okay," Simon answers, purposefully not bringing up the fact that they have two more lessons for the day, and what Wille said is only true for one of them. "Just so you know, mom said no skipping school, so if I feel like telling her you made me skip, she'll scold you badly."

"What are the conditions for your silence?"

"Hmm… Cuddles?"

"Seems reasonable. Come here," he makes grabby hands toward Simon, who kicks off his shoes and goes to lay down beside his very cute and very cuddly boyfriend. Then there are kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, his eyes, and he lets himself be tucked under Wille's chin, arms securely around him for maximum safety, and they fall asleep shortly after.

(Simon goes home after the two last lesson ends.)

 

Notes:

Make your own paper frogs by searching up "jumping origami frog"!

(Simon and Linda are speaking Spanish with each other all the time when it's just the two of them, but I didn't feel like accentuating it.)