Chapter Text
He is ... he doesn't know what he is.
Floating?
Maybe. Yes.
He is floating.
He doesn’t know who he is, or what a he is, except that it's like I but not. He does not know what an I is either, nor does he care.
All he knows is that he is floating.
Everything else is hazy, but he's aware that he's floating and that's a start.
Awareness is a start.
He is here, floating, wherever here might be.
He tries to remember how he got there, but then wonders why it matters.
He feels no beginning, no end.
What does he feel?
Should he feel?
He remembers feeling surprise, or at least he thinks he does.
Bad surprise.
Not long enough to form a coherent thought, but long enough to know that he needed to react, immediately.
And then ...
Floating.
He thinks he hears something. Realizes that hearing is a thing he should be able to do, as is seeing.
He tries to open his eyes but does not know how.
He tries to raise his hands but can't.
There's no beginning and no end.
He doesn't have hands.
Or eyes.
Or ears.
But then why can he hear?
He doesn't know and he doesn't care.
Why does it matter how he can hear or why?
The only thing that matters is that he can, and even the importance of that he doubts.
Why should he listen, why should he doubt, when he can just float?
He does not know what he is, but he knows that whatever he is he possesses at least a spark of curiosity, and so he lets it be, lets it grow, and the something turns into voices, turns into yelling, turns into cars and sirens and bright lights.
Lights he can see, somehow.
Above him and below him and around him, and he's still floating, floating above a twisted shape of black metal.
A car, he knows.
His car.
And around it people, many people. Making noises and gestures and panicking, and he wonders why, why they, too, can't just be, why they have to act when they can just float.
It is him, inside the car, the one everyone is focusing on. Except it's not, because he's floating, and all that's left in the car is an abandoned husk, a crumpled pile of flesh and bone and blood, like an old suit that tore, that no longer fits.
No.
That down there is not him.
He is not like those people, yelling and fighting and feeling and wearing an old crumpled suit constraining him in all the wrong places.
He just is.
Floating.
***
Wilhelm hangs up the phone.
Erik is dead.
Erik is dead. His world, his dreams are falling apart, and all he feels is numb.
***
He keeps floating and the lights dissipate, the noise vanishes.
It is ... it is, he is, and he doesn't think, just is.
He doesn't know for how long. Things happen around him, the world moves around him. The twisted shape which once was a car—one he had emotions about?— is replaced by rooms full of stainless steel, then marble.
He sees his body again. What once was his body. It’s still broken, still empty, but people come, inspect it, prepare it and dress it and paint it, as if he is still inside and getting ready for a photoshoot, whatever that is.
A woman comes. A step behind her a man follows.
He thinks they are important.
They weep.
He wonders why.
All they see is a broken husk.
There’s nothing left inside, so why do they care? Why is it important?
They leave again.
The body is put in a wooden box—a casket—a lid placed on top.
The world moves again.
He is still floating, and the box is still there.
It’s in a church now, and the church is full of people. People in uniform standing guard. People in different uniforms and name tags guiding other people into ordered lines as they pass by the box and bow and curtsy and weep before they leave again.
Some of them pray.
No one gets to stay there long, everyone always in motion, everyone except the guards who stand still and impersonal and numb.
There is a blue and yellow cloth draped over the box, and he wonders why he keeps seeing the box, keeps being near the box.
The church empties and he’s still floating.
Someone comes in, alone.
It’s a boy, and he’s different.
He doesn’t bow, he doesn’t pray, he doesn’t weep, and yet the pain he feels is all encompassing.
He is calling out to him, but his lips don’t move.
He is screaming and crying and hurt and lost, and yet he doesn’t make a sound.
The boy is so lost, so hurt that even he can feel it, and it’s the first emotion he truly feels, the first that isn’t just being, and it’s strange and new.
Or maybe old?
He moves closer to the boy, who rests his head on the casket and stays there, hugging it, his breathing slow.
All he sees, all he feels, all he is is agony, is loss, is lost, and yet the boy is silent, his face unmoving and numb.
He doesn’t feel anything.
He feels everything and he doesn’t understand.
"Erik," the boy whispers.
There is only the boy and the box, and the boy is still calling out to him, needing him, needing him so bad, and he doesn’t understand.
Why does the boy care?
Why does he know it’s him the boy is calling out to?
There is nothing inside the box but a corpse. It doesn’t matter.
It’s dead. He’s—
Oh.
He’s dead.
"Erik."
No one answers.
Yes, he wants to say, because that’s him, isn’t it?
He’s Erik, but he’s dead, and the boy is not. He is alive and lost and hurt and calling out to him.
I need you, Erik.
Don’t leave me, Erik.
Please.
Erik.
I need you.
Erik tries to reach out, to touch him, to hug him, and he feels so much, it’s overwhelming. It’s too much. He forgot what it’s like to truly feel, and he can’t, can’t reach him, can’t touch him, can’t hug him, and Wille, his poor baby brother, is all alone, is—
Is gone.
Erik didn’t see him leave, but now he’s gone and with him are most of the emotions, most of the feelings, but he knows now that he is Erik, that he has a baby brother called Wille who feels so much that it’s overwhelming, and that he’s dead.
It’s a start.
Most importantly however he is floating and sometimes the world around him moves and maybe it can move to Wille and not to wherever the box is going.
He doesn’t care about the box, all that’s in there is an old suit, but he thinks he cares about Wille. He thinks he cares about him a lot.
***
Time passes and Erik keeps floating.
Sometimes he feels Wille, feels pain and loss and sorrow, and Erik tries to hug him, but can never quite hold on.
Sometimes he sees him, hiding under his blankets or blankly staring at the woman from before, the woman he now knows is Mamma, and Erik tries to reach out, to have Wille see him in turn, but Wille never does.
Sometimes he hears him, calling out to him, silently, excruciatingly loudly, screaming and yet not making a sound, and Erik tries to answer, to tell him that he’s there, but Wille never reacts.
Sometimes, when the world moves to where Wille is, it’s all of the above, and Erik tries to cling to it, to Wille, who makes him feel and not just be. Sorrow and pain and loss, yes, but also love, so much love, and his poor baby brother is all alone.
He is alone staring at a picture, and Erik thinks that’s the two of them in there, much younger and smiling.
He is alone giving a speech in front of the assembled students, telling them that it feels wrong that he’s the one still here when Erik isn’t, and maybe for the first time the pain he feels is different from Wille’s, because no.
Wille’s suit is still whole, he is still growing into it, it’s not torn and twisted and broken beyond repair. Wille is still growing into his suit and he will wear it well for many decades yet to come, and Wille is not alone, because Erik is right there with him.
He is also with him when the room empties and there is only Wille left, Wille and a familiar looking boy, although Erik can’t quite place where he remembers him from, except that he has to have seen him at Hillerska.
Wille tells the other boy that he can’t do this anymore and his heart is breaking.
Wille is lost and raging and helpless, and he’s swallowing pills, and getting drunk and Erik understands, he does, but he also wants him to stop. He knows that this doesn’t help, that self-destructive behavior only ever destroys, and any escape can only be temporary.
Well, all but one, but that at least he thinks he does not have to fear.
Wille is standing in a field.
Standing might not be the proper term, but he is there, and so is Erik, and Wille stumbles and yells and trashes the mannequins and Erik wants to do something, anything, desperately, and for a moment he thinks he succeeds, that he is being seen, because he pushes and pushes and pushes, and then something clicks into place and Wille opens his mouth in surprise and smiles, but it’s only for a moment, before his eyes lose focus, and so does Erik, but not completely.
He still feels Wille, and he is high. His feelings jumbled and incoherent and not making any sense, and Erik has to help but can’t.
He struggles, tries to keep the world from moving, from moving away from Wille, and it works, the world stops moving, but all he gets are flashes, flashes of Wille kneeling on the ground and eating grass, of him lying on his back and staring up into the sky, of the boy from after the speech arriving and helping where Erik can’t, and Erik is glad, glad that the boy is here to help and not to use his baby brother.
He sees the boy—Simon—pull Wille up, letting Wille cling to him if only for a moment and then slowly, stumblingly, taking him back to Hillerska, and that is good.
Erik begins to calm down.
The next thing he sees are flashes of skin, Wille for once not lost but right where he wants to be, and he’s horny and aroused, and Erik is happy for him, he is, but also no, no, no, he does not want to see this, and for the first time he wills the world to move again, because this is his baby brother and Erik is no voyeur.
It doesn’t work.
He’s been so focussed on Wille, has no other reason to care about what is going on in the world other than his hurting baby brother, to not just float forever, that he does not know how to push away. He is too agitated to get back to just being, to remove himself from the world, and Wille is …
Wille is kissing the boy, is kissing Simon, his hand moving in Simon’s underwear and Erik wants to close his eyes but can’t, because he has no eyes, nor does he have hands to hide behind.
It takes Wille starting to kiss his way down Simon’s chest in a way plenty of girls have done to Erik in the past for him to realize that he does not have to make the world move, that he can move himself, that he can turn, to the window, out the window, where maybe he won’t hear Simon moan while Wille does things to Simon no older brother should ever have to witness.
August is there, outside the window, and it doesn’t make sense, because the world hasn’t moved, only Erik has, but not far, and why would his cousin be there, holding a phone and pointing at the window behind which his baby brother is having sex?
It doesn’t make sense, not unless August is knowingly filming his baby brother. His baby brother who for the first time since Erik died stopped hurting and feeling alone, and who deserves his privacy.
August is his older cousin, an adult even. It’s his job to stand by Wille and protect him, and not to … not to stand up in shock and save the video.
Wille is a child and August is his cousin and August is saving the video.
Something inside of Erik snaps.
It’s strange, because up until now Erik wasn’t aware he still had an inside, but that doesn’t matter, because he feels rage, so much rage, rage like he never felt before, rage and betrayal, and all of it is Erik’s.
He can no longer feel Wille’s arousal—thankfully, but he can hear Simon’s moans, and they are moans of pleasure, Wille clearly enjoying himself and unaware of what is going on just outside his window.
August leaves, and Erik finally starts floating again, although it’s nothing like before.
He no longer just is. Instead he is raging and worrying and feeling so many things at once, and they are all Erik’s feelings, not Wille’s, who he is still aware of, but not like before, because Wille is having sex and August filmed him and Erik needs to do something, needs to protect Wille, who has it hard enough already and who deserves every slice of happiness he can get.
Except what can he do?
All Erik is is awareness, and not even that all of the time.
He can see and hear and feel, but he has no body, has no senses, except he must have, because how else could he see and hear and feel, and if he can do that when he at first couldn’t, then surely he can make himself be seen and heard and felt.
He’s never heard of something like this, of something like him before, not outside of stories, of ghost stories, because that’s what he is, isn’t it?
A ghost.
He tries to reach for August, to destroy his phone, to choke him, anything to stop him, but he can’t follow, can only be or return to Wille, and the second is not an option, and so Erik returns to being and concentrates.
He does not concentrate on Wille or on calling out to him, but instead on himself, because if there is an inside, then there also has to be an outside, a form, a shape which is Erik, because Erik might be part of the universe but he is also just Erik, an individual consciousness separate from everything else.
Well, almost everything, and maybe then, when he succeeds, he can actually do something and not just be aware and witness.
He still turns his attention on Wille, of course he does. His baby brother is why he’s doing this in the first place, but Wille is doing better if not well, and the sooner Erik can make himself known, can influence things, the sooner he can help.
Time passes and Wille has his ups and downs, but it’s going better, or at least Erik thinks it is.
It is Lucia and Erik has managed to mold himself into a shape, a familiar one, can see his hands and his feet, dressed in his favorite clothes even, but he can’t yet interact with the world, nor with Wille, he’s not sure he will ever be able to, but even if, it’ll be too late, because it is Lucia and August leaks the video, shares it with the world, and Erik, for the first time ever, truly learns what hate is.
He loses himself for a while, rages and yells and imagines himself throwing things, but no one hears him and his touch passes through every object in sight.
He doesn’t care.
All he cares about is protecting his baby brother, and there he already failed once, twice if one counts Erik himself dying and leaving Wille to shoulder the burden of becoming Crown Prince, which Erik does, sometimes. It's a burden Erik never minded, not really, but one which Wille most certainly does, and he can’t fail him again.
Fading away and just floating becomes harder, too.
He’s been so focussed on taking shape, on finding and staying by Wille’s side, that he remains there now even when he’s not concentrating, and he’s always feeling, always thinking, about Wille and August and everything, and he can’t float when he’s thinking, not really.
After the video leaks everything gets worse again.
Not for Erik, who can now tell that his newly formed shirt is blue—for whatever good that does—but for Wille, because everyone is whispering and everyone is judging, and Mamma is trying to help, but she also seems to have forgotten what it feels like to be a teenager, a teenager in love and betrayed by the one he was promised he could trust.
Erik told Wille so himself, stood up for August and told Wille that he could rely on him, that August was just intense, but that he’s family, one of them.
He clearly was wrong, and he hates himself for it.
Wille returns to the Royal Palace, makes a statement, and Erik understands. It makes sense, even if he would have gone about it differently, but Simon doesn’t.
Wille loses Simon, and any progress Wille made with it.
Shortly after Wille finds out about August, and it turns his wallowing into anger, his pain into fury.
It doesn’t help, but it does make Wille determined, especially when he finds out that Mamma already knew, and that Erik doesn’t understand. There are plenty of ways to punish August and to teach him about the consequences of his actions without causing a scandal for the Royal Family.
August cannot get away with this.
Wille agrees, even if he cannot hear Erik’s angry rants, and he starts planning.
He tries to get Simon back, confesses his love to him just before he has to return home for the Christmas holidays. It goes nowhere, and Wille shuts off, although Erik knows his mind is working overtime.
So is Erik.
Christmas Eve is mostly a private family affair, and Wille and his parents spend it at Drottningholm Palace on the outskirts of Stockholm.
Wille does not speak to anyone, and he does not return back to their apartments in the Royal Palace when his Mamma asks him to, because her office is there and it is more convenient to not have to make the half hour drive there every morning, especially with the New Year’s Gala coming up.
Wille refuses, and instead spends most of his time in a secluded room in Drottningholm, away from everyone else and with some of Erik’s old things.
Erik forgot this room even existed, must have last been here as a child when he was playing explorer with Wille, but now there are pictures of him on the wall and his uniform jacket and cufflinks are waiting to be put on, something which Wille does almost as soon as he enters.
Right in front of him is a black and white picture of Erik and a car, the car, and he wonders who thought it a good idea to place it there, when his still grieving baby brother was bound to wander in and see it.
Wille is hurting so bad, but no one sees, everyone too wrapped up in their own mourning, or aware that it’s not their place to notice, and Erik’s heart is breaking.
He wants Wille to see him, to know that he’s not alone.
Wille hugs himself, sad and convinced that he is all alone, that he has no one by his side, and Erik wraps his arms around him despite them passing through, and tells him that he’s there, that Wille is not alone, that Erik will always be by his side.
He pours all his feelings into the words, into the gesture, all his love and guilt and rage, and Wille trembles, his breath hitching.
Then he lifts his head.
"Erik?" he asks, his voice weak and full of sorrow, but most of all it is pleadingly, desperately hopeful.
"I’m here," Erik says, and for the first time since Erik’s death their eyes meet.