abraxaslogs | [closed] stay green a little while

Rhy, perhaps tired of his hand being smacked or perhaps in response to the way Wilhelm's expression falls, turns his hand over to curl his fingers over Wilhelm's instead.

"Go on," he urges, sympathetically. Reining in the drunkenness a bit, which he's got more experience with. He blinks, catching Wilhelm stumbling over his words, but not quite what he means.

"That sounds very frustrating."

He almost apologizes for the fact that they're holding hands — a completely nonsensical urge, as Rhy is the one who linked their fingers in the first place. The instinct to check if anyone's watching prickles under his skin. This one he actually begins to follow, tensing just shy of imperceptibility as he flings his gaze sideways, before remembering that he's nobody here. The relief of it all — his own anonymity, the world's delicious indifference — rushes in.

So. His hand is snugly curled beneath Rhy's, and he's not sure how much he's supposed to read into the gesture, but it feels nice. That sympathetic expression Rhy's wearing softens his defenses further. Releasing a sigh, Wilhelm continues in his ambling way:

"My mom always said it's a privilege, not a punishment, to be a prince, but...the more she says it, the less I believe her. I mean, no matter what your position is, it seriously sucks to have no say in your life..."

He trails off, his thoughts returning to inchoate primordial ooze as he realizes...he might have said it out loud that time.

That time, Rhy does catch it. His attention snags on that one word, and suddenly the pieces begin to rearrange themselves, Wilhelm's tipsy chattering beginning to form a clearer picture. His anxieties given name.

Rhy nods, and gives his hand a gentle squeeze.

"There is no escaping who we're born to. Some people's parents are poor farmers or street-sweeps, cursing having another mouth to feed. Some are kings and queens, with the fate of an entire nation on their shoulders."

He shrugs, stares off into his cup for a minute, trying to maintain his hold on the thread of conversation he wanted to follow. There is a growing lump in his throat. Rhy swallows, taking a breath to ease the ache.

"There are some things you can change, and some you can't. You'll always be a prince. What you do with that power-- that is something that you do have a say in."

Except they're both here, now.

That, Rhy has no answer for.

His brain's not so soaked with beer that he misses the quiet war waged in Rhy's body language. It's a war Wilhelm has fought with himself, doubts and insecurities rising up to overthrow him. Though he doesn't know what shape Rhy's takes yet, he senses that there's something of himself shadowing that advice.

Anyway, it's too late to retract his words now. Suddenly, it seems silly that he ever wasted so much stress on keeping so inconsequential a secret. Rhy doesn't care. Nobody cares.

"No, no, no," he insists, shaking his head and concluding with a clang of his cup against the table. Not hard — he's making a point, not throwing a tantrum. "I'm not a prince here, am I? I'm nobody, and I like it that way."

His expression is halfway to manic — and again, the booze can only be blamed so much. It's the expression of someone who, having lit a fire, finds beauty in the devouring flames.

"The only power I want is the power to live a normal life. To be responsible for nobody but myself."

Sitting back, Rhy lets him go, but his eyes linger on Wilhelm's face. He's left his own cup on the table, suddenly all too sober despite his solid attempts to be otherwise most of the night.

A flicker of a shadow crosses his features, something almost wounded, settling into a distant melancholy.

He meets Wilhelm's eyes.

"You don't really mean that."

It doesn't sound like a reprimand, or even cajoling. He says it like it's true, a matter-of-fact statement, not a question.

As Rhy withdraws, Wilhelm's expression falters and then cracks altogether. Left behind on the table, his hand feels naked. He pulls it around his cup, fidgeting with the handle.

Now he's certain that whatever path Rhy has followed all his life is tangled up somewhere in this conversation. While he's curious about his friend, he feels that he has to explain himself. He doesn't like that wounded look Rhy is nursing, and he likes even less that something he said inflicted it.

"I do really mean that." His tone has softened, a solemn hush held within the din of the barroom, but it's weighted with a plea for understanding. "I wasn't allowed to be myself. I couldn't even be with the person I liked, just because he's a boy."

Another rush of freedom, admitting for the first time on his own terms that he loves a boy. It's not quite penance for the public statement he'd issued, denying his involvement in the video and stranding Simon to deal with the aftermath alone, but it's a tiny step toward something like it.

"My happiness didn't matter. All that mattered to my mom was our stupid family legacy."

Rhy listens. He even scoots a little closer, pulling his chair around the side slightly so they're not fully across each other, closing the space between them to provide the illusion of intimacy even when they're surrounded by people. It helps, of course, that none of the people are paying attention or give a single thought to them; they are all background noise, and so are Rhy and Wilhelm in their lives. Sometimes, a crowded room is the most private place for a quiet conversation.

His expressions shifts, a momentary confusion, then understanding. Sympathy in the way he nods.

"...I see."

He'd had his fair share of arguments with his family for being flighty and unserious, strict talkings-to about securing an heir, but despite their frustration, they'd never tried to stop him being who he is. When Wilhelm says he wasn't allowed, it sounds so-- crushing. And impossible.

"That sounds awful. Your mother shouldn't have treated you like that. That's no way to make sure you can be your best self for your people."

Some knot of tension tugs loose inside him when Rhy pulls in closer, transforming their table into a private moment. Having someone else confirm it — she shouldn't have treated you like that — breathes fresh air into his lungs, fresh life into his resolve to break away from his family's influence. His mother has no say in what he does here anyway, but the deliberateness of his personal revolution matters deeply to him. It matters to who he wants to be.

"That's why I'm done with trying to be anything for anyone else. I just want to be...Wilhelm. For me, and for the people who actually matter."

Judging by the look he presses into Rhy, this is a category that encompasses present company.

"Do you know what I'm saying? I don't think that's selfish."

Not after he destroyed the one thing that actually mattered to him in bending to appease his mother's demanding expectations. He deserves to do something for himself. He doesn't owe anyone anything.

"It isn't." Rhy breathes out, reaching for Wilhelm's hand again. His voice is kind, understanding, despite the next words. "For most people. But a prince has to think about more than just himself. So does a queen. It doesn't make how she's treated you excusable, or your feelings about it invalid. But it certainly... does complicate things, doesn't it?"

It's too bad, even after all those drinks, he's beginning to feel all too sober again. His chest tightens, and he gives Wilhelm's fingers a squeeze.

He doesn't usually bother telling people, not because he's hiding it, but because it simply doesn't matter here. It brings him more heartache to keep saying his title, who he is, when it is impossible to be what he is supposed to anymore.

"I am my country's crown prince. I know what it means to be more than just yourself. And I know what it means to be selfish with that responsibility, instead."

It's not what he wants to hear. The but. The gentle weight of Rhy's hand covering his, bringing it away from his mug and back to the table, pushes down the protest that lurches onto his tongue.

That and the way Rhy, in this moment, reminds him so much of Erik. His brother, kind and considerate, poised and perspicacious, was everything a future king is supposed to be — and Wilhelm could only stumble around in the enormous shoes he left for him to fill. After so much has unraveled, Erik's memory holds as the last tether he has to any sense of duty.

So he can't scorn Rhy for clutching at what his brother carried so seriously. Maybe he finds a sense of self in his title, a title in which Wilhelm feels totally lost.

"Fuck, what are the odds?" he mumbles. A daze of amazement, a bite of irony. His other hand leaves his cup behind, finding Rhy's, idly tracing the ridges and dips of his knuckles.

"But you don't have to be any of that here. You can just...put it down."

Likewise, this probably isn't what Rhy wants to hear. But it's just as much the truth.

A line appears between Rhy's brows, expression crumpling. He closes his eyes a moment longer than a blink, taking a slow, bracing breath as he lets the words roll through him, not entirely unexpected, but heavy nonetheless. They settle in the pit of his stomach like bricks. He swallows.

"One might argue I can't be that here."

Rhy shrugs, and lets him go to reach for the bottle and top off both their cups.

"I spent my life trying to be what my people needed of me. What I thought they needed, anyway. And in the end, I let them down. Princes and even kings are still merely human, after all. I didn't want to abdicate my responsibility to them."

He takes a drink, covering up the shakiness that cracks his voice toward that last bit. And maybe it's not very nice, but he can't help it, looking at Wilhelm like he's trying to understand but simply doesn't know how.

"...don't you feel any responsibility toward your people? Wasn't there anything about it that you loved?"

"No."

Too quick, too blunt — more of a verbal punch than an answer. But it's the truth. He hated the spotlight, the endless scrutiny, the ever-shrinking privacy. He hated that his title kept him from the life he wanted.

"My brother loved it," he adds quietly, trying to soften the harshness of that no. "I don't know if loved is the right word, but he cared about his duties. And I love Erik, so...I really did want to do a good job, you know, to honor him. I never asked to be crown prince, though. All I felt was...terrified of messing up. And angry that everything had to change."

Looking up from his cup, which he hasn't touched though it was topped off, he studies Rhy with a frown. He wants to go back to that golden moment when they were happy and laughing together. Although it's clear that Rhy has lugged this weight around for a long time, Wilhelm can't help but feel responsible for the dark mood louring over him now. Grasping for his approval, hoping to assuage him, he stumbles into an explanation.

"I don't know how it is where you're from, but the monarchy doesn't really have that much power anymore. All the major decisions are made by parliament. The queen or king is basically just a figurehead. 'My people' would be just fine without me."

Rhy looks a bit like he's been struck.

It takes him a minute to parse what Wilhelm says next -- about his brother, the way he uses past tense, the realization that Wilhelm wasn't raised to be crown prince at all, and then a moment later the explanation that it doesn't even matter, or so he seems to say.

The words stick in Rhy's throat. How even a figurehead can inspire. How people need hope. How that's the whole point of a prince. Already, he knows that anything he says will be struck down -- and, worse, that here it's all merely words. Devoid of context. The same way prince means only his past here, and nothing more.

He withdraws. Leaves the conversation where it lies, and grabs his cup again to drink until it's gone.

"I'm sorry," he says suddenly, pained.

"About your brother."

The thing is, neither of them are wrong. It's just that what's true for one doesn't have to be true for the other.

In the silence that follows, Wilhelm fights the feeling that he's disappointed Rhy. He'd already decided that he wasn't going to let anyone dictate his life for him, and he wasn't going to feel bad for prioritizing himself. That Wilhelm was gone, burned to the ground. Someone else had risen from the ashes. With a tight jaw he waits for whatever argument Rhy is preparing.

It never comes. Just condolences for Erik, which pulls the tension out of him. Suddenly, he wonders if Rhy is disappointed in himself.

"Thanks."

He never did figure out what you're supposed to say to that.

"Sorry about your brother too," Wilhelm jokes clumsily after a pause. He lifts his cup in a toast. "To brothers, right?"

An olive branch of sorts. A truce, burying the subject there.

[closed] stay green a little while

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