Like Because, Love Despite, Chapter 7. PG-13, Set It Up AU, Wille/Simon, romance/fluff/slight drama.
Wilhelm and Simon are a pair of overworked, underpaid assistants who team up to gain their supervisors' favor by bringing them together for a joint venture. It might be the best worst idea they've ever had.
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Many, many hours later, Simon was done with work for the day, but he decided to stop by Wille's desk to see how he was doing. He was absentmindedly typing on his phone as he entered the Krona offices and made his way down the by-now-familiar hallways.
"Well," he said as he approached Wille's station, "on the one hand, Englund ripped me a new one this morning and then treated me like a misbehaving child who doesn't understand Swedish for the rest of the day, so that's incredibly frustrating. On the other hand, at least I'm off work before midnight, and Marcus offered to take me out to dinner, so I might at least get pizza out of it."
He finally looked up from his phone to find Wille slumped down on his chair, fiddling with what looked like broken pieces of... something... on his desk like a kid might play with a spinning top. He looked like someone had shot his puppy. "What's wrong?" he asked. He walked around so he was standing in front of Wille's desk. "What's that?"
"This... is all that's left of a project I was supposed to present to the executive board." Wille sighed and explained further. "We had requested song submissions for this huge diversity and inclusion ad campaign my mother wants to put on. August delegated to me the choice of the song and putting together a mock-up. I had all the files in these USB drives, and then they all got destroyed when August threw a tantrum this morning. Now I have nothing to show, and the whole campaign is probably going to have to be delayed."
Simon frowned. "Can't you tell your mother that it was all August's fault?"
"I could," Wille conceded, "but that wouldn't ingratiate me any further with August, and it probably wouldn't matter anyway— Mamma would just tell me I should've backed up all my files or whatever. Which, yes, I should have, I know that, but in my defense, I did not know my cousin would have a complete mental breakdown and start flinging stuff out the window."
Simon couldn't tell if that was something that really happened or if Wille was just exaggerating, but either way, it didn't sound good. "Maybe you could... contact the people who submitted the songs and have them send you the files again?" he suggested, just to throw out something that might help. Wille looked so defeated.
The blond shook his head. "The board meeting is tomorrow. It's already 8 pm. There's no time." He ran a hand over his tired eyes and then through his disheveled hair, dodging Simon's look of pity. "It's fine. I'll figure something out. Go have dinner. You deserve it after all I've put you through today."
Simon hesitated. He didn't want to leave Wille like this when he was so downtrodden, but he also didn't know what he could do to help him. He smiled, trying to infuse some positive vibes into the gesture. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Wille mumbled back, head thrown back against the backrest and eyes closed.
Simon started walking slowly like his feet didn't really want to leave. He wracked his brain for something, anything, that might be of help. And when it finally came to him, the obvious solution to the problem, he wavered again. Could he do it? It seemed like a lot. But Wille needed help.
He spun on his heel, turning back toward the desk. "You need a new song," he declared.
"I know. I just don't know where I'm going to find one." Wille did not shift his position even a little. He was silent for a few seconds before he finally opened his eyes, maybe to check that Simon was still standing there. He found Simon pressing his lips together sheepishly. "What?"
Simon gestured toward the hallway with a tilt of his head. "Come with me. I know what we're going to do."
Wille looked confused at first. "We?" he asked. "What about Marcus?"
Simon shrugged, the corners of his lips curling up into a smirk. "Turns out, I didn't really want a bucketful of frogs, anyway." Wille's mouth slowly drew into a smile, and there was a gleam of warmth in his eyes that Simon hadn't seen all day. "Now come on. We've got no time to waste."
Grinning, Wille grabbed his keys, turned off his computer monitor, and got up, catching up to Simon just a few paces into the hallway.
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Simon led him back to the HSF offices, and down a side hallway to a small windowless room that turned out to be a simple, but well-equipped (well, in Wille's non-expert opinion) recording studio. "Wow," he commented as Simon started turning on panels and equipment. "HSF has its own studio? Fancy."
Simon chuckled but shook his head. "Hardly. It's just that it's actually cheaper to record our own audio when we need to promote an event, instead of paying an outside studio to do our recording every time. We run most of our campaigns on radio and streaming; TV is too expensive."
Wille put his hands in his pockets as he watched Simon move around the small control panel, fiddling with a setting here or a knob there. "Do you know what you're doing with all this stuff?" he asked, curious. Simon seemed to be comfortable around the equipment, but he'd never mentioned to Wille that something like this was part of his job description.
Simon looked at him over his shoulder and laughed. "I studied music in university. I know my way around a recording studio."
Wille nodded. That made a lot of sense; he knew Simon loved to sing, so of course he would've studied music in school. He moved to sit on the lone, solitary desk chair— no other furniture fit in the space, even if they'd had the means to buy some. "So how come you ended up working here, then?" he asked as he crossed his legs. "Why are you running errands for Englund and not up on a stage somewhere?"
Simon shrugged, his focus still on the control panel. "I love music, but it doesn't really pay the bills. I figured if I couldn't make music for a living, then I might as well find a job doing something I believe in."
He paused for a second while he adjusted a dial. "And I do think HSF does important work. We help a lot of people." He seemed to think twice about that last bit. "Well, the team members do. I'm just an assistant."
"But you'd rather be working on one of the teams, right?" Wille asked. He knew Simon had higher aspirations than just being Englund's assistant— otherwise, he wouldn't have suggested this plan of theirs, to begin with. He'd mentioned wanting a promotion at one point, Wille was sure.
"Yeah," Simon admitted with a nod. "It's just— I feel like I have so many ideas for fundraising activities that I would love to pitch. Bring these two things that I love together, music and helping people." He shook his head. "But it always feels weird, you know? Like I have no right to speak over anyone because I'm not really part of the team. I'm just a nobody."
The way he said that last part didn't sit well with Wille. Simon was amazing, and for the way he was treated by his boss, the fact that he still managed to remain helpful and upbeat and mostly positive about his job was nothing short of a miracle. "Hey, come on. Don't sell yourself short now. They wouldn't last a day without you." Simon looked back at him once more, giving him a grateful smile.
"You're going to apply to join one of the teams at some point?" he asked, not wanting to assume.
"I want to, but openings don't come up very often, and even when they do, I don't meet the qualifications," Simon explained, going back to setting up. "Basically the only way I can get a spot on one of the teams is if either a team leader or a board member offers one to me." He let out a heavy breath, almost a huff. "And as you know, Englund is... well. Englund."
Wille made a face. "That sucks. I'm sorry."
Simon waved off his pity. "Yeah, well... that's why this whole thing"— He signaled around them, which Wille took to mean their plan to get on Englund's good side— "has to work." He flipped a switch, and it clicked loudly. That seemed to be the last adjustment he needed to make, though, because he finally turned around and rested his weight against the edge of the console, arms crossed. "What about you, then? How come you're working as an assistant when your mother owns the firm?"
Wille sighed and rested his head back against the wall behind him. "It's a long story."
Simon, smirking, once more signaled to the room around him. "Trust me, we have time."
Wille thought about it for a beat or two. He didn't like rehashing the whole thing— it made him feel like shit— but he did want Simon to know. "Okay," he relented. "You, uh... you remember I have a brother, right? Erik." Simon nodded. "He's four years older than me."
He took a deep breath. "He started working at the firm right as I was starting university. Mamma made him a junior partner right away. Mainly 'cause he's her son, but also he's really good at it. At this, the job," he clarified. For his mother, being good at the job was pretty equivalent to being a good son, anyway. "Erik is just good at everything he does. And I love him, but it's a high standard to have to live up to."
He shifted his position, bending forward and leaning his weight on his thighs. Simon was frowning, and Wille knew he was confused, probably because he knew for a fact that Erik didn't work at Krona anymore. "A few years ago, in my last year of university, Erik was approached by a journalist who was working on an exposé of discrimination in venture capitalism. How most of the startups VC funds are still led by cishet white men, while projects led by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs often go ignored."
Simon nodded, and Wille was glad he could follow the story without him having to explain the technical details of his job. "I don't know why he went along with it," he continued speaking with a shrug. "Maybe he wanted to prove that Krona was better than the others or something. I've never asked. But he went looking through our files and found that our record was actually pretty dismal. Especially with queer people."
Simon's expression fell, somewhere between sadness and disappointment. Wille couldn't blame him; he felt the same way. "Yeah," he said, though Simon hadn't said anything. "He tried to bring it up with the board, but he didn't get any support. Mamma would tell him they weren't excluding people; they were just choosing the projects that were most likely to succeed, independent of whose projects they were." Simon scoffed. "Yeah, I know," Wille said with a grin. He knew exactly what Simon was thinking.
"So he did the only thing he thought might finally get their attention: he gave all the information to his journalist friend." He bit the corner of his lip before continuing. "When the article was published... it was a mess. All of VC took a hit, but Krona's reputation was hit the hardest."
His eyes glazed over as he remembered those days. His mother had practically walked around fuming for months. "There was a huge internal investigation, but they couldn't link anything back to Erik. They went into damage control mode. One of our vice presidents was fired— and good riddance to Jan-Olof, he was the worst— and they started a whole slate of PR and marketing initiatives to make Krona look like we'd changed, like we were actively working to diversify our portfolio."
He looked down at the floor between them, pensive. "But it was all cosmetic, superficial. Just efforts to assure business partners and banks that we were progressive and inclusive and fair, but doing none of the hard work to actually be inclusive and fair." He shook his head. "The numbers went up maybe a couple of percentage points. You could barely call that better than before."
When he looked up, he found Simon with his lips pressed into a tight line. Again, he understood the feeling. "Erik says that's when he had enough. He told Mamma he'd been the one who leaked the internal numbers, and then he quit. He said he couldn't in good conscience work in a place that would discriminate against..." He swallowed heavily. "...against someone like me. And he couldn't believe that Mamma would knowingly allow that in her firm."
Simon's brows arched admiringly. "Wow."
"I know," Wille said, nodding. He wasn't present for that conversation so he hadn't known about it until later, but he'd wept like a baby when Erik told him. "Erik is... something else. And the thing is that Mamma couldn't do anything to him— it would reflect terribly on her, and that's the last thing she needed at that point was to undo all their PR efforts. Plus he was still her favorite son, so I don't think she could bring herself to retaliate. From that point on, she just kind of pretended he'd never worked at the firm at all."
He lifted a hand to bring it to his mouth so he could bite his thumbnail, but halfway through the motion he remembered he'd already drawn blood earlier, and he probably shouldn't make that any worse. "Erik tried a few other firms for a while. It was hard, though, since everybody knew he'd left Krona in the middle of a scandal and nobody wanted to get on Mamma's bad side. He tried accounting for a while, but that's hardly the most exciting job in the world."
He couldn't help a smile; he remembered making fun of Erik those days. He might have avoided the small traces of resentment he now felt had Erik stuck around. "Thing is, he and his journalist friend, they fell in love. Last year, she was offered a position in London, and Erik moved with her. He's working in banking now." He fiddled with the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt. "That was last year. I haven't seen him in person since. He left me the apartment we shared, but it's too big for just me, so I let my friends Felice and Maddie use the second bedroom from time to time. Erik and I still talk on the phone, but it's not the same. I really miss him."
Simon's expression softened. "That's tough," he said. "Like, my sister's getting married— and she's not even leaving the city; she's just moving in with her husband, but I'm already dreading not having her around all the time. I couldn't even imagine her being so far away."
"Yeah," Wille agreed. But then he remembered he'd been trying to make a different point— he hadn't meant to go off on a tangent about his own loneliness, and especially not in front of Simon. "Anyway, this all went down around the time I was meant to start working at Krona. But then my mother was so burned by everything that happened with Erik, she decided she wasn't going to give me an executive position just because I'm her son. If I want to get to the board, I would have to start from the bottom, so I could prove my loyalty to the firm."
Simon was frowning, and he looked like he wanted to object, so Wille pre-empted him. "And that's fine. I mean, I'm not asking for special treatment or anything. It's just— it's been three years. I've been working my ass off for three years, and for August, too, who's obsessed with single-handedly solving the company's PR problems, so it falls to me, after everything that happened with Erik, to do the exact thing he quit the firm for."
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "And it's still not enough to prove myself to her. It will never be enough because she simply doesn't think I've got what it takes. That's the bottom line. I'm not Erik, so I'll never be enough to fill his shoes."
"Hey." Simon grabbed his attention by touching the tip of his sneaker to Wille's foot. Wille looked up at him and found him smiling. "I'm sorry she doesn't see how capable and dedicated you are. But at least if our plan works out, you'll be doing something meaningful to correct the issues your brother found? Not only will Krona be funding a queer project, but one that will also benefit more queer people as well."
Wille had never quite seen it from that angle, and as he processed the thought, he felt his frustration ebb away slowly. How did Simon always know what to say? "Right," he said out loud. "You're right."
"I usually am," he said in a very "humblebrag" tone. He signaled for Wille to stand up. "But it's not going to happen unless we get you a song for your ad campaign, yes? So we need to get going on that, but I'm going to need your help."
Wille frowned, looking at the myriad of buttons and levers and dials on the control panel. He couldn't even begin to guess what any of it was for. "Okay?"
"Don't worry, I'll tell you what you need to do," Simon replied, noticing his hesitation. "I'm going to be inside the booth, so I'll need you to start the recording from out here. It's easy, though: all you have to do is press this button..."
He showed Wille the sequence of things he needed to do to get the recording going, then went inside the tiny, only-fits-one-person booth. He closed it so that it was properly soundproof, and sat in front of the window, where a keyboard was set up. Since the control panel was on the opposite side of the booth wall, for ease of communication between the recorder and the recordee, he was basically face-to-face with Wille as long as he was in there.
"Alright," Simon said into the mic so that Wille could hear him on the speakers outside the booth, "I'm going to make sure I'm all set, and then I'll nod at you. That'll be your signal to start recording. Got it?" Wille nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. "When the song is over, I'll nod at you again, and you can stop the recording. Clear?" Another thumbs-up.
Simon adjusted some settings on the keyboard, adjusted the position of his microphone, and made sure the chair he was sitting on was at the proper height and comfortable enough. Then he nodded at Wille, prompting him to carefully execute the sequence Simon had taught him earlier. Once he was done and all the LEDs were lit that were supposed to be lit, he gave Simon another thumbs-up. With that, he saw Simon take a deep breath, and lift his hands to the keys.
Now, Wille was as proficient with a keyboard as anyone who had taken years of piano lessons in their childhood would be, so when Simon started to play the opening chords of a ballad, it felt familiar to him. Not really anything impressive, but comforting and recognizable. It was only when Simon started to sing that it became something extraordinary.
"Have you ever felt like being somebody else?" he breathed into the mic, his fingers flying over the keys, his eyes closing as his lips started forming the words. "Feeling like the mirror isn't good for your health?"
Wille had heard Simon sing before. At the football game, of course, where he sang and danced along with the band, and chanted along with the rest of the fans. Or even during the quieter moments, when they'd be planning something for their little scheme together, each one focused on their part, and Simon would hum some song in Spanish under his breath as he wrote on a notepad or browsed his phone— he did it without even noticing, and he also failed to notice it drew Wille's attention to him like a moth to a flame, a soft smile on his face every time.
So yes, Wille had heard Simon sing before, and knew how beautiful his voice was. But he was starting to realize that those instances had imparted on him an almost theoretical sort of knowledge; it was only now that he was performing with full intent, accompanied by nothing but a lovely, melancholy keyboard arrangement, in such a close, almost intimate setting, that Wille really lived the experience of hearing Simon sing.
And what an experience it was. An almost otherworldly one.
His throat went dry.
"So I tried every night to sit with sorrow," he continued, his fingers on the keys marking the rhythm. "And eventually, it set me free." Every word he sang sounded like it was coming straight from his heart. Wille was spellbound.
It wasn't like the ambiance was particularly arresting. The recording studio was a small, cramped, poorly lit, windowless room, and Wille barely had any space to maneuver while in there. Simon was locked inside an even smaller room, with even poorer illumination, and dark soundproof-paneled walls. The PMMA panel that allowed them to see each other was slightly smudged and had a couple of HSF-logo stickers on it that partially obscured the view of the inside.
And yet, Wille was transfixed. He couldn't tear his gaze away from Simon; though he was inside that dark box, for Wille it felt like he was being illuminated by a spotlight, forcing the entire world around him to disappear so that Wille could only see him. The way the shadows of the recording booth played on the lines of his face. The way the red recording light touched the top of his head, defining the curve of each of his curls. The way his voice, even coming through a crappy, probably over-a-decade-old speaker, gave Wille chills.
"But lately, it's not hurting like it did before," Simon sang, pouring all of himself into the piece. "Maybe I am learning how to love me more. Just a little bit..."
Simon opened his eyes and his gaze met Wille's, and Wille thought he might stop breathing. Simon was always beautiful, but Simon making music was a whole different definition of beautiful. One Wille couldn't even put into words. "Just a little bit..."
He looked briefly down as he neared the end of the song, the pressure on the keys softening for the finale. "Maybe I am learning how to... love me more..." He stretched the last syllable and then let the melody fade, lingering. He looked up at Wille again, intense. And then he nodded.
It took Wille an embarrassingly long time to remember a nod was supposed to be his cue.
Simon walked out of the booth with his hands in his pockets, looking almost shy. "So... what did you think?"
Wille could've called out that question as being rhetorical; couldn't he see in his face how in awe he was? "I'm— speechless, really," he said instead. "You're amazing. Wait— did you write that?" It hadn't occurred to him until now that it was a possibility, but then again, he hadn't been thinking of much else but how beautiful Simon was for the past few minutes. He could've been singing a grocery list and he still would've found it miraculous.
Simon laughed and shook his head. "I wish," he mumbled. "It's just a cover. But you can use it? It's not too vague?"
"It's perfect," Wille said. He smiled gratefully at Simon. "You didn't have to do this, you know. This was my mess. And I haven't even found a way to get you off work on Saturday, either."
Simon shrugged. "I wanted to. We don't both have to be on the chopping block, so if I can help you, I will." Wille wanted to tell him how much those words warmed him from the inside, how much this meant to him, but he didn't know how to put that feeling into words.
"Besides," Simon added, "who knows? Maybe this'll be what changes August's mind." Wille chuckled at the thought of Simon being some kind of pied piper, his music guiding August down the road to becoming a reasonable human being, but in truth, he doubted it would make a difference. For August, and indeed for most people working in their circles, if a job didn't get done it was a scandal, but if it got done, it was barely worth mentioning. He wasn't expecting even basic gratitude from his cousin for doing his job.
"Alright, let's get to it," Simon said, switching things up on him. "We still need to produce this song, so we're going to be here a while. You should probably pull a chair in from the office next door."
"We?" Wille asked once again. "I hope you realize that I'm basically useless with any of this stuff." He waved a hand in front of the control panel and all its knobs and sliders and dials and LED lights. "Unless you need me to play the keyboard for some reason, there's nothing else in here that I wouldn't unwittingly mess up."
Simon laughed. "Well, if I have to stay here all night, then so do you. So go on. I'm sure we can find something useful for you to do." The unbidden thought popped into Wille's head that he could think of several things he could be doing in a small, private room with Simon instead of working, but he didn't voice that out loud. Instead, he flushed, muttering under his breath about getting that extra chair Simon had requested.
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In the end, it wasn't Simon's singing that changed August's mind. It was Kristina.
Being only an assistant, Wille did not have a seat at the table. Literally. He had to stand by the door to the meeting room during the entire board meeting, only intervening when he needed to hand August some document or help him with something, such as loading up the mock-up of their diversity and inclusion ad onto the projector so everyone could watch it.
"That's a good start, August," Wille's mother said with a serious expression in place. It was hardly glowing acclaim, but Wille knew her well enough that if she had any objections to the slideshow or the song, she would've said so. He also wasn't expecting any platitudes for himself because, technically, the ad was August's project, even if Wille had put the whole thing together on his own. He did think he caught her sneaking a glance at him as she said it, but he wasn't about to get his hopes up.
August preened, chest puffing up with pride even though he hadn't done anything. "Thank you, ma'am."
"You will be sending it to the advertising firm as soon as possible, I presume?" she asked further.
"That is correct, ma'am."
She nodded. "Very well. I would like to see how much they've quoted us against the budget we've set aside for it, and the detail of any possible contingencies that might incur added costs above that budget."
"Of course, Aunt Kristina." August signaled to Wille in the back of the room, like Wille hadn't immediately moved to make a note of it. He hadn't been working this thankless job for three years for nothing.
August's smugness only lasted so long, however, as the next question from Wille's mother all but caused him to deflate like a popped balloon. "How is that other project coming along, by the way? The one— a charity partnership, is it? The one you've been trying to work out for a while? When are you going to present that to us?"
August swallowed heavily. Then he cleared his throat. "Yes, uh, there's been a little bit of a setback, but—"
"I thought you said this project had the potential to solve all our bad publicity issues," Kristina interrupted, her lips drawing a tight line as she finished the sentence. It was a clear sign that the Queen was displeased. "Now you're telling us it's scrapped?"
"Put on hold," August offered, grasping at any straw he could get a hold of, though last Wille knew, Englund wanted nothing to do with this thing anymore. August was really going out on a limb here, with no safety net to catch him. "Temporarily. But—"
"That is... disappointing," Kristina stated gravely. Wille winced. She hadn't called August a disappointment, but he knew from experience that's exactly what she meant. And August knew that as well; the pallor in his face was a confirmation of that.
She turned to Minou, one of the senior partners, who was sitting beside her as usual. "Perhaps it is time to come up with an alternative slate of options in case this project falls through." Minou nodded and started making a note of it on her computer; probably already scheduling some kind of brainstorming meeting that could very well be done via email.
"It won't fall through, ma'am," August intervened, understanding that he was about a second away from being dismissed as a failure. "We just have to iron out some minor issues, but it's nothing that cannot be fixed." Except that he almost got his supposed partner killed, Wille thought, but surely that counted as a minor issue? He had to fight hard not to roll his eyes.
"Very well, August," Kristina retorted, somehow making "very well" sound like a putdown. "However, we are not in the business of having our time wasted, so until this project of yours finally materializes, it seems like a positive move to have a backup. Just in case of any eventualities."
August pressed his lips tight like he wanted to say something he knew he shouldn't. But instead, he just muttered "Of course, Aunt Kristina" and sat back. He stewed in silence for the rest of the meeting.
As he walked out once the meeting was over, he growled "Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day!" at Wille and stomped all the way to the elevators.
August was absent for the rest of the afternoon, and Wille got no emails, no calls, and no texts, either. By the time six pm rolled around, Wille was wondering if he should be checking the windows for smoke signals or carrier pigeons; it wasn't like August to go off-grid like this, even when he was out of the office.
"But it's good, though, right?" Simon asked when Wille called him around dinnertime to let him know how the board meeting had gone. "Without him barking orders at you every five minutes, you probably had a very productive day."
"Yeah." Wille couldn't deny that one. "I had a very constructive video meeting with the advertising firm. Got to discuss the parameters for our campaign, and sent them the mock-up with your song. They'll send us a draft sometime next week which the board will have to approve again."
"So you're going to use the song?" Simon asked. "Your mother liked it?"
"My mother... did not mention there being anything wrong with it," Wille corrected carefully, not wanting Simon to misunderstand. "Which in Kristina-speak is pretty much the equivalent of a standing ovation. Trust me, it went about as well as it could go."
Simon didn't say anything to that, which Wille took to mean he was still not convinced. "Also, the guy from the ad firm seemed to think it was an excellent fit for the campaign," he added. "Normally they'll take our samples and either re-record them in a pro studio, or if it's a cover, they'll license the original version. But he was really impressed with your cover. He said the stripped-down feeling of it makes it feel more authentic, and that goes really well with what we have planned for the ad."
"Really?" Simon asked, sounding bashful. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
Wille shook his head emphatically, even though Simon couldn't see him. "Come on. You know you're incredible." His smile faded as he remembered something else. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you the day off tomorrow, though."
Simon didn't seem as bothered. "Nah, don't worry. It was a tight schedule. And maybe I can still make it to the party— if I get everything I need to get done early, then have Rosh call in with a 'family emergency' of some kind, and Englund just happens to be in a good mood... then maybe..."
Those didn't sound like good odds. "Yeah, but you shouldn't have to—" He cut himself off when he saw someone making their way down the hallway toward his desk. Or, well, "making their way" was a generous way to put it. "Wobbling" would be a more appropriate descriptor.
August looked like he'd been run over by a liquor truck. His suit was rumpled, his collar undone and his tie loose and skewed around his neck. His hair, normally carefully gelled back, was a mess of curls sticking up in every direction. His eyes were lidded as he leaned against the nearest wall to keep himself from stumbling.
"Crap. August is back and I think he's drunk off his ass," Wille whispered into the phone. He didn't think August could hear him— he was still pretty far away— but he wasn't going to risk it.
"Seriously?" Simon asked in response. "Is that, like, normal? I mean, I know it's technically after hours on a Friday, but it's not like he ever sticks to regular office hours."
"Drinking is a part of the job sometimes, but even August doesn't drink so much that he can barely walk," Wille explained as he watched his cousin nearly trip over a potted plant. "He might be high, too. I can't tell yet. Maybe it's both."
He saw August stop at a nearby desk, where a fellow assistant worked. It was empty at this hour, and August really wouldn't have anything to do at that desk even if the assistant was still sitting there. But regardless, August bent forward over the desk, like he was attempting to open the desk drawers but didn't remember that he could just walk around and open them from the other side. He bent forward so far that his legs hung off the ground.
"Crap, he's going to break his neck," Wille predicted urgently. "I'll call you later." He ended the call before Simon could comment, and rushed toward the workstation to try and put his supervisor back on his feet.
"August. August, hey." Wille pulled him back, straightened him up, and threw his arm over his shoulders. "Let me help you back to your office, okay? You shouldn't be walking around when you're like this."
"Cousin little!" August exclaimed, his usual smarmy grin just a little more crooked than it was when he was sober. He heard what he said and frowned. "Wait— no, that's not right..." He stumbled, and Wille had to stop walking so that he could catch his stride again. He tried again, speaking slower this time. "Cousin. Little." He shook his head and patted Wille on the chest. "You!"
"Yes, August. It's me," Wille said with a sigh, trying to prod him into walking again. "It's always me."
"You're a good guy, cousin," August slurred, leaning too much of his weight onto Wille. It's not like he was struggling to hold him up or anything, but August was still taller than him. "I should tell you more often how much I appa— approm— appresurate—" He paused, shaking his head as if to clear it (yeah, good luck with that!). "How much you help me. I notice, man. I really do."
"Thanks." Wille knew he shouldn't take anything August said in this state seriously, but he was actually a little touched. Compliments, or even just recognition of any kind, were hard to come by from August. It might be that his cousin was just a sappy drunk, or maybe it was a case of in vino veritas, but either way, it was nice to hear.
"Hey! That's my office!" August exclaimed giddily when they approached Wille's desk. "I have booze in my office! Come on, little Wille, drink with me."
"I don't think you should be drinking any more at this point," Wille retorted, August's enthusiasm making him stagger slightly.
"Oh, come on!" August reached out for the doorknob. "It's like— the best remedy when you're drunk, isn't it?" He tried to point at Wille with his index finger, but he was swaying so hard on his feet that his finger landed on Wille's cheek, Wille's nose, and if Wille hadn't turned his head on time, he probably would've poked him in the eye. "Like the hair of the... oh, what's the name of that thing, the one that barks?"
"...A dog?" Wille suggested blithely, swatting August's hand away. He didn't really understand where August was going with this. Then again, August was so drunk, it was no surprise that he wasn't making any sense.
"That's it! Hair of the dog!" August cheered, trying to open the door and failing.
"I don't think that's how it works, August," Wille said, opening the door so his supervisor wouldn't faceplant against it. "Hair of the dog is for hangovers, not for when you're drunk."
"Whatever," August slurred. "I just want another drink. Come drink with me, cousin!" He disentangled himself from Wille's hold and teetered precariously through the doorway and all the way to his desk.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, August," Wille said, still attempting to rein him in. If he kept going like this, he was going to give himself alcohol poisoning, and Wille did not fancy going to the emergency room at this hour of the night, nor having to explain the random hospital visit to his mother.
August crouched down to the floor— or more like flopped down into it— behind his desk, opening up the panels on the cabinet that was pushed up to the wall directly behind it. "Pfft, you've always been a goody-goody. Well, fucking suit yourself." He pulled out a bottle of a probably really expensive foreign wine. "I'm going to have a drink."
He grabbed onto the edge of the desk to pull himself up— it took him a few tries and there were a few slips; Wille had to rush over to help him— and eventually plopped down on his desk chair, hugging the bottle to his chest. Wille sat on the other side of the desk as August pulled two crystal glasses out of a desk drawer, though he'd already said he wasn't going to drink.
August struggled to uncork the bottle. "Nope! No." Wille hurried to take it away from him when he attempted to "open" it by repeatedly banging it against the edge of the desk like a stubborn jar of marmalade. "I got it," he said, taking a corkscrew out of the same drawer and using it on the bottle without any trouble. He poured maybe a couple of fingers of wine into one glass for August, and then none for himself. August didn't even notice.
If anything, the overly giddy and sappy version of August had receded, giving way to a more despondent, borderline pouty version of August. "I can't be a failure, man," he mumbled, his head thrown back against the backrest of his chair.
He pointed at Wille again; this time he was far enough away that his finger did not come into contact with any part of Wille's face. "Wille, you've always been... sensitive." Wille frowned at the descriptor. He wasn't wrong, necessarily, but he got the feeling August always used it as a thinly veiled queer stereotype. "How do I get Englund to forgive me so he'll partner with Krona again?"
Wille thought the answer to that question was fairly obvious, so he just stared unflinchingly at his cousin. That didn't work, of course, because August was too drunk to really get what other people were thinking from just their facial expressions. "Apologize," he suggested out loud, just so there was no doubt.
August's upper lip curled in distaste, and he shook his head. "Nah. Try again." He grabbed his glass of wine and downed it in one gulp. It made a clacking sound against the desk when he set it back down. "What would Erik do?"
Wille thought about it for a second. August was still an ass, but it was a rare occasion when he actually asked for Wille's input. "I think he would say... you have to show him that he can trust you."
August frowned. "Trust? This is business. You don't need trust when you have a contract."
"I know, but..." Wille sighed. "Erik was really good at making people feel like he had their back in the lead-up to the contract. He gave them just enough that they felt they were building up to an agreement that would be beneficial for everyone involved. Because he promised it."
He got a bit lost in the memories of when his brother had explained this to him, years ago. "There were two Eriks, in a sense: a business Erik who defined the terms of the investment to favor Krona, and a friend Erik, who assured them that such a deal was the one that would make their project successful." His lips pressed together tightly. "And he switched between those two seamlessly. It was a recipe for success, every time."
"Give them just enough, huh?" August mumbled. Instead of expanding upon his musings, he pushed himself to his feet, leaving his chair spinning. And he stomped, only stumbling a little, out the door.
Wille scrambled to get his phone from where he'd left it on his desk.
.
.
.
Simon was having a gourmet dinner (consisting of the turkey sandwich he hastily put together that morning and nearly lost to one of the team members in the lunch rush to the office fridge) when Wille's message came through.
DRUNK AUGUST ON HIS WAY TO HSF, the text read in all caps. DON'T LET HIM SEE YOU.
Simon frowned at his phone for a moment, not understanding, initially, why he needed to remain unseen. But then, he heard the front door to the offices slam open a little too loudly— gosh, he really hoped their receptionist had gone home already— and he ended up acting on reflex: he hid under his desk.
It didn't take long for August's heavy steps to make their way from the HSF entrance, down the hallway, past Simon's desk, and into Englund's office. The glass door opened and closed, but it did little to keep the sound from drifting out. The first thing August said when he walked into the office was, "You can trust me."
Englund's response took a second. "The matter is closed, Mr. Horn. You wasted enough of my time on Wednesday night, just as you've wasted enough of HSF's time over the past few weeks. I'd rather not continue that trend, especially when you're in this condition."
"I know," August replied, which wasn't really an argument, but the man was drunk, after all, so he probably couldn't put a case together if he tried. The best he had was what he'd already said: "But you can trust me."
There was a clacking sound, and Simon imagined Englund had put down his very expensive, very heavy fountain pen. "And why should I trust you, August?" he asked in the same tone he used when he wanted something he expected Simon to get for him without even asking. "If anything, you've already proven to be the most unreliable sponsor liaison I have ever worked with. And that was before you walked into my office in an undoubtedly inebriated state."
There was silence for nearly a minute. Simon wondered if maybe August hadn't understood what Englund said. Perhaps the words "liaison" and "inebriated" were too difficult for him to parse in his current condition. "We'll fund the entire project," he finally managed to put together.
Simon frowned. That wasn't how sponsorships usually worked at HSF. It wasn't just one sponsor funding the entirety of one project; their projects were usually too big for that. Instead, it was several big-name corporate sponsors offering partial funding. Of course, seed capital was what firms like Krona did so perhaps they could afford to shoulder the entire bill... in exchange for what, though? Good PR seemed like a paltry repayment for a project worth tens of millions.
"You'll run it for us," August added. That was even worse. It was directly against the rules.
"The board will never accept that," Englund returned, just as Simon had expected.
"We'll put it in the contract," August threw back. Perhaps he was starting to sober up, or perhaps Simon had just been wrong earlier, because now August seemed quite piercing in his appeal. "They want our money, they'll have to go with it."
Strong-arming HSF in favor of Englund. Well, that would be one way to engender trust between them, Simon figured.
Quite frankly, he didn't mind bending the rules a little so long as the project got done— it wasn't about Englund or August, really, though of course if they were happy, then all the better for Simon and Wille. That's why they started this scheme, after all. But, frankly, it was all about helping queer people in need. This project would help no one if it just got shoved into a drawer, never to be put into action. So whatever it took to make it a reality, that's what they should do.
The silence stretched. Simon, still on all fours under his desk, waited with bated breath for his boss to respond. And then, blessedly, came the answer. "You'll have to convince the board. They'll never accept it from me."
"You got it," August said. They got quiet again, but patting sounds suggested they'd sealed this new version of the deal with a handshake, or perhaps a man hug. "Don't miss Öland this weekend. Now you're really going to need those tricks."
"I'll be there," Englund replied. Simon cheered internally. "We'll talk more next week."
That must've been enough for August, because the glass door opened and closed again, his heavy gait moving closer to Simon's desk— and there it stopped. Simon held his breath and curled in on himself, fearful that August had somehow caught a glimpse of him.
"Turkey. Huh."
Simon frowned. Who was August calling a turkey? But it's not like he could reveal himself and ask, and a second or two after the other man said that, he was making his way down the hallway and out the front door.
Simon crawled out from under the desk. When he got to his feet and looked around, August was already gone. And so was the last half of Simon's dinner. He gaped at the now-empty square of wrinkled aluminum foil wrapping and scoffed. Seriously?
"Eriksson!"
He jumped in surprise. It took him a beat to realize that Englund was calling him, but then it clicked, and he hurried toward his office. "Yes, Mr. Englund?"
"Get me a rental car near my building for tomorrow morning," he ordered from his desk. "Also, I'm going to need you to make sure I'm awake by six. And tell the team they're off until Monday. My business retreat is back on, so no one makes any unapproved moves while I'm away."
"Yes, Mr. Englund." He'd barely gotten the acknowledgment out when Englund was already dismissing him, so he walked back to his cubicle, intent on making sure every little detail for Englund's trip was taken care of so that nothing would go wrong that would require his boss contacting him before the weekend was over. Before he did that, though, he grabbed his phone and opened the messaging app.
I don't know what you did, he typed quickly, but Öland is back on. He pressed the send button, dispatching the message onto the internet. He was going to put the phone down but thought better of it. He typed up one more text: Oh, and you owe me a turkey sandwich, btw.
.
.
Author's notes!—
Okay, so I may have overestimated how much plot I would be able to fit in this chapter. xD As it stands, this is only about a third of what I had planned in my outline? So the rest will be pushed to chapter 8, and this might, might, require me adding one extra chapter to the total. Or maybe more. Don't quote me on any of this; I'm not certain of anything other than the fact that I'm too damn wordy for my own good. I'll update the number of chapters as I go.
I've come to think of this chapter as "The One Where Simon Saves Wille's Butt and Then Wille Saves His In Return." And now you finally have the story of why Erik isn't around— I hope it wasn't too hard to follow? I also hope the back-and-forth on the sponsorship deal at the end is not too obscure. If you don't quite follow it yet, don't worry, it will make sense at the end. I hope.
The song Simon records for Wille's ad is "Love Me More" by Sam Smith, though for the solo-keyboard version I was looking at something closer to Swakhile's cover of it. Fun story: I was originally going to use "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, but then she performed it at the White House during the signing ceremony of the law that provides federal recognition for same-sex marriage, and I figured my using it here would've been a tad repetitive. So I went searching for other songs, and "Love Me More" just screamed "This is the one!" to me.
Next up: This time for real: two parties and a title drop. And maybe, if I manage to fit it in, a certain something that didn't happen in the original movie, and which you definitely don't want to miss. ;)
I am still uploading episode reactions for YR season two to my vlog! The first two episodes are already up, and the rest are being posted exclusively to my along with the untagged versions of the first two. So if you'd like to hear my immediate opinions as I first watched the episodes, be sure to subscribe!
I'm not on Twitter anymore, but you can find me on Tumblr (girls-are-weird), Mastodon (girls_are_weird), Post (cpinillad), or even on Discord if you want to chat with me (just ask me for my username). Comments and kudos are welcome and appreciated! See you guys in the next one.
