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Erik is sitting on the couch doing schoolwork when Wille gets back from school. It’s not exactly uncommon for him to seek Erik out at this time, especially since they have been apart more often than not the past couple of years. Today is one of the increasingly common occasions when Erik comes home from Hillerska for part of the week because of Crown Prince duties. He loves being home, but the work he has to do is hell.
Wille is perfectly normal, perfectly quiet, as he makes himself comfortable on the other end of the couch and turns on the TV. To Erik’s surprise, it’s a rather welcome background noise (if not a partial distraction that he doesn’t object to after hours of work and meetings).
What does become strange and unwelcome, though, is the steadily rising volume about ten minutes into what appears to be an action movie of some kind that Wille has put on. It has graduated from background noise and minor distraction to a fully unpleasant working environment.
Now, Erik knows that he is fully capable of moving to a different location. This is the place with the TV for TV-watching. Erik is the one attempting to do work in the common area. However, Erik is also an older brother. An older brother with a younger brother who is perfect to annoy. An older brother who hardly gets to see his younger brother and whose love language is teasing. That’s just how siblings work.
Also, Erik was here first. Simple squatter's rights.
“Can you turn it down?” he asks cordially. There is no need to get mad at him. He might not even be aware that he is causing a problem. Erik is, unfortunately, all too aware that their mother can never give Wille a break about these things, claiming that if Erik can do something, surely Wille can too. But some people are just plain different, and she can’t seem to grasp that. They’re just too similar, her and Wille.
So Erik makes a point to be gentle with Wille—or, rather, more forgiving than their mother. Generally, he is able to get results from Wille, a “skill” the Queen now enlists from Erik with far too much leisure than what should be tolerable. She is still their parent, after all. He digresses.
“No, you can leave if you don’t like it,” is definitely not the reaction Erik expected. The words are sharp and snarky, much harsher than their teasing has ever been. And Erik wasn’t even teasing him! Wille’s words have caught him entirely off guard. He’s not sure where to go from here, so he sticks to familiar terrain. Maybe Wille is teasing, and it’s come out wrong—it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Damn, who pissed in your cereal?” he fires back with a slight smile on his face.
“No one,” Wille says, firmly, angrily, glaring at the TV, and Erik knows someone certainly has. Although Wille has always been a drama queen, it surely can’t be that bad.
“It sure sounds like someone has,” Erik responds with a smirk. “And no, I’m not moving. I was here first.”
There is a beat after Erik’s comment, where he watches Wille take a careful breath, working his jaw and clenching his fists as he stares down the TV. Erik doesn’t think he’s actually paying attention to what’s playing.
“You should leave,” Wille says firmly, measured, continuing to breathe deep. Before Erik can process the seriousness of the words, his reply is out almost automatically.
“No.” There’s even a tease in his voice, like he’s making light of the situation.
Like a switch has been flipped, Wille rounds on him with fire in his eyes and venom in his voice. “God, you’re so insufferable!” he cries, rising to his feet. “Why can’t you just move?” His voice is loud, echoing slightly in the space around them, frankly a little scarily. Wille has been prone to outbursts since he was little, but while they have gotten less frequent, they are more explosive.
He crosses the distance between them as he speaks and shoves Erik in the chest with the last word. Luckily, his computer was safe on the coffee table. Not so luckily, Wille’s shove does very little. He had caught Erik off-guard, but that was about all he had going for him.
This only seems to piss Wille off even more.
“Wille, hey—” The words are hardly out before Wille is on him again. He pushes Erik enough to get him standing, trying to move away from Wille’s relentless attacks. It’s clear that something has ticked Wille off, and the last thing Erik wants to do is amplify his anger by fighting back. Wille just follows him.
He has moved on to punching and kicking—at least attempts at both—and Erik is starting to get pissy. “Wille!” he cries, grabbing hold of his brother’s wrists as he throws another weak punch.
Wille stares at his chest, struggling for a moment before looking up. His face is red and splotchy, his eyes pink.
“What’s going on, froggy?” Erik tries, pulling out the nickname to see if it will calm Wille down. It unfortunately has the opposite effect.
Wille thrashes, ducking his head once more as he tries to free his wrists from Erik’s iron grip. He ends up kicking Erik’s leg, causing the other boy’s grip to falter enough for his wrists to slip free.
Then there is a moment in time where Erik is wincing over his leg, and Wille just stands there, blanking on his next move. Erik recovers before he can decide to do anything.
In a sudden turn of events, Erik tackles him to the couch, easily pinning him to the cushions. Wille squirms, twisting under Erik and pushing any part of him that he can reach. “Get off!” he cries between clenched teeth and pitiful punches. Erik just holds him there, trying not to smile.
Wille is very clearly frustrated and upset, but his determination to win this impossible fight is laughable. The action movie blasting over their fight only serves to make the situation funnier by providing a backing track of explosions and one-liners to Wille’s inevitable defeat.
Eventually, though, with enough struggling, Wille manages to get a leg around one of Erik’s, and that gives him enough leverage to flip them. Erik tumbles over the side of the couch, Wille on top of him. Because he cares more about self-preservation than the fight, Erik catches both himself and Wille before too much harm can be inflicted.
They are both on their feet again. Wille, held in a close but loose grip, takes the chance to go after Erik once more. He starts throwing punches to his brother’s gut that hurt just enough to justify blocking.
It goes on like that for a while. Wille throws a punch, Erik blocks it. Sometimes the younger gets in a good combination for the older to step back a step. Other times it's the other way around.
The frustration mounts. Erik watches it contort his brother’s face with each failed punch. Eventually, it gets to a point where Wille just screams and goes into a flurry. The punches are too fast for each one to be blocked, but the ones that land are weak. Regardless, Erik backs up until his back hits the wall, and Wille just keeps going. They’re less punches and more hits, though. Erik’s chest is starting to hurt.
At some point, a tear slides down Wille’s face, and he scrubs it away. Another follows; he does the same. Then another and another, and Wille just buries his face in Erik’s shirt.
Erik brings his arms around his brother and rubs his shoulder. To be honest, he’s always been better at dealing with Wille’s angry outbursts than with the aftermaths. With anger, he can fight it back or simply take it. With those, it's all physical, something Erik knows he can handle. The after almost always includes tears. Wille feels a hell of a lot more than Erik does, and he isn’t very good at dealing with it.
But he’s all Wille’s got, so he tries his best.
He lets his brother cry. He knows at least that; you’ve got to get the tears out before you can talk about them. When Wille gets fidgety, it's time to move on. He moves Wille back to the couch, pauses the movie, and grabs the box of tissues off the coffee table. When Wille has blown his nose, he starts talking.
“So what’s up?”
Wille groans and tries to shrink into the back of the couch. Erik matches him mockingly. Making light of a situation is how he works through it. He’s rewarded with a small smile that Wille buries in the couch cushion.
“It’s stupid,” Wille eventually admits.
“Not if it’s bothering you.” Erik understands enough to say that with confidence. Wille’s thoughts and feelings are important, despite what their mom might say. Wille hums and stares at the paused TV. It’s a while before he speaks again. Erik is content to observe. He learned quickly that pushing Wille for answers only brought him back to anger, something that Mamma has yet to realize.
“I’m failing a class,” he says quietly, and Erik is very happy that he is still focused on the screen, because Erik can’t help the incredulous smile that cracks on his face. Of course, Wille was worked up over something as insignificant as a grade. “And my teacher…” he continues, raising a hand to his chest. It was a strange habit he had picked up recently. Erik really doesn’t understand it. “And Mamma… and the coach… and— and someone said— they all said that I had to do better, that a prince shouldn’t be failing, that I— that you—”
“Wille.” Erik places a hand on his shoulder, seemingly jerking him back to the present and out of his head. He turns to look at Erik, hand stilled and breath short. “Wille,” he repeats, deliberately, “breathe.”
His tone gets a half-smile out of Wille as he starts to take deep breaths. When he calms back down, Erik asks, “Why are you failing?”
Wille ducks his head before answering, “I didn’t do my homework.”
“And why didn’t you do your homework?”
“We were on a trip,” Wille responds, still looking at the couch, but with a lighter tone as he picks at the upholstery. He really shouldn’t be doing that, but Erik doesn’t have the heart to tell him off for it. At least he’s not picking at his nails. That’s a habit he’s had forever that they hoped he would drop as he got older. Turns out not.
Erik smiles. “And could you do your homework if you were on a trip?”
Wille stops picking. “No.”
“So it’s not your fault that it’s early in the year and you weren’t able to do some assignments ‘cause you were doing your job?”
Wille finally looks up at him with a faux glare. “No.”
“So you’ll get your grade back up easily by doing your work?”
Wille groans and shoves him. “I get it, Erik! Stop telling me things I already know.”
“Did you know them, though? It looked to me like you were just freaking out about it.”
“Shut up!” Wille cries, trying to tackle him. This time, there is no malice or frustration. Wille has got a wide smile on his face as he wrestles Erik on the couch.