Chapter Text
Really, the popcorn should have been the last straw.
First off, making it was a total disaster, Wylan thinks as he pulls the blanket tighter around himself. His eyes flick between his friends, perched on the couch and sprawled out on the floor of their off-campus apartment, all staring at the TV with varying degrees of interest, then to the kitchen doorway. Through it, he can see abandoned kernels peppering the ground like buttery snow. He sighs internally. With his luck, it’s his turn to clean up this week. And he doesn’t even want to think about what had transpired during the cooking process. (Namely, Nina and Jesper having a push-up competition and screaming every time they dropped to the floor. It was terrifying, albeit hypnotizing to watch.)
Then, trying to divide it up. Wylan had never known that popcorn could be such a bloodbath. There had been a lot of shrieking, people invading other people’s bowls, and a near-complaint from the next door neighbor. ‘Near’ meaning that he had heard the knock on the door, Kaz had limped over to ease open the door, glared, and said neighbor had fled. Wylan had heard his footsteps echoing down the hallway.
He sympathizes with the guy, he really does. In any other world, their neighbor, a six foot three man with considerable muscles would give anyone else a run for their money - but in this one, he could be scared away by six teenagers watching Netflix. Mostly because of Kaz.
The six of them had all met during high school, during which they’d pulled off a daring heist underneath Kaz’s guiding hand that involved the answers to all the tests of sophomore year, eight buckets of slime courtesy of the local fourth graders, two fake mustaches (for Matthias and Jesper, specifically), and one very loud German shepherd. He’d been very cuddly, in fact. It was too bad everyone except Wylan had been too wary of his teeth to get closer.
After that, Kaz had helped them build up, well, a reputation. He’d bartered and blackmailed and swindled his way to the top on-the-downlow criminal of Ketterdam University. It’s how he’d snagged this lovely five-bedroom apartment for them at almost no cost, how he seems to have an endless supply of money stashed away in four different bank accounts, and how he gets away with being ridiculously loud in a building where he’s surrounded by other people (probably trying to sleep). And now, they’re the six most intimidating college students to walk the college campus, except they do things like go on late-night Netflix binges and throw popcorn into each other’s mouths, like Inej is doing with Jesper now. They’re scarily good at it.
The old Wylan would have been terrified of even associating with Kaz. But now, after escaping from his abusive father, traveling three hundred miles away from him to go to college and major in chemistry, and watching (and maybe helping) Kaz put him behind bars in a way that everybody and nobody knew about - after leaving the old Wylan behind, he’s on good terms with Kaz. Maybe even friends with him.
Yes, this new life is good. He surveys the apartment like it’s his first time looking at it, which is a habit he finds impossible to break. A living space with a TV mounted on the wall, the floor in front of it littered with squishy couches, throw rugs, heaping bowls of popcorn, and six hyperactive young adults. The kitchen connected to it, decked out with amenities that nobody except Kaz would be able to talk their way into. The hallway branching off from the living space, and the doors to their bedrooms leading away from the hallway. Nina and Matthias share one like the insufferable lovebirds they are, but everyone else has their own. Oh, the perks of being friends with someone who’s probably murdered people.
But, of course, there’s one last problem that is currently tugging at his edges: the movie night they made the aforementioned popcorn for. It’s usually near-impossible to sit through these things, due to a certain situation that… actually hasn’t occurred yet. He tries not to think about it right now. It might jinx the smooth sailing that he’s happened upon. Maybe the other four won’t drive him and Jesper up the wall tonight for once.
Inej throws a kernel of popcorn, misses Jesper’s mouth, and nearly hits Matthias in the eye. He growls, an honest-to-god growl like some kind of domesticated wolf, and Nina giggles and tackles him, whispering something into his ear that makes him go redder than Wylan. Kaz gags, Inej swats his shoulder lightly, and Jesper demands more popcorn. Wylan can’t help but smile.
The movie is dull. His friends are not. He watches Matthias on the floor indiscreetly groping around in the bowl he shares with Nina - he practically races to interlock fingers when she dips her own hand in. They’re so in love, it’s ridiculous.
Nina’s head snaps back toward Wylan like an overeager dog. “No, you are,” she declares.
And… there it is. Honestly, he’s not sure why he ever expects anything different at this point.
Wylan freezes. “Did I say that out loud? Um, I just meant…” He points to the TV screen without turning his head. “The characters. In the movie we’re watching. They’re obvious.”
“Oh, sunshine, the only thing you should be watching is me.” That’s Jesper, his lanky body nestled into the same blanket that Wylan is. As usual, Wylan feels his heart flip a little at the other boy’s voice. As usual, he hates himself for it.
“See? See what I mean?” Nina points an accusational finger to Wylan’s reddening cheeks, then to her very-confused-looking boyfriend who offers a nod of solidarity anyway, then to Inej: a small figure sitting on the far end of the couch, her slender silhouette angled toward the sharper one of Kaz’s.
“Get it together, Zenik, you look like a game board spinner,” Kaz grumbles. Wylan notices with a rush of interest that he’s sitting suspiciously close to Inej tonight, but he’s pretty sure he’d get his head bitten off if he brought it up.
Inej inclines her head toward Wylan and Jesper. “She’s right, you know,” she states in that keen way of hers. “You’ve been flirting with each other for ages. Or rather, Jesper has been flirting with Wylan for ages. And you two are just really… Maybe it’s time you…” She mimes something with her hands that Wylan would rather not interpret.
“Agreed,” Nina announces loudly. A hot flush creeps over Wylan’s chest, and he tries to retort with something snappy, but Nina bulldozes over his words. “Just get it together and get together .”
“For the thousandth time, not doing that, Nina,” Wylan shouts. Something’s happening in the movie - the characters are making out, he thinks, which is pretty bad timing - and the music crescendos dramatically. “We’re just friends .”
“Yeah, Zenik,” Jesper says. “Friends flirt with friends sometimes. It’s no big deal.”
(Is it his imagination, or do Jesper’s shoulders slump slightly at that? It shouldn’t matter, really. Jesper would never be interested in Wylan like that.)
“Oh, really?” Nina bats her eyelashes and turns to Inej, who’s stifling laughter with her fist. “Hello, Wraith, you’re gorgeous and my breath catches when I see you and I want to get drunk on your laugh-”
“NINA-” Kaz starts.
“Aw, he’s jealous,” Nina cooes. “Did you like my impression?”
“Yes,” Jesper and Matthias volunteer simultaneously, but with very different expressions.
Wylan groans loudly. “Guys, please, this happens literally every week. I just want to watch the movie, please.”
“Wy, you haven’t looked at the screen in ten minutes,” Jesper points out.
“Not helping, Jes!”
“You have nicknames for each other,” Kaz says flatly. His calculating stare flicks to Inej, as if he’s trying to figure out how to shorten a four letter name.
“I bet Jesper and Wylan have lots of other names for each other,” Nina says, her eyes glinting mischievously. Matthias puts his hand over his mouth. Inej seems to be stifling a chuckle. And Jesper…
Wylan tries not to look, but he can feel his gaze catching on every angular plane of Jesper’s body anyway. The way he drapes himself over the couch carelessly, the easy smile that spreads across his face like crashing waves drawn to the sand, his quartz gray eyes, both an open book and impossible to read. He thinks the sight of Jesper is the only thing keeping him alive, sometimes. He thinks he might die from the way his heart skips and bounces in his chest like first-grade kids at recess. He thinks, he wishes, he wants-
“He’s doing it again,” Matthias observes. Wylan twists his fingers into the blanket and tries to look anywhere but the star of a boy sitting next to him.
He can sense rather than see Jesper’s warmth rippling off him. He seems to be thinking deeply. When he opens his mouth, Wylan almost expects a piece of surprising insight that he seems to offer sometimes, but instead Jesper says, “Doing what?”
“You two are ridiculous,” snaps Kaz. “Jesper, Wylan has-”
“Nothing to say,” Wylan blurts out, hyper-aware of his face turning an obnoxious pink. “I was… not staring at you, obviously. I would never do that.”
Again, Jesper is uncharacteristically quiet. Finally, he murmurs, “Of course.”
Over Nina’s exasperated shouting, Inej’s half-hearted attempts to mediate, and Kaz shouting spitefully at everyone to keep watching the movie before he realizes it’s a cheeseball rom-com, Wylan swears he can feel his heart snap a little in two.
Jesper watches the chaos unfold, something unreadable on his face. He turns to Wylan. “More popcorn?”
Wylan pops a kernel in his mouth and mutters, “I’m never coming to one of these movie nights again.”
“No way! I cleaned up last week!” Nina yells, putting her hands on her hips.
“You picked up, like, two bowls!” retorts Jesper. “Matthias did everything else.”
“I cannot control the fact that my boyfriend is whipped for me,” says Nina smugly. Matthias’s ears go red. She whispers something to him, and before Wylan can blink, they’re gone, rushing down the hallway to their bedroom.
“Can you imagine what they’re doing in there?” Inej jokes to no one in particular.
“Kill me now,” grumbles Kaz. He rises from the couch, bracing himself with his cane, and looks at her. He tilts his head toward the hallway from which the bedrooms branch off of. “Ready?”
Jesper smirks. “Ready for what?”
“Oh, get your head out of the gutter,” Inej chastises. “We’re just going to watch Dance Moms . Kaz’s pick.”
Wylan gapes at the two of them. “You- Kaz likes-”
But they’re already gone, almost as quick as Nina and Matthias. Wylan swears he hears Kaz hiss to Inej on the way to her room, “I’m never trusting you with a secret again.”
Jesper gazes after them with mournful eyes. “It was their turn to clean up,” he laments.
“You don’t want to challenge ‘Dirtyhands’ when he’s having strategizing time with his ‘Wraith,’ do you?” Wylan asks, framing two words with sarcastic air quotes.
“I live with five drama queens,” Jesper sighs, pressing his hand to his forehead.
“So do I,” Wylan says.
“I’m offended. ”
“Oh, how terrible. ”
Wylan can feel a smile breaking across his face, and he can see that it’s happening to Jesper too. He looks as radiant as the sun. His eyes are like magnets, pulling Wylan’s hapless gaze in, twin black holes, electrifying.
Wylan clears his throat and turns away. He’d never like me like that. He’d never like me like that. The mantra had alighted in his mind during a sleepless night a few months ago, then taken root and embedded itself firmly in his brain. Now, it shakes its words all over his thoughts like a tree in a breeze that he can’t uproot, no matter how much he wants to. But he needs it, or else he’d do something silly, something-
Never like that. Never like that.
“I guess we should start cleaning up now, then?” he manages.
Jesper nods and unfolds himself gracefully. For the third time tonight (fourth? sixth? Wylan has lost count), he has to physically tilt his face in the opposite direction. Even at the thought of the way Jesper moves - gracefully, quickly, like a bird readying itself for flight - he can feel his heart skip a beat. Stupid Jesper Llewelyn Fahey and his gorgeous body. He is going to be the death of Wylan.
He finds a mostly-empty bowl and shovels the few remaining kernels of popcorn into his mouth. The buttery goodness washes over his tongue, and he almost moans out loud. “Maybe movie night is worth it after all, just for this popcorn,” he sighs, only half-serious.
“Worth it?” Jesper stops trying to balance three bowls and a cup in one hand. He tilts his head at Wylan. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know.” Wylan tries to flap his hand nonchalantly, except he’s pretty sure he just looks like a dying fern. “The other four. They won’t stop teasing us about-” His breath shudders in his chest. “About getting together. Ha.”
Jesper puts his circus balancing act on the floor again (Wylan has to bite his lip to stop himself from protesting) and slides closer to Wylan. “Well, you know I love spending time with you, sunshine,” he croons.
Wylan’s throat is dry. When? Why? “See, that right there,” he manages. “That’s why they won’t stop shipping us.”
“What’s our name?” wonders Jesper. “Jylan? Wesper?”
“Pretty sure it’s the second one,” Wylan sighs, then tries to shake that pesky sense of hope loose from his mind. “Honestly, it’s really getting on my nerves. It’d be nice if they just left us alone, because clearly we…”
He trails off, feeling his shoulders slump involuntarily.
“Wouldn’t work out,” Jesper finishes the sentence. He looks downcast too. Maybe. Well, it’s definitely Wylan’s imagination.
“I’m just too-” Wylan makes some hand gestures. “And you’re just too-” He makes some more hand gestures. They’re all nonsense, he thinks glumly.
When he lifts his head, he sees that glint in Jesper’s eyes again, like a treasure-hungry crow. It reminds Wylan eerily of Kaz, and he sighs, shakes his head. “Come on, Jes. Spit it out.”
Jesper doesn’t wait, just launches straight into the rapid-fire speech of his that sounds like a gun spitting bullets. “What if we fake dated?”
The words hit Wylan like five punches to the chest, one after another. For a second, he’s falling into a soft gray world, dappled with sunlight the color of Jesper’s skin, and it’s near-impossible to breathe. Saints, why is it so hard, all the time? Why do his lungs feel like a constant ache, throbbing and burning with this impossible affection? Why is Jesper an undiscovered ocean, pushing and pulling, teasing and taunting, until Wylan might just explode with the want?
Some strange emotion like anger bubbles up in him - no, that’s not the right word, it never is, not with this boy. Maybe irritation, or frustration. Jesper is so close to him and yet miles away.
He looks at Jesper, lets his eyes catch on his features, and decides no , this silly frivolous all-consuming crush doesn’t need any more encouragement.
“We can’t, Jesper,” he says softly.
Jesper doesn’t even seem to pause. It’s like he was anticipating this response. (Really, Wylan wouldn’t be surprised if he had been; he’s annoyingly perceptive and wow he needs to stop while he’s still ahead.)
“Please, Wy.” Jesper turns his palms up. “Hear me out. The others teasing us about how we’re perfect for each other, it’s so annoying, right?”
Slowly, Wylan nods. He doesn’t know where this is going, but he doesn’t like it.
“So…” Jesper’s eyes are dancing. “So we prove them wrong.”
This throws Wylan for a loop. He wasn’t sure exactly what Jesper was going to say - what was going on behind that beautiful face of his (seriously, shut up , brain) - but that definitely wasn’t it.
Now, though, the mental gears are turning. Almost on instinct, Wylan leans closer, the popcorn bowls left forgotten on the ground. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Oh, sunshine.” Jesper tilts his face downward, closer. Through the flustered heat gathering on Wylan’s skin, he thinks he might see a tint of red flushing Jesper’s too. “I think I am.”
Another moment passes, vibrating with tension like a plucked violin string. Wylan is so close to Jesper that, if he canted his face up a little further, their lips might meet.
He leans backward instead. The moment shatters. The string stills.
Jesper’s face is impossible to read.
“We fake date,” Wylan repeats, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. “We pretend we’re trying to make this relationship work, we break up, and we show them that no, we’re not meant to be or secretly crushing on each other or something. And then they stop making fun of us. Especially Nina.”
Jesper rolls his eyes, all previous intimacy erased. “Saints, Nina really needs to give it a rest. But yes, that’s the gist of it.”
Wylan blows out a long breath, trying to pluck the right words for the situation. What do you say to your sort-of-boyfriend-who-you’re-really-just-fooling-around-with, right after the sort-of-relationship-that’s-definitely-not-a-scam is created?
Words have always evaded him. Wylan has come to terms with his dyslexia recently - beginning to love himself for who he is, reading expert or not, and finding the perfect methods to circumvent the disability - but the social awkwardness is harder to dodge. In the back of his mind, there’s always a little voice saying, No, van Eck, do not do that super weird thing that will totally scare them away.
Unfortunately, there’s a much louder voice at the forefront of his head chanting, Do it do it do it anyway. And it’s very hard to ignore that particular voice.
So he sticks out his hand and lets it hang in the air expectantly. “I’ll set aside more time tomorrow to figure out the rest of the details.” Pleasure doing business with you,” he hears himself say from a distance in a strangely cordial voice, wanting to slam his own mouth shut and yet being purely unable to.
And his hand remains there for a half-second that feels like fifteen years, waiting for a handshake or a high-five or something very un-boyfriend-y. Wylan reddens, wanting to pull it back, but Jesper takes it before he can move.
It’s a handshake, the loud voice says, so Wylan grips tighter and tries to squeeze it or shake it up and down or- something? He doesn’t know.
Too late, the quieter voice says, You idiot.
Jesper laces his fingers through Wylan’s and grins his thousand-watt grin. It could probably power every single light bulb in this five bedroom apartment, and maybe a dozen or so more, just for good measure. And they are holding hands now and Wylan is going to fall apart from the furious buzzing warmth creeping from their smushed-together palms into his wrist to his arm and spreading through his chest like the sun in the morning. Jesper is light and everything adjacent to it. Wylan wants to bask in his glow.
He clears his throat, and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, “We should probably clean this up.” He gestures to the remnants of movie night.
Jesper winks and presses a kiss to the top of Wylan’s head, feather-light, world shaking. “What would I do without you, sunshine?”
“Die of dehydration, probably,” Wylan says. He holds Jesper’s hand tighter.