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Wylan was doing a fantastic job ignoring the building feeling in her chest, in her opinion. All morning she was handling it, smiling at every camera, laughing at every joke. The ideal reaction, in the right place, none of it betraying any other thought train she had.
All afternoon, she'd been fine, but after the panel with Jesper, Nina, and Inej? When they walked off stage, Wylan had barely registered the applause. Her arms were the weight of bricks, and her legs creaking like her door at her father's house.
Every second she spent not grabbing Jesper's arm felt like the countdown ticking of a C4 bomb. She just nearly gave up in favor of tackling Jesper to the ground just to feel the girls heart beating—Wylan could imagine it, laying on top of her stupid lime and weirdly patterned waistcoat and feeling her breath, and the bass drum beating of her heart.
Wylan blinked a few times before shaking her head with far more violence than needed.
Stop it.
She couldn’t be day dreaming about that girl, she had a job to do.
She had just finished her third and final panel—the thing Wylan knew was her mark for the end of the day—but the interaction from far earlier in the day still burnt itself fresh.
Wylan grabbed her bag from off the chair backstage and dug into it, the intent of texting her manager and getting out of the building top of her mental checklist.
Her hand rubbed against something else. Without looking she knew what it was: A small leather bound book, neatly crafted, hardly worn down, and embellished with tiny sliver pieces. It was a folder for photocards, made by Jesper months before she'd started on tour—she had gotten suddenly fixated on bookbinding, and made the tiny thing as a joke.
Of course Wylan had actually used it to store Jesper's photocards. Why wouldn't she? It meant she could have little images of the girl she loved right in her main bag. She looked gorgeous in all of them. Of course.
Wylan let out a huff of breath in lieu of the scream she wanted to. She was failing spectacularly at exiting the building.
She grabbed her phone, slammed the face of the text app, and then the contact of her manager, sending off a check emoji. Then she backed into the wall and slid down.
The photocards weren't better than the real girl, anyways. They only made Wylan miss her more. It showed in the book too. The last 14 pages had, not laminated pictures, but sticky notes, backs of envelopes and napkins covered in pencil. Note progressions, or ideas for melodies, or drawings (and one pressed wood violet) crammed them. They were all about Jesper, all of Jesper.
The shoes that the host of the panel had worn clicked past her, and Wylan looked up at the right time to smile, and timed the raise in pitch in her response—I'm alright, just sitting—perfectly. She shivered as the woman walked off. She had felt fake the entire time she sat on that stage, and she felt exponentially worse knowing she wouldn't have if Jesper had been next to her.
It had been three months and two weeks of only being able to manage calls and no trips, then two weeks after of performances that left all four of them too exhausted to do anything before the flights—making the trios management sequester them off to whatever hotel they were staying in and away from Wylan. Now, every little thing reminded her of Jesper, all of them were another hard twist on the fine tuners of her mental stability. It had been 58 days since they'd had a whole day together (approximately 8.29 weeks or approximately 1.91 months, her brain commented uselessly).
It wasn't okay. And it was incredibly stupid it wasn't. Wylan had spent years around nearly no one, but this was her downfall?
She just wanted to feel her girlfriend again. Something, anything beyond the sweet little touches Jesper gave her as Wylan talked about their rehearsals on their panel, or when she would hold her hand as they bowed at the end of a show, anything closer than that would work perfectly.
(She thought, distantly, that she felt her phone buzz with a text response, but Wylan couldn't bring herself to care in the moment.)
Not staring starry-eyed at every sharp grin she flashed, not leaning indulgently into her hand when it slid onto Wylan's arm or thigh as they answered questions in interviews. All the nots, all the things she couldn't do—it was driving her up the wall.
Wylan hadn't even known physical contact meant that much to her, until she couldn't get it from her girlfriend anymore. She rolled her eyes, knocking her head against the wall. Of course her life aligned with a moral cliché.
This is ridiculous, I need to get up, I need to leave, she thought sporadically, but it didn't stop her thoughts.
They both knew this would happen, her brain reminded her, while she finally opened her phone (How had 13 minutes already passed?). Being on tours, long rehearsal hours, working on shows, traveling every night to get to the next tour stop, it was bound to be hard to maintain anything. That didn't stop her from hating it though.
As unstable and cheesy as their relationship had been back when they first got together, at least they had been together.
She remembered back before they left the stage for the closing night of their collab tour, Jesper had put her hand in Wylan's, spun her around—enough times that she forgot she was on stage for her job—and dipped her. She was glad they had both been drenched in perfume for it, but even the too-hot feeling of post show sweat didn't stop the lightning strike of tingling from going down her spine as they touched.
Jesper had been there, right there, sweaty, and drawing her into a hug, and laughing at the crowd's cheering, and it was her.
All Wylan could think at the time was that she didn't care if their tags were filled with dating allegations for weeks if it meant she got Jesper closer. She wanted to hold Jesper closer. She wanted Jesper's hands cupping her face, and her hands tracing over her collarbone, splayed at the base of her neck, and all over her, and she wanted the feeling of the ground or a wall or a bed at her back and every other side met with her sparky touch or her warm breath or her hair, she wanted her perfect lips on–
The only reason, Wylan thinks, that they hadn't stayed there for the rest of the night was because Inej's laughter had come through her mic and over the speakers, and Nina had dragged Jesper off. She told Jesper that Wylan wasn't dying, that not collaborating with them anymore wasn't going to spontaneously kill her, and started off the stage. Wylan had stood there trying not to fall off it from how dizzy Jesper's voice and laughter and presence and everything was making her.
Her girlfriend was responding that it didn't feel like Wylan was dying, it felt like Jesper was, because she couldn't 'have the pleasure of being close to her anymore'. She was pretty sure the whole audience had heard her heart hammering in her chest at that.
Wylan glanced at her phone screen, and saw a whole wall of text waiting for her. Of course. What other fate would have awaited her?
She wasn't in the mood to force herself to read all that, even with specialized font and enlarged text. She blew out a long breath and pressed the audio button.
Jesper's eyes were gorgeous and shining grey. They mirrored a thunderstorm—about to engulf Wylan and drown out the rest of the world. They looked like they were going to strike her with lightning, to force the electric feel of shivers to stumble down her spine and right into her chest until she couldn't breathe.
Her pupils were dilated, jumping from one feature of Wylan's face to the next. She felt warmth settle in her cheeks and chest as she watched the skin around Jesper's eyes crinkle with her smile.
Oh, her smile. It was light, like from the smallest pull of the carving tool; because surely only an artist with refined technique could have made Jesper. She smiled like the stormy grey of her eyes was a mere spring drizzle, the one thing that could make the flowers bloom again. Wylan felt flowers blooming in her chest at it; their partner, the butterflies, making lazy circles in her stomach.
She felt the turning warmth of spring in each touch Jesper slid over her skin, her fingers brushing up against her ribs.
She gasped out breaths into the heat of summer that was the girl's chest against hers, the feeling of her thighs through her pajama pants pressing insistently at her own, her breath that tasted of the meal Jesper had just cooked for the both of them—smothered over by her toothpaste and coconut lip balm.
The only con of being pinned under the love of her life was the fact that Wylan's entire essence couldn't be covered by her. The air of the ceiling fan still blew against her arms—that was the only part of being there that was comparable to winter. Nothing about the girl with her body on Wylan's could be called cold or slow like winter's snow. So, logically, she'd just have to focus more on Jesper than the fan to keep warm and alive.
"You okay?"
Wylan would never find Jesper comparable to snow, but she could be gentle; she could give grace and way to a vast change. Her voice was perfect, frosting its way along Wylan's overly tensed muscles with ease.
Two words from Jesper's perfect lips and Wylan melted, just her hands on her abdomen and she was lost for breath as if the air was too humid and thick.
If this girl was a thousand springs, maybe Wylan was the winter, then? She would be okay if she ended here, so long as their time overlapped (not a possibility the real world, she considers, but she couldn't think of a time with Jesper where her thoughts were fully rooted in anything real).
Jesper tried again, and her hand was cupped to her cheek now, and she was speaking with the perfect tone and pitch—it was smoother than the notes from a first chair saxophone.
"Wy?" There was a crease in Jesper's brow, a scrunch in her nose, a string pulling her smile into a pressed line. Fuck. "Are you alright?"
She couldn't do more than stare. The braids Jesper had tucked behind her golden clad ears had slipped over her bare shoulders, and the lamp lightning made her skin look so pretty—she was overwhelming and dizzying and it wasn't enough to just watch.
Jesper pulled back, moving to sit on her calves. She was still on top of Wylan, but the cold from the fan hit her like a semi-truck, and suddenly Wylan was breathing too fast for all the wrong reasons.
Comebackcomebackcomebackpleaseplease.
Wylan sucked in a breath—it was awful, a woodwind with a crack in its reed.
"Sorry."
She couldn't muster much else, not with her whole body going at the wrong speed; her arms weren't moving to Jesper's thighs, her brain, lungs and heart were trying to kill her by operating at the speed of a freight trains, shouting for her to slow down, but her eyes weren't taking in the girl's expression fast enough. Nothing was enough, her skin yelled back.
Wylan didn't know how long they stared at each other before Jesper tilted forward, and landed on the silk pillow cases next to Wylan. Her eyes weren't flashing with lightning-like sparks, they were alight with concern.
She's not close enough, her skin nagged at her again. It was a selfish thought, but her mind couldn't do anything better as Jesper shifted to meet eyes with her. Get closer, I need you closer.
"For?" She was quieter, now, like slow rustling of leaves. When Wylan shrugged, "then how, exactly, can you be sorry?" Jesper's voice didn't break itself in the ugly way Wylan's had—hers was the crunch of an autumnal stroll, twigs and bright leaves cracking.
"I'm being selfish, I think." She meant it, but it wasn't quite the answer she had wanted to spill like that, and it came out a mutter.
Jesper blinked. "Come again?"
Wylan didn't want to say it again.
"Nothing." It wasn't nothing. It was months of pent up longing for something she couldn't have. "Why– what made you think something's wrong?"
There was a pause.
"You were just…I don't know, staring at me," Jesper said, and Wylan was almost surprised she hadn't pushed further and just answered. "I was worried you didn't want me to be doing all this."
'This' was all Wylan had wanted for months; the privilege of being near and held by her girlfriend, the privilege of being stifled out of her normal loop of thoughts by unexpected sweetness that only she got to taste.
She wanted to open her mouth and respond but her jaw wouldn't let her. Jesper kept on.
"I know we haven't very been close for a while, and I guess it just fully hit me, maybe you don't want–"
"What?" Her voice sounded far more accusatory and scared than Wylan had meant it to. "No. I'm– my problem isn't…that." She hesitated. "Is that how you feel?"
"No," Jesper shot down immediately.
She exhaled hard. "Okay."
"So what is wrong?"
Wylan could hear the unease in Jesper's voice. She hated she'd been the one to give her such uncertainty—that she'd ever make her girlfriend doubt her. She tried to think of the right thing to start with, but since her brain had sped up to the conversation, Wylan's body decided it was high time to make her want Jesper's touch again.
There were ghost hand prints along her sides, and she had to force her eyes to not stare at Jesper's real hand—the part that wasn't beneath the pillow at least. She would probably have a stroke if she thought about her fingers. She opted to stare down at the straps of her top, and the way they rested over her freckled skin (she tried not to stare at the collarbone wished she could kiss along).
"This is going to sound dumb," Wylan warned.
"I'm already I'm sure I've heard worse." She gave a tiny smile (finally). "Shoot."
Wylan stared for a second. She was never going to get over how okay Jesper was with her being completely pathetic. Even now, as she internally cursed herself every other word for stuttering—which she barely ever did—and letting things slip out she hadn't really thought over—which she did often—Jesper still looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the entire world.
Jesper looked at her like she would memorize every part of her—beyond physical—just to have an accurate recollection of them eating stroopwafels together. She asked so easily for her to spill her troubles, and Wylan gave in even easier. She almost wanted to be angry with her for it all—as if it weren't her own fault.
"I've been missing you…" Her voice stalled. How was she meant to say any of the things she was thinking?
"Oh wow, that's crazy," Jesper deadpanned, and Wylan focused on her face again just to glare.
"I'm not done, Jesper."
Sorry, Jesper mouthed, but her lip was still quirked.
"Like, physically. If that makes sense?" She paused, searching for the words and ignoring how her face heated. "It's like, you know, I never had a lot of physical affection, before, and then you…happened," Wylan turned her head to stare at the ceiling. "I guess I hadn't realized how used to it I'd gotten. And I ended up just wanting it from you, all the time. And since I couldn't for months, it made it hard to not instantly want…"
"To make out with me right then and there?"
"No," She felt her face take on a deeper blush. She knew Jesper pitched those asides only when she sensed Wylan needed the hint of unseriousness in order to talk. "I just mean that I wanted beyond whatever you could give, so it would be harder to cope with when I saw you."
"So," Wylan jumped—Jesper's breath was right at her neck, she was right at her neck, "every time I held your hand at press things, that was..?"
"Making it worse? Yeah." She regretted saying it immediately, but before she could even try to apologize, she stopped dead.
There was that lightning feeling around her waist, and the two of them rolled so Wylan was fully on her back. Jesper had shifted to slither her arms around Wylan, and pull her chest against her face. She sighed soundlessly at the sensation, and instantly folded into it, finding Jesper's long legs and tangling them with her own.
Jesper was so there, her body heat so twined with her own. It was finally warm again, but it still somehow wasn't enough contact. She couldn't quite bring herself to draw her closer, though.
"Is this okay?" The tiny note of uncertainty in Jesper's voice racked Wylan with enough guilt to knock her out. She hummed in confirmation.
Then, she swallowed hard and tried desperately to not mix her words. "It's just a more intense feeling than I've had before, is all."
"Then why did you apologize before?" Despite Jesper's tone being light—and muffled into Wylan's t-shirt (so close)—she could still hear a level of seriousness to it, the sincerity in her desire to help. Wylan felt another pang of guilt. "You can't control it. I'm the one making you suffer in tragic agony."
"You're not though," she whispered back. Wylan pressed herself closer, half hoping she would choke on the smell of her—a death right there, to Jesper, she would accept. "I apologized because I don't want to ask you for too much or–"
Jesper practically whipped her head up to look at Wylan. "Wait, too much? You didn't want to cross a line about physical affection pertaining to me?"
It sounded stupid when Jesper said it out loud.
They both knew how often and naturally she gave affection like that. They also both knew why Wylan had instantly made the assumption.
She wanted to ignore it. It had been years since she'd even been in Ketterdam for more than a week, even longer since they'd gotten together, and longer still since she'd seen her father in person. She couldn’t seem to think of a way to make herself push off that subject—that lingering feeling of who she was, really.
But she also couldn't quite bare to bury that Wylan. Not when someone was looking at her with such love outside of the concern, not when so much of her wanted to let go and be as pathetic as she truly was in that moment. Not when it was Jesper who was watching her.
Jesper slipped her hand along her neck to rest by her ear, carding into her curls, Wylan could only barely fight to keep her eyes open as she leaned into it. Jesper's nose was scrunched at the top again—between her eyebrows—and her hair had fallen onto Wylan's chest as she leaned over her—Hadn't she said she was going to wrap it just a few minutes earlier?
She didn't because she was busy pinning you to the mattress.
It was getting very warm in the room.
But Jesper's eyes were stone grey—comfortingly cool, this time, steady. Wylan's heart was still going off at a thousand beats per minutes, playing on repeat a measure filled with 64th notes. Her brain looped itself into reminders of the notes and lyrics she'd written about her girlfriend. It shoved all the things she loved so dearly about Jesper into her face until her thoughts were suffocated to a stop. Wylan blinked a few times.
"Hi."
Jesper tilted her head. Her lips pursed into a smile. "Hi, honey," she said. "Just ask. I mean that, okay? It's not selfish, it's not dumb or too much. I like you enough for that to be true."
She managed to nod as Jesper leaned closer, bumping the sides of their noses together. She was warm, and so there and so stupidly wholly Jesper when she pressed a light kiss to Wylan's cheek.
"Can you…?" She whispered. She hated the feeling of helplessness to her own senses, how small her voice sounded, because she wasn't either. But she did she need to prove that to Jesper?
Jesper's hand moved away from her cheek. Wylan only had time to miss the contact until her hand brushed up on her ribs, the fabric of her shirt catching on her fingers and pulling it up along her skin.
Wylan tried to ignore the buzzing along her spine, tried to breathe from her diaphragm and stare right at Jesper instead of through her.
"You want me closer than this?" Jesper asked lowly—her lips were dancing along the skin on Wylan's neck. Her voice was, all things considered (meaning completely overpowered by her love for it), perfect. So smooth it left a prickly sensation, so warm it gave her chills. It was teasing her now. It was directed at her. Wylan's heartbeat skipped a few too many times.
The most she could get out through the slow falling haze was a mutter—something akin to a confirmation that died with her will. She almost wished she could say something more, anything that could give her some semblance of a feeling of control on it all. Then she felt contact on her collarbone, a gentle tug and wetness there, and Wylan's conscious thoughts fizzled out, and all she could (or truly wanted to) do was feel.
She knew there was the press of hands somewhere on her skin, but couldn't remember where.
She knew her back arched a bit whenever the warmth of finger pads made themselves at home tracing little patterns against her side, that another hand had buried itself back into her hair and held her head to the left and up. (Something in her brain told her Jesper had slid her hand into her hair the first time they kissed. Something also told her Jesper just wanted more surface area to work with.)
The sensation on her neck moved onto and into her mouth. Something in her throat buzzed, there was a feeling of wind through her vocal cords, but she couldn't quite hear what came out.
She wanted to reciprocate, somehow, but she wasn't even sure where her arms were, much less if she would be able to do anything with them. She felt a bit dizzy, if anything.
Her chest desperately rose and fell as the pressing moved off her lips and back down to her neck. She realized her eyes weren't even open. She didn't think she cared, she could feel Jesper as she dotted her mouth down her neck.
She was half aware of how slow Jesper seemed to be going, and under any other circumstance she might gave taken issue with that. But then, she would have been able to register what was happening faster than a snails pace.
Why was Jesper going so slow?
She felt her hands make contact with Jesper hair in response to another tugging feeling on her neck, and the girl leaned in closer, attached herself to a new part of her neck, kissed again and again.
She felt her throat buzzing again, but unlike the last (was it?) time she could hear the breathy noise she made. She also heard it catch and bounce off the walls as Jesper bit down. She also heard it the next two times she did, and then when she sucked down around the bites.
When she pried open her eyes and blinked back up at the familiar ceiling, the only part of her body that felt anything but overwhelming temperature was her neck. There, lied a tingling and the misty pants of her girlfriend—everywhere else felt feverish.
She tried to get control of her breath again. 2 beats in, then blow out for 4, 8, 16, then as long as she could while holding steady. She felt Jesper kiss her neck where light pain prickled, then shift to rest on top of her chest. She didn't move away.
Wylan opened her eyes to meet Jesper's and almost lost the breaths she had carefully steadied when she saw the soft smile playing on the girl's lips.
Maybe she liked it too much when she was gentle and soft like this, but she adored her when she was rough too and when she was was neutral and when she was stressed and when she cried and her voice cracked telling old stories and when she did nothing and everything. She blinked about 20 more times. Maybe she just liked Jesper too much.
Jesper practically giggled at her face, and snuggled further into her. "You're so pretty when you're flustered, you know?"
Wylan let herself pull Jesper closer this time.
"Sure."
The cold of the fan started to hit her arms again, despite the racing of her heart, so she grabbed absent-mindedly at the bed until her hand made contact with a blanket.
Then she stared at Jesper. Again. Her lips were a bit wet from kissing her neck, and certainly a bit plumped. Kissable, her thoughts added dumbly.
"Sorry again," she whispered.
The most response she left for Jesper to give was a smile before she flipped her onto her back. She ignored the startled noise the girl made to focus on sliding her thighs on either side of hers, placing her hand over her collarbone, and leaning on her forearm down to kiss at the constellations of freckles on Jesper's neck.
Jesper laughed at the kisses—all summer and springtime and flowers—and Wylan had to wrestle with the urge to grin, because she could hear it and feel it against her chest. If she kept laughing that way, Wylan thought she might lose her thoughts again.
"What? No dazed 'hi's' from you anymore?" she teased. Despite the calm in her voice, Wylan could feel the stampede that was her heartbeat beneath her lips. "Am I not dreamy anymore?" she continued with a sulk.
Wylan blew out a laugh at that, instantly responding without thinking, "you'd be dreamy if your tongue was in my mouth."
Jesper's heartbeat sped up against Wylan's finger tips as she felt her face heat when it hit her just what she'd said. Her chest tensed when she laughed out an 'oh', then again with her gasp when Wylan took the skin of her neck in between her teeth with as much gentleness as she could manage and sucked.
She listened closely to Jesper's breathing hitching, tried to commit the senses that came with it to memory. She clung to the dizzying sensation that came with remembering Jesper's lips on hers, the way her lips had parted before and how they did as she watched her now.
Jesper draped one arm around Wylan's neck while her other hand pushed into the space between her shoulder blades encouragingly as she worked. The girl's uneven breathing sent chills down her spine and warmth to her face and dandelion seeds to bloom in her stomach. Wylan pressed harder, pushed her feelings into each touch.
She knew she was in for a quip soon, considering how Jesper got when nervous. She was never quiet for this long with nothing to do with her mouth. She let the silence hang between them, let the the unstable breaths Jesper forced out be all she could hear, but shifted her hand to Jesper's cheek. Wylan brushed the feverish skin vaguely with her thumb as she tilted her chin up with her lips and kisses and bites.
Jesper's nails scratched along her scalp in a stuttering rhythm but she kept herself quiet. It was the type of quiet of a prairie—breathing and shifting but carefully silent nonetheless. Wylan, unfortunately, with all her destructive tendencies, wanted to shatter that.
She moved her hand again, this time to press carefully against the parts of her freckled neck that were ever so slightly red. Even if the points she pressed weren't ones Wylan had sufficiently bruised, and only looked darker from lighting, she carefully massaged.
Jesper took in a sharp, high breath.
"Is there no in-between with you?" Her voice, too, was set just slightly higher than normal—the wind whistling through reeds. Wylan tried her best to focus and not smile at how cute it was. "Like, you either blush when I just touch your hand or you shove my head between your–"
There it was.
Wylan slotted their lips back together with more force than necessary and let Jesper's outburst of surprise be muffled by the press of them together. Kissing her wasn’t necessarily the only way to make her stop making jokes that flustered Wylan, but it was a favorite.
She nipped at Jesper's bottom lip, then slipped her tongue in when she finally let out a gorgeous note of sound.
Maybe Jesper chased what she felt when she made Wylan blush, but—as stupid and vulgar it sounded—the noises Jesper made sometimes when they were close like this made Wylan feel almost insane. She pressed her mouth closer against hers, flitted her tongue along Jesper's.
Before, she hadn't quite understood what it was to want to seek out a reaction like that, but after they pushed further into their relationship, it had clicked. When she pulled back for half a second, Jesper inhaled sharply beneath her, her darkened eyes opening for a split second before she moved to kiss Wylan again.
Maybe the musician in her wanted more of an instrument she'd not heard before, or maybe the way Jesper seemed so melty as she did, or maybe Wylan was just more enamored than she'd ever been before. Whatever the case, it didn't matter why, so long as she could hear it once and while.
She indulged fully in the summery heat between them and pushed herself closer still, dragging herself back occasionally to give Jesper a chance to gasp, and for her to take in how years of breath control came in handy in environments that weren't music.
She got her prior wish eventually. Jesper's tongue made its way into her mouth and she half attempted to suck at it. She had no shit what she was doing or why, but regardless, Jesper responded with a noise low in her throat and hands pushing Wylan closer by where she'd shoved them into her hair.
She relished in every single vocal response she got as she buried them both further in the pillows.
It was Jesper who finally pushed away from Wylan. She was gasping for air like she'd just drowned. She had a sheen of light sweat on her cheeks, her eyes were practically glittering, her lips wet and parted—Wylan couldn't not stare at her.
In July if they'd had the chance, and gone swimming in July, would saltwater dripping onto her cheeks look like that? Would Wylan even have time to look at her before the heat of the summer sun dried the water away? Was looking at how her girlfriend looked at her supposed to make her dizzy?
Jesper's collarbone kept moving with her chest as she breathed and it was making her want to kiss her neck again.
If they went swimming in July, what type of shell would she like the most? Would she prefer a rock? Did every color already have a name, or was it not too late to name Jesper's eye color herself? Wylan still didn't know what, if any, species of jellyfish she found the prettiest. Why had she not asked?
(She ignored the memory of them waking up to a seahorse documentary that had autoplayed while they napped through the jellyfish one. She ignored how they had tried to rewatch it, but Jesper had paused it so many times to comment on other miscellaneous jellyfish facts they'd never made it through. She wanted them to try and watch it again—now that they had the time.)
Jesper looked up at her, eyebrow raised (when had she caught her breath?) and studied her face.
"What's your question?" then tilted her head slightly—Wylan felt her cheeks heat a bit under her gaze. "More than one?"
More than one. Wylan's thoughts agreed happily, but she rolled her eyes and looked away.
Wylan was sure Jesper had a favorite jellyfish. Would that jellyfish be different from the one Jesper found the prettiest? Had Jesper ever even seen a jellyfish in real life? When had Wylan started staring at her again?
Wylan fell back on top of her girlfriend, wrapping her into a hug and sinking them down on the mattress. Shielded with pillows and flopped ontop of Jesper she finally released the tension in her back and legs, stretching out to touch their shins together again.
"What's your favorite season?"
"Can I say summer just because that's our birthday season?" Jesper's fingers were scratching light patterns on Wylan's scalp while her other hand played with the bottom of the girl's t-shirt. Then, she saw Wylan's scrunched nose and grinned. "Bad answer?"
"Boring reason," she huffed back.
She wasn't sure what she had wanted Jesper's favorite season to be. With all the wayward seasonal metaphors her brain had made in the past few minutes, surely she should've come up with an opinion.
Wylan's ear rested on Jesper's chest, and she felt that bass drum beating. Her thoughts slowed to a constant slothful blob rather than an overlapping echo chamber, but her questions for Jesper followed. They kept up their piling, but none of the desperation for answers hit her like it usually did.
Jesper's chest rose and fell steadily now, and it occurred to her that—at least for a little bit—she did have the luxury of being able to ask them later. At that thought, her mind began to prioritize carefully for the next day.
"Y'know, you think incredibly loud," Jesper breathed into her hair. Wylan shifted closer and hummed. As Jesper's fingers tapped a vague rhythm against Wylan's abdomen, she continued in a whisper, "I hope they're all about me, at least."
"You know me so well," She muttered blankly, then choked on her breath when she felt Jesper's upper body shake as she laughed quietly and kissed her head.
Jesper did know her that well, and Wylan's thoughts were all about her.
"That sounds like a confession to me," she said, then added a mini gasp. "Wait. Do you like-like me?"
"Yeah," Wylan responded lightly. "I'm actually so in love with you it's incapacitating."
"Aww, sunshine, you'll never guess what... I am also in love you." Wylan could tell she'd meant to carry the teasing tone to the end, but the way her voice landed was about as harsh as a blooming meadows—she just sounded soft and beautiful.
The silence held out against the white noise of the fan's beating. Jesper's hands kept fidgeting along Wylan's body. Her mind drifted between thoughts, then nearly dipped into unconsciousness before she was nudged by a whisper.
"Wylan?"
She glanced up. It wasn't as if Jesper never called her by her name, but, truthfully, Wylan had grown used to how often she didn't. There was a tone in how she said certain words, a note there that Wylan knew was hidden for her. A music that only Wylan could read.
"Darling?" She listened to Jesper's heartbeat pitch forward at that. The ironic part of Jesper always opting for nicknames was that Wylan polarized the habit completely.
"I missed you, too."