Chapter Text
But what would you do if I went to touch you now?
What would you do if they never found us out?
What would you do if we never made a sound?
~
I Can See You (Taylor's Version)(From the Vault) - Taylor Swift
Jesper was pretty sure that he was about to go insane. Which - wasn’t a feeling he was generally unfamiliar with, quite on the contrary actually. Being gifted with a brain like his that never seemed to shut up did make him wonder from time to time if he wasn’t just a breath away from losing it all. So really, there was nothing new or particularly shocking about it. The only difference was that this time, he knew exactly what was causing it. Or who, more like.
His name was Wylan and everything about his simple existence, from his red curls and his sheepish smiles to his stupid little backpack and the way he was playing with the rings on Jesper’s hand right now while they were walking down the hallway to class made him want to press his boyfriend up against the next wall and kiss him until there was no air left in his lungs.
The problem was only, that he couldn’t. And hadn’t been able to for what felt like weeks.
This wasn’t about a quick kiss on the cheek or their usual good morning peck when they met in front of his locker. No, this was about kissing until you ran out of air and your head started spinning and you felt like you were at the same time dying and coming back alive and -
Jesper forced himself to get rid of the thought and squeezed Wylan’s hand to ground him back in reality. It earned him a questioning look but Jesper just shook his head and continued their walk down the hallway to class, with Nina trailing a few steps behind them because she was too busy eating her second breakfast to watch where she was going and so kept bumping into people.
The root of this problem was that Jesper had only realised once he and Wylan had started to officially date - and through that spend more time outside of school together - just how busy Wylan actually was. It felt like whenever he wasn’t going to visit his mother after school, he had to either finish up something in the lab or run to a music lesson or tutor someone and Jesper’s head frequently started spinning just thinking about how much energy it must cost him to keep track of it all in his head.
And Jesper didn’t blame him for being busy due to all of these things, of course, he didn’t. If anything, he was proud and impressed by it. It was just that it greatly reduced the number of opportunities for it to be just the two of them, without any distractions or interruptions like school or their friends or parents.
So maybe, he was slowly growing just the tiniest bit desperate for some alone time. And the fact that Wylan always kissed him back with the same urgency whenever they did find a quiet minute, suggesting that he knew exactly what was going through Jesper’s head and agreed with it, didn't make it any easier. If anything, it made it very hard to go back to class and focus afterwards, when all he could think about was how much better he could use his time than to sit there and pretend like he had any clue what was going on.
He did have self-control. Sometimes. If he tried really hard. But that self-control was shrinking exponentially with every day and it was slowly getting more and more impossible to stick to it and not just let go and do something really inappropriate, like dragging Wylan out of a class to make out with him in the next supply closet because he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
So, he had to do something about it. Today. Hopefully. If things worked out.
They stopped in front of the classroom where they had to part ways.
Jesper used their intertwined hands to spin Wylan around so that they were facing each other.
“Are you free after school today?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant and not like his sanity would entirely depend on the answer he would get.
Wylan frowned. “I think so, yes. Why?”
Jesper tried his hardest to keep the scream of triumph inside his head. “Well, do you…maybe want to come to my place?" he asked.
Wylan raised an eyebrow. “Sure...?" he replied, voice dragging up into a question at the end like he was trying to figure out why his boyfriend was being all mysterious.
Jesper reached out to play with the straps of his backpack, pulling him slightly closer in the process. "My Da won't be home," he added casually. Or at least he hoped that it sounded that way.
"Oh?" Wylan's confusion changed into a smirk and his blue eyes glittered mischievously.
Nina scoffed next to them. "Jez, get a room, you guys."
"That's rich coming from you," Jesper pointed out, letting go of Wylan's backpack. His boyfriend giggled. “Don't think I don't know why I always have to wait an extra ten minutes for you in the parking lot after school."
Nina just shrugged and shoved the rest of her granola bar into her mouth before tossing the wrapper into the next bin. "You're free to find another driver," she mumbled before disappearing into the classroom.
Jesper turned his attention back to Wylan. “Hey, I’m gonna need you to learn how to drive,” he announced.
Wylan threw his head back in laughter. “Sure. Or…” he poked Jesper’s chest with his finger, “you could give it another try,” he suggested, looking up at him out of his wide blue eyes.
Jesper sighed. He hated the way those eyes could convince him to do about anything.
"Anyway - is that a yes? To the coming home part?” he quickly changed the topic, not wanting to get into it right now.
"Of course." Wylan lifted himself up on his toes to peck his cheek. "See you at lunch.” He grinned knowingly, then he disappeared inside the classroom.
Jesper watched him leave with a sigh before heading to his own class.
This would be a long, long day.
It took Jesper about two seconds of being home and inside his room to press Wylan up against the door and smash their lips together.
“Eager much?” Wylan teased, his blue eyes bright and unclouded, his cheeks already flushed red.
He let his backpack drop to the floor, not even having had time to get rid of it yet, before giving his boyfriend his full attention.
Jesper just shook his head. The sight of Wylan, here, in front of him, without any distractions to hold him back from kissing him instantly made his brain short-circuit.
“You’re driving me insane,” he breathed out before dragging him into another kiss, swallowing the chuckle that followed with his lips.
Wylan wrapped his arms around his neck to pull him down towards him, leaving absolutely no space between their bodies.
Good. Jesper didn't want there to be any.
“Is that so?” Wylan asked once he had moved on to place kisses along his jaw, allowing him to take a breath again.
Jesper was too busy to do anything but nod, trailing more kisses all the way up to his ear.
“Then let me do something about it,” Wylan whispered in a tone that made Jesper breathless in a way that didn't have anything to do with having spent the last few minutes kissing him without coming up for air.
Wylan used his momentary distraction to connect their lips again before gently pushing against his chest, slowly starting to walk them backwards. Jesper blindly went along. For all he knew, Wylan could have walked him off a cliff right now and he would have followed without question.
Once the back of his knees hit the bed behind him, Wylan didn’t even have to push really hard for Jesper to fall onto it, eagerly dragging him down on top of him without breaking up their kiss. He felt like now that they had started, he wouldn't ever be able to stop kissing him again. And it wasn't like he wanted to anyway. Not when he made promises like that.
He still wasn’t sure what exactly it was about kissing Wylan that made it feel this way. But he knew that if he told Nina about it she would’ve simply smacked his head and told him that “It’s because you’re in love, you absolute idiot.” And well, she probably wasn’t that far off with that.
He untucked Wylan’s shirt from his trousers, letting his hands roam over the exposed skin on his stomach.
Wylan gasped against his lips but didn't stop him. If anything, it made him kiss Jesper harder, straddling his hips.
Jesper was quick to return the favour, softly biting down on his bottom lip until he was rewarded with another gasp.
Wylan moved his hands down to the collar of his button-up shirt, tugging at it slightly.
"Can I...take this off?" he asked between kisses.
"Yes,” Jesper answered breathlessly. “Please.”
Wylan didn't waste any time and immediately started to work on the buttons, opening one after the other with skilful hands, not even having to break up their kiss to watch what he was doing.
Jesper felt a swoop in his stomach because he realised that he kind of found it hot. He kind of found it a hell of a lot hot, actually. He sighed happily and ran his hands through Wylan’s curls.
Once Wylan was done unbuttoning his shirt, Jesper lifted himself far enough off the bed to allow his boyfriend to slip it off his shoulders and blindly throw it behind them, before pressing him back down into the mattress with determination.
Jesper could hear it land somewhere on the floor of his room, adding to the already existent mess. He didn’t care. All he could think about was the feeling of Wylan’s lips replacing his hands on his exposed chest and the heat it made simmer low in his stomach when he started working his way down, trailing little kisses like promises along the way. It was starting to take over all of his senses and he let his eyes flutter closed.
But just when Wylan’s lips were ghosting mere inches above the waistline of his jeans, threatening to finally send his brain into overload, he heard the noise.
It took Jesper’s sluggish brain which currently had all of his focus on Wylan a few seconds to realise that it sounded suspiciously like the front door of the house falling shut a floor below them.
He tore his eyes open.
Wylan stopped what he was doing and looked up.
"You said your dad wasn't home!" His blue eyes were wide with shock and his freckled cheeks bright red.
“Well, he wasn't supposed to,” Jesper hissed, his heart racing in a way that probably had less to do with the current problem and more with the dishevelled way his boyfriend looked right now and what his mouth had been doing just a moment ago. “I don't know what he's doing here, he's never home at this time on Thursday!"
Wylan stared at him, then he groaned and dropped his head on his chest. "Jesper. God Jesper you idiot. It's Tuesday."
That was enough to snap him out of his haze. “Is it?" He raised his eyebrows. "Wait, that's actually perfect, it means I won't be handing in my English lit assignment late after all -"
Wylan lifted his head to glare at him. "Jes! Priorities!” he huffed.
“Right.” Jesper cleared his throat, now again very aware that he still had Wylan sitting on top of him. In his room. Where the door definitely wasn’t open. With his shirt off. Looking, well…
"Let's just wait, he might leave again?” he suggested helplessly. Please let him leave again, he thought, desperate.
Wylan gave him a nervous look. “Are you sure? He only just got home. Why would he leave again?”
“I don’t know. He usually has some errands to run?” Jesper offered with a shrug.
Wylan still looked torn about what to do.
Luckily - or very unlucky for them in this case - a sudden creaking sound, suggesting that someone was coming up the stairs, made the decision for them.
"Closet, now!" Jesper hissed, instantly also in a panic, basically shoving his boyfriend off of him.
Wylan immediately followed his instructions without any argument, hurrying to get off the bed and stumble through the room towards the walk-in closet on its other side.
Jesper did the same, not bothering to take the time to look for his shirt before he followed him into the small room. He quickly pulled the sliding door shut behind them, plunging them into sudden darkness from one second to the next because he hadn’t remembered to switch on the light in all his hurry, something you could only do from the outside.
For their cover, it was probably the best this way. But it also meant that he only realised that Wylan was standing directly behind him when he turned around and smashed straight into him.
Wylan huffed, like Jesper had just elbowed him right into the lungs, and stumbled backwards, which was followed by a succession of loud clattering noises suggesting that he had tried to steady himself on one of the shelves but completely missed his goal.
Jesper quickly reached for him, not really sure where he was grabbing in the dark. He did manage to catch Wylan’s wrist, but too late, so he ended up getting dragged down as well when his boyfriend inevitably lost his balance and fell.
With a loud thud, they both ended up on the floor on top of each other, their fall followed by a bunch of items also tumbling from the shelves directly onto them, before ending up on the floor, creating even more noise.
In the silence that followed, Wylan groaned slightly.
"Oh fuck, are you okay?" Jesper immediately asked, trying to make sense of the mess of limbs in the dark. He was pretty sure he was lying half on top of his boyfriend, and half on some random boxes pressing their sharp edges into his hips.
“Yes,” Wylan replied quietly. “I’m fine. Just…hit my elbow on something heavy, I think.”
Jesper sighed in relief. The last thing he needed right now was having to explain how he had managed to give his boyfriend a concussion in a closet.
Wylan shifted slightly under him, then let out another hiss when his arm hit a new obstacle in the dark. “Ow.”
“Okay, just try not to move right now,” Jesper ordered. “I can’t see shit and we're just gonna make our situation worse if we try."
“Well, I can't see shit either,” Wylan scoffed. “It’s what got us here in the first place.”
They didn’t have time to argue, because the steps on the stairs suddenly stopped.
“Jes? Are you okay?” Colm called out from somewhere in the distance, his voice muffled.
Great. So they had definitely been way too loud.
Jesper pressed his lips together and listened trying to figure out how close he was.
His Da’s footsteps continued to get louder, suggesting that he was now coming to his room.
Wylan dared to move under him again, probably still trying to get more comfortable in between the mess of boxes and clothes on the floor. In the process, his hand brushed lightly over Jesper's - still very naked - chest.
Despite his current distress, it sent a shiver running down his spine and a shot of electricity through his veins.
"Wy!" Jesper hissed, immediately catching the hand to stop it from wandering to other, more dangerous places in the dark.
Wylan barely suppressed a giggle. "Sorry. That wasn't intentional."
Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to see it, Jesper gave him a doubtful look.
"Okay, maybe it was a little bit intentional," Wylan admitted into the silence.
"You're a menace," Jesper groaned quietly, running a hand over his face.
“And yet, you love me.” There was an audible smirk in Wylan’s voice.
"Unfortunately, I do. Because if we get caught, I'm the one who will get into massive trouble." Jesper sighed. “Man, it was much easier to hide all this stuff from him when I didn't have a boyfriend. Now he gets suspicious about everything.”
The hand came back, but this time to smack his shoulder.
“Hey!” Jesper protested in a whisper-shout.
"You deserved it!" Wylan whispered back without any compassion. “You shouldn’t be going behind his back either way!”
“Whatever.” Jesper rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like Wylan was just as much accomplice in this as him. Which reminded him - “By the way, where did you leave your backpack? Because if he finds that, we’re basically already screwed.”
But before Wylan could reply, Colm's voice called out again.
"Jes?"
The steps had stopped and he sounded close. Way too close. He had to be inside Jesper's room now if he wasn't already standing right in front of the closet door.
Jesper immediately clapped his hand over Wylan's mouth - or where he supposed his mouth was - to silence whatever he was about to say. He prayed with all the mental strength he could bring up at that moment that his Da wouldn’t come up with the idea to check his closet.
There was silence.
They waited.
"Huh. I could have sworn I heard something,” Colm mumbled. His voice was so clear that it sounded like he was standing right in front of them. Which he kind of was, if you removed the door. “Well, anyway..."
He seemed to start moving again because the steps came back. Jesper prayed that it was to leave his room because he could feel his heartbeat in his throat by now.
Unfortunately, the steps stopped again.
"Oh son, the day you start tidying your room..." Colm groaned slightly like he was reaching down to the floor to pick something up.
Wylan let out a squeak behind Jesper’s hand that could have either been a suppressed laugh or a horrified scream.
If Jesper hadn’t been too busy trying not to make any sound himself, he would have kicked him for it.
Instead, he patiently waited, listening to his Da move outside the closet. Finally, the shuffling steps were audible again, quickly followed by the sound of a door being pulled shut. Distantly, he could hear the stairs creak again, suggesting that his Da was on his way downstairs.
He removed his hand from Wylan’s mouth and they both let out a relieved breath.
“Fuck, that was so close,” Jesper cursed under his breath, still keeping his voice down just to be sure. “I was so sure he was going to open this door.”
"Well, what do we do now?" Wylan asked, as always the practical thinker. He still sounded slightly panicked though.
Jesper’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to make out his boyfriend’s bright eyes watching him expectantly, waiting for a solution.
"Wait?” he suggested helplessly.
"We can't just stay in here all day!" Wylan protested. “And frankly, I don’t want to.”
"Well I don't know about you but I'm quite enjoying our current position," Jesper couldn't help but tease, tangling one of his feet with Wylan's before slowly dragging it up his leg.
He could hear an exasperated sigh before it got pushed away.
"Okay, I need you to focus for a second, don't you realise that we're stuck? Even if we manage to sneak out of the closet, we can't just suddenly magically appear in your room without having walked into the house through the front door," Wylan pointed out, sounding distressed.
“I’m aware of that, Wy,” Jesper reassured him.
He moved to slowly drag himself to his feet, careful not to step on or into anything in the process. Then he shuffled a bit to the left, where he could see a tiny line of light indicating where the closet door was, using his outstretched hands to guide him in the dark without stumbling.
Finally, he reached the door and slid it open just enough so he could reach for the light switch on the wall outside.
The single lightbulb in the closet above them flickered to life.
Wylan repeatedly blinked against the sudden light, raising his hand against it to shield his eyes.
Jesper looked around himself to inspect the mess. The floor was covered with a bunch of boxes which had been separated from their lids, as well as loose ties and hats in all sorts of colours scattered all over the place. Wylan must have accidentally cleared them all off the shelf when he stumbled and fell, dragging Jesper with him.
Wylan seemed to have come to the same conclusion, if the way he looked around himself sheepishly from where he was sitting on the floor, tucked in between two rails of jackets, was anything to go by.
Jesper started to shiver slightly, now that he was starting to calm down from the shock and he quickly grabbed a random fuzzy green sweater from a stack within reach and pulled it over his head.
"How keen are you on staying in here all day?" he asked, slipping his arms into the sleeves, immediately feeling less cold.
Wylan narrowed his eyes at him, still sitting on the floor. “Not really, but my answer is gonna depend entirely on what follows up this question."
Jesper grinned and smoothed down the fabric of the sweater. "Have you ever climbed down a tree?"
"Why aren't you asking if I've ever climbed up a tree?" the counter question came immediately.
"Because my room is on the second floor and the only way to get out is down," Jesper explained. "Down refers to the tree next to my window."
Wylan rolled his eyes in exasperation like this was worse than what he had expected, and dropped his head back, lying flat on the floor spread out like a starfish. "I have so many regrets right now."
"Have you or have you not?" Jesper insisted on an answer.
Wylan lifted his head again to glare at him. "Jes, my room is on the fourth floor. There are not many things more stupid than climbing out of a fourth-floor window."
"If you know how the height doesn't matter," Jesper argued. "Also, you know how to make a bomb but you're afraid of climbing out of a window?"
"It's hardly the same," Wylan argued. "And I don't have any practice at it."
Jesper was close to asking him why this sounded like he had practice at building bombs, but then he pushed the thought away. Priorities, he remembered.
"Well it doesn't matter right now,” He offered his boyfriend a hand. “The choice is yours. Tree, or being confined to this room."
Wylan pressed his lips together, contemplating his options. Then he sighed.
"Fine,” He rolled his eyes and took Jesper’s hand, letting himself get pulled up from the floor. “But if I break all my bones I expect you to explain to my father and mother how that happened. And both will murder you, but for different reasons.”
Jesper grinned. “Deal. And don't worry, I'll make sure you don't fall,” he winked.
Wylan let go of his hand to protectively fold his arms in front of his chest, hugging himself. “You better.”
They left the closet on tiptoes, trying to make the least possible amount of sound to not give away their presence after all.
Jesper carefully opened the window, praying that it wouldn't creak. Then he turned back to look at Wylan.
"Do you wanna go first so I can help you if you get stuck or should I go first and show you how?"
Wylan was still hugging his arms to his chest, looking very unpleased with the situation he had found himself in. “You go first," he decided.
“Okay.” Jesper easily let himself out on the window frame, comfortably hovering there like he had done this a million times before. Well, he kind of had.
“So it's best if you start on this branch," he explained, hopping onto the thickest branch of the tree which was closest to the window, supporting himself by holding onto its stem.
Wylan watched him with raised eyebrows. He looked both impressed and straight-out terrified.
"And then to go down hold onto that one and not the one directly in front of you because it's thinner than it looks," Jesper instructed further, pointing at it before moving down to the next branch.
"And then from here," he changed branch again, "reach this one...." He kept slowly working his way down the tree, explaining to Wylan where to step and where not to, until he reached the bottom branch.
He let himself fall down onto the grass, easily landing upright. The whole climb had probably taken him less than a minute, habit and muscle memory making it a smooth process.
He looked up to his window. Wylan was barely visible throughout the branches of the tree from down there, his red hair peeking out between them the only thing confirming that he was still standing in the window. Jesper waved at him, trying to signal that he could go now.
Clearly hesitant, Wylan climbed onto the first branch, leaving the open window behind.
Jesper sent him an encouraging smile, hoping he could see it from up there.
He watched as his boyfriend continued to climb between the branches, making his way down exactly the way he had shown him, just much slower. It made Jesper realise that he hadn’t calculated the fact that Wylan was much smaller than him and thus had to reach out much further for the next branch. Luckily, he seemed to be doing just fine. Not that Jesper had ever doubted him anyway, given that Wylan was a quick study in basically everything he touched in his life.
Finally, Wylan had reached the final branch and he could see the relief in his eyes once he jumped down from it and landed safely in the arms Jesper held out to catch him in case he fell.
"See? Wasn't even that hard!” he praised.
"Please, I hated every second of this,” Wylan breathed out, cheeks flushed from all the nervousness.
Jesper chuckled and pulled him closer to press a kiss to his temple. “Well you better get used to it, because I can already predict that this won't be the last time you’ve had to climb down this tree.”
Wylan scrunched his nose and decisively pushed him away. "Oh, it definitely was. I'm not deceiving your father like this again. Or tempt faith to break all my bones.”
Jesper laughed. “Right. I’ll remind you when the time comes.”
Wylan ignored him, looking around himself. “Now how do we get out of this garden unseen?”
Jesper pointed to the back. “Well, we’re gonna have to quickly climb over that small fence and then use our neighbour’s garden to get to the other side so we can round the street and get back to our house from the front.”
Wylan pulled a face. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Don’t worry, the house belongs to a very kind old lady, she’s already invited me in for tea a few times,” Jesper reassured him and started walking towards the back fence separating the two gardens.
“Jesper,” Wylan whined but still followed him. “I don’t want to get invited in for tea, I want to not disturb other people's lives."
“It’ll be done in a second,” Jesper quickly reassured him, easily pulling himself up onto the fence that barely reached his chest when he was standing on the floor.
He could hear Wylan let out a deep sigh behind him when he dropped down on the other side, landing on the soft grass. He quickly scanned the garden in front of him to make sure nobody was there, finding, as almost every time that he did this, that he was completely alone and there was no reason to worry.
Although to be fair, most of the time when he crossed it, it was either very late in the evening or early in the morning.
“Okay, you can go ahead, Wy,” he announced. “We’re clear.”
Wylan’s red hair appeared over the fence before the rest of his small body got dragged up on it with a huff. Then he just sat there on top of it like he needed to rest for a moment and stared down at Jesper below him with clear judgement on his face.
“This is not what I imagined this afternoon to turn out to be,” Wylan confessed before hopping down from the fence.
Jesper chuckled and held out a hand in case he needed to be steadied in his landing. “Well…me neither. But it’s kinda fun, I’m not gonna lie.”
“That’s just because you live on constant adrenaline kicks like other people do with coffee,” his boyfriend huffed, brushing dirt from his trousers.
“I do need my coffee as well,” Jesper pointed out, taking his hand.
“I will buy you all the coffee if we can stop trespassing this private property as quickly as possible,” Wylan offered, looking around himself with unease like he was expecting to get discovered and yelled at any second.
Jesper chuckled. “Relax. You just got to own it, you know.” He led Wylan through the unfamiliar garden and then past the house and through the driveway back towards the street. “Like, you just have to act like you know exactly what you’re doing and it’s very legal. Works every time, watch.”
To underline his point, he waved at a woman who just got out of her car at the house on the other side of the street. She waved back with a smile, even though he had never talked to her before.
Jesper smirked to himself. Hiding in the bright daylight truly never got old as a cover.
“Whatever,” Wylan impatiently tugged at his hand, apparently not convinced. “Can we go home now and get this over with, please?”
“Yes.” Jesper pulled him in the other direction. “This way is shorter though.”
They walked down the row of houses and then rounded the corner to get back into the street they had originally come from. Once they arrived back inside the house, Jesper made sure to noisily close the door behind them, making a point out of announcing their presence.
Wylan sent him a warning glare.
Jesper just shrugged and winked at him.
"Jes! There you are.”
They both turned to see Colm standing in the hallway, having seemingly appeared out of nowhere with a laundry basket in his arms.
“I was sure you’d be home by now but then I checked and you weren’t.” His eyes wandered from one boy to the other. “Oh, hi Wylan.”
Jesper could basically feel Wylan shrink a few inches next to him.
"Yes, I already was - we were, we just went for a little walk,” he quickly explained, his brain running blank on a better excuse.
Colm frowned and adjusted the basket on his hip.
Wylan let out a strangled noise.
Jesper was just about to send him a warning glare when he followed his gaze and felt the same noise threatening to escape his mouth. On top of the pile of laundry in the basket his Da was holding was the shirt Wylan had peeled off of him less than an hour ago.
He tightened his grip on Wylan’s hand in order to hold himself back from blurting out something he really shouldn’t.
Colm looked them both up and down. “A walk through the bushes?" he asked, his eyes lingering on a little dried leaf tangled in one of Wylan’s curls.
"It was a bit windy,” Wylan supplied.
Jesper quickly plucked the leaf out of his curls. "Yes, that."
He could definitely still use some lessons from his boyfriend when it came to lying on the spot.
“It is quite windy, isn’t it," Colm agreed. "You boys should have put on coats, it’s too late in the year to go outside without one.”
"Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine, we weren't even outside for that long," Wylan quickly reassured him with a smile. “We just went around the block so Jesper could let out some energy because he couldn’t focus on homework anymore.”
Well, he wasn't entirely wrong. They had barely rounded the neighbourhood. And the excuse was so accurate that Jesper simply found himself nodding along.
Colm also nodded slowly, like he agreed that it made sense but he was still a bit confused about the entire situation.
“Well then, I hope it helped then,” he said eventually.
“Yes,” Jesper quickly agreed, even though if anything, this entire adventure had only keyed him up more. Wylan was right, he did sort of thrive on adrenaline kicks.
Colm smiled, then he disappeared with the laundry basket down the hallway without another word, apparently seeing no need to ask any further questions.
Jesper shared a silent look of relief with Wylan, then he pulled him towards the stairs to get back to his room.
Wylan almost immediately collapsed on his bed and hid his face behind his hands. “Oh my god, that was horrible.”
Jesper chuckled and sat down next to him, watching him with amusement.
“You know, I don't know why you always panic about this stuff. You're way better at lying than me, so you've got nothing to worry about. And in combination with that you also look like the innocence in person, so really, you could get away with murder."
Wylan pressed his lips together. "Just because I'm good at lying doesn't mean that I like doing it," he said quietly.
And oh. Jesper understood.
Wylan wasn't good at lying because he wanted to be, but because he had been forced to learn it, in order to hide the things that made him most vulnerable. It was a talent born out of necessity.
"I'm sorry,” he said softly, nudging his leg. “Also for all the chaos just now,” he apologised.
"It's fine, really” Wylan quickly reassured him and sat up. “Just ask me what day it is the next time,” he added with a grin.
Jesper scoffed. He went to lean in for a kiss, but Wylan pulled away, turning his head to the side.
“I’m not going to kiss you for the rest of the day,” he announced.
"What? That's mean,” Jesper protested with a pout. “It's not my fault that my brain messes things up sometimes. You can't punish me for that."
Wylan shook his head. “I know. I never said you were the problem."
It took Jesper a second to catch up with what he meant. Then he grinned.
"What are you saying then?” He leaned back in until he could whisper directly into his boyfriend’s ear. “That I'm...too distracting for you maybe?”
Wylan took a deep breath. "I'm just saying that I wouldn't want us to have to hide in that closet for a second time today,” he said, his eyelashes fluttering.
Jesper grinned, satisfied with the answer, so he took mercy on him and pulled back, getting up from the bed.
“Fine. I guess we can do something innocent instead then.” He plopped down on his desk chair. "Something like actually doing homework even. Very civil activity.” He reached for his school bag and pulled out a few books. “I kinda do need some help with math."
Wylan blinked, clearly surprised at the easy change of topic. “Do you really or are you just pretending that you do because you want me to explain it to you?” he asked, suspicious.
"No, I promise! I was going to ask you later anyway,” Jesper insisted, though he had to admit that the concern was fair because he had definitely done this before and they both knew it. He grabbed a pencil and waved him over.
Wylan sighed and got up from the bed. "Fine, let me see then,” he gave in. He stepped behind the chair so he could peer at Jesper’s notes over his shoulders. “Where are you at?” He brought his arms up around Jesper, basically hugging him from behind so he could rest his head on his shoulder.
Jesper raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know Mr Hendriks, is this kind of physical touch appropriate for a tutoring setting?” he teased and yet couldn't resist leaning his head against his cheek for a moment.
“Just shut up and let me help you,” Wylan said with a hint of impatience, not making any effort to move away.
Jesper chuckled. "Fine." He pointed at his notes. "I'm stuck on this problem set. My calculation doesn't add up and I don’t know where I messed up.”
"Hm." Wylan nestled his head into the crook of his neck. "Let's see..."
He reached for the pencil.
In retrospect, Jesper was pretty sure that this was the exact moment when he already lost his focus. Yet, they actually managed to make it through two whole problems before Wylan ended up in his lap and they forgot about math altogether. He had a hard time not feeling smug about it. But mostly, he was too busy feeling really, really happy to think about it.