Chapter Text
New Years Day, 2023 ~ Present Day
Jesper scrubbed a hand over his face, unable to avoid glancing at his reflection in Nina's shiny, bathroom mirror. His eyes were puffy, red rimmed, the glisten of tears stained his cheeks. His lip was sore from where he’d been biting it, hand shaking where it gripped the sink.
How did I end up here?
The sound of the New Years Party raged behind him, music and laughter, the countdown was over. The New Year had began. Another one.
Gasping, Jesper threw his head back and closed his eyes, trembling. He wasn’t normally the kind of guy to sob on his own in the bathroom during a party. But he supposed, this was a long time coming.
Considering everything.
It had all started as a joke. It was very, very far from a joke now. But that’s where it had started. Just two boys, barely even teens, slightly tipsy because they weren’t used to drinking. It had turned from a joke into what it was now, something that killed him every single year, that gnawed on his insides like a forgotten monster, that might have just ruined their friendship.
Jesper had never meant for it to go this far, because. Well.
It had started as a joke.
New Years Eve, 2014.
It was everyone’s first New Years Party. Nina’s adoptive parents were out for the night and had stupidly left their fourteen year old daughter in charge.
So. Obviously.
Nina held a party.
It wasn’t a huge one. Just the six of them and a few other friends from their year. Nina had found Alina’s collection of wine and poured it out for them, so Jesper was feeling slightly buzzed. Not drunk, definitely not, but his head felt light and his tongue looser. He felt good.
He felt even better when his best friend sidled up beside him, handing him the rest of his glass with a grimace. Jesper grinned, “what’s up Wy?” he called over the music, slinging an arm around his shoulder. Wylan tucked himself into his side, glaring at the room. “Its very loud,” he grumbled, shaking his head until red curls fell into his eyes.
“It’s a party! It’s supposed to be loud sunshine.”
Wylan shoved his elbow into Jesper’s side, sniggering when he wheezed.
The room was alight with bright, flickering lights of blue and purple, the blinding white timer on Nina’s laptop screen, and Jesper felt thoroughly alive. The music was coursing through his body like a live hot wire, sparking through his veins until he wondered if he just might explode from the force of it.
Tilting his head so he could speak directly into Wylan’s ear, he said gently, “do you want to go home? I can call my Da to pick us up.”
Wylan looked up at him for a moment, eyes devastatingly blue in the glow of Nina’s LEDs. “No its okay,” he said slowly, “I wanna stay for the countdown.”
Jesper snorted, “why, is there some girl you want to kiss?” Wylan only wrinkled his nose until Jesper laughed under his breath. Then Jesper’s grin dropped, as he watched the countdown to New Years reach the final minute. “Oh saints,” he muttered, and Wylan frowned, “we’re gonna be the only two idiots without anyone to kiss on New Years!”
Wylan looked around, having also spotted everyone dividing themselves into pairs. “Oh that’ll be embarrassing—hey is Nina going up to Inej?” Jesper craned his neck to see, spotting Nina slinging her arm around Inej’s shoulders and yell something over the music. “I thought she was busy mooning over that Fjerdan hunk,” Jesper mused, catching the eye of a very murderous looking Kaz lurking behind them.
He felt Wylan’s curls tickle his neck as the other moved just before he was being poked in the side again. He heard Anika scream ’30 seconds’ as the music was lowered slightly.
“What’s up?” he asked, ducking his head to hear him amongst the cheers.
“Kiss me.”
Jesper blinked. “What?” He pulled back enough to see Wylan properly, expecting him to be laughing like it was a joke but instead his face was dead serious.“It’s just for fun,” he said brightly, inching closer, “Nina and Inej are doing it, and we both know who they’ve set their eyes on.”
Jesper snorted, glancing back over at Kaz.
“10!” The room screamed, and Jesper looked back at Wylan. His blue eyes were bright, his smile wide, the dusting of freckles over his face almost glittered.
“Did Nina put make up on you?”
“9!”
“What?”
“8!”
“Nevermind,” Jesper shook his head, grinning, “I’ll kiss you, alright.”
“7!”
Wylan beamed. “Should I be offended it took you so long to consider?” He teased, turning to face Jesper properly.
“6!”
Jesper snorted, “no but you should be honoured that I get to be your first kiss.”
“5!”
“Shut up or I’ll take it back,” Wylan scolded, shoving him gently.
“4!”
Jesper couldn’t help grinning, pulling Wylan closer with his hands on his waist. He couldn’t remember what happened to his drink.
“3!”
Adrenaline was coursing through him, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he stared into Wylan’s bright blue eyes. Oh this was happening. He was going to kiss his best friend. He felt excited.
“2!”
“Oh I have no idea what I’m doing,” Wylan complained under his breath, looking nervous for the first time.
“1!”
“Neither do I,” Jesper assured him, before he ducked his head and kissed him.
He fucking missed.
Wylan pulled away with a bright laugh, even as everyone else kissed, even as Jesper’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment.
“Jesper!”
“Shut up.”
Wylan laughed even louder when Jesper grabbed him and ruffled his hair, starting to laugh alongside him. “How did you only manage to kiss a corner—”
“Shut up or I’ll kiss you again.”
“You’ll have to aim for that to work,” Wylan giggled, struggling against Jesper’s grip, and Jesper groaned in embarrassment. Wylan was going to hold this against him for the rest of his life.
Jesper’s first kiss was when he was fourteen at a New Years party, kissing his thirteen year old best friend.
And if the next day, Jesper pulled up Google and searched ‘what does it mean if I kissed a boy and I liked it?’ well. That was for Jesper to know and Jesper alone.
New Years Eve, 2015
Nina was hosting the party again.
Jesper still didn’t know how she’d managed to get away with it last year, especially considering the mess that he and his friends had tried to clean up, but he suspected Genya had something to do with it.
Nevertheless, they were here again, the six of them sitting in a circle with a drink in each of their hands.
Wylan was looking uncharacteristically nervous from where he was sat beside Jesper, hunched in on himself and playing with the sleeve of his denim jacket. It was Jesper’s jacket that had been shrunk in the wash –or he just grew too tall—and while he did love wearing it cropped, he thought it looked that bit better on Wylan.
Really made his eyes pop.
He nudged Wylan with his elbow, sending him a small smile that was immediately returned. “You alright?” he asked under his breath, just loud enough for only the two of them to hear. Wylan nodded, taking a sip of his drink, “yeah, you?”
“I’m right as rain sunshine,” Jesper said with a grin, feeling pleased when Wylan had to turn his face away with a laugh.
He turned back to the others, attempting to focus in on the conversation once more –something about comparing Ravka’s cuisine to Kerch—but Wylan was ever present in his peripheral, chewing his nails and fidgeting, looking more and more nervous.
He put down his drink.
“How long we got till midnight?” he asked suddenly, interrupting the conversation. Nina looked away, squinting at her laptop that was set up on the counter. “Uh, about five minutes.” She said finally. Jesper grinned, “cool, I’ll see ye in five, let’s go merchling.”
Wylan blinked, “what?”
Reaching down, Jesper pried his drink out of his hand and pulled him up, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder when he stumbled. “Fancy a dance?” he asked smoothly, winking.
Wylan wavered, “I’m not sure—”
Jesper just tugged him forward anyway, pulling him onto the relatively crowded “dancefloor” –which was really just the sitting room with all the couches shoved in the corner. There was enough people on there that Jesper didn’t feel exposed but it wasn’t clustered. “Come on,” he insisted, “you need to relax, have a bit of fun.”
Wylan didn’t look convinced, “but—”
“—It’s my favourite song,” Jesper lied, and although Wylan raised a questioning eyebrow, he conceded.
Their dance was clumsy, considering Jesper had no idea how to and Wylan was ineffectively trying to remember his minuet lessons from years ago. But it was fun and that was all that mattered. Wylan laughed when Jesper spun him in a circle and yelped in surprise when he dipped him without warning. He watched as all the apprehension and worry seemed to drain from Wylan, his face brightening instead with giddy joy.
He was so caught up in keeping that blinding smile on Wylan’s face that he completely forgot about it being New Years, shoved back into focus with the rooms collective scream of “10!”
They both stilled, Wylan’s shoulders still shaking with laughter. “You’ll have to kiss me again,” Wylan said, stumbling into him.
“Oh hell no—” Jesper began but Wylan cut in swiftly, face flushed red, “—come on! You have to prove that you can actually kiss me properly this time.”
“9!”
Jesper groaned, inciting another laugh from Wylan, “will you ever let that go?” he complained, cheeks flushing with the remembered embarrassment.
“8!”
“Never!” Wylan giggled, grabbing hold of Jesper’s biceps with his warm hands, “not unless you kiss me now.”
“7!”
Jesper rolled his eyes, unable to prevent the laugh from escaping him. He was always so giddy around Wylan, he had been since they’d met.
“6!”
“Do you really want to look sad and bitchless on New Years?” Wylan challenged, arching a perfect eyebrow.
“5!”
Jesper spluttered, “I’m not sad and bitchless!”
“4!”
“Come on, come on, come on!” Wylan pleaded, puckering his lips with barely contained laughter, face as red as Jesper’s button up.
“3!”
“What are you doing?” Jesper laughed, almost stumbling into Wylan’s space.
“2!”
Wylan pulled him forwards with the grip on his biceps, “kiss me Fahey!” he shouted, his breath wafting against Jesper’s lips.
“1!”
“Fine!” With laughter bubbling up his throat, Jesper grabbed Wylan’s face with both hands and smashed their lips together, drowning out the cheers that surrounded them.
They broke apart in peals of laughter, with Wylan’s face still as red as ever and Jesper’s burning up like a flame. “Was that better?” he shouted, grabbing hold of Wylan’s shoulder to stabilise himself.
Wylan nodded, giggling, “it was satisfactory,” he said with a snort.
“Satisfactory—come here you fucker!”
Wylan squeaked when Jesper grabbed him, squirming in his grip when Jesper attacked his ticklish sides. “Wait, wait, wait,” he gasped, tapping Jesper’s bicep, “I have something to tell you.”
Jesper paused, “what is it?”
“I’m—” Wylan hesitated and Jesper quickly let him go, letting him turn around to face him. His blue eyes were as wide as ever, the lines of his face nervous, but his jaw was set and steely determination flashed in those eyes. All around them, the room was erupting into cheers and songs, the New Year among them, and above all that noise, Wylan shouted, “I’m gay!”
Jesper grinned, “cool!” he shouted back, “I’m bi!”
Wylan blinked, then snorted, “I know, you told me that already, dumbass.”
Rolling his eyes, Jesper wrapped Wylan up in his arms and pulled him into a hug. “I’m proud of you,” he said softly, directly into his ear, and Wylan hugged him tighter.
When they pulled away, Jesper kept hold of Wylan’s hands, small and just a little bit sweaty. “Did you tell the others?”
Wylan shook his head.
Squeezing his hands, Jesper asked softly, “do you want to?”
Wylan nodded, “Yeah. I was going to earlier but I kept overthinking it...” he laughed slightly under his breath, “I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s never stupid Wylan,” Jesper said softly, gently tugging Wylan to follow him off the dancefloor. Wylan just jogged to catch up, smiling once again.
That was the year Wylan got his first boyfriend, in March of all months.
“You what?” Jesper half yelled down the phone, elbows deep in hot soapy water as he washed the pile of dishes he’d meant to do yesterday.
Wylan giggled, “I got a boyfriend!”
“When? How? Who? What?”
He heard Wylan snort from the other line, “I think that’s all of them Jes.”
Rolling his eyes, Jesper placed the clean dish on the drying rack with far more force then necessary, “Wy—lan!”
“Right, sorry.” Wylan cleared his throat and Jesper tried to imagine how much his best friend was likely blushing. “I uh—okay. Um. You know Kuwei?”
Jesper blinked. “Kuwei Yul-Bo? The guy in my metalworking class? The one who nearly set the kitchens on fire back in first year? That Kuwei?”
“Listen—” Wylan said, and Jesper started laughing. “Jesper,” Wylan complained, “no—stop. I will hang up on you.”
“Alright, alright, I’m listening,” Jesper said, rolling his lips to silence his laughter.
Wylan cleared his throat again. “Basically, our father’s knew each other so we used to hang out a lot as kids, but we lost contact when I moved in with my mother.”
Jesper was nodding along as he scrubbed the next plate, despite knowing Wylan couldn’t see him.
“And uh, well he’s in my chemistry and art class this year, and we kind of got to talking again and uh. Yeah.” He finished, something rustling on the other side.
Jesper tutted, “I can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing of this, I didn’t even know you had a crush on him!”
“I told you!” Wylan defended, “I told you all the time!”
Jesper snorted. “No, you asked me really vague questions like ‘how do you know if someone likes you back?’ or ‘Jes how do you flirt with someone?’. Google exists, Wylan.”
“I don’t know why I even asked you, its not like you have experience,” Wylan grumbled.
“Hey now,” Jesper scolded, waving his sopping spatula in the direction of his phone, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Wylan’s laugh sounded tinny when coming through the phone, but Jesper grinned anyway. “I’m happy for you though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you deserve it.”
There was a silence for a long moment, the only noise being the dishes clanking in the sink and something rustling on the phone. Wylan was probably drawing.
Then, “thanks Jes,” Wylan said softly, almost serious.
Jesper smiled, “anytime sunshine.”
Wylan’s groan of annoyance and Jesper’s gleeful laugh was just about enough to distract from the slight twist in his gut.
New Years Eve, 2016
“Alina is home tonight so please don’t go too crazy guys,” Nina announced with a huff, hurling a bag of snacks at each of them. Apparently Alina and Genya had decided that two parties in a row was two parties too much. Without supervision, anyway.
“I’m sixteen!” Nina whined, throwing herself down beside Matthias, “you’d think they’d have more trust in me by now!”
Jesper refrained from mentioning that fourteen had been a very lucky age to be able to host a party.
“Yeah but last year Pim got too high on those edibles Rotty brought and smashed a whole cabinet of plates trying to juggle them,” Inej reminded her gently.
Jesper snorted, Nina pouted, and Wylan—
Well. Wylan was busy hanging off his boyfriends every word to have heard any of that conversation.
“Pass me a can of coke will you Kuwei,” Jesper asked, reaching out and making grabby motions with one hand. His rings flashed with the movement, and Jesper found himself smiling. He’d only recently started to experiment with jewellery, and he’d found rings to be his favourite so far. Especially the big chunky ones with some sort of stone set into them. Inej had once told him that he could make a living making and designing rings, if he wanted, and while he’d scoffed at the time, sometimes Jesper was able to think ‘that’s not so bad actually.’
Kuwei passed him the coke with a smile, arm still looped around Wylan’s shoulder. Jesper had to tear his eyes away.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Kuwei. He liked him a lot, actually. They were partners in their metalworking class and they worked well together, and Kuwei was fun to be around. He could see why Wylan was dating him.
It was just—
He was always around now.
It was almost impossible to get a moment to hang out with his best friend without inevitably turning into a third wheel. A seventh wheel sometimes, when they all hung out, because everyone else in their friendgroup seemed hopelessly oblivious to their own love lives.
And Jesper was, quite frankly, sick of it.
He watched as his friends all returned to their conversations, feeling distinctly left out. Wylan and Kuwei had returned to their soft discussion, Nina and Inej were choosing on the next movie they should watch meanwhile Matthias and Kaz were arguing over who’s religion was more absurd.
Jesper was personally voting for the Kerch. It seemed much cooler to worship a tree then money.
It’s not just money, it’s trade and business as a whole, Wylan would argue hotly, but when Jesper went to nudge him into the conversation, he paused. Wylan was snuggled into Kuwei’s side, his head resting on his shoulder and a soft blush over his cheeks.
Jesper sighed.
It seemed cruel to disturb him.
“I’m gonna get some ice,” Jesper muttered to the circle of six people, standing up before anyone could respond. He caught Wylan’s eye as he moved away, and sent him a small smile to ease the worried furrow of his brows.
He was lonely.
Objectively, Jesper knew it was his fault that he was lonely. Romance didn’t come to him the same way it did for the others. Nina had dated boys and girls before, Wylan had a boyfriend now, Kaz and Inej were Kaz and Inej. Even Matthias was besotted with Nina.
For Jesper...
He saw a pretty girl and a pretty boy and he’d smile and wink and flirt and that would be that. He knew that he did someday want a relationship, that he craved the idea of loving someone and being loved back.
He just—
He needed a couple extra steps. That was all.
You know there is a label for that, Nina would say, and Jesper did know that really. He was just fine without one—for now anyway—while he figured out exactly how he felt.
Sexuality, huh? He thought with a snort, bending over to rifle through the freezer. Why the was there so many prawns?
While he was shoulder deep in the freezer, he heard the timer going off and Nina and Kuwei’s excited shout.
“Fahey get your ass over here!” Nina yelled over the sound of Inej, Wylan and Kuwei chanting.
“Give me a minute darling,” he called back, voice muffled by the freezer, triumphantly finding the bag of ice.
“3!”
Jesper straightened and slammed the door shut with his hip.
“2!”
His hands fumbled with the packet and it slipped from his grip onto the floor. Jesper snatched it back up with a curse.
“1!”
Armed with the ice, Jesper spun around on his heel to face the others, and froze.
He watched as Nina kissed Inej on the cheek with an exaggerated smack of lips before she jumped on a very surprised Matthias. He watched Inej gently take hold of Kaz’s wrist and press a kiss to the back of his gloved hand. They maintained eye contact the whole time, to the point Jesper felt like he was intruding just by being there. He watched Wylan cup his boyfriends face and push up onto his knees to kiss him, not quite straddling him but not far off.
He blinked.
Saints, everyone was just pairing off weren’t they?
“Save some room for Sankt Emerens!” Alina yelled suddenly, startling everyone apart. Jesper turned to see Alina poking her head through the door, smiling knowingly at everyone. “Since when is Jesper the sensible one of you lot?”
Jesper held up his prize sheepishly, “I just wanted some ice.”
Alina rolled her eyes, made an ‘I’m watching you’ motion with her hand before disappearing back upstairs.
Jesper slipped back into spot between Wylan and the arm of the couch, smirking at everyone. “What, I leave for like two seconds and everyone’s making out?”
Nina flashed her middle finger at him, still draped halfway over a blushing and shell shocked Matthias, “shut it Fahey, we all know you’re just jealous.”
Jesper wrinkled his nose, “jealous? Oh hell no. Although...” He rolled his head along the back of the couch cushions to face Wylan, “I am a bit miffed that someone forgot the bro code.”
Wylan’s brows furrowed in confusion, “bro code?”
“Yes, the bro code. You know, bro’s before hoes, best friend solidarity new year tradition-- thing. You know.” He waggled his eyebrows as if anything he just said made any sense.
Wylan just blinked at him for a moment, face blank, before realisation dawned on him and he groaned, whacking Jesper on the shoulder. “You’re so dramatic!”
“I am not dramatic!” Jesper defended himself rather dramatically, “you forgot about our tradition!”
Kuwei glanced between them with raised brows, “am I missing something?”
Jesper opened his mouth to speak but Wylan cut across him, “ignore him, he’s an idiot.”
“Hey!”
“We have a tradition where we kiss on New Years to save him—”
“—us—”
“—from looking all sad and bitchless.”
Jesper rolled his eyes, but he was smiling to let Wylan know he wasn’t really annoyed, “and now that you’re all happy and got a bitch, bye bye to all the JesperWylan traditions!”
Kuwei looked far too pleased at being called Wylan’s bitch even as Wylan threw his eyes to the heavens. “Ugh, come here you infuriating bastard.” He grabbed hold of Jesper’s collar and pulled him close enough to leave a kiss on his cheek. “There, happy now?”
Jesper tutted, “you missed, darling,” he teased, puckering his lips. Wylan shoved him. Kuwei laughed. Kaz told them all to shut up. And that was that.
It was March again, when Jesper got the call. It was always fucking March.
The first thing he heard when he answered Wylan’s call, reclined in his bed and throwing his ball against the ceiling, was a choked sob.
Jesper sat up immediately, the ball bounced off the ceiling and crashed into his desk. “Wy? Wylan what’s wrong? Talk to me sunshine.”
Wylan sucked in a breath, the noise shaky and threatening to tear Jesper’s heart out. “Kuwei—we—uh—” he heard a muffled squeak, a sound that he’d come to recognise as Wylan biting his hand mid sob.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, “you’re okay, I’m here.”
Wylan pulled in another shuddering breath before saying quickly, “we broke up.”
Jesper blinked. “Shit,” he breathed without thinking, mouth always moving faster then his mind ever could.
He heard Wylan release a shaky, humourless, “Yeah, shit,” before his voice broke again with a gasp.
Feeling utterly helpless, hands itching with the need to hug his best friend, Jesper stood up and started shoving his feet into his shoes, balancing his phone between his ear and his shoulder. “Talk to me sunshine, what happened? Do I need to punch a bitch? Because I will, I’m a farmer.”
Wylan laughed wetly, “no its okay. I broke up with him.”
“Oh.” Jesper was half hopping on one foot as he tugged his boot past his heel. Stupid bony ankles.
“Yeah,” Wylan sniffed, “I don’t even know why I’m crying, I’m so selfish, it was my decision to break up.”
“You’re not selfish love,” Jesper murmured, picking his phone up properly and taking the stairs downstairs two at a time.
“I just—I like Kuwei, and he didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just a very different person then I was last year and—I don’t know. It didn’t feel the same.”
Jesper paused in the kitchen to scribble a note for his Da, having to rifle through the cabinets for a pen. “There’s nothing wrong with that Wy. If it doesn’t work out then it doesn’t work out.” He could feel Wylan about to object so he interjected hurriedly, “it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t feel like absolute shit, because it will. But you’re not selfish to recognise that a relationship you wanted a year ago doesn’t suit you now.”
Wylan was silent, bar the odd sniffle or hiccup, and Jesper succeeded in locating a pen. “Did you enjoy the time you had together?” he asked gently.
“Yeah,” Wylan sniffed, “I really did.”
“Then that’s all that matters love.”
He pulled on his jacket and slipped out the door, patting his pockets to double check he had his keys and wallet. “Are you home?”
“Uh—yeah of course. Why?”
“Good.” Jesper set off at a brisk walk towards the nearest bus stop. “I’m coming over, how do you feel about some hot chocolate and Spiderman?”
He heard Wylan half sob into the phone at Jesper’s words and he quickened his step. “...And brownies?” Wylan asked softly, barely anything above a whisper.
Jesper smiled, “of course Wy, anything you need.”
He didn’t hang up the phone once, not until Marya opened the door and sent him upstairs with a slightly worried pinch to her brows, not until Wylan flung himself at him the second he entered his room.
Jesper held Wylan as he cried, watching all the Spiderman movies on his tiny laptop and stroking his back in an attempt to comfort him. He'd never been very good at the whole comforting thing, but it was Wylan. His best friend Wylan, and Jesper would do anything in the world to try and make him smile.
"Thanks Jes," Wylan mumbled into his chest, still clutching Jesper as the lay snuggled on the bed. Jesper smiled, squeezing Wylan's shoulder tighter, "anytime sunshine."
Wylan shoved him lightly, and Jesper allowed a tiny huff of a laugh to escape him.
Anytime.