i am thrilled to announce the second installment in my idle series, focusing solely on jesper and wylan. i would simply like to remind everyone, however, that these are meant to be poetic and full of prose, rather than serious and solid fics, that's all.
tagging everyone whom i would buy ice cream for: @inejghafasupremacy @wafflesandschemingfaces @thebonecarver@crazywritingbookworm @holding-shan-back-from-murder @saltyfortunes @smol-satan @quintessential-octessence @nightshade3465 @murderbabies @dreaminginvelaris @black-like-my-soul @ratabrasileira @runetherunestone @22herondale @iambecomeyourvillain
@queer-bookwyvern for you, bestie
Wylan Van Eck hadn't always loved him.
Once upon a time, he had only been a quiet boy from the largest city in the world, lips smudged with paint, copper lashes low over eyes bluer than the fucking summer sky.
Once upon a time, he had spent his days sequestered in his favourite studio, head tilted just so slightly, dappling the canvas in shades of green and gold, a spare brush between his teeth.
Once upon a time, his evenings were spent alone at the piano, slim fingers hovering over the keys as if he could wring his childhood from the notes, copper curls damp with bathwater.
Once upon a time, artwork meant slender brushes and sticky gouache and glass jars of paint; now he could only define it as eyes like dusty sunlight, soft lips that tasted of forgiveness, a grin to light the world aflame.
And Wylan was fucking aflame.
When he was sketching sleepily at his desk, the sun a dying cinder at his back, sharp angles and vivid coats and pearl-handled revolvers sprawled from the tip of his charcoal pen.
When he was laying alone in the bath, water lapping over the hard planes of his body, the room aglow in soft shades of bronze and green, all he could do was dream.
When he was sitting in a lecture hall, information and dates and names pounding through his ears, all he could see was the elegant figure before him, scrawling down his notes, one leg kicked up against a girl's chair.
Wylan couldn't help but track the careful movements of his hand, the graceful loops and lines of his writing, one finger braced against the metal spiral of his notebook.
His name was Jesper, he knew. Jesper Fahey.
A soft name, the sound a rolling wave on his tongue, rising and falling. It tasted like whiskey, smooth and sweet, every note rich and unfettered.
He wanted to find out how it would feel in his mouth, during the final hours of the night, how it would sound.
He wanted to hear his own name on Jesper's lips, a breathless gasp, a quiet moan, a pleading whisper.
He wanted to hear Jesper say his name, so simply.
He wanted to hear his name.
The very first time Wylan painted him felt like taking a drug. He was sprawled in his bed, staring dazedly at a dark spider clinging to the leftmost wall, and he was losing his fucking mind.
He couldn't get the image of Jesper's hands out of his head. In the chamber of his mind, he had locked away the sight as if to keep it safe and sheltered; those fucking beautiful hands, broad and warm, lines etched into the calloused palm, nails squared off, three rings circling each finger.
He wanted to draw them in charcoal and graphite and ink.
He wanted to paint them in gouache and acrylics and watercolour.
He wanted to line them in silver and bronze and emerald.
He wanted to lift those hands to his mouth and kiss them.
And so at three in the morning, still in his pajamas and hair utterly bedraggled, eyes swollen with exhaustion and limbs sore, he was setting himself up before a blank canvas.
"Just one painting," he whispered, touching a slim finger to a brush.
He promised himself a quick sketch, just the soft shape of his hands, or the lilt to his smile, or maybe even the blazing hue of his eyes.
He made quick work of locating his favourite paints, a set of vibrant gouache his mother had gifted him, bottled neatly into little glass jars.
And, so fucking tenderly, he selected every single colour that he had likened to Jesper.
Rich gold and heady crimson, molten copper and softest ivory, prussian blue and clinging silver, dreamy amethyst and clear chrysocolla.
They stained Wylan's hands as he dappled the bare canvas in every prismatic hue, smudging over his wrists and fingertips and the limber handle of his brush.
When the sun rose, fierce and proud against a backdrop of blue blue blue, he only wiped a droplet of copper from his lip and kept going.
There was something utterly consuming about being locked away in that room, the strong scent of paint and turpentine, the haze of shades and light and quiet piano music, the blur of being trapped in lands one never wanted to leave.
He spent hours kneeling there on the floor, head bowed over the canvas as if the painting was his altar, reveling in every last detail. And there were Jesper's hands, soft and gentle, and the sight nearly drove him mad.
He wanted to feel those hands tangled through his hair.
He wanted to feel them on his bare skin.
"Just one painting," he echoed, and set down his brush.
But when he glimpsed Jesper laughing in the fields, snow dripping down his cheek like tears, he wanted to capture that indomitable joy in acrylics, brilliant in their beauty.
But when he caught Jesper downing a mug of his friend's coffee, he never wanted to forget the way he winked, the way his hand wrapped carelessly around the cardboard cup.
But when he saw Jesper dancing against a curvy girl in red velvet, he couldn't tear his eyes from the sharp set of his jaw, the lowered lashes, the vulnerable angle of his bare wrists.
He wanted to trace them in charcoal, wanted to preserve the sight in paper, never to be lost or forgotten.
Jesper grinned lazily at the girl, one corner of his fucking beautiful mouth lifting, and then he was pressed up against a different boy, head thrown back in laughter.
He whirled past his partners, leaving them with only a whisper or a slow, deliberate kiss. They grabbed for his attention, for the gift of his smile, reaching out with greedy hands.
Then Jesper was scanning the club, honey eyes roaming over the floors and walls and bars. They locked on Wylan, and something in his gaze lit.
A city burning, burning, burning.
And Wylan never knew how he found the courage, but suddenly he was striding up between the writhing bodies, and the ocean was roaring in his ears, and he was saying lightly, "Would you favour me with a dance?"
It was not graceful and elegant and slow.
It was stumbling and gasping and and breathless laughter.
It was drowning within the cacophony of pulsing music.
It was drowning within the steady depth of Jesper's eyes.
The flashing strobe lights were pulsing blue and green and red and pink, and the sounds of laughter and shuffling steps filled the club, and there was music echoing up the walls and skittering up the vertebrae of his spine.
It felt like being trapped in a prism where time did not exist.
Wylan's eyes fluttered shut, and he thought, I will burn as those cities burned.
And when Jesper lowered his head and whispered, "What would you say to a kiss, Wylan Van Eck?" he was fucking gone.
Jesper had never looked more handsome, his lashes low, the curve of his jaw sharp, every glint of gold in his eyes sparkling.
Wylan wanted to draw him bare and asleep in his own tangled bedsheets, the elegant lines of his body extended, every single angle and plane etched deep.
He wanted to draw the way he looked in that very moment, beautiful and brash and bold.
And that was a terrible idea for so many reasons.
It was a terrible idea because Jesper was raucous and brazen as the sun, and Wylan was soft and elegant as the moon, and neither of them could read the stars, but surely it was fated somewhere that dark and light did not find peace within one another.
It was a terrible idea because they were two fucking stupid collage kids who could never, ever find a life together.
It was a terrible idea because it was Achilles and Patroclus all over again, the boy who thought he could save his heart, the fucking idiot who believed love was indomitable.
Love would not absolve Wylan of the quiet terror that had sunken into his bones. Love would not ease the addictions that had crept upon Jesper like hungry vines.
He would not be the boy waiting, dishonored and broken, in the war tent.
He would not be the boy who watched as the world's cruelty took all that was dear to him.
But there was Jesper, with his lilting smile and the fierce look in his eyes, the scent of brandy clinging to him like smoke, and all Wylan could do was croak, "Yes."
And when Wylan staggered home at four in the morning, his hair a tangled copper halo, he couldn't help but think even Achilles and Patroclus might have hoped once.
They might have made out like teenagers and laughed in between kisses.
They might have been doomed, fated to die within the stars, but perhaps Wylan and Jesper would defy the odds. Perhaps Wylan could bear the magnanimity of his father's terrors, and perhaps Jesper could set down the playing cards and walk away from a bad hand.
They didn't have to be the heroes made history, legends turned legacies.
They could just be Wylan Van Eck and Jesper Fahey.
And in his paintings, they were.
In his paintings, they were very simply two boys kissing in the dark, all roaming hands and breathless gasps, shirts unbuttoned and sleeves rucked to their elbows, lips that tasted of redemption.
But as the days whirled past, and spring blossomed, Wylan came to realize life was so much more than soft, secret paintings. Life might even have been better.
Because life was Jesper asleep in his bed, one hand tucked beneath his cheek, limbs sprawled out across the silk sheets, sunlight gilding his bare body.
Life was standing at the stove with Jesper beside him, bickering over who got the first waffle, nearly doubled up in their laughter, exchanging sleepy kisses that tasted of sugar.
Life was laying in the fields with Jesper, leaning against him ever so slightly, their shoulders pressed together, the quiet brush of the wind lulling them to sleep, sweet as any melody.
Life was Wylan playing the piano in the midst of the night, cold moonlight easing through the blinds and slanting across the elegant notes, and Jesper's head was pillowed on his lap, and he was whispering, "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Wylan hadn't known love could be so simple.
And sometimes Jesper would read to him, the low cadence of his voice a melody sweet as sunlight, and Wylan would listen with his eyes fluttering shut, and he would think, If this is burning, I will spend the rest of my life with my hands in the fire.
There was the fierce freedom of open roads and summer air and vibrant artwork and daring kisses.
There was the quiet freedom of elegant piano music and large windows and scalding coffee and history books.
There was the unfettered freedom of them, of leaping across the broad rim of a water fountain, Wylan turning his face to the sun, warmth and light and the soft glitter of water, and Jesper's eyes were the colour of hope in the haze of dusk, and he whispered, "You look like a fucking prince, Wy."
Ice cream on his hands and seawater dampening his curls and blinding sunshine everywhere, and Jesper thought he looked like a prince.
What do I see, when I look at him?
Starlight slanting through their windows, grazing the idle curve of Jesper's lips.
Chocolate ice cream dripping down the cone, catching on Jesper's tongue.
Glittering rings of silver and amethyst and veined gold, looped around Jesper's fingers.
What do I find beautiful about him?
Was it his laughter or his smile or the way he buttoned up his shirt in the morning?
Was it the soft cadence of his voice as he read aloud, or the way he stroked Wylan's curling hair idly?
Was it the clever lilt of his smile or the quick wink of his lashes or the mocking shrug of his shoulders?
Was it the very simple fact that when the morning sunlight swept through the windows and slanted over the bed, Jesper looked as though he'd been crowned by the gods, a vision in bronze and gilt and amber? With his hair rumpled and his lashes low and the hard planes of his bare body clear as he knelt, Wylan had never seen anything so fucking wonderous.
What do I want to remember?
Their mornings, a sleepy haze of pancake batter and orange juice and tangled bedsheets, of rambling stories and dazed kisses?
Their afternoons, a blissful tangle of shared smiles and iced coffee and inside jokes, of hurried texts and chocolate bars?
Their nights, a frenzied blur of pulsing music and strobe lights and bedraggled hair, of breathless moans and fizzing champagne?
All of it. I want to remember all of it.
So what do you see, when you look at him?
He saw soft lips and blazing eyes and broad hands.
He saw cities burning, burning, burning.
