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Wylan hates meetings with the council.
Most of the other councilmen are old and stuck in their ways, distrustful of Wylan and the majority of his ideas after so long being used to his father, or else new and eager to prove themselves, unwilling to rock the boat. He knows they don’t like him very much, though they tolerate him enough. Still, they’re continuously frustrating to no end. Somewhat unpleasant on a good day, and never fail to encourage a headache, especially when he doesn’t have an excuse to bring Jesper. If there had been contracts, maybe, but today had been discussions only, if even that, because half of the time it’s just the other councilmen talking around things over coffee and complaining about the poor.
He still sort of regrets not bringing Jesper anyway.
Wylan tries, he really does, and he knows it pays off. He makes suggestions and packages them as less radical and too wrapped in logic to be overturned outright, argues with the other councilmen over the people’s rights when necessary. He dresses in staid mercher black and has Jesper read him contracts twice over and listens to Kaz when he breaks in periodically to tell him what problems are worth pursuing. He doesn’t hate everything about it, not really. He likes the influence, and he likes proving his father wrong.
But he still hates council meetings. Hates even more what they take him away from.
It’s quiet as he steps through the door and into the manor on the Geldstraat. He stands in the entryway, looking around for a moment.
“Jes?” he calls, but receives no answer. He pulls his tie loose around his neck, walking forward through the foyer and setting his bag down.
The mansion is almost absurdly big for only the three of them, and so the quiet isn't necessarily unusual, but Jesper has formed a habit of being near the door when he knows Wylan will be home and kissing him within an inch of his life before he’s even walked five feet into the foyer. Wylan can admit that he’s come to expect it.
They’ve been living in the mansion for coming on two years now, and Wylan still can’t quite say he’s completely used to any of it. The space, the responsibility of maintaining it. Even now it’s odd to think of it as home instead of just a place to live.
They’ve been slowly working towards redecorating the whole thing—Jesper’s idea, backed up by almost everyone Wylan knows personally, in an attempt to get him to stop tiptoeing through it like he’s afraid to leave footprints—and it’s helped more than he thought it would. It’s brighter now, brighter than it ever was in even his happiest childhood memories. Rich purples and patterns and pastels replacing the responsible beiges and creams that Wylan grew up with. His mother has been surprisingly enthusiastic in her support, and she and Jesper have become near unstoppable in their efforts to take it back from the lingering remnants of his father. Bit by bit, chair by tufted chair.
Jesper has made a hobby out of doing as many things he thinks would piss off Jan Van Eck as possible: throwing out rather expensive collectables and paintings, replacing them with an eclectic array of decor that somehow manages to come together perfectly. Nearly every month they take it even further away from what it was before, the furniture in a perpetual merry go round as they try to find the right place for everything. Today Wylan notes that the table in the entry room is on the left instead of the right, it seems that a set of chairs have swapped places, and the cushions are a different colour entirely. The rug is nowhere to be found, and Wylan wonders if he’ll spot it somewhere in his travels along the way to finding Jesper.
He walks through the living room, past the velvety chaises and blue satin curtains, stopping to poke his head into the west-most sitting room where they’re in the process of repainting. There are swatches all over the walls, hughes of forest green and duck egg blue, sandstone and coral, all lit by the large bay windows that take up most of the outer wall. The largest section of wall is covered in the colour Wylan’s mother and Jesper had decided on; a light, buttery yellow, so the colour will turn golden in the afternoon sun. Wylan stares into it for a moment, imagining how it will look once it’s finished, before he turns and continues the search for his boyfriend.
He walks, letting himself be unhurried even as his curiosity grows. He’ll check upstairs next, he thinks, or perhaps the conservatory, or the garden. It’s a nice enough day for it. Late enough in the summer that it’s neither hot nor cold. Ketterdam’s perpetual rain still held back behind a wall of sun. Wylan had hated summer in the Barrel. Muggy and hot with the lack of space, acrid as the smell of sweat and bodies pressing together each time you stepped outside.
That isn’t a problem here. Wylan had outfitted some of the rooms with fans last year, so the circulation of cool air combined with the mansion's thick, insulated walls meant the heat was kept out. Instead, summer on the Geldsraat was Wylan sitting with his mother on the terrace or the garden, painting and sipping ginger beer. Joined sometimes by Jesper reading or just talking, accidentally draining the colour from the flowers they were painting and looking charmingly shy when he realised. It was Marya’s family cottage, their trip there. Where some of Wylan’s best memories of childhood still existed in the swing on the porch and the tall apple trees in the backyard. It was the midsummer tradesfaire, weeks ago now. The smell of candy floss Jesper insisted on getting and the taste of the sugar crystals still on his lips afterwards.
Wylan’s thoughts halt as he hears something clang in the vicinity vaguely to his left, and turns to follow it.
“Jes, where are—oh, hello.”
He finds Jesper in the kitchen. He’s leaning against the counter cleaning a bowl, and wearing an honest to Ghezen apron, of all things. When he sees Wylan he puts down the bowl and comes forward to draw Wylan in for a soft kiss. The welcome home kiss he’d been in search of.
“Hey,” Jesper says, grinning, fingers drumming a little where they rest on Wylan’s shoulders.
“Hi,” Wylan says again, slightly dazed. An apron, truly. “What’s all this?”
“Your mother taught me how to make lemon cakes,” Jesper shrugs, like it’s a perfectly normal sentence. “We’ve been going through all her old recipes.”
“Since when?” he can’t help but ask, not quite managing to mask his surprise.
“I can’t tell you. That would break the oath to our secret baking club, and then I’d have to kill you, and I couldn’t do that to your mother.” Jesper pecks him on the nose and then pulls away, going back to cleaning up the other dishes on the counter left by his apparent foray into baking.
“Couldn’t have that. Need help?” Wylan asks, and Jesper bats him away with a tea towel when he moves to help with the dishes.
For a moment he just watches Jesper, all the sinewy lines of him as he leans against the counter, caught somewhere between charmed and baffled.
It’s just past dinnertime, and though Wylan and Jesper don’t keep the staff in the mansion past evening, he’d usually expect to see them for the next hour or so. “Where is everyone? The cook would have a fit if she saw this.”
“Sent ‘em home early. Thought we could fend for ourselves for the night.”
“Mm, just don’t set anything on fire.”
“Ye of little faith—That was one time, honestly. I’m getting better! I’m Marya-approved and everything.” Jesper swings his long arms out to the sides, as if to make his point, and instead clangs the bowl hard against the underside of a cabinet. He swears, though the bowl is unharmed, and turns back as though deciding to pretend it hadn’t happened. “How was the meeting?”
The smile from watching Jesper drops off Wylan’s face instantly. Instead of answering, he just groans, dropping down to sit at the table and rubbing his temples.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Jesper tuts. “Huurman again?”
“He just gets on my nerves,” Wylan says, feeling the same frustration from earlier start to rise up, “and he just loves conveniently reminding everyone that I’m the most inexperienced on the council, every time he doesn’t like what I have to say.”
“Want me to kill him for you? I can make it look like an accident?”
Wylan shakes his head. He feels some of the tension in his shoulders lingering from the meeting finally ease. He smiles tiredly. “Down boy.”
Jesper snorts. “Or we can always sick Kaz on him, if it really gets out of hand.”
“I don’t even want to think about that right now. Kaz still won’t stop bugging me about the thing with Huurman’s hold over the docks.” Wylan had already petitioned the council to lower port taxes on both Fifth and Sixth harbour, with little luck. Kaz was insistent he could get something on Huurman that would blow open his arguments, or else plant some, but Wylan hadn’t given up the long game, not yet.
“He loves having someone on the inside,” Jesper says, fond. “Ever since we swindled our way into getting your inheritance back, he’s been proud as a prized peach. Kaz is like a bloodhound for these things, he’ll sniff Huurman out eventually. But if we wanted to speed things up, I’m sure he’d be game.”
“I know, but there are better ways to take Huurman down a peg or two than making him target practice, legal ones, even.”
“Pfff. Like I need practice.” Jesper puts the last clean bowl back into its place and turns back to Wylan. “Ever noble as always, darling. I don’t know how you do it,” Jesper says, then dips his voice low and raises his eyebrows suggestively, smirking, “playing dirty is so much more fun.”
It would have far more of its intended effect, Wylan thinks, if he wasn’t still exhausted, and if Jesper didn’t have a streak of flour running across his forehead as he said it. He smiles, feeling the way it pulls at his cheeks as Jesper grins back at him.
“You have a bit of…” Wylan gestures to the spot on his own head.
“A bit of…?” Jesper wipes his hand along the side of his face, leaving more flour covering his cheeks. It pulls a laugh out of Wylan, loud and unrestrained, and Jesper grin’s even wider, like he’d known the whole time. Like he’d done it on purpose just to make Wylan laugh. Sap, he probably had. Saints, Wylan loves him.
“Flour,” Wylan manages between snickers, “just there.”
“Oh? Do I?” Jespers eyes are wide and indecently earnest.
Wylan shakes his head, another laugh punching itself out of his chest. Jesper gets a cloth and wipes the flour off. Most of it anyway.
“Come here,” Wylan says. Jesper does, ambling forward and sitting down right on Wylan’s lap, smirking in a way that’s near offensive in the way it still catches Wylan’s breath and causes heat to rise to his cheeks. Wylan takes the cloth without comment and gets the last of the flour off Jesper’s neck and his hair. When he’s done, he sets the cloth aside.
“Think you missed a spot.”
“Where?” Wylan asks, looking and finding none.
Jesper rubs a hand across his mouth in a show of consideration, leaving more flour in its wake.
Wylan makes a surprised sound between a choke and a laugh, though really, he thinks he may have walked right into that one. “I don’t even know what to say, honestly.”
He doesn’t get the chance to. Jesper closes the small distance between them and kisses him soundly, making sure to spread the flour across Wylan’s mouth and cheek before pulling back and grinning, looking interminably pleased.
“You—” Wylan blanches, exasperated and fond and frankly impressed at the lengths Jesper is willing to go to distract him. “Now we’re both covered in flour,” he says, trying to get the flour off his face when he can’t actually see it.
“Worth it,” Jesper says happily, giving Wylan another peck on the lips.
Too soon, Jesper gets up off of his lap. Wylan whines at the loss, but Jesper doesn’t let go completely, he keeps his hand around his wrist, pulling.
“Now you come here,” Jesper says, tugging on his wrist.
Wylan allows himself to be pulled up as Jesper wraps an arm around his waist and adjusts his grip so he’s holding Wylan’s other hand in his. “What are you doing?”
“Dance with me.” Jesper steps even closer until their chests are flush with each other.
“There’s no music,” Wylan states, though doesn’t give any more protest than that. He places his free hand against the small of Jesper’s back, feeling the lean dip of his spine through the fabric.
“With you, darling? There’s always music,” Jesper lilts. Then he’s shifting his weight from side to side, the gentle sway of his hips moving in time to some silent melody, beckoning Wylan to follow. Wylan lets his chin rest on Jesper’s shoulder.
“I don’t dance,” Wylan says, even as Jesper continues to move them from side to side.
“Now I know that’s not true. Don’t tell me you never took lessons? And here I thought you were a proper rich kid, minuets at parties and balls and such.”
“That doesn't mean I was any good. Besides, I didn’t go to many parties,” Wylan argues, which is all true enough. Then, not wanting to think of the reasons why he hadn’t, “And this isn’t a minuet, no one dances the minuet anymore.”
Jesper kisses near the shell of his ear and murmurs, “You’re doing great anyway.”
They move in a lazy half-waltz, though really it’s just swaying. No steps, no melody, just Jesper, creating a slow rhythm across the kitchen floor, his breath warm and steady near Wylan’s ear. Not quite music, but the beginnings of something shaping itself into it. He can hear it, almost, just like this; the song it could become. Jesper leans from side to side, smooth as a reed in a lazy summer breeze, and it’s so easy for Wylan to follow. Always easy to follow Jesper, and Wylan thinks, I would go anywhere with you, thinks he would follow Jesper anywhere, and that even if things weren't always perfect or simple or easy, the decision to follow would be.
It strikes Wylan right in the chest, sudden and sharp as a high F. The meeting and his mood from earlier feel like a distant memory, so far from his mind now that he can hardly feel the sting. So completely are they blotted out by Jesper, the gentle sweetness of the afternoon, in the dusk-lit kitchen, and Wylan is wholly at a loss. It nearly makes him stumble, but only just.
Even after a year, he doesn’t know what to do with so much love.
“Kruge for your thoughts,” Jesper teases. Because of course, he can tell. “What’s on your mind?”
Wylan breathes out shakily. “You.”
“Well, I am quite distracting, obviously”
“Obviously.” Wylan smiles against Jesper’s shoulder. “You’re being very romantic.”
“Hmm. Am I?”
“You know what I mean. Baking, lemon cake”—he waves their linked hands, gesturing vaguely to encompass everything— “dancing in the kitchen. It’s all very…” perfect, domestic, terrifyingly wonderful.
“Do you not like it?” There’s no hint of doubt in Jesper’s voice, and he doesn’t move away even an inch.
“No, I do,” Wylan assures quickly, feeling the need to clarify anyway. “It’s all—really nice, Jes. Thank you, I needed this.”
“Oh, well in that case,” Jesper picks up the pace a bit. He spins Wylan in a little circle, pulling him back into his space. Hand steadying at his waist, thumb tapping a slow tempo Wylan feels like a pulse as they loop around the room.
“My parents used to dance in the kitchen.”
To Wylan’s credit, his breath only catches slightly. “They did?” he manages.
Wylan feels Jesper tip his chin in a small nod. He can’t see Jesper’s face, but his voice is soft and honeyed as he continues, “They were just like that. Dancing, twirling around, singing while they cooked. I pretended to think it was gross as a kid, but it was sweet. They always looked so happy.”
Wylan just tilts his head in answer, nodding against Jesper’s shoulder and squeezing his hand.
“I am too, you know,” Jesper says. “Happy, here, with you.”
All at once, it becomes simply not enough to only hear Jesper’s voice and not see the look that accompanies it. Wylan pulls back until they’re face to face—nose to nose, more like—searching for Jesper’s eyes and finding the same stunning depths, the entire ocean of them that always pulls Wylan in like low tide. Wylan doesn’t think he could have held himself back from kissing Jesper right then if he’d tried, and he doesn’t try.
He doesn’t intend for it to be chaste, but it is. And nearly cloying in its sincerity, in the gentleness of it. Kissing Jesper is no novelty, not now, but that makes it thrilling for altogether different reasons. It’s what makes this place home, more than the velvet couches and blue satin drapes; what made their tiny room at the Slat years ago feel like it too.
“Love you” Wylan breathes, a whisper of the words he’s already said a thousand times, out loud and in other ways, “so much.”
Jesper pulls him in again and closes the already minuscule gap between them, saying the words back half into Wylan’s mouth. Jesper tastes like lemon and butter and sugar as Wylan licks into the kiss, pushing deeper, and he draws back just enough to tease, “How much batter did you eat? Did any actually make it into the pan, Jes? Saints—”
“I can keep some things to myself,” Jesper says, before ducking back in. Wylan gives up all pretence of dancing and cups Jesper’s face in his hands.
They aren’t moving anymore, at least not like they were before, though Wylan feels the same rhythm beating in time with both of their hearts. The kisses take on a desperate eagerness that pulses through Wylan’s veins like a fire as he presses impossibly closer, as Jesper trails his hands down his arms and sides and Wylan’s fingers ghost over the buttons of his shirt.
Wylan isn’t aware they’ve changed positions until the back of his legs bump into the oven, and he lets out a stuttering gasp as Jesper nips at his lower lip and presses him back further.
“Getting a little hot under the collar there, love?” Jesper teases. Wylan manoeuvres them to the side and lifts himself onto the counter, hands quickly coming back to curl around Jesper’s neck. Jesper places a hand on Wylan’s cheek, where he’s sure he’s blushing something fierce. “You are looking a tad overbaked.”
“Dork” Wylan huffs, tucking his smile into the dip of Jesper’s collar bone.
“I think you mean hunk, right? Your very hunky boyfriend who let your mother teach him to bake and laboured over the hot oven for hours just so you’d come home to fresh lemon cakes, right?”
“I meant dork,” Wylan insists, grinning. Kissing Jesper again, and again, and again.
It’s near impossible to pull away at all, but Wylan manages.
“Where is Mamma, anyway?”
“She’s in the garden. She wanted to paint the lilies before they wither during the winter.”
“How much longer until…?” He tilts his head towards the oven.
“Timer’s set for a half an hour still. Why? Did you want to—”
Wylan hops off the counter, grabbing Jesper’s hand and dragging him upstairs. Jesper snickers all the way there. “Is it the apron, because I can always leave it on for—”
They forget about the lemon cake. It burns, though it thankfully doesn’t catch fire, and they have to spend hours airing out over a third of the mansion just to clear the smoke. Neither of them care.
Wylan is right about one thing. The cook has a fit.
Jesper is right too, it’s definitely worth it.