Sneak Peak!!

sneak peak!!

robbe comes by with new information on how to win lucas over, but first they have to get one thing straight.

dw jens, we all think you are very pretty <3

(and so will lucas)

[side note] the events and character portrayals have been remodeled to fit my vision so it is not 100% accurate and by the book. it’s just a general play on the og characters sort of fitting the skam character moulds

while the world ends around us (make believe with me)

8. Oh, it’s like I’m looking down from the ceiling above AO3

“I just don’t see why I can’t call her or something,” Lucas says dryly, mixing the sugar into his coffee.

“We’ve talked about this,” his dad huffs from behind him, where he’s sitting at the table. “She needs space to recover.”

Lucas lifts the spoon and looks at the sugar, sparkling in the spoon, and drops it back in the mug, stirring more aggressively.

“Yeah, but she has space,” he says without turning to look at him. “I think she could heal a little better if she had support.”

“She has support.”

“She has doctors and pills,” Lucas says. “Which helps, but having her son support her would help too.”

“You can write her a letter,” he says dismissively.

Lucas tosses the spoon into the sink loudly.

“Why would I write her a letter like it’s the fucking nineteenth century,” he says “when I can Skype her or something?” He turns to lean against the counter, but his father is still looking at his laptop in front of him, doing fucking whatever. “Her doctor told me I can schedule a call and—”

“No.”

Lucas grips the countertop behind him, until his nails are digging into it, until it feels like it might crack and crumble. He takes a sharp inhale before speaking.

“She won’t even get a letter for a while, I wanna have an actual conversation with her.”

“I said no.”

“You’re not even listening—”

“I don’t need to listen. I gave you an answer.”

Lucas stares at the back of his head, his heart pounding, livid at his insouciance, at how he just doesn’t care.

“I…” Lucas starts, shaking his head. “I just think if we actually talked about it, you could see what I mean.”

“Lucas…” his father huffs, like he’s the exasperated one. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

“I tried talking to you about it last night— I need your permission to call her,” he says adamantly.

“You’re not getting it,” he says calmly. “Give her space .”

“She—”

“Lucas, drop it,” he snaps finally, turning to look over his shoulder. He looks angry, and a part of Lucas feels gratified. Fucking finally he looks, even if just a fraction, as angry as Lucas feels. (Another part of him is startled. Every time he gets angry, it’s this quick, this sudden. It’s always sharp anger, preceded by silence, by indifference, until he snaps.) “You’re not getting permission. You can write her a letter.”

Lucas states back, relaxing his face. A part of him wants to give his father the same treatment, the same unreasonable coolness, the dryness. A part of him wants to walk out, and leave him angry.

He doesn’t.

“Would you even send it if I wrote one?” he asks calmly.

His father is quiet, still staring with furrowed brows.

“God, you really just don’t like her,” Lucas says. “You just don’t want me to talk to her.”

“You don’t need to.”

“She’s my mother,” he says, leaning forward, losing some of the stoicism he’s trying to maintain.

“And I’m your father.”

“You didn’t raise me,” Lucas snaps. “And I’m fucking glad you didn’t,” he mutters as he walks out of the room, leaving his father sputtering some nonsense, bullshit that Lucas doesn’t even bother acknowledging.

He shuts him up by slamming his bedroom door (or maybe he just can’t hear him anymore), and he stands there for a few seconds, just shaking, just trembling, just trying and trying and trying to take a deep breath, but it doesn’t work, and he explodes.

“Motherfucker!”

He swipes his hand across the top of one of the cardboard boxes (the goddamn cardboard boxes), snatching a sketchbook and flinging it behind himself, throwing it into the door.

His eyes squeeze shut and he falls to his knees as the sketchbook hits the door loudly, splitting open, and the papers fly in the air, falling around him. He hears the pages hit the ground, soft scrapes against the uneven wood that sound like the screeches of metal on the inside of Lucas’s skull.

He whimpers, his eyes squeezing shut tighter and tighter until it hurts as he presses his hands over his ears, drowning out the sound of his father tossing silverware into the drawer, the loud, shrill clattering, the drawer slamming shut like it’s in competition with Lucas’s bedroom door. Lucas’s head dips lower until his forehead presses into the floor, gritting his teeth against the whimpers that escape him as his father begins to shout at him through the doors, through the walls.

Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup.

Lucas doesn’t realise he’s speaking out loud, softly murmuring the words to the floor, until he finally does shut up, until the apartment lays deathly silent, as if in apocalypse. Lucas opens his eyes and stops whispering, staring at the floor. It’s so close that it’s blurry, swirls of dusty brown and age. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the edge of a sheet of paper that floated down next to him.

He looks at the drawing, slowly, tentatively moving his hands away from his ears as he lifts his head. His eyes focus on the sketch.

He almost wants to look away from it, almost wants to crawl closer to it and snatch it from the ground in a tight fist, almost wants to crumple it and tear it up until it’s dust.

Instead he stares at it, only breaking eye contact with it when he startled, jumping and wincing as the front door slams shut in the dead silence of the apartment. It echoes through Lucas’s head as he deflates, sighing and collapsing onto the floor.

He moans softly, pressing his forehead against the grainy wood, lifting his arms to press them to his chest, feeling it rise and fall as he sighs heavily.

Piece of shit.

He ends up climbing into bed, tugging the blanket over his head and blocking out the sunlight. It still comes through the blanket, pressing against his eyelids in faint shades of red and purple.

He pulls it down when his phone vibrates, and he looks at it dejectedly, his eyes hooded as the screen lights up and it buzzes against the floor. When he lifts his head he can read Jens’s name on the screen, but he lets his head fall and he rolls away before he can read what Jens is saying.

He stares at the blank wall, biting his trembling lip when his phone buzzes again.

And again.

And again.

- - -

Lucas only comes out from under the blanket when he can’t stay still any more, when he gets tired of bouncing his foot against his mattress and tapping his fingertips against the floor with his hand hanging off the side of his bed just to hear the noise.

His father still hasn’t returned, (Lucas wonders briefly where he is, where he could be. Out drinking? With friends? Lucas would be surprised if he has any.) but Lucas still walks as lightly as possible to the kitchen, carefully stepping over the creaky floorboards in the hallway like his dad is going to come out of nowhere.

He opens the fridge (to stare for a while before shutting it and leaving it like he usually does), but stops when he sees his forgotten coffee.

The mug is cold to the touch so he pours it into a bigger glass with some ice and sticks a straw in it, taking a sip and wincing at its bitterness (though he doesn’t bother finding more sugar) as he goes back to his room.

He kicks some paper out of the way when he enters his room, navigating it in the sudden dimness he hadn’t noticed until now. There’s light coming through the blinds, casting pale stripes across the floor, and they shift like illusions as the papers slide across the floor.

He doesn’t bother trying to pick them up. He barely spares them a glance. He knows them well. He could redraw them in his sleep.

They’re all people. Some of the pages are covered with messy pencil sketches of Kes and Jayden and Isa and Noah, smudged and blended under Lucas’s hand. He never fixed them, or tried to avoid the smudges. None of the drawings felt like real drawings, like actual portraits he wanted to put effort into. They just made him feel better. Some of them are random people from the internet, photos he’s screenshotted from Pinterest, because he likes the slope of their noses and the angle of their eyes.

And then there’s Jens.

Lucas is embarrassed, if he’s honest. He’d never show them to anyone. He barely even looks at them himself, except the few times he gets stuck, looking at it like Jens is right in front of him, even though he’s only ever seen him in Instagram photos and over Facetime and Skype.

Some of his drawings even capture the graininess of the photos, the blur of his screen as Jens grins at him. (Somehow the drawings give Lucas the same swoop in his stomach and flutter in his chest.)

Lucas sets his coffee on the ground next to his mattress before grabbing the drawings off the ground, quickly, rushed, his cheeks burning even though he’s completely alone. He stuffs them into a box, ignoring the way they bunch and wrinkle and fold so they fit before he slams it shut, pressing the worn and papered tape over the seam harshly so it stays closed.

He grabs his phone from the ground before flipping onto his bed, huffing and leaning against the wall before picking up the coffee and taking a few gulps to nurse his headache. (Though the caffeine probably won’t help much in the long run.)

He scrolls through his notifications as he sips the coffee.

Jens hey do you wanna zoom with the guys?? lucas???? l u c a s lu :(((

Moyo bro you there?? we miss you 💔

Robbe hey we’re video chatting if you want to join! :)

Aaron lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas lucas

Jens is everything okay? call me when you want

The final message was sent a while after the others, and Lucas’s chest tightens.

He takes one last gulp of coffee before he sets the cup down (the ice cubes were watering it down anyway) and slides back so his head is propped up against his tower of pillows, and he calls him.

He answers quickly, before Lucas’s head is even settled.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says lightly, and even his expression softens. “‘S fine.”

Jens is quiet for a second before he says, “You don’t wanna talk about it?”

Lucas really can’t tell if it’s a question or not. Either way, his face falls and he squeezes his eyes shut as he inhales deeply. Jens can see right through him.

“Not really,” he says quietly.

“That’s okay,” Jens says softly. “Would you rather talk about how Nick is definitely in love with Gatby?”

Lucas startles and scoffs before a giggle is ripped right out of his chest.

“What?”

“You don’t see it? It’s so obvious!”

“I mean— I’m not arguing with you, I just…” He closes his eyes again, grinning at the ceiling. “Do you have textual evidence?” he asks, annunciating and imitating Ms Peeters.

“Uh, the book?” Jens says sassily, and Lucas almost giggles again. He can just imagine the furrow of Jens’s eyebrows and jut of his chin. “He follows Gatsby everywhere, he’s all he thinks about!”

I’d follow you anywhere.

“He’s the narrator,” Lucas says, ignoring the thought.

“Okay, and why do you think— What’s his name? Fitz— Fitzgerald?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Why do you think Fitzgerald chose to make Nick the narrator instead of choosing to use third person narration?”

Lucas pauses, processing his question.

“What, are you my final?”

A laugh bursts out of Jens.

“I don’t know,” Lucas sighs. “Why do you think?”

“Uh…” Jens sighs thoughtfully and there’s a rustle of fabric. Lucas wonders if he’s laying down too. “I think he just thought the gays needed a win.”

Lucas laughs loudly, rolling onto his side and shaking head, his eyes squeezing shut under his smile.

“I don’t think people were that invested in us back then,” he says as he settles.

And then he freezes, his eyes flying open.

He didn’t mean to let out so soon.

He’d been thinking about it, how to go about telling Jens that he’s embarrassingly gay without scaring him off. (Though he also reminded himself that Jens’s best friend is gay. Though, he also reminded himself, Robbe’s known Jens a lot longer than he has.)

He stayed up last night with it on his mind, whether it’s worth it or not, telling Jens he’s gay, and risk Jens thinking he likes him. (He wouldn’t be wrong, of course. That’s another thing that kept Lucas up: the way the mere thought of him, or his voice, makes Lucas’s heart flutter, makes his breath shorten, the way the fucking thought of seeing him in person makes Lucas gasp in excitement. He has it bad.)

“Maybe not, but you don’t think Fitzgerald was a little gay?” Jens says, paying no mind, and Lucas’s eyes open to the stack of boxes in front of him.

“What?” he says, laughing.

“You don’t think so?”

“He had a wife.”

“Oh, did he?”

“Yeah, her name was Zelda.”

“That’s a dope name. Okay, whatever, he had a wife. Sure. He still could have been a little gay.”

“I guess?”

“No straight person speaks that poetically.”

Lucas snorts, rolling over more until he’s almost laying on his stomach. He rests his chin on her forearm, holding his phone to his ear as he looks outside, seeing the city between the blinds.

“Then that would prove that Nick is gay, not Gatsby.”

“I never said Gatsby was gay,” Jens says, followed by another rustling sound and a soft huff of breath, like he’s mirroring Lucas. “Just the author. And Nick.”

“So it’s about unrequited romance?” Lucas says, his chest tightening slightly. He takes a deep breath as quietly as he can, feeling suddenly like his lungs won’t fill quite right.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jens says softly. “He’s watching Gatsby fall in love with Daisy, that’s heartbreaking.”

Lucas swallows.

“Gatsby was already in love with Daisy.”

“Right.” Jens takes a breath and Lucas closes his eyes for a second. He wonders what it would be like to fall asleep like this, with his phone pressed to his ear, with Jens’s voice whispering to him. “Nick was falling in love with Gatsby, and watching Gatsby be in love with someone else. Is that worse?”

Lucas thinks for a second, about the day, the second he realised his crush on Kes.

He was sitting across the table from him at a cafe, and Kes had kicked him in the shin by accident before looking under the table and kicking him again. Lucas had laughed and tried to kick him back but missed, kicking the table so hard it jostled, and Kes burst with laughter as Lucas hissed “Shit!” and grabbed the edge of the table to steady it.

Lucas had listened to Kes laugh. And looked at the way Kes was looking at him, his eyes bright with amusement. He’d even dropped his phone to laugh before setting his forehead on the table when Lucas shushed him, seeing a woman at another table turn to look.

And he remembers watching Kes fall for Isa.

Watching kiss her and pull her close when all Lucas wanted to hold his hand.

“I think it might be.”

Jens hums thoughtfully.

“We could write an essay about that.”

“Oh,” Lucas says, blinking. “We could.”

“Ms Peeters would definitely like it. She likes in-depth analyses. Even if they make no sense.”

Lucas chuckles, trying to forget about Kes.

It’s not hard to forget right now.

Not with Jens’s voice in his ear.

“We still have to finish reading it,” Lucas says.

“Of course.” Jens sighs. “I can see why you like it so much.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

They’re quiet for a second, and Lucas looks out the window. It’s dark now, and there are still bright windows scattered around the city. The street lamp across the street from his building flickers. Lucas wonders if stars flicker before they go out too.

“Lu?” Jens says softly, and Lucas closes his eyes. No one ever called him that before Jens. (No one does now either. He wonders if anyone else will. He hopes not.)

“Mmhmm?”

“Are you better now?”

“Yeah,” he says after a pause. “I am, actually.” You have that effect on me, he doesn’t add.

“Do you wanna talk about it now?”

Lucas smiles softly. It doesn’t feel like Jens is just curious. Like if Lucas were to say no, Jens would just say that’s okay.

Which gives him more bravery.

“It’s just…” he starts, huffing softly. “My dad. I’m so sick of him.”

Jens hums quietly.

Lucas squeezes his eyes shut and his lip quivers.

“I just—” he chokes. “I’m so fucking tired of this place.”

“Which place?”

“Just— I don’t know,” he says before burying his face in his arm. “This city, this apartment.” He lifts his head. “Mainly this apartment. All these fucking boxes.”

“When we— When we can meet up,” Jens stammers out, “I’ll take you places.” He sounds so sincere, so desperate, that Lucas’s heart squeezes. He shuts his eyes, hanging onto every word. “Wherever you want. Wherever we can go. I’ll leave Lotte with my dad, and we can stay out as long as you need to.”

Lucas muffles a sob into his arm, clutching the phone like a lifeline.

“And until then we can call whenever you want, and we can call my friends—” He cuts off. “Oh!”

Lucas rubs his face on his sleeve, letting out a breath.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, uhm…”

Lucas can sense his hesitation, and smiles.

“Tell me.”

“My friends and I were gonna have another call, I thought you’d like to join?” He pauses again. “The guys, but also some others.”

“Will they like me?” Lucas asks, only half joking. His voice is small.

“Of course.”

“When?”

“I don’t know yet, probably Friday? But they talked about Thursday, I’ll text you when we figure it out.”

“Okay.”

“And you can call or text any of them whenever, if you need a distraction or…”

“Jens?” Lucas whispers after a quiet second.

“Yeah?”

Lucas shuts his eyes again.

“Thank you.”

- - -

There aren’t many other people Lucas talks to from school. He exchanges messages with Mohamed from literature for a little bit, but the conversation doesn’t really go anywhere. The only other message he gets is from a girl, Élina, who he doesn’t recognise, but most of her posts were photographed at school. (Lucas wandered around the campus after arriving in Antwerp, just to see. There was no one there, save for an older woman who looked at Lucas disdainfully.)

Her message, heyyyyy youre new right?, makes Lucas cringe, reading it in the same voice as the girls that used to approach him at parties. The girls that he would flirt back with, doing everything in his power to ignore the uncomfortable churn in his stomach, the twisting of his nerves as the girls reached out and pushed his curls back or brushed their fingertips over his jaw and freckles. It made him so viscerally uncomfortable that for a while he wondered if he could be attracted to anyone at all. He even did research, finding out about the spectrums of asexuality and aromanticism, trying to find what fit, but nothing ever did. It was then that he decided he should probably experiment, and eventually he realised he doesn’t mind hands touching his hair and face softly or eyes looking at him like that when it’s another boy.

He still pretended, though. Even when his phone had the notifications set to not appear on his screen, notifications from pretty boys and their photos and slick words, he would press girls against walls and listen to their giggles and whispers, ignoring the ugly thoughts he couldn’t stop thinking.

He’s tired of pretending.

So when Élina sends him a message one night as he waits for Jens to get Lotte to sleep, a message that reads sooo do you have a girlfriend 👀, he sets his jaw and takes a deep breath before responding.

élina i’m gay

She responds with the laughing emoji, and he waits as she types, until lol no worries appears, followed by lucky boys ;).

He exhales and responds with a smiley face.

- - -

“Hey,” Lucas says softly when Moyo appears on his screen.

“Hey,” he says back, whispering. “Why are we quiet?”

Lucas chuckles, wrinkling his nose at him.

“My dad’s in the living room,” he explains. “You don’t have to be quiet. I have headphones.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Where is everyone?”

“They’re coming,” Moyo says, checking his phone. “How’ve you been?”

Lucas hesitates, wondering if he should tell him anything he’s told Jens. But he doesn’t want to fuck up the mood before the party’s even started.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ve been doing homework and stuff.”

“Gross.”

“Copying Jens’s maths.”

“As you should.”

“Oh my god!” Lucas says, setting his laptop on his bed as he remembers suddenly.

“You good?”

“Yeah, I just…” He pauses as he reaches to grab his sketchbook from the ground next to him. “I had something for you, I just remembered.” He sits back to see Moyo’s eyebrows raised.

“For me?”

“Something to show you, yeah.” He grabs his phone. “I’ll text you a picture, hold on.”

He waits as it sends, awkwardly tilting his head back and forth until Moyo lets out an Oh!

“Holy— Oh my god!” His voice has risen several octaves, and Lucas giggles, his eyes squinting under his grin. “That’s me!”

“Yeah!”

“You actually— Oh my god.” Moyo pulls his phone close to his face, hiding himself from Lucas as he looks at the photo of the sketch more intently.

“I said you have a nice face.”

“Lucaaaassss,” Moyo whines, and Lucas giggles again, leaning down and resting his chin on his hands happily. “This is so cool.”

Lucas is relieved, if he’s honest. He’d done the drawing late last night, looking back and forth between his sketchbook and a photo from Moyo’s Instagram.

“You like it?”

Moyo lets out an indignant noise, looking at Lucas with wide eyes.

“I fucking love it, bro.”

“Yeah?”

Moyo’s box shifts as Lucas grins at him, and Jens appears next to him.

“Hey,” Jens says brightly as Lucas’s eyes move to him. “What’s up?”

“Can I show him, Luc?” Moyo asks excitedly, and it takes Lucas a second to rip his eyes away from Jens’s pixelated face to answer, “Yeah, course.”

“I’ll text it.”

“What’s going on?” Jens asks, confused, and a little thrill goes through Lucas at the sight of his wrinkled brow.

“Lucas drew me!”

Jens’s eyebrows raise and he grins.

“Yeah?”

Lucas’s face burns when Jens receives the photo, when Jens exclaims that it’s so fucking good, man, when Jens looks up at him through the camera, and Lucas can feel his eyes on him, his delight.

“You wanted to draw someone and you chose Moyo?” Jens asks, grinning as Moyo lets out an offended “Hey!”

Lucas’s face burns again, and he hopes Jens (and Moyo, he supposes) can’t see his cheeks bloom. He shrugs, forcing a grin.

“I said he has a nice face.”

As Moyo playfully shoos at him, saying “Oh, stop it,” and looking back at the drawing, Jens’s eyebrows quirk up and his eyes widen as he leans forward slightly.

Oh.

Oh no.

Lucas glances at Moyo, who is still looking down, and then back at Jens, shaking his head. Jens’s brows raise more and he starts to smile, starts to beam, amusement in his eyes.

No, Lucas mouths, shaking his head harder, but before they can continue their silent conversation, the boxes shift again and a girl’s voice says, “What’s up, fuckers?”

“Luca,” Moyo says indignantly, as Jens laughs. It takes Lucas a second to look away from Jens to the girl, who has her hand clapped over her mouth.

“I don’t know you,” she says, dropping it and leaning close. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he assures her. “We’re basically already friends.”

“I’m Luca,” she says, holding a hand out to the camera.

“Lucas.”

He copies her and they shake, both laughing lightly.

“Where is everyone?” Luca asks.

“They’ll be here soon,” Jens says.

It takes a little while for them all to arrive.

Zoë comes in next (she smiles when Lucas compliments her hair), followed by Aaron and Amber who, Lucas has to agree with Aaron, is very pretty. Not Lucas’s type (obviously), but pretty nonetheless. Robbe and Sander arrive next, almost simultaneously, and after an onslaught of teasing from Moyo and Luca, Jens interrupts to tell Lucas to show Sander his art.

“Uhhh…” Lucas grabs at his phone before looking up again. “Moyo.”

“On it,” Moyo says sharply, looking away and lifting his phone.

Lucas flushes under Sander’s praise.

Yasmina joins next, already smiling as she appears on Lucas’s screen. She’s wearing a yellow hijab, and the brightness of her smile with the soft fabric makes Lucas think of the sun. (He tells her, exclaiming “You look like sunshine!” to which she responds with a squeal and a bright, flushed, broad smile.)

Jana appears last.

She’s smiling when she appears too, but it’s a smaller smile, almost sad.

“Hey,” Zoë says when Jana’s arrival interrupts conversation. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jana says dismissively. “Where’s the new kid? I gotta find you.” Her eyes scan her screen and Lucas waves his hand. “Ah!”

“Lucas,” he says, pressing his hand to his chest.

“Jana,” she says with a smile.

She’s sweet. Her laugh is nice.

Lucas knows he doesn’t really have a reason to not like her. But he can’t seem to help it as he listens to her tease Jens, to Jens tease her. As he watches Jens’s eyes while Jana speaks, as he watches Jana’s eyes as Jens speaks. There’s nothing for him really to go on, nothing really to suggest anything between them except Lucas’s overthinking.

He can’t stop overthinking.

He can’t even tell if Jens’s eyes are really softening when Jana speaks or if it’s just Lucas’s mind telling him they are, or if Jens is really saying Jana in a certain way.

(He can’t really tell if Jana is Daisy or not.)

It’s dark when everyone leaves. Dark dark. In everyone’s room, except Amber, who leaves all her lights on, including a lamp next to her. Zoë leaves first, because We have school tomorrow!, followed by Robbe because he’s actively falling asleep.

Jana leaves last, still chatting with Jens, who involves Lucas for his input. It’s sweet, especially as Lucas just… sits there, listening and watching.

He still gives her a friendly bye-bye wave when she leaves. It’s not her fault he’s the way he is. And she really is nice.

“So,” Jens says firmly when it’s just them, rocking forward and making the same face he did earlier, when Moyo wasn’t looking.

“No,” Lucas answers, already shaking his head.

“You don’t know what I’m gonna say!” Jens exclaims, delighted. His voice is hushed, and he’s wearing headphones (he’d gotten them out about halfway through the call), looking awfully lovely.

“I know exactly what you’re going to say, and the answer is no.”

“No what?”

“No,” Lucas insists, not really wanting to say it. “I don’t have a crush on Moyo.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Jens makes a face full of doubt, complete with raised eyebrows and a downward tilted chin.

“I don’t.”

“You said he has a nice face,” Jens teases.

“He does,” Lucas insists. “But so does… Yasmina. That doesn’t mean I have a crush on her.”

“…Okay, fair.”

Lucas doesn’t tell him about the drawings.

The ones stuffed into the boxes in his room, hidden away where he doesn’t have to see them, the ones of photos from Jens’s Instagram, the ones of subtle screenshots Lucas takes during their Facetime calls, the ones of Jens focussing on his maths homework while Lucas pretends to pay attention. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tell him about them. He doesn’t know what he’ll do with them.

“What did you think of the girls?” Jens asks, setting his chin on her forearm. He’s laying on his stomach, and Lucas wants to memorise the image: Jens looking up at him with sleep in his eyes, looking awfully precious.

“They’re really nice,” Lucas says honestly. He almost mirrors him, but instead he moves onto his side, resting his legs around the laptop and laying on his head on a curled arm. “Amber makes me think of someone I know in Utrecht.”

“Is she also a human strawberry?”

Lucas blinks.

“Actually, yeah. That’s…”

“I’m a genius,” Jens sighs, and Lucas makes a face.

“Fuck you,” Jens laughs, his eyes squinting, and then closing completely as he yawns into his arm.

“You should sleep.”

“You should sleep,” Jens retorts, laying his head down and looking at Lucas. His eyelids are low. Lucas’s heart skips a beat. “I don’t wanna go to bed,” Jens complains, oblivious to Lucas’s internal crisis of the admiration of sleepy Jens.

“We have school tomorrow,” he points out.

“You’re worth it,” Jens mumbles.

And Lucas fucking f a l l s .

“Cheesy bitch,” he says, ignoring his heart’s free-fall, and Jens giggles. It’s a sleepy laugh, raw and unfiltered, and Lucas smiles at it.

“Jens?” Lucas asks softly after a minute, and Jens’s eyes flutter open. Maybe he was asleep. But he smiles when his eyes settle on Lucas.

“Mmhmm?”

“Did you mean it? That you… That you’ll take me around when we can meet up?”

Jens’s brows furrow for a second and he lifts his head.

“Yeah, of course.” He sets his chin on his arm. “I’ll take you wherever. We’ll have to stay distanced for a while but…” He shrugs. “I’ll keep you out of your apartment.”

Lucas nuzzles into his arm and Jens lays his head down again, still looking at him.

“You don’t think it’ll be awkward?” Lucas says. “Last time I met up with someone from the internet it was super awkward.”

He doesn’t mention that he’d met the boy on a dating app, and that they’d hooked up and left.

“I won’t let it be,” Jens says, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll let my full extrovert personality come out.” He sighs. “You can be awkward if you want. I won’t.”

“Okay,” Lucas whispers. He’s not sure if Jens hears.

drabble so feel free to ignore:

the way my uni semester is about to come up in a few days and i need to somehow cope and not fall into depressive episodes probably means i’m gonna make some vds one shots to get by and the influx of like fourteen one shots for this one semester has to look insane on my ao3 account

i’m not gonna lie, the only reason i haven’t completely lost track of time and what day of the week it is, is because i know nathan drops new beats on monday, wednesday and friday

a little something to celebrate the fact i finally got over my writers block on my vds fantasy au :,)

-in which zoë asks jens what’s got him smiling lately. jens pretends he doesn’t know it’s because of a certain blue eyed boy with a beautiful smile that he’s been stealing glances at lately. he also doesn’t know that the same boy is stealing glances at him.

ik the timing and stuff is off but i just thought it was a cute little edit

need to finish this fantasy vds fic before summer ends because ik i won’t work on it for awhile since it’s a longer fic and i’ve already gone on a hiatus for it but idk how to write fantasy au’s for shit BUT I CANT GIVE UP AND LET IT GO TO WASTE