And I've been looking for someone to put up with my bullshit
I can't even leave my bedroom so I keep pouring
And I ain't seen a light of day since, well, that's not important
It's been long
- Feeling Whitney // Post Malone
Lucas actually wakes up this morning.
It's nice. Much better than laying against his wall all through the night, his eyes stuck on his laptop, watching Netflix or Youtube, or on his sketchbook, watching his pencil or pen or paint trailing across the page, leaving lines and smudges in its wake. And then looking up blearily when he realises he can see across his dark room because the sun is peeking through his blinds.
Today he wakes up when his phone starts buzzing and chiming next to his head, half under his pillow. It startles him, and he gasps as his eyes fly open, sitting up and muttering, "Jesus..." as he shuts off his alarm and tosses it to the floor next to him. It clatters against the wood and he winces, looking up at his door and running a hand through his hair.
He grabs food from the kitchen and eats it during his first class, scribbling the homework on a piece of paper he finds on the floor and doodling flowers and eyes as he forgets to pay attention. The teacher's voice turns into white noise.
- - -
He drifts off again in another class, and wakes up to a chorus of voices saying "Thank you," and "Goodbye." He doesn't bother joining them, instead just clicking the hang up button and dropping his head to his arm, sighing and closing his eyes for a second before pushing himself up and groaning.
It's the third red button he's pressed just today.
He thinks about how many he presses a day.
Five classes, five red buttons.
Five days a week.
For weeks and weeks.
And weeks.
Christ.
Lucas huffs and pushes himself to sit cross-legged in front of the computer. He pushes it out of his mind, the remembrance that this is... it. All he has. This and a few texts from Kes and Jayden, usually about school or other kids from school, often complaining. Usually complaining. Sometimes he gets texts from Isa, silly selfies or pictures of birds. She knows he likes birds. Sometimes he gets texts from Noah, pictures of his art, drawings and paintings and doodles, or texts from Janna, which are never expected but always make him laugh. Sometimes Liv texts him just to check in.
It.
Homework and classes and red buttons and once-in-a-while texts from people he doesn't see anymore.
And Jens, he remembers as his phone buzzes. And he smiles, but he really shouldn't, so he pushes it away as he reaches to the floor and grabs the phone, reading.
guess what i'm making...
🥚🍳👨🏻🍳
He lets the smile push its way back onto his face (there's no one to see anyway) as he shakes his head.
you didn't give me time to guess, dummy
He lays on his back and holds his phone above his head, sighing as the bubble appears on his screen.
i'm impatient
Lucas scoffs, shaking his head again.
anyway good morning 😌, Jens texts a few seconds later.
good morning 🌞, Lucas responds even though it's not really that sunny out. how are you today
well i woke up to my sisters arm hitting me in the face and i just burned an egg so that's just kind of how it's going so far
you?
Lucas smiles again.
pretty dry so far but who knows
Like it's a trigger, Lucas's door swings open loudly and he tilts his head back, looking at his father upside down.
"...Yes?"
"You have to do the dishes, yeah?" he says flatly.
"But I did them last night," Lucas says, still holding his phone above his head. He doesn't look at it, even as it gives a short buzz with Jens's response.
"And I brought dinner for you."
"You brought chicken home and I cooked it."
It's true. Lucas had to Google how to do it, and it was the blandest, driest chicken he's ever had, but it sufficed. There was nothing else in the kitchen he could have made. Back home, there's usually things in the cupboard to micwave.
"Lucas—" His dad pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, huffing. Exasperated, like Lucas is the issue here. "Just do it."
"Fine, whatever," Lucas mutters, looking at his phone, but he doesn't get to read the message before his dad snaps at him.
"Don't whatever me," he says sharply.
"Fine," Lucas says, stopping him. "Yes. I will."
He leaves without shutting Lucas's door.
Lucas takes a second, huffing at the open hallway. He hates him. And he knows he Shouldn't, because He's His Father, but he can't not. It's his face. Even before Lucas knew about how much of a dick he is, his face told Lucas everything. Always angry, disappointed. Always bitter, like he tried to sue the universe and lost. His eyes always look pinched. Especially when he looks at Lucas.
He doesn't know why, honestly. It's not like he even really knows Lucas. Anything about Lucas that's actually important. Not that Lucas would tell him anything important.
(He has a list of things he doesn't ever plan on telling him. His being gay is the top one. He's never heard his father talk about queer people, but he doesn't have to to know that he's probably a bigot. His art is another thing. He doesn't want to listen to his father talk about how it's not a Viable Career Option, or how it's a Waste of Time.)
He looks at his phone after a second.
😔
boring days suck
wanna call later and do hw together?
Lucas exhales, trying to sigh away his frustration.
yes ofc
you said you can do math right?
He shuts the door (quietly) while he waits for Jens's answer.
i'm a math genius
call me fuckin newton
Lucas scoffs, shaking his head as he sits back on his mattress, leaning back so his head falls off the edge, upside down.
great so that means you'll do my hw for me
Lucas bites his lip, trying to suppress the smile that appears in anticipation as Jens types.
hmmmm
what's in it for me?🤔
uhhhhh
moral support
Lucas grins as you amaze me appears on his screen, followed by oh i can teach you math, which promptly makes him roll his eyes and reply with an exaggerated uuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh.
Jens replies with oop i gotta go, and then, as Lucas prepares to send the eye-rolling emoji, see you after school🙃.
Lucas sends the emoji anyway, along with you're the worst.
A few seconds later, his phone buzzes with love you too <3 , and his lingering smile falters. He sits up, swallowing and setting the phone down.
Because the pause in him, the skipped beat of his heart, the way the words tug at him even as he reads and rereads and rereads them, even as his brain knows the irony, the playfulness, the mindlessness in Jens's saying it, can only mean one thing, and he hates himself for it.
Lucas is fucked.
- - -
So he ignores it, of course. It can't be happening. It can't. He's known Jens for a few days. There's no reason for his stomach to flutter the way it does when he gets a text from him, or when his name lights up his computer screen on Google Meets.
"He-ey," Jens sings when Lucas answers, and a smile flickers across Lucas's face involuntarily.
"Hey."
"How you doing?"
"Fine," Lucas answers, neglecting to mention the rest of his day, which was absolutely not fine. The door slams are still ringing in his head. "You?"
"Eh."
"Hm," Lucas chuckles. "Hey, who's your maths teacher?"
"Clark," Jens says, looking at Lucas with his pixelated eyes. Even glitchy and blurry, Lucas can see that he's beautiful.
"Great," he says, ignoring it. "Have you done homework for lesson seven?"
"I absolutely have not," Jens chirps. "I can do it and show you how to solve the problems."
"Absolutely not."
"Mhmm." Jens puckers his lips, nodding and furrowing his brows. "Mhmm, mhmm. Well. I could do it and send you the answers."
"That sounds great," Lucas says, sarcastically sweet.
Jens snickers, reaching past his laptop, and Lucas watches as the collar of his shirt falls, a section of his skin exposed before he sits back, pulling a messy notebook, loose papers hanging out of it, and calculator with him.
"Wanna read while I work?" Jens asks, oblivious to the heat in Lucas's chest.
"Oh, yeah, I can do that."
Lucas barely even processes the words he reads to Jens, his brain somehow paying more attention to the quiet, hushed murmurs of numbers coming from Jens.
He hears Jens mutter, "Divide by six..." and click his tongue in thought a few times just as Lucas reads, "'...like moths against the whispering and the champagne and the stars.'"
He listens to Jens intently, even though half (or maybe just a quarter) of his mind is on the book, and even though he only catches every few words. Some words, sixty, sixteen, seventy seven, are sharp and cut right through their connection. His murmurs are nearly completely unintelligible, but Lucas listens like he's actually trying to learn something.
It's not until Jens says, "Lu?" softly, that Lucas realises he's stopped reading completely, the book fallen shut in his lap with his index finger holding the page loosely, and he startles, looking directly into Jens's eyes. His face burns up at the nickname, and at the fact that he had been so enraptured by Jens muttering maths to himself that he had forgotten completely to read.
"I— Yeah, sorry," he says, looking away and opening the book, hoping Jens can't see how hot his face is.
"Why'd you stop?" A smile is spread across Jens's face. Like he knows.
"I—" Lucas stutters again. "You seemed to focussed, I didn't wanna distract you."
"Aw." Jens tilts his head. "That's sweet." There's a pause, and he looks down, flipping a paper that's out of Lucases sight, before he says, "I'm almost done, I can send you pictures after so do this one."
"Yeah," Lucas says, trying not to let out another stammer. His face burns again. He hadn't realised how long he'd been listening.
Jens clicks his tongue as he thinks again, and Lucas hears the clicking of his calculator and the scratch of his pencil on paper.
"Add on both sides," he says quietly, and then, "Oh, that's not right," flipping his pencil over to erase it.
Lucas snickers.
"Don't you laugh at me," Jens says, a smile playing at his lips. "You know you can't do better."
"You're not wrong."
When Jens finally finishes the problem (he has to try again two more times; he'd skipped the problem to leave it for the end when he'd started) he texts pictures of it to Lucas, and Lucas closes the book, folding the corner of the page.
He can feel Jens watching him as he copies down the answers.
"Number four is seventy three?" he says, zooming in on the photo.
"Thirteen," Jens says, his voice softer than Lucas expected.
"Oh, that makes more sense." Lucas writes it. "Why the hell do your ones look like sevens?"
"I don't know," Jen says defensively, making a face. "It's never been a problem before."
"It's weird." He's met with silence. "If you're making a face at me, I can't see it."
Jens lets out a laugh, and Lucas grins. If sunshine made a sound, it would be Jens's laughter.
"How do you know me so well?" Jens asks, still laughing.
Lucas giggles, snorting and shaking his head as he looks up to see Jens's face brightening even more.
"That was so cute," Jens says lightly, and Lucas feels like he's on fire.
"Shut up. What's number seven? It's cut off in the picture."
"Oh, shit, sorry. That's..." Jens's brows furrow. "Six, four... one—"
"You thought it was a seven, didn't you?"
"Shut up. One point three two."
"Thank you-u-u."
Jens is quiet as Lucas copies the rest of the answers. He shakes his head at how messy Jens's work is, shocked and honestly impressed with how his brian works, numbers and lines scattered across the page, the answers in neat, little boxes.
"Do any new drawings?" Jens asks abruptly as Lucas copies the last one.
"Huh?"
"Have you drawn anything new?"
"Uh.." Lucas finishes writing the final answer and boxing it like Jens's. "Yes?"
"Oh?" When he looks up, Jens is resting his chin on his hands, smiling. "Tell me."
Lucas pauses, biting his lip. He's only done one, and it's ripped and crumpled and shredded in the corner of his room in a plastic bin.
"I did one, but it was shit, so it's in the trash—"
"What was it?"
"Uh, that's not important."
"...Okay." He says it softly. Lucas is grateful. "Can you show me a drawing? Or like a sketch, or..."
Lucas smiles. Jens is clearly out of his element. But he's trying.
"I might have a picture," he says, moving the maths homework away. "Most of my sketchbooks are still in boxes."
"You haven't unpacked yet?" Jens asks as Lucas scrolls though his camera roll, photos of Utrecht mainly, with a few of homework and screenshots of messages from the guys scattered in there.
"No," he says simply.
"Why?"
"Eh." Lucas finds one of a drawing and looks at it, contemplating. It's a sketch of Noah that he did a little after moving. He'd meant to send it to him, even considered mailing it with a little letter and some Antwerp souvenirs like a post card or something, but he never did. He sends it to Jens. "I don't really plan on staying here that long, just until this summer."
"Oh. Oh, woah."
Lucas beams without wanting to, watching Jens's head duck as he looks at his phone.
"That's so good, Lucas."
"Thank you," Lucas responds, his voice small. He shifts in his seat on the mattress, fidgeting as Jens looks up at him.
"That's so good."
"Who is it?" Jens looks back down, moving his fingers across the screen, and Lucas can tell he's zooming in on the photo.
"My friend from Utrecht, he's an artist too."
"Oh!" Jens looks up again. "Speaking of artists. I have a friend I think you'll like."
"You think I'll like him because he's an artist?"
Jens drops his phone.
"I think you'll like him because he's a cool guy, and you already have something in common."
"Okay, that's fair."
"You wanna meet him?" Jens asks, almost excitedly.
Lucas stares at him, tilting his head.
"Not in person," Jens says. "Obviously." He makes a face. "Sometimes we have, like, a group Zoom call with the guys, do you wanna join sometime?"
Lucas pauses, hoping Jens can see the despair in his face.
The guys.
"Uh— Yeah, why not?"
Jens beams.
It makes the screen glow brighter.