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Wylan Van Eck was not what Jesper had been expecting. He’d been briefed by Kaz, of course. He knew that Wylan was constantly by his father’s side on the campaign trail. He didn’t speak publicly, but he did his part to manage the team of volunteers and assistants. He was diplomatic in interviews, excusing his father’s more inflammatory remarks, saying that Van Eck “spoke his mind bluntly and fearlessly” and that “his constituents cared more about his political goals than his political correctness–” a deflection that Kaz had expressed grudging admiration for. 

He knew (through Kaz) that Wylan had only a modest bank account and a couple shares in his name, despite his father’s wealth. He’d studied music and art rather than finance, and had no involvement in the running of his father’s corporations. From the looks of it, he wasn’t even slated for an eventual seat on the board. Instead, one of Van Eck’s more cutthroat regional managers was on track to take over the CEO position upon Van Eck’s retirement or if– unlikely but possible– political pressures forced him to divest some of his interests. 

Wylan was also openly gay. Van Eck had shamelessly used his acceptance of his son’s sexuality to court the liberal vote while reassuring his conservative supporters– publicly, in Wylan’s presence– that he wasn’t bothered about it because Wylan wasn’t “ that kind of queer.”

He never elaborated precisely what he meant by that, but Jesper could guess, and if Wylan hadn’t been shamelessly promoting his father’s despicable economic and social policies, he’d be tempted to feel sorry for the guy. Colm Fahey might not really understand gay culture, but he’d never tried to tell Jesper what kind of queer he was supposed to be. When Jesper had gone through a phase during his short stint in college where he only wore high-heeled shoes, Colm’s only concern had been that Jesper was going to sprain his ankles trying to dance in those things. 

(In fact, Jesper had sprained his ankle that year. But not , as his father had predicted, both at the same time, and considering he’d been barefoot and drunk when it happened, it wasn’t the fault of the shoes.)

But even Kaz, despite the thoroughness of his data theft, knew very little about who Wylan actually was. Every email, every text, every interview was cheerful, businesslike, and impersonal. He had no social media presence outside of the campaign accounts, no expensive or unusual habits. There were tiny, subtle hints that Wylan’s views differed from his father’s. The attention to accessibility at his campaign rallies and events, when Van Eck’s policies on accommodating the disabled could be summarized by his statement in an interview that “they don’t need to be coddled, they can work around their problems like the rest of us.” The availability of multilingual materials when Van Eck advocated for closing the borders. (And this despite the fact that his wife, a bubbly, fair-skinned former model in her twenties who went by Alys, had been born Alicia Santiago-Flores and was trotted out to say a few words in Spanish at his Texas and California rallies.) But in all interviews and public appearances, he was the picture of absolute loyalty to his father’s platform, so it was possible those details had been the suggestion of someone else on the campaign and he’d just given them the go-ahead. 

And according to Kaz, the campaign staffers didn’t have a single complaint about his treatment of them, which meant that he a.) treated them fairly and b.) saw to it that they had unlimited coffee, food, and high-speed internet while on the campaign trail. Jesper’s guess had been the former; Kaz had suggested the latter. A little research confirmed the truth of both theories. 

So Jesper had expected Wylan to be smooth, charismatic, and artificial in person– a younger, more tactful version of his father. Instead, when he turned around after sorting out some sort of squabble about where the tables for badges, pamphlets, sponsors, and petitions were supposed to be set up, Jesper found himself face to face with an earnest, unpretentious young man. Wylan Van Eck was shorter and more freckled than he looked on TV, and he had his father’s campaign badge pinned upside-down on a sweater vest that almost exactly matched the blue of his eyes.

Jesper contemplated telling him about the badge for a moment, then decided that even adorably dorky Republicans didn’t deserve his fashion advice. 

“Jesper Fahey,” he said instead, flashing the brilliant smile that an ex had once referred to as “panty-dropping” and Kaz deemed “nauseatingly genuine.” “I’m the intern assigned to shadow you today?”

The smile clearly had the desired effect because Wylan flushed visibly. “Right! I apologize, I should have been at the front to meet you, but I got called back here to confirm a few things. I’ll be going about my usual tasks, which consist of… well, herding cats and breaking up arguments mainly, but since I assume you’re a poli-sci major, that’s what you’re here to learn.”

If Jesper had actually been a poli-sci student instead of a liberal arts dropout here to help sabotage a senatorial candidate, shadowing Wylan certainly would have been a helpful experience. The situations Wylan was called on to deal with were myriad: the sound equipment for the rally being delivered to the wrong place; no one remembering the pseudonym Van Eck’s hotel reservation was under; reporters asking for a response to a political ally using a racial slur on national TV; a physical altercation between two staffers over whether or not the snacks needed to be gluten-free; pamphlets being printed on the wrong size paper; a badger that had inexplicably wandered into one of the transport vans and would not leave. 

Jesper won several people’s undying gratitude by solving that problem with the help of a large shovel and some patience. Sometimes having grown up in a rural area came in handy, though Jesper privately thought that his experience getting Kaz to do anything fun ever had also contributed.

And despite clearly being entitled, unimaginative assholes– Jesper cringed at the idea of working every day beside the Karens, right-wing Christians, and Ivy League elitists who populated the ranks of Van Eck’s supporters– they treated Wylan with a proprietary affection that took Jesper aback. 

“He’s just, you know. Nice. Actually nice, not just following some ‘good manager’ handbook positive reinforcement crap,” the girl laying out the signs, pins, and bumper stickers admitted when Jesper found a moment to slip away and ask some nosy questions. “Also… don’t spread it around, but his dad treats him like shit, and he still takes the blame for it whenever one of us messes up. And, well. We’re not all volunteers. Some of us really do need the job. If Senator Van Eck had found out that it was Cathy who misspelled the heading on the banquet invitations, she’d have been fired for sure.”

Other than his brief information-gathering excursion, he stuck to Wylan like glue. The “main event”-- Kaz releasing private emails revealing bribes Van Eck had taken twenty minutes before he gave his speech at the rally– was hours off, but it would have been suspicious if Jesper had shown up shortly before and disappeared immediately after– and he definitely planned to disappear afterwards. 

His job in this scheme was twofold: get the tiny but powerful bug that Kaz had given him onto Van Eck’s jacket to record his private responses– which of course would join the emails on the internet later on– and to keep Wylan out of the way in the immediate aftermath so that he wasn’t there to coordinate an organized response or serve as spokesperson to the media until the damage was already done. 

Kaz’s orders, with typical directness, had been that when his phone buzzed with the five minute warning, Jesper should drag Wylan into a room, tie him up, gag him, and stick him in a closet. Then, when Jesper had asked quite reasonably how he’d know that it was the warning and not that he’d gotten another life in Candy Crush, Kaz had spent nearly 45 minutes cursing at Jesper’s phone as he deactivated the dozens of app notifications that caused his phone to buzz or ding every few minutes. 

He had severe ADHD and the motivation chemicals in his brain did not work properly!  He refused to be ashamed of his elaborate Minecraft city or of feeding his Farmville animals six times a day. Frivolous phone games were cheaper and less destructive than his former gambling addiction. 

Anyway, the point was that the more time he spent around Wylan Van Eck, the less inclined he was to leave him tied and gagged in a closet, even if it was going to guarantee him three thousand dollars– his share of the bribes Kaz had finagled from Van Eck’s political opponents to do something he would have done for free out of sheer spite. 

“So did you have any questions about the campaign or the platforms?” Wylan asked, gesturing for the staffers to hang the largest of the banners above the stage. 

Jesper racked his brains for the sort of subject a politically minded young man would be eager to discuss with Van Eck’s son. Something he could discuss without seething contempt, ideally. Wait, he had it.

“I was interested in his remarks on loosening FDA regulations.”

Wylan smiled at him and said, as if quoting from his father’s website, “The approval process wastes money that could better go towards developing new drugs and refining existing ones, and in the time it takes to go through clinical trials, lives are lost that could have been saved. Fast-tracking is not just efficient, it’s necessary.”

Jesper nodded, then, because he couldn’t resist pushing a little, added, “And smaller companies and labs don’t have the resources to meet the FDA’s bar, so they’re pushed out by the bigger pharmaceutical monopolies. It’s only right for the government to shoulder the burden of some of the clinical trials through the fast-tracking process.”

“You’ve got it backwards– Lauren, you’ve got it backwards– yes, like that,” Wylan called to a staffer before turning back to Jesper and looking thoughtful. “So you’re in favor of limited deregulation.”

Jesper nodded.

“You’re not a Democrat, then. No offense, but I’d actually have pegged you as a liberal.” 

I am a fan of being pegged, Jesper didn’t say. Instead he answered, “Honestly? I’m what you might call a centrist. The modern polarization of politics has hurt both sides more than it’s helped, in my opinion. And the more moderate candidates were already taken when I signed up, so I decided I could learn more from the campaign of a seasoned politician like your dad than a newcomer to the game.”

Kaz had given him this explanation almost word for word– they’d both agreed that Jesper was incapable of playing a die-hard Republican.

“Of course,” Wylan said in response, then to the aides looking at him for approval, “About three inches down, Dave.”

Jesper grinned. “It was the tie, wasn’t it?” He was dressed in his blandest, preppiest clothes: a pair of khaki slacks he’d been forced to buy for a job, a pale pink button down shirt, and the most heterosexual tie he owned, which had a beach and palm trees motif. It turned out half the people here weren’t wearing ties at all, so he could have gotten away without one, but political interns were ambitious and wanted to look their best, didn’t they?

“And the hair.” Wylan looked slightly awkward, then added, “It, uh, looks good.”

Jesper felt a slower, more genuine smile crossing his face. Not “cultural” or “interesting” or “unique,” just… good. You think I’m pretty, don’t you? Of course Wylan did– Jesper was objectively gorgeous. The cornrows were far from the most daring style he’d tried, but they complimented the angles of his face.  

He crossed the room to help a brunette girl with the end of a banner– she was too short to get it as high up as the other end had been hung. And if it showed off the shape of his shoulders and back beneath the linen of his shirt while doing so… well, that was purely a coincidence. 

And if Wylan quickly looked away when he turned around, well, it was only natural to feel a little self-satisfaction about that.

When they paused to grab some coffee, it was also normal for Jesper to notice Wylan’s mouth and how soft and pink it looked. The defined cupid’s bow. The way he ran his tongue over his lips absently after finishing the last sip. He felt completely normal about Wylan’s mouth, which was a very average mouth and not tempting at all. 

Goddammit.

Jesper’s brain knew that Wylan was a trust fund kid who spent every day contributing to the success of a climate-change denying, union-busting misogynist. But Jesper’s emotions were suckers for big pretty eyes, a shy smile, and– apparently– dorky sweater vests. And Jesper’s dick, well… he’d suspected for a while that his dick was a class traitor, and its response to Wylan Van Eck was proof. 

“Kaz, my dick is a class traitor,” he complained over his cell phone from the bathroom.

A heavy sigh. “Do not tell me you fucked a Republican. You’ve barely been there four hours.”

“I didn’t! I just want to.” Jesper scuffed a foot against the tiled floor. “Wylan’s nice, Kaz.”

“Last month he expressed his gratitude to ‘the brave men and women of our police force.’ He’s an unredeemable conservative rat bastard, and I say this as an unredeemable leftist rat bastard. Control yourself. How soon can you plant the bug?”

“We’re meeting Van Eck at the hotel after lunch and Wylan’s going over the logistics with him on the way back to the convention center,” Jesper reported dutifully. “Should be able to get it on him well before the rally.”

“Good. And Jesper?”

“Yeah?”

“You know what I’m going to say.”

Jesper sighed and leaned his forehead against the mirror. “Don’t fuck the spawn of Satan?”

“Exactly. Call me if there’s a snag in the plans.”

“Got it.”

Kaz hung up and Jesper lowered the phone and looked at himself in the mirror sternly. 

“He is not cute. He is the human embodiment of everything that is wrong with this country and you are not under any circumstances to put the moves on him.”

He tried a self-control technique a woman at Gambler’s Anonymous had taught him. He pictured himself building a wall, and behind that wall was, in this case, Wylan Van Eck. This made him think of the Cask of Amontillado for obvious reasons. Mental-picture-Wylan/Fortunato began screaming and raging at him in Italian as he built the wall, even though the only Italian that Jesper knew was out of phrasebooks and restaurant menus, so Wylan/Fortunato very angrily asked the location of the train station, where the bathroom was, and ordered a many-course dinner as Jesper walled him away. It was extremely unsexy, so on the whole, the exercise was successful, if also hilariously surreal and guilt-inducing. 

When he came back out, his determination renewed, his mind cleared of antidemocratic lusts, he found Wylan in the staff room holding a ridiculously small calico kitten. 

Maybe God just hated him. It was a very real possibility. 

“We can’t,” Wylan was saying, petting the tiny soft head with one finger. “You need to take her home.”

“But Instagram will love her! I even made her a little bow with a Van Eck badge on it! We’ll get so many views if we can just get your dad to–” One of the interns was gesturing excitedly.

“Brad,” Wylan interrupted, his voice sharper, “She can’t be away from her mother this long. She is trying to nurse on my finger. She’s hungry .”

“She’ll be okay,” Brad argued. “We’ll give her some creamer or something and she can nurse when she gets back. My brother said we could borrow her for the day.”

Wylan shut his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. The kitten was indeed trying to nurse on Wylan’s finger. Jesper considered just melting into a puddle. The kitten. The gentle hands holding the kitten. The protective anger in Wylan’s defense of the kitten. 

“I don’t care what your brother said. Take her home now . Take a picture of her with the bow on her if you’d like– after she’s nursed. If she’s still here in twenty minutes, I’m putting Natalie in charge of the Instagram account and you on pamphlet folding duty.”

He carefully put the kitten in Brad’s hands, giving him a look that made the young man lower his eyes sheepishly.

“I just thought it was a good idea,” he muttered.

“If she was old enough to be away from her mother, it would have been. Your initiative is great, Brad. It’s your judgment that’s the problem. Run ideas like this by me first.”

Jesper was glad the kitten was being taken away. Van Eck didn’t deserve a kitten-induced rush of social media popularity. Even Kaz would have been hard put to combat that. And Wylan was right– the kitten was way too little, and Brad the idiot would probably have made it sick giving it coffee creamer. 

Also, if Wylan had cradled that kitten in his hands much longer– or if it had fallen asleep– Jesper would have ended up betraying his morals and contaminating his gorgeous body with the semen of the religious right. 

“Hey, are you okay?” The staffers had wandered off now that the kitten was being taken away, and Wylan had taken a step towards Jesper, an adorable little worried crinkle between his eyes. 

“Of course,” he lied with a chipper grin. “Just… processing the experience. Being this close to the campaign, you know. Politics! Am I right?”

“... Yeah,” Wylan agreed uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with. Jesper sure as hell wasn’t sure what was coming out of his mouth.  

“I need to get to the hotel to pick my father up now. I usually brief him on the way. You’re welcome to stay here and help yourself to some lunch– you haven’t eaten yet, after all.”

“Neither have you,” Jesper pointed out. “Besides, I can’t pass up the opportunity to see the man himself!”

Wylan looked hesitant. “He won’t really have time to chat. You’ll get a much better impression of who he is as a candidate from his speech than you will while he and I go through the boring details of rally organization.”

Jesper gave his most charming smile, then let it falter. “You don’t want me to come with you. Have I done something wrong?”

“No!” Wylan blurted out, looking unhappy. “No, you haven’t, it just seems a bit pointless to drag you along–”

“No, I get it. I don’t want to embarrass you,” Jesper said, hunching his shoulders slightly and looking away. “I can try and make myself useful here instead of getting in your way.”

“You wouldn’t embarrass me or get in the way. You– you should come. I’m sorry.”

Jesper inwardly high-fived himself. He might not be a criminal mastermind like Kaz or a miniature superninja like Inej, but he could manipulate a mark with the best of them.

“I can keep quiet,” he said eagerly, laying it on thick. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

He meant to keep quiet, at least. But they were picking Van Eck up in a limo, and it was awesome, so instead he kept up a constant excited commentary on his way there as he discovered the minibar, the reclining seats, the intercom, and the moon roof. Wylan was laughing helplessly by the time they turned onto the street where the hotel was, looking slightly flushed and unfairly kissable. Jesper was relieved at first when the hotel came into sight and Wylan’s expression suddenly grew distant. Then he became increasingly worried. There were lines on Wylan’s face that hadn’t been there before, and his breathing was so carefully even and controlled that Jesper could probably keep time by it. When they got out of the limo, Wylan stood differently– back straighter, shoulders tense. 

Jesper liked fancy hotels almost as much as he did limousines, but he decided some decorum was called for now that they were in public. He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t start petting the marble counters or pointing out the velvet-upholstered bar stools and vaulted arches of the ceilings. Considering that he had learned only last week that fornication could refer not just to sex but to architectural vaulting, this was an act of restraint worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Wylan, despite his slightly rumpled professor look, carried himself as if he belonged here. As if he belonged here, but wasn’t happy about that, Jesper mentally corrected himself. He hadn’t realized how at ease Wylan had been among the bustle and disorder of the rally preparations until seeing him now, in a shiny, quiet elevator, pressing the button for the floor with rigid precision. 

Van Eck was not in the penthouse, which was good because misogynist blowhards didn’t deserve en suite hot tubs. By the time they reached it, the silence, broken only by their muffled footsteps on the carpet, had grown almost oppressive. Wylan’s knock on the hotel room door was businesslike, and Jesper stood a step back, trying to be as unnoticeable as a six foot four man could be. Maybe staffers often accompanied Wylan to pick his father up, but in case they didn’t, his best bet was to say nothing and act like his presence was perfectly normal.

Once Kaz had taught him this trick, he’d been amazed by how many places you didn’t get kicked out of if you managed to emanate the sense of belonging there. The two of them had crashed a wedding with an open bar once. Jesper had started a hilarious rumor about the best man and hooked up with a bridesmaid in the parking lot; Kaz had stolen four wallets and convinced the flower girl to go around quietly tying the men’s shoelaces together. They had both gotten magnificently drunk. 

Jesper caught himself wondering what Wylan would do if they were to crash a wedding together. He’d probably end up trapped at a table full of old women telling him about their medical histories and trying to set him up with their grandchildren. 

Jesper hadn’t had to worry in any case. When he opened the door, Van Eck spared Jesper a cursory glance, then acted as if he didn’t exist. Instead, as they took the elevator downstairs, he questioned Wylan about the arrangements in a terse, humorless way that took Jesper aback. Van Eck might be a politically and morally repugnant person, but in interviews and speeches, he projected a sort of good-old-boy charm that was entirely absent now. 

He spoke to Wylan like his son was a not particularly respected employee, and Wylan responded like a man talking to his boss, not his father. Jesper tried to imagine interacting with his own Da that way, but it was impossible. 

Van Eck did not seem appreciative of the limousine. He didn’t even look in the mini-fridge. Instead, he stared out the window with an unimpressed expression while Wylan spoke.

“... and I was able to send Ray in the van to get the sound equipment, so it should be set up by the time we get there. You’ll need to be prepared with an official response to Madding’s interview comment. We sent out the standard ‘his fellow party member’s views don’t represent his own and are an discredit to the insert-ethnicity-here people of our great nation,’ but the press will want a direct quote from you.”

“You’ll need to be prepared with an official response,” Van Eck mimicked derisively. “Do you think I’m a complete incompetent? I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive. Please don’t pretend that just because I took pity on you and gave you a position where you could be of use, I actually require your political advice.”

Goddamn, Jesper thought, taken aback. Wylan barely reacted other than a visible tightening of his jaw before he continued speaking. 

“The banners and tables should all be up by the time we get there. A couple banners were damaged because they weren’t packed properly, but we were able to get it to look almost the same without them.”

His father snorted. "I'll make sure to lower my standards accordingly. I know how you hate to disappoint me."

Wylan didn’t respond to that.

“Did you pick up the boxes of Mason’s book from the warehouse to distribute?”

Jesper repressed a wince. Kaz had been ranting about that book for the past week. An extremist right-wing diatribe about the downfall of America, decrying immigrants, socialists, and Islam and presenting fallacious but easy to grasp arguments that blamed poverty, crime, and social unrest on liberal policies and millennial entitlement. 

Jesper had listened to about five minutes of Kaz’s summary and decided that he did not want to read it. He suspected the only way Kaz had gotten through it was the sheer power of rage. 

“You only sent the email at ten this morning. I left them three messages but they only got back to me a little over an hour ago. They’ll only authorize me or you to pick them up.”

A scoff. “A twenty minute drive would have taxed your abilities too heavily?” 

Wylan shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and met his father’s eyes. 

“I didn’t have time.”

“You had an hour,” Van Eck said sharply. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been doing this whole time.” For the first time since they’d left the hotel, Van Eck’s eyes flickered to Jesper– coldly and pointedly. 

Wylan flushed in what looked more like anger than embarrassment. “I’ve been organizing a team of over forty people to set up your entire rally, Father. I didn’t even have time to take a break for lunch .”

“You can eat with the interns later,” the politician said dismissively. “The amount of food you have the campaign foot the bill for, I’m sure there’ll be plenty.”

Jesper’s silence had transformed from politeness to disbelief. That staffer hadn’t been exaggerating about Van Eck treating Wylan like shit. Even if he had been slacking off the way his father implied, the amount of contempt in Van Eck’s voice was more than could be explained by a sloppily organized rally. 

It wasn’t even the words themselves. It was the way he said them. He talked to his own son the way Kaz talked to police informants. The way Inej talked to pimps before putting a knife to their throats. Like he despised him. Like Wylan was barely human.

An uncomfortable quiet fell over the limousine, tension thick in the air. Van Eck looked at his watch and fussed with his tie. Wylan fidgeted slightly with the cuffs of his shirt, then immediately stopped and sat up straighter when his father shot him a knife-sharp glance.  

It was an incredibly long five minutes. Wylan took out his phone and began dictating instructions quietly into it– he tended to barely look at the thing beyond selecting the app he needed, Jesper had noticed. He’d just pop in an earphone and play the messages and emails on it aloud through that while he did other things, then dictate a reply. It was very professional-business-y. Jesper doubted anyone had ever had to remove Candy Crush notifications from Wylan’s phone. Right now, he was quietly confirming security arrangements with one of the staffers whose name Jesper had heard at least eight times but still could not remember. Wylan had said it literally just now. It was like there was some sort of dark magic on his name making him imperceptible to men with dishonesty in their hearts or something. 

Or Jesper had the attention span of a goldfish. Either way. 

When Wylan had put down the phone, Van Eck spoke again. “I don’t suppose the green room is ready and the makeup artist has arrived?”

“The makeup artist is in the staff room and can be there to have you camera-ready in minutes. The green room is prepared.”

“I’m amazed,” Van Eck drawled, and Wylan’s jaw tightened again, then he took a breath and very intentionally relaxed his muscles and nodded. 

The silence crashed back down, and when they arrived, Jesper felt a tremendous flood of relief. Van Eck waited for the driver to get out and open the door for him; Wylan opened his door himself and got out. 

Jesper couldn’t help it– as he got out, he reached up and caught Wylan’s hand where he was holding the door open for Jesper. He gave it a light squeeze. Their eyes met, and Jesper’s breath caught at the storm of emotions in Wylan’s eyes. Pain, stubbornness, resignation, longing, blue – blue wasn’t an emotion but Wylan’s eyes were so fucking blue . Jesper swallowed hard, feeling a faint ache somewhere in his chest. 

He pulled his hand away reluctantly when Van Eck’s scornful eyes fell on it, and tried not to think about it. Normally he would have scoffed at its softness– the skin of a pampered politician’s son who had never done a day’s work in his life. Now, he just imagined how those soft, smooth hands would feel pressed against his bare chest, or running over his back, or gripping his hips…

No. He had a job to do. Palming the tiny sticky bug from his pocket, he grabbed a badge from the nearest table as they entered.

“Here,” he said eagerly, and went to pin the badge on Van Eck’s lapel, pressing the bug firmly against the wool suit fabric as he did so. The politician batted his hands away with an incredulous look. 

“No one wears their own campaign badge ,” Jesper was told.

“Sorry,” he muttered as if embarrassed. 

Van Eck swept a critical eye around the room and the staffers and volunteers cheerfully greeting him. “Thank you all for your hard work,” he said, suddenly warm with the charisma and benevolent tone familiar from his interviews. “You are the lifeblood of this campaign, and I’m proud to receive your support.”

An impromptu cheer went up, and Van Eck grabbed Wylan’s arm and said quietly, under his breath, “Come with me.”

As soon as they were out of sight, Jesper moved into a corner– the staffers were now frantically busy, so it looked like he was just getting out of the way– and pulled out his phone. He quickly linked his bluetooth to what looked like a WiFi speaker, and typed “6crows” into the password box. Kaz often ranted about the uselessness of scrambled, computer generated nonsense passwords. “If you have to write it down, save it, or make Google remember it, you might as well not use a password at all.” 

When his phone connected, Jesper opened the app that would connect it to Kaz’s recording equipment, then gleefully went into his settings and turned on the volume to listen to the bug on his own phone. He pressed it to his ear, turning away from the room as if he were making a phone call. 

“--state of this place is shameful,” Van Eck’s voice snapped. “Any other campaign manager would be out on his ass if he was as incompetent as you are. Are you just incapable of doing anything right?”

“You say that before every rally, Father. And before every election. I can only assume there’s some reason you’ve chosen to keep employing me.” That was Wylan, his voice less clear than his fathers due to being further from the mic. It sounded almost expressionless. Not sarcastic, as the words could have been, only resigned. 

“An intelligent employee would interpret this as an indication that their performance needed improvement, not as an excuse to fuck up repeatedly,” was the sharp answer. 

“Is there something you’d like me to change or correct?” Again, that blankness. 

“There is glitter on the floor. This is not a child’s birthday party. And I realize that your interests lie elsewhere, but there are females out there dressed like sluts. Why are the staff not wearing the shirts specifically purchased for campaign events?”

“You ordered those shirts in October. They’re long-sleeved, and it’s summer . They’re waiting to put them on until right before the rally so the shirts don’t get soaked in sweat. Wearing a spaghetti strap top in ninety-degree weather when you’re expecting to have to put on a long-sleeved shirt over top of it is sensible, not slutty. And the glitter was here when we arrived. Apparently it was left behind by a wedding party. We were able to vacuum most of it out of the carpeted areas, but sweeping and mopping the tile floor just spreads it around.”

“I suppose I should be grateful that you’re dressed in some semblance of appropriate attire.”

Wylan’s voice, again almost robotic. “I’ve been made well aware that my own comfort doesn’t take priority over your public image.”

If this was how Wylan was usually treated– and judging by the lack of surprise in his reactions and replies, it was– why did he continue to manage his father’s campaign? Kaz had looked up his wages, and they were more than Jesper had ever made in his life, but not actually above the average pay for a campaign manager. If he really liked doing this, he could work for anyone. 

Family loyalty? Die hard Republican fanaticism? Blackmail? Why was Wylan still here? 

“The public image of our entire family would be improved if you spent more time following simple instructions and less time prancing around holding hands with some–”

And then he used a term beginning with N that he had never uttered in his political speeches. 

Jesper didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. A spike of visceral rage seared through him, remembering the first time he’d heard that particular slur. He’d been with his mother, and they’d been cornered by a white man who had made what, at seven, he’d only barely recognized as crude, degrading sexual advances toward her. When she’d responded with dignified contempt and he’d crowded her against the wall, she'd swung the heavy shopping bag with the canned food in it directly into his crotch. 

She’d grabbed Jesper’s hand tightly and they walked away as the man bent double, wheezing. He’d called after them. Jesper knew what both the words meant, and he’d heard someone get called a bitch before, but his hand tightened on his mother’s. Outwardly, she’d been smooth-faced and calm, but he’d been able to feel her hand shaking as she squeezed back. 

One might say that it had made an impression. 

He felt a sharp sensation in his hand and looked down to see that he’d snapped the “Vote Van Eck– Vote America!” campaign pencil he’d been fidgeting with. He closed the app– he could no longer focus on what either of them were saying– and stalked to the trash can. He dropped in the pencil, then braced his hand against the wall and leaned against it, his breathing slightly ragged. Then he texted Kaz.

If you’re not listening already, pull up the recording. About seven minutes in.

The response came a few minutes later when Jesper had wandered outside and was fighting to resist the urge to bum a cigarette off the middle aged staffer smoking on the bench. He hadn’t smoked in months, but right now, he could really use one.

I love the smell of political suicide in the morning , Kaz texted back, and Jesper could imagine the manic glee in his eyes. The icon saying he was typing didn’t go away, and a minute later, Jesper read, Don’t react. The most damage you can do to him is to stay calm and keep his son from deflecting the media when the shit hits the fan.  

Easy for Kaz to say to keep calm… but he was also right. And that was what Jesper was going to do– pretend he’d heard nothing. Wylan’s skill in coordinating the staffers and putting together an official response was Van Eck’s best shelter against the media storm he was about to face. So Jesper would steal his fucking umbrella and wait for the lightning to strike.

Only umbrellas had metal in them, and lightning was drawn to metal and fuck it, the metaphor wasn’t perfect. Wylan was a soft, blue-eyed goddamn umbrella and Jesper was going to… close him and put him out of reach. In an umbrella stand. Yeah.

With a last longing look at the smoke coming from the woman’s cigarette, he headed inside. 

And fuck– he’d lost Wylan. The app connected to the bug revealed that Van Eck was sitting in silence except for the occasional papery noise– reading the paper, maybe, or going over his speech, or committing suicide by papercuts for all Jesper cared. Wylan wasn’t in the staff room, or the Carlisle room, or either of the bathrooms, or the small dining room that was still laid out with the remains of lunch. Jesper surveyed what was left on the table and shoved a handful of mayonnaise packets in his pockets– he’d run out and kept forgetting to buy more. Then he grabbed the last croissant before leaving to continue his search and tore off bites as he began looking through what seemed like endless unused rooms. Why would you build a place like this, he wondered, if half of it was empty except for some convention a couple times a year? Even the rally wasn’t renting all the rooms. Kaz would probably have some sort of answer about property taxes and business loopholes. Jesper just felt like it was a waste of (tastefully carpeted, weirdly liminal) space. 

He was beginning to feel like he was an anthropologist exploring the building– that same feeling that hit when walking through the aisles of a chain superstore and you started to forget what you’d been looking for– when he pushed open a door and found Wylan applying face paint using his reflection in a glass-doored cabinet. 

“Wylan?” he didn’t bother to hide his surprise– what was he doing in here?

Wylan turned, then quickly turned his head away, but not before Jesper saw it. He was painting an American flag over a fresh, nasty bruise on the left side of his face. 

He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but he didn’t really need to ask, did he? He could do the math. Jan Van Eck dragging his son into the office to yell and curse at him in private. Wylan emerging from that office with a bruise he was now working to hide. 

Worse, his brain continued the equation– the times Wylan had showed up in the background of videos of rallies, himself and many of the other staffers wearing similar flag paint. It had seemed pretty cringe-inducing– painting their faces like football fans! Only their team was America! But now, realizing the truth, he cringed for real. 

“He hits you.”

“Of course not!” Wylan snapped, applying red and white stripes from a palette of Halloween of grease paint with a steady, experienced hand. There was a wave to them. The flag was blowing in the wind. Once he had finished the stripes, the bruise would be fully hidden. The fact that it was so practiced, so carefully proportioned to cover it, made Jesper sick. “It was an accident. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No,” Jesper said quietly. “It wasn’t.”

Wylan let out a slow breath, put his brush down, and turned to Jesper. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to finish painting my face, and then I’m going to go down to the staff room and I’ll paint flags on any of the others who want one, like I always do. You’ve got two choices. You can leave now, or you can mind your own business, forget whatever crazy ideas you’ve gotten into your head, and attend the rally with us.” There was steel in his eyes and the set of his mouth, and despite the bruise, Wylan didn’t look like an abuse victim in that moment. He looked like someone who had been in one fight and was ready to start another. 

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” 

Wylan turned his back on Jesper in dismissal, working to finish the final touches of the flag. “There’s nothing to tell. When tensions run high on the campaign trail, I get clumsy.”

Jesper reached for his phone, about to text Kaz with this new development, but Wylan must have seen from the corner of his eye because he whipped around, wide-eyed, and was already taking a step toward him. Automatically, Jesper stepped back.

“Don’t call the police,” Wylan hissed urgently. 

It wouldn’t have occurred to Jesper that the police might solve any of this– if Wylan refused to press charges, they’d fill out some paperwork and wander off satisfied that they’d done their part. However, if he could use that fear as leverage…

“Why shouldn’t I?” he challenged. “Last time I checked, it wasn’t legal to punch people in the face. Isn’t it my duty as a good citizen to report it?”

“You don’t understand.” Wylan’s eyes were almost wild. “You think you’d be seeing justice done? He’s friends with the chief of police. He’d take him aside and explain that it was you who hit me and that we wanted to press charges, and before either of us knew it, you’d be in a cell waiting for trial and there’d be an article in tomorrow’s paper about how I’d been attacked by a terrorist trying to sabotage the campaign. He’d pin it on you without batting an eye. Do you want that?”

“Has he done that before?” Jesper’s stomach turned over at the absolute certainty in Wylan’s eyes.

“Not to me. But close enough. It’s not much of a stretch to guess how it would go down.” Both of them were breathing slightly too fast. Slowly, Jesper tucked his phone back in his pocket. Wylan all but sagged in relief. 

Jesper took a step closer. 

“Look,” Wylan said, swallowing. “It’s not like… I know how to say and do what I’m supposed to and prevent… accidents. But sometimes I get angry enough that I don’t care about the consequences. That’s my decision. I got clumsy. I knew what would happen and I don’t regret it.”

Van Eck had made that comment about Jesper. Wylan had gotten angry enough that he’d known the consequences and not cared. 

Jesper had started fights he couldn’t win to stand up for people before– he knew the reckless hot rage in your stomach, the sheer defiance, and the way suddenly caution and fear didn’t matter because you couldn’t just stand there and say nothing. It took courage, yes, but it wasn’t proof that you were a good person, because God knew Jesper wasn’t. And he’d known enough people who’d gone through abuse to know it didn’t make you meek and submissive– it made you scarred, calculating. Angry. 

It only proved one thing, really: that Wylan was not a bigot like his father, and that he thought it was worth being hit to remind his father and himself of that. But that, and the honest kindness of him, and– no, Wylan worked every day to put this country into the hands of one more power-hungry sociopath. Didn’t that say more about him than this one incident?

More than one, Jesper thought. Often enough that he’d decided to camouflage it by making it a trend among the interns and staffers. 

As Wylan turned back to his reflection and checked his face to make sure the bruise was entirely hidden behind the flag– and wasn’t that fucking symbolic of this entire campaign– it was harder and harder for Jesper to make himself hate the man. 

Jesper felt the vibration of his phone in his back pocket.

Tie him up, gag him, shove him in a closet until–

No.

He turned around and locked the door behind them, then crossed the room to Wylan and, watching for any sign of unwillingness or discomfort, he gently turned him around by his shoulder, tipped his chin up, and kissed him.

It was a soft kiss, testing. Wylan went still for a split second, and Jesper began to pull away, but then a hand curled around the nape of his neck and pulled his head down and he was being kissed back with a ferocity that sent blood racing from his brain into his stupid class traitor dick. He stepped forward, pressed Wylan’s back against the cabinet, and a hot little moan escaped the other man’s lips. Wylan’s other hand came up to grip the fabric of his shirt, and Jesper could feel the paintbrush Wylan was still holding and wondered if it would break in his white-knuckled grasp, wondered if the colors of the flag were smearing over his shirt– didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care.

Their bodies fit against each other wonderfully, and Wylan melted into his arms. He kissed him like Jesper was water in the desert and sunlight in winter. Wylan kissed him like he might never get the chance to again, and he might not. They might not. 

Jesper was good at many things, but passing up one last chance to have what he wanted was something he was very, very bad at. Wylan’s body, compact and arching against his, his perfect lips that would look so right parted in moans and cries or wrapped around Jesper’s cock…

Wylan couldn’t be allowed to leave this room for the next half hour. Jesper wanted this to last much longer than half an hour, but goddamn it, he’d take what he could get. 

He brought his lips to Wylan’s neck, giving a soft, lingering kiss and gently flicking his tongue over the skin. Wylan’s responding moan came from low in his throat. “Tell me, darling,” he whispered. “Does that blush go all the way down?

“Maybe we should find out,” Wylan breathed, arching his neck into another slow, teasing kiss, his arms wrapping around Jesper’s back and the paintbrush falling unheeded from his hand.

“Oh, I’m going to,” Jesper promised, winding his fingers into Wylan’s hair and tugging slightly to pull his head back and bare more of his throat to Jesper’s mouth. “I’m going to kiss and lick my way as far down as you’ll let me. Want to hear all the pretty sounds you can make.”

“Oh.” It was almost a whimper. Jesper could feel the stir of Wylan’s cock through his pants, the instinctive press of his hips forward, and felt heat surge through his own blood. Being wanted was the sweetest drug. Maybe that wasn’t quite healthy, but he didn’t give a shit. He could make Wylan want him, make Wylan feel good, and make himself feel alive and exultant and worth wanting, and wasn’t that the most anyone could expect from this hellscape of a world? A stolen moment of happiness, a frantic body pressed close, the thrill of his name on a pair of gorgeous lips?

“Will you let me make you come?” Jesper asked against Wylan’s throat, inhaling the scent of clean sweat and expensive cologne. 

“That depends. Will you let me make you come?” Wylan’s voice was slightly rough with arousal. 

“I’d let you do just about anything you wanted to me,” Jesper admitted. Nina had talked to him about declarations like this. What he’d just said was one of the things you did not say to a partner, not without boundaries and discussions of limits and– Jesper tossed aside her warnings and kissed Wylan some more, his hands roaming over the other man’s body and learning the shape of him. 

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Wylan said when they parted for breath. “I’ll take such good care of you.”

He took a chance– Did Wylan like to top? Would he want to top Jesper?-- and said, “I want you to hold me down. I bet you could make me beg for your cock. I bet you’d like that.” He was rewarded by the sound of Wylan inhaling sharply through his teeth.

“Is that what you want? You want me to make you beg before I give you what you need?” Wylan’s hands slid down and traced little patterns low on Jesper’s back that made him want to whimper. 

He desperately wanted to be railed by this man, but Kaz had insisted he leave his wallet with his ID behind. He had no condoms, and even if Wylan did, there was no lube, nothing in his pockets but six dollars and some stolen packets of mayonnaise.

Jesper might have made some stupid decisions in his life, but using mayonnaise as improvised lube was not going to be one of them. 

“Might have to settle for less, given the circumstances,” he said reluctantly. 

“If we were– somewhere– more private–” Wylan said, recapturing Jesper’s mouth and speaking between kisses, “I’d do it–  I’d fuck you– as sweet– or as hard– as you wanted.” He drew Jesper’s lower lip between his teeth so lightly Jesper shivered. 

“I’d want both.” He traced Wylan’s face, careful fingers skirting around the bruise. “Slow and sweet. Then hard.”

Sky blue eyes met his. “I’d fuck you while you were wearing nothing but that ridiculous tie. Shove it into your mouth to keep you quiet when I went harder. Tell you how beautiful you looked taking my cock. God, you’d look so beautiful covered in sweat, arching back into every thrust.”

Jesper was used to dirty talk– to being the one to do it, anyway, and reduce his partner to a puddle of desperate lust. Not many matched praise for praise, promise for filthy promise. Wylan did , and it was just about enough to make his brain explode. He could feel precum soaking a damp spot through his boxers.

“My tie isn’t ridiculous,” he managed, breathless.

“It’s completely ridiculous. I love it. I’d make you keep it on.” Wylan reached up and traced the edge of it down his torso and Jesper’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment.

His phone buzzed for the second time in his pocket. The emails had been released. 

“Want me to show you just how good I’d be for you?” Jesper demanded, and sank down to his knees. Wylan’s head fell back and he gasped in a breath when Jesper pressed a palm over him, massaging his erection through his perfectly pressed slacks. 

“Fuck. Jesper,” Wylan managed, and Jesper took that as a yes. He made quick work of the button and fly, then freed Wylan’s hard cock from soft, probably expensive boxer briefs. What were rich people underpants made of? Angora? Cashmere? It was smooth and luxurious  against Jesper’s face as he nuzzled and mouthed at the base of the shaft, then licked his way to the head and sucked on it like a lollipop. 

Wylan made an incoherent sound. “ Oh God.”

Jesper let his mouth slide down further, enjoying the taste of his cock, the firmness against his tongue. It was a very nice one– just long enough that Jesper got to choke on it a little without being so big that he couldn’t get to the base of it. 

He pushed the shirt and sweater vest up and tugged the trousers partway down, desperate to get his hands on more of that smooth, freckled skin. Wylan’s stomach was soft, his hips narrow, and his blush, to Jesper’s delight, really did go all the way down. There was a chime from Wylan’s phone, but Jesper flicked his tongue over the sensitive underside of the head and Wylan ignored it with a ragged groan. It chimed again. Again. Jesper took him all the way down until his nose pressed into coarse red curls, dragging his fingernails lightly down Wylan’s sides before drawing back. 

Then the phone rang. Once. Again. Jesper reached into Wylan’s pocket, turned it off– not an easy task one-handed while sucking dick– and tossed it away out of reach. 

“Missing– the rally–” Wylan gasped. His eyes were shut. “Looking for me.”

Jesper drew back, let his breath feather lightly over the head as he said, “They’ll manage without you. Just this once.” He brushed his lips over it in a kiss, then took Wylan back into his mouth and tapped on his thigh to get him to open his eyes. 

When he did, Jesper wrapped his hands around Wylan’s hips and pulled them forward to fuck into his mouth, looking up at him intently so that there was no doubt of what he meant. 

“Oh.” Wylan’s voice cracked on the syllable. He took an audible breath. “Yeah. They’ll be… just this once,” he said, and then began to move his hips, gaze locked on Jesper, lower lip caught between his teeth. Jesper kept his mouth soft, letting Wylan set the pace, saliva escaping his lips when Wylan pressed in– still going gently, not thrusting all the way into his throat until Jesper grabbed his hips again and took it all the way with a choking moan.

That seemed proof enough for Wylan. He began to fuck Jesper’s face in earnest with deep, steady strokes and frantic little gasps. He didn’t need to be stopped from messing with his hair the way a lot of white boys tended to do. Instead, Wylan’s hands cradled Jesper’s face. It was both sweet and very filthy, because he knew Wylan was feeling and getting off on the way his jaw worked and his cheeks hollowed around his cock. A tear slipped from the corner of Jesper’s eye when his throat convulsed slightly at a change in angle, and he felt Wylan’s thumb tenderly wipe it away. 

“Oh my god, you’re so good,” Wylan groaned. “So good. ”

The feeling that suffused him with those words, and with each messy thrust, was nothing like the razor adrenaline of a gunfight or the rush of the casino. It was brighter and more visceral than the sweet fog of opiates, headier than the buzz of liquor. It was the pure, exquisite rightness of being wanted, doing something right for once and letting someone else keep him from taking more than he should, because Jesper always wanted more of everything, more, more, more.  

“Do you want me to come soon or can I keep–” Wylan began, and Jesper pulled back enough to rasp,

“Unless you want to… don’t stop.”

“Fuck,” was Wylan’s inarticulate response, and he pushed slowly back into Jesper’s mouth with a moan. 

There was the approaching sound of a commotion outside, and Jesper could vaguely hear the words ‘Wylan’ and ‘disaster’ and ‘emails.’ The doors to the rooms on either side opened and closed; the knob rattled to their own locked door. Wylan began to pull away in alarm, but Jesper grabbed his hips and did something with his tongue that made Wylan’s knees nearly give out.

“What’s happening out there?” Wylan gasped. Jesper didn’t pause, wrapped his hands around Wylan’s thighs to keep him from losing his balance, and sucked harder. “Jesper– wait– stop.”

Jesper leaned back, gasping for breath, his hands tightening on Wylan’s thighs, keeping him from going to the door, from grabbing his phone. 

“Something’s wrong,” Wylan panted. “It’s not just the rally. They’re looking for me. I need to–”

“Let me. I’ll make it worth it, sweetheart,” Jesper begged. He didn’t want to have to restrain Wylan now, didn’t want to see the betrayal in his eyes.

But it was too late. Wylan was looking from him to the door in slow realization. “This– this is a distraction.” His eyes were still dilated, his thumb tracing Jesper’s lower lip. “You’re distracting me. From whatever’s going on out there.”

Jesper took a chance. “Do you really care right now?” he asked, his voice intense. 

“Do I care?” Wylan sounded frantic, dazed, and a little angry. “What’s even happening? Do you even want to be doing this?” 

“I absolutely want to be doing this. Everyone out there, including your father, is physically safe, okay? Please let me keep going.”

"You're not just–" Wylan stared down at him with an inarticulate gesture, looking bewildered but his eyes still dark and frantic with lust. His fingertips lightly touched Jesper’s face. 

Jesper shrugged sheepishly. “Technically I was supposed to tie you up and put you in a closet, does that answer your question?"

Wylan just stared at him for a moment, emotions warring in his eyes before he let them fall shut and his head tip backwards again. “Well, in that case.” He cupped Jesper’s face in his hands again and slid in, his thrusts a little more desperate, a little less tender. 

He’d thought this was just about the two of us. Just me wanting him so badly I couldn’t resist, Jesper thought guiltily, feeling a cold knot of regret forming in his stomach. And now he knows– and he still wants me– but he doesn’t think it’s about him anymore. It’s just quick, dirty sex now and before…before, it was something more than that. 

Jesper had taken away from Wylan exactly what he himself had just been savoring– the deep, validating thrill of being wanted.. 

Wylan came not long after, no longer holding back and savoring the pleasure, but chasing his climax with a single minded intensity. He came down Jesper’s throat with a cry that he muffled in his shirtsleeve. He stood there shakily for a long moment, eyes closed, panting, before he began to set his clothing right with trembling hands. Jesper reached out to help, but Wylan gently pushed his hands away. 

“Tell me what happened out there,” he said in a voice that was almost but not quite steady, almost but not quite distant. 

Jesper cleared his throat, wiped his mouth. “Emails from your father confirming bribes he’s agreed to were leaked online just before he came out to speak.”

Wylan was silent for a moment, his mouth tightening. “They’re not fakes?”

“No, they’re not.” He looked away, wishing he didn’t feel apologetic. He wasn’t, not about the emails. Not about the need to distract Wylan. But about the distance and emptiness in Wylan’s eyes… yeah. He felt shitty about that. 

“And the window when I could have handled the media questions and done some damage control–”

Jesper just shook his head. 

Wylan ran his hands over his face and through his hair. “He’s going to kill me.” Then, vaguely, “You know, I thought you didn’t seem like a political science major.” 

Jesper got to his feet. “College dropout hired by a guy who was hired by some Democrats to expose him,” he admitted. “You… don’t seem angry.” 

“I’m not sure how to feel. No one’s ever sucked my cock to keep me from giving a statement to the press before.”

“It worked,” Jesper said inanely, “And I really did enjoy–”

Wylan just held up a hand. “It’s okay. It was a whole lot better than– what did you say you were supposed to do? Tie me up and leave me somewhere?-- it sure beats that.” He smiled at Jesper a little sadly. “I wish we’d met under other circumstances.”

“Me too.” Jesper looked down. “I would have liked to have talked more. Gone slower. Hell, I’d have at least bought you a coffee first.”  

Wylan laughed very softly, and his eyes were very, very blue. Jesper looked away for a moment so he didn’t lose himself in them again. “That would have been nice.” Then, almost idly, “Is Jesper Fahey even your real name?” 

“Yeah.”

Wylan looked incredulous. “Had it crossed your mind that I could have reported you to the police after someone found me and untied me, you absolute idiot?”  

Jesper felt his cheeks heat. “Now that you mention it, I… think I was supposed to use a fake name?”

Wylan let out an exasperated breath. “You’re lucky I’m not angry.” He dragged his sleeve over his forehead, wiping away sweat. 

Jesper bit his lip and dared to ask. “Why aren’t you angry?”

Wylan shrugged. “What’s done is done. I know there’ll be consequences, but sometimes, when no matter how hard you try, it’s not enough…” He shook his head. “I’m not a good son. I’m not a good person. This sort of thing is what he expects of me, and, you know.” His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “I’d hate to disappoint him.” 

“Wylan…” Jesper trailed off, not sure what to say, heart aching for him.

He just shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t know me. If I was a better person, I wouldn’t be part of any of this. I’d be dead.” 

Wait. What?

“Can we unpack that a little or–” Jesper began to say uncertainly, but Wylan pressed a finger to his lips. 

“There’s something I need to do first before I go out there and face all this.”

Wylan walked past Jesper and pulled a chair out from the conference table, then pulled Jesper over and gently pushed him into it. Then he slowly, deliberately, bent towards him and began to unbutton Jesper’s shirt. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Jesper said weakly. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“No,” Wylan said. “I don’t. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me. I’m doing this because maybe what you did for me wasn’t real, but what I’m about to make you feel damn well will be.” He pulled the shirt from Jesper’s depressing khakis and pulled the collar from beneath the tie, leaving the tie loosened but still on as he pushed the shirt down off Jesper’s shoulders. His eyes devoured Jesper’s torso hungrily from his collarbones to the waistband of his pants, and Jesper futilely clenched his stomach in to try and make it look like he had abs. 

He did not have abs. Fortunately, he did have a still-hard cock, and Wylan eyed the bulge of it approvingly before getting to his knees and palming it through his pants. 

“You were very good for me,” Wylan said, looking up through his eyelashes in a way that told Jesper he had noticed both his promise to be good earlier and his reaction when Wylan had praised him. “Now I am going to make you beg.”

Well, fuck.   

He turned off his own phone and tossed it over beside Wylan’s.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Wylan said lightly, tracing the edge of the tie down Jesper’s chest with a fingertip. “You’ll crack the screen.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he muttered, most of his attention concentrated on Wylan’s touch on his skin and the intent look on his freckled, flushed, still-painted face. The disheveled curls, somewhere between copper and gold depending how the light hit them. The timbre of his voice. 

“It costs about two hundred dollars to replace those screens,” Wylan scolded. He followed the point of the tie down his abdomen, and traced torturously back up the other side. 

“I… know a guy who… who’ll do it for fifty bucks and an eighth of weed,” Jesper managed, and Wylan paused and raised his eyebrows. 

“Well, what do you know. Crime does pay.”

Wylan’s hands had finally moved to the button of Jesper’s pants, and he held his breath, lifted his hips as Wylan slid both his khakis and the boxers beneath down in one go. 

For a brief moment he felt guilty about sitting in a convention center chair with his bare ass, but then Wylan stroked his hands up Jesper’s thighs and he forgot all about that. Slowly, Wylan pushed them apart and Jesper melted at that sheer, firm purposeful motion. Wylan shoved Jesper’s pants lower, to his ankles, then moved forward until his torso was between Jesper’s legs. Then he looked up at him.

“How do you like it?” he asked, and Jesper gulped in a breath. 

“Want to watch,” he managed. “Your mouth has been driving me crazy all day. Can I touch your hair? Run my fingers through it?”

Wylan’s expression became a little less intense, and something warm flickered in his eyes for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “You like to watch my mouth, huh? Do you like to be teased?”

Jesper cleared his throat and nodded. Why did this moment, in a bland meeting room during a Republican rally, feel almost uncomfortably intimate? He’d never had any trouble voicing his preferences before. 

He wasn’t sure anyone had ever listened to them with their eyes so intent and determined. As if he was handing them the key to something they desperately wanted. He’d never thought of himself as the sort of person who needed a key to be opened.

Wylan caressed Jesper’s thighs, watched his cock twitch and a drop of arousal bead at the tip.Then he leaned forward, caught it on his lower lip and used the head of Jesper’s cock to spread it until his mouth shone with it. 

“Am I going to survive this?” Jesper breathed. 

Wylan smiled angelically up at him. “No.”

He went slow, torturously slow, barely brushing his lips against the head, the shaft, tracing a vein with the very tip of his tongue so softly and exquisitely it made Jesper’s entire body jump. Jesper said something that was not a word so much as a collection of sounds, and Wylan grinned, bright and wicked, before delicately tonguing the sensitive frenulum, one hand closing on Jesper’s hip, grounding him. 

Wylan loved this, he realized, watching the curve of his mouth, the glint in his eyes, and the focused way he wrapped the other hand around the base of Jesper’s shaft and lowered his head. 

His mouth was hot and wet and soft and incredibly gentle. Jesper couldn’t, wouldn't look away. He fought to keep his head from falling back and his eyes from closing, because those incredible lips were wrapped around his cock, sliding the tiniest fraction of an inch lower with every slow suck. 

By the time Jesper could feel Wylan’s throat flutter around the head of his cock, he was covered in sweat, hands clenched in the hem of his unbuttoned shirt, barely breathing.

Then, just as Jesper thought he was going to begin the blowjob in earnest, he pulled off and sucked one of Jesper’s balls into his mouth instead. He moaned desperately, twining his fingers into Wylan’s curls and trying to gently guide his head back. Instead, Wylan hummed in pleasure at the touch and the vibration made Jesper gasp sharply. 

Then Wylan brought his mouth back to Jesper’s cock and a choked cry escaped him as Wylan swallowed him down and began sucking hard and fast, the hand on Jesper’s hip tightening almost bruisingly and the other moving in unison with his mouth. It was beautiful-perfect-filthy and took him completely off guard. Quickly, too quickly, Jesper found himself on the raw edge of climax and gasped, his hands clenching in Wylan’s hair. 

“Going to–”

Cold air and the throbbing, almost painful lack of touch. Wylan had pulled back, looking smug. “Please,” Jesper gasped. “Baby, please.” He bit his lip, straining, not wanting to lose that incandescent moment, and groaned as it slipped away. “Please. Please, your mouth feels so good. So fucking perfect and I was so close.”

Wylan made a soft hum of approval. “Oh, you do beg nicely.” He leaned forward again and licked the flat of his tongue over the head, a slow, indulgent stroke. Heat seared all the way down to Jesper’s bones. 

“Fuck, please.” It was a ragged whine. Wylan smiled and oh, thank God, thank God, he took Jesper into his mouth again and resumed. Jesper tried not to jerk his hips and press up into Wylan’s mouth– wasn’t sure if he succeeded because Wylan chose that moment to take him as far down as he could go. It wasn’t all the way, not quite, but it was enough to make Jesper’s vision flash and his hands clench tight. 

“Yesyes yes –” He gasped, struggling to keep his eyes open, not willing to miss a moment of Wylan’s mouth stretched around his cock, cheeks hollowing around it. He slipped a hand down from Wylan’s hair and dragged a thumb over the flag painted on his cheek, defaced it with a visceral delight. 

Wylan was taking Jesper apart, doing something with his tongue on every upstroke that Jesper would have wanted to learn– would have tried to pay attention to precisely what it was if he’d been able to focus for more than half a second at a time. Instead, he was lost in hot suction and pleading whimpers and the ripples of arching tension dragging him closer and closer and fuck–

“I–” 

Wylan pulled off and Jesper made an incoherent sound, shaking, so close so close–

“Please.” This time his voice was more of a sob, and he tugged at Wylan’s hair, getting a gasp in response. Everything in his body was focused on his cock, throbbing and leaking and almost, almost–

“Good boy,” Wylan praised him, making something in his chest thrill sharply. “Do you want to come now?”

“Yes,” Jesper said so quickly that the word was barely recognizable. “Yes please Wylan please–” 

Wylan tugged Jesper’s hips forward and pulled him to the edge of the seat. Then sucked two fingers into his mouth, pushed Jesper’s thighs wider until the stretch was a faint sweet burn in the muscles, and pressed his fingertips to Jesper’s rim. 

“Can I?” he asked.

“Oh God yes, fuck me with your fingers, please,” he babbled, then, “Nnngh. Guh,” as Wylan slid them in, slow and gentle but not stopping until they were all the way to the knuckle. Jesper momentarily ascended to another plane of existence. His mouth fell open in a silent cry and his eyes squeezed shut for a moment. 

“So pretty. So good. Take my fingers so well. You’d take my cock even better. But since we can’t…” Wylan curved his fingers and Jesper’s entire body clenched. He nearly bit his tongue. He was there again, hurtling toward the edge, and Wylan wrapped his hand around Jesper’s wrist and brought Jesper’s hand to his aching cock. Jesper didn’t think, just tightened it and jerked himself hard and fast. Wylan swirled his tongue around the head, thrust and curled his fingers. Tongued the slit– and Jesper was shattering, unravelling, dying every beautiful, perfect death. It took every bit of willpower for him to cling to the edge long enough, but he managed to choke out the words first–

“On your face can I-, oh God–”

“Yes.”

And that was it. Jesper came so hard it punched the breath out of his lungs in harsh grunts, his hand tight and frantic, Wylan’s fingers curling inside him again, rapturously good. And he watched, watched as the come shot from his cock, thick ribbons of it defiling the smeared painted flag and that gorgeous mouth. Spasm after aching, convulsing spasm, painting Wylan’s freckles and his closed eyelids and catching in his long lashes. He would remember this sight forever. He would burn with satisfaction every time he remembered it. He’d never seen anything as mind-meltingly hot as this. 

Then he dissolved bonelessly into the meeting room chair, floating, drifting. He thought he heard himself moan quietly, almost a whimper. Oversensitivity prickled through him in shivers as Wylan softly licked him clean. 

Wylan’s smug expression was a delight. It was even more of a delight, however, when he began to wipe his face off and then looked in dismay at the smudge of mingled face paint and come on his hand. “Oh, shit,” he swore in realization, and Jesper began to giggle helplessly. 

Wylan shoved Jesper’s leg, scowling and smearing facepaint on his knee. “You should talk. Look at you. Put your pants back on and quit distracting me with how debauched you look.”

“I’ve never heard anyone use the word debauched in a sentence before,” Jesper said absently. Wylan sighed and began to pull Jesper’s pants up himself. Jesper was limp, pliant, utterly willing to be manhandled. Wylan made an incredulous sound and stopped with Jesper’s pants halfway up his thighs. 

“Dare I ask why your pocket is filled with mayonnaise packets?” He held one up, now rummaging through the other pockets with an expression of increasing disbelief and piling the contents on the floor. “No wallet. No keys. Six dollars, a receipt for… a Monster energy drink, and eight mayonnaise packets . You know what? Don’t tell me. I’m just going to judge you.”

Jesper dragged himself out of well-fucked lassitude just enough to pull his pants on fully. “Judge away, darling. And give me back the mayonnaise and my money. You can keep the receipt.”

“No thanks.” Wylan stood now and was looking around the room wildly. 

“What’re you looking for?”

Wylan shot him a petulant glare. “Something to clean my face off with so I can repaint the flag. I don’t see any tissues, I don’t have a handkerchief…”

“Uhhh… “ Jesper considered this. “Do you want one of my socks?”

“A sock?” For a second Wylan looked offended, then he burst into helpless laughter. “I’m locked in a room with a political saboteur with his pockets full of mayonnaise who is offering me one of his socks. To wipe cum off my face. What the hell happened to my life?”

“It got a whole lot more interesting, darling.” Jesper rose to his feet and joined Wylan in searching the room. “There’s one of those little notepads with hotel paper over here. You could use the paper?”

“Better than nothing,” Wylan decided and grabbed the pad from Jesper. He tore off a piece and licked it to wet it, which should not have been cute. Objectively, it wasn’t cute. But Jesper was having a very hard time being objective watching Wylan, still flushed and rumpled, trying to wipe Jesper’s come off his face.

“Here,” he muttered, and took the paper from Wylan’s hand, carefully tracing the planes and curves of Wylan’s face with it as he cleaned it off the best he could. It took several pages, and it was hard to make himself wipe the bruised cheek hard enough to get not just the come but also the grease paint off. Wylan allowed his ministrations, closing his eyes. Jesper could almost think that he was savoring any last bits of gentle touch that he could get before he returned to the ugliness of the world outside. But that was a ridiculous thought– Jesper was a disgusting, hopeless romantic and Wylan would probably be relieved to never see him again so that he could turn around and pick up the pieces this job had left his life in. 

His mouth was beautiful. Jesper gave into the urge to lick the last bit of come off his lower lip, pulling away quickly as Wylan gasped. 

“There,” he said quickly, dropping the paper on the table and stepping back. “You should be good to paint the flag back on, dar– Wylan.” He swallowed. 

“Thanks.” 

Wylan crossed the room and retrieved the paints and brush from where they’d been scattered. Then, with quick, careless motions, he painted a flag on his face. This one was not detailed and beautifully rippling. It was angry streaks of color over an angrier bruise, the most minimal pretense. 

Jesper ached from more than just kneeling on the floor. 

“Are you sure you can’t–” he began.

“Can’t what?” Wylan asked harshly. “Leave? He’d find me. He’s got ways to make me come back.”

“Even if you got, I don’t know, a fake ID…?” Jesper ventured. 

Wylan snorted. “Yeah, it would be really unnoticeable, me asking around to find out how I could get a fake ID at 24. I get that subtlety isn’t your strength– and don’t get me wrong, shoving my cock down your throat was a very effective means of keeping me here, so I can’t fault your choices there – but it’s pretty obvious that there are no innocent reasons that I’d need one.” He paused, then clarified. “A fake ID. Not a blowjob.”

“Well.” Jesper shifted on his feet and he knew what he was about to say was a bad idea. Kaz would probably kill him. But Kaz hadn’t killed him yet, not even the time Jesper had accidentally left a tuna fish sandwich in Kaz’s glove box, which had been pretty indisputably unforgivable. “I know someone who has some connections. Who could get you a fake ID, or probably could anyway.”

Wylan went very, very still. Then slowly he turned. “Let me get this right. You’re saying that if I run away with you, you can actually help me get free of my father for good?”

Jesper winced. “I mean, you don’t have to run away with me , with me, not unless you want that. I’ll get you in touch with the people whether or not you want to see me again. It’s not about– just–  no one should have to put up with being hit. So, well… yeah. Yeah, I can do some stuff. Help you get free of him. I think. If you want?”

The next thing he knew, he’d been hit in the chest and he barely managed to catch his balance before he realized that the weight that had hit him was Wylan and Wylan was pulling his head down and kissing him so hard Jesper nearly cut his lip on his own teeth. 

“The things. I would do. To your body. Right now,” Wylan ground out between kisses passionate and wild enough to make Jesper’s head spin. 

“Fuck,” Jesper panted when Wylan finally pulled away. “Okay, well, the feeling’s mutual. But not just out of gratitude and not in a convention center with no condoms, no lube, no bed, no rope, no whipped cream, no chocolate covered strawberries, no champagne, no candles, no mirrors, no roaring fireplace, no bearskin rugs, no pot, no hot tubs, no lingerie, no fishnets, no ice, no towels, no tequila shots, no handcuffs, no blindfolds, no remote control vibrators, no handcuffs, no butt plugs, no nipple clamps, no featherdusters–” 

Wylan made an exasperated sound. “Yeah, you know what else you don’t have any of?” 

“What?”

“Decency.” His voice was amused, his eyes warm. “Shouldn’t you wait until at least the third date until you bring out the nipple clamps?”

“This from a man who met me this morning and was fucking my throat half an hour ago?” Jesper raised an eyebrow. 

“I think I did a very decent job of that, but I take your point,” Wylan conceded. He stepped away to pick their phones up off the floor. “I don’t think I want to turn this back on,” he decided, shoving it in his pocket and handing Jesper his.

“I need to turn mine back on,” Jesper said glumly, and did so to be deluged by a storm of texts from Kaz. 

Why are you still in the convention center?

Get out

Goddammit, Jesper, why is your phone turned off

Why haven’t you left

You’d better not have gotten caught, you asshole

Jesper

Jesper Fahey

Jesper Llewelyn Fahey

Jesper Llewelyn STUPID MOTHERFUCKER Fahey

GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THE CONVENTION CENTER

Turn on your damn phone before I have to come find you

Quickly he typed back, “Sorry about the phone” and then, “How did you know where I was?”

About a second and a half later, it rang.

“I knew because your SIM card can be tracked even when your phone is off,” Kaz said from the speaker, not even bothering with a greeting. “I’ve told you that a hundred times.” Even the frustration in his voice was not quite enough to hide the relief. 

“I’m sorry. How did the release go?”

“Exactly as planned.” Jesper could hear the sound of typing in the background. “The rally was a disaster. Van Eck had a nuclear meltdown when the press surrounded him after. It’s already aired on several news sites. I’m waiting until that one starts trending before releasing the audio recording.”

“Great. I’m on my way back now. Bringing a plus one.” He winked at Wylan.

“If it’s that fucking Van Eck Instagram kitten that’s taking all the views, I’m drowning it,” Kaz growled. 

Jesper snorted. “Larger than a kitten.”

There was a beat of silence, then a menacing, “Jesper...”

“Turning off my phone again!” he said quickly and cheerily. “See you soon! Kthanksbye!” He ended the call and quickly shut the phone off. Wylan gave him a sidelong look, but said nothing. 

They got out via the fire escape. There was no way there wouldn’t be press at every entrance, but Wylan had seen the building plans of the center when planning the event and apparently had a near photographic memory. After a mad dash through unused halls in the part of the center that the campaign had not rented out and an awkward collision with a janitorial worker, the two of them emerged from the second-floor fire escape and scrambled down into the alley. Wylan was sweating and breathing hard, because normal people probably didn’t run up and down stairs several times a day to manage their anxiety. 

Kaz had set up in an office complex a block down from the center, in a portion of the building that had previously housed an insurance agency and was now for rent. Wylan’s eyes widened when Jesper opened a door that should have been locked to find a lobby that was bare of furniture except for the reception area, where Kaz and Nina had created a set up with laptops, card tables, folding chairs, and a power strip. A radio scanner tuned to the police communication frequency was chattering away in the corner, and Nina was loudly slurping the last of her Starbucks coffee from the bottom of the cup. 

As always, they looked ridiculously incongruous next to each other. Nina was dressed in a colorful patterned sundress that did nothing to hide her round voluptuousness, her curls tied back with a crimson scarf and her shoes and purse on the floor beside her. Kaz sat rigidly bent over his own keyboard in stark black, working intensely. Jesper had once printed out a Victorian cautionary pamphlet he’d found online about the dangers of masturbation and shown Kaz the engraving, a dramatic illustration of a pale, skinny, hollow-eyed young man.

“Look familiar?” he’d asked. “Maybe we should talk about your habit of self-abuse.”

Then he’d sensibly run away while Nina and Inej cracked up laughing. Framed copies of it kept appearing on Kaz’s wall mysteriously for months alongside his five-year-old Wanted poster from New Mexico and a stolen landscape painting from some Dutch master or other until Kaz gave up and stopped throwing it away. 

"Jes! Five networks have already aired the footage and we're at 60k Instagram views and counting– um." Nina's words came to an abrupt halt as she turned to look at him and saw Wylan. 

Kaz didn't bother to look up. "He's going to be harder to drown than the kitten," he rasped, and Wylan looked utterly horrified and offended– more, Jesper suspected, at the suggestion of drowning a kitten than his own hypothetical murder. 

"What kitten?" he demanded, and Jesper put a quieting hand on his arm. 

"No one's drowning anyone. Kaz, I can explain."

"This should be entertaining." Kaz's eyes never left the screen, his typing not slowing. 

"He needs our help to get away from his father for good. He needs an ID. He's willing to pay for it. He's not like Van Eck; he wants out." Jesper spread his hands. He but back the urge to mention the abuse; Kaz was going to make this hard enough. Jesper wasn't going to open the door to snide remarks about the poor little rich boy whose daddy hit him sometimes. 

"Why is this my problem?" Kaz asked. "So he wants to quit his job. You don't need a new identity for that. If he'd embezzled money from campaign funds or sold secrets, I'd know about it by now and we'd have been able to blackmail him instead of sending your stupid ass in there."

Nina tilted her head to the side, then smirked. "You've got something on your collar," she told Wylan smugly. 

Jesper turned and his eyes moved from Wylan's expression of confusion to the bit of come clinging to his collar that neither of them had seen until that moment. 

"Alfredo sauce," he blurted out. "We went out for Italian food."

Nina snorted and raised an amused eyebrow at Jesper as Wylan frantically wiped at his collar. 

"He needs our help because Van Eck isn't just going to let him quit that easily. Come on, Kaz, just think of how much it'll fuck with his campaign to lose Wylan for good right before the primaries!"

"It'll be great. I'll print him out the section of employment law that entitles an employee to quit their job. Best wishes for your future career, hopefully not working for an actual fascist. I'll mail you the printout. Shut the door behind you before I change my mind and decide it's too much of a risk to let you leave knowing our location and descriptions." Kaz stopped typing and looked up at Wylan coldly.

Jesper hated the fact that for Kaz, this was actually not unkind. He opened his mouth to argue, but Wylan spoke first.

"You have the connections to know I haven't embezzled money. Do you have the connections to expose my father's complicity in my murder?"

Both Jesper and Nina turned to stare at him. The expressionless look he'd had when speaking with his father was back.

There was a faint creak as Kaz leaned back in his chair. "Interesting. So that's why you need a new identity? You're planning on faking your death and pinning it on him, and you think you're entitled to our help?"

Wylan gave a single humorless laugh. "Faking," he said, "won't be necessary. If I make him look bad by leaving the campaign, he'll personally see to it that I die a suitably tragic death. He'd have killed me years ago when he sent me off to college if Alys hadn't been pregnant at the time. He didn't want to upset her and risk her losing the baby. So he allowed me to study and made a deal with me. I could get my "frivolous, useless music degree" if I came home to work for him when I'd graduated." He crossed his arms. "It's not an idle threat. He's had me… hurt before, badly, as a warning, when I've threatened to leave the campaign. He'd do it. He says my life belongs to him. He's provided me with a comfortable living situation, an expensive education, a good job, and I'm allowed to travel, see appropriate friends, and even, as he puts it, 'indulge my predilections as long as I don't make a spectacle of myself.' If I don't pay off his investment in me, he's got a damn good life insurance policy on me he'd love to collect."

He leveled a faint, self deprecating smile at Kaz. "So no, I'm not entitled to your help. I've spent my life in aid of a disgusting, bigoted political movement. I lie to make him look good every day because my own self preservation means more to me than the lives of the people I'm helping to hurt. I'm not a good person or a helpless victim. But you should consider the insurance payoff and sympathy votes he'll get if I die before you rule out helping me get that ID."

Jesper felt sick. If I was a good person, I'd be dead, Wylan had said earlier. This was what he'd meant. That he believed a better person would have chosen to die rather than survive. 

Kaz was looking at Wylan, an unreadable expression on his face. Then he gave a slight nod and brought his hands back to the keyboard to begin typing again. 

"It'll take about a week," he said shortly. "There'll be paperwork, hacking a couple databases. I'll need to reach out to contacts for some of it. Lay low. Get rid of your cell phone, destroy your credit cards. Don't contact anyone. Don't even go outdoors."

Wylan visibly melted with relief. "You'll do it," he said. Jesper reached for his hand and Wylan squeezed it tightly. 

Kaz didn't bother to answer. "Wylan Van Eck needs to vanish from the face of the earth. I hope you didn’t have any particularly close friends, because as far as they’ll be concerned, you’re going to go permanently missing. Any preference of a new name?” 

Wylan bit his lip. “My mother’s maiden name was Hendricks–” 

“Too obvious." Kaz shook his head. "Pick something else. New first name too. The name Wylan combined with your face will be noticed. I suggest something that starts with a similar sound. Makes it easier to answer to. Wyatt or Wiley or, I don’t know. Wyoming.” 

Nina snorted and Wylan rolled his eyes. “I am not answering to Wyoming. I could tolerate Wyatt, maybe,” he conceded.

“Great. Last name?” Kaz typed, clicked, friend slightly at the screen.

Wylan groaned. “I wouldn’t name a pet on the spur of the moment, I’m not naming myself that quickly either. Give me a few hours.” 

Kaz's mouth tightened. “The quicker we start putting this switch in motion, the quicker you’ll be safe from being discovered.” 

“Kaz," Jesper interrupted, "Not everyone is able to just give up the name they were born with and choose a new one at the drop of a hat.”

“I did. So can he.” 

“Yeah but you’re a sociopath.” 

Kaz smirked faintly. “Not by DSM criteria.” 

“He’s not," Nina confirmed. "I checked." Wylan made a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone trying to suppress laughter. 

“Fine, you’re just an asshole then!" Jesper let go of Wylan's hand to throw both his hands in the air and begin pacing. His skin itched from staying still so long. 

"I’m using your money to pay for his new ID."

“I have my own money," Wylan protested. "He doesn’t have to–”

“Your bank account records will be checked. Any ATM withdrawals will be investigated and pinpointed to find your last known location. And a large withdrawal just before you vanish will make it obvious you planned your disappearance. Jesper made a good chunk of money on this job; the audio footage from the bug will get us even more. He can afford it.” 

Wylan turned to Jesper, looking apologetic. “I’ll get some sort of job. I’ll pay you back.” 

Kaz nodded agreement. “You can, you know. Most companies are shit about providing accommodations, but screen reader and voice to text programs are free.” 

“Yeah, I already–” Wylan began to say, then stopped. “You know .” 

Kaz stretched out his leg with a wince, not pausing whatever he was doing that made him glare at the computer screen. “The Belendt college disability office doesn’t pay very well, and none of the money your father paid to keep it quiet actually went to the administrative staff.”

Jesper glanced from one of them to the other. “What am I missing here?” 

Wylan swallowed hard, not looking at Jesper. “I can’t read or write.”

Kaz let out a reproachful scoff. “Call it what it is. Orthographic dyslexia and dysgraphia. You’re a college graduate. If you go around saying you ‘can’t read or write,’ people are going to think your degree is fake, and since the new one will be fake…” 

“You’re faking me a college degree.” Wylan's expression shifted from uncomfortable to flat out disbelieving. 

Kaz shrugged. “Necessary for a decent-paying job outside the skilled trades. Used to have a fake one myself. If Jesper’s going to whore himself out to the offspring of the right-wing elite, the offspring of the right-wing elite better to be able to afford him.”

Jesper stopped pacing and turned to give Kaz a dark look. “Now hold on just a minute–”

“Jesper is not–” Wylan started to say at the same time. 

Kaz cut them off. “You don’t spend years working for scum like that without taking some less than savory values and beliefs with you when you walk away. Trust me. I should know.” 

"If it helps," Nina told Wylan, who still looked livid with rage, "Right wing elite is a worse insult than whore, coming from him. We love and support sex workers in this house, don't we, Kaz ?"

Kaz quirked an eyebrow. "I don't love or support anyone unless there's something in it for me. Sex workers are no better or worse than anyone else. Van Eck, until you decide what your new name is, you get a temporary printout ID with a stand-in name. What's your height and weight?"

Wylan gave it, looking bemused. “Is he always like this?” he asked Jesper.

"Yes, I am," Kaz answered for him "Organ donor?"

"I guess?" 

"The organ donation will be happening sooner rather than later if you try to learn absolutely anything about our operation. I can and will sell every cell in your body on the dark web if you start trying to play double agent."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Jesper muttered, rolling his eyes. "You will not ."

"And if you start running your mouth to him, you'll be taken out of the loop for your own safety. Got it?" Kaz meet his eyes and he squirmed and nodded. 

"I might be able to help," Wylan ventured. "If you're doing the kind of work I think you are, taking down people like my father… I'd like to help."

"Send any political dirt you have on your father's friends to me via Jesper. Other than that, I don't have any use for you." Kaz smiled faintly but smugly and the printer made a quiet sound. Jesper reached for the paper it spat out and found a temporary Department of Transportation license for Dick Wyoming with a picture of Wylan's face on it. He sighed and passed it to Wylan, who let out a heavy breath and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose as if to stave off a headache. 

"Nina, what do our views look like?"

"Climbing. Also, I've prepared a meme for when the recording comes out." Nina turned her computer screen so they could see the Instagram kitten– Jesper felt a bit of vindication to see that before taking the photo, Brad had indeed returned the kitten to its mother and littermates, who were a pile of striped and calico fur in the background. Over the Van Eck badge, Nina had photoshopped a black power fist, and it was captioned, #fuckvaneck.

"I could kiss you," Jesper told Nina with a grin, then his eyes strayed to Wylan, who also liked approving, and wondered how long it would be until he has the chance to kiss him, or even better, to make that hashtag a reality.

"Co-opting the kitten. Nice," Kaz rasped. 

Jesper was suddenly hit by the memory of Wylan's words earlier, telling him he was good and beautiful, telling him he begged nicely– nope, better stop thinking about that. He swallowed hard. 

And now Wylan was looking at him. Knowingly. 

"We should go," he said, those blue eyes glinting wickedly. "I think Jesper's blood sugar is getting low."

"My… what?" Jesper blinked. 

"I think you could use some more Italian food," Wylan said pointedly, and Jesper could hear Nina muffling laughter.

"You'd better Door Dash it," Kaz said absently, his attention back on his laptop. "He can't be seen in public, remember."

"Ah, yeah," Jesper said, swallowing his own laughter. "Of course."

His and Wylan's eyes met, and he grabbed the other man's hand, calluses sliding over soft skin. He tugged lightly, and Wylan followed him out the door.