#trans crows

Marya blinks, certain her face betrays the surprise she feels. For a moment she is struck by this boy’s similarity to Jan — the same long nose, the same clear blue eyes — except he has the same ruddy gold curls that she does. 

“I’m looking for my daughter,” she says slowly. 

The boy shifts from foot to foot. He looks uncomfortable. He looks — afraid. Marya feels a fierce aching yearn to step up close and comfort him. When he breathes, it comes too short, and Marya isn’t certain that he notices. 

He clears his throat. 

“It’s me, Ma.” His voice is low and rough, scratchy like he’s on the verge of tears. But it’s melodious, and Marya hears the hint of laughter and song that she never once forgot. He coughs again, and — in an apprehensive whisper — adds, “I’m — I’m your son, now.”

Oh, Marya thinks, so it is. 

She nods, slowly, trying to hold herself back from sprinting across the room and pulling him close, too wary of how he might react. Each time she blinks she sees the image of her little darling, superimposed onto this young man’s nervous frame. The loss of eight years stings, visible in every new inch of him that has grown without her seeing. He is entirely different, but the same baby she loved. 

She missed her baby so, so much. 

“Darling,” Marya whispers, feeling tears prickle in the corner of her eyes. He sniffles, and nods, and has tears in his eyes to match. 

Marya steps close, lifting her hands up to cup his face. It’s flushed and pink and he seems so scared, but nothing about him is unfamiliar. She did this every day when he was a child, rubbing loving hands over his freckled face and trying to make sure he knew how adored he was. He’s changed and grown and she loves him, and — 

“You’ve grown up so much,” she manages. He sniffles, vaguely laughing, and rubs tears out of his eyes. Marya holds back a smile, too overwhelmed to name the feeling in her chest. She wants to know him. “What’s your name?” 

“Ice cream,” Jesper offers, only just barely able to remember the thought that pulled him out of bed. 

“Scoop some for me, too?”

Nothing in the world could make him say no. 

So he goes to the freezer and tugs out the tub – strawberry ice cream because that’s Wylan’s favourite and Jesper never has the heart to say no when he smiles and asks for it all sweet like he did. Jesper prefers caramels, rich chocolates, mint choc-chip. Not strawberry. Nothing that sweet. He’d still bought it, because that’s what Wylan wanted. He would have done anything Wylan wanted; anything at all. He still will. 

Then he turns and sees Wylan leaning back against the counter across the room, hands perched on the edge of it and soundlessly tapping, tapping, tapping. His legs are crossed, hooked at the ankle, careless and taunting with how easy he stands.

At least, Jesper stupidly thinks, he doesn’t have his hands in his shorts anymore.

Jesper looks away.

When he blinks the sight that greets him behind his shut eyelids is Wylan. Wylan’s bare chest. The soft dip of his stomach and the curving cut of his waist. The neat little scars arcing beneath his nipples that are on show now and every day of this saintforsaken heatwave because Wylan is happy being on show. And Jesper doesn’t mind, Jesper is happy for him, Jesper is truly glad that Wylan can be his whole authentic self now even if his whole authentic self is gorgeous enough to give him a crisis while he tries to portion out ice cream into their chipped ceramic bowls. One has a cat on it. The other is painted with daisies. 

It’s hard to breathe. 

The fan runs constantly on the counter beside them. When it hits Jesper it ruffles the loose fabric of his tank top. Then it turns again, and leaves him sweating worse than before. 

He stands and shovels out scoops of strawberry ice cream for them both, thinking far more about all the freckles dotted along Wylan’s ribs than the sickly sweet way the ice cream will taste on his tongue. There are more freckles now because Wylan has been out in the sun all summer, before the heatwave pushed him indoors. They crawl up his throat – and now Jesper’s thinking about the curve that his throat makes, the curve that Jesper wants to tuck his face into and maybe lick his tongue along, even if he’d end up suffocating in heat like this. 

He can’t breathe. 

It’s a heady thought. He wonders, absently, if the heat in his veins is just the heat, or if he’s going to need to readjust to make sure his own loose shorts stay loose. Maybe it’s wrong to be getting turned on at the thought of his best friend – his roommate – his Wylan – just standing around their kitchen, sweating, looking like that. Shirtless. Gorgeous. Way, way too kissable.

Jesper glances back in time to see Wylan rub his hand over the back of his bare neck, to the place his red hair curls. He’d whined about cutting it, but it’s still too long. In all likelihood, he could tie it up into a tiny little ponytail. It leaves Jesper wanting to run his fingers through it. Maybe hook around the back of his head. Maybe tug. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Wylan asks. 

“I’m fucking melting,” Jesper replies, scared in short seconds that he’s been caught. His pathetic fucking crush. Wylan just snorts. It makes irritation spark in Jesper’s chest – but he doesn’t think irritation is the right word. He scowls anyway. “Go put on some fucking clothes, kid.”

“I’m in my own home,” comes Wylan’s equally irritated reply. “Go fuck yourself.”

Jesper hears the hidden hurt beneath his words, because by now he knows Wylan well enough to see it. Not at first glance, but Wylan never lets anyone see anything immediately. He’s a crafty son of a bitch. 

He hides plenty – but not the span of his back or the freckles covering it, not the little tulip he has tattooed on his ribs, not the stretch marks on his hips or the sight of his collarbone – and Jesper has to work to see it. He sees it now – along with the aching spread of his body that Jesper wants to touch, maybe needs to touch, can’t touch when it’s this damn sweltering – because the note of anxiety on the corners of Wylan’s words betrays him. 

It’s a tiny part of him that clearly doesn’t believe Jesper really wants to see him like this at all. That his body makes Jesper uncomfortable. It’s the part of him still laced up with a little bit of shame for no good reason, that curves his shoulders in a slouch a bit more reclusive than his usual habit, although he tends to slouch all the time anyway. He slouches more now, like he can put himself away without really caving and getting a t-shirt. 

The fan blows hot air against Jesper’s face. It reminds him of the sticky pool of sweat at the base of his own throat, on his clavicle. Behind his knees. On his navel. He needs a cold shower, for more reasons than one.

Everything is silent, save for the steady, endless drone of the fan. 

“I’m being an asshole,” Jesper says, because it’s true. Wylan says nothing. “Sorry. It’s too hot.” 

Jesper watches Wylan. Wylan watches him back. He stares, still quiet. The fan drones on. 

Moving carefully, Wylan shifts his shoulders back enough to show the long lines of his chest to the rest of the world. Jesper wants – and wants, and wants – to step up to him and touch, maybe even kiss them. He feels guilty. He thinks he’d do anything – anything – to make his amends.

“Take off your shirt and stop complaining, then,” Wylan mutters. 

In weather like this, it feels like a challenge. 

Jesper’s heart thuds a little dangerously, but it’s all a little dangerous. Over-exertion, heat exhaustion, whatever, whatever. A kick in his pulse that’ll kill him, he thinks, already pushed too far with the way the air around them cloys sticky and heavy with humidity and need.