#also wanted to draw twilight saying ‘aw shucks’ like the farmer boy he is

[the-phantom-peach]

misc. scribblings of my three favorite zelda games bc I found a nice pencil that’s really fun

[kindness-ricochets]

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Republican National Convention

Corporalki: @monomads @sixofass @nightofviolet

Materialki: @ravenclawsandbeak [x] @incredible-disasters [x] @lystandthefandoms [x]  @plasticbattleaxe [x] 

Summary: Jesper and Wylan meet at a farmers’ convention and, long story short, they might have to overthrow the government.

Jesper was supposed to spend spring break at Nina’s—then a joint turned up in his backpack and his da decided he was coming to the convention instead. He’s miserable and bored until a chance encounter with a shy artist. He never expected to meet someone sweet, gorgeous, and interested in him in the middle of Iowa.

There’s just one tiny problem: Wylan’s father is nationally prominent and openly homophobic.

Ao3 Link 

JESPER

It all started with a joint—a single joint that wasn't even his, that he was only holding for a friend and seeing as he wasn't even friends with that guy anymore, Jesper Fahey was of the opinion that any consequences at all constituted an overreaction. He hadn't said that. He had said it wasn't his, but his da wasn't hearing a word of it. Didn't give Jesper a chance to explain himself, to point out his six months of sobriety and that he was different since leaving rehab. One joint that wasn't even his and Jesper lost any trust he had earned over the past six months. One joint that wasn't even his and instead of spending spring break with his friends, he was spending it at a farming convention. Even though it wasn't Jesper's. Even though he voluntarily took an over-the-counter drug test and proved he was sober. And, sure, he had also got himself a little over-involved in a couple of friendly card games back in December. He wasn't perfect by a far cry, but he wasn't using again. Part of him knew the smart thing to do was behave. Make a point of behaving. But he was bored and felt overwhelmingly stalled as he lay in the dark hotel room, listening to his da snore and staring at the steady light on the smoke detector until he just couldn't . He pushed back the covers and slipped from the room.

Padding down the hallway, Jesper reflected that he probably should have worn his shoes. Or at least his socks. But going back for them risked waking Colm. Jesper had left a note, but he was fairly certain going down to the hotel lobby wasn’t allowed. Doing anything besides sitting in the room watching TV wasn’t allowed. He wasn’t even allowed to eat the stupid M&M’s in the mini-bar! He wished he could have texted Nina about the injustice, her response might have cheered him up, but he couldn't. His phone had been taken away.

Anyway, he didn’t want to worry Colm, who was clearly just as nervous as Jesper was frustrated.    

The elevator doors slid open with a ding and a near-blinding light. Jesper blinked and squinted as he stepped inside—cold, cold elevator floor! Cold!—and jabbed the button for the lobby. When they first arrived, he had been surprised by how non-partisan the lobby was; it seemed like every storefront back home had a poster in it reminding everyone that the election was just a few short months away. Maybe neutrality was a better business practice in Polk County, which tended to go blue by a narrow margin.

Just off the lobby was a cocktail lounge currently in the throes of a swanky, mildly raging party. There were an awful lot of suits in there, gingerly holding glasses of liquid fun. Maybe he could have snuck in, were he not wearing his track pants and a t-shirt sporting his school mascot (“Cornhuskers - Shuck ‘em!”).  

With a sigh, he resigned himself to Starbucks. Would they even serve him in this outfit? The two other patrons looked considerably more respectable. A big, suit-clad lump of blond muscle sat at one table. At another table sat—

Well, hello .

Did this convention just get a little less farmer and a lot more interesting? A dreamy-eyed boy about Jesper’s age sat there, face propped up on his fist with red-gold curls falling over his eyes. One look at those pale, barely-parted lips and Jesper knew he wanted to kiss them. But first thing’s first: he put a little swagger into his step. As he passed the pretty boy’s table, Jesper looked him in the eye, startling him, and winked. The boy turned a very promising shade of pink.

Jesper helped himself to a seat a few moments later.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked, sitting there.

“Um… I… I…” the boy stammered, before turning his attention to the muscled lump at the next table. Lump looked about ready to punch one of them. “No—it’s fine. It’s fine. You can sit with me.”

Jesper raised his eyebrows. “How generous."

“I didn’t mean it that way." He was even prettier up close. There was something familiar about him, though Jesper couldn’t quite name what. He had a sketchbook in front of him and a tin of drawing pencils. Now that his fist wasn't propping up his face, he took one of the pencils, though he didn't draw anything, just passed it between his fingers. A red mark lingered on his cheek.

Jesper sipped his coffee. He wondered if Starbucks would be rolling out those "unity cups" again this year, the ones that everyone hated during the last election. It was only March now, so they were the regular cups… and his name had been misspelled.

Jasper .

Freaking Twilight punk behind the counter…

“I’m sure you didn’t…” Jesper dropped his gaze to the pretty boy's cup, looking for his name. Waylon? Really? Jesper sincerely hoped the Twilight punk had miswritten that, no one their age was called Waylon . “…Mister Smithers.”

Pretty Boy was visibly confused, lips slightly parted and brow furrowed like this was life or death as he asked, “What?”

“Didn’t you look at your cup?” Jesper asked, like he hadn’t just only now noticed his own. Unless… “Your name’s not really Waylon, is it?”

Or had he never seen The Simpsons ? That was the only incidence Jesper knew of where someone was actually named Waylon—Waylon Smithers, the assistant character in an increasingly transparent closet.

Pretty Boy burst out laughing. He was unfairly cute laughing. The worry smoothed out of his forehead and his eyes sparkled. A human being shouldn’t have eyes so blue! When he laughed hard enough to start snorting, Pretty Boy blushed and covered his mouth adorably. His eyes were so self-consciously wide, Jesper imagined he didn't even know he had dimples.

“S’okay, anyway. Mine says ‘Jasper’. Nice to meet you, Mister Smithers.” Jesper offered a hand.

Mister Smithers accepted the handshake, looked Jesper dead in the eye and said, “You too, Mister Hale.”

Jesper laughed. “I try being nice to someone and that’s what I get!” he cried. “That’s the last time I’m nice!”

“Bet it’s not,” Mister Smithers said.

Jesper couldn’t stop the way his eyebrow quirked in interest— you bet? How much? But he stamped down the inclination. The poker incident was months behind him and he did not fancy a repeat.

Instead, he gave a determinedly confident scoff.

At home, a challenge like that would have been met, and he missed his friends all over again. Nina would have tried to make him be nicer—maybe by taking his cookies hostage at lunch. Or just making him laugh. Kaz would have rolled his eyes, sighed, or found another way to indicate he thought Jesper’s humor was stupid, but they both knew he could talk Jesper into any crazy thing. Kaz could be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Mister Smithers was not Nina or Kaz, and looked momentarily unsure how to respond to Jesper. Jesper had hoped he might go for some aggressive flirting, but given how frequently he blushed, flirting might be more Jesper’s line of work here. That was okay. He just needed to find out if his attention was welcome. It wasn’t easy to resist Jesper Fahey, with his handsome face and sparkling personality—he would be the first to tell you—but some guys are just straight. Which would be tragic, because he felt like there was already a spark between them.

He could have asked. Instead, Jesper sipped his coffee. The whipped cream was starting to melt into it. While he drank, he kept his attention on Smithers. He looked less than at ease, his gaze mostly fixed on the pencil he was fidgeting between his fingers, glancing now and again to Jesper, then back to the pencil.  

Smithers cleared his throat. “So, uh, a-are you here for the convention?” he asked. Between that and the creamy linen of the button-down shirt tucked into his khakis, Jesper guessed this wasn't another farmer's son. A not insignificant portion of the convention was about trying to sell; Smithers didn't dress like someone who got his hands dirty. "I'm here with my da," Jesper said, "he mostly grows field corn. The past couple years he's been growing corn to be used as fuel." He slipped the heat sleeve off his cup and began picking it into little pieces. "Really?" Of course it was biofuel that got Smithers to set down his pencil and focus on Jesper. Hands folded on his sketchbook, fingers still from his knuckles to his bitten nails. "I didn't think biofuels were profitable." "They're not," Jesper admitted, "yet. There's a satellite campus of the university near where I live, Da works with them. He's only able to grow anything as biofuel because of their money." Was he really talking about biofuels right now, literally the least flirty thing on the planet? But Smithers was sitting up straight like an eager student, drinking in every word, so Jesper tried to remember more of what he'd heard. The trouble was that it kept coming back to money. He kept having to explain, and maybe it would have helped if the boy sitting across from him could stop with those bobble-head nods that made his curls flop over his eyes and the occasional slip of teeth over his lower lip as he really focused. Colm couldn't afford to just grow an experimental fuel, though. That was very, very real for them. "Their legal department is like one guy," Jesper said, finding some, any excuse to veer away from finances. "He's brilliant, though. He once—I swear this is true, he went into a meeting with… the governor's office, I think, to negotiate down a fine and talked them in circles so much they ended up paying him ." Smithers' eyebrows rose. No… not Smithers. Jesper didn't like that nickname for him anymore and bought time sipping his coffee. He liked his face. It was so expressive, the way his thin lips parted in shock, or his brow furrowed in confusion like everything Jesper said was important to understand, or that one time Jesper said Steve King's name and his nose scrunched so delicately. "Is that what you want to do? Be a lawyer?" Maybe it was because Jesper was distracted that he slipped up and said, "I don't have the grades, but sometimes it's nice to think about a job other than farming." Not that he wanted to go into law, either, he just wanted options . He wanted… he wanted things he had thrown away himself, but that didn't make their absence easier. Jesper cleared his throat and went quiet for a moment. He didn't notice the other boy reaching for him until cool fingers alit gently on his hand. He didn't hold his hand or squeeze, just gave a gentle touch.

Then, suddenly, Smithers took his hand away and lowered his eyes, and that sense of familiarity was back. There was something in his veiled look and carefully neutral expression that Jesper recognized, enough to distract him from how long his eyelashes were. Definitely back to being Pretty Boy.

No… Cutie. He was more a Cutie than a Pretty Boy.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to—“

“Hey,” Jesper interrupted, "it's okay."

"You looked tragically alone," he said, but it didn't sound judgmental or sarcastic. He seemed to genuinely mean that.  

Jesper had to smile. “You’re something, Cutie." The other boy looked away with a shake of his head, and Jesper took the opportunity to consider this new perspective. There was something fragile in him, like the pieces that made him up were independently ready to run away, like his faint freckles and turned-away gaze. The traits that weren't halfawy gone only made him prettier, like the long eyelashes. Jesper wasn't objecting, simply seeing the questioning in him. He perched in his seat like he might float away, the tips of his long fingers pressed against his sketchbook like an anchor. That was enough talk about the realities of biofuel farming. "So, what do you draw?”

“Oh, just—I’m not really good.”

“I bet you are.”

“Might as well just give me your money.”

“Hey, I’ll take a forfeit. Do I get a peek in that sketchbook along with it?”

"No way!"

"Don't be shy. C'mon, you're probably like Vermeer."

"I'm really not—"

"More of a Monet?"

He blushed. Making him blush was so much fun, especially since now he looked at Jesper with surprising determination. "Not him either."

"Manet?"

"You have eclectic taste."

"Got 'em from Ocean's Eleven," Jesper admitted.

"Well, they're all painters."

"And you are...?"

"I like to draw. With pencils."

"So you're like a comic book artist?"

"No!" Ooh, he'd hit a nerve. "I want to be a real artist, like… like Cath Riley. She works with graphite and she's a realist, she draws things that look like photographs. What she can do with just pencils… it's amazing. Some of my favorites are pictures she's drawn of two hands, one hovering over the other, they're not touching but they're so close to touching, there's electricity between them. The detail in her work? She draws every wrinkle, flexing tendon, the hairs on a knuckle. She must—she must just see everything, take in everything around her, and she recreates in this way that… it's real, but somehow has a quality of, of a dream at the same time, and she rarely does any backgrounds so instead of being the focus, her subjects are starkly isolated."

Jesper only vaguely understood most of that. Sure, the words made sense, but he didn't understand why it was special that someone drew wrinkled hands. He wasn't trying to understand, either. He was too busy watching Cutie. Suddenly he was just… lit up. His eyes sparkled. He was flushed an entirely different sort of pink and his chapped lips moved around the words like they wanted to hold onto them. He was so animated that his curls bounced when he talked. Making him blush was fun, but making him light up? Jesper had a warm, melting feeling just watching him, and he realized distantly what a goofy smile he was wearing and he didn't even care.

"...if, if that made any sense." His excited pink was already fading to an embarrassed one.

"Absolutely!" Jesper said. "Totally made sense. What else?" "What?" "Come on. Cath Riley. Tell me more about her." Before Cutie had a chance to respond, a voice from behind him said, “Time to go, Jes.” Jesper froze, then slumped his shoulders. He had almost forgotten how entirely grounded he was, having a nice time talking to a cute boy, but his da’s voice sounded utterly unamused. This wasn’t the time to try to wheedle extra minutes. He realized he had shredded the coffee's heat sleeve to a pile of depressing confetti and scooped it into one hand to throw out. Jesper slid out of his seat and grabbed his coffee. "Room number?" "Fifte—" The muscled lump cleared his throat. Cutie closed his mouth. If his da hadn't been there, Jesper might have needed to get in his face. “It was nice meeting you," Jesper said. “Likewise. Maybe I’ll see you around.” Jesper tossed one final wink and Cutie’s resulting smile almost made up for what came next. Almost.

---------------- Colm Fahey was more than capable of shouting. He didn't do it often, but he was capable—Jesper knew from multiple incidents throughout his childhood. Jesper didn't like being shouted at, but he would take it over the quietness he faced these days. When Colm was quietly angry, Jesper felt so much more alone. He felt keenly that he had disappointed his father. That he had hurt him. "Da?" Jesper ventured after too many moments of sitting quietly at the end of his bed. He hadn't tried to explain wandering off in the middle of the night. That was Jesper's contribution, his own broken quiet. The knowing that he had disappointed his father too many times and sometimes he should just shut his mouth and not make it worse. Colm had been pacing the small room. Now he stopped and turned to Jesper. Jesper couldn't help noticing the tiredness in his face. "Were you anywhere else?" "No. I just went for a coffee." "And that boy, was he… were you…" "No! I saw a cute guy, that's all!" Colm nodded. "Okay," he said. "All right, Jes." Jesper had wandered down to the lobby Starbucks in his pajamas. Colm showed up in jeans and a sweater at midnight, and Jesper knew it wasn't his concern for appearances. It was because he thought he might need to go looking for his son beyond the hotel lobby. "I woke up and you weren't here. What was I supposed to think?" It wasn't that Jesper hadn't noticed, just like he hadn't noticed the gray in his father's hair or the tiredness in his face. It wasn't that he hadn't tried . It was just… His mouth acted without his brain's consent and said, "You could have texted me if you hadn't confiscated my phone." Jesper winced at himself. He was trying. He was trying not to make it worse. But… —did his da need his phone? Did he think a guy could google where to score coke and it was that simple? "I couldn't sleep. What did you want me to do? Lie there and listen to you snoring for another six hours? You want the lamp off to sleep, you don't want me to have a phone…" Colm sighed. He sat heavily on the second bed and said, "I know it's not easy." It wasn't. Sometimes Jesper wished his da were more like the parents on TV or in books, someone to shout because I said so or just do what I tell you . Even when Da shouted, it was more about how Jesper could have gotten himself hurt. Now he just sounded worn down. Jesper dropped his head. "I'm sorry." "I know." "Not just about tonight." Colm was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I know that, too. You can keep the lamp on." "I'm… I'm tired now."

(End of Chapter One)

(The character's views on comic book artists do not reflect the author's. The character's views on Cath Riley, however, are spot on.)