Chapter Text
University Housing 2024
[10/08/24][3:24pm]
Inej G added “Zenik”
Inej G added “Brekker”
Inej G added “Jes”
Inej G added “Matthias Helvar”
Inej G added “Wylan”
Inej G:Hi! I’ve heard we’re all going to the town for uni and thought maybe we could meet up before hand? I believe we’re the only ones from our secondary
Wylan:Hi! Who are you?🙂
Inej G:I was in your English class Wylan! Periods two and three every Thursday
Wylan:Oh I draw in English 🙂
Zenik:Well I remember yous all
Brekker:I as well.
Jes:Kaz is acknowledging people?!!
Brekker:I retract my statement.
Inej:Back on track…Can we get coffee soon, as a group?
Wylan:I don’t do coffee.
Matthias Helvar:Why is the group chat called ‘University Housing’
Brekker:It’s actually called ‘University Housing 2024’
Matthias Helvar:Devil.
Brekker:Mountain goat.
Inej G:[replied to Matthias Helvar] Because student accommodation is expensive
Jes:We could SHARE!!
Inej G:Yes well Jesper’s getting the idea
Zenik:SHARE!!SHARE!!SHARE!!
Wylan:Pls stop screaming into our phones
Matthias Helvar:I do not know these people. I cannot share with strangers
Zenik:We wouldn’t be strangers for long!! We ll have coffee and then we ll be friends. That’s how it works
Wylan:I fear that is not how it works.
Brekker:I agree with the goat.
Inej G:Why is Matthias a goat??
Matthias Helvar:I am not a goat.
Jes:He is Norwegian
Matthias Helvar:Yes 🇳🇴
Jes:Yes 🏳️🌈
Zenik:coffee??!!
Wylan:I can do weekends and mornings
Inej G:I can do monday mornings before eleven
Zenik:EARLY
Jes:I can do that
Brekker:You can wake up before noon?
Jes:I CAN DO THAT
Matthias Helvar:Can it be Wednesday instead?
Inej G:✅
Jes:✅
Zenik:✅
Wylan:✅
Brekker:✅
Zenik:Brekker’s going!!!
Brekker:Yes.
Wednesday, Nina
Nina woke with the feeling of dread she recognised to be linked to an exam or a PE class or a shift at the cafe. Thoughts of ill-spent time swirled and swooshed around her head, banging on the walls of her cranium until deep ache had settled itself for the day. It took a few more moments of consciousness -and the third snooze half hazardly clicked blaring through her phone- to remember her plans. The coffee shop ever-so-slightly out of walking reach, five newly adults that lie in the void between strangers and acquaintances, and picturesque dreams of living together. It seemed like a good idea to daytime Nina. She liked people, she needed people, and she needed to cut down costs. Morning Nina doesn’t approve quite so much, captured by the nausea clinging to the once vibrant idea of socialising. When did that happen? When has she not thrived in the exploring of a new person? When did she become so anxious?
Begrudgingly, after forcing herself upright amongst her duvet and watching the world spin around her, she pulls on a well loved outfit. She likes the way the red top clings to her curves, providing that she stands in a certain position and doesn’t eat too much. She likes the loose fabric of her maxi skirt draping to the floor, showing off her hips whilst simultaneously hiding the thighs that she’s so ashamed of.
In a quick moment she realised she’ll have to walk to the slightly-too-far cafe after all. The buses would take too long.
Great.
The skirt is out the window then, the breeze might catch it and expose too wide knees and chaffing skin. And she shouldn’t wear the top either because she’ll probably have a bun with her coffee-it would appear even weirder if she didn’t eat- so she’ll have to have a small slice. She can’t eat in this top.
She throws it on her bed.
After another twenty minutes of hair pulling frustration, she walks out the front door of her parents house dressed in exactly the outfit she had started with. She walks slowly enough to avoid dizziness, speeding up every few minutes in fear of being late, then slows again when embarrassment kicks in. She doesn’t understand why a good impression matters so much considering it’s not their first, yet the thought of losing grasp of her almost-friends before they become fully-friends is too unbearable.
Maybe they’ll have grown this past month too.
Kaz
Kaz does his mental checklist as he locks the front door. Jesper left ahead of time and Colm is with the horses. He squeezes his hands into fists, allowing himself the reassurance of crinkled leather against his palms. No one will touch him. Jesper knows not to, and everyone will be too apprehensive of him that they’ll subconsciously slip into Jesper’s lead, entranced by his bouncy character and marvelling at how Kaz could’ve turned out so different. So antisocial and weird. But Kaz is used to it and so he doesn’t fret much as he tucks his cane into the passenger seat as if another person, then lines himself sideways to the car. It takes a few minutes longer than a standard day, backing himself into the driver’s side door and lowering himself down to the seat, twisting slowly to face the wheel with one hand under his bad leg’s knee.
It hurts. It hurts badly. But he promised Jesper he would go so he will. He cares about Jesper.
On a more realistic level he has to go, because if he doesn’t, everyone will become friends without him. He’ll be permanently excluded -doomed to living separately if their idea does work out. If he doesn’t live with Jesper then neither of them will put effort in to stay in each other’s lives and he will inevitably be shunned from the Fahey household forever. He’d be alone forever too because the only people that look after him are the ones legally obligated too.
Instead of spiralling into a depressive pool he pressed down on the accelerator, focusing on the sharp pain jolting from his foot to leg, leg to knee, knee to hip. He’s better at this, the physical pain. Much preferable to anything mental.
That leads him into another spiral.
The coffee shop is in sight. He spots dark hair and bright clothes waiting on the corner for him like he said he would. The comfort of familiarity blinds him for a split second in which he begins to breathe rather heavily, the familiarity of Jesper morphing into the familiarity of pain. His vision is bright white, worse than contact with the sun or the primark overhead lights. It darkens to black, bringing him peace until it fades away and reveals reality. Another few breaths.
He ventures out of the car, eager to avoid worry on his or anyone else’s part. Not out of consideration but for his own selfish need for the conversation to flow seamlessly. People stutter when they’re anxious.
Jesper
The first thing Jesper notices about Wylan Hendriks is the sunflower lanyard clipped to his belt loop, slightly hidden by an oversized jacket yet still easy to find. He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. Aren’t those for disabled people?
The second thing he notices is his eyes, because although crinkled with what could be fear, they are dripping of kindness, as though instead of salt, his tear ducts maintain their function with kind words and gentle actions. How could he have perceived him as anything but whilst in school? Jesper never really paid attention to much in school, much preferring to doodle on his page or fold sticky notes or do tricks with his silver rings. Maybe if Wylan had been in sight he might’ve focused.
He takes a seat in the cramped booth of the cafe, taking note of how Kaz tenses beside him in the sudden proximity to so many bodies, so many people with hands and skin. Regardless, he’s more than happy to be squished against Wylan who oddly enough, relaxes at the ever so slight contact of knees to knees and elbows to elbows. Immediately he launches into conversation with Inej and Matthias, both of them almost opposite him in the semi circle booth. Neither Wylan nor Kaz seem to but in at all and he thinks they’d be good company for each other.
Nina walks in, smiling widely, in which he returns just a bright.
“Drinks!” He declares, externally excited for everyone to have arrived, internally starting to freak out that a) everyone hates him, he’s too loud, too much and b)that his hands are shaking quite a fucking bit and he needs coffee this instant to blame for it rather than admitting to his anxiety. Matthias perks up.
“What does everyone want?” He asks, pulling out his phone and opening a fresh notes app. Of course he is, Matthias looks like he uses his notes app.
They rattle off their orders, Inej wanting a caffeinated chai and Wylan wanting a non caffeinated tea. He feels Kaz glare at him as he himself asks for an extra shot in his coffee and feels slightly guilty until Kaz does the same thing. Kaz can handle caffeine though. He can drink coffee as much as he wants without a racing heart or nauseous throat. Jesper can’t, but he thinks that’s why he does it so much. He knows he’s going to be anxious regardless, knows that one way or another it’s coming for him. But when? There’s no time and date preset, so why would he prolong the inevitable? Coffee is just a little aid that puts the power into his own hands and Jesper doesn’t see the problem with that. Doesn’t understand why nobody cares that he’s on edge until he caused himself to be on edge.
Realising that Matthias is waiting on him, he carefully slips past Kaz, wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers as they make their way to the counter. He does the talking at the till, reciting every drink as if he has known them for years and known their regular orders. Not as though he kept glancing at the phone screen in Matthias’s hand.
He doesn’t think his voice is wobbling, but his legs certainly are and maybe he shouldn’t have done the talking. But he had to. Matthias is quiet, and despite not looking half as nervous as he feels, you don’t force a quiet person to talk. You just don’t.
Matthias is clearly smart too, because he had the sense to carry their drinks on a tray. He notices Jesper gripping the scalding mugs and gestures wildly to it, his eyebrows downturned in distress for him but a small smile tugging his lips to the left. Relief came a few seconds later as he sets them down into the wooden board leaving only the ghost of a tingle across his hand. Matthias is smart, because Jesper wouldn’t have thought of that. He outdone carried them two by two back and forth, biting his inner cheeks to ensure the heat. Eventually he might even enjoy the pain, relishing in the numb burn and thinking that perhaps he deserved this and that the moment had been carefully planned out my the universe.
Good job the universe planned Matthias’ intervention.
As he sits down again, allowing everyone to take their own belongings, he wonders if Wylan is smart. He comes to the conclusion that he must be and does so without any evidence. He knows everyone that was in top set, he was friends with quite a few. But no Wylan. And he wasn’t in second top set because that was Jesper’s class, and the only class the two shared was RE. Despite the odds against it, Wylan was really very smart, he just needed more information to prove it.
Wylan
Wylan was very, very grateful. Wylan was also in hell, and had been for the last twenty five minutes. It was impossibly warm in the small seating area and the noise was enough to corrode ear drums; between the constant screeching of chair legs on linoleum floors and the three conversations going on at once at their table alone, he really didn’t stand a chance. It would be so simple to cover his ears with his hands, to press the pea shaped flap of cartilage into the canal. He even had his headphones, his big headphones that sound cancel, tucked safely in his bag from the train. In reach yet not an option. He squeezed and unsqueezed his waist in some sensory-seeking attempt to relax, to focus on the pressure, which was going fine and well until he was brought out of his silence.
“What class were you in?” Jesper looks at him with the inquisitive look of a toddler learning subtraction and suddenly Wylan might explode because he can’t not answer.
“My core class? I was in C,” he says, passing off his rising anxiety as a personality quirk, scratching instead of squeezing now. He needs good input, and he needs to block out all the bad ones. Fast.
“What were your optional subjects? And your A-levels. Apart from RE, I know you did that obviously.”
He hesitates more before answering this time, bouncing his leg fast. He can’t even comprehend the present, nevermind subjects he picked in the past. The reminder of their shared class pulls him down a rabbit hole of why he’d picked it; another childish attempt to win the appreciation of his dad. He squashes it down.
“I did art, music, higher tier chem and further maths at gcse. Music, chemistry and maths at a-level.” He grits out, not wanting to seem rude but thinking it’s the lesser evil out of that and having a public meltdown.
It seems he doesn’t get to choose.
Before he can adjust, the previously-mellow music has switched to some pop song, and the cafe door has opened and brought in a sudden chill, and fresh food has come out of the oven with the smell now assaulting his nose cilia, and the skin on his neck has become too tight for reasons he can’t comprehend. His skin is burning, his brain is turning against him.
Then, clammy hands wrap around his forearms. It should make things worse, but the hands seem to know that pressure is good and are squeezing without pain, only a silent understanding. He would thank them if he knew who they belonged to or even if he could speak. He attempts to lasso the thoughts running ragged around in his head. He needs logic. He likes logic. He vaguely understands his settings:the coffee shop, the guys from his school. Blinking a few times, he recognises Jesper’s hands and looks up to see wide eyes watching him.
Great.
Back to logic, he thinks. Lanyard. Information card. Fidgets. Headphones. Fuck.
He unclips the green and yellow fabric featuring his ‘autism card’ from his waistband, shoving it into Jesper’s hand and squeezes out of the booth, barging through the cramped space like a soldier in the Trojan war. He might’ve mumbled “air” to his associates but that might’ve been just a thought.
Outside he collapses to the floor, bundled in a heap on the corner. His headphones go on immediately, and after a few minutes he can officially see straight. He wants to cry, and although his face does end up soaked and his eyes red, he’s proud to say he didn’t turn into a gurning mess. Progress.