He had no idea exactly how he had gotten into this situation.

One moment he had been comfortable minding his own business, then one conversation and three weeks later he was on top of a set of isolated stands above the crowd watching a college quidditch game go on and taking 'live' pictures (also known as drawing them as fast as he could because these idiots refused to use technology).

Wylan glumly took out another sheet of notebook paper and began sketching the basic form of the bleachers, wearily eyeing his empty coffee mug(s). He had brought three to begin with, knowing that he would probably need some more. And he was right. An hour in and all three large cups of coffee were drained.

"Is there any reason why you're here on a lonely set of high rise bleachers and taking," there was a pause as Wylan looked up and around him. "Live pictures?"

"Jesper," Wylan said as greeting as the tall boy appeared from (somewhere?) and casually sat down next to him, turning his head to see the other pictures Wylan had drawn so far. "Hey, it's been a while."

It had only been a few days since the elevator, but ever since then Wylan's classes had kicked in and he had been busy trying to find time to work on his prototype, so unfortunately his free time suffered monumentally and he got a Tony Stark level of three hours of sleep a night.

"Hey merchling," Jesper greeted him with a breaktaking smile and Wylan willed his breath not to hitch. "I haven't seen you in a while. Have you been avoiding me?"

Wylan smiled as he returned back to his paper and started shading in the rows of audience (that he personally thought were blackmailed into attending). "I've just been busy Jes," Wylan said giving him a small smile. "I haven't forgotten about the date."

Jesper sent him a smirk at that, one that seemed less arrogant and more genial and Wylan decided he liked it. "I haven't either merchling."

That name.

"Stop calling me that," Wylan halfheartedly protested, knowing there was a terrifically low chance of it actually happening.

Jesper winked and leaned in, warm cinnamon-y breath brushing against his cheek. He sucked in a breath instinctively. "No," Jesper whispered, and Wylan relaxed, putting two hands on Jesper's shoulders and trying to shove him back. He finally moved (of his free will, Wylan suspected) out of his personal space and let Wylan breathe again. "Why merchling," Jesper started, eyeing the two hands on either sides of his shoulder. "If I didn't know any better I'd say-"

"-that I have a job I don't want and need to do," Wylan finished, giving him a look. "Seriously Jes."

Jesper finally drew away laughing and he looked at the sheets of paper on the other side of Wylan. "So how exactly did you end up drawing live images of our college quidditch team?"

Wylan sighed. "Up until a couple weeks ago, I had no idea our college even had a quidditch team. The captain, Paja, works at the Dime Lions Coffeeshop which I frequently visit and she asked me if I could draw live pictures, because apparently when celebrating quidditch, technology is rejected. And since I go there pretty regularly and she scares the crap out of me because she's built like a bodybuilder," Jesper nodded knowingly, "I accepted. Hence, the next five hours of me drawing realistic pictures of people running around with balls and brooms underneath their legs."

Jesper laughed at that once again, turning his head to see the masses of people running around on the field, faces determined. "You got to give it to them though," Jesper pointed out. "They look seriously determined to win, And that one on the side is leaping like he can actually fly."

Wylan snickered at that, craning his head to see. "What? Where?"

"See? The one by the enthusiastic mom."

"There are hundreds of enthusiastic moms, pick one."

"The one with the face painted in red and gold. Look, see?" Jesper pointed some more, directing Wylan's gaze to a boy who, indeed looked like he was trying to fly. He tried not to laugh, understanding that this was an important game to the players. They all looked determined to succeed.

"I wonder why they made quidditch a sport," Jesper wondered. "Is there like, some kind of application process? Is there any way I can sign Matthias up for it?"
Wylan tried not to laugh at the idea of the six foot three blonde hunched over with a broom under his legs and a ball steadily held in his hand. "Come on Jesper," he said weakly. "Some people like this game, and enjoy it."

"Exactly," Jesper nodded serenely. "Some people enjoy this game, and I assure you, I understand that. Now, going back to the point. Is there anyway to sign Kaz up for this? He needs to see the sunshine, sometime."

Wylan tried not to laugh at the thought of Kaz Brekker of all people, running around for hours with a broom securely fastened between his legs. Knowing Kaz though, people would still be terrified of him.

"I don't know." Wylan smiled at Jesper. "Kaz is the kind of person who's reputation you really can't mess around with."

Jesper nodded like he knew exactly what Wylan was talking about. "I once tried to in high school," he said with a crooked grin. "My locker wouldn't open for a weak, and every professor I had a class with gave me a D for every test. But that just started a prank war… with Kaz of all people, so the next couple of months were interesting."

Wylan raised his eyebrows. "Prank war? With Kaz? I'm guessing that didn't end up well?"

"You'd be surprised," Jesper said shaking his head. "It was me, Inej, and Nina against Matthias and Kaz. And to this day, I'm sure Kaz blackmailed Matthias into helping him out."

"I can imagine," Wylan said dryly, thinking of Kaz knocking on Matthias' door in the middle of the night and demanding he help him. "So how'd you guys become… " he trailed off, gesturing broadly to Jesper.

"A thing?" Jesper asked. "A group?"

"Yeah," Wylan nodded. "You all fit together really well."

Jesper shrugged. "That one happened overtime. It was always Kaz, Nina, and I living at the small orphanage, you know the one Per Haskell runs?" Wylan nodded, recognizing the last name. "Well, Inej lost her family in a freak circus fire, which is partly why she can do so many insane flips and rolls. She moved in with her Aunt, who happened to live next door to us. Kaz and Inej had rooms and windows looking directly next to each other."

Wylan smiled at that, imaging a younger Kaz and Inej speaking through their open windows at night time. He decided he'd like to draw it one day.

Suddenly a loud cheer came from the field, and they both turned their heads to see their college quidditch team had scored a point. Wylan hastily grabbed his drawing again and continued sketching the finer lines. "And Matthias?" he prompted.

"Matthias is from a small Russian town," Jesper said. "The government was testing weapons in an area a little away from there, and it wasn't supposed to but they accidentally hit his place. Matthias had to move, and then in his new school they had an exchange program that Matthias took because he was well…" Jesper trailed off. "Pissed at his country. He still loves his hometown though."

Wylan nodded, remembering all the times Matthias had mentioned his town. And it was a lot, because Wylan had only really hung out with the giant once. "What about his stepfather?" he asked, remembering something Matthias had said in the elevator. Help me move on from the teachings of my stepfather…

Jesper bit his lip. "I don't know anything about that," he finally said. "Nina does, but they don't like to advertise it. I'm pretty sure his stepfather was racist and part of the military that blew apart his own town, but…" he trailed off. "Those are just rumours."

Wylan finished the rows of audience cheering with large signs, and then switched to the quidditch game itself. Looking back at the field he began to draw out the victorious image (apparently getting the person dressed in gold was a good thing?) before Jesper spoke his own part.

"So why the whole 'Eck' and 'Van Eck' thing?"

Wylan shrugged. "My father spent my entire life telling me that I would never be able to inherit his company. When I got to college, it was like suddenly I could make my own choices, y'know, YOLO and all of that?"
Jesper was quiet for a while before laughing. "YOLO and all of that?" Jesper asked grinning. "What, do you have a tattoo and everything?"

"Shut up," Wylan said turning crimson. "I was free for once, okay? I spent eighteen years with an old man who's favorite song was, I'm pretty sure, YMCA. Do you know how old that is?"

Jesper laughed. "Hey, don't knock on YMCA. I love that song. Sometimes, I spend days just listening to it on repeat."

"Don't you dare," Wylan shuddered, careful to keep his eyes on his own paper. "That song gets stuck in my head for days on end."

"Is that so, merchling?" Jesper asked, suddenly standing up. Wylan kept a careful gaze on him, putting the paper and pencil away temporarily as Jesper looked like he was prepared to do something. Keeping a firm gaze straight ahead, Jesper suddenly began belting out lyrics.

"YMCA! It's fun to stay at the YMCA!" he bellowed as he moved his hands around, gracefully (how was that even possible) making the letters above his head. Wylan buried his head on his lap as he saw the audience curiously turn their heads at Jesper and Wylan.

"Jes," he said laughing. "Stop. People are looking."

Jesper did not indeed, stop.

Grabbing Wylan up by the hands, he manipulated Wylan's hands until they moved of their own accords, forcing him to dance along too. "C'mon," Jesper said laughing, the words barely audible through it. "Just sing."

"I don't know the lyrics!"
"I said, young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man," Jesper sang clearly, twirling Wylan around. "What do you wanna be?"

"How do you even know the lyrics?" Wylan asked, trying to talk over Jesper's atrocious singing. Jesper laughed instead of answering, going back to the chorus.

"YMCA, it's how they do it in the YMCA - holy shit Wylan, people are doing it in the audience."

Wylan craned his head over Jesper before giving up and looking around him. Surely enough, there were a couple dozen people all making the letters above their heads, screaming it as well. "Why are they doing this as well?" Wylan asked.

Jesper shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe more people will catch on."

Wylan disagreed.

Unfortunately, the universe decided to side with Jesper that day.

Barely a couple minutes later, the entire audience was enthusiastically moving their hands to sing the song and the commentators of the game had stopped actually commenting on the game, and instead chose to loudly play the song itself through their microphones. The players had stopped running around and were looking confused as they looked at their rabid fans, all moving their hands in coordination.

"Wylan look," Jesper said laughing as he pointed to the screen. "They've stopped screening and the game and are now just showing the lyrics on the massive screen."

Wylan almost choked on his laughter. He tried looking at the commenting booth, but saw that they were talking to people (that were probably trying to control them and have them start doing their jobs). Even the players had began to slowly mimic the movements, one outright belting out the lyrics like Jesper had done.

Wylan sighed. "Jesper," he said giving the tall boy a glare. "If Puja kills me for this, I want you to know that this is all your fault."

Jesper gave Wylan a wink. "I'll save you," he said flirtily. "As long as you faint into my arms."

Wylan turned bright red and turned back to face the insane audience. Puja was definitely going to kill him for this, but he found that the thought didn't seem so bad.

At least having Jesper and a good thousand people YMCA-ing around was better than drawing countless images of the game, he thought with a smile.

It's fun to stay at the YMCA,

It's fun to stay at the YMCA,

You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel…

A/N: I think I have YMCA fever... I have no idea how that diverted so far from the original plot line, but I hope you guys enjoyed that? For all of you that don't know what YMCA is (and that is a major concern) just search up YMCA, Village People and I shit you not, it will get stuck in your head for a couple of hours at least. My sister and I sometimes bake, and whenever we do the only things we play are just "YMCA" over and over again. Yeah, baking's fun at my house. The song is kind of sexist at some points (especially because they only focus on the men, like hey, girls take up half the population as well!) which is why it's always tough bringing this song in and I hope that didn't offend people.

On another note, I am so sorry if I seriously insulted any quidditch players. I understand that it is a serious sport for some, and that it really matters to them. I am so sorry about that, but I figured that with Wylan and Jesper's characters, they were going to mock any sport, not just quidditch. Again, if I seriously insulted some people I'm really sorry. Quidditch is a serious game to some people.

If you don't know what quidditch is, search it up online because trust me, it exists and some colleges (including Georgetown and Princeton) have teams that play competitively.

Once again, thank you so much for all the support I get for writing this. A lot of people seemed to like the Alina-Crows idea, but that probably won't be born until this is over. And to all the Malina supporters - yes! High five bitches! - is pretty much all I can say. If I do end up writing an Alina-Crows story, it'll probably be much darker and a little more angst-ier because it'd take place in Ketterdam. Some funny moments would come up (I once heard the phrase 'attempted humour' being used and I agree) but it'd stick to a dark and serious theme because I'd be juggling things like Alina abandoning Ravka, and I'd want to have Mal, Nikolai, Zoya, and Genya try to find her so they could save their country while the dark characteristics of the Crows were also being shown.

So like I said, I'd want to do all of that in the future. Rom-coms are pretty new for me, so it's been a learning experience and balancing an angsty fic and a fun fic long-term are pretty tough.

Thanks for reading,

Acka