Chapter Text
Jesper had discovered a lot of things since coming to Smeerensburg. The importance of a good set of long underwear, for example, for the colder days. Which is...most of them. They're all colder days, though he's growing used to it. Or the less tangible stuff—how wonderful it is to see people smiling because of something you did. How good it feels to play a part in life, to have people who know you and like you and rely on you. Or the people. He'd discovered Alva, and Margu, and Mogens even though he's kind of an asshole, and...Klaus.
Which brings him to his point here, in this little thought expedition, which is that he's discovered the value of being busy.
Sure, it's part that he has a lot of work to get done, especially now that they're planning on expanding to other cities. And sure, it's part the whole thing about—being a functioning cog in a bigger piece of machinery, and so forth and so on.
But also, most relevantly, it keeps him from thinking about Klaus.
Except for. Right now. When he just thought about him twice, and technically a bonus third time when he thought the word 'machinery' which made him think of Klaus's toys which made him think of how Klaus makes the most delicate things with those—with those hands—
Jesper makes a frustrated noise, ruffling through his hair with his hands, and decides to sort letters extra hard today. With vigor! And pizzazz! And little flourishes!
The problem with that mostly is that Jesper has never been particularly athletic. You could even say, rudely, that he was clumsy. So the flourishes and vigor and such means that he drops a pile of letters, which means he's down on the floor picking up letters, which means he considers briefly sobbing onto the floor in a fit of dramatics. He doesn't cry, in the end, but he does stay on the floor with his cheek pressed against the wood and his back upwards in a kind of downwards triangle, thinking maybe being busy isn't so valuable after all.
"I see you're busy," Alva says dryly from somewhere he cannot see, being as he is on the floor.
"Being busy," Jesper says waspishly, "is overrated."
"Right," she drawls, rapping her fist twice smartly against the wood of his counter, which is startling enough that he yelps and hits his head somewhere or other on his way to standing back up. Alva is undeterred by his best glare, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. "So I've sensed something is off with you lately."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jesper says, knowing exactly what she's talking about.
"The sighing. The daydreaming. That dumb look you get on your face when you're trying not to think about something and failing."
"Hey," he protests, mostly on principle.
"What, that isn't ringing a bell?"
The issue is, of course, not that it's not ringing a bell, but that the bell is a call to attention he'd really rather not answer. "My face isn't dumb," he says instead. "Your face is dumb."
Nailed it.
Alva huffs irritably and leans forward over the counter. "Stop being insufferable. You're deflecting about something. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're mooning over someone."
Alva is right an unfortunate amount of the time, and Jesper rather wishes this weren't one of them. As it stands, he stiffens and brings a nervous hand to one of his buttons. "What? Nahhhhh."
Her eyes narrow, and Jesper reflexively takes a step back. "Someone...you don't want me to know about."
"Because I prefer you know nothing," Jesper starts, the beginning of a half-baked insult he knew wouldn't land anyway, and she leans forward even further.
"It's not me."
"You're sure about that?" Jesper asks desperately, which is a bad attempt even for him and would be disastrous if she called his bluff, but she's getting awfully close and he really doesn't like it.
"Very sure," she says, deadpan. "Mogens?"
"Yep. It's him."
"Mrs. Krum."
"Also her. I'm building an indiscriminate harem. Come one, come all."
When she takes her weight off the counter, steps back, he thinks he's joked his way out of the interrogation. He's too busy being relieved to notice the gleam in her eyes.
"You haven't stayed for dinner at Klaus's house a single night this week."
The breath leaves him like she's punched it out of him, which she might as well have. With his remaining breath, in an oddly high pitch, he says, "I'm very busy."
"I thought busy was overrated," she says, with all the satisfaction of someone who knows she's right, or of a wolf that's latched onto its prey, or of a friend who's about to end the life of their other friend who's done nothing at all wrong ever.
"And it is! Keeping me away from my—friend. Good friend. Whose dinners I would gladly attend, if it weren't for being busy, which is overrated, which is why I was saying that, but unfortunately it is how it is, case closed—" Goodness, these long underwear might be overrated too. He's starting to get very sweaty. Cold days who? This is obviously completely unrelated to the conversation, which is both fine and normal in addition to being okay.
"You have a crush on Klaus," she says, delighted, even though her poor friend Jesper is right over there dying.
"How could someone with such a dumb face say something—so wrong?"
He knows he's misstepped immediately, because her glare is actually much better than his.
"No dumb face. Good face. Shh," he says, like he's dealing with a particularly recalcitrant horse.
"Look. Jesper. This isn't up for discussion. I know. You know. We both know at this point. Cut the bullshit, it's not funny anymore and some of us are busy and have better things to do than play verbal crush tennis with idiots."
Jesper clasps a hand to his heart. "Ow."
"And?"
"And I'm not saying it."
"But you do."
Jesper looks away, pursing his lips. "If I did it wouldn't matter anyway. So it doesn't bear talking about. Is the point. We can be done now. No more tennis. Actually let's never mention it again. Tennis, crushes, Klaus—"
"Jesper," Alva says, and oh God her voice is all gentle and nice and that probably means he's going to break down and tell her everything. "What makes you think it wouldn't matter?"
"Because," he snaps, "he does not and would not like me in—in that way, okay, so I'm going to be busy and I'm going to get over it and it will be fine, and this entire conversation will be completely useless to have had—be having—whatever! It doesn't matter! It's fine. I'm fine. Shut up."
She is not, notably, saying anything, and he has, notably, broken down and told her everything.
At least he predicted it. Takes some of the sting out of things. Or not really, but apparently denial is sort of his forte now.
Alva is looking at him, tapping her foot on the ground and reminding him very much that she is indeed a schoolteacher. His schoolteachers never liked him much, admittedly likely because he didn't do anything. "What makes you think that he could never like you?"
"So we're just going to drag all my insecurities out on full display?" he retorts, a bit angry, a lot embarrassed and wanting this conversation to be over. "Okay. Fine. Number one, I'm a man, not everybody is into that. Exhibit A." Jesper points at her, and she snorts, shrugging in acknowledgement. "Number two, there's still the thing where I betrayed his trust and lied to him and used him and that's, I hear, not—not on everybody's, you know, relationship wishlist, or whatever."
"Fair," she says, still tapping her foot.
"Number three, not everybody likes everybody. Some people just aren't desirable to other people. Exhibit A again."
She bows, but he thinks she might be mocking him.
"Number four. He still—" Here, his voice cracks embarrassingly. "He loved his wife so much. I mean, he spent years there all alone, lost, trying to honor her memory—"
"And you're the one who helped bring him purpose again," she says, foot tapping faster, eye twitching minutely like she regrets saying it.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Jesper demands, and the fight slumps out of him. "He loves her still. I know he does. I don't—even if there were a chance. Which there isn't. I can't...compete with that. I wouldn't want to."
He cares about him too much for that, he doesn't say, and Alva doesn't ask.
She probably knows anyway, smug bastard. Too smart for her own good. Or his own good, more like. It's probably why they're such good friends.
Her foot stops tapping, she stops surveying him silently, and she nods. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay," she repeats. "Stay for dinner again. He wants you there." Her eye twitches again, but Jesper ignores it, because he has shit of his own to deal with. Clearly.
Jesper sniffs, scuffing his toe against the wood. "Ugh. I mean. I mean...fine, yeah."
It's just a crush, anyway. Right? And he'd acted perfectly normally before he realized what the fluttering in his chest and the heat in his cheeks was. He can do it again. It's fine. He's fine.
And at least it's probably a sign that he's matured emotionally that he knows that's denial too. So there's...that, very minor, very un-comforting tidbit. Another Smeerensburg-patented special discovery.
Alva's turned on her heel just as fast as she came in, off to do whatever it is she does (presumably...teaching?), so he's alone again, with nothing but a lot of letters and a lot of thinking to be done.
But he doesn't much want to think, so he turns back to the letters and rubs his hands together. Right. Busy busy busy.
Maybe it'll work better the second go around, he thinks, in an attempt at optimism that's probably just more denial again.