"Then I will release you to go eat."  Back downstairs and to the edge of the sidewalk.  (Jeremy puts him down with a few feet of leeway, just in case.)

"Then I'll come back tomorrow. I hope you have a wonderful night, Jeremy." This time he'll do a regular kiss goodnight rather than a cheek kiss because, well, you know.

Quite.

Jeremy entirely disappears the moment Jake steps onto the sidewalk.

That's freaky. But really cool.

Well, back home with him. He is not sure what he's going to say to anyone else; he should be careful not to accidentally say "Jeremy" instead of "Matthew" to the other kids at school, though.

So...

Jeremy is getting a crush on Jake. 

That's a problem. And it's especially a problem because, in retrospect, Jake has definitely led him on. Like, it's one thing to be his usual over-the-top self with regular boys who would know not to take it seriously; it's a whole different thing to do that to a boy that's from 1997 who's also a ghost who's been alone since he died. He has no context of what healthy gay situationships are like, and no other friends or anything.

Which, you know, normally is a red flag, but this whole situation is unusual.

Jake needs to... rein in his more poetic and romantic impulses, probably, because they're definitely going to be giving this boy the wrong impression. But... he probably shouldn't, like, talk about it directly yet. If he crushes Jeremy's crush, that could be really hurtful, and Jeremy hasn't done anything to deserve that, and doesn't have anyone else.

Well, this spell they're gonna do tomorrow is meant to help with that, right? Allow him to be solid and stuff? Admittedly Jake didn't ask about the details so he's not sure what exactly it is that it's meant to do but like, that was the context in which it was introduced, so it must at least be related.

He is going to discuss healthy boundaries and what he wants out of this relationship once Jeremy won't have to choose between being completely alone and spending time with the boy that broke his heart, if it comes to it, Jake decides. That's what he'll do.

So he's back bright and early at 10AM the next morning with the spell materials Jeremy asked for.

Jeremy is not waiting right on the other side of the door today, since Jake didn't give him a specific meeting time.  He flies out of the side of the attic rather than go through the house to meet him.  "Hello!" he swoops.

Heehee.

"Hey, handsome. Did you have a good night?"

"You sure know how to ask a guy the piercingest questions, don't you," he jokes.  "Having the music was unsurprisingly great.  How was yours?"

...does he? "How was your night?" is, like, a pretty standard small talk question isn't it? 

"It was pretty good. Had some trouble getting to sleep because I was curious about the magic and consequently slept in later than usual. But I've got materials now!"

"That's so great.  Uh, do you want to bring them inside?  —What state is the ice in; are we working with a time limit?""

"It's in a, you know, uh, what's the name in English, thermal box or something?" he guesses.

"Great.  Okay.  You're fantastic."  He pauses, as if he maybe wants to—something— "You're welcome to get the door but I should probably conserve my remaining energy for now."

"Alrighty. To your bedroom or does this need some extra space?" he asks, leading the way.

"Living room'll be best, probably."

To the living room!

"Okay.  Okay, uh, do you want to do this now or later—it'll, it's using your life energy, although living people just have way, way way more of that, so it's not going to—it's not going to hurt you.  But it also probably won't be the most pleasant, y'know, so... your call."

"Not the most pleasant how?"

"So—the understanding I have about ghost spells I have, the like intuition, is often wildly underspecified, but I do have a sense of some things, and—um.  Um, I care about you, a lot, you've been nicer to me than I imagined it was possible to be, and I really really don't want anything bad to happen to you—so, I would expect that it might make you feel drained, or possibly upset, but—before I said that I needed you, and, I will still really want you around for a lot of things, but that will no longer be true, I will no longer need you.  Once we do this.  So I feel like this is pretty important, and... I'm really really pretty sure that it won't have any long-term effects."  There's a bit of a sheen in his eyes that maybe wouldn't be visible except for the fact that it glows, which makes it pretty obvious.

Awwwww. He's sweet. Jake hugs him. "It'll be great if you no longer need me, I don't want to be, like... your lifeline. Like you said, something could happen to me and if I was the first one to be—decent—in thirty years—I don't want you to be stuck that long again."

Hug hug hug hug hug.  "Okay.  Well, it's still your call as to whether you want to do it now or in a bit."

"Nah let's do it now I'm curious."

It takes a few long seconds for him to let go of the hug.

"Okay.  Um, first we need the chalk.  Do you—should I go get it?"

"You can? I thought you couldn't hold stuff very much. Shouldn't I do it so you save energy?"

"It would be good if you did, yeah.  Careful on the stairs."