Chapter Text
“I think….” Jesper begins, dropping his voice to a whisper. Wylan doesn’t point out how he doesn’t need to do that because they’re alone in their bedroom.
“I think Nina is pregnant.”
Wylan stares at him in disbelief.
“What? Why?”
“Well, I noticed she kept her hand on her stomach the entire night when we all went out for dinner, and I saw her rubbing it. Like she’s with child.”
“Your evidence for Nina being pregnant is that she kept her hand on her stomach?” Are you out of your mind? is the unspoken other end of that question. “Maybe she had a stomachache, or something.”
Jesper shakes his head. “No, there’s more. Remember how when we came back home, we brought out the fancy wines?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Nina didn’t have any. Not a single sip.”
“Again, maybe she didn’t feel well.”
“Of course, of course. That’s what I thought at first, too. But then I heard her tell Matthias ‘this is one bun I can’t wait to get out of the oven.’ It just makes you think, doesn’t it?”
Wylan considers this. It’s shit evidence all things considered, yes. But it does make Wylan think. Not much, not heavily, not like the thought is a worm and his brain is an apple it resides in, but he considers it. Between the three couples in their group, Nina and Matthias are the most likely to have children together, but it seems so strange. So sudden. Wylan drifts off to sleep as he thinks about it.
He doesn’t think about when he wakes up.
He doesn’t think about it again until a few days later when he has brunch with Jesper, Nina, and Matthias. It’s their double-date brunch, which would be a triple-date brunch had Kaz not cancelled the moment it was referred to as triple-date brunch. He instead invited Inej to a private, single-date brunch at the same time on the same day.
Triple-date brunch will happen eventually. Private, single-date brunch is progress towards it.
Wylan thinks of it as Nina orders a cocktail called “The Basement,” which he can’t understand the point of since it has nothing to do with the acidic fruity flavor of the drink, and it’s a factually incorrect name, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Wylan thinks of it.
“Can you...can you have that?” Jesper asks once the waiter left with their orders.
“Obviously I can, since I am.”
“but the...” It is that moment Wylan’s brain catches up to Jesper’s mouth, and he knows they’re both thinking about it. He’s quick to act.
“But the name is so stupid,” Wylan interjects, saving Jesper from shoving his foot in his mouth before he can shove his brunch there. “Buildings in Ketterdam don’t have basements, since the soil here absorbs too much moisture, and- and then since the water is- well, it’s just a stupid name.”
Nina raises an eyebrow. “I’m aware there are no basement in Ketterdam. That’s the reason I can’t have this drink? Because it has a stupid name? You do realize stupid names are, like, the selling point of drinks?”
“It’s not just stupid. It’s inaccurate. Offensively so.”
“Right. Accurate Ketterdam representation, and all.”
Wylan might as well box the brunch up and take it home, because not only has Jesper shoved his foot in his mouth, he’s fully cooked and eaten his shoe along with it. A lovely date activity, eating ones shoe.
Private, single-date brunch sounds appealing now, if not for the fact that Wylan would still be private, single-date brunching with Jesper. Maybe he should ask Nina to leave her boyfriend and brunch with him?
Before he can entertain the thought, Jesper bursts.
“Nina, are you pregnant?” the question shoots out of him in a very subtle and not over the top way.
“Am I pregnant? What?” Nina cries, equally very subtle and not over the top. “What do you mean?”
“I mean are you pregnant? You know, eating for two! Bun in the oven! With child!”
Nina shudders at both the thought and at Jesper’s phrasing.
“With child? with child? What possibly gave you that idea? And what possibly possessed you to ask it?”
Wylan looks to Matthias, who is looking between Nina’s stomach and Jesper, then he looks over to Wylan, and fuck his soldier upbringing that gave him such a stoic demeanor. Wylan can’t get a good read on what he’s thinking.
Then he fucking smiles, small and sneaky, and absolutely full of shit.
Jesper lists the same proof he gave Wylan, and it sounds even more ridiculous than it did the first time Wylan heard it. He should have asked Nina to private, single date brunch with him in the split second opportunity he had. Matthias stays silent and resets his facial expression to be blank once more, but it scratches at Wylan’s brain.
Before he can wonder why Matthias would have such a mischievous look when Jesper mentioned the possibility of baby Zenik-Helvar, (unless Nina takes Helvar as her last name and drops Zenik, then it would be baby Helvar, but Nina would not let Helvar come before Zenik if they hyphenated. Matthias probably wouldn’t fight her on it, though. It would be a mutual agreement, but - Wylan stops and reminds himself that’s not the train of thought he should follow) it all clicks when Nina breaks the news.
“I am with child,” she says. “If by child you mean that fucking plate.”
“that fucking plate is my child!” Jesper gasps and speaks at a volume too high for an indoor building with other people inside. “You kidnapped my child!”
“Technically,” Matthias adds, and saints, he was involved too! That smile was utterly evil. The betrayal of it all. It doesn’t matter that it’s the same as Wylan helping Jesper, it’s different. Don’t ask how. It just is. “it’s Kaz’s child that you kidnapped from him.”
Jesper sucks in a breath, and Wylan informs the table “we’ve banned the T word when it comes to the plate.”
“Technically?”
“Yes. There are too many technicalities.”
“Like what?”
Wylan tells of how the plate is technically his because it was technically his father’s, and since his father technically left everything he owns to Wylan, it is technically Wylan’s. And then Kaz stole it from Wylan's father, and Jesper stole it from Kaz, and it’s all a technicality.
They’re still working out (arguing in circles but enjoying it too much to come to a conclusion) if the plate is technically Wylan’s at all, since it wasn’t in his father’s possession when he left everything to Wylan.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nina says, looking rather smug, “because it’s my plate now.”
“our plate now,” Matthias mutters, and oh, how he’s come a long way from saying his ghost wouldn’t associate with any of their ghosts. Now he’s taking pride in associating with their dumb plate stealing game. Not only that, but he’s taking pride at cheating at it.
Jesper can’t help but correct them by saying “it’s your plate for now. We’ll get it back. Eventually.”
Jesper was right about saying they’ll get it eventually. The two of them aren’t the next to get the plate, and though there’s as much proof to who took the plate as there was to her being pregnant, Nina knows who stole it from her.
Inej comes over for a tea and gossip session, wherein Nina updates her on what she missed during double-date brunch, and Inej reveals very little about private, single-date brunch with Kaz. Nina can’t hold it against her, since she’s holding out information from double-date brunch. She doesn’t tell Inej about Jesper thinking she was pregnant, or how she now holds her abdomen in an exaggerated maternity pose whenever she catches his eye, but she tells her about other mundane things. The mundane, they both think, are some of the most precious moments they have. Some of their favorites to share.
“Oh,” Inej says from the kitchen after going to get a refill of her tea. “You have the plate.”
She says it so casually, but it stops Nina’s breathing with the efficiency of a Heartrender. She feels her heart fall to her ass.
“You know about the plate?!”
Inej snorts. “Of course I know about the plate. I know everything that happens in the Slat.”
Nina’s outburst isn’t out of surprise. It makes sense Inej would know about the plate. The plate is a secret and a ploy, and nobody catches onto secrets and ploys the way Inej does. Her outburst is at the fact that Inej knew about the plate and didn’t tell her, meaning Nina and Matthias were the only ones out of the loop, damnit! She could have teamed up with Inej at some point!
“You knew about it and you didn’t tell me? You were all in on it without me?!”
“We weren’t all on it without you. Matthias didn’t know either.”
Inej comes back to the couch, steaming mug in hand, and Nina wastes no time getting to business.
“So how long have you known? Did you know before Wylan? Did you know before Jesper? did you know before Kaz?” This changes things. Nina assumed the plate was between Jesper and Kaz, but maybe it’s between Jesper and Kaz and Inej. Maybe she’s been in on it this whole time. This whole time!
“Did I know about the plate before Kaz? No. Did I know about the plate before Jesper? No. Did I know about the plate before Wylan? Maybe.” she shrugs. “I don’t know when Wylan got in on it, to be honest. He wasn’t involved at the very beginning, at least. And I’ve never stolen it, I just keep track of who has it. Sometimes I move it around their rooms, just to make them question.”
Nina, appreciative of a good bit, decides to stop telling Inej her woes and instead informs her about how she stole the plate, how Jesper thought she was pregnant, how it all came to light at double-date brunch. Inej listens and laughs along, adding her own tidbits of knowledge around past plate thievery.
But there’s a glint in Inej’s eye as she talks, and Nina can feel her thinking. Her heart is thrumming to a beat of anticipation.
And that’s all the proof Nina can offer as to how she knows Inej stole the plate when she finds it missing the next day.
It’s all the proof she needs.