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193 days.
That’s how long it’s been since he last gambled anything. So much has happened since then. They’d broken into the Ice Court and somehow managed not to get killed. Van Eck - Wylan’s father, and yeah that had taken a while to get used to - had screwed them over, and then his own father had been here, disappointed and confused and afraid, while half of Ketterdam tried to hunt them down.
But it had worked, in the end - Kaz’s mad plan with the sugar silos and the jurda fields - and Van Eck was rotting in jail where he belonged. And somehow Jesper’s boyfriend is the richest man in Ketterdam and they’re living together in a fucking mansion.
193 days and he really, really misses it.
He is painfully aware of his body, drumming his fingers restlessly against his thigh instead of focusing on what he’s actually meant to be doing.
He’s sitting in one of the many spare rooms that has been turned into a workshop for Wylan, with a dedicated desk for Jesper and his small collection of fabrikated objects. Across from him, Wylan is busy finishing an order for Kaz, putting stoppers into beakers and packing everything into a box. Sunlight slants in through the tall windows at the far end of the room, bathing Wylan in a warm glow that highlights the dark copper in his brown hair.
Jesper drags his eyes away from Wylan and down to the lump of metal in his hand. What was he supposed to be turning it into again?
He closes his eyes and flexes his fingers, trying to focus his mind on the molecules in the metal, pull them apart, reform them again. Sweat beads on his brow. When he opens his eyes he’s met with a lump of metal that vaguely resembles the right shape. Shouldn’t using his power make him feel better? Instead he just feels sweaty and dizzy.
“Hey, you made a spoon!” says Wylan enthusiastically, coming over to where Jesper is sitting and taking the not-really-a-spoon from his fingers. “It’s good!”
It isn’t.
Jesper sighs and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. “It barely even looks like a spoon!”
Wylan presses a kiss to the top of Jesper’s head and perches on the edge of his desk. “If it doesn’t look like a spoon, then how did I know it was a spoon?”
Jesper just groans exasperatedly. His head is pounding from concentrating on fabrikating and his skin prickles where his clothes brush against him.
Wylan puts the spoon down next to Jesper’s other poor representations of household objects. “I still think we should find you a teacher,” he says carefully. “Or you can go to Os Alta. I’m sure Nina knows someone who can teach you.”
“I don’t want to go to Os Alta,” Jesper grumbles in response, lifting his head to glare at the spoon like it’s personally wronged him.
“Well I’m not mad about the idea myself, but if it would help…”
Jesper glances up at him, taking in his worried eyes and slight frown. “Can we please not talk about this now?”
Wylan nods and reaches out to run a hand through Jesper’s hair. “Okay, but will you at least think about it?”
He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want a teacher, and he definitely doesn’t want to go to the Little Palace, he just wants to be better. Saints, he misses his Ma.
“If I have to.”
Wylan offers him a small smile then glances up at the clock. “Shit, I need to go. Can you take this to Kaz for me?” He asks, indicating his box of glass bottles, filled with a cloudy grey liquid. “I was meant to meet him but Councillor Dryden wants to talk to me about planning permission for something, and you know how much he likes the sound of his own voice.”
Jesper manages to muster a smile. “Of course, love. Any excuse not to see Dryden myself.”
“Thanks,” says Wylan and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be careful not to jostle the box too much. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
He hops up off the edge of the desk and grabs his black mercher’s jacket from the back of his chair.
“Sure, see you later.”
Jesper waits until he hears the front door of the house open and close again, and then picks up the spoon and throws it across the room. It lands on the parquet floor with a dull, metallic thud then skids across the room until it collides with the wall.
It doesn’t make him feel any better.
Breathe, he tells himself. He can do this. Just take the box to Kaz and come home again. Maybe a walk will cure some of his restless energy.
-
He arrives at the Slat just after midday. He’s greeted by Anika and spends a few minutes catching up with her and Rotty, grateful for the distraction from the buzzing inside his own head.
“Kaz around?” He asks eventually once their conversation has died down.
Anika nods her head towards the stairs. “Office. Sulking.”
“Of course he is.”
Kaz could hardly be described as the life of the party at the best of times, but ever since Inej left his mood has been noticeably more sour.
Jesper takes the stairs two at a time, his long legs making the three flights of stairs almost easy work. He knocks on the door and doesn’t wait for a response before throwing it open.
“Delivery for you,” he says as he steps over the threshold.
Kaz barely looks up from the papers covering his desk as Jesper carefully sets the box down beside him.
“I was expecting Wylan.”
“Council stuff,” Jesper offers as explanation, flopping down onto the chair opposite Kaz’s desk. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
“Thrilled.” Kaz scrawls something illegible on a scrap piece of paper then piles everything up into a neat stack. He finally looks up at Jesper then, studying him, his gloved hands steepled underneath his chin. “You look like shit.”
Jesper snorts a laugh. “Thanks.”
He’s not wrong though, he does look like shit. He’s barely slept in a week, mind racing at a hundred miles a minute, fingers itching for the gambling tables, a roll of the dice, cards in his hands. He’s spent his nights either lying awake in bed, listening to Wylan breathing beside him, or pacing the endless halls of the mansion until the sun comes up. If Wylan’s noticed the dark circles under his eyes, he hasn’t mentioned them.
Jesper fiddles with one of his rings distractedly. His skin feels too tight, stretched taut over bone and muscle and tendon like it’s struggling to keep his body together in one piece.
“Inej wrote to me,” Kaz says, and Jesper doesn’t miss the way his eyes lose some of their coldness at her name.
“Yeah? How is she?”
“She seems well. She hopes to make port next week.”
Jesper perks up a little at the news. He’s always thought of Inej as a sister, and Ketterdam hasn’t felt the same since the day she left on the ship Kaz had gifted her. Privately, he’d wondered what on earth Kaz was doing buying her a ship and encouraging her to leave when there was so clearly something between them, but any attempts at getting Kaz to open up have been met with an icy glare.
“You know Wylan is going to invite you both to dinner,” Jesper says, the ghost of a smile on his lips at the thought of hosting a pirate captain and the bastard of the Barrel at the Van Eck mansion.
Kaz sighs wearily. “Yes I thought he might. I’m sure Inej will be delighted.”
Jesper should probably leave, being in the Barrel and this close to the gambling dens is far more temptation than he can bear.
“Don’t you have council stuff to be getting on with?” Kaz asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Probably,” says Jesper, standing to leave. He surreptitiously wipes his sweaty palms on his trousers.
“Go home, Jesper.”
With a nervous swallow, Jesper nods and heads back down the stairs and leaves the Slat.
He means to go home, he really does. It’s a nice day, early spring, and the sun is shining, albeit a little weakly. He even considers walking the long way home, past the financial district and along the Geldcanal, to make the most of the pleasant weather. But as he leaves the Slat, his feet start moving before his brain catches up, and before he knows it he’s standing on East Stave with the rest of the pigeons.
He fists his hands into his jacket and Saints, why didn’t he think to empty his pockets before he left the house? It’s only a handful of kruge but it’s enough. Choosing a club is harder. He’s known at all the Dregs clubs, and the workers know not to let him at the tables unless they want to risk Kaz’s anger, and he may have paid off all his debts now, but that doesn’t mean he’s welcome at any of the other gangs’ clubs.
In the end, he finds his way to a fairly new club and buys into the first card game he sees.
-
Several drinks later and his luck from the first few rounds has deserted him. It felt good to win, a giddy rush that dulled the constant itch under his skin for a short time, but quickly wore off again. He should have quit while he was ahead, but since when has he ever known what’s best for him? And now he’s halfway to drunk in an effort to numb the hollow feeling in his stomach, most of the money he’d won already in some other fucker’s pocket. He’s debating using the remainder of his kruge on a half decent bottle of whisky to drown the rest of his sorrows when he hears a familiar tap tap tap approaching him.
“I thought I told you to go home.”
He can feel the disappointment radiating off of Kaz without even looking at him. Frustrated, Jesper throws his cards down.
“I tried, Kaz. I really did.”
He had, hadn’t he? He’d certainly intended to go home, but it wasn’t where he’d ended up. He’d failed, again.
“Not hard enough.” Kaz fists a hand into Jesper’s collar and hauls him to his feet. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”
Jesper groans and lets Kaz manhandle him out of the club and onto the street, blinking at the rapidly fading daylight. Shit, how late is it? How many hours had he been in that club before Kaz found him?
“Can’t I just stay at the Slat for the night?” He sounds almost whiny and he hates it, like a petulant child who got caught with their hands in the biscuit tin. He’s not sure he can bear to face Wylan.
“No,” says Kaz as they start walking back to the Van Eck mansion. “You made your bed, now go and lie in it.”
-
Wylan doesn’t shout at him and somehow that’s worse. Jesper wishes that he would yell, scream, punch a wall, anything other than just looking at him, arms folded across his chest, a worried look on his face as he leans against the doorway to the parlour.
“Say something,” Jesper pleads, sinking down onto the sofa.
“What do you want me to say?”
Jesper scrubs his hands over his face. “Saints, anything, please. Tell me you’re kicking me out, tell me how mad you are at me, tell me how much of a disappointment I am.”
Jesper feels the sofa dip as Wylan sits down beside him. Gentle fingers close around his hands and pull them away from his face.
“None of those things are true,” Wylan says gently.
“I promised you I was done gambling and I failed. I left the Slat and went straight to East Stave without even thinking about it!” Jesper springs to his feet, wrenching his hands out of Wylan’s grasp and starting to pace restlessly around the room. “I don’t even know why I did it. It’s not like I need to try and win money to pay off my debts any more. Everything’s settled, thanks to you. And I wanted to just come home, I really did.”
Wylan remains seated. Jesper can feel his eyes boring into him as he walks in a frantic loop around the room.
“Jesper-”
“Saints, it doesn’t matter how good I have it, I always just find a way to fuck things up over and over again.”
His addiction has cost him so much already. His university career, a fractured relationship with his father, and fuck, it had even almost cost Inej’s life. And now it’s ruining his relationship with Wylan and the life they’re tentatively trying to build together. Maybe they were doomed from the start, Jesper’s love of gambling hanging in front of him like a noose ready for him to put his head into.
He glances over at Wylan then, still unmoving on the sofa and circles back around to stand in front of him.
He deserves so much better than this. Better than me.
Jesper sinks to his knees. “I’m no good for you, Wy. My entire life has just been a series of fuck-ups and terrible decisions until I met you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, but you deserve so much better.” He feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he looks up at Wylan from his position on the floor. “I’ll ruin you, us, everything. Like I always do.”
“Do you remember what I said to you, that night at Black Veil after we’d met Rollins’ kid?”
Saints, that feels like a lifetime ago. They hadn’t even been together then, though Jesper had been just as entranced by the unassuming demo man as he is now.
“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere. And I still mean it.” He reaches out and cups Jesper’s cheek with one hand. “I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you tell me you don’t want me any more.”
“Wylan,” Jesper breathes, tilting his face to kiss his palm. He could tell him that he doesn’t want him any more. Lie to him. It would be kinder, in the end. But Jesper has never been known for his selflessness. “I’ll never not want you.”
Wylan smiles softly and leans down to kiss his forehead. “Healing isn’t linear, Jes. It’s okay to mess up now and then. It doesn’t make you a failure. And it doesn’t make me love you any less.”
The tears start to fall then, and Jesper shuffles forward to rest his head on Wylan’s knees, feeling utterly pathetic. Wylan just runs a hand through his hair soothingly.
“I’m a fucking mess, Wy,” he says eventually, sitting back on his knees and wiping away the tears with the back of his hand. “You deserve so much more than Barrel scum like me.”
“Enough about what I do or don’t deserve,” says Wylan sharply, but his hands are gentle as he cups Jesper’s face once more and tilts it upwards to look at him. “I want you, and I want to help you. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”
For the first time in a week, Jesper feels calmness wash over him. The insatiable, burning hunger that’s consumed him seems to recede, put back in its little box for now, biding its time.
He slumps forward into Wylan again, feeling both overwhelmed from everything that’s happened and exhausted from his sleepless nights.
“I’ve got you,” Wylan murmurs, dropping to the floor too and pulling Jesper into his arms. “You’ll be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jesper asks, voice muffled against Wylan’s neck.
“Because we’ll do it together,” Wylan says, and it’s a promise.