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The thing is — Jesper is well aware that he is a lot to deal with. He knows he's a handful — has been ever since his Ma and Da took care of him. He buzzes with a tremendous amount of energy, he is loud and impulsive, he never knows when to stand down from a fight. Or from a game. He is in such desperate search for something that he constantly looks for any thing to distract himself from the desperate search.
He has been feeling confused all night, but it happens whenever he drinks a tad too much. It's like he is walking through the evening with a veil in front of his eyes, and he is lucky he doesn't have a heist tonight, because he is not sure he'd be able to shoot straight.
The chills up his arms start with shadows following him and smiles too wide on the cheeks from girls approaching him for directions. He knows he is just drunk, or most probably in need of a good night's sleep — the Saints know he needs one of those. Instead, he keeps pushing himself through the night, shoving away the fear he gets when ice cold hands touch him and he turns in the middle of the chaotic Stave to find that no one is around.
That scared him to death, but he knows it's just a trick of the mind. He thinks there's no people around, or that someone touched him, but the real world is a different story: he is just too numbed to really stick to it.
That doesn't stop him from picking up his pace.
He finds himself in the third club of the night, then, just when it's almost dawn — but customers are so blinded by the twinkling money that they don't see the stars disappear beneath the gray of day.
Or at least, he thinks this is the third club he steps into. Everything is a bit too fuzzy tonight, and it feels somehow crooked. Eerie.
Wrong.
He tries to shake it off and walks past familiar halls — Oh, this is the Crow Club, with its dark walls and greasy tables. He doesn't know why he keeps coming back here. Is it the loyalty to the Dregs? To Kaz? The free rent? The gambling tables always welcoming with twinkling dice?
As he walks towards the counter, he meets well known faces: Big Bolliger is lost into a fiery argument with someone from another gang — Oomen, Jesper remembers. He hears bits of their banter, about Geel's plans to take the Dregs out, but it makes no sense for Big Bolliger to be supporting that. There's Per Haskell observing everything from his usual spot, surrounded by his old friends, their faces a bit too sparse and spectral to look real — but again… Jesper is so drunk, and he's sure his body will not be thanking him in the morning.
And there's Da laughing at a table with Kaz.
Jesper stops in his tracks.
Why is Da here?
Suddenly, all the noise and voices stop to a halt, and Jesper feels a shiver creep up his spine as he realizes that everyone is looking straight at him. Their eyes bulge, big and unblinking, and most of them have their heads tilted to an angle, like they are too tired to keep their neck straight.
"We are waiting," Kaz says with his venomous, hoarse voice. It catches Jesper by surprise, and more so when it echoes through the room, rumbling from person to wall to person and filling everything with its presence.
"Waiting?" Jesper asks, a knot in his throat — his voice sounds muffled, like he is hearing himself speak from over the water. It has no echo.
"For you to admit it," Oomen continues, and when Jesper turns he realizes with horror that where there should be his two eyes there's just… There are holes. Pitch black holes, but he still feels that he is looking straight at him.
He wants to throw up.
He doesn't dare move an inch, for once in his life, even though everything in his body screams.
"That you killed her," Da says, sour, bitter.
Jesper fights the need to look at him — he doesn't want to see the hurt, the disappointment on his face. He knows he didn't kill anybody — not recently, at least, not that his Da knows of — but he also knows that Colm would be mad at him for hurting anyone. If only he knew how many people I've hurt, he thinks with venom towards himself.
That's what pushes him to search for his father's eyes, but he doesn't meet them: Colm is not looking at him. His sad gray eyes are set on a woman on his left — Jesper follows his gaze, trying very hard to ignore every member of the Dregs, as still as stones while looking at him.
He thought he would have seen his Ma — the Saints only know how many times he sees her whenever he is drunk like he is tonight. The guilt, the anger, the sadness that fill his chest whenever he thinks about her are unspeakable.
He misses her dearly.
He is mad at her.
He feels guilty for her death: he could have helped, could have taken the venom out of her body, could have… But he was just a child, and now she is gone.
He turns.
He thought he'd have seen his Ma.
Instead… Instead there is Marya, standing there and shaking in hospital clothes — the ones they first saw her in, back at Saint Hilde. She looks so pale and spectral that she might as well be actually dead. Her lips move around incoherent words, and although Jesper is sure they are curses against Jan Van Eck, he is curious about it.
He has to walk closer to hear what she is saying.
When he does, the biting smell of rotten jurda flowers fills his nostrils until he chokes.
"...hates you," she is saying, in a sing-song kind of whisper that makes the blood stop in his veins. Jesper stops in his tracks.
Suddenly he remembers about… How could he forget about…?
Marya keeps chanting eerily. "Because you are broken, and wrong. Wylan hates you, because you are broken, and wrong. Wylan hates…"
Jesper halts back like he has been electrocuted, and all lights turn off on him.
All he can see is the luminescent lights that make up Makker's Wheel, numbers and lines in bright, blue-ish bone light. His eyes dart left and right, frightened and alert — there's dice clattering and shining in the shadows, the white of everyone's eyes and the flashing white of their teeth, all showing on ghostly smiles.
Jesper makes a run towards the door, but he finds it locked.
He pushes with all his strength, and doesn't dare turn towards the room again: he feels the crows of sinister Dregs approach him slowly, and he has a feeling that if he turned, they would get him.
The door snaps open just as soon as a sticky, cold hand grazes at his nape.
He gets out immediately after, daring to turn around only to find the silhouette of the Crow Club gone. Perhaps it's still there — but it's still pitch black and he can't see a thing. He feels the freezing, night air on his skin though, so he knows he is outside.
He turns again, to run away, but he collides against someone.
He freezes right where he is, all lights turning back on on Wylan's face — all swollen like it was that day when the Dregs beat him up to send Jan Van Eck to prison.
Wylan has a thing with stares — his eyes are so honest that they hide no depths more than what he wants to convey.
Jesper spends their days getting lost in those endless, sky-blue eyes that are always so affectionate and stubborn, so fiery and beautiful.
Now… Now they are full of hatred and pain, a stare that the mirror has often shown Jesper before going out for a game or twenty, after the thrill of a shooting had subsided, before going to bed every late night.
When Wylan opens his mouth to say something, a piercing scream reverberates through the space around him and Jesper's bones, and everything goes pitch black again.
He opens his eyes to find himself in his bed, chest heaving with breathes too big for his body.
He wants to dart up and let Wylan hug him, comfort him, kiss him.
But he can't move.
His breath comes ragged, and his eyes run all around in fear of something bad happening. But he is home, it's okay, he is okay, he…
Someone is crying.
Finally Jesper feels his paralysis subside and he moves his body as fast as he can.
Is Wylan okay? Please Ghezen let him be okay.
He puts his feet on the ground, too worried about Wylan to realize there's an ankle-level liquid all over their bedroom floor.
He notices only when he reaches Wylan, crouched with his head between his knees and sitting on the ground. He crouches as well and his hand finds the thick liquid.
He gasps.
It's… Is it… blood?
"Wy? Wylan? Are you okay? What's happening?"
Wylan doesn't raise his head: he keeps sobbing against his silk trousers, and Jesper respects that. He lets Wylan cry it out, brushing soothing patterns on his bare back.
His sobs take a different pitch, after a while.
More like a laugh — eerie, childish.
Jesper takes his hand away like he's been burned, just a moment before "Wylan" turns. He turns and he is not Wylan anymore.
He is Matthias, eyes red with blood and mouthful of tulips.
Jesper blinks and suddenly he is not in a lake of blood in his bedroom, but in the hallway, and Matthias is dangerously walking towards him.
Jesper runs, and runs, and runs — but he can't move from his spot, while Matthias quietly walks to him, getting closer, closing his huge hands around his neck…
Jesper wakes with a startle, heart beating like crazy and ears pierced by someone's shrill scream.
When he feels soothing, firm arms surround him and lull him, he realizes that he is the one who had been screaming. He closes his mouth and presses his lips thin, shaking in Wylan's arms.
"You are fine, Jes. I got you. You are here, you are fine," Wylan is saying against his temple, words soft like a caress on his skin.
Jesper anchors himself to Wylan's arms, pressing his limbs as close as possible to his body and letting himself be shushed quiet until his breath doesn't come as ragged and desperate.
"I'm sorry," he manages, but he immediately feels Wylan's arms hold him harder, like a warning.
"You have nothing to be sorry about. Ghezen knows how many times you've been woken by my nightmares."
Classic Wylan, all straight to the point and factual as usual, leaving no space for debate or to overthink. Jesper lets his body melt against Wylan's, and his boyfriend tugs his face in the crook of Jesper's neck. He presses a kiss against Jesper's throat that makes him hum.
He breathes, and it comes loud and shaky.
He breathes again, deeper, steadier.
"Are you okay?"
"I am," Jesper says after another deep breath, but then he remembers the fear — Wylan hating him, hurting Marya, being judged by Kaz and Colm, Matthias. He remembers how every face he saw sent him back what he sees in himself: a useless piece of trash who ruined his life and that will never be able to change, no matter how good he is doing now — he has something wrong deep within, and that can't be changed with love and freedom to practice his zowa powers. There's always going to be that too much energy that is going to make life harder — for him, and for everyone around him.
"You're wrong," Wylan says when Jesper tells him as much. Jesper turns into the hug, now facing Wylan and searching for his face in the dark. His thumb brushes Wylan's neck, and then raises to his cheeks only to find…
"Why are you crying?" Jesper whispers.
"I want you to be alright," Wylan mumbles, pressing his forehead against Jesper's.
"I am," he says. "I am with you."
"But I want you to be alright with you," Wylan says, voice getting louder and more stubborn. Jesper leans forward, and his lips kiss a tear off as soon as it's being shed. He keeps kissing Wylan's wet cheeks, until he is unable to do anything but start giggling under Jesper's attack.
"I am getting there," Jesper says around a bashful smile. "This time I didn't even have to play Three Man Bramble with my hands tied with you on a side judging me and calling me a loser," he shrugs, and feels more than sees Wylan's brows furrow, creating an adorable little divot between his eyebrows. "What I'm saying," he says with haste before Wylan can retort. "Is that if my nightmares are getting better, it must mean I'm getting better as well."
"I wouldn't call that bone-shaking nightmare s — plural — better," Wylan says. "But I get what you are saying. And you are, objectively."
"Huh?" Jesper asks.
"You are getting better. Slowing down more, practicing your blessing for fun more than as a chore. You are shining, Jesper Llewellyn."
"And you ruined it," Jesper jokes, speaking directly against Wylan's curls. "You called me Llewellyn. I'll have to tickle you until you are breathless."
"Dare," Wylan says in challenge. And then, "But if you do, I'll tie you up to the bed, again."
Jesper shivers at the treat, hopeful. "What? Like… right now? Would you?"
Wylan smacks his hand and tries to get free from his hold. "Jes," he whispers-yells with horror and laughter. "It was supposed to be a threat, you horny, insatiable…"
Jesper kisses Wylan — on the mouth this time, and it's salty as his skin had been, still wet from his tears. He melts into the kiss that he has begun as soon as Wylan deepens it, and lets himself feel grounded — safe into this kiss, this embrace, with this man that he loves and that, surprisingly, loves him back.
He is a handful, he knows that. He is too much energy bottled away for so long it doesn't know what to do with itself; he is a bullet stuck into the barrel of a broken gun. He knows he's bothersome, and loud, and a bit crooked, but he can't see any of that as Wylan kisses him tenderly and holds him close.
The ghosts of his nightmare — the ghosts of his past self — disappear into the thin night air as Wylan keeps kissing him until he is the breathless one, lightheaded with love rather than liquor, rooted in safety rather than lost to the tides of any passing wind.