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there’s not much you remember right now, which should be scary, losing your memory and all. but how can it be when you’re here, under a sea of stars and cradled in the warm embrace of the boy you’ve loved for years? jesper is so close in a way you’ve never had him, his personal scent of spices and gunsmoke, comforting and familiar, grounding you as he holds you to him.
your ears ring, locking you away from the audible world, but you can see and feel. jesper’s face wavers above you, dark eyebrows drawn together and darker eyes glassy with tears. you can feel the confusion ghost over your features and the words get stuck in your throat: why are you crying, jes? what’s wrong? how could anything be wrong when you’re pressed into his chest and one of his hands, trembling like a leaf in autumnal winds, cradles your cheek? all around you is warmth and you swear you’ve never felt so comfortable, so cozy. when your eyes begin to slip closed, it felt like the most natural thing to do; the darkness was coaxing you into its own embrace, away and further away from jesper. you don’t want to lose the feeling of the boy’s stable chest tight against your shoulder, but you feel so tired, nothing a nice slumber can’t fix.
as you’re allowing that dark tide to drift you out to sea, the ringing in your ears starts to fade, jesper’s voice slowly taking its place. your name sounds so desperate on his lips, each syllable quivering sonically the way his hand does physically. your eyes slide open, struggling to stay open all the way but trying, just to take in jesper’s face for a little while longer.
“hey, hey, hey.” you can hear the tears in his voice now and you’re still missing the reason why. “you’ve gotta stay awake, okay? keep your eyes open.”
you start to form his name on your own tongue, but he shakes his head, effectively keeping you quiet. you’re starting to come to, mind catching up with body, and you realize that jesper’s tears aren’t for nothing. every part of you aches something fierce, but there is a certain kind of sting in your stomach that you recognize is the source of your fatigue: you’ve been stabbed. the dizziness, the way your eyes threaten to slip closed, the full spectrum exhaustion.
“i told kaz i had a bad feeling, sending you off without a partner,” jesper mumbles to himself. you register his free hand at your stomach, pressing his scarf tightly against the wound. when you groan, he looks up, a poignant and solid kind of sorrow written across his face that morphs immediately into worry again when you start to feel that hypnotic pull of darkness once again.
he gasps out another series of “hey” and drags you back into consciousness, letting out a breathy laugh of relief, anything to keep you focused on him, on staying awake. but you’re losing that battle and quickly, something he realizes when your eyes are glossing over and looking through him at something he can’t see. you vaguely register his call of “nina! inej! anyone!” before he bends back over you, forehead dangerously close to yours.
you’d never admit it to anyone, but if you have to die now, you’re glad it’s in the arms of one of the only people who has ever made you feel welcome and worthy. maybe it’s because the crows are their own little family or maybe it’s because jesper knows what it’s like to be on the outskirts of something, not quite part of that ingroup, and never wanted you to feel the same, but ever since joining the group, jesper has been your self-appointed everything: friend, confidante, errand boy. and, like a popular fairytale, you fell for him.
jesper has always been everything you aren’t, filled in every gap that you have. he’s done more than fit seamlessly into your life; he has complemented you in ways that nobody else ever has. with someone like kaz, the relationship is a balancing act, too far in one direction and it’s off-kilter, but jesper, things are perfectly in sync. they always have been. with the way he transitioned into your life and made it feel like he’d always been there, like he’d been meant to come into your life, how could you not fall for him? whether he knows it or not, he’s shown you how to love and how to be loved, a lesson unintentionally taught yet learned eagerly.
so yeah, if you’re dying right now, jesper so close that the tip of his nose brushes yours and his breath fans hot and soft over your face, his arms wrapped tight around you, how could you not be okay with leaving the world like this? in the arms of the first and only boy you’ve ever loved, you can’t imagine a better way to go, though it’s saddening that dying is the only way you’d gotten him to hold you in the way you’ve been dreaming of for months. you make your peace with it. he has to know now, as you lean your weight into his body, cheek pressed to his shoulder, eyes finding purchase on his face, that you love him most ardently, that you have longed to be in this position for so many moons.
and you’re losing it again, that battle with being, and he’s rocking now, taking you with him as he buries his face in your hair, tears seeping through to the scalp. at least when you go, you’ll have a piece of him with you. his chest rumbles under you, his words warm against your skin, a steady plea of “come on. stay with me,” even though you know you can’t. you’ve never been meant to.
the darkness is familiar and comforting, all cinnamon and clove and gunpowder. and it’s soft, too. warm, like you’re pinned under the gaze of someone longing and silent. if this is what death feels like, you ponder why you were ever afraid of it in the first place because this seems like your personal heaven.
but then the darkness begins to break apart, all soft golden light and consciousness. your senses are coming back to you.
not dead, you think. i’m not dead. saints, i didn’t die in that alleyway.
you start taking stock of the senses you do have (sound, scent, touch), but you fixate on the weight on your hand, the dip in the mattress beside you. hand, warm, soft, uncalloused, nimble. breath hot against your fingers. and then there’s the allspice and gunsmoke, secrets of a zemeni upbringing that had been divulged to you in the quiet late night hours of private crow club bedrooms.
jesper.
you say his name this time, barely a whisper, and though you haven’t opened your eyes yet, you can tell that the boy stirs. because you know him the way he knows you, the way neither of you know anyone else. you can picture the way he squeezes his eyes shut, presses his shoulders back to release tension and sleep, things that only you know that he does as he wakes up. only when he shoots up, letting out some unintelligible sound of surprise, do you finally let your eyes slide open, squinting against early morning sunlight.
your name falls from him, soft and reverential, as if treating your name so delicately will ensure that you are alive, will speak your life into existence, coaxing you away from death. you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so relieved as he does now, eyes shining as he looks down at you. his leg closest to the door keeps shifting, as if he’s warring between letting your friends know that you’re awake and not, though you’re not quite so sure of the implications of the second option.
finally, though, after glancing at the bedroom door, he settles back beside your bed, riding the very edge of the chair as though he can’t bear to put any semblance of distance between you.
“how do you feel?” he asks, shoving his hands between his thighs; it’s a habit of his, you realized months ago, something he does when his hands feel restless, but he doesn’t want to annoy others.
that’s right; you hadn’t finished taking inventory of yourself after you’d woken him up. besides the residual aches and the persistent pulsing of the knife wound in your side, you feel… okay. whoever it was that healed you (likely one of the many grisha in hiding here in ketterdam) deserves a million thanks because they did amazing work.
“i feel alright,” you answer, pulling yourself into a sitting position. “how long was i out?”
jesper shrugs, eyes falling to a fraying thread on the blanket. “a couple of days. which were miserable, might i add. inej and nina spent hours pacing the first few hours after we got you back here and while the healer was working on you.” he pauses for a moment, lips pursed as he turns something over in his head. you almost don’t think he’s going to say anything else until he opens his mouth and continues.
“the silence was almost unbearable after everyone left. i was the only one who stayed.”
you look at him, study the way he is making a point to not look at you. your heart aches: why doesn’t he want to look at me? did i read that night all wrong? it was possible, seeing as you’d been in the clutches of death and entirely delirious. you start to open your mouth to respond when the boy looks up, fresh tears in those clear eyes of his.
“i thought i was going to lose you.”
and there it is, that sharp knife of regret for something you couldn’t control. he wasn’t accusing you for what happened — he knew full well that it hadn’t been your fault. but there were other things, other people he could place blame on: kaz, who hadn’t thought there’d be a need for you to have a partner; himself because he hadn’t fought harder to convince kaz, because he hadn’t gotten there fast enough; the person who’d done this to you (long disposed of by now, if kaz had any say in the matter) because they considered you an enemy, hadn’t known the sweet feeling of being loved by you, of knowing that you were in their corner.
but under all of that, you know that it’s not why that sentence cuts so deep. he’d lost his mother through no fault of his own. and he’d abandoned his father on that jurda farm back in novyi zem under the impression that he was going to university in kerch. he’d lost nearly everyone who meant anything to him. maybe you’d severely underestimated how much value he placed in you, in your presence in his life.
“i’m sorry. i-“
jesper shakes his head, a sad kind of smile ghosting that perfect, plush mouth of his. “saints, it’s so cliche and childish of me, but…” he laughs, a sound thick with tears and dry humor. “i don’t care. i thought i was going to lose you without getting to tell you how i really feel about you. i’m not good with words the way you are, not when it comes to things like this, but you have to know now that i…”
the world around you falls away, the way it had when you’d been on your deathbed in some random alley in the city. there’s no steady hum of patrons filing out after an all-nighter, no street noise from outside the windows, not even a creak in the hall that denotes kaz or some other crow club member. right now, it is just you and jesper and the faint sounds of your breaths mingling in the silence as his words settle in.
“i knew something was wrong that night, but i gave you the benefit of the doubt because i know you can take care of yourself. but it wasn’t even twenty minutes before that feeling was too much. kaz didn’t want me leaving, but i just knew. i knew something had happened to you and then i found you just off one of the straats, bleeding to death.”
the breath he takes is trembling almost violently and your body moves faster than your mind; you can’t stop yourself from reaching out and taking the hand of his that fidgets with that damned loose thread. but you know what he means, that strange, otherworldly connection the two of you share, like some kind of telepathy; you could anticipate things, could sense when something bad had happened, even something great. you knew him inside and out, and vice versa.
“i didn’t know what to do. you were just laying there, not moving. you didn’t even react when i picked you up. it was like you were already gone. and the first thought i had after i need to get help was that i was going to lose you before i ever had the chance to tell you that i…”
he goes quiet, letting his voice trail off right before he gets to the words that you want to hear the most. but he’s looking at you and his eyes are glistening in that flaxen sunlight and he’s smiling that smile that is reserved for you and you alone, something akin to a secret, something earnest and warm and everything else that ketterdam so often seeks out and destroys.
and you realize that you don’t even need him to say it because it’s already there in spades without being vocalized. it’s there in the way he’s looking at you right now, in the way he refused to leave you alone when you were lost in the darkness, in the way he treats you with a safeguarded softness. it’s always been there; you were just too daft to notice it until now.
“jes…”
you’re not sure where you’re going, just that saying his name feels right, but when you trail off and his face drops, his shoulders tensing for a rejection that will never come, you do the only thing that’s reeling through your mind right now.
you cradle his face in your hands and meet him halfway, mouths soft and warm and tasting like sunlight. in his haste to get closer and comfortable, he nearly tips his chair over when he stands, towering over you. his own hands mimic yours, cradling your cheeks in those miraculously soft palms of his, fingertips pressing into skin. it’s not a heated kiss by any means, just something to test the waters, but it’s almost impossible to pull away. this is something you’ve dreamed about for months on end, the one thing you allow yourself to fantasize about as you fall asleep, knowing that it would never happen.
but it is. you are kissing jesper fahey and he is kissing you back. he is holding onto you like if he lets go, the whole moment will fall apart, disappear like a dream. he presses his lips impossible closer to yours, trying to close all the gaps between you, and it is his enthusiasm that finally causes the break away because you’re giggling breathlessly against his mouth.
of course, in typical jesper fashion, he doesn’t even move back entirely. yes, your mouths are no longer connected, but his nose brushes yours, there is a ghost of a touch between your foreheads. he remains so close that when you open your eyes and study his, you can see that the deep brown is not as consistent as you thought; rather, there are small flecks of gold and bronze that interrupt it. you think you could get lost in them forever if he’d let you.
“you’ve no idea how long i’ve been wanting to do that,” he says, the words fanning across your face in warmth exhale.
“i’ve no idea? you have no idea,” you respond, looking at him with complete bewilderment.
there’s no way he’s been wanting this for as long as you have, but he stares back, nothing short of amusement and recognition in his brown-gold-bronze eyes, and you realize that maybe he has. if not longer.
“this is ridiculous. you’re ridiculous,” you splutter, pushing him away by his shoulders and throwing yourself down into the covers dramatically (though mindful of the not-quite-healed-yet knife wound). jesper’s laugh in response is high and youthful and sonically pleasing, music-adjacent, and he follows you, the entire upper half of his body slumped over yours as he tucks his face against your shoulder and laughs more, laughs again, deep and full and comforting. you’re filled with a sense of pride, glad that you’re the one who can make him sound like that, so unguarded.
“that makes you ridiculous, too,” he responds in kind, finally crawling the rest of the way onto the mattress. you cease the playful struggle and he settles in behind you, body fit perfectly to yours, like two halves of a whole. his arm is warm and heavy over your waist, and you place your hand over his, fingers intertwining as you press them to your chest.
you've been in this position before, tucked against one another and reveling in the shared warmth, but this time, there is a mutual understanding that this means more, that it is more. he’s right, that you both are ridiculous for a multitude of things, but you finally ended up right where you are meant to be. there is hope and warmth and the promise of a future that looks brighter, clearer than the lives you lead now. maybe you’ll never leave ketterdam, maybe the two of you are bound to the crows and kaz brekker until death, but now you know you have each other.