Chapter Text
Jesper is no stranger to risk.
In all of his time in Ketterdam, he finds himself chasing it, embracing it. Risk, built on fear and bravery and hope. It’s followed him like a shadow for as long as he’s known he’s had one. It had been a friend to him in Novyi Zem, something to stoke the energy that ran wild under his skin as he learnt about his power. Hands made to mould metal, coins into keys into knives. Hands that could kill with intricate movements of deft fingers. Hands that could soothe pain and press love into the darkest places. Hands that conjure destruction, easy as throwing dice to clatter on a gambling table. Zowa hands. Blessed, supposedly. They feel anything but now. The promise, the need for more rings in his ears, not enough, not enough. Why stop now when there is always more to gain? The initial fire, the initial bet was never where the problem lay, but always the gamble, the follow-through that he had never been good at.
He has everything he could want. Even when his Da had suggested he pack up, to make something of himself at university, everything had always been in abundance. Too much to know what to do with, the Fahey home was an abundance of love, Ketterdam had been an abundance of thrill and trouble. His arrival in Ketterdam and nights lost to the Barrel taught him to wear trouble like a coat; in equal measures, it provided a way to defend himself - like a kind of weapon - and a way to feel something, to send that zap of thrill up his spine that shocks him into focus like nothing else does, however brief it is.
He isn’t quite sure he understands the things that drive him to destruction anymore. More often than not these days, he finds himself alone, thrumming with potential energy. The Van Eck house is nothing short of breathtaking, even more so when Wylan’s in it, but with him away with Alys, Marya and the baby for the weekend, Jesper is left hostage to his own unreliable thoughts. He strains in Wylan’s absence, wishing he had gone with them, knowing that he is still too loud and too disruptive to get in the way of a family in the process of rebuilding.
So, he tells himself that it starts innocently, that he is going nowhere on an aimless, innocent walk. So when he does end up going, he does so trying and failing to let himself believe that he is going nowhere, when really he knows exactly where he is going.
His feet fall into the familiar rhythm of guiding him towards the wet cobblestone of the Barrel, bound for a game of Three Man Bramble, like so many days before it. Putting his energy to use, the only way he knows how.
He doesn’t know which he hates more at this point. The gambling, the lying or himself. For right now, they haven’t exchanged sordid life tales, it having been a matter of weeks since the auction. He knows that Wylan doesn’t really understand the true extent of his problem, because Jesper doesn’t want him to yet, too desperate to hold onto him for as long as he can. Nights in the Barrel, on the West Stave, with all manners of friends, lovers, acquaintances had told him to wear his damage like an accessory, a piece of jewellery that he could flash at the right time, or hide. His troubles, worn as a coat, and welcomed by his hands like a close friend.
That isn’t to say Wylan knows nothing, of course. Kaz had told him plenty enough. As a compromise, perhaps an attempt to wean him off. Wylan had even given him a small allowance to use, fixed, of course, Jesper recognised it as an attempt to give him a limit. Deep in the back of his mind, Jesper knew with the right odds he could stretch it much longer than the once-a-fortnight limit Kaz had enforced on his ventures to the Barrel clubs. But he’d held off, desperate to prove himself, that if he wasn’t that bad, then it shouldn’t be that hard.
How wrong he was.
He knows that Kaz has eyes everywhere, and it was more likely than not that he would get spotted while out. He prays that whatever demons are lurking in the Barrel will cross the Bastard of the Barrel before he does, and that he might be free to do this in peace.
Once more, just once, he thinks. I won’t lie to them about this again, I won’t. But the itching under his skin grows too irritable to ignore, his thoughts coming too randomly and too fast for him to catch a grip on them, starting and fizzling out like flash bombs before he can reach them. Already, he can taste the sweet burn of whisky down his throat and the thrill of coins between his fingers, the metal calling out to him like a siren.
So he goes. Jesper never could resist long odds, and he is no stranger to a little bit of risk.
When he wakes next, his head is spinning, the skin on his temple burning. He winces at the sudden, dimmer than he remembers, though. His vision is blurring slightly, and black spots bloom and shrink in his vision sporadically, memories of the bright lights of Makker’s wheel fading behind his eyes. The chatter that had been drowning the voices in his head is quiet now, too quiet, and he is left with the sound of clattering dice. The smell of wine and sweat and jurda colouring the gambling hall is replaced by the smell of damp that is is permanently fixated in the air and vaguely smoky from lanterns like the one lit in this very room, the ones that light the street outside. Jesper starts to realise he might have fucked up. He presses his fingers to his temple, touching the spot where his head is positively screaming in pain, unsurprised when the skin there sizzles and he is met with blood on his fingers. Scratch that, really fucked up.
There must have been some kind of brawl at least, given the way dull pain throbs in his legs and his arms. Not that he remembers it in the slightest. How drunk was I? He thinks, but he can barely recall his second drink, let alone his last. He wonders whether he is still drunk, his head still giddy from either the wine or the fight. He checks quickly for his revolvers, lest his stupidity mean he had lost those too. He is granted a moment of reprise when blood-stained fingertips brush the metal of them in his sling, cold to the touch and both as loaded as he had left them. No gunfight, at least. The chair that he’s slumped in is black and leather and rough, and Jesper slowly starts to realise where he is, and the panic sets in even further. The picture of the DeKappel hung high in Kaz’s office, lords above him. A sharp knock on wood confirms his suspicions and saints, Kaz really does have an eagle eye on them all.
Saints.
“Good night, Jes ?” Kaz snarls. He sounds angrier than he normally is, and Jesper dreads meeting his eyes. He does, anyway, because he dreads Kaz sticking that saintsforesaken cane under his chin and making him.
He feigns innocence, stupidly, because the recklessly, stupidly hopeful part of him still believes that he is not beyond charming his way out of this one.
“Oh, you know, just a nighttime stroll. You know how it is.” Jesper placates.
“That I do,” Kaz agrees, and just for a moment, Jesper thinks that maybe it might work. “How much kruge did you lose tonight, then?” Who was Jesper kidding but himself? All one-sided pretence drops from Jesper, and if possible, he slumps even further into his chair, and he is stone-cold sober.
He thinks long and hard about it, but as all those times before, the night escapes him. He just about remembers what club he walked into; he certainly remembers leaving the mansion, but he definitely does not remember who he dealt with. He presses his hand to his coat pocket, grateful that whatever events may or may not have taken place, he at least has not been divested of his clothing. Guilt pangs when he feels nothing there. Not even the coin purse he had left with. It wasn’t an expensive thing, as far as he was aware, but it had been a gift from Wylan, and not for the first time tonight, he was reminded that he fucked up. It’s lost now, gone to some other skiv in the barrel with a better sense of control than he’s ever had. Control, what a joke.
“Enough to land me here, clearly,” Jesper snarks quietly. He’s saying all the wrong things, making all the wrong decisions, and he knows it. He knows that Kaz knows he knows it too. He wonders if he’ll pull him up on the decision, or simply leave him to the streets, letting Wylan kick him out in the process.
“Enough with the bullshit, Jesper,” Kaz snaps, venom seeping into every syllable. “How many times am I gonna have to save you, sacrifice another job before you realise that you are not slick?”
Jesper wants to make another joke and respond petulantly to him in any desperate effort to rile Kaz up further, turn the conversation away from anything but this. Kaz knows him and knows what he’s like; any kind of response would cause the remaining dignity he possesses to fall out of his hands. He presses his lips together, tight. It sends another sharp spark of pain through him, and that’s just fucking wonderful.
“You have debts to pay all over this city, including me and Wylan, and you decide the best way to pay them back is to keep on? Do you think some kind of saint is going to descend upon you and make this all go away? Do you think that you will get better with this, taking none of your effort?”
Everything around Jesper goes completely still. Kaz’s words sink in with the uncomfortable realisation that Jesper is sinking to rock bottom again.
Seething, Kaz continues, and Jesper holds back a wince, “You’ll stay here tonight, and don’t bother thanking me because this will be the last time I waste any time pulling your ass out of your own mess.”
The words ring through him like the toll of a bell at nightJesper thinks on this for a moment, contemplating what in response he doesn’t yet know, given that there is not very much else he could say to that other than, okay. He doesn’t put himself here in these places on purpose, and yet is sharply, painfully aware that it is no one else’s fault but his own. Before, at least, with the Ice Court and the ship, Kuwei and parem and the auction, something was driving him to duty. A way he could put that thrumming, restless energy to use in a way that didn’t involve digging pits in his own pockets, driving debts deeper into the ground than his own, inevitable grave.
Once it had all stopped, once they had all got their kruge and something briefly akin to a happily ever after, he thought, finally it might end. He had enough money to cover all of his debts, enough to start paying his way through Ketterdam, enough to live comfortably. But, he supposes, comfort was never enough. The urge to move, to connect, to enchant risk, to bend hope at his will and beam with it with every win (no matter how few or far between).
Jesper struggles to understand the things that drive him to destruction because it isn’t tangible; it’s a feeling. Sticky and awful and unshakable, an impenetrable force that he can’t bear to ignore. He inhales, fighting to stop shaking on the exhale. If Kaz notices, he doesn’t say anything, not the first bit of grace he has given Jesper this evening, uncharacteristically so.
“I know I’m not in a position to be asking any favours,” Jesper grits out, quietly. “But please, please don’t tell Wylan.”
He’s willing to get on his knees, however much pain it sends shooting up through his joints and beg. It's something that Kaz draws out of his opponents, never his Crows. Jesper isn’t quite sure where he stands anymore. He looks up at Kaz for the first time in a while and finds himself really seeing him now, dark shadows under his eyes, but the alertness, the anger, the defence iron clad in the lines of his face and the cold set of his eyes. Even Jesper knows Dirtyhands gets tired. Kaz stares at him, long and hard, after his plea. Jesper doesn’t breathe with the anticipation of it; either way, he knows he deserves what’s coming.
“Whatever lies you tell Wylan to make yourself feel better are none of my business,” Kaz says, tone undetectable, and Jesper can only hope.
Kaz stares at him a moment longer before setting his cane to the wood floor and leaving the room, pulling the door shut with a resolute thud behind him. Jesper is left with nothing but his pain and his hope, and himself.
Jesper holds onto his hope like his life depends on it; he clings to them and lets them be the only things that keep him honest. As bad a gambler though he is, letting it turn him into a liar is a line Jesper can’t bring himself to cross again. Not after everything he put his father and the Crows through. He’ll tell Wylan, he knows he has to, but he wants the chance to explain himself. Fear is something he’d welcomed as an old friend, taking its hand and holding it close to his chest in the fight, until it shrinks away for them to inevitably meet again. In this room, fear slinks in, wrapping its arms tight around Jesper as he frets for what he’s lost, what he’s done and what he can’t remember.
It’s like a shadow he can’t shake, even as he stands to up to lay himself on the floor. Wincing, he turns to lie on the side of his head that has taken less of a battering, lungs still squeezed tight by fear. It’s unfamiliar now. In a fight, he can mask a fear for his life, for the lives of those he is defending, as exhilaration, as adrenaline. Now, there is no fight. There is only the inevitable fact that he will sleep tonight on this floor, and in the morning, he will have to confess to his lover how deeply broken he is, and Wylan will ask him to leave, surely not wanting the broken shards of an untrained, reckless Grisha. Jesper curls further into himself. He takes no comfort in the embrace as he drifts to sleep, dreaming of home, dreaming of Wylan.