Chapter Text
"Is that...." Wylan squints at the ridiculously ornate plate that was, for reasons he could not figure out, in a drawer of Jesper's desk. "Is that from my father’s house?"
"Technically," Jesper says, holding the plate up, "It's from Kaz."
"Kaz gave you a plate from my father's house?"
"Saints, no. I stole it from Kaz."
"....After he stole it from my father's house?"
"Also technically, it's your house now."
"Technically, it's our house." Wylan says, then looks back to the plate.
The plate itself is offensive to the eyes. The background is a pinkish orange color with some spots more unevenly pink and some spots more unevenly orange, and a border of green the shade of an olive. As if the criminal color choices and painting job wasn’t enough of an eyesore, the truly hideous part of it was the big black blob that, if Wylan squinted just right, could almost maybe sort of pass as a bird, if he squints even more and holds his breath.
The poor artistic crime against nature had a body that was flat against the background of the plate, but a head clearly shaded too much and eyes that Wylan felt never looked away from him, despite them going in two different directions.
It’s no wonder he recognizes it immediately. There’s no way a plate like that could ever leave someone’s mind forever.
“How long have you had this?" He remembers when it went missing from his house. He passed the old cabinet in the even older parlor where it resided, and it caught his eye when his brain immediately told him something was different. The other (far more pleasing to the eye) plates were in their rightful spots, but the middle plate stand was empty.
Wylan was baffled at the disappearance once it clicked what was missing. Maybe one of the maids broke it on accident? It couldn’t have been stolen. There had been no visitors to that parlor, and why would anybody steal it, anyway? It had no value, no claim of victory, nothing.
No matter what happened, he couldn’t deny his relief at not having to see that plate anymore when he walked down the parlor. It was too wretched to see every day.
Jesper clicks his tongue before telling Wylan "This time, I’ve only had it a day. It never stays in my possession for long."
"What? Does the plate grow legs and walk away?” Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise Wylan. It might be haunted. It’s definitely cursed.
"Well, it's quite the tale. I honestly didn't know where Kaz got it from,” Jesper explains. “It was just in his office one day, and it caught my eye.”
Wylan scoffs out a laugh. “How could it not?”
“Exactly! So I was admiring it, and Kaz told me to keep my grubby paws off it. I asked him what the deal with the plate is, and he said it’s his new trophy. And then it sat collecting dust, and I couldn’t let that slide.” Jesper looks at the plate, and Saints, he looks at it as adoringly as he looks at Wylan, damnit!
“So you stole it?”
“Naturally.” Jesper nods, finally looking away from the plate and at Wylan (his boyfriend, mind you), and maybe he looks at the plate with more adoration than he does at Wylan (his boyfriend, mind you).
“So, to make sure I got it right, Kaz stole a plate from my father, and you stole it from Kaz.”
“Precisely.”
“And what do you mean it doesn’t stay in your possession for long?” He keeps his thoughts of the plate being cursed to himself. He’s right, though.
“Well,” Jesper sets the plate on the desk, and it looks like the world’s worst centerpiece. It doesn’t help that he put it next to some of Wylan’s sketches that have actual artistic value. Wylan is sort of offended it could exist that close to his work. “The day after I stole it from Kaz, it was out of my room and back in his office again. He didn’t say anything about it, and I didn’t say anything about it, but we both knew what happened.”
“He stole the plate from you?”
“Yes!”
“And let me guess, you stole it back?” He can’t imagine why Kaz would want the plate back in his office. He can’t imagine why he would even steal it in the first place, other than to gloat that he’d been in and out of the house without anybody realizing. That’s probably exactly why he stole it, but why that plate of all things? Why not something of value, because Ghezen knows this plate has negative value.
“You know me so well, Wy. Of course I stole it back. And it became a thing.”
“You two just…. Steal a plate from each other?”
Jesper scoffs. “It’s more complicated than that.”
Wylan raises an eyebrow, but he isn’t surprised. It’s never simple with Kaz and Jesper. “How could it be more complicated than that?”
“Kaz caught me once. I told him the plate was just dusty, and I was cleaning it for him. Then he told me not to touch the plate for the rest of the day. And that’s suspicious phrasing, right?”
Wylan nods. “Right, because why would he specify the rest of the day?”
“That’s what I thought! So, the next day, I went back and stole it again, then we kept stealing it back and forth. We never said anything about it, but now we had an unspoken yet respected rule that if one of us was caught stealing the plate we couldn’t try to take it again until the next day.”
Wylan would bet his dignity and eat off that plate every meal for the rest of his life if Kaz had ever got caught stealing the plate from Jesper. Once again, he keeps this thought to himself and shakes his head in disbelief. “This is ridiculous.”
“This is brilliant,” Jesper corrects.
“This is ridiculously brilliant,” Wylan concedes, “and I want in.”
Jesper sits on the bed next to Wylan, cackling as he does so. “Oh, this is perfect! You can be my secret tool. Not,” he gets serious so quickly it makes it unserious, “that you’re a tool. You’re the perfect unsusceptible thief.”
“As your boyfriend, I’m pretty sure I’m the first person anybody would suspect, but I appreciate the confidence you have in me.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if he suspects you’re in on it as long as he can’t prove it. But we have the upper hand here. We have the element of secrecy and surprise, we just need a plan.”
Wylan looks at Jesper, and Jesper looks back with a wide grin and Wylan can’t believe it’s the same way he looks at a hideous plate. But he ignores that (after rolling his eyes, because he can’t ignore it completely,) and moves to sit at the desk. He carefully moves the plate and sets out a clean piece of paper, then starts to sketch Kaz’s office.
“Let’s make a plan, then.”