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Chapter 1
Jesper woke up, the Ketterdam sun making its rare return through his window. He turns over to snuggle with his boyfriend Wylan. His arm hitting the empty mattress. He sits up, his eyes scanning around their shared room at the slat.
Wylan’s bag and coat are missing from the hangers by the door.
Jesper grabs a shirt from the dresser and slips out of the room in hopes to find his favourite demo man in the common areas.
In the living room, there’s no Wylan, only a couple of gang members passed out on the couches.
Jesper makes his way towards the kitchen and finds Nina Zenik sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of tea.
“You're up early.” Nian says, not looking up.
“Wylan’s missing.” Jesper says, stealing a piece of toast someone made.
“Have you looked in the sitting room?” Nina asks.
“Yes.”
“Well I don’t know where else he would be then.”
“You’re no help.” Jesper teases.
“Have you asked Kaz? He seems to know where everyone is.”
“Nina Zenik, you're a life saver, I’ll buy you waffles soon.” Jesper says, rushing out of the kitchen.
“You don’t have the money for waffles,” Nina yells, from the kitchen.
Jesper runs up the stairs and begins to knock hard on Kaz’s door.
“Kaz, open up, I have a very important question to ask you.” Jesper says, banging the door. “I know you don’t sleep, so I’m coming in.”
Jesper turns the handle and is surprised to find it unlocked.
The door opens and Kaz is standing there, cane in hand, face blank of any readable emotions.
“Wylan is missing and I don’t know where he is and I’m scared he ran away again. Or he’s been taken.-”
“-Is Wylan’s stuff here?” Kaz asks.
“No.”
“So, your boyfriend hasn’t been kidnapped.” Kaz says.
“I still don’t know where he is.”
“He probably went to his workshop early.” Kaz says.
“He would have woken me up to tell me-”
“-There’s a shruffle happening a couple blocks from here.” Inej says, from behind Jesper.
“Inej, you have to stop doing that. One of these days you're going to give me a heartattack.”
“Where actually is the shruffle happening?” Kaz asks.
“It started at Vicki’s and it got moved outside.”
Two things clicked inside Jesper's brain at the same time. 1, Vickie’s is near Wylan’s workshop. 2. Wylan could be in trouble.
“I got to go, Wylan could be in trouble.” Jesper says, dashing back down the stairs.
Suddenly, Inej passes him, sliding down the banister, her braid trailing behind her.
“I’m not letting you go alone.” Inej says at the bottom of the stairs. “Also you're forgetting something.”
Jesper looks down and notices his guns are still in his room. Jesper rushes back to his room, grabs his guns and slips on his boots, cause he forgot to put them on, when he started looking for Wylan.
Meeting Inej at the door, Jesper breaks into a run, his feet hitting the stone street. Not looking if Inej is following him. ( Which he knows she is.) He turns down a side street, weaving through people leaving bars or clubs. He dodges some vomit when he starts to hear shooting from a street ahead.
He makes a sharp turn into an alley and fishes up his key to the workshop and unlocks the door and rushes in to find the workshop to be empty of Wylan. It looks like Wylan hasn’t been here since yesterday all of his chemicals carefully labelled with music notes, stored in their proper spot.
“It looks like he hasn’t been here.” Inej says, sneaking up on Jesper.
“Ahh! You have to stop doing that.” Jesper says.
“I don’t try to.”
“Well time to get to the shruffle.” Says Jesper, walking out of the workshop and locking the door behind him, so Wylan doesn’t think someone came and messed with his stuff.
Which Jesper didn’t do, he actually didn’t touch a single bottle.
As the fighting gets nearer Jesper unloads one of his guns from its spot by his hip.
Passing a knocked out guy with blood coming out of a wound above his left eye. Jesper checks his wrist and sees three birds tattooed on his wrist. So the shruffle is against some Razorgulls and someone else.
A flash bomb goes off somewhere, half blinding Jesper.
“I think I found my man,” Jesper mumbles under his breath.
Racing towards the blast zone, Jesper shoves a guy with the barrel of his gun.
Up ahead Jesper spots Wylan’s mop of brown hair ducking behind a crate, searching for something in his backpack.
Jesper watches as Wylan starts pulling at the crate he's hiding behind. Not so aware of the dude coming towards him, so Jesper shots him in the stomach.
Jesper continues to fight his way towards Wylan, shooting anyone who comes too close to his demoman.
Jesper gets to Wylan and grabs his arm. Wylan turns and hits him in the head with the wooden board he prided from the crate.
Pain erupted above his left eye.
“Gheezen Jes! I thought you were someone else.” Wylan says, lowering his board.
“I’m fine,” Jesper says, touching his head. “See no blood.”
“I still hurt you.”
“It was self defence.”
“But still-”
“-Nope this conversation is over.” Jesper says.
“Good you found him, we should get going.” Inej says, and Jesper jumps at the sound of her voice.
“Right, right.” Wylan says, sliding his backpack back on.
Jesper grabs Wylan’s hand and together they run through the street, Jepser looking over his shoulder and shooting people in their legs so they can’t follow them.
Jesper leads them towards the workshop not wanting to run all the way to the Slat.
At the door Wylan digs into his coat pocket for his key. Pulling out the key, Jesper steps aside so Wylan can unlock the door.
Entering the workshop Wylan drops his bag and coat on the chair.
Jesper looks at Wylan, his eyes dragging over his body for any injuries. There's nothing Jesper can see at this moment, he thinks as his eyes linger a moment at Wylan’s lips.
“Is anybody hurt?” Inej asks, closing the door.
“ Nope, all good here.” Jesper responds.
“I have a scrape on my elbow. But it’s nothing I can’t fix myself.” Wylan says, showing his torn sweater with some dried blood around the hole.
“So where did you go?” Jesper says, asking the question that’s on his mind and possibly Inej’s.
“Well, I’ve been saving some spare kruge to surprise you with breakfast, and the sun shining through the window so I knew today was the day to surprise you.” Wylan says, tugging on his sleeves.
“Why didn’t you wake me up, we could have gone out together.” Jesper says.
“You just looked so at peace sleeping, so I didn’t want to wake you, and I couldn’t you know.” Wylan says, whispering the last part so Inej doesn’t hear.
“I know. I was just worried you ran away again, or was taken and you were hurt, or something bad happened or, or…” Jesper feels tears forming in his eyes.
“Hey.” Wylan says, standing in front of Jesper and silencing him with a quick kiss. His brown eyes staring into his grey ones.
“What I would like to know is how the shuffle started?” Inej asks, by the door.
“Well, from what I overheard at the restaurant, one dude owed another dude money, and the first one didn’t have the money, I think. So the second guy punched the first guy and the shop owner told them to take it outside or he was going to call the Stadwatch. And that’s it I think.” Wylan says.
“One side was Razorgulls, I don’t know what the other side was.” Jesper says, adding to the story.
“They were Liddies.” Inej says. “I checked their arms when you were looking for Wylan.”
“Next question, how did you get in the middle of the shruffle?”
“Well I was leaving the restaurant and turned down the street to check up on the workshop to see if everything was in the right place. Turning onto the street I was forced into the middle of the shruffle, but now there was more of them fighting. I used most of my flash bombs trying to get away. When someone pushed me to the ground that’s where I got this.” Wylan says, pointing to his elbow.
“So you got pushed to the ground then what happened?” Inej asks.
“Well my backpack landed close by so I grabbed and used my last flash bomb in my bag.”
“That was probably the one that half blinded me.” Jesper says.
“Sorry about that.” Wylan mumbles.
“It’s alright you didn’t know I was there. Same when you hit me in the head.”
“Wait, Wylan, what did you hit Jesper with?” Inej asks.
“A wooden board, I pulled off a crate after I ran out of flash bombs.”
“It hurt like hell.” Jesper adds.
“You said you were fine.” Wylan says.
“Last question, do you still have the waffles?” Jesper says, ignoring what Wylan said.
“Yeah, there in here,” Wylan says, grabbing his bag and unlooping the straps and taking out two plastic containers. Jesper grabs one and slides onto a stool.
“Thank you Babe for sacrificing your money for this delicious breakfast.” Jesper says, opening the container to find waffles covered in apples and syrup.
“I can share with Inej.” Wylan says, offering the open container to her.
“No, it’s fine. I’m not hungry right now.” says Inej.
“Suit yourself, these are delicious.” Jesper says, after his first bite.
“I should go tell Kaz that we’re all safe and about the shruffle.” Inej says, grabbing the door knob.
“Nonsense we’ll all go back together.” Jesper says.
“I just have to check on something quickly, wait outside for me.” Wylan says, packing up his waffles .
Jesper and Inej exit the workshop, a couple minutes later Wylan emerges, coat on and backpack on his shoulders.
“Hey you okay?” Jesper asks, as Wylan locks the door.
“Yep.” Wylan nods.
Grabbing Jespser’s hand the two walk hand and hand back to the slat, as the sun makes its way across the Kerch sky.