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His routine has changed in the weeks following their triumphant return from Ravka.
Not that Jesper has ever been one for structure anyway; he loves novelty, it would be boring if things always stayed the same. He knows chaos, and he knows how to adapt. His routine is different, but in no ways is it lacking variety.
Some things remain: Ketterdam, the Barrel, its busy streets as hectic and all consuming as always. The sound of coin being tossed and spun, card decks being shuffled to the time of busy boots. It’s a comfort, then, that his city had not changed in his time away. Though, that isn’t completely true either. Change sneaks up where you aren’t looking, and even the Barrel isn’t exempt.
No Pekka means the gangs of the Barrel are in disorder. The Dime Lions adrift, everyone unsure where and who to turn to, and Kaz has plans. Along with their new partnership with the Dregs, they’d set up the Slat as a sort of boarding house for their two gangs. Kaz has already made a claim on Fifth Harbour, talking about using a portion of their payment from Ravka to have it dredged and expanded to use for business.
Some changes are harder to adjust to than others: the Crow Club, still being renovated until further notice, all of Jesper’s things inside of it, lost to the day it went up in smoke.
Jesper has never taken easily to loss, no matter how much of a gift he has for inviting it.
He misses Inej terribly, her absence a physical thing at his side, empty space where there had once been one of his best friends. She will come back, she will, but it doesn’t stop him from looking over his shoulder or peering into shadows, experience and muscle memory still expecting to be snuck up on.
But most changes are good: new room, new clothes, new opportunities. He’d been due for a refresh in his wardrobe anyway, and he is always a fan of shopping. If you couldn’t open a door, you just had to shoot open a new one, or whatever Kaz is always saying. He fills the new room at the Slat with new hats and suits, already starting to overflow from storage crates and the wardrobe against the wall. He has his boots shined and springs for a new gun belt and polish for his revolvers.
Payment from the Ravka job sits fat and heavy in his pockets, and that’s new as well. It’s enough to pay off his debts and then some. Some, as Kaz has been sure to remind him, frequently. Jesper thinks Inej might have given Kaz and him the same talk before she left, and the idea that she’d double crossed them both into looking after each other is offensive and at the same time unbearably sweet. He bats Kaz and his prickly shows of concern away like a fretful hen, promises not to go in hard at the tables and mostly follows through with it. Jesper, as much as he loves spending money, also loves having it, and the cold hard kruge is incentive enough to play at good behaviour. He wants to say he won’t waste it, but it's in his nature not to resist pleasure in any of its many forms, and take as many good things life throws at him with a smile and a wink and greedy hands.
Speaking of which—
The sight he is first greeted with in the morning is a new one too, quickly cementing itself into the everyday. Every morning, lying just to his right, one certain demo man.
Waking up next to Wylan is, possibly, the best new addition to his routine of all.
It differs from morning to morning who will wake up first. Saints know his sleep schedule is chaotic enough, and Wylan’s isn’t any different. Even though Jesper isn’t on door duty at the Crow Club until it’s finished, their occupations necessitate a certain amount of flexible hours, and jobs from Kaz don’t exactly follow a timetable. Jesper wakes much like he falls asleep, which is to say it happens quickly and all at once without him ever having noticed the shift in consciousness at all. He doesn’t remember a time it wasn’t like this, he’s always been a person of large extremes, and this is no different.
Today Jesper blinks away the last remnants of sleep from his eyes and turns to see Wylan is still asleep beside him. He’s got an arm slung over Jesper’s waist and his face half buried in his pillow, nose pressing into Jesper’s side. Jesper’s own arm is more than half underneath him and only slightly numb. He flexes his fingers a few times and looks around, letting his eyes adjust to the morning light, following its path from the break in the curtain to the corner and around the walls.
Though Wylan had been quick to agree to living together when Jesper asked, it had been a sort of challenge to get Wylan to treat the room like a place he could actually live, rather than just stay—which he’d happily done the week before they’d left for Ravka and after they came back. He’d been reluctant at first, as if expecting at any moment that Jesper might take his offer back. Jesper knows that isn’t even a slight possibility at this point, and he’d been quick to tell him as much. The key had been an impulsive decision, yes, but he doesn’t regret it. He’d helped Wylan move most of his personal belongings from the warehouse a few weeks ago, and looking around, the room really is theirs now.
There is evidence of Wylan all around the room alongside Jesper’s things. Little signs and oddities of his habits. His flute, broken into pieces and placed neatly in its case—because Wylan cares for it like a well loved family member and can’t stand to leave it anything but properly put away—a pair of goggles hanging off the back of the desk chair and near it, a sketchbook open to a page Jesper can’t see. Wylan, though he is far from messy, seems to come with a fair amount of paper that has a way of travelling. Sheet music peeking out of his satchel in the corner and under mugs on the table, as if hastily grabbed in lieu of a coaster. Sketches and scraps of it scattered in places, half drawn equations and formulas Jesper has no hope of making sense of. Music notes scribbled on different items as labels or like messages to be rediscovered at a later date.
It’s strange in a way, because Jesper has never truly shared a close space with another person for long, and never like this. And it’s with an odd sort of wonder that he takes in all of the places where one of them ends and the other begins, the places where one might scarcely be able to differentiate between them at all.
The desk is littered with mangled keys and spoons and scraps of metal, coins and bullet shells he’s been practising using his abilities with. Alongside various small tools that appear to multiply from the many pockets on all of Wylan’s clothes. The bowl holding all of Jesper’s rings is beside a few ink pens and Wylan’s fob watch. His revolvers are lying on the side table, next to several vials of something that looks vaguely green and powdery, that Jesper has decided not to ask about. Wylan’s coat has been tossed onto the vanity, and there’s a hat and tie of Jesper’s thrown over the lamp. Their boots are just visible where they’re overlapping each other by the door, and he knows that somewhere just out of sight, their discarded clothes from yesterday are lying in a tangled heap on the floor.
It makes such a bizarre collection of oddities that somehow fit together. It's strange and it’s new and he likes it. Likes seeing all the signs and traces of both of them infused around the room.
Jesper likes Wylan here, in bed, chest softly rising and falling with each breath, head a wild nest of frankly gravity defying hair sticking out in all directions. He likes Wylan, the feeling that comes of having Wylan right next to him.
Wylan is different. Different from the other people living in the Barrel—and Jesper knows he isn’t from the Barrel, not originally, but even so—Wylan strikes him as someone incapable of being ordinary. His out of place manners and quiet demeanour clashing with everything commonplace here. He’s kind and creative and definitely a genius, even if he doesn’t believe so about himself, and he’s unlike anyone Jesper has ever met before.
He’s different for Jesper too. Jesper doesn’t do this, or he hasn’t before. Commitment, boyfriends—he has a boyfriend, Saints—It’s all new and foreign territory that he isn’t sure how to traverse in the slightest. Wylan makes it easier than Jesper thought it would be. He’s never felt this way about anyone before—is ever so slightly terrified to mess it all up. But with Wylan, he wants to try.
Wylan is interesting. He’s endlessly fascinating and constantly surprising. He’s a charming contradiction. A mosaic of conflicting information that buzzes in Jesper’s brain with the same rush of taking an unlikely shot and watching it hit right where he’d told it. Wylan is smoke and gunpowder wrapped in soft wool and cotton. The bite of teeth only to be soothed quickly with a kiss. Wylan is beautiful, and Jesper is a little bit obsessed.
Today he’s wearing one of Jesper’s shirts. And this is becoming routine too. Wylan always, at least in moments like this, seems to be wearing one of Jesper’s shirts. He says he gets cold easily, which Jesper doesn’t think is an outright lie, but the spark in his eyes when he says it leads Jesper to believe that he also just likes stealing them, and knowing Jesper will always let him get away with it. Jesper doesn’t mind. Quite the opposite, he thinks they all look better on Wylan anyway, and he does not bestow that honour lightly.
He feels more solid with Wylan around, like his weight at his side is a physical anchor, tethering him to the present. There’s a stillness here, in the slow and steady rhythm of Wylan’s breathing, the way his fingers curl a little in their hold around the blankets and Jesper. The way he looks, sleep-soft and warm, morning light casting shadows under his long eyelashes and highlighting the faint dust of freckles over his cheeks. Wylan is pretty, that’s no secret, from his big, big eyes to his pointed, perfect lips, and Jesper becomes caught on the sight of him in a way that he ought to be at least marginally embarrassed by, but really, really isn’t.
As lovely as it all is, it doesn’t take long before restlessness creeps up regardless. Jesper has never been one for quiet reflection or stillness. Always needing some form of activity or motion to keep him sane. Now that he’s awake, he longs to move, for the day to start.
His Ma used to say that he woke with the sun—something he’d thankfully grown out of in later years, especially after leaving the farm—and that it was only sense that her little rabbit needed to hop with it too—that part may still be true, even if he wouldn’t use the word hop .
Although, maybe he hasn’t grown out of the first part either. Looking out the window he can see that the sun is properly out for once, something Jesper knows will not last long in Ketterdam. They’re only a few months away from winter, and already the rain has been sweeping through the city like a tide as if to warn them of the long months ahead. But today there are no dark clouds, no miserable greys, only the last reaches of summer come to say goodbye. He finds himself wanting to meet it. Itching to fidget and shift, wanting to be free of the blankets.
He could leave. He could slip away downstairs and out the door into the busy streets of the Barrel with little trouble. Although, there is the small obstacle of Wylan’s arm currently hugging Jesper’s middle, and his own arm still pinned underneath him. He wagers he can probably get away without disturbing him anyway, if he’s careful.
He can, but he doesn’t really want to.
If he’s patient, Wylan will wake up soon on his own, and then Jesper can tempt him into getting up with him, which seems like a much better outcome. If he’s patient, he can watch the way the sunlight hits Wylan’s deep brown eyes as they first open, coax him away with kisses and tease him about using Jesper as his own personal furnace over breakfast.
Jesper is not patient.
Jesper flexes his hand a few more times as feeling comes back into his arm in pins and needles. He shifts around a bit, repositioning himself, and Wylan keeps sleeping.
He’d been delighted to discover that Wylan is not typically a morning person, and that if roused too early he can get a bit, well, grumpy. Prone to honest to Saints whining and not above taking the pillow off Jesper’s side of the bed and hitting him with it. It’s the cutest thing Jesper has ever seen. And it’s such a striking departure from awake-Wylan, who Jesper has seen apologise to a door or table without noticing—multiple times—and who seems so afraid to take up too much space anywhere. He’s so polite, and watching that tight lipped exterior crack into something that fits Jesper’s own brand of mischief so well is something he wants to encourage.
Already knowing what is likely to happen, Jesper starts to tap a light rhythm on Wylan’s shoulder. Wylan only sniffs and scrunches his eyes in response, but otherwise doesn’t stir.
“Wylan,” he whispers. He runs his other hand through Wylan’s messy hair and Wylan bats it away.
“Mmpgh.”
“Wylaaan,” Jesper calls softly, undeterred. “Wy.” He taps him a few more times.
“Nooo. I’m asleep.” Wylan turns to press his whole face into the pillow deeper, tightening his hold around Jesper’s waist.
Jesper tries to stifle a laugh but doesn’t think he manages it. “I really don’t believe you, actually.”
“Too bad.”
Jesper continues playing with Wylan’s hair for a few moments. “What if I ask nicely?”
Finally, Wylan blinks his eyes open and fixes him with an exasperated and somewhat resigned look. He looks soft and still delightfully sleepy. He looks so fucking pretty, and not nearly as annoyed as he’s trying to be. “You aren’t going to let me go back to sleep, are you?”
Jesper grins.
Taking the time to let it be slow and unhurried, Jesper kisses him. Wylan, despite his insistence on being asleep, kisses back eagerly and without complaint. Jesper pushes onto his forearms for more access and Wylan arches his back up to meet him. Jesper pushes him slowly back down into the mattress, finally retrieving his arm from underneath him and bringing it up to softly cup Wylan’s face and stroke his cheek. He starts to pull away and Wylan breathes a soft and ineluctable sound that has Jesper immediately ducking back down again to drop another kiss to his lips.
Wylan hums, and this time when he blinks up at Jesper, he looks decidedly more awake.
“We should do something,” Jesper says, grinning wider when Wylan’s eyebrows furrow like he’d mostly forgotten about that part of the conversion.
Groggy confusion quickly transforms into fondly tinged exasperation and an eyeroll. “Why?”
Jesper tilts his head towards the abnormally sunny window. “It’s nice out. We should go out. Finally get that breakfast, remember? Waffles, Wylan, on fire.”
Wylan practically collapses back into the pillow, throwing his eyes heavenward as if asking for strength from a higher power.
And people think Jesper is the dramatic one.
“Jesper Fahey,” Wylan sighs out. “It. Is. Saturday.” He rolls back over and burrows further into the blanket.
“Not very Kerch of you, Wy,” Jesper teases, sitting back onto the bed. “Doesn’t Ghezen frown on idleness?”
“Trade and commerce take energy.” Wylan says seriously, without missing a beat. “Energy expenditure in humans requires two main sources to replenish, which are food and sleep—ergo, proper attention paid to rest is actually very Kerch.”
“Well, you definitely aren’t asleep if you’re telling me about energy expenditures and using words like ergo. So—”
“Also,” Wylan continues, as if Jesper hadn’t spoken. He pulls his arm out of the blankets to point an accusing finger at Jesper. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly living a life of piety and worship. And”—he holds up another finger, as if going down a list—“waffles aren't exactly a profitable or productive business venture, so if Ghezen cares about anything, I don’t think a lie-in is at the top of his list.”
“Hm, I see your point,” Jesper says, nodding agreeably, “but I have some thoughts.”
Jesper opens his arms in invitation and Wylan resettles closer, head pillowed on Jesper’s chest. Wylan looks at him wearily, almost sulkily, and raises an eyebrow.
“One”—Jesper holds up a finger in the same way Wylan had to illustrate his point—“Waffles are always profitable and productive”—he holds up another finger—“and two, didn’t you say that the other main source of energy is food? Which is—and please, forgive me if I’m wrong—just as important as sleep? Ergo”—Wylan scoffs, and Jesper winks—“as we’ve already done the sleep bit, the natural conclusion would be to get food next.”
“Ghezen’s sake—”
“Exactly my point!”
Wylan releases a strangled, disbelieving sound, pressing his face into Jesper’s shoulder and shaking his head. Jesper places a kiss on the top of his head, and Wylan cranes his neck to look up at him through his lashes. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
Jesper drops another kiss to his forehead. “I’ll make it worth it, love,” he smirks. He lowers his voice and whispers directly into Wylan’s ear, “I promise.”
Jesper expects the blush that he gets out of Wylan for that one. He does not, however, expect what follows.
Wylan surges up and kisses him hard, flipping their positions so he’s on top of Jesper. Jesper accommodates easily, not quite having anticipated it but kissing back just as eagerly. He sets his hands on Wylan’s waist, stroking downwards until his thumbs rest on the fine jut of his hips. Wylan makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat. He’s still blushing a little as he pulls away, but besides that looks bright and earnest and more than a bit breathtaking. “Maybe we should start with that bit first,” he says, kissing Jesper again.
“You’re trying to distract me so you don’t have to get up, aren't you?” Jesper asks, distractedly.
“Is it working?” There is a very small smirk playing at the corner of Wylan’s mouth, and Jesper makes quick work out of kissing it away. Wylan giggles a little into it. Short, stifled sounds that Jesper tries to swallow as Wylan curls his hands around the back of Jesper’s neck to pull him closer.
“What if,” Jesper mumbles, between kisses, “I—said—yes—”
“Hm.” Wylan sits back onto Jesper’s lap, blinking purposefully wide doe eyes down at him. “You know,” he says, maddening slow, “on second thought, maybe waffles are the better idea, actually. Where did you say they—”
It startles a loud, disbelieving laugh out of Jesper, and Wylan smiles proudly. “Now that’s just mean,” Jesper says, mirroring it back. He pulls Wylan down to once again close the gap between them.
Wylan goes easily, but not before mumbling something that sounds like, “Well, maybe if you ask nicely.”
Jesper decides waffles can absolutely, definitely fucking wait.
There are better ways of working out his energy anyway.