#if that isn’t the most jesper fahey thing ever

[ninacarstairss]

it’s hilarious how you watch a crows interview and you have amita and freddy being the complete opposite of inej and kaz, all smiles and cuddles, cal that’s sitting there being like matthias and just admiring dani and wondering how he got himself into this group, and then you have dani, kit and jack that are the literal embodiment of nina, jesper and wylan and you can never tell if they’ve just been in character for a whole year of if they’re just that perfect

[jazzythursday]

Wylan leaves in the morning.

He doesn’t plan to, not exactly, but he definitely doesn’t plan on staying, either.

Wylan is no stranger to one night stands. He can’t say he gets around very frequently, but enough to know the general plot of how they're supposed to go.

Flirt, drink, fuck, leave. The order isn’t necessarily set in stone, but the list ends the same every time.

He has a good time, for the most part, and it’s always a welcome break from the awful chemical smell burned into the Tannery or the staleness of the empty rooms in cheap boarding houses (when he can afford them) that Wylan is used to. Wylan likes the freedom that comes with it, too. It’s liberating to go where he wants and do what he pleases; to not worry about who he’s seen with or sleeps with or what they might think of him after. And he likes feeling wanted, for a little while. He likes being reminded that he exists.

So Wylan does not make a habit of falling asleep with the people who take him to bed.

He doesn’t even remember falling asleep, really.

He doesn't remember, and yet, Wylan wakes up with his head pillowed on Jesper’s chest. With Jesper’s arm draped over him. His breath is warm where it ghosts over the top of his hair, and if Wylan glances up he can see the way Jesper’s mouth— those lips— fall open in sleep.

It’s the best morning he’s had in months, possibly. Certainly the most comfortable.

He knows it can’t last.

Wylan looks at Jesper, still sleeping peacefully next to him, and he panics.

He’d woken up in Jesper Fahey’s arms.

He’d slept with Jesper Fahey.

Jesper has a reputation, and Wylan knows it, even new to the Barrel as he is. He’d heard about Dirtyhand’s second and resident sharpshooter plenty— Can’t resist a gamble, never misses a shot, and not just with bullets. Jesper Fahey is an excellent marksman, they say, with terrible luck with the cards, and a soft spot for pretty girls and even prettier boys.

Jesper’s played the field— multiple fields— went on a seismic world tour of fields.

Wylan is very good at not being noticed. He’s also very good at listening. People tend to look past him, they never pay any mind to the too skinny boy with the wild hair and the hunched shoulders and the grime that never seems to wash off completely after his long shifts at the Tannery. Wylan knows this, knows he’s very adept at being able to disappear, when he needs to.

So by the time Wylan actually meets Jesper, he’s well aware of his place in Ketterdam’s booming rumor mill. Jesper has many, and Wylan thinks by now he may have heard them all.

And yet, none of them do a thing to prepare him for Jesper.

They’d met in a tavern.

Wylan had been nursing his drink for the better half of an hour, trying to come up with reasons not to go back to the sad cot he had waiting for him in a rented room, with the only window overlooking the brick wall of a dark alley.

So far, he’d only come up with the one.

Wylan had seen the tall Zemeni man from across the room and hadn’t stopped looking since. He was flirting with a girl at the bar, twirling one of his guns in one hand demonstratively with a drink in the other. The girl— a curly haired blond— was giggling, hand pressed to her mouth with eyes that had very clear and direct intentions.

Wylan had almost resolved himself to a night of wasting the few kruge at his disposal with little to show for it, when the man had looked up and caught him staring. The man had smiled, twirling his gun with an extra flourish and then tipped his hat. Wylan smiled back, and gave a little wave. Embarrassing, He’d thought, stop it, he’s already with someone else anyway. He’d looked down, and stared at the near empty contents of his drink until someone sat down next to him and said, in a voice like apple butter and sweet syrup, “Can I get you another of those?”

Then Wylan had looked up into the eyes of the handsomest man he’d ever seen, and thought, he has the most perfect lips.

Out loud, he’d said, “I, uh, well—” His mouth was wide open, he’d realised, and shut it quickly. Again, the man had smiled. Again, Wylan had smiled back. “Yes, please.”

And that's how he’d met Jesper.

Afterwards, they’d stumbled through the streets— I know a place, Jesper said, If you want to take this somewhere more private— until they’d passed a corner where a vendor was selling traditional Kerch sweets out of a cart.

“Stroopwafels!” Jesper had stopped. “I love stroopwafels!”

Wylan was tugging him toward the cart without really making a conscious decision to move, and Jesper had laughed, surprised and delighted.

Wylan bought them both stroopwafels and handed Jesper his with a shy smile and a shrug. “For the drink.”

Jesper looked at him consideringly, head caulked to the side, and Wylan felt himself blushing in the low light of the lamps. “You’re sweet,” he’d said eventually.

“Is that bad?” Wylan had asked, sheepish. Jesper was already shaking his head.

“It’s good. Just not that many sweet things to be had in the Barrel. It’s refreshing.” He’d bit off a piece of one of the waffles and smiled. “These are sweet too,”— he’d leaned in, smile still earnest but with something decidedly different underneath— “I like sweet.”

Jesper had not touched him like he’d been expecting to be touched. Jesper made no assumptions; he’d asked, about everything, in a way that was near gentlemanly if it wasn’t for the fact that he radiated trouble through his pores. Jesper was— not quite gentle, because Wylan had expected hot and heady and everything deep, and Jesper was all of that and more— but he wasn’t rough. He didn’t bruise, not if Wylan didn’t say yes first, and afterwards he’d laid back down and settled Wylan into his arms in a way that he had no real way of protesting— didn’t want to protest, anyway— and kissed him.

It was that that had scared Wylan the most, he thinks. Because Wylan is rarely kissed for the express purpose of it. It was always the promise of more— the rush of what was to come. But people do not generally tend to kiss Wylan for the sake of kissing Wylan. It’s different. Jesper is different, and Wylan can’t afford to be stupid enough to do something like get attached. Can’t afford much at all— really.

But Jesper had kissed him, pleased and lazy and warm, and at some indeterminate time later they had both apparently fallen asleep.

And it was nice.

It was too nice. It hurt with how nice it was.

Wylan peels himself slowly out of Jesper’s arms, careful not to wake him, and decides then that he cannot stand to be here any longer.

Jesper Fahey is not what he’d expected, he’s better.

Jesper Fahey is lovely, and beautiful, and kinder to him than anyone has been to Wylan for almost as long as he can remember.

Jesper Fahey is more than he could have ever hoped for, and he isn’t going to stick around for someone like Wylan.

So Wylan leaves, and he doesn’t look behind him as he closes the door.

[jackwolfes]

prompt #59 with wesper pls 🤲

“Tell me to go and I will but ask me to stay and I'll never leave you again” Prompts: [1] [2]

The scene through Wylan’s bedroom window is lightning and malice, the rapidfire patter of rain gunshots on glass reminding him what little kindness waits for him outside, but right now inside isn’t much better. He stands with his arms at his sides and bare feet uncomfortable against the cold wood floor. The fire in the hearth is low enough to offer little comfort. 

Across the room, dripping rainwater onto Wylan’s expensive bedroom floor, Jesper stands resigned to whatever pain Wylan plans to inflict upon him. That hurts. The accusation of it digs beneath Wylan’s ribs like a burrowing beetle, carving out space between sinew and bone and biting down where it hurts most. It isn’t my fault, he wants to scream, but he’s too cowardly to say anything, not even I’d never hurt you. Not even, I’m sorry. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Wylan finally manages. “If my father found out…” 

Jesper doesn’t interrupt him. It is simply Wylan’s voice failing him, as it has so many times before, because as with every other facet of Wylan’s being, failure is his natural state. He doesn’t know what he’d even say if he could muster up the strength to speak, so perhaps silence is better. 

What would he even say? If his father found out he would, what? Actually disown him like he’d threatened to do days ago when he found him tangled up half naked with a serving boy? Kick him out of this prison he’s forged, the one that Wylan has so rarely been happy in but has always been mostly safe in? Both are plausible options. Wylan has always been a weak little lamb under the blade of father’s butcher knife, kept alive on a whim and little else. He can’t imagine his father going so far as to actually see him killed, but once he’s thrown out of his good graces, what hope would he have to survive? 

Just Jesper, who doesn’t owe Wylan a damn thing.

Jesper. Wylan can hear the echo of his own voice whispering that name a dozen different ways through the seasons. Kindly, reverently, desperately. Never in between the expensive silk sheets of his bed, but in plenty of other places they shouldn’t have been: the stable, most often, but the kitchens, too. Out in the gardens when the weather permitted it, a few times in the library, that once at the inn as they travelled out of town because neither of them had been able to hold back. Those golden slivers of enjoyable memories might be the only time Wylan has ever truly felt happy on his father’s property. Jesper has given him the world time and time again, and all Wylan did was see him get thrown out on the street and fired for taking the time to love him tenderly. 

The floor doesn’t creak when Jesper takes a step forward, which means Wylan’s sharp inhalation is entirely too audible. Over the heavy storm outside and the occasional crackle of firewood, the sound is a vulnerability. An admission. Wylan fights against every urge telling him to damn reason and run to Jesper, to throw himself in his arms and hold him close, and he hates himself for picking the safe option. He hates himself for a lot of reasons, but Jesper still crosses the room under the flickering firelight and comes to a half a bare few inches away. The rain water dripping off his clothes creates a puddle on the floor, seeping towards Wylan’s bare toes, but neither of them move. 

“Tell me to go,” Jesper whispers, “and I will.” 

Wylan shuts his eyes. He should, he should, he should, he isn’t strong enough to form the words between his lips. He simply cannot resist the magnetic pull of Jesper Fahey and all his charm, all his divinity, all his — perfection. Even with his eyes shut he can sense that Jesper is close, and maybe getting closer. His body stays deathly still, torn between wanting to jerk away back to where it’s safe or leaning into Jesper’s touch, where it’s safest. 

“If you ask me to stay, I will. I’ll never leave you again.”

The husky edge to Jesper’s whispering voice floods Wylan’s senses, in past his lips like cherries and chocolate, down his throat, around his wrists, in his head. His eyelashes open with a flutter; he parts his lips. Steel eyes stare at him like he is precious, worth keeping around, and Wylan was never going to survive without him in his life. 

He surges up to kiss Jesper fiercely, grabbing the back of his head to hold him close. The chill of rainwater caught in the tight coils of his hair press into Wylan’s fingertips like holy water sanctifying his skin. Wylan feels everything. Jesper’s hands on his hips, turning the thin fabric translucent with water and imprinting the shape of his palms into Wylan’s body. In a moment Wylan will stretch upwards to deepen the kiss and his shirt will peel away from his skin — maybe even sooner if Jesper chooses to be so bold as to pull it off for him — but the mark feels unerringly permanent. It is a brand on skin, but instead of pain it brings with it liberation. 

Wylan steps backwards, still clinging to Jesper with desperate hands. The clumsy gesture makes them both stumble but their lips don’t stray apart, which is more than what Wylan needs. Lightning cracks, blindingly bright against the dark night sky, and the thunder chasing its heels provides cover for the quiet little moan that slips between Wylan’s parted lips. He can barely hear it himself over the roaring rush of blood in his ears, the slam of his heartbeat thudding in his head, the dizzying slide of Jesper’s tongue along the backs of Wylan’s teeth as he plunders for gold. This is his one chance at pure secrecy, and it feels magical. 

The back of his legs hit his mattress sooner than he realises, the impact juddering through his body and shooting surprise through his frame. Unbalanced, he tumbles backwards and hits the soft mattress with a thwump of silky fabric, but Jesper catches himself before he can fall. 

It instantly pushes too much distance between them. Unceremoniously, Wylan is jerked free from the dizzying bliss he’d been feeling a second ago. The chill in the air takes its place, reminding him how cold he is without Jesper near him. Splayed out on the mattress with Jesper standing above him like that and framed by the lines of his spread thighs, he shivers. But the furrow in Jesper’s brow is enough to make Wylan nervous. His fingers twitch, lying on the mattress beside his head with his palms facing the sky expectantly. Jesper’s eyes flicker to the side and catch the motion. He says nothing, and Wylan sees want warring with apprehension in the metallic shine of his eyes.

And maybe Wylan is a coward, but Jesper isn’t. Jesper is one of the bravest people he’s ever met. They’re barely touching anymore, but the tiny point of contact between Wylan’s knee and Jesper’s shin is just enough to lend him strength. 

“Stay,” Wylan croaks. 

Sunshine blooms. The eye of the storm hits them like midsummer. Life erupts in Jesper’s eyes as he smiles that real, earnest, perfect smile, and he says, “Don’t want to ruin your bed getting it wet, do I?” As if he hadn’t made a million messes before with Wylan a beautiful, willing casualty. So Wylan laughs, breathless and giddy, and spreads his legs apart a little wider as he enjoys the show that Jesper puts on, haphazardly and clumsily stripping out of his rain-soaked clothes. They hit the ground with an ungraceful slap, and when Jesper clambers naked onto the bed (and onto Wylan) he’s barely even dry. He’s hard, though, and oh so pretty, and before Wylan can reach out to grab hold of him and start to give him the pleasure he deserves he’s taking hold of Wylan’s wrists and pinning him down onto the bed. Wylan jerks, spine arching with a breathless little moan, but Jesper kisses him and does not leave — he said he wouldn’t, and Wylan trusts that he means to keep his promise.

[anthony-sharma]

Six of Crows Reread - Ch. 8

Now, the first episide by our favorite sharpshooter, Mr. Fahey.

_

Chapter 8: Jesper

“Wylan was red faced and mortified. Nina looked stunned and irritated. The Fjerdan just seemed confused. Kaz appeared utterly pleased with himself. And, of course, Inej didn’t look remotely surprised. She gathered Kaz’s secrets and kept them as well. Jesper tried to ignore the pang of jealousy he felt at that.”

It seems like that describes them pretty well in general, when it comes to Kaz. Wylan embarrassed, Nina irritated at Dirtyhands, Matthias confused because he doesn’t know what’s going on half the time and Inej like “yeah, he’s like that”.

On another note, it says that Jesper tries to ignore the pang of jealousy at Inej knowing Kaz’s secrets and keeping them. For most of the fandom, I think, that is a small indication that Jesper has a small crush on Kaz and that that’s why he feels jealous. However (and this might be an unpopular opinion) I really never saw it that way. It is obvious throughout the books, that Jesper, ever since he knows Kaz, has tried to please him and to be in his good graces and have his trust. He basically wants to be his right hand man, the person he goes to. However, Kaz sees Jesper almost as the embodiment of Jordie, with the same characteristics that drove them to Jordie dying and to him becoming the Bastard of the Barrel. Jesper not having that same trust from Kaz that Inej has so easily gained, is what, I think, Jesper is really jealous about. Not precisely because of whatever crush he might have on him. 

“Kaz raised a brow. “Ever had your pocket picked, Wylan?”

“I … not that I know of.”

“Been mugged in an alley?”

“No.”

“Hung over the side of a bridge with your head in the canal?”

Wylan blinked. “No, but—”

“Ever been beaten until you can’t walk?”

“No.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I—”

“It’s been three months since you left your daddy’s mansion on the Geldstraat. Why do you suppose your sojourn in the Barrel has been so blessed?”

“Lucky, I guess?” Wylan suggested weakly.

Jesper snorted. “Kaz is your luck, merchling. He’s had you under Dregs protection – though you’re so useless, up until this minute none of us could figure out why.”

Okay so after reading again this exchange...isn’t it implied that Wylan gets mugged in episode 2.01, when he’s playing the flute? Because if that implication’s correct, then this piece of dialogue would kind of no longer apply, right? Now, in the show Kaz goes to him to ask him for more flashbombs so clearly Wylan already works for him in a way, which would also mean that he’s under the Dregs protection, but he was mugged anyway? Either he was not mugged after all and I understood that scene wrong (which seems unlikely) or Kaz’s protection started after he officially started working for the Crows. 

On another note, I think people don’t talk enough about how...unkind Jesper’s being before he catches feelings for Wylan. I mean, I know that the Barrel toughens you up and all that but...my boy Jesper’s not supposed to be cruel? Although, well, there are worse things than being called useless, I guess. 

“It’s the one day a year they all stop acting so miserable and actually let themselves have a good time,” Nina replied. “Besides, only the drüskelle live like monks.”

“A good time needn’t involve wine and … and flesh,” Matthias sputtered.”

I LOVE that Matthias is always so prudish! Like, everyone else keeps teasing him (most of all Nina) and he always tries to be dignified and proper and prays to Djel for restraint. <3

“We’re not going in through the embassy,” said Kaz. “Always hit where the mark isn’t looking.”

“Who’s Mark?” asked Wylan.

Jesper burst out laughing. “Oh, Saints, you are something. The mark, the pigeon, the cosy, the fool you’re looking to fleece.”

Oh my dear Wylan...you are something indeed.

“Kaz leaned back. “What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?”

“Knife to the throat?” asked Inej.

“Gun to the back?” said Jesper.

“Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina.

“You’re all horrible,” said Matthias.

Kaz rolled his eyes. “The easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is to tell him you’re going to steal his watch. You take his attention and direct it where you want it to go. Hringkälla is going to do that job for us. The Ice Court will have to divert resources to monitoring guests and protecting the royal family. They can’t be looking everywhere at once. It’s the perfect opportunity to spring Bo Yul-Bayur.” Kaz pointed to the prison gate in the ringwall. “Remember what I told you at Hellgate, Nina?”

I love this exchange, because it so clearly shows how foreign Matthias is to how the Crows work and, even though he was basically a witchhunter, he was still part of an elite Fjerdan institution, so I’m sure he thought (and still thinks through part of Six of Crows) that his methods and those used by the drüskelle are honorable and right, so hearing talk of robbing wallets and poisoning people must be so very strange for him.

On another note, I also like how everyone points out how the best way to rob a wallet is their own particular strengths (Inej saying knives, Jesper saying guns, Nina saying poison like he accuses Matthias of in episode 1.04 and something that’s probably studied by Ravkan soldiers in the Little Palace) and then we have Kaz playing to his strengths as well, saying that no, and that the most efficient way is deceiving people, which is what he pretty much always does (every time when he plans something and we think the plan is going terribly sideways when actually that was the plan all along, or when he claims to Nikolai that he doesn’t know Inej even though he most definitely does, etc.).

“Nina rubbed her hands over her arms. “I don’t want to be locked up in a Fjerdan cell.”

Well Nina, I doubt Matthias wanted to be locked up in a Kerch cell, but here we are...

And that’s it for chapter 8! Next up, a Kaz’s chapter once again!

[booker-le-livre]

I posted 795 times in 2022

25 posts created (3%)

770 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@papirouge

@notyoursunnygirlfriend

@smol-catholic-bean

@greater-than-the-sword

@pro-birth

I tagged 424 of my posts in 2022

Only 47% of my posts had no tags

#pro life - 97 posts

#shadow and bone - 79 posts

#six of crows - 77 posts

#wylan van eck - 53 posts

#christianity - 26 posts

#911 lone star - 24 posts

#jesper fahey - 24 posts

#kaz brekker - 23 posts

#matthias helvar - 17 posts

#eurovision - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#if you’re worried about being accused of r@pe then bring a sober female friend or something as ‘witness’ that you didn’t do anything bad

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

You know, sometimes I straight up forget that TK is Owen’s son because of how little this man seems to care for his own child. TK was literally dying in the hospital and Owen really went “how can I make this situation entirely about me?” and then left.

80 notes - Posted February 8, 2022

#4

So no Måns?

99 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#3

If I had a nickel for every time a guy in a TV-show named Alexander was about to jump from a balcony because he was being mind controlled/manipulated by an external force and it had something to do with someone’s dead mother, only for his supernatural boyfriend to save him at the last second, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

103 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

#2

imagine thinking being "pro life" is a matter of a different opinion and not an ideology of violence inflicted upon women LOL. if you wanna cry misogyny then maybe open your eyes and understand that women can be misogynists

Imagine thinking that pregnancy, the most natural thing a human woman can do, is “violence”. Taking responsibility for your actions (that is having sex), isn’t “violence”. Pregnancy is the natural result of sex and if you’re not mature enough to take responsibility for that result then you shouldn’t be having sex at all. A baby shouldn’t have to lose their life for someone else’s convenience.

And I never claimed that women couldn’t be misogynistic, but most of the people were crying for “women’s rights” while at the same time cheering this dude on as he kicked a woman to the ground for no reason. And if you think that someone deserves to be violently attacked for voicing their opinion/ideology then there is something sincerely wrong with you. Going by that logic I assume you’re totally fine with people drop kicking someone publicly advocating for abortion?

126 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Yennefer had more chemistry with Jaskier, Cahir, and dare I say it, Istredd, in like one episode than she’s ever had with Geralt throughout the entire series so far.

243 notes - Posted January 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[liberty-barnes]

Alright

Kaz Brekker x Reader (pronouns and descriptions not specified)

Summary: You’ve been flirting with Kaz ever since you started working as his bartender. Systematic rejection gets tiring after a while, but sometimes all you need is a good chat and a large bottle of vodka.

Warnings: mentions of child abuse, PTSD, touch aversion, but it’s still overall kinda cute. Well, I mean, it has a happy ending. Oh, and drinking. Not underage, though, cause 19 is of legal drinking age in Europe and I’m saying that Ketterdam follows the (much superior) European drinking laws

Word Count: 3.2k words

Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

A/N: I am a weak, weak human being, and broken hot guys will be the death of me. I tried to resist it. I failed MISERABLY. I blame Grace.

Now for the actual important shit: The plot is basically all Netflix series but I added Wylan cause from what I’ve read about him he’s awesome and basically all of the location knowledge and stuff came from the Grishaverse fandom Wikipedia thing. Also, I can’t actually remember if the Crow Club has a bar but given that every club/casino type thing I’ve gone to has a bar, I’m adding it in. If there isn’t one, just imagine there is. I haven’t read the books yet but I will DEFINITELY get on it now that I have the time soooo, yeah.

Masterlist

Being a bartender for the Crow Club wasn’t too bad. Sure, it had its downsides, like working much later than many other bars, being in gang territory and most of your customers being gang members, and some of them showing up with blood-stained faces, and blood-stained knuckles, and blood-stained shirts, and blood-stained everything really.

But the upsides highly outnumbered the downsides. For one, the pay was amazing. Kaz Brekker may be a known and feared criminal but he was a just employer and made sure to pay his staff well. Obviously, since you worked, lived, and served Fifth Harbor, you were under Kaz’s, and by association, the Dregs’, protection, which was a very good advantage. You were safe, protected, and financially secure, which is more than most of the Barrel’s inhabitants could say.

All in all, pretty solid gig.

“So, (Y/n), ready to take off your ban, now?”

You looked up from the glass you were cleaning to stare at the one and only Jesper Dumbass Fahey.

“Absolutely not.”

He sighed and tried to win you over with puppy dog eyes, as he always did, but you were above that.

“Come on, love, don’t be mean to me.”

You set the cup down and squinted your eyes at him.

“He’s too pure for you to just destroy, leave my little brother alone.”

“You’re not even related!”

“Did I ask?”

“And you’ve known him for like, a month!”

“I repeat, did I ask?”

“We’ve been besties for two years!”

“Which is exactly why I’m keeping him away from your filthy hands!”

“Oh, hey guys, whatcha talking about?”

You straightened up immediately and smiled at Wylan, ruffling his curls affectionately.

“It was nothing, don’t worry about it, Sweetie. How’d your little expedition go?”

His blue eyes sparkled as he told you all about his day’s events, most likely dramatising some things but you’d let it pass. As the youngest member of the Dregs, he hadn’t yet been completely pushed over to the dark side and still remained the bubbly happy kid the group dragged in a little over a month ago.

“Well, it sounds to me like you did an amazing job, Sunshine.”

Jesper seemed to not want to keep him kind, sweet, and innocent, however, as he was hell-bent on shagging him, which you would not under any circumstances let happen. You’ve seen your fair share of women and men buy a drink just to pour it over his head as revenge. There was no way you’d let him become just another one of his conquests.

“Oh, um, thanks Jes, that’s really nice of you.”

Except that your poor little angel was falling right into that incubi’s trap. Damn hot guys, they’ll be the death of you.

“(Y/n), get me a drink.”

Speaking of hot guys.

“Oh hey there Kaz, fancy seeing you here.”

You smiled and blinked your lashes at him, already working on getting his usual. Inej hid her smile from behind her drink, while the two boys watched your interaction with rapt attention, as per usual. Kaz, for his part, just clenched his jaw and attempted to look as bored as one could.

“Well, it is my club, or did you forget who pays you?”

“How could I ever forget the handsome devil that keeps me warm and safe?”

You set his drink in front of him and rested your elbows on the bartop, lips pulled into a bright grin and eyes full of mirth. He stared at you, still as unreadable as ever, and downed the drink in one go, gaze never leaving yours.

“I have business to attend to in my office, so unless the Harbor suddenly catches fire, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

And with that, he left, much to your disappointment.

“And that’s day how many of failing to flirt your way into his pants?”

You kept your eyes on the empty spot he left behind, lips pulled into a pout.

“Five-hundred and fifty-eight, not that I’m counting.”

Inej answered and you straightened up glaring at the two Crows.

“You guys are awful friends. This is why Wylan is my favourite.”

The aforementioned blonde smiled at you.

“Don’t worry, (Y/n), I bet it’ll work someday! You’re an awesome person, there’s no way he wouldn’t wanna date you.”

Bless his innocent heart.

----------

“(Y/n), my usual.”

You smiled and pulled the bottle label ‘For The Boss’ from the shelf. No one but him had the right to it.

“Right away, sir. Also, I think you should invest in some better alcohol.”

He frowned and stopped with the tumbler halfway to his face.

“What do you mean, is anyone complaining about the drinks?”

You pursed your lips.

“Well, not yet, but I wouldn’t want them to start attacking you once they realise you’re the most intoxicating thing here.”

You smiled at the barely-there blush on his cheeks, and couldn’t stop your disappointed pout as he made his way into his office, tumbler still in hand.

“Day five-hundred and ninety-seven was unsuccessful.”

You turned your head to see Jesper much too close to Wylan and took your water-filled spray bottle, spraying the older one’s head and upper body until he was at a respectable distance.

----------

“My usual.”

You dropped it in front of him, already having started to prepare it the minute he walked into the club.

“You know, I don’t understand how you can still be so energetic every day. Don’t you get tired from running through my dreams all night?”

He locked his jaw, but you noticed how he was biting the inside of his lip as if trying to suppress a smile. That’s progress, right? You tried harder and harder to convince yourself of that as you were faced with his back once more.

“Six-hundred and three.”

You took the glass from Inej’s hands and drank it all in one go.

----------

“Are you a Heartrender? Cause when I saw you, my heart stopped.”

“Six-hundred and eleven.”

----------

“Are you a Saint? Cause you answered all my prayers.”

“Six-hundred and twenty-two.”

----------

“Is there an Inferni in this club, or are you just that hot?”

He set his jaw and turned around, leaving his drink on the bartop. You finished it.

“Six-hundred and thirty-eight.”

That’s it.

----------

“(Y/n)-”

“Your usual, coming right up, boss.”

You poured the drink and set it in front of him, keeping your lips tilted up and your eyes downcast. As soon as he was served, you moved onto the other end of the bartop and started cleaning it.

From where you stood, you couldn’t see the clouded look on his face, but you could hear Jesper’s voice.

“Uh, (Y/n), are you doing alright?”

You turned to him and conjured up the brightest smile you could, something that looked blinding to any other patron, but faker than a glass diamond to those who knew you.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

Jesper tried not to worry at the way you didn’t even scold him for having his hand on Wylan’s waist. Kaz failed miserably at it. When he finished his drink and could no longer drag out his stay without being suspicious, he retreated to his office and asked one of his men to keep an eye on you.

----------

You were just getting ready to go to bed when you heard a knock at your door. You covered your mostly bare body with a silk robe, a gift from the Crows for your last birthday, and opened the door.

“Kaz.”

You blinked at him in shock.

“May I come in?”

You opened the door further, an invitation to enter your safe haven. Your apartment wasn’t much, just an open kitchen and living room, small bathroom, and a bedroom big enough for your bed and closet, but it was your home. You always made sure to buy the nice-smelling candles to mask the otherwise putrid scent of the Barrel’s streets, and you kept a religious cleaning schedule so as to not let this apartment become the mess it first was when you moved in. It’s not much, but it’s home.

“I’d ask how you know where I live since none of you guys has ever been here, but that would be pointless so just… what are you doing here?”

He looked a bit lost in your living room, everything decked out in soothing sage and creme colours, while he was wearing black, head to toe.

“I came to see if you were okay.”

You closed the door behind you and crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He stood a good ten feet away from you, more awkward than you’ve ever seen him, but somehow still maintaining that superior air to him, as if anyone else were mere mortals and he was the god ruling over them all. Maybe he was.

“You’ve been acting… strange, lately.”

You quirked a brow.

“How so?”

He seemed to be measuring every word that came out of his mouth, seemingly unsure about his very existence, which was a sight rarer than the birth of a Sun Summoner.

“You’ve been acting distant towards my Crows. Colder. And you seem to smile less, too.”

You huffed out a laugh and stared him down.

“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t just heal from a broken heart at the drop of a hat, boss. I’ll do my best to pretend to be happy for the crew’s sake. Was that all?”

He frowned and the hand around his cane tightened.

“Who’s the bastard?”

“You are.”

His stance faltered.

“What?”

You rolled your eyes and leaned against your kitchen counter.

“What? You thought you could ignore me for two years and have me go on as if nothing happened? After a while, it starts to take its toll. I deal with systematic rejection about as well as everyone else.”

“But that was just you joking. You weren’t actually serious.”

You dropped your head into your palms and sighed.

“Really? I’ve already decided to stop, you don’t have to ‘let me down gently’ or whatever the fuck it is you’re trying to do.”

He huffed.

“I’m not trying to do anything. It was a joke, you’re probably still joking right now.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kaz, will you stop that? It wasn’t a fucking joke, literally everyone in Ketterdam can see that I’m in lo-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

You looked at him, eyes glassy from holding back tears.

“Why? Scared to hear the truth?”

His face was stone cold, pulled into a frown.

“That’s a lie I don’t ever want to hear.”

This man-

“I’m not fucking lying, Kaz!”

“Yes, you are.”

“And why, pray tell, would that be a lie?”

“Because you can’t fall in love with me!”

He yelled, and for a moment, you felt scared. This wasn’t Kaz, the man who gave you a job and a roof over your head, anymore. This was Dirtyhands. The Bastard of the Barrel. The cold-blooded murderer leading the Dregs.

“No one can. It’s impossible.”

He looked away from you, eyes trained on the carpet.

“Why would that be impossible?”

There was no answer, only his erratic breathing and the noise from outside.

“Kaz, why do you think you can’t be loved?”

Cause that’s what this was, wasn’t it? A deep-rooted, wrongful belief that he isn’t worthy of someone else’s affection.

His eyes never left the carpet, as if looking at you brought him too much pain.

“I don’t think, I know.”

Irrationally, it made you quite self-conscious. The carpet was second hand, found at a thrift shop, and the spot he was looking at had a wine stain that you had never fully managed to wash out.

“I can’t give you what you want. Contact, affection, sex. Hell, I can’t even touch someone’s skin with my bare hands without spiralling into a fucking panic attack! I’m fucking broken, (Y/n). I can’t be what you want. I’m incapable of loving, and unworthy of anyone’s love, much less your own.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance and when you looked out your balcony doors, the rain was pouring steadily. You opened the cabinet directly over your sink and ruffled through it until you found an unopened bottle of vodka.

“Come on, with me.”

You made your way out and into the balcony, sitting on the padded patio chairs, your greatest finds. You were lucky to be on the second floor, the third floor balcony protecting you from the rain and leaving you in a nice shelter, to enjoy the thunderstorm.

Kaz sat next to you on the only other chair and watched as you opened the bottle, flicked the cap to the streets below, and took a large swig directly from the bottle, handing it to him as an offering.

“I love thunderstorms. The smell of fresh rain replacing whatever disgusting thing is usually floating around, the grumbling of the thunder drowning out idiotic drunks. It’s like you’re in a whole new world.”

He passed you back the bottle and you wasted no time in drinking again.

“My parents never wanted a child. I was an accident, not meant to happen. But I still did. The kids at the village always reminded me of how lucky I was to have both my parents still, that neither of them were lost to the Fold. They weren’t ready for me, is the thing, they had no idea how to raise me.

“If they weren’t beating me, they were smothering me. If they weren’t smothering me, they were degrading me. All of that done 'for my good'. I flinched every time either of them raised their hand, and I still hate having anyone stand behind me, cause that’s when it was worst. When I couldn’t see it coming.

“It got even worse when they found out I was Grisha. It was an innocent mistake, really. Just a prick of my embroidery needle and all those secrets came spilling out. You see, the thing they don’t tell you about Grisha testing is that you can do it yourself. One sudden jab of pain and you don’t even need an amplifier.

“My parents hid me from everyone when they found out. Told them some story about me drowning in the lake. Turns out that having a Tailor child was quite useful to them, but they didn’t know how to train me, so they just went with the first thing they thought of. If pain manifested them in the first place, then maybe the pain was the key to me mastering my powers. For nine years, I endured whipping, cutting, starving, and insults thrown at me at every chance.

“When I was seventeen, I waited for them to leave for the yearly town fete, took any money they had, broke a window and ran. I hid in one of the skiffs and crossed the Fold. I figured that if I died, it would at least be quick, and if I didn’t, I’d get to start a new life.”

You turned towards him, a single tear cascading down your face. He followed it with his eyes before focusing back on yours.

“That’s when I met you and you offered me a job. A place to call home. You saved my life, whether you knew it or not.”

He cleared his throat and brought the bottle to his lips.

“I didn’t know. There are so many lost souls in the Barrel, after a while, you just become kind of numb to them. It’s routine.”

You nodded. That much was obvious.

“But anyway, I still can’t let anyone stand behind me, I hate the sound of screaming and shut down almost every time someone insults me. When anyone raises their hand, I have to forcefully remind myself that they aren’t going to beat me, and every day I fight off the reminder of my mother telling me that ‘no one would ever love a useless Grisha’. I understand your struggles, better than anyone could, probably, cause they’re very similar to mine. The difference is that I don’t let my trauma control my life. I’m too stubborn for that.”

You made sure he was paying attention to the next part.

“I’m just as broken as you are, Kaz Brekker, so telling me you’re unworthy of love would make me unworthy of it as well.”

He looked down at his lap.

“There’s still a problem. I myself am incapable of loving someone.”

You shook your head.

“That’s not true. You do it all day, every day. You love when you take away Jesper’s money so he’ll fight off his addiction. You loved when you bought Inej from the Menagerie so she’d be safe. You loved when you took in Wylan, despite not knowing anything about him, cause he had nowhere else to go. You love when you tell your crew to be safe. You love when you pay your employees much more than any other bar would cause you want them to have a good life. You love when you put yourself in danger in order to protect all of us. You love with your whole being, in a million different ways, and it’s a shame that people don’t see it for what it is, you especially.”

With a particularly large gulp, he finished the bottle and set it onto the floor.

“Do I love you, then?”

You smiled softly.

“I think you do. You always have me escorted home at night so I don’t get assaulted, you gave me the job that saved my life, you let me borrow your coats when I forget mine, you came to check up on me cause you noticed I was acting different and you wanted to change that… It sounds a whole lot like love to me.”

He stared into your eyes for a little while longer and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Alright.”

----------

“(Y/n)-”

“Your usual, already done.”

You smiled at him and for once, he smiled back. Close-mouthed and carefully turned away from any low-level employees, but he still did.

“Thank you, darling.”

“Anything for you.”

You turned back towards where the Crows were now gaping, looking between you and their boss with unrestrained glee.

You stretched the faucet sprayer until it was far enough to reach them and sprayer the entirety of Jesper’s torso.

“Paws off my little brother, you rascal.”

Alright! So that was all for my first Kaz fic. The idea kinda came into my head and then it wouldn’t fucking leave so I spent four hours writing it and another hour trying to FUCKING PUBLISH IT CAUSE MY STUPID COMPUTER WOULDN’T LET ME

So anyway if you liked it, don’t forget to like/comment/reblog, I’d appreciate it

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

-Love, Miah <3 edit: Okay, I read it over and fixed any obvious mistakes on my fucking phone cause my computer died before i could do that, it barely let me post this part. So, as soon as I get to my mum's, I'll steal her laptop, edit this properly, and update my masterlist as well, maybe, sounds like a good idea.

Taglists: (if your name is striked through it means for some reason tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you)

PERMA TAG

@adriannajackson123 @evermoreholland @inlovewithmobtom @andycanbeemotional @officiallyunofficialperson @lost-in-the-stars03 @jeezkiddo @a-singleboat @parkersbliss @highlydisfunctional1 @Ellyseveronica @inthecornerchair @harishaanne @anjalika03 @peterspideyy @lozzypoz321 @mendes-marvel @sovereignparker @bubbles-the-powerpuffgurl @sofyluv17 @dracoswhore007

[heliads]

Heartbeats (Part One)

 Based on this request: “Jesper x reader where she was in the first army and grew up with mal and Alina, but then when stuff goes down in the fold she ends up in ketterdam (maybe she’s grisha too) and teams up with the crows but her and Jesper end up falling for each other?”

masterlist / part two

As you look around you, taking in the sight of swirling darkness as far as the sky stretches, the screeches of volcra, and the cries of the wounded, you can’t help but wonder one thing: how did you get here? Even a year or so ago, you were still listed among the soldiers of the First Army, a tracker just like your friend Mal. Before that, you were simply another hapless orphan at Keramzin. How did you go from that to this?

Then again, it’s precisely because of your sunny little bubble at Keramzin that you’re out here trying to shoot literal volcra with a gun- namely, because of your friendships with Alina Starkov and Malyen Oretsev. You’d met Alina and Mal at the orphanage, arriving around a year or so after they’d arrived. A lesser child would have felt stilted that you’d never quite be as close to them because they’d known each other first, but you didn’t mind. What you had was good, as good as it could get when you felt so utterly lonely in the world.

Life at Keramzin has been preserved in your mind as something in between the gilding glow of nostalgia and the darkening regret of someone who wishes for nothing more than to go back to those treasured days of youth when nothing ever quite mattered. What had it been like, running the wooden paneled floors of the orphanage, tearing through the high grass of the meadow as you ran from bullies and Ana Kuya for the thousandth time since your arrival there? Certainly, it had to be better than life as a First Army soldier, or life now that you’ve made an enemy of the Black General.

You had an option to leave the orphanage if you had wanted to, you know that. Grisha searchers had arrived at Keramzin on their yearly journeys, with living amplifiers present to see which of the ungrateful little urchins might have a spark of the Small Science residing in their veins. Mal had gone first- he was always the bravest. He had shown no signs, and neither had Alina when she followed him, although you noticed the way she gripped a shattered piece of pottery in her hands so the pain would distract her body from giving off any signs of anything.

You know you weren’t supposed to witness the gesture, that Alina herself had no idea whether she was a Grisha at all, but it’s not as if you didn’t do the same. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that you’d slathered a little paraffin on your wrists after you’d read the hack in an old book, and that you specifically made sure to be tested by the oldest and most wizened Grisha there, hoping that her failing eyesight would look past anything lurking in your heart and head. Even then, you might have known that there was something not quite right with you, something that could end with you being taken far away to Os Alta.

However, you didn’t want that, not at all. You’d felt accepted with Mal and Alina, and life with them at the orphanage was as close to home as you’d felt since the war had torn apart your previous life. You had no idea what could possibly be worthwhile in the Ravkan capital city, and so you made sure that no one would see you as anything other than an otkazat’sya, someone to be overlooked and disregarded.

You didn’t have an obvious gift, or you might have had you not done everything in your reach to disguise your stranger abilities. There were just times when you swear you could hear someone’s heart beating loudly in their chests, even from across the room, or when you seemed to sense someone approaching because you could hear the thunder of their blood through their veins. Mal said that you weren’t going crazy, that he could hear the heartbeats too, but you’re not sure whether or not that truly let you off the hook. He’d always been a little too good at finding animals, tracking down beasts and people alike, to fully reassure you of your normalcy.

Your fears were confirmed when you were older and your newly twisted ankle had suddenly healed itself before your eyes. You had been groaning over your latest injury, placing your fingers across the bones as if you could do anything to save it, when it suddenly mended itself. Just like that, with naught but a flash of heat and pricking to show that anything happened. You had glanced around furtively, making sure nobody had seen, but you knew. That was enough, that you knew. You had a secret to keep now, one you’d have to keep for the rest of your life.

You’d heard what the books and stories said of the Grisha. Witches, people said of them, demons and witches and monsters. They were called every name and curse and then some. You didn’t know where your life would lead you, but you were certain that you would not find it as one of the Second Army’s little red-clad soldiers. So, you accepted a place as a tracker in the First Army when your time came to be conscripted, and you did your best to pretend that it never existed.

However, it’s kind of hard to ignore now, when every sense in your body is suddenly flung into high alert. It’s as if there’s a voice in your head, calling out to you- if you wanted, I could save you. If you used your power now, you could save your life and the lives of your friends. You can hear it now, can’t you? The beat of a volcra heart before it swoops, as if there’s a human organ trapped within the masses of shadows and claws. That’s partially why your gunshots are so accurate, isn’t it? You’re sensing the beasts. You’re using your gift.

A shout of praise comes from the ship behind you as you nail one particularly good shot. “Nice one, tracker!” You stifle a groan as you turn around to find yourself face to face with a familiar Ketterdam crook: the sharpshooter from earlier, Jesper Fahey. You stare at him incredulously. “We’re busy trying not to die, aren’t we? Why bother with a compliment at a time like this?” He just grins, unflappable as always even in the middle of a battle against fearsome shadow monsters. “Talent respects talent, love. I thought you were good.”

You roll your eyes and purposefully take a shot behind him, although you can’t help but feel a little disappointed when Jesper doesn’t flinch despite the bullet rattling through the space only a few feet away from him. Then again, if you thought you’d startle the cheekily grinning boy in front of you with a mere bullet, you’d doubt you really met him at all. Judging from your first experience with him, at least, it’ll take more than a gunshot to really make an impression.

You had first crossed paths with the Barrel canal rats a week or so ago, when you were searching for Alina after she had run away from Os Alta. You and Mal had been the trackers assigned to finding her mystical stag in the first place, so you were aware of the fact that she was on the loose and were determined to find her before the Black General did. You still shudder to think of that night, when you’d first seen the stag- Mal had led you and two friends through the Fjerdan wilderness, but on the night you’d finally found the beast, you yourselves had been discovered by Fjerdan patrols.

Now your two friends are dead, and Mal is still grimacing from bullet wounds sustained during the fight. He doesn’t ask how you’re still alive, and you made sure he didn’t notice the fact that you accidentally used your Grisha powers during the Fjerdan attack. You hadn’t meant to do it, not at all, but in the middle of the blood-streaked snow you had felt something deep within your chest. You couldn’t explain it, not with words at least, but it was there nonetheless. You were watching your friends die around you, and, desperate for some way to save yourself, flung out a hand towards shapes moving in the shadows of the trees.

You had felt something, like your hand was closing around a string, and tugged sharply. At the exact same time, one of the Fjerdans came sprawling out of the trees, a mess of arms and legs as the blond man struggled to regain control over his heart. Seconds later, he was dead, with no bullet wounds in sight. You had pretended that you had shot the patrol, just to keep Mal off of your back, but you’re still shaken by the fact that your power had sprung to you so easily. It’s a terrible gift, to take away life so brutally, and you can’t deny that you’re a little afraid of it yourself.

Regardless, you and Mal had found the stag, made the journey to Os Alta to inform General Kirigan, and been notified that Alina was kidnapped by Kerch thieves. Mal had pulled you aside almost immediately, saying something about how he swore he could find her but he didn’t want to alert the rest of the Second Army men. You heard the slight change in his tone when he spoke of the Grisha, and you held your tongue just in case, once again silencing the little voice in your head that almost wanted him to know, just so Mal would address you with the same reverence and fear.

However, you didn’t want to go with Mal. Not yet, at least. He could go track down Alina with the grace of a thousand trackers, be able to tell footsteps from fallen boughs and rabbits from rocks, but you could hear heartbeats rattling out from the trees. You knew you could find Alina if you truly wanted to, but you didn’t want Mal there to question why you weren’t looking at the ground but staring out at the horizon as if you could hear something he couldn’t. Mal could always hear things, that’s how he was. If you were listening to a song that wasn’t playing his tune as well, he would have questions that you’re not sure you could answer.

So, you split up, and traversed the land around Tsibeya and Ryevost in search of your missing friend. You ended up finding her first, if only by an hour or so. You’d lived by Alina’s side for so long and so many years that her heartbeat was practically ingrained into your skull, and when you caught a brief snippet of it on the roads near Ryevost, you knew you had found your Sun Summoner.

You weren’t sure whether you truly believed the rumors that Alina had been kidnapped by the Kerch or not, but when you stumbled upon the scene and saw Alina surrounded by a trio of people dressed in dark clothes with weapons drawn, you knew something had to be up. You had moved quickly, with the efficiency of a soldier with your First Army training, and pressed the barrel of your gun against one of the boys’ heads within the second.

You weren’t sure why you picked the boy you did, why the boy with the dark hair and the ever-present smirk, but you can’t help but smile wryly at the memory. You’d addressed him coldly. “Step away from her. Now.” The boy had clicked his tongue, speaking without fear despite the fact that there was a gun pressed against his skull. “You know, you really shouldn’t do that. Having the gun so close to me just means that I can do this.”

You had to give credit to Jesper- he moved fast. He was quick, likely from life on the streets of the Barrel, and a lesser soldier would have fallen prey to his attack within the second. However, you weren’t a lesser soldier, and you had the advantage of hearing his heartbeat uptake the moment he started moving. So, when Jesper Fahey whips around to grab your gun and force you to the ground, you’re expecting it. That’s why you take advantage of his momentum to slam into his side, knocking him to the ground and sending his twin revolvers skittering across the soil.

You’re not quite sure what you were expecting from Jesper at that moment- a look of fear or resignation? Maybe you weren’t expecting a reaction at all. However, when he looked up at you for a second longer and then started laughing, you were almost as startled as if he’d continued his attack. “Fantastic move. Who are you?” You stared at him, almost forgetting his two companions, whose hands have now directed weapons to you instead of towards Alina. You casually nod your head towards the woods, and Alina, understanding, begins to slip away while her captors’ backs are turned.

“None of your business. Why are you laughing?” Jesper, as you have later learned, just sits up casually, as if he couldn’t care less about the barrel of a gun being pointed his way. “Because I think it’s excellent that you anticipated my attack that way. I’m going to have to remember that one and use it later.” He’s standing up now, practically brushing your gun aside. You’re not particularly moved by this- you don’t care if he attacks you, just that Alina can get away in time. What matters more to a band of crooks- the Sun Saint, or some other girl?

So, noting that you’re now one against three and you don’t really care for using your Grisha abilities right now, you tuck your gun away into the standard issue holster on your First Army tracker drabs and grin back at him. The smile feels almost as hard to fake as when you’ve been standing in your regiments for hours when higher-ranking officials come to visit and see how all the little toy soldiers are doing.

“Well, I’m glad to be an influential figure. I’ll be off, then.” It’s now that the trio whip around and notice that Alina is gone. The other boy, the one with the dark leather gloves, curses softly. You start to slip away as well, but the sharpshooter isn’t willing to let you go so easily. “Wait a second, my dearest influence. If we lose both you and your friend, it won’t be so good for us.” You flash him an irritated look. “You don’t need me, and I couldn’t care less what’s good for you.”

The girl nods to the sharpshooter. “She’s right, Jesper. I’m not killing more people than I have to.” You gesture towards the girl. “Exactly, dearest Jesper. I’m just going to go. I would say that it’s been a delight talking with you, except that it hasn’t.” You’re kind of hoping for a negative reaction, but Jesper just smirks back at you. “Enchanting, of course. I hope to see you again.” You roll your eyes and start walking away, although you can hear Jesper talking to his friends as you leave. They’re chiding him for flirting with you, as this is evidently something he does often. You let out a huff of breath, bothered, then do your best to find Alina. Hopefully, you can find her and get out of here, and most importantly, never see this all-too-cocky boy known as Jesper ever again.

However, that didn’t exactly happen. No, you’re still stuck on a sand skiff in the middle of the Shadow Fold, being attacked by Grisha Heartrenders, volcra, and the Black General alike, and if that wasn’t enough, Jesper is here too. He’s fighting by your side now, as if trying his hardest to annoy you by being as close as possible, and won’t let up the opportunity to exchange a witty retort or irritating grin whenever he can. Honestly, you’re hoping to win this fight soon, because if you have to spend another moment with Jesper Fahey, you might as well shoot him too.

grishaverse tag list: i heartrender you @underc0vercryptid​, @darlinggbrekker​, @cameronsails​, @aleksanderwh0r3​, @story-scribbler​

[imkylotrash]

It’s An Adventure

Pairing: Jesper Fahey x reader

Request: You’ve been dating him for a little while and he takes you on a cute, spontaneous date since you have some time off in between heists and other jobs. Anonymous And Hi! could I have Jesper Fahey x reader with this prompt : “I would have never believed that one day we’d be so close.” And “I dreamed about kissing you.” please. Anonymous

Credit for the prompts: @swanimagines​

Tagging: @bitchwhytho​ @music-of-melody​ @shadowhuntyi​ @avada-kedavra-bitch-187​ @sanktaesperanza​ Let me know if you want to be added or removed. 

“I’ve got a surprise for you.” It’s 7 am and you have absolutely no clue why Jesper is awake at this hour. Both of you went to bed much too late for 7 am to be considered a good time to get out of bed. 

“Can the surprise wait?” you whine rolling over in bed but he stays persistent. 

“Nope, absolutely not.” Before you can say anything else, he’s ripped the duvet away exposing you to the cold morning air. You yell out but there is no mercy. It turns out you’ll be quite happy he did wake you up. Not right now, but later when you see what he has in store for you. 

“Where are we going?” you ask as he drags you through the streets of Ketterdam. Despite the early hour, it’s nice getting away from the club. It’s not that you don’t adore Kaz and Inej but it’s nice getting a little alone time with Jesper. It doesn’t come often seeing as you’re always moving on to the next heist or the next mission. Always an opportunity to earn money. 

“It wouldn’t be very much of a surprise if I told you, would it now?” He squeezes your hand to let you know he’s teasing you but he keeps his lips sealed. It isn’t until you reach University District that you realize where he’s taking you. 

“Jesper...” You stop dead in your tracks wishing you stayed in bed. You’ve always wanted to attend but you didn’t have the means and you definitely didn’t belong there according to most people in Ketterdam. You were meant for the streets - a fact that had been knocked into you from a very young age. 

“It’s okay. Trust me,” he smiles but you stay put. “Please.” Very slowly, you put one foot in front of the other and follow him inside the university. You walk straight to Boeksplein, the heart of the university, where he heads straight for the door of one of the libraries. You look around and notice the iron gates, gargoyle statues, and the windows with stained-glass borders. All things you’ve only ever dreamt of. You can’t find architecture like that where you come from. 

“Just act like you belong,” he whispers and opens the doors to the reading room. He grabs a few books and leads you to one of the long tables that haven’t been occupied by actual students. 

“Fun, huh?” You know he doesn’t care much for being back here but it means the world to you. This is the kind of experience you’ve always wanted but you never would’ve dared to do on your own. 

“We really have to get some studying done,” you tease him flipping to a random page in one of the books he brought over. He keeps his mouth shut and lets you enjoy the moment. Several professors pass you by but no one seems to realize that you don’t technically belong here. 

“Are you finished with your studying? I’ve got another surprise.” 

“This wasn’t the entire surprise?” you ask bemused. What else could he have in store for you?

“Please, you think I’d just plan a trip to the university to read? Don’t you know me at all?” he teases feigning hurt. Once again, he takes your hand and leads the way. 

“Wait,” you say when you reach the courtyard. He turns around with a smile on his face reserved just for you. He raises an eyebrow waiting for you to spill the beans. 

“I just... Thank you. I loved every minute of it,” you say leaning forward to kiss him. Next spot is a place you happen to know for a fact that neither of you can afford but he still drags you through the front doors as if this is every-day-life for the two of you. Geldrenner Hotel is as luxurious and gorgeous on the inside as it is on the outside. You’ve passed it many times but this is the first time you’ve been inside. You hadn’t been part of the Crows when they’d been here. 

“We can’t afford this, Jesper,” you whisper looking at the people in all their fancy clothing and white pearls. He doesn’t bat an eyelash as he asks for the key to the Ketterdam Suite but you certainly do. Fast forward and you’re lying in the master bedroom and Jesper is telling you all about the bets he’s won lately to save up for this one night. 

“When I first met you, I would have never believed that one day we’d be so close,” you say looking into those beautiful eyes of his. He brushes a few loose strands of hair away from your face with a soft look in his eyes. 

“I dreamed about kissing you. For so long, I was convinced that you’d never even look in my direction. Dreams were all I had.” It’s not often you get sappy sentimental like this but it seems fitting after the adventure he had planned for you today. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

[kindness-ricochets]

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

[thebadgerclan]

Just You

Pairing: Jesper Fahey x reader

Summary: “Just you” is all Jesper wants...

Jesper Fahey was everything: an insanely talented sharpshooter, witty, funny, kind, intelligent, quick-thinking, sly, and drop dead gorgeous  His tall, lanky frame and sun kissed Zemini skin, curly hair, chocolate brown eyes, a smile that disarmed you every time he flashed those pearly whites in your direction, there wasn’t a single thing about him that you didn’t adore and love.

And you were… you.  Everything about you, in your opinion, was lacking when put next to Jesper.  His charm, his charisma far outshone yours.  His talent with a pistol surpassed yours by miles, and he was far more beautiful than you would ever be.  You never told him any of this, happy to be his girl and to have his love, yet you felt vastly inferior to him.  But as of late, you felt like you weren’t good enough for him, like Jesper could do so much better.  And that feeling was like a stone in your stomach, weighing you down day by day.

It all came spilling out one day when Jesper asked what was wrong.  He had a knack for knowing when something was bothering you, noticing the slightest change in your demeanor and how you carried yourself.  Jesper had slumped on the couch next to you, throwing an arm around you and kissing your temple.  You leaned into his side, but didn’t cuddle close or nuzzle his neck as you did most days, which was a red flag for Jesper.

“Is there something wrong, lovely?”  “You deserve so much better than me, Jes,” you said, wringing your hands.  “What is Ghezen’s name are you talking about, Y/N?”  “You’re everything, Jesper.  Handsome, Saints you’re so damn handsome, smart, cunning, witty, sweet, adoring, and I’m just me.  You deserve someone who's as amazing as you are.”  Jesper shook his head, tightening his arm around you.  

“Sweetheart, did you hit your pretty head?”  “Wh-what?”  “You’re crazy if you think I want anyone other than you, pretty girl.  And saying I deserve someone better than you?  Baby, there’s no one better than you.  I thank the Saints every single day that I was lucky enough to catch your eye that day years ago and that I get to call you my babygirl.”  You furrowed your brow, shifting to look at Jesper.

He pulled you into his lap, pressing his lips to yours, sweet and tender, lingering for almost 5 minutes. When Jesper had kissed his fill, for the time being, he pulled back, peppering kisses all over your face, making you smile.  “You have me right in the palm of your hand, sweetheart, and you know it.  This,” he pointed to his heart.  “Is all yours, there isn’t a man or woman alive who could take it from you.  I am all yours, Y/N, for the rest of my life.”

You smiled, a single tear rolling down your cheek, which Jesper wiped away before kissing you again.  “I love you, Jesper,” you whispered, forehead against his.  “I love you so much.  Thank you for loving me.”  Jesper kissed your nose, holding you close to his body.  “I love you more, babygirl.  Loving you isn’t a chore, it’s a privilege.  And if you’re ‘just you’, then ‘just you’ is all I want.”  Jesper kissed you once more, smiling against your lips.  “You’re my girl, Y/N, you’re not getting rid of me.”

[triptuckers]

Facing reality - Jesper Fahey

Request: nope Pairing:  Jesper Fahey x reader Summary:  you’re absolutely broken after you lose jesper. but there might be one thing that could cheer you up  Warnings: mentions of death, lots of angst, grieving, yall are gonna hate me so much for this one alsdfsdfj Word count:  2.5K of sad, sad angst  A/N: why do I do this to myself you might ask? I have no fucking clue. anyways enjoy reading?? I guess ?? 

Inej walks through the door, and you expect Jesper to follow her, cheerfully announcing their arrival. But something’s wrong. Inej is leaning heavily to one side, and she looks very pale.

But more importantly, Jesper doesn’t follow her.

She walks to the table you’re sitting at, and Matthias helps her sit down. Nina immediately starts to treat her injuries, and Inej turns to you.

‘We got separated.’ she says. You can see in her eyes how sorry she is, the guilt eating away at her. ‘I kept searching for him, but I couldn’t find him. I had to come back, I would’ve collapsed.’ 

As she’s speaking, you feel the colour draining from your face. You realise your worst fear had become reality. You’d lost your light, you’d lost Jesper. Inej and Jesper got separated and if Inej couldn’t find him, you doubted anyone could. 

But the least you could do is try. 

After Nina had finished taking care of Inej, you were out the door, heading to the place where Inej and Jesper had been. There had to be a sign of him. Something that could lead you to him. He couldn’t just disappear like that. He couldn’t leave you behind so easily.

The crows help you search for him. The next days you barely see the Slat or the Crow Club, you’re out on the street all day. You search everywhere, you feel like you’ve seen every corner of the city. But there’s no sign of Jesper.

One by one, they all stopped searching. Too much time had passed, they had looked everywhere. The chances of finding him were getting smaller and smaller. 

But you couldn’t just give up like that. You’re the only one who keeps going. You had to find a sign of him, you had to know the truth. You couldn’t face reality just yet, not when there is a possibility Jesper is still somewhere.

Jesper was your everything, you couldn’t do this without him. You didn’t know how to. You were afraid what would happen to you if you were on your own, without Jesper by your side.

When you were the only one still searching for a sign of him, each of the crows tried to get you to realise the truth. But you were denying all of their claims, telling them people in the Barrel knew how to hide their tracks, but that there had to be at least something. A lead, even if it was a small one. One mistake they made was all you needed.

You barely sleep, going over every part of the city you’ve searched in your mind. You’re ignoring your duties, even if Kaz asks you to join him for an important job, you refuse. You’re only focused on Jesper, and on finding him. You get so caught up in it, you start to ignore everything and everyone.

You’re out the door at the first light of day, and don’t return until it’s deep into the night. You fall down on your bed, completely drained, only to lay awake and continue the search in the morning.

The others are still trying to get you to see the truth, but you refuse to listen to them, let alone believe them.

It takes weeks, but eventually Kaz is the one to get through to you.

You’re on your way out the door, after a quick breakfast. Just as you’re about to walk through the door and head outside, Kaz appears in front of you. 

You don’t even look at him as you move to walk past him, but he stops you with his cane, strategically planting it between you and the door.

‘We need to talk.’ he says.

‘I don’t think we do.’ you say.

‘It wasn’t a request, Y/N.’ he says. ‘Upstairs.’ 

In that moment, you’re seriously considering just shoving him aside and walking out the door anyway. But when you look at his eyes, you see something you had never seen in them before. Worry. 

Kaz sees you hesitating, and starts to walk up the stairs. After some time, you decide to follow him. 

When you get to his office, he’s sitting behind his desk. Kaz gestures for you to sit down and you do so, after closing the door. You look at him, waiting for him to talk.

‘I know how you feel.’ says Kaz.

You scoff and open your mouth to protest, but Kaz holds up a hand, cutting you off.

‘I once lost someone close to me as well.’ he says. 

His words catch you off guard. You didn’t know this. 

‘I still miss him every day. I think about him every day. I know this is not something you want to hear, but you have to accept the fact Jesper’s not coming back.’ says Kaz.

‘But he-’ ‘Is gone, Y/N. You have to admit that to yourself. You lost Jesper. Don’t lose yourself as well.’ 

You look at him, not knowing what to say. Most of the times, Kaz is right. you can’t deny that. But this time, you don’t want him to be right. Still, he seems sincere, talking about the person he lost. 

Part of you tells you that you can’t give up. That you need to be out there, searching for Jesper. But you’ve been searching for so long. And there hasn’t been the slightest trace of him. Maybe Kaz is right. Maybe they all are.

Jesper is gone. And he’s not coming back to you. 

Your body feels like lead when you walk down the stairs. Your mind feels empty and it isn’t until you look up, that you realise you walked to Jesper’s room instead of your own. An old habit. 

You look at the door and think back to all the times you walked through it. Nights after a tiring job, but Jesper was still making jokes, if only to hear your laugh. Or when you’d sneak downstairs to get a cup of coffee and trying to be quiet as you opened the door again, not wanting to wake him. 

With a heavy heart, you push the door open. It’s still the same as it was on the morning Inej and Jesper left for their job. The bed is a mess, the blankets crumbled into a big pile, and one of the pillows is on the floor. 

You had spent so many nights talking to him, laughing with him as he held you close. So many mornings you’d woken up next to him, arms wrapped around each other. You’d never wake up next to him again.

Tears fill your eyes as you fully realise you’d never see him again. Jesper wouldn’t be there to make you laugh. You would no longer be able to cuddle for five more minutes in the morning. He’d no longer whisper words of affection in your ear. 

It all seemed so unfair. Why did it have to be that specific job that went wrong? Why did Jesper have to be the one to not make it back? Why did he have to leave you behind?

It seemed like hours later when you finally leave his room. You feel numb as you make your way to your own room. Everything suddenly felt so heavy. 

Even though it’s barely morning, you pull off your boots and lay down in bed. Your thoughts are filled with memories of Jesper and countless what ifs when you finally fall into a troubled sleep.

When you wake, it’s well into the afternoon. You’re hungry, but don’t have the energy to get up and go downstairs. You move to roll over to your other side, but stop when you notice tear stains on your pillow. Had you been crying in your sleep?

You shake your head and try to drown out the thoughts of Jesper. It was no use thinking of him. No good would come from it. You roll over and try to focus on everything else but Jesper. But time after time, your mind finds its way back to him. 

You spend the next days like that. You don’t know how much time has passed. You lay in bed, and the other crows try to get you to get up and do something. 

But you’re exhausted. From not sleeping and all of the grieving. It’s hard. You wonder if you could ever go back to the person you were before you met Jesper. You wonder if that person even exists. It didn’t surprise you if you’d never be able to accept it. 

You’ve lost all track of time when a hard knocking on your door wakes you. 

You roll over, pulling the blanket up to cover your ears. You appreciated your friends, but they could really be a pain in the ass. You didn’t want to get up, and they knew it. Why on earth would they bang on your door like that?

‘Y/N!’ 

It’s Nina. Only you don’t know why she’s knocking. Inej is the only one who knocks. The others, like Nina, don’t even bother anymore. They just enter your room because they know you’re laying in bed and not getting up.

‘Get up!’ says Nina loudly, still knocking on the door.

‘Get lost Nina!’ you shout back at her, pulling the blanket up so it covers your entire head. You really didn’t feel like fighting today.

‘Open up!’ she says.

‘No.’ you say. ‘You can just let yourself in.’

‘Not doing that today!’ she says, and she starts to knock louder. ‘I can stand here all day. I'll have Inej bring up food and drinks. I'm gonna be here a long time, Y/N!’

You groan and cover your ears with your hands. It doesn’t exactly help. You can still hear her knocking loudly on your door. Maybe if you ignored her, she’d eventually go away.

But Nina is determined. She doesn’t stop knocking, not even when someone else outside your room shouts at her to stop. If she didn’t stop soon, someone was actually going to make her do so. Probably by using their fists rather than their words.

You sigh heavily and push the blanket off of you. You rub your hands over your face and get up. Your hair is a mess and you’re dressed in a comfortable pair of pants and one of Jesper’s old shirts. You couldn’t bear the thought of him not being around, and the scent of his clothing gave you comfort.

Nina is still knocking loudly on the door when you open it, annoyance written all over your face. Nina looks like the exact opposite of you, a bright smile on her face. 

‘What.’ you say, glaring at her.

‘You look awful.’ is the first thing she says.

‘Great. Thanks.’ you say sarcastically and you close the door, but Nina plants her foot in front of it. 

‘I didn’t just want you to get up so I could tell you that you should take a shower.’ says Nina. ‘I've got something that might cheer you up!’

‘Pass.’ you say. 

‘Just hear me out.’ says Nina.

‘Nina, I appreciate it, but I doubt there’s anything that could make me happy right now.’ you say.  

‘And yet I am known for my miracles.’ she says, still smiling happily. 

You sigh and roll your eyes. ‘You got me out of bed, that’s not a miracle but just a result of you being annoying.’ you say. 

‘Behold.’ she says dramatically. ‘My miracle work at its finest.’

She reaches out to something next to her, and pulls it toward her.

You feel like your heart stops and all the air has disappeared from your lungs. It’s another nightmare. Saints, you have to wake up now. You can’t do it anymore.

Jesper is standing next to Nina, grinning down at you. 

You stare up at him, wide eyed. He’s got a scar on his cheek that wasn’t there before. There’s bags under his eyes, and his clothes are messy and there are stains all over them. Somehow he still manages to look good.

‘Hello, love.’ he says.

Tears slowly fall down your cheek as you reach out to touch him. The second you feel his skin when you put your hand on his cheek, the tears start to stream down your cheeks.

‘Don’t cry now, darling. You’ll mess up your beautiful face.’ he says with a wink.

Your knees give out and you let out a choked sob. It’s really him.

Jesper is quick to catch you, pulling you up as he steadies the two of you.

‘It’s alright.’ he says softly. ‘I've got you, I'm here.’

‘I thought you were dead.’ you choke out, clutching onto him, holding on for dear life, as if he’d vanish if you let him go. You repeat the words over and over again as Jesper slowly rubs circles on your back to calm you down.

‘I'm right here, I'm alright.’ he says. ‘I'm not going anywhere.’

You slightly pull back so you can look up at him. Jesper removes one hand from your back to wipe the tears off of your cheeks.

‘Is it weird that I still think you’re the most gorgeous person I've ever seen, even though your eyes are all red and puffy?’ he says, making you chuckle.

‘I don’t get it.’ you say. ‘I couldn’t find you. I was looking for you, I couldn’t find you.’

‘Nasty slavers.’ says Jesper. ‘Very good at hiding their tracks. They didn’t think I could make it out. But they forgot to keep in mind I'd worked countless of jobs with Kaz. I'm no master thief, but I can pick some locks.’

Jesper looks down at you and smiles. Just as you smile back at him, his smile turns into a frown.

‘I'm sorry.’ he says.

‘For what?’ you ask him.

‘Not being able to come back to you sooner.’ he says. ‘I really tried, I'm sorry it took so long.’

You reach out to hold his face in both of your hands. ‘Jesper, I thought I'd lost you. But you’re here. Please don’t apologise.’ 

He smiles and presses a kiss to your forehead. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against yours and you close your eyes.

‘Now, a little birdie told me you haven’t left your room in weeks.’ says Jesper. 

You pull back and glare at Nina.

‘He asked about you, what was I supposed to say?’ she says.

‘Let’s get you into some decent clothing and fix your hair, and we can go downstairs and get you some coffee, alright?’ says Jesper. 

‘Alright.’ you say. 

You take a few steps back, into your room. Jesper follows you and closes the door. He walks over to your closet to get you some clean clothes, but you pull him back by his arm.

‘One more thing.’ you say.

You pull him in for one more hug, holding on to him tightly. ‘I love you.’ you say. 

You feel how Jesper kisses the top of you head. ‘I love you too, darling.’ he says. ‘It’s good to be home again.’

A/N: If you want to request something, make sure to read my house rules Here’s the list of characters I write for. Everything that I have written can be found on my masterlist. Please don’t repost my work, as I spend much time and effort on it!! Thank you for reading! Much love, Marit

[jazzythursday]

🦜🦆🐦🦉🦤

Hi friend! Thanks for the birds! (Qs)

🦜 a pretty quote (you like the prose, or symbolism, or it's poetic, or you just like how it feels/the word choice!)

There’s a very special place in my heart for describing characters through another’s pov. This one is from Call to Rest/Call to Wake:

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.

🦆 asker's request: something that grew on you that you didn’t like at first, but you like now

This is such a good request, but also I had such a hard time with it lol. This one isn’t so much a quote I didn’t like at first, as much as it’s a quote I had to rewrite about a hundred times before I stopped hating it. From post s2 reveal:

Wylan nurses a cold drink by Jesper’s side and laughs along as Jesper and Nina commiserate and sing poor renditions of drinking songs. They spin and dance and Wylan finds himself drawn into the middle of all of it. In spite of how close a call it had been, he can’t dredge up any of the residual worry he’d expect. It’s too hard to fear death, when the way Jesper kisses him makes him feel this alive.

🐦 a romantic quote (can be sweet or sad or sexy, or just your favorite interaction between them!)

I have a lot of favourites from I Need to Leave (Please Stay), but this is definitely one of them:

He leaves Jesper, after a night of wonderful, wonderful sex. He leaves Jesper in bed, pre-dawn just barely peeking through the curtains of the room they’d occupied the night before. Jesper Fahey is gorgeous, even puffy from sleep and softly snoring into a pillow. He has the most perfect lips Wylan has ever seen, skin like rich caramel and coffee and limbs like overgrown tree branches stretching up to the sun. His body is the perfect size to cover Wylan’s entirely above him. He thinks it may be the closest he’s felt to safety in years, long before coming to the Barrel. He’s disastrously lovely, kinder to Wylan than he thinks he probably deserves. Wylan leaves before he’s left, and he shakes then, too.

🦉 a clever quote (something you're proud of!)

Also from I Need to Leave (Please Stay):

Jesper fists his hands in the collar of Wylan’s shirt, pressing him back and drawing him in all at once. Wylan is between Jesper and the wall of his bed, kept and safe under the at once familiar and yet completely new weight of him above. His coat—red—is discarded somewhere along with his hat. His smile is burning, beautiful, and the kiss he pulls him into is a charged, heady thing, open mouthed and full of promise. It is the electrostatic attraction between opposite charges. The ionic bond between metal and nonmetal that forms Strontium Chloride, each touch sparking bright red in the dark. The world is made of skin and skin, lips and lips, atoms and atoms. It is a lit fuse. It is a prime number in an infinite sequence. It is a suspended chord held in a long appoggiatura, resolving into the harmony of a vast and swelling orchestra.

🦤 a quote you had to delete :( (but still wanna share!)

Pretty sure this was originally from Careless Is the Fall, but it didn’t fit the section it was for:

Wylan learned to be careful early, though he thinks he may have forgotten that lesson somewhere along the way. Maybe between his swim in the canal, his trip into the Fold, and meeting Jesper.

[jackwolfes]

AO3 First Lines Tag Game

ty as ever for the tag @kelliealtogether 💖

Rules: Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten some people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

the bed we loved in: They have thrown away his bed.

behind closed doors: It burns in his lungs like whiskey, gone down the wrong way.

a choice of two locked doors: For a man set to be wed to someone he’s never met and probably won’t like, Jesper Fahey feels pretty good with where his life has taken him.

read me poetry by dead men: The passage of time is a fickle thing.

fahey’s fudge shoppe: Wylan Van Eck doesn’t have an incurable sweet tooth. Just, a fairly incessant one.

not the same without you: Jesper gets a text from Wylan at ten thirty a.m. on a Tuesday. It doesn’t really matter (because he’s unemployed) but he’s a bit surprised (because Wylan isn’t).  

where does a prince belong? (on his knees): The tile floor beneath Wylan’s knees is a repeating pattern of black on white. 

what's a little festive threesome between friends?: Jesper fumbles his keys.

chocolate strawberries and peppermint macarons: As soon as the door shuts behind him, Wylan’s cheeks start flushing with the temperature change.

your best friends' wedding: In all honesty, Jesper expected to be brought to some quiet little bathroom in this stately home – the Helvar family doesn’t fuck around when their eldest boy gets married, apparently – and end up getting shoved up against a wall like some extravagant kind of dessert.

tagging: @doorsclosingslowly @randomcat1832 @oneofthewednesdays @milkywayjj @ace-kaz-brekker

[emilbecker]

TASK / character parallels.

finnick odair from the hunger games. sweet talking, silver tongued, captivating. both are seductive in how they present to the world, luring you in with charm, only to expose a razor sharp mind behind that perfectly crafted smile. both perfectly capable of writing someone off as an enemy or a bad person and deciding that taking their life (or worse) is okay. but also deeply loving and protective, will go to the ends of the earth to do right by their loved ones.

howl pendragon from howl’s moing castle. most dramatic person to have ever lived. obsessed with trinkets and sparkly things and being pretty. their homes are a good indicator to their state of mind, both messy and unloved, uncared for, but always present themselves as spotless and effortlessly beautiful. also both slowly becoming monsters, emil just isn't growing feathers.

jesper fahey from shadow & bone. disarming with their charm and smooth as silk, but despite it, their mouth is known to get them into more than one bout of trouble. both very skilled in their respective fields, handy to have fighting for you. lovers of animals and being the prettiest in the room, not to mention, a huge flirt.

manny alvarez from the last of us part ii. in the eyes of some, they are loyal and highly competent fighters, pushers, doers. when it comes to protecting loved ones, only death will stop them. family and friends are everything, it's all for them. but to an enemy, they are ruthless and cold and unflinching, leaning into violence easily.

eric effiong from sex education. both come from big, warm families, and have let that warmth become a big part of their personalities. eric and emil are true friends, honest and comforting, with no fear of sticking up for what they think is right and fair. the two also know very much who they are and are very in touch with every aspect of their identity from heritage to sexuality.

hwang jun ho from squid game. fighting to do good in the world and combat corruption, even at the cost of great personal risk. lawful neutral but follows their own code of what’s right and what isn’t. emil would also risk being killed by evil rich people to find someone they love, also has no trouble pulling the trigger on someone who hurts and kills others. they also share no fear with taking initiative. 

[isuckatreadinglol]

Six of Crows Review

Alright, first book review on this blog...here we go: *spoiler warning, duh*

Book: Six of Crows Author: Leigh Bardugo

My Rating: 5/5

First off, this is the first YA fantasy I've ever read so I have no idea what I was expecting...and I fuckin loved it.

Second, I binge read this book in three days and it usually takes me a month to read anything ever so that's definitely saying something. I came for Kaz Brekker after watching Shadow & Bone on Netflix and stayed for the amazing plot, diverse and intricate characters, the incredible action and twists, and of course Kaz Brekker. The one thing that I loved was how fast paced this book went, and I genuinely could not stray far from the book because of how addicting it was. There was something in every chapter and you never got bored. The last part had taken the most time for me to complete because of how much action Leigh crammed in the last 60 pages, which made it a bit hard to follow along but it was still epic.

The Characters:

Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, Matthias

"“What’s the easiest way to steal a man’s wallet?” “Knife to the throat?” asked Inej. “Gun to the back?” said Jesper. “Poison in his cup?” suggested Nina. “You’re all horrible,” said Matthias."

The most diverse set of characters I have ever met. There were 6 characters, and the POV's were constantly changing and at some point, while I read someone else's chapter I was worried about the other characters and anticipating the next chapters. This was honestly an amazing decision to tell this story and I never got sick of the characters (except maybe Matthias, sorry).

Not only does Leigh do an excellent job portraying trauma in her characters (especially Kaz), she also keeps the character's as diverse as possible, from Nina being a plus sized character with badass confidence to Wylan overcoming his dyslexia and even Inej being a brown character. Every character had their own stories and the flashbacks/backstories were always a pleasure to read through.

Kaz Brekker is a stone cold, morally grey, manipulative, and terrible criminal which of course...makes him an even better protagonist. He definitely rocks the Hot Boy Who Is Mean To Everyone Except That One Chick Because Of His Tragic Backstory trope.

"There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken."

He is an anti-hero with his own plans and goals, while also caring so much about his crew that he would do anything for them. I'm very excited to see his character develop with Inej in Crooked Kingdom as well as his relationship with her because I am too obsessed with the two of them. I also enjoyed how Leigh allowed Kaz to fuck up and make mistakes, showing that he wasn't just some perfect character that knew everything about everything, and reading his inner dialogue when he realized his fuck-ups felt refreshing. His backstory was very well written and very tragic (we get it he's emo). It felt so personal knowing why he was they way he was when he sealed himself off from the world. He's also drippy as fuck.

Inej Ghafa just radiates bad bitch energy and when Kaz called her "dangerous" I screamed "DAMN RIGHT". Her mental drive was beautifully written during her chapters, especially while she climbed the incinerator.

"The heat of the incinerator wrapped around Inej like a living thing, a desert dragon in his den, hiding from the ice, waiting for her. She knew her body's limits and knew she had no more to give. She'd made a bad wager. It was as simple as that. The autumn leaf might cling to its branch, but it was already dead. The only question was when it would fall...

Should she jump now or simply wait for her body to give?

Inej felt wetness on her cheeks. Was she crying? Now? After everything she'd done and had done to her?"

Most importantly, she was a raw character who pushed herself throughout the book not just for herself but for the rest of the crew. She was selfless but she was also incredibly strong, driven by her future. Inej is the most inspiring character in the book and I have fallen in love with her more times than I could count. (lowkey carried the team imma be honest)

JESPER FAHEY Y'ALL. My queer sharpshooter king. I think I related to him the most and I loved every chapter with him. Though, I felt like Jesper was treated more as a side character than a main one, especially since he was stuck with Wylan for the entirety of the heist but BOY WHEN I FOUND OUT HE WAS A FABRIKATOR...I might have also screamed. He was definitely the comedic relief and he always kept me laughing at his little comments. Excited to see him and Wylan get together and also hoping for more of Jesper's character.

"Well, we’ve managed to get ourselves locked into the most secure prison in the world. We’re either geniuses or the dumbest sons of bitches to ever breathe air."

“If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket. The world deserves a few more moments with this face.”

Nina Zenik...bro. She is so powerful. The moment she took parem was *chefs kiss* and it was the most badass scene I had ever experienced. When I began reading her chapters I didn't really enjoy them but when the heist actually began her inner dialogue won me over completely. When she was with Jarl Brum I could not stop laughing at the things she was saying in her head, and even when things were intense she always had something to say which made her character come to life. Her personality is hilarious, and sarcastic and she's also so HOT like my gay ass was swooning. She is who I aspire to be, that is all.

Matthias Helvar. Personally, I didn't really like his character so much because of how stubborn and he was (and how many times I wanted to punch his stupid ass), however he was still a pretty cool character with some good moments in there. He demonstrated religious corruption well, and he definitely faced a lot of inner conflict due to the pressure of what he was taught when he was younger. His POVs were a little boring but I loved it when he called Kaz a demjin.

Wylan Van Eck was a super fun character to have around. I definitely enjoyed watching his character grow as he spent more time with the Dregs. I didn't love him as much as the big three (Kaz, Jesper, Inej) and don't have much to say on him except that I admired his strength throughout the last part, especially when confronting his father after hearing all the horrible things he said about his own son. Jesper defending him made me melt big time.

"He's smarter than most of us put together, and he deserves a better father than you."

I literally could not have asked for such a creative group of characters and to see them work together makes me feel like I'm part of a big, criminal family.

The Ships

The ships were a fun addition to the story and the best part was that they never overstepped the actual objective of the plot but rather worked with it to enhance the connections between each character.

Kaz and Inej: Let me just cry for a second.

"She'd laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him."

"I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all."

"I'm going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I'm going to get my girl."

This one hurt me. I am in love with these two and their relationship with each other makes it so much better. They are not meant to be together yet they are connected in so many ways. I did not think I would fall in love so easy, but here I am.

Matthias and Nina: I was not convinced by these two, especially with how weird their relationship was. They constantly seemed like they hated each other (valid) and some of their romantic scenes felt forced. In the end, I enjoyed seeing Nina grow on Matthias to wake his stubborn ass up. I swear that man refused to have feelings. Anyway, I still have mixed feelings on these two.

Wylan and Jesper: They are so cute. Like insanely cute. Like even I was blushing during their cute scenes. Their relationship isn't as developed yet so I am excited to see them in Crooked Kingdom.

Final Thoughts:

Representation? Check

Map? Check

Two maps?!? Fuck yeah

Amazing plot and worldbuilding? Check

Hilarious banter? Mhm

Great writing? Check

Well- written characters? 100%

Overall, this story will forever be my comfort book and I was impressed by the YA fantasy side of literature. It's hard to believe yet comforting that these characters are my age, makes me feel powerful. I loved every bit of this book and now I kinda wanna grab some friends and pull a heist.

[starry-sky-stuff]

Sorting the Six of Crows Duology

Brief overview of @sortinghatchats system, there are Primaries, the why, and Secondaries, the how.

Spoiler warning for the Six of Crows Duology.

Cut for length.

Kaz Brekker is a complicated sorting. He’s constantly putting on a performance and projecting a certain version of himself to others, that he sometimes seems to fall for this himself. Even though he’s the planner of the group, I think he’s actually a Snake Secondary. He likes dressing up and pretending to be someone else too much and his plans usually involve him manipulating someone. In the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, we see him so easily put on a different persona that Cornelius Smeet doesn’t realise this is the exact same man who dealt him cards only a few hours earlier. There is definitely a very efficient Bird Secondary Model. Kaz makes plans, he has back-ups and tools hidden away. The uniforms he uses that are actually theatre costumes, and even Wylan himself is an ace up Kaz’s sleeve. But ultimately, he’s a Snake Secondary who has no problem adjusting his plan when it fails, where a Bird Secondary would struggle more. Kaz spends most of his time in his neutral state, which he almost uses as a weapon. He maybe even has a neutral state model on top of his Snake Secondary. Kaz is constantly acting like he doesn’t care because that’s what he wants everyone to believe.

Part of Kaz’s secondary bleeds into his primary in that he wants you to believe he’s a completely burned Snake Primary. He wants to believe he’s a completely burned Snake Primary that cares for no one but himself. He’s definitely a Loyalist. He treats Inej’s idealism with too much cynicism to be an Idealist. Over the series he unburns as he begins to admit he cares for the other crows. The question is this a Snake Primary opening up his circle or a Badger Primary getting attached to a group. I’m leaning towards Snake Primary. He isn’t affected enough by the dissolution of the crew at the end of the series to be a Badger. And so many of his ploys are reliant on people being attached to others and love that I think he’s a Snake Primary who expects other people to have attachments. His genuine surprise at Jan van Eck’s treatment of Wylan, and his using Pekka Rollins son to threaten him all point to a Snake Primary mindset. So he’s a Burned Snake Primary who also puts on a performance of a Burned Snake Primary.

Jesper Fahey, who never makes a plan and loves when bullets start flying because in danger is when he works best, is definitely an improvisational secondary. Charming and quick-witted, he has a Snake Secondary Model, maybe even only performance because it really falls down when compared to Kaz’s actual Snake Secondary. Jesper’s someone who just wants to shoot his way out of everything. He could not be more Lion Secondary. He also has a complicated relationship with his Snake Secondary Model, which I think he developed because of his father pressuring him to hide his Grisha abilities. So, for most of the story his Lion Secondary, which wants to be himself, is in conflict with his Snake Secondary Model.

Jesper’s primary is harder for me to decipher. If he’s an Idealist, he isn’t one who ever expresses a moral quandary with what the crows do over the series, unlike some of the other characters. But if he’s a Loyalist, he didn’t feel bad about lying to his father and pretending to be studying at university. Although he did feel guilty about his betrayal leading to Inej almost getting killed, not to the degree I would expect of a Snake Primary. I would have to say I think he’s an immature Lion Primary, who doesn’t really care about anything but his own needs at the start and then grows into being more mature.

Inej Ghafa’s been through absolute hell and still kept her faith both in religion and in humanity. She didn’t hang onto it through human connections or communities, and she doesn’t seem to have any strong attachments to individuals or to the group of the Crows. That makes her an Idealist. I’m inclined to say she’s a Bird Primary. Her morality just seems very chosen to me. Inej chooses to keep hold of her faith and to believe in things bigger than herself. Her flashbacks often include teachings she adopted from her past that she’s adapted to her current circumstances. Killing for example. She needs to rationalise it out and justify it in a way I don’t think a Lion Primary would find as necessary.

Inej is the Wraith. She’s the spy, the one who gathers information. If this were Kaz’s role, he’d probably dress up and pretend to be someone else to get close to his target. But Inej waits in the shadows, using the skills she learnt from her childhood. This could be a Badger Secondary relying on hard work, but her knives strike me as a Bird’s tools.

Wylan van Eck, the merchling rejected by his father and forced to fend for himself in the Barrel, is not a Loyalist. A Snake or Badger Primary would have been harder hit by his father casting him out from the only life he’s ever known. That would’ve been a betrayal they would’ve have struggled to get over. Wylan does struggle, but he’s far more willing to stand on his own. He doesn’t try to find a people or a community, and gets pulled into the crows not on his own accord. With nothing to indicate a system, I’m going to go with Lion Secondary, one that progresses over the series. Wylan starts off with very strong morals and ideas of what’s right and wrong, which changes as he faces the reality of the Barrel and he becomes less idealistic. Yet, he never restructures his beliefs in the way a Bird Primary would. He’s got a particularly strong Lion Primary too, strong enough to stand up to Kaz multiple times, and one I think Jesper admires.

For his secondary, I’m torn between Bird or Snake Secondary. He’s the demo man and his main role in the plot is using his previous knowledge and skills. That would probably indicate Bird Secondary. He’s also a little bit more concerned with having a plan than some of the other characters who are better at rolling with the punches. The main reason I leant towards Snake Secondary is because I think Wylan’s a mirror for Kaz and certainly someone Kaz sees himself in. He uses Snake Secondary in Crooked Kingdom. Pretending to be Kuwei doesn’t weigh on him as much as it would weigh on a Lion Secondary, and part of his role at the end is to put on a performance. I like to think he’s developing his Snake Secondary Model under Kaz, and probably isn’t thrilled about it.

Matthias Helvar’s journey is the classic character arc of a Badger Primary who expands their definition of ‘human’. When he starts the series he has completely dehumanised Grisha under the teachings of the drüskelle. Nina points out the hypocrisy of him valuing human life and being part of an organisation that hunts Grisha and his response is that Grisha are not humans. Once he meets Nina he starts to change his opinion, and over the series he begins to realise that Grisha are also human. Matthias is usually the one who’s thinking about the greater good. When he and Nina agree to kill Bo Yul-Bayur it’s because of the danger he poses to the wider world. And it’s Matthias who ultimately decides not to kill Kuwei. Why? Because he’s one of “us”. Matthias was vulnerable to Jarl Brum and the drüskelle teaching because he desired a group and a community, and he finds this in the crows. There’s an argument for a Bird Primary that learns his previous system is wrong and adopts a new system, but I think Badger makes more sense. Noble Matthias whose main role is as the muscle is a straightforward Lion Secondary.

Nina Helnik is the quintessential Snake Secondary. Her main role in the plot is to be the decoy or the charmer. Before that she was a spy in the army, and that’s the role that fits her best. She switches from persona to persona, playing different characters with ease. Unlike Kaz, Nina rarely uses her neutral state, and delights in her playful, charismatic Snake Secondary.

Nina’s primary is less immediately clear. The fact that she stayed in Ketterdam after Mathias’ arrest and didn’t return to Ravka would probably indicate she’s a Loyalist. An Idealist would at least feel some guilt for not returning to their country and their cause, but Nina puts Mathias above Ravka. Unlike Matthias, Nina doesn’t necessarily dehumanise the drüskelle and doesn’t need a group. If she were a Badger Primary she would probably have more of a community in Ketterdam, but she seemed to have bonded with the crows as individuals. That would mean Snake Primary. Interestingly enough, Nina has the same sorting as Kaz. I think this is the reason that whilst Nina doesn’t necessarily like Kaz she respects him and he her. They both know how the other works and understands how each thinks.

In summary:

Kaz: Snake Primary/Snake Secondary, Bird Secondary Model, Snake Primary Performance

Jesper: Lion Primary/Lion Secondary, Snake Secondary Model

Inej: Bird Primary/Bird Secondary

Wylan: Lion Primary/Bird or Snake Secondary

Matthias: Badger Primary/Lion Secondary

Nina: Snake Primary/Snake Secondary