#one day i'll come up with a better tag akdsksd

[astrhae]

i know i'm asking for pain with this but:

wesper + a kiss on a scar? 🥰

double bluff | angst with a happy ending, canon-typical violence, 4k

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“There you are,” Wylan sighed.

He’d been waiting for Jesper to come back with lunch for two hours. The Van Eck office by the Church of Barter was an imposing building that spiraled upward to rival the Geldrenner’s clocktower. They worked on the top floor there three days a week, taking meetings and trying to grapple with the business – even after two years, the empire he’d stolen back from his father still felt impossibly large.

It felt even more impossible when he was hungry.

Things weren’t a complete loss, though: Wylan had managed to sketch some new factory floorplans while Jesper had been out, and he moved those papers away onto one of the armchairs that littered the private office, wiping the charcoal off his fingers.

They were trying to change how things worked in Ketterdam, but it was far more than an uphill battle. Sometimes, that meant upsetting people: like Councilmen who didn't approve of Wylan's plans to open up new harbors.

Jesper held up a bag of uitsmijter. He swung the door closed behind him with his hip, his pistol clattering against the polished wood. The other matching pistol was on the armchair beside the papers: they were also still working on putting down their weapons, one at a time.

“Sorry,” Jesper dropped the bag over the empty spot on the table. His words curled with the Kaelish accent that rarely ever showed itself. “There was quite a line.”

“A line?” Wylan frowned.

It was past three bells in the afternoon, the sun from the office’s bay windows was already beginning to sink near the horizon in the early winter. No one should be lining up for uitsmijter, which was why Jesper had suggested it in the first place.

“Yes,” Jesper shrugged. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

“Well,” Wylan was about to shrug it off – to say they should eat first – but he caught the red stain on the pistol at Jesper’s hip, stark against its pearl handle, and, “were you in a gunfight?”

“No.”

The answer came far too quick, and far too short. Wylan walked around the table, heart hammering. Hadn’t they talked about this? The uitsmijter shop was nowhere near the Barrel – so either someone attacked Jesper, or Jesper had taken a detour. Or, more likely: both a fight and a detour. His vest was too crooked on his shoulder, jacket far more crumpled than it had been when he’d left the office two hours ago, and was that a shirt in a different color?

They could deal with everything else later. For now, one thing at a time, and the most important:

“Were you hurt?” Wylan strode closer, reaching out to take Jesper’s hand, but –

Jesper jerked away, taking a step back. “I’m fine,” he insisted, lips pressed into a thin line. “Let’s get out.”

“Out?”

This wasn’t like Jesper. Yes, Jesper could be impulsive and brusque and rough, and some days even Jesper couldn’t bear to be touched, the world too full and his heart too hollow to do anything except run. Still, this wasn’t like Jesper – one staccato beat off tempo, and Wylan was stumbling to catch up, to try and understand –

“Yes,” Jesper said again, nodding toward the door he’d just closed. The gaudy laurels painted on it was really something they needed to replace soon. “Out.”

Again, too short and too quick.

Wylan stared at him, grey eyes he didn’t think he knew right now. He’d seen enough people change, seen enough people be twisted out of shape: in front of him, because of him. Until there were no more silver linings to hold onto, only slivers of lies he tricked himself into calling hope.

This wasn’t like Jesper.

This wasn’t –

The door swung open and –

Instinct kicked in. He made a dash for the other pistol on the armchair –

“Don’t!” Jesper’s voice rang out.

And it was Jesper’s voice, because it was Jesper standing in the doorway, shirt sticking wet on his shoulders and jacket gone and a cut dripping from his temple. And it was Jesper, too, standing in the office with Wylan, jacket askew and blood on his pistol.

(read on ao3)