#this is a fic about Jesper bullying wylan for his stupid little vest

[jackwolfes]

i figured a trailer drop would inspire fic but i didn’t expect to get so caught up in Wylan’s idiotic little vest

(mild book spoilers below)

He catches Wylan as he makes his way out of the library at the end of the hall. It’s early in the morning, but Wylan rarely sleeps in and Jesper is still wired for a kind of place that has no safety. He hasn’t been used to anything but waking up at the slightest noise and grabbing his guns for quite some time.

Now, though, he is surrounded by safety with money enough to keep it. It’s strange. Isn't it glorious?

Jesper isn’t the type of man to get dressed first thing in the morning, not like Wylan is, but the winter air has a chill to it. He tugs out a fluffy sweater, sourced from the Barrel and so as garish as one might expect, and pulls it on over his head. When he walks out of the bedroom, his feet carry him over cushy carpets and heated floors; every inch of this extravagant house caters to him.

He finds Wylan by a window iced with frost in the early Ketterdam morning, and smiles to himself. He can’t help it. Wylan’s head is ducked as he sorts through something or other, long plaid shirt sleeves rolled at the cuff only just far enough for him to work unobstructed while still keeping him warm.

“Building bombs, are we?”

It’s perfectly easy to hear Wylan’s quiet gasp when Jesper wraps two sweater-clad arms around his waist, but that might possibly be just a matter of Jesper being so close to him. He hooks his chin over Wylan’s shoulder, resting on the money-soft fabric of his blue vest. It’s respectable, and neat, and still not mercher’s clothes — but Wylan is as much a mercher as he is a Barrel boy. A delightful mix of the two, now, and Jesper’s favourite person.

“Morning,” Wylan murmurs. He brings a hand up to touch his palm to the back of Jesper’s hand. It is quiet, gentle affection. It is good. “I’m not building bombs.”

“And instead you are…?”

As if in answer, Wylan lifts a photograph up and shows Jesper. It’s clearly of his mother, with her fiery red hair now faded by sunlight and time, rather than age. “There was better lighting out here to look through them,” he admits. Then — sheepishly — he scratches the side of his nose. “And it’s warmer by the radiator.”

Jesper laughs, hugging him a little closer and not wanting to let go. With his face resting on Wylan’s shoulder, Jesper feels it when his boyfriend smiles.

For a moment, neither of them move. Jesper can only just see through the frosted glass out into the garden. His fingers tap a pattern out on Wylan’s stomach, but Wylan doesn’t comment on it. Perhaps he’s displeased and not saying, but he’s never one to hide his discontent. Jesper trusts that he simply doesn’t mind.

So he continues to tap, tap, tap against Wylan’s stomach, feeling him breathe and feeling him quietly laugh. Jesper grins to himself, slowly running his fingertips over the soft fabric of Wylan’s vest. He runs them along one of Wylan’s pockets. Then another pocket. Then yet another.

His eyebrows furrow.

“Jes? What are you—“

But by that point Jesper has stepped back and spun Wylan around with hands on his waist, turning with the same gracelessness he always has. Wylan stumbles, just barely, but Jesper doesn’t let go of him.

“What are you wearing?”

Wylan blinks. He looks down at himself with confusion in his bright blue eyes. “A… vest?”

He is wearing a vest, but it’s a positively absurd vest. Jesper steps back to take it all in, but isn’t quite ready to lift his hands off Wylan’s waist. He doesn’t.

There are two little pockets perfectly fitted to hold Wylan’s pens. It’s hardly useful; Wylan has left one of his pens on the small table behind him, and tucked the other behind his ear. He also has a pocket watch hooked on his chest pocket and a tiny notebook in the other, and little extra pockets elsewhere, and Jesper thinks his boyfriend is positively adorable.

“What is this?” Jesper’s words come laced with laughter; teasing Wylan, but only gently. There’s no malice. Just adoration. “Honestly, merchling. You’d think you’re a mad scientist.”

“Maybe I am,” Wylan replies, with a secretive little smile.

Jesper hooks his fingers in Wylan’s tiny pen pockets and tugs. It brings Wylan forward another step, bringing him fully into Jesper’s space. He replaces one of his hands on Wylan’s waist, but doesn’t take his fingers out of their place in Wylan’s pockets.

“Your vest is ridiculous,” Jesper says.

“You’re in a turquoise sweater,” Wylan murmurs back. “You’re trying to tell me my clothes are stupid?”

“I’m trying to tell you that your silly little vest pockets are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Jesper tugs again, and maybe he should stop teasing. It’s hard to think Wylan minds when he smiles that wide, though.

They lean into each other at the same time, knowing where the other will go as soon as they move. It’s an art that comes with friendships forged under gunfire— in prisons— on the run from a city seeking their heads. Jesper smiles into the kiss, though, eager to enjoy it for what it is. He relishes in the slide of lips over lips, and the sparks that always accompany Wylan’s mouth eagerly kissing his own.

It’s impossible to keep his hands still, so he doesn’t try. They dance up from Wylan’s hips to his waist, over his chest — and his ridiculous little pocket watch — to cup his jaw. Wylan hums. His hands are still, resting on Jesper’s biceps. They are warm, and perfect. Jesper tugs him closer just to kiss him a little deeper, hands on the move once more. His tongue runs along the seam of Wylan’s lips; it makes them both moan, but so, so quietly.

When his fingers glance against something that feels like card, it’s out of place enough to distract him. He pulls away from the kiss, trying not to get too much of a thrill when he sees Wylan chase his lips. Wylan blinks his eyes open. He takes a slow, heavy breath. His ordinarily pale cheeks are tinged with a soft pink blush. Jesper swallows, trying to focus before this devolves into something that might scandalise the maids.

“Honestly, merchling,” he says, “what haven’t you hidden in your pockets? You’re like a magpie.”

Wylan rolls his eyes. He bats Jesper’s hands out of his pockets, digging into it himself. “I tucked a photo away to show my mother.”

He pulls something out of his pocket, offering it out to Jesper. There’s neither hesitation nor anxiety, and Jesper knows not to take that lightly. It is, like Wylan said, another photo card, but smaller than the one he’d shown Jesper earlier. Jesper blinks.

It’s a photo of a baby.

Not quite a baby — more of a toddler — and not just any baby. It’s a child obviously born on the Geldstraat, if the perfect cleanliness and set of his curly hair is anything to go by, if the telltale sign of money in his neat clothes offer any clues. The little boy is in a white shirt and a red knitted sweater vest, stupid and adorable and so very consistent with what Jesper has seen of him since. But the smile in the photo — that’s what captures Jesper’s attention. The boy shows off a big toothy grin, looking so pleased to be smiling for whoever is behind the camera.

Now, the man that boy became offers Jesper a smaller smile, but one that’s no less perfect. He too is perfectly neat and clean, except for the fact his hair is far more tousled. In the photo it’s nearly blond, curls of ruddy-gold catching the light as they bounce, as he laughs. His hair has darkened with age, but Jesper knows — intimately — how soft it still is.

“So stupid vests have been a lifelong thing for you, then,” Jesper says.

Wylan bursts out into laughter that brightens the world up like a song. It makes his eyes crinkle and his smile grow wide, cheeks rosy with the fact it’s winter or the remnants of the kiss or just the simple idea that Wylan is happy. Jesper is certainly happy. His smile feels heavenly right now, but maybe that’s just Wylan. It just grows wider when Wylan leans in to kiss him once more.

The prospect of a life with him is very good indeed.