Tumgik
#some marya for you in these trying times :)
19burstraat · 1 month
Text
Random SOC Trivia I Gathered On My Reread
I'll be using this for fics, but it's fun just to read!
Jesper does not hold alcohol well (though this is according to Kaz, who is not exactly impartial)
Wijnstraat, Nemstraat, Havenstraat, Ammberstraat are all street names if you want em
Van Eck has been involved in trying to clean up the Barrel; pious. (Allegedly pious, I doubt he really is)
1/5 Van Eck (or general Kerch trading?) vessels are lost at sea
Kaz arrested three times at ten, twice at eleven, once at fourteen. Does stints in jail but it does not say prison (ppl assume he's been to Hellgate / another prison but I don't think so. He'd never have shut the fuck up about it if he had; I assume the Stadhall Jail)
Kaz's cane is lead-lined. I wasn't sure if this was canon or fanon
Kaz runs book on prize fights, horses, and chance games. Floor boss at crow club since fifteen-ish. Youngest to run a betting shop and has doubled the profits.
Gambling halls: Treasure Chest, Golden Bend, Weddell's Riverboat, Silver Garter
West Stave brothels: The Blue Iris, The Forge, The Obscura, the Willow Switch, the House of Snow
Van Aakster is the widow mercher who sees Nina to ease his grief
Inej likes orange cakes in white paper
Black Tips tattoo is a hand with first and second fingers cut at the knuckle, Razorgulls is 5 birds in wedge formation
Nina Jesper and Kaz definitely all have the crow and cup; the others don't
Jordie seems to like books
ridderspel and spijker are arcade games
Bilge, clams, and wet stone smell in the Barrel (per Retvenko)
Kaz definitely is partial to dogs; Smeet's hounds and the grey dog the Hertzoon household had, the windup dogs, the metaphors. He loves a dog metaphor sorry ur not real babycakes you'd have loved thematic web weaving posts
Geldspin is the cotton mill in Zierfoort, Firma Allerbest is a cannery. Both in Alys' name
Wylan was 8 when Marya 'died'
the black veil tomb is carved like an ancient cargo ship
3 flying fish on a grave: government. Palm trees and snakes: spices.
Inej's mother braids her hair with orange ribbons (colour of persimmons)
University a series of buildings built around the Boekcanal and joined by Speaker's Bridge (where people debate and/or drink). Boeksplein four libraries built around a central courtyard and the Scholar's Fountain
Shipping container at third harbour is a Liddie hideout; Jam Tart House is an old hotel near the slat that the Razorgulls use
Long scar across Kaz's right knuckle
Violating contracts and interfering with the market can get you hanged in Kerch; same sentences as for murder (this is. Insane)
Haskell holds court with his mates at the Fair Weather Inn every week
Belendt is the second oldest Kerch city and sits on the Droombeld River
Jesper was 7 when Aditi died
Inej has an uncle (who seems to have some sort of ringmaster role) and cousins; Hanzi and Asha
Kaz convinced a locksmith in Klokstraat that he was the son of a wealthy merchant who highly valued his collection of priceless snuffboxes, and that's how he knows what locks the rich are using
Hubrecht Mohren, Master Thief of Pijl, who Kaz doesn't appear to think much of; one of Haskell's old cronies
Martin Van Eck, Wylan's great great grandfather, was a ship's captain, brought back a big shipment of spices from Eames Chin and started the Van Eck fortune
Kaz and Jesper (+ other Dregs boys) taught Inej to fight
Kaz and Jordie are from a town near Lij, as per the 'Johannus Rietveld' exposition, but Lij is seemingly the closest major city/county so it's easier to just say they're from Lij lol
The last time the Council of Tides appeared in public was 25 years prior to CK
Kaz found Filip running a monte game on Kelstraat; he also got the clerks who turned over fake info, the fake attorney, the man who gave them free hot chocolate
The spelling of Zentzbridge lapses to Zentsbridge, not sure which is right or if they're actually separate bridges or if there's a lot of wrong quotes floating around lol
Dryden house symbol is the golden wheat sheaf bound with a blue ribbon; Van Eck is the red laurel but we knew that
Kaz taught himself finance and gambling hall rules
Church of Barter roof is copper and long has turned green
Church of Barter built around the First Forge / The Mortar, which is a flat lump of rock that's supposedly Ghezen's altar
Ghezendaal Hospital is. Idk. a hospital. Just thought ppl might want the name
393 notes · View notes
nikolajrostovs · 14 days
Text
we just had the most interesting discussion about war and masculinity in the old wap server and you gotta hear this.
If you wanna talk about nikolai rostov you will always, ALWAYS get to the topic of manliness. Because genuinely masculinity is such a core part of his character. There is no nikolai without masculinity, and that masculinity is as performative as it gets.
We like to joke about his tsar crush and okay yeah he definitely does have a gayass crush on the tsar. But he himself connects it to being part of a group, a group with a common interest. Everyone in the army loves the tsar.
Being part of a group is why he joined the military in the first place! He wants glory, he wants to prove himself, to be strong, and to be a part of this big group of manly men. And he needs to be a part of a group, because nikolai is a follower in every single way. He's not a leader at all. And the moment he becomes a hussar, he fixates on Denisov. Denisov is brash, headstrong, hairy, and so intelligent. He knows what he wants, he stands up for himself, but he also cares deeply for his men. He's a really great leader, but to Nikolai he's also the perfect manly man.
Weirdly enough, hair is such an important part of Nikolai's relationship to manhood. Denisov is consistently described as hairy. At the start of the novel, Nikolai has some very sparse beginnings of a mustache on his lip. A shitty teenage boy mustache, truly. Over the years it gets thicker as he gets better at performing his masculinity, and soon enough he's just like Denisov. He's the man he always dreamed of being (except a little worse because Denisov is a much nicer person than him).
Dolokhov's hands are also described as hairy. Sure, it's gay as shit, but Nikolai, in distress, fixates so much on the hair on Dolokhov's hands. He says himself that those hands hold him in their power.
And the gambling, too. Cards and gambling are very much a man's thing. No girls allowed. Nikolai is so terrible at cards, and he plays against a known cardsharp. You might think this is an idiotic move, and it is. But he is indeed kind of stupid, so he does it anyway. And why does he keep going? Well, one, gambler's fallacy. Two, he convinces himself it'll all be okay in the end. Gambling is a Man Thing, men gamble all the time and they turn out okay! It's okay! It always turns out okay, except for when it doesn't, but surely he's enough of a man to know how to gamble. But then Dolokhov is more masculine than Nikolai, and his hairy hands hold him in their power, and they ruin him.
So, Nikolai succeeds in his performance as a manly man. He becomes what society expects him to be, even if it's not his true self. And then he marries Marya, a woman, because what else would he do? Men like women, and men marry women. Men don't like men. Remember all of this definitely has to do with how he's at least a little bit aware that he's gay.
And what kind of husband and father does Nikolai become? A neglectful, dismissive, rude one. He's a masculine man, he doesn't have time for his family! Of course he has to have a family, because he has to pass on his genes and create a new generation of Big Strong Sons, but he shouldn't actually care about his wife or children. And he becomes a farmer, too, which is just THE most masculine thing he could do.
So do we ever actually get to see Nikolai being his honest-to-god true self? Does he ever drop the manly man act and just enjoy life? Well, no, it's never truly gone, but I think he's most comfortable with Natasha. I mean, Natasha is his best friend, really. She's his favorite person in the world, and he can be honest with her. They're very similar people, and thus she understands him and he understands her. Just read the Christmas part of the book please. It's so amazing.
In conclusion, in the immortal words of jimmy rostova, "he's trying so hard to transition to hussar gender"
28 notes · View notes
wandaxpietro · 1 month
Note
another ask because this is the only way I know how to contribute to the Maxicest/ScarletSilver fandom (wish i could do more but college is p a i n )
but imagine if Pietro and Wanda just came out and told everyone they're dating/in love (whether as a joke or if they're being serious or idk) I am willing to bet a majority of their friends/coworkers/acquaintances/enemies would either be like: "we knew lol" or "you haven't already???" or be supportive or neutral to their relationship.
But I'm wondering... how would Magneto react? How would Lorna react? How would Magda/Marya/Natalya and Django react? (if they were alive to see it) How would Vision or Crystal react?
Hell, how would Billy and Tommy react? And Luna too? (marvel pls bring her back :((( plsss)
i feel like in the current SW&QS comic run, there will probably be some in-universe comment/rumors that since are Pietro and Wanda are together again, that they are together.
(might ask more questions/thoughts/random blurbs later ://)
ah i think you're more charitable than i am... i don't think most people who know them would be okay with it. they all probably know to varying degrees -- especially their close friends -- it's the deniability that saves it for them, that makes them able to ignore all of it. the avengers (the ones that are close to them, that is) all know, all have seen the twins in weird situations, but they've gotten very very good at looking away. none of them want to know. i think they'd be highly uncomfortable if they came out with their relationship officially, because that'd mean they can no longer ignore it, y'know? i don't think most would start a fight about it or a confrontation or anything, but they'd get weird around the twins.
(on a side note, i think clint is one of the people who'd get actually angry for a while lol. that moment when you're bisexual and your two crushes are dating etc etc. also i think carol would ask wanda if she's alright, if pietro's forcing her into anything, which would make wanda really mad. janet i think is smart enough that she's realized for a long time they're in love & knows something like that isn't going on but she wouldn't be very comfortable, either. the one i think who's most likely to "accept" it is actually tony bcuz i think he genuinely wouldn't give a fuck lol)
that aside! now for the ones you actually asked about lol. ah it's difficult.
magneto - depends on when he'd find out. during brotherhood times, i don't think he'd care, because he didn't really care about them to begin with. once he finds out they're related, at the very beginning, i think he'd be appalled but there isn't anything he can do about it, since he's an absent father trying to reconnect and has no rights to his children. once they're in the family dance for a while, he's grown a bit demanding, esp towards pietro, if that makes sense? so i think he'd probably argue with them about it lol. i don't think he'd like it, not so much bcuz of personal disgust, but mostly bcuz of optics. but also bcuz he has a desire for his children to live normal, happy lives (as much as he has trouble showing them that normally lol) and i think he'd think that would interfere with that. he's also very good at ignoring it, however -- before he'd officially find out, ofc, but after, too. he just conveniently "forgets" it. maybe starts introducing both of them to other people. they hate it.
lorna - i think lorna knows. i think she's known for a long time and while she was disgusted by it at first (and also strangely jealous; she doesn't want either of them but they've always been so close and she never had that. she doesn't have a sibling that's primarily hers, if that makes sense) i think she came to terms with it over time, enough so that she'd be pretty alright with it if they went official.
i honestly don't know about magda, django, marya and natalya... i think magda would have a lot of compassion after everything they've been through, but would treat it as an unfortunate side-effect of all of the twins' trauma, if that makes sense? she loves them a lot, though. the rest of them i don't know. i can't see any of them liking it, but marya and django might just be happy they're both alive and happy, you know? i feel like natalya would want more for them, similarly to magneto, bcuz she doesn't quite get it. but no one does. so yknow.
so billy and tommy are their kids. we know this. i think tommy wouldn't care, tbh. i can't see him being fazed or disgusted by it, also i think he'd be happy to find out pietro is his dad. they already get along, and he doesn't have a lot of people who care about him, and who want to spend time with him (vision never did lol). idk about billy..... i think he dearly loves them both but i think he might just think wanda could do better (lol). i think he'd be vaguely uncomfortable, but pietro would never play dad if billy didn't want that, so i think they're fine-ish? he'd probably get used to it eventually even when he's not thrilled. idk if he'd ever see pietro as his dad. also i think he's also known for a long time but he hasn't gotten over it like lorna has.
as for luna....... honestly she's genuinely a weird kid. she can see people's emotions & i can't see her caring much about "human" taboos. she's from a royal family, and her aunt's husband is also her aunt's (distant) cousin. i think she'd be fine, lol. she can see the love between wanda & pietro -- and tho she probably didn't realize (or didn't want to; bcuz that'd make things complicated) that it was romantic, too, she'd be relatively fine, just happy that her father's happy. she's long since been over crystal and pietro's marriage, so that doesn't bother her, either.
24 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media
Secret Admirer Event—February 2024
Thank you to everyone who dedicated their time and talents to make this event possible! Without all of you, none of this could happen! I know not everyone who wanted to participate was able to, due to time and real life responsibilities, but I hope that you can still help support those who did. I will try to host another secret pal event before long. Maybe something in the spring?
Alphabetical by user name of the giftee Please let me know if you see any errors or any links that are wrong
💖 To: @a-cloud-for-dreams 💛 From: @cowboy-eldritch
Bryce x MC Art
💖 To: @aallotarenunelma 💛 From: @abelflints
Abel x MC Edit
💖 To: @abelflints 💛 From: @hydn-jpg
Lincoln x MC Art
💖 To: @aria-ashryver 💛 From: @aallotarenunelma
Quote Edits #1 Quote Edit #2 + Drawing
💖 To: @cadybear420 💛 From: @oh-so-youre-a-nerd
Lucas x MC Art
💖 To: @cowboy-eldritch 💛 From: @peonyblossom
Valax x MC Moodboard
💖 To: @gaiuskamilah
Marya Blades MC Art 💛 From: @storyofmychoices Nia Video Edit 💛 From: @a-cloud-for-dreams
💖 To: @hydn-jpg 💛 From: @cadybear420
Cas x MC Edits
💖 To: @inlocusmads 💛 From: @vampirkit
Trystan x MC Art
💖 To: @lilyoffandoms 💛 From: @gaiuskamilah
Kieran x MC Art
💖 To: @moominofthevalley 💛 From: @tveitertotwrites
COP MC Moodboards and Picrew
💖 To: @noesapphic 💛 From: @moominofthevalley
Desire & Decorum Moodboard and Playlist
💖 To: @oh-so-youre-a-nerd 💛 From: @storyofmychoices
Wind (LOA) Geometric Art Ernest x MC art and drabble
💖 To: @peonierose 💛 From: @totojo2
Gabe x MC Art
💖 To: @peonyblossom 💛 From: @inlocusmads
Kit Jackson x MC Art
💖 To: @storyofmychoices 💛 From: @peonierose (Art by @lilyoffandoms)
Mal x MC Drabble + Art
💖 To: @thosehallowedhalls 💛 From: @aria-ashryver
Woven Threads and Winding Roads (Pt 1&2): Five times Tyril attempts to braid Raine’s hair; and one time those threads begin to come together again as they should. Woven Threads and Winding Roads (Pt3&4) Tyril x MC Edits
💖 To: @totojo2 💛 From: @noesapphic
Come Back to Me, Detective: After Cameron Rose collapsed after saving Marguerite and the grand reveal of who was the killer all along, Trystan has some thinking to do before Cameron wakes up
💖 To: @tveitertotwrites 💛 From: @lilyoffandoms
Derek x MC (AME) Art
💖 To: @vampirkit 💛 From: @thosehallowedhalls
By Any Other Name (fic): Do Kamilah and Carmilla have anything in common besides some consonants and vowels?
20 notes · View notes
notjosieyouremy · 4 days
Text
every edsheeran book ive ever read and what i thought
*reblog without tags please
5 star tier ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• hunger: a memoir of (my) body by roxane gay. one of the best edsheeran books ive read. it’s about sa, food addiction, boolimia, feminism, fatphobia, the struggles of just trying to exist black woman in a large body. would recommend
• i’m glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy. it’s so good. i think i finished it in a day. it’s about a lot more than edsheeran. highly recommend. go read it right now
• unbearable lightness: a story of loss and gain by portia de rossi. a gay actor’s struggles with edsheeran. one of the few i’ve read more than once. would recommend
• wasted: a memoir of an0rex!a and boolimia by marya hornbacher. really deserves to be in a class of its own. it’s the best written edsheeran book out there. it’s sad, hilarious, intelligent, perfectly captures the internal voice of mania. highly tr!ggering, so proceed with caution. after wasted was published she relapsed, which she speaks about in madness: a bipolar life. it’s also a very good book but edsheeran is not the focus
4 star tier ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
• insatiable: a young mother’s struggle with an0rexia by erica rivera. if you wanna read about someone who takes fistfuls of bisacodyl and exercises intensely, you might like this book. it’s very good. would recommend
• dying to be th!n by nikki grahame. imagine being so severely malnourished as a child that you never go through puberty. thats how serious her illness was. she basically grew up in treatment facilities, managed to recover against all odds, went on big brother (the reality show), published a book, relapsed, and tragically passed away in 2021. the covid lockdowns were hard on her mental health. would recommend
• the girls at 17 swann street by yara zgheib. semi-autobiographical work of fiction. what sets this one apart is the protagonist isn’t a teenage girl. she’s, like, 28 i think? something like that. would definitely recommend if you get tired of reading about teens and preteens all the time
• elena vanishing by elena dunkle. at a certain point, all these books can be summarized in one sentence: she had to choose between recovery or death. it’s a very good memoir. would recommend
• born round: the secret history of a full-time eater by frank bruni. we love to see male representation in the edsheeran community. he was a chubby kid, turned to unhealthy means to achieve we!ght loss, eventually learns to heal his relationship with food and becomes restaurant critic for the new york times (ever heard of it?). would recommend
• sure, i’ll join your cult: a memoir of mental illness and the quest to belong anywhere by maria bamford. if you don’t know who maria bamford is, she’s one of the best stand up comics, period. that’s not even my opinion, it’s just an agreed upon fact within the stand up community. she’s brilliant. the book is about her mental illnesses and all the different self help groups she joins (so many!). she does go into her struggle with exercise boolimia, though that’s not the primary subject. it gets 5 stars as a book, but 4 stars as an edsheeran book because there just isn’t a lot of dis0rder talk
3 star and below ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• stick figure: a diary of my former self by lori gottlieb. good but i had trouble relating to the protagonist because was quite young and immature
• the art of st4rving by sam j. miller. some much needed male representation in edsheeran literature. and some lgbtq representation. it’s YA (young adult) fiction, not really my taste. would recommend for those who like YA. great cover art!
• wintergirls by laurie halse anderson. a lot of people love this book. i thought it was ok. it’s a work of fiction by an author who isn’t really part of the edsheeran or recovery community. it’s another YA book. i will always prefer memoirs and non-fiction
• fat chance by lesléa newman. this was the first edsheeran book i read. it was assigned reading for my high school health class. it’s a YA novel about a 13 year old girl who wants to lose we!ght. she re$tricts, she b;nges, she poorges, she becomes boolimic. i can trace my edsheeran back to this book. i started d;eting, b;ngeing, and abusing lax4tives as a direct result of reading this material. it did the exact opposite of its purpose, trying to steer young people away from toxic d!et culture. my take away was, i’m overweight, therefore i should be willing to do anything to get th!nner. it’s not very good tbh. maybe if you like YA you’d like it but otherwise, would not recommend
9 notes · View notes
mx-lamour · 3 months
Text
I've got another one for ye.
How often do you suppose adventurers come in through the mists and do their thing?
When (like, what year) do you suppose was the first?
When do you suppose Strahd starts creating vampire spawn? And like, how does he pick them? We know he makes zombies out of a lot of folk. Which people get to be spawn, other than the brides?
Strahd had three different "vampire slaves" (essentially also brides; very Dracula), Irina, Marya, and Sura, who were apparently killed in Vampire of the Mists (I'm relying on Mistipedia right now; haven't had a chance to read it yet). So like, he's been busy between Tatyanas.
I don't necessarily need to flesh out every spawn who ever was (especially since the adventurers certainly won't encounter them all), but I am trying to create a timeline history of things, and I got pretty stuck after Olya (Tatyana reincarnation #2).
I think Ana is Tatyana reincarnation #3, and like, damn that's early. I would have thought it would take longer for her to get even partially out of the mists. Was Jander then the first outlander to get sucked into Barovia?
I've been trying to figure out where to fit the four brides from the module into the timeline, and layering in some other events between them, but I've been having a weird time with it. I'm also not 100% sure when will be best to bring Alek back into the picture, although I am definitely going to.
Tumblr media
15 notes · View notes
thrxughthenxght · 8 months
Text
The Heart Knows
Prompt: Secrets - Day 7 of Wesper Week @wesperweek2023
CW: Gambling, drunkenness, fighting, referenced child abuse, addiction.
Words: 1995
Let me know if you'd like to be tagged!
He didn’t mean to. Never really did Jesper Fahey mean to do something.
It just happened. It was the wrong place at the wrong time, a bad time but a good one—at least until he woke up the next morning. One time it was a bad place but it was the right person. Wylan was the only good thing he had accidentally fallen into, and now he managed to mess that up as well.
They got back from Novyi Zem a few months ago. That’s when it started. After they left the farm Jesper couldn’t take it, having nothing to do. Wylan handled numbers all day and went meeting to meeting, but there were no forms to sign or analytics papers to read, and they were at a stalemate with another mercher in passing off a law. Wylan didn’t need his help much right now and that left a lot of time for him to pass. Some days Wylan didn’t work, and Jesper could be lazy at home while listening to Wylan play piano, or dance him around the foyer because the staff were gone. Other days he didn’t work they went out to the barrel to see Kaz or for Jesper to see old Dregs friends, and occasionally Wylan would stop by a less than legal shop with a cloak and Jesper at the door so he could buy some things for his projects.
But now Wylan was working, and Jesper’s coping mechanism for the crawl under his skin and the weight on his shoulders was in the barrel, at a card table, and with drinks and cheap food in his stomach. He’d been going for months since they were back, and it had only gotten worse the more he went because now he had no debts to avoid. Wylan had a lot of money, and Jesper used it to have a lot of fun he should have found elsewhere. He couldn’t help himself, no matter how hard he tried. He even asked Marya to accompany him shopping but eventually he dropped her off back home and made the excuse of going to see Kaz to go to the den they passed. It was his secret, but Wylan was smarter than his guilty conscience.
Wylan was supposed to be at a business meeting that night. Jesper walked through the front door, drunk and pockets almost entirely empty (he got too drunk to keep going). He could have sworn his heart leapt right into his throat. Wylan stood in front of him, mercher black covering his freckled body and his bright hair dim in the off lights of the foyer. He looked unimpressed, arms crossed and putting his weight on one leg. His blue eyes reflected the lightning that came through the window, and it was terrifying.
Jesper locked the door behind him, not taking his eyes off his boyfriend. He swallowed when Wylan opened his mouth. “Jesper, where were you?”
“Bar,” he said, hiccuping a second later. “With Kaz.”
“And your drinks cost the two-thousand kruge that was in my safe?”
He stuck to half-truths. “I bought everyone's rounds.”
His mouth downturned. “Jesper!”
“Fine,” he spat, starting to shrug off his coat. He held it in one fist. “I was at a gambling hall. Happy?”
“Not at all,” he said, tightening his grip on his arms. “Why would you go to a hall, Jes? You know how you-”
“Don’t ‘Jes’ me,” he said, holding up both hands to make quotations with his fingers. “You started this fight.” Somehow he had turned and was now off-facing Wylan.
“Jesper,” he said, stepping forwards, reaching with one hand. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not that drunk,” he grumbled, turning around. “I only had some drinks.”
“Jesper,” he said, and his voice was gentle. Jesper hated the fragility. What did Wylan think he was going to do? Bawl? Fall to his knees? Vomit? Beg for forgiveness? There were too many options for why. He felt like he could use a game of makkers wheel. Less options that way, leaving it down to chance of why Wylan was speaking to him like that. He didn’t feel like trying to figure it out. “Come to bed. Let’s talk in the morning.”
“I don’t need to lie down,” he shot, whirling around and throwing up a hand. The force of his turn made Wylan stumble, and he looked up at Jesper like he didn’t know him, blue eyes big, hand slightly raised, but not because it fell from Jesper’s shoulder.
Jesper’s heart fell from his throat, now resting in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t figure out why he had done that, it was stupid. He knew Wylan didn’t like sudden, exasperated motions too close to his face. Every sudden move his father had made near him usually ended poorly for him, and Jesper knew that, so he wanted to know why in Ghezen’s name he had just moved that way.
“Wylan,” he mumbled, stepping forwards carefully. Wylan didn’t move. “I’m sorry. I don’t know- I didn’t mean to… I would never-”
Wylan moved a finger up to his lips, but he didn’t quite meet his eyes. He just nodded, stepping back, and the silence was suffocating. He took Jesper’s arm with both hands, guiding him out of the foyer and up their stairs. When they got to their room, he undressed him, the ruffle of clothes and lash of thunder outside was the only thing Jesper had to hide behind. Soon they were both in their night clothes, and Wylan left Jesper alone. He sat up in bed, sitting with his legs crossed. He watched the door until Wylan came back, but he didn’t come back before Jesper’s eyes fell and his weight shifted down onto the mattress. The beating of his heart guided him into sleep.
He woke from a nightmare. He didn’t have much after getting drunk and sleeping, but this time he had. It was a little blurry in his memory, as was most of last night, but it left him shaken. He climbed out of bed, glancing appreciatively at the water and pills on his bedside table. He found a spoon of honey next to them. He sighed, taking everything waiting for him, then crossed the room to his dresser. The ache in his legs from stumbling around in the rain until he got home made him particularly slow, and it was irritating. He changed into new clothes, then slid out of the bedroom door.
Wylan was in their office. The rain knocked on the window, thunder and lightning occupied the dark clouds that made it difficult to determine the time. The fire blazed, and Wylan had his back to the open door. He stood next to his desk in front of the room’s window. He leaned on it, facing the fireplace and looking down at a paper in his hands. Jesper could tell even from the entrance that it was a page for statistics. There was a document behind him where Wylan kept things “to do”, and he knew it had words that he hadn’t been there to read.
He stepped inside, moving so his bare feet were on the large rug in the room. It was a deep red, and he and Wylan had bickered about whether or not they should get a blue one instead when they first settled in the office. His footsteps were silent, and he came up behind him, slightly off to the side due to the desk blocking him. He leaned forwards, reaching out. “Behind you,” he murmured, and Wylan jumped and turned around. Jesper smiled, though it was a poor attempt at an apology and it was sad in its entirety. He let him wrap his arms around him, his shoulders pressed to his chest. He set the paper down on the desk as Jesper pressed a kiss to his hair. “I’m so sorry, Wylan,” he whispered. “I didn’t want you to be upset, so I didn’t tell you when it started up again.” He looked up at him, listening. Jesper swallowed. “But that was stupid. And what happened last night wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”
He placed his hand on Jesper’s cheek, his elbow resting on his arm around his waist. “I’m not angry with you.”
“You should be.”
“I’m worried about you.”
He sighed. “I kind of wish you were angry instead.”
Wylan’s smile was small, and it was there only for a moment. “It’s okay to have a problem, Jes. It’s not okay to hide it.”
“I know,” he murmured.
He brought his hand down to his chest, turning his arms so he could face him better. “Then why don’t you do something about it?”
“Because it’s so much easier not to,” he said, trying to be honest. “It’s hard to quit once I start up.”
His naturally soft voice dropped a little, close to a whisper. “How long has this been going on?”
He cleared his throat, looking away from his eyes to the floor. The rug should be blue, he thinks, like Wylan’s eyes. “About a month.”
“Jesper.”
“I wanted to tell someone,” he said, looking back. “But I was scared they would make me stop, so I hid it.”
“You need to stop,” he said, reaching up to hold his face. “It’s bad for you.”
He nodded. “I need help.”
“Then tell me what to do.”
His eyes widened. “Who said you had to do anything?”
His brow furrowed. “Me, because I love you and I don’t want you to hide things from me.”
His heart thumped, inching its way back where it was supposed to be. “You love me?”
“I do,” he said, smiling. “And this scares me. So I want to help.”
He tilted his head, pressing their noses together. “I love you too.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry about last night. You know I would never hurt you, don’t you? And that I don’t mean to scare you?”
“It wasn’t about you,” he murmured. “I promise. And I know.” He smiled and opened one eye. “You’ll always scare me, because I’ll always want you to be safe, but you can’t put yourself in a place that’s bad for you.”
He nodded. “I’m working on it.”
“And I’m going to help.” He pulled away from him. Jesper shivered, missing the body heat, missing knowing Wylan was safe in his arms, and wondered if that’s how Wylan felt every time he abruptly got up to do something and left him wherever they had been cuddling. Wylan came back around the desk, holding out a piece of paper and a pen. “We’re going to talk and you’re going to tell me how I can help and what we need to do to keep you from relapsing.” He put them in Jesper’s hands.
He raised an eyebrow at the paper, then to Wylan. “I don’t need a list.”
“They help you even though you won’t admit it. I know they do.”
He grinned. “Well, aren’t you observant?”
“Kaz’s fault,” he said, and Jesper tickled him under the ribs when he walked by. He gasped and fell back on the couch he had been walking towards, laughing gently. He sat next to him, shifting so they were close, and laid the paper out on the table. He dipped the pen in ink as Wylan put his head on his shoulder. At the top, he wrote: Helping Jesper, because both of them needed to know how to.
Wylan closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. He smiled softly, wrapping an arm around him and placing the other hand on his knee. Wylan placed one hand on his chest, right over his heart. He started to talk, and he listened to his heart beat as he approved or commented on Wylan’s suggestions. They started to write things down, but Wylan stayed tucked safely against Jesper. His heart was where it needed to be.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••
@iammadeofmemoriesforlife
28 notes · View notes
scarlet--wiccan · 10 days
Note
I thought of a silly hypothetical ship that I think has real potential and I want to know what you think about it: Marya Maximoff x Edwin Jarvis. I think Wanda and Pietro would both be overjoyed. IMO Pietro probably considers Jarvis more of a father than Magneto
Leave my bibi alone..... she's been through so much already. The last thing she needs is to uproot herself, move to New York, of all places, and be put through the immigration wringer just to take up with some gadjo whose life revolves around a mansion that's being constantly attacked or blown up.
I'm joking. Jarvis is great, and I do believe that Wanda and Pietro love him-- and the Avengers haven't operated out of the mansion in ages. I do feel like Wanda and Pietro could be doing more to provide for Marya, now that the know she's alive, but my instinct says that they'd want her to be safe and content, and not get her mixed up in the craziness of their lives. I don't know if Marya would want to leave her home country and whatever family/community she has left in Transia. That raises the question of why the twins aren't more involved in the community themselves, which just goes to show that these writers... don't understand Roma.
Anyways, I do believe that Marya's absence is one of the most egregious oversights in Orlando's writing. He's put so much effort into revamping Wanda's "chosen family" and recontextualizing her family relationships, but we don't hear a single word about her aunt/adoptive mother, who is basically Wanda's only living connection to her community and culture? That's actually a huge problem for me.
I know that Scarlet Witch (2023) was incredibly cramped for time, and that's not his fault, but just giving Marya a quick shoutout, or even a brief mention in that Who Is... oneshot would have been worth so much. If Orlando is worried about not being able to appropriately convey Romani cultural context or talk about Wanda's upbringing, he can reach out to sensitivity readers or try to get a co-writer for an issue. He did it for Thunderbird. And there are tactful ways to acknowledge Wanda's heritage and how important her living Romani family is without crossing boundaries. So, I'm definitely hoping for a Marya appearance in the next volume of SW.
11 notes · View notes
nanowrimo · 11 months
Text
A Fond Farewell to NaNoWriMo Technical Director Dave Beck
Tumblr media
We’ve got some truly bittersweet news: after almost 10 years as NaNoWriMo’s Technical Director, Dave Beck is moving on. Dave joined NaNoWriMo in 2014 and since then has overseen all things site and tech-related for NaNoWriMo and Young Writers Program. In addition to his considerable technical skills, Dave is a true Renaissance man with a remarkable range of skills, interests, and hobbies. Thanks to Dave and our other long-time Software Developer, Jezra Lickter, both our websites are currently in very stable places for this transition. 
Before we say goodbye, Dave shares some thoughts about his time at NaNo:
Q: What are some of your proudest achievements at NaNoWriMo?
I’d say it’s the redevelopment of the Young Writers Program website, which started in 2015. The first version of the website didn’t have many participants. I worked with Marya and Chris [Angotti] for the redesign. However, the biggest risk was creating a writing space for the kids. This feature did not exist before, so we built it from scratch. When we first launched it, 40% of the kids were writing on the site. The number is still going up. It’s 84% at the moment. I didn’t expect it to be this successful. Last time I looked, 20 billion words were written! The second achievement: we haven’t lost a single word ever since the writing space was created. It was very important to me that we did not lose any of the kids’ novels. 
In general, the YWP site was the most fun.
Q: What are some of your fondest NaNoWriMo memories?
The design is the best part. Not the coding itself, but deciding what things we should do and how to get there. When you figure out a design and then develop it, it’s very satisfying when it works well.
It’s also fun being able to creatively collaborate with people, especially with the YWP. I’ll miss Marya and Jezra a great deal, it was very productive.
Q: Tell us about one of your NaNoWriMo novels.
I’ve never won NaNoWriMo! Not even close to it. The closest I’ve gotten is 5k. It was a nonfiction book about ADHD. The funny thing is, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. But I didn’t want to write books! I just wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald and go to cocktail parties. I do NaNo every year though. It helps me understand the website and see if everything is working as it should be. So instead of writing, I see the problems and go and fix them.
Q: Fun fact about you that people might not know?
I’m a veteran career changer. I’m leaving programming and coding to become a winemaker. Before this, I was an attorney. I’m still a member of the California Bar actually. I was also a reporter for the LA Press, a fancy sous chef in Boston, and an exhibit designer at the San Francisco science museum.
If you can’t tell, I have ADHD. I liked this job the most since it’s so complicated being a full stack developer. It works well with ADHD because I’m constantly switching what I’m doing.
Q: Are coding and noveling at all the same?? Inquiring minds want to know.
A little bit? There is an element to understanding narrative within a code. You want to understand the order and how the code does certain things. It’s kind of like plotting a novel.
Designing code is also a creative process. But the coding itself shouldn’t be, which is the biggest difference. Coding is standardized so it won’t cause problems, especially when multiple people are working on the code.
With novel writing, you can do whatever you want. You can even break rules to prove a point. You don’t want to do that with coding or you break the whole thing!
Q: What will you miss/not miss the most at NaNo?
I’ll miss the creative relationships I had with Marya and Jezra. It’s interesting and fun work. NaNoWriMo also had a lot of creative lunches before COVID. Once, we all created our own cocktails!
I won’t miss how sometimes, it feels like I’m reinventing the same wheel over and over. For example, we’re trying to refine the system that makes challenges for existing novels. It’s still not completely working right in the way we want it to be, so we end up spending a lot of time on it. It’s like Sisyphus. You think you’ve finally completed something and then we’re back at the bottom of the hill.
Q: Any advice for a developer working at NaNoWriMo, or any aspiring tech developers?
Learn all seven parts of full stack developing as fast as possible. You will need it. Rely heavily on Jezra too. He knows a lot.
For aspiring tech developers, you should only spend 10% of your time actually coding. The other 90% of your time should be spent planning, scoping, and user testing. One of my issues is jumping into a code without a plan, which leads into problems I could have avoided. You should plan for things ahead of time. It’s like scoping your whole novel before writing words down. I’m a pantser coder which isn’t necessarily the best thing.
Q: Since you’re so fond of the YWP site, how about advice for any young writers?
Think for yourselves and write what you want to write. If it’s what you’re interested in, you’ll have fun.
Interested in learning more about open positions at NaNoWriMo? Sign up here to be notified of job postings. Just as we celebrate the diversity of our creative community, we want our staff to reflect that same spirit of inclusion, and we will encourage candidates of all races, genders, cultures, class and educational backgrounds, abilities, and orientations to apply.
49 notes · View notes
Note
Do you have any favorite Descendants headcanons?
Yes! This is absolutely a permission to share an absurd amount of them, right? (Say yes, please-)
Anyway. Canon is a suggestion and so is Rise timeline.
Uma and Harry have been married pretty much since Ben's coronation. They... Kind of got drunk along with every other Isle kid and decided to get married, as you do. It's legal. They don't remember a thing.
Neither does Harriet. CJ however knows and is just waiting for the best opportunity to tell her brother. The Lost Revenge crew also knows, mostly, but just assume that the Captain and first mate also know. Which would make sense.
The mother of the Hook siblings was a siren (that bloodthirsty type that lures sailors to their deaths) and Captain Hook was completely in love with her. He was also completely blind to all of her murder attempts.
As a result, the Hook kids think that murder is a love language. Like, yeah. Mama tries to kill papa from time to time. That happens. It works for them.
They are having fun.
As is Ursula. She watches Hook family drama (tm) as a telenovela and used to take baby Uma with her. This might or might not be how Uma and Harry met.
None of the Isle kids knows how death works. This would be because Hades decided that Isle kids and their still-alive siblings are too much headache to deal with, especially while on vacation, when technically, the Underworld is a problem of his younger brothers.
CJ Hook treats the Underworld like a bus station. Hades has resigned about when she was ten and now lets her take the Cerberus for a walk from time to time.
The Isle kids regularly try to make s'mores over Hades' hair. The only one who ever got Hades to cooperate was Anthony Tremaine, while looking after his baby cousins, who really wanted the s'mores. That would be because he actually asked. (And Hades felt his suffering on a deep personal level. Younger siblings.)
The Tremaines have the only neutral territory on the Isle. You see, if you fight by the Tremaines, you'll get kicked out of the hair salon and you won't get your hair done. This threat works because the Isle kids are vain as fuck.
Anthony Tremaine/Harriet Hook/Ginny Gothel. Mutually destructive threesome.
Audrey Rose and Anthony Tremaine are vibing. They bonded over fashion, their horrible grandmothers, and Auradon's disaster finances.
Audrey is generally vibing with the pirates, as she deserves.
Aro ace Audrey Rose.
Freddie and Celia Facilier and Marya Rasputin are basically half-demons from a different end of the spectrum.
Freddie can walk absolutely quietly even with all the gold trinkets CJ gives her.
Uma and Freddie wore ninety percent of the Isle gold at some point or another. The last ten percent is still locked in EQ's vault and the Isle kids are very much trying to break in.
Uma just. Feeds people to the sharks. That's a thing that happens. She also doesn't necessarily bother to kill her hostages before that. (Harry very much supports this. He might drag some hostages to her, too. Murder is a love language and all that.)
Claudine Frollo was adopted by the Hook siblings and is a part of the Lost Revenge crew. She is a bitter bitch and I love her.
She is also wholeheartedly convinced that the Lost Revenge is a cult, and she is right.
The de Vil cousins couldn't give less of a fuck to the rivarly between Uma and Mal.
Evie has already mentally killed Cruella in about forty six different ways. She is counting.
De Vils, Hearts and Hooks argue over who wears red the best. They can and will kill over it, but that's fine. Death is a social construct.
Fairy Godmother sealed off Jane's magic.
On the Isle, Mal misses the concept of wings, freedom, something that she has never had.
Evie has social anxiety due to ten years spent alone with her mother.
Mal can be controlled by a laser pointer. As can CJ. And Harry. Yzla and Zevon. Marya Rasputin. Begrudging Uma and Harriet. Technically, Claudine Frollo, who will start praying and backing off and will never touch the surface with the laser dot again. De Vils and Faciliers know this and they are having a blast. (Carlos will just shine a laser pointer away from him when he wants to work on his trinkets and it works.)
Alice accidentally fell down the rabbit hole on the Isle and consequently kidnapped a kid. That kid happened to be a twin sister of CJ Hook. (Alice and Ally's ages don't match. This works ✨)
There is a reason why there are three schools on the Isle. The reason is: „You could never pay me enough to deal with more than one sibling at time, now fuck off.“
If I remember anything else, I'll add?
70 notes · View notes
smolhoneybat · 1 month
Note
hi! i've been a fan for quite a while. i really admire how you seem to articulate, i found myself becoming more introspective with every video. also it's really nice to see someone talking about games and series i really love. aside from that, i wanted to ask if you had any recommendations like games, books, shows, movies?
hi hi!! thank you so much, pinning the words down is hard but worth it haha 💛
Ooh I have so many... obviously there's the games and shows I've talked about on my channel but standouts would have to be Darkwood, Nier Automata and Arcane but ALSO
Games: -A Space for the Unbound: chill fetch quests in a small town in rural Indonesia, finish your summer bucket list with your gf, pet cats, dive into the subconsciousnesses of your neighbours!
-Ender Lilies: metroidvania platformer with some tight controls like Hollow Knight, gorgeous artwork and music, you play as Lily, a young amnesiac priestess trying to purify the spirits of the dead and stop the plague ridden rain that won't stop falling, you're small and weak but you recruit different spirits to fight with you but it never feels overwhelming or bloated, really enjoyed it
-Signalis: survival horror as an android looking for her gf, she made a promise and she's going. to. fulfil. it. Dystopian future in space with lots of good old rusty machine body horror, strange senses of time and memory and there's some puzzles in there too.
-Sunless Sea: Victorian London was moved underground by bats. Don't worry about it. Go sail the seas and try and turn a profit without losing your mind from the Horrors ^.^ (deceptively a lot of reading in this, plays like a management sim meets VN)
-Omori: 4 years ago Something happened. Omori dreams his days away in his room, carefully not thinking about that Something. Some of the game is in his colourful dream worlds and some out in the real world. Fights are always tinged with emotional rock paper scissors as how you, your friends and enemies feel will affect the fight! He's about to move house and an old friend comes knocking on the door...
(-alsoPathologicisgoodyesI'moneofthoseyoutubers)
Books: -Va11-Hall-A: I...don't know whether to put a VN under games or books so I'm putting it between the two. You're a barista in a cyberpunk kinda world, you listen to patrons while making them drinks and chat. (It's chill but sometimes gets pretty heavy and has a lot of mature topics in it for the record.) -Deathless by Cathrynne M. Valente: an alternate history book that has one foot in the Russian Revolution and the other in fairytale. Marya Morevna marries Koschei the Deathless, and goes back to his kingdom. She makes friends with various folklore creatures, checks in on her sisters who all married birds and her old and new lives begin to collide.
-The Locked Tomb trilogy by Tamsyn Muir: sci-fi necromancers vie to become the next right bony hand of God, first book is a murder mystery, second is a grim tale by a survivor of the first but something is Wrong and you know it is, third is an oddly domestic political tragedy and I loved them all so much, cannot recommend the audiobooks in particular enough (as the first is a murder mystery, all the voices the narrator does are both incredibly well done but let me pinpoint exactly who was speaking even when I couldn't remember their names, also she voiced Daniella in Haunting Ground!)
-The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch: small orphan becomes a conman in fantasy Italy. Ends up being drawn into some political intrigue and fucks around finds out, frequently!
-Children of Time: Spiders! Once upon a time an arrogant scientist decided to infect monkey with a virus that would encourage rapid evolution within cooperative species but...it reaches jumping spiders. They have their own form of sign language with vibrational tappy patterns against the ground and wiggling their palps! Scientist's consciousness has melded with an AI and is waiting for her monkeys to become intelligent enough to contact her
Misc: -Dungeon Meshi: do you want to learn about the ecosystem of a dungeon while also figuring out how to cook the creatures inside and watch a guy with a monster special interest live his absolute best life? Yeah you do! (I'm really enjoying this rn so ye)
-Mabel: podcast about a home health carer for an old lady who's only living relative, Mabel, is missing. Anna, the nurse, starts leaving her voicemails like a diary and slowly gets drawn into family secrets, fairy logic and goes exploring places she shouldn't (this one does not shy away from heavy topics including serious child abuse and its effects so if that's not for you then leave this one be)
8 notes · View notes
Note
alarkling + heresy
A one shot where post R&R Alina, somewhat spiraling, uses merzost to bring the Darkling back from the dead (we don’t need a bee goddess lol) and stows him away in the basement at Keramzin. Naturally she tells no one about this.
I’d probably actually, for once, go along with the canon Malina endgame just to have Mal be like you seem weird… what’s going on? And Alina brushes him off and assures him that it’s nothing!
How did she bring him back? Uh something something the journals, the bit of shadow magic she has, and probably some of Mal’s blood. That’s all I got.
The Darkling’s like… so are you ever going to let me out. And she’s like no, you’d cause too much trouble :)))
Things would definitely come to a head somehow but I don’t know the details. Maybe she goes progressively crazy and ends up killing Mal when he finds out. (For Marya Morevna fairytale elements maybe Mal is dumb enough to, upon discovering him, try to let him go?) Maybe she turns out to be immortal anyway, despite the loss of her power, and she can be the creepy lady who runs an orphanage who keeps disappearing into the basement for long stretches of time in the middle of the night.
12 notes · View notes
sissytobitch10seconds · 3 months
Text
Metal Rings
Fandom: Grishaverse: Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, and The Grisha Trilogy Summary: Jesper has been acting suspicious since Alina and her friends came to visit them in Ketterdam. Kaz doesn't like it and after some talking, neither does the rest of their flock. Warnings: Mentions of sexual content, ABO dynamics, polyamory, and canon-typical miscommunications Word Count: 11,589 Ship(s): Kaz Brekker/Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck/Inej Ghafa/Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik
Archive link!
A/N: So I really, really loved what @polycrowtruther is doing and I got permission to write something inspired off of their work! I recommend reading what they have in their Grishaverse A/B/O AU both because it's absolutely amazing and they do a much better version of world building than I do. I hope that you guys enjoy this little fic! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3
Kaz stepped into his home and then immediately felt his hackles raise.
It wasn’t quite like what happened when he knew that he was about to get in a fight, but it was enough to make him feel like he was going to snap at the next person that spoke to him. Usually, his pack was sequestered away in the upper apartment of the Silver Six so that they could be in neutral territory for them all and close to their businesses. Given that they had guests staying with them, they were in the Hendriks estate instead. That by itself wasn’t what was setting him off since they spent enough time in the massive building that it still smelt like them, but the guests that they had staying with them made his hind brain feel wired.
While Kaz couldn’t necessarily smell the difference in his home and his den, the pheromones from people that were basically strangers was enough to set him on edge. He knew that the others were feeling a similar way, especially since Wylan was always a bit jumpier when he had to return back to his childhood home. 
Kaz paused when he stepped through the front door of the estate so that he could settle his nerves. He was sure that if the Queen’s Lady Plague hadn’t killed his sense of smell, he would have been able to take in the heady smell of his pack, of cinnamon, brandy, pine, citrus, and the rich earth of freshly turned dirt. He knew that Inej would have been able to describe Wylan’s scent far better, but Kaz had never smelt it and so had to bring back the memory of his time in Lij to even make an attempt.
He could hear voices traveling through the house, but he was currently too tired to go and join them. He stepped forward while staying on the rug so that the fabric would dampen the sound of his cane. He was leaning on it quite heavily after the busy day of meetings and joint casing that he had. He was trying to help Alina with her little cult problem, as all good friends did, but it was wearing him out. He knew that his pack had the ability to tell what his pain level was just from the sound of his cane and the pattern of his steps, so if he hid it then he would be able to get his much desired alone time.
Despite how desperately he needed to be buried in his own room and surrounded by only his own pheromones so that he could calm his instincts, he paused when he got to the open door of the parlor so that he could peek in on the activities occurring inside.
They had been slowly renovating the house so that it was more to their standards and preferences instead of the up-to-date mess that it had been when Jan had been running it. They didn’t want the estate to be a statement about how much money they had, but instead a home where they could all comfortably retire when the time came. Marya had been managing it in their absence, but her home in the back near the canal had been the first thing to be renovated when they had gotten her back where she belonged.
The floors of the parlor were a lovely polished cherry, parqueted with pretty blue and silver paint. There was a massive rug that Jesper had made himself, after much trial and error, to match the one that his mother had made when he was seven that was spread out underneath the furniture. They had a chair custom made so that Kaz could tip his hips in the way that soothed his knee the best, and then a couch that was big enough for Matthias and Jesper to lay down on together when they were cuddling. The mantel was covered in little things that Inej had been collecting on her journeys around the world, pictures and paintings from the Hendriks, and a couple of Jesper’s first couple of attempts and the crow’s head on Kaz’s cane. The alpha in question had been mortified when he had walked into his living space to see what his mates had done, but they loved the misshapen and wonky figurines too much to get rid of them.
He could just barely see the edge of Inej’s head peaking up over the chair that was closest to the fire, though her braid was casting strange shadows on the wall opposite the fire. She was involved in some conversation with Mal that Kaz didn’t bother to listen to. The last time that he had done that, he had been subjected to joining them in their discussions about metal types which had only gotten worse when Jesper and David had jumped in.
Alina and Nikolai were reclining back on the couch, the alpha no doubt fussing over her bump as he was wont to do. It made Kaz wonder briefly what would have happened with his pack if things had been different, if their lives hadn’t led them down the path of danger and darkness the way that it had.
The sigh that he heard from the fireplace made him smile and tore him from his thoughts. Matthias had to be sleeping next to the hearth, he was the only one that was going to be able to mimic the sound of a dog so closely without actually being one. That meant that Nina was curled up by his side, a theory that was confirmed when he heard her giggling alongside Genya.
He knew that Zoya and Wylan were in the beta’s office so that they could talk about the difference in politics and help each other through a couple problems that they were both facing. Kaz somehow managed to find it both endearing and annoying how interested Wylan had suddenly become in politics. Kaz was glad that Wylan had someone that he could talk to about it, but also a little put out that his mate was beginning to understand the loopholes of Kerch law better than even Kaz could.
Something inside of him stirred when he realized that Jesper was absent from the pack space again. It was possible that he had forgotten something at the Silver Six and had since gone to retrieve it, but he had been leaving the manor more and more often lately.
He tried not to pay attention to where his mates were at all times, which was still a rather new development. When they had first all mated each other in the dark alley directly after the Van Eck/Rollins Heist, it had been to save Matthias’ life. He had known that he loved his crew dearly and he was ready to live with them for the rest of the time that he had left, but he was unsure that they were necessarily trustworthy. Wylan and Matthias in particular had caught people trailing after them more than once. Kaz had admitted what he had done and that was the first time that they had talked about their feelings, expectations, boundaries, and just about everything else as a pack.
He had promised back then that he wouldn’t keep tabs on where they were at all times. In turn, his mates had promised that if they were headed out somewhere then they would leave him a note or a message through another person. That way he didn’t have to worry and they could still have their privacy.
Jesper had always been the worst person when it came to that, Kaz thought as he stalked down the hall. He was being less careful with the sound of his cane because the pain in his knee had flared up and he was working himself up into a tizzy. Jesper was bad about leaving notes to let the rest of the pack know where he was, but it was easy to find him. He was usually out with one of them, in their club, or in the estate. Kaz hadn’t been able to find him in either the Slat or the Silver Six, not even at the Crow Club, while he was there for business earlier in the day.
It had been like that for weeks and it was really beginning to bother the omega.
Kaz was trying to be better for them. He was trying to make sure that all of his mates had the space that they needed. He wanted to suffocate them all, bury them in a mountain of blankets or wrap them up in the back of his closet so that they would never be hurt again. He wanted to keep them in one place so that they were his and only his. But he knew that was not conducive to a healthy relationship and so he was able to resist that urge to the best of his abilities. Jesper was making it increasingly difficult to do so by his frequent disappearances when there were already new people in Kaz’s home. 
The omega made his way up the stairs slowly, using his cane and the banister to support himself. His knee tried to buckle a couple of times but he was easily able to catch himself and haul himself up to the next landing. He stalked down the hall with murderous intent before he ended up in the long hallway that held all of their bedrooms.
At the very end of the hallway was the master bedroom, which was the first room in the entire mansion to be redone. It had the newest technology in heated floors to ease some of Kaz’s pain in the mornings, as did his own personal room. They had gotten rid of all of the items that Jan had used to decorate it, replaced the wallpaper with something that Wylan had helped design the print for, and then altered the furniture. Now it held a custom made bed that was able to fit all of them and likely half of the Royal Pack as well.
Either side of the hall held bedrooms, each belonging to a member of the pack so they could have their own space. Nina and Inej slept closest to the master bedroom and they had decorated their spaces in a way that reminded them of the Little Palace or a real Suli caravan respectively. Jesper and Wylan were on the other side of the hall, decorated perfectly and separated by a jack-and-jill bathroom that had no opening into the hall. Matthias and Kaz were the last in the hallway with Matthias on the right and Kaz on the left.
The omega took only a moment to survey the doors and the flickering oil lamps as he made sure that none of his mates were up in their rooms either. They had signs with their names, printed in white with black font on one side and then reversed on the other, so that they could flip them around and let the others know when they didn’t want to be disturbed. All of the signs were white with black writing, so Kaz knew that Jesper had either forgotten or wasn’t there either.
He grasped the handle to his own bedroom and then pressed it open so that he was overwhelmed with the reassurance of his own space. It would smell like only him if he had the ability to smell, but the absence of other pheromones was enough to soothe the agitated instincts bubbling up in his chest.
He hadn’t been in danger like he was when he was fourteen in a very long while, but it was still habit to survey his sleeping space. So he scanned his eyes over his room to make sure that everything was exactly where he had left it the day before.
When they had all moved into the estate, his entire pack had expressed their dislike of his makeshift furniture. He had left the milk crate bed and wooden door desk back at the Slat at their request and then let the others buy him some intricate, rather overdone furniture. It wasn’t his style but it matched the sets in some of the other rooms so he had allowed it despite that.
He had a large mahogany desk that he was more fond of now that it was sporting a couple of accidental wounds from his cane and once from a shot Jesper had accidentally let off from the hallway when things had gotten too heated between them. It was currently covered with the tax forms for the Crow Club that he had been putting off in the interest of spending time with his guests. He also had a lamp in the corner and then a tiny venus fly trap from Novyi Zem, a present given to him by Jesper when they officially started their relationship.
His bed had no drapes and was a twin, small enough that it wouldn’t really fit a nest. He was okay with that because he had always teetered close enough to the edge of feral that he could only make a nest in the back of a closet unless he was in a shared pack space and his mate pack was there to tell him that he was okay. The quilt was plain but it had been made by Wylan, Inej, and Nina after Marya had decided that was something that she wanted to do so that she could startup the charity she had run before Van Eck had sent her away. 
The walls were sparsely decorated but he had a framed picture of the flowers that he had used for his and Inej’s bonding ceremony the summer prior and a couple of charcoal and pencil drawings from Wylan. It was dark and quiet, the perfect place for him to come and relax now that he was feeling so tightly wound up.
Kaz set his cane against the desk and then stripped out of his coat, leaving it draped over the chair. He then unbuttoned his vest and left it on the top of the desk, followed quickly by his gloves. He undid the few buttons at the top of his collar and removed his cufflinks so that he could roll his sleeves halfway up his arms. Once he was properly undressed, shoes tucked next to the door of his bedroom, he collapsed down onto the bed.
His eyes slipped shut in seconds. He wanted to sleep with his mates so that he could make sure that they were all there, breathing and healthy and wonderful, but it did mean that he had nightmares more frequently. When it wasn’t estrus season, his brain would take any hand or leg clammy with night sweats to mean that he was back on the Repear’s Barge. Kaz would wake up screaming or drenched in his own sweat, too upset to be lulled back to sleep by any of his partners despite their best attempts. He hadn’t been sleeping well, to say the least. 
---
He awoke from his nap after an undetermined amount of time. Given that he had returned in the late afternoon and now the sun was setting low over the gabled rooves of Ketterdam, he figured that he had slept for a few hours. He got up and ran a hand through the rat’s nest that his hair had become while he got his bearings. His room had always felt warm and safe, but he was missing the reassuring comforts of his mate’s un-smellable scents that he always got when he was in the master bedroom.
He slowly inched to the edge of the bed and then used the bottom post to raise himself to his feet. It was always risky for him to stand too quickly when he had just woken up because that was when his joints felt the most loose. He avoided having his knee buckle under him as he walked over to his pile of clothing. He replaced everything with deadly accuracy and precision, tugging it all back into place. He knew that Nina would be proud of him for taking care of his appearance and trying to make himself look nice. She was rather fond of showing him off now that they were around her family so frequently.
Kaz left his coat on the back of the chair in his room and then grasped his cane tightly in one hand as he walked back over to the door. He stepped into the hallway and then took a deep breath, reassuring himself that no one else was adding their stink to the unconscious part of his mind. It was only his pack and their guests inhabiting his home, and he would learn to be okay with that so that his wife would finally be happy. He knew that something was still missing, though.
He let his eyes trail over the doors just as he had before so that he could see if any of them were occupying their bedrooms, which would cut him off from being able to smell their pheromones. Each of the signs were just as they were when he had arrived, which reminded him to turn his as well.
He began towards the stairwell so that he could stop by Wylan’s office first and then seak out the rest of his mates elsewhere. Sometimes he wondered if he should demand that Kuwei come back more often just so that he could have the soothing reassurance that not only was his mate-pack all in the same place, but his entire pack. He knew that was unfair to the poor beta, who had finally gotten to return to his homeland with the people that he loved and formed his own pack. After all, they had only been Kuwei’s starter even if he would be in their permanent.
He walked down the second floor hallway until he reached the place where his mate had taken his office. He didn’t want to work in the same place that his father had, which meant that he had risen to the second floor instead of being down on the first like Jan had been. It was a bit of a difficult transition for the Merchers that came to visit them, but it made the beta much happier while he was working.
“Wylan?” he asked as he knocked on the door to let the other know that he was coming in. What with Wylan’s trauma around being beaten and Inej’s ability to sneak around without ever being seen, there had quickly been a rule developed that prevented anyone from coming into a room without knocking unless it was an emergency. Kaz thought that it was annoying but he preferred his partners to be happy than to have his own needs met every time.
“Good afternoon, precious,” Wylan smiled. The nickname made Kaz stop for a moment, he could already feel the tips of his ears burning with it. In Kerch, terms of endearment were always linked to money in some way because that was the most important thing in their culture. To be called precious, valuable, or desired was one of the highest compliments that someone could get. Kaz had never thought that something like that would be tossed towards him because he had always thought of himself as a monster without fangs or claws, but his partners were determined to prove him wrong.
He cleared his throat and then shut the door behind him. Zoya was seated on the other side of the desk, looking as regal and queenly as ever. She had held that air about her even before she had fallen in love with Nikolai and ascended to the throne, though, so he wasn’t surprised that it had increased with the actual change in power. The desk had all of the items normally set in the middle pushed to the side so that they could look over a ledger and have their tea.
Kaz gave her a nod of his head to acknowledge that she was there and then she did the same back to him. That was something that he had always liked about her, even though she was rather self-important, she did seem to realize when was the right time for her to say something. The omega limped around the table and then brushed his hand over the side of Wylan’s face in a distant show of affection because that was all he could muster in that moment, “I was wondering if you knew about where Jes was today.”
“I thought that he was out doing whatever it is that Jesper does,” Wylan laughed. He reached out and brushed his own knuckles over the top of Kaz’s belt to reciprocate without doing too much. That was something that they had all worked very hard to figure out when they had decided to continue their relationship in practice instead of just mating marks. He was more grateful than he could ever put into words that he had ended up with people that respected and cherished him as much as his partners did.
“I haven’t seen him around today,” Kaz hummed.
He could only stomach a quick glance down at the Mercher’s bright blue eyes. Wylan had a way of reading people that had about half the pack convinced that he was clairvoyant or was looking into their souls. Making eye contact with him was almost unbearable when Kaz was having a difficult day.
Just as he had thought, Wylan was giving him a look of understanding and compassion that made his heart beat so fast he would have to start worrying about whether or not he was going to survive it. “It’s okay to be worried about him, Kaz,” Wylan murmured. “But he’s strong and he can take care of himself. If he’s not home by dinner tonight then we’ll know something is wrong and go looking for him. I can also tell Matthias to take Alys’ dog on a walk because that mutt is constantly trying to pee on him.”
A bit of the nervousness caused by having other people in his home and missing one of his mates was settled when he remembered that. It was another reason that they did live full time in the estate. Alys’ little dog, Huub, was determined that he would pee on Jesper every single time that the alpha was even in the vicinity of him. It was amusing to everyone else but Jesper found it deeply distressing, which was very much less amusing.
A gave the beta a small smile and then said, “I’m going to go check with the others but if they don’t know then I promise not to send the Dregs after him again.”
“Thank you, treasure,” Wylan said with a proud smile. It sent a rush of warm honey throughout Kaz’s veins and chased away the lapping waters around his feet that were trying to pull him under. He leaned into the hand that brushed against his side, clandestine and almost brusque in nature. 
Kaz left the two to continue talking about their politics after sharing another look with Zoya, who had remained blissfully quiet throughout their entire conversation. He did notice as he left that she was asking for the details of the time that he had sent his lackeys after his mates after thinking that he had lost them. He was glad he didn’t have to be in the room for that, it always made him blush so hard that he got lightheaded.
He slowly made his way down the staircase that led to the main floor, going at the pace his knee demanded. “Kaz, I was just about to come up and get you,” Nina beamed when she saw her omega at the edge of the stairs. 
“And why would that be?” he asked, letting the smile that was blooming in his throat overtake his mouth. It was impossible to not be somewhat pleased when Nina was giving him attention. She was powerful enough that it made him preen like a peacock to know that she had picked him out of all of the people that she could have had at her fingertips. Kaz certainly did have quite the collection of mates, all of them just as dangerous and talented as he was.
“I was thinking that you could come out to dinner with us. If you’re feeling up to it, that is,” Nina quickly corrected herself.
He felt another massive wave of warmth bloom through him as he took in the care that his mate was giving him. During the beginning of their relationship and sometimes still to this day, Kaz struggled to let them take care of him. He knew that they wanted to since they had all officially started courting instead of mating so that they could save Matthias’ life. He knew that this was their decision, but he couldn’t help the overwhelming guilt that he felt at being so greedy as to take their hard earned energy and weave himself into their lives after all they had been through. When they noticed things about him and went out of their way to prove that they cared for him it would either shatter his heart or make him feel as though he was melting under their watchful gazes.
“I was actually coming to ask you if you knew where Jesper was,” he replied as he carried down the stairs. He stopped in front of her and then let his eyes flicker to everyone standing around her. 
They had all piled out of the parlor and were beginning to wrap up in their winterwear because the damp cold of Ketterdam would be clinging to its streets for a month or two yet. Alina and Mal were standing closest to the door, the pregnant omega obviously very excited to get started on their journey towards food. Genya was fussing over Nikolai to make sure that he was prioritizing warmth over his own style. Matthias was standing in front of Inej as he got her braid to slip out of her coat so that it could hang long and lovely down her back. Nina herself was tugging at the ends of her chemise so that it would sit pretty over her collar and out the ends of her coat sleeves.
“I thought that Jes was with you or Wylan,” Nina replied.
Inej’s eyes flicked over to her omega once she realized that he was there and overheard their conversation. Kaz knew that she was watching to see what his reaction to the information of Jesper’s disappearance would be. She had been there since the beginning and had seen him in every stage of his worst self to his recovery. Sometimes he worried that she still saw him as the myth that he had created as a piece of armor so that he could seek his revenge instead of the man that she cuddled close to when she had nightmares.
“Wylan is still with Zoya,” Kaz shook his head.
“Oh! We need to get them, they have to come with us,” Alina chirped as she wiggled away from where Mal had been trying and failing to wrap a scarf around her neck. The ridges where the deer antlers had once peaked through the skin of her neck were bare around the flaps of her unbuttoned coat. 
Genya hummed and then tied the scarf with talented, easy fingers, “We could just leave her here.”
“You know that if we do that then she would actually kill us,” Mal laughed. 
“Either that or she would find a way to monopolize all of Alina’s time so that the rest of us were driven mad,” Nikolai huffed as he continued to pull at the gloves on his hands. He and Kaz had had a discussion about that on the second day of the other pack staying with them. It appeared as though the beta didn’t use them very often, only when he was out in public, and so they were as uncomfortable as they would be if they were part of a uniform. Kaz had worn his gloves non-stop, even going so far as to wear them when he slept for a couple of years, that his basically felt like they were part of him. It was an interesting dichotomy to have when they shared something so similar.
“I’m going to go get her. Do you want me to bring you your musician?” she spoke directly to Kaz when she said that and he couldn’t help the tinge of red that bled into his ears. Having any of the Crows state themselves that they were his, or even when they were called that by other people, drove him absolutely up the wall with want for them. When he was younger, he had never understood the partners that marked each other up to the point where it looked like they had forgotten where the mating gland was, but now that he had his mates he had never been more sure that he wanted to sink his teeth into every bit of skin that he could.
“If you would, Sankta,” he replied, knocking his cane delicately against her calf. He would have done it a bit harder, he knew Alina’s limits well, if she hadn’t been expecting. He was on edge because there were new people in his space and her mates were all on edge because of her pregnancy pheromones. It was a strange part of their biology but he wasn’t looking for a fight, so he was going to work around it.
The other omega let out a squeal and then kicked at his ankle before she rushed up the stairs to where their mates were. Kaz shot a glance over to where the majority of the larger pack was to see if he was in trouble. When he had determined that he was not, he settled back on his wife.
“Are you going to be upset or disappointed if I tell you that I don’t want to go out with you tonight?” he asked, keeping his voice low so that the others didn’t hear.
“Of course not,” she murmured. “I heard you when you came home, so I know that you had to go take a nap on your own. I don’t want to overwhelm you with even more people if that was where you were this afternoon. Just promise me that if we leave you here unattended, you won’t go back to the Slat or try to send people after Jesper. And you have to eat a decent dinner.”
He let out an unhappy noise at what as being asked of him. Before he could continue, he felt the presence of his other alpha behind him. He tilted his head up so that he could see Matthias looking down at him, his brows furrowed in the way that the big puppy always got when he was truly worried about something. “Do you think that Jesper is in trouble?”
“I don’t like how often he’s been leaving the house, it makes me worry,” he groused. “He also didn’t leave a note.”
“Jesper never leaves a note,” Matthias replied pragmatically.
Logically, Kaz knew that the alpha was right. Jesper was always too scattered and lost in his own world to leave a note like they had all agreed that they would. Just because there were new people in his space didn’t mean that Kaz had to suddenly be trying to cause problems within their pack. “I just don’t want him to be doing something self-destructive,” he sighed.
“If he was gambling again, we would know,” Nina whispered. “Plus, he uses his Grisha-zowa abilities more now, so there’s less of an urge for something to fill that void.”
The members of her pack didn’t think anything of it, but Genya perked up to what her friend had said and asked, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” she asked, unaware that she had even said something out of the ordinary.
“Call us both Grisha and zowa?”
Nina’s beautiful cheeks colored red with embarrassment and she raised one of her talented hands up to her lips as if she could put the words back in her mouth. “Jesper feels more connected to his mother when he calls himself the Zemini word for our kind, and I wanted to have that kind of a connection with him while also remembering my own homeland, so I say them hyphenated.”
“That’s awfully romantic of you, Nina,” Zoya’s voice echoed from the stairwell as she, Wylan, and Alina emerged into the grand hallway. She was holding onto her mate’s hand and the omega looked like a child that had gotten in trouble, which let Kaz know that she had arrived out of breath.
“What can I say? When your mates are as hot as mine, you just can’t help it,” she flicked her hair over her shoulder and then trounced towards the doorway before she laughed and had to turn around.
“Well done,” Zoya mocked her as she began to pull on her coat.
“Where are we going?” Wylan asked as he began to reach for his winter wear as well. When he got both of his arms stuck in his coat, Inej giggled and rushed over to help him get it on properly.
Kaz watched them interact with each other without being able to join in and he finally felt content with that. He knew that there would be other days, days where he could kiss them all silly, days where he could hold Inej’s hands through their winter gloves, days where he could have Matthias’ arm wrapped around his waist. It wasn’t the end of the world that it wasn’t one of those days, not the way that he had thought it was when they had first started this whole thing.
In a big rush of chorused voices and waves back at him, his pack and his friends departed into the chilly streets of Ketterdam in search of their dinner. He would send for something simple from the kitchen staff, who were more than happy to be cooking for people that didn’t have refined pallets and snotty tastes. For the time being, he was going to let the hunger and the worry gnaw at each other in his stomach as he searched for his missing partner.
Despite what he had promised his partners before they had left, or what they had taken as a promise, he wasn’t just going to let Jesper keep disappearing the way that he was.
Kaz grasped the head of his cane tightly in his hand and then headed for the back door. He was going to check the grounds before he went to any of the regular gambling dens that Jesper had frequented before they were together. The cold bit at Kaz’s ears and nose, cutting through the thin material of his shirt and vest as he realized that he hadn’t donned any of his own winter clothing.
He wasn’t going to let that stop him. The storm brewing on the horizon was enough to make his knee feel like it was going to explode, so he knew that it was going to be more effort than it was really worth to turn around and go back into the house. He made sure to be careful as he walked down to Marya’s cottage on the edge of their property, overlooking the water so that she had something that changed to paint. She slept in the house so that Wylan knew his mother was being taken care of, but she liked to have her own private place to reside away from the staff during the day. 
It was still early in the evening so she would be currently taking her dinner in the cabin before she came back in to spend some time with Wylan and then retire to her own bed. Kaz stopped in front of the door with his hand raised to knock before he paused. It was a testament to how much work he had put into himself that he even though before he disturbed his mother-in-law for something that he wanted, even if he decided that his worry outweighed her possible annoyance.
Marya’s crisp, “Enter!” rang through the air after a single second post knocking. Kaz grasped the door and then walked in to see that she was right where he had thought she would be. She closed the book that she had been reading while she ate and then tilted her head up towards him, “Oh, hello, dear. I thought that you and Wy would still be with your friends.”
“Wylan left for dinner. I wasn’t feeling quite up for it so I decided to stay back,” he explained. He knew that she was already familiar with the brisk and to-the-point way that he spoke so he didn’t have to try and draw anything out for her. “I stopped by because I had a question for you, Ms. Hendriks. I won’t keep you from your dinner for long.”
“Nonsense,” she shook her head. She rose easily from her couch and then closed the door firmly behind him before she motioned to the chair on the other side of her coffee table.
Kaz knew that it was going to be more work to fight her than to just acquiesce to what she was wordlessly asking. He limped over to the chair and then sat down with his leg stretched long underneath the table to give the aching muscles a chance to relax. She took a roll from her plate and then pressed it into his hand just like the perfect mother always would, just like Kaz had dreamed that his own mother would if she was still living.
“Now, what did you wish to ask me about?” she asked, folding her hands in her lap like she was still the wife of a Mercher.
He took a bite of the roll and then chewed it thoughtfully so she didn’t feel like he was rushing. He did enjoy being around Marya, she was kind and she respected the issues that he had. He just wanted to find his alpha more than he wanted to spend time with her eating food he didn’t want. “Have you seen or heard from Jesper today?”
“I haven’t, I’m sorry,” she shook her head. “He came and visited me yesterday, he told me this lovely story about his farm back in Novyi Zem.”
---
Kaz ended up staying in Marya’s cabin for half an hour. He hated the fact that he had lost time he could have been looking for his mate but he knew that it was important to interact with her. They had gotten a trusted Healer to look at her after they had brought her home and were informed that the treatments she had received at the institution that Jan had sent her to had damaged her psyche badly. She would have good days and bad days with the good outnumbering the bad the longer that she healed, but she would never be the Marya that Wylan remembered from his childhood. Apparently it was also important for her to have solid things in her life that she could grasp, like visits from all of her children-in-law.
He stayed for the polite amount of time and ate everything that she offered him because he wanted to show that she was cared for. He left after the first gap in the conversation after ten minutes, however, because he was desperate to find his mate. Jesper tried to visit Marya at least briefly every day, so the fact that he hadn’t been down to the cabin struck Kaz as very odd.
It ignited a worry in his chest that his mate was sneaking off with someone else. That made him feel immediately horrible, both for questioning his alpha’s fidelity and reigniting the idea that he was undesirable. He knew, practically, that he was. He was an omega that couldn’t smell and it was very unlikely that he would ever be able to bare completely healthy children. His pack had never shown an interest in pups and none of them seemed to care about his inability to scent them properly. What they might actually care about was the fact that he was the pack leader, that he was unruly and wild, and that he would never be the homemaker that omegas were supposed to be.
He wouldn’t blame Jesper necessarily for going after someone that could give him everything that the alpha wanted and deserved, especially since Kaz couldn’t give it to him. Jesper was so kind, caring, considerate, funny, handsome, and witty. He deserved an omega that was going to be able to touch him all the time, that wouldn’t snap at him after a nightmare, and that would know how to seak out his scent on clothing without having to ask someone else.
Kaz grasped the head of his cane so hard that it dug into the flesh of his palm through the leather of the glove. He tried as hard as he could to push that thought out of his mind as he continued forward towards the boathouse. He pulled open the door as quietly as he could so that he wouldn’t summon any of the staff outside, but found that it was empty and closed it again. He then began to head towards the old shed that Jesper had transferred into a workshop of sorts, where he practiced his abilities in a place that he could be as chaotic as he wanted without stressing anyone out.
The shed itself had the same chipper white painted wood on the outside as the house and cabin did, though the roof was a thatched mess that Jesper had done himself to be closer to the father that he had left overseas. He had also installed two windows that were glazed so thickly that it was nearly impossible to see through them. They had a bit of light shining through them and down onto the muddy snow still clinging to the edges of the building in the shadows. 
Immediately, the omega knew that there was someone in the workshop. Jesper had promised them that he wouldn’t be working on any of his projects while their guests were there, however. When he was using his powers or working on something that didn’t directly involve one of the others, he tended to get so sucked into it that he would lose himself for hours and hours. Given that they were supposed to be playing host to people that they very much enjoyed the time of, it wasn’t the ideal situation to be in. That meant that it was partially unlikely that Jesper was the one in his office, so Kaz approached in quietly so that he wouldn’t alert the person if it turned out to be a rival gang member.
Kaz stepped up to the door and then pressed it open with a soft creak. He had lifted his cane up and then set it down as quietly as he could on the doorframe so that it wouldn’t make any noises even though he had to rely on it pretty heavily to keep himself upright. He moved his head forward so that he could see into the shop and then felt his breath be stolen from his lungs.
Despite all of the promises that he had gotten, Jesper was the one that was in his workshop. He was sitting on the massive bench in front of his worktable with something clutched in his hands. There were three large slabs of metal and several gemstones resting directly in front of him, most of them littered amid shavings and scraps of something Kaz couldn’t immediately recognize.
“I just can’t get this,” the alpha groused. Kaz smelled someone that wasn’t familiar to him then, the pheromones sending a shock of aggressive possessiveness throughout his entire body. He went rigid and felt his hackles raise more than they had since he had first mated all of his partners.
A pair of hands wrapped around the back of Jesper and unfolded whatever he was working on, setting it down onto the workbench. “What if we take a break for a while? Do something else?” David’s voice emitted from the person standing behind his mate.
Kaz’s mind immediately went to cheating. He would have been able to deduce gambling in some form or another because Jesper would have kruge and cards on the table. The only other solution to his panicked and possessive mind was that his alpha had slipped away with the pretty, talented beta from his best friend’s pack.
“What if the others come looking?” Jesper asked, which only cemented the idea further.
He should have stayed in the doorway to listen more to what was happening inside. If he was going to accuse his partner of doing something that out of character, he was going to need a rock solid claim to do it with. His heart was hammering in his head and his breath was coming in angry pants as he found himself unable to control his temper. He knocked the door to the side with the head of his cane and then stepped over the threshold so that he entered the workshop with a brush of cold winter wind. “If you didn’t want the others to come looking for you then you should have left a god damn note, Fahey.”
“Kaz!” Jesper shouted in surprise. His hands darted towards the table and he grabbed several of the things that were resting there so that he could shove them into his pockets. Kaz leaned heavily on his cane as he stepped forward so that the two of them were standing as closely as they always did, but there was no love here now. There was only accusation and nervousness.
“I understand not wanting to have only me, but I don’t understand how you could betray the others with someone that Alina trusted. This ruins both our pack and theirs,” he snarled.
Gray eyes that had been filled with fear moments earlier squinted shut, a clear sign that Jesper was confused. He held up his hand and then jabbed it down at the omega to prevent him from speaking again before he finally asked, “What in the world are you talking about?”
“You snuck away without telling anyone where you were so that you could cheat on us with him,” Kaz replied flatly as he gestured towards David with his cane. Dark eyes flickered between the omega and alpha before David paled a bit and then sat heavily in a chair in the corner, one that Kaz had always used when he wanted to be around Jesper while he worked.
“I am most certainly not doing that, you absolute lump,” he huffed. 
That should have been enough to alleviate the worry and accusation that hung heavy in Kaz’s throat, but he was still fired up from his instincts going haywire. “If you’re not in here to cheat and lie, then what are you in here for?”
Jesper’s eyes darted down to the floor between them and his cheeks tinged pink, deeping the already dark hue of his skin. “I… You have to promise that you’re not going to laugh.”
Kaz made a hum in his throat which made the alpha shift back and forth nervously, like a toddler that had gotten caught with their hand wrist-deep in the cookie jar. He reached out and guided his mate down onto the bench, though Kaz managed to maintain the stiffness of the limbs despite the comfort of having someone he loved that close to him.
“Kaz, I really need you to promise me that you’re not going to laugh,” the alpha squirmed.
The duo had been friends for years and known each other even longer than that, so Kaz had seen Jesper in almost every form that he came in. It was strange to see him that self conscious of something that he had done, especially when there were so many people around him to reassure him that whatever he was doing was both wanted and good. “I promise,” he finally choked out around his anger. He wasn’t going to explode and make his mate feel like shit if he had misunderstood something and let his instincts and hormones get the best of him.
Jesper let out a low breath and then reached for the shards of metal that he had tucked into his pockets. Kaz could have easily stuck tricky fingers into the fabric and stolen them himself, but his hands remained steadfast on his cane instead. 
The alpha turned his hands over to reveal that the items were not, in fact, shards of metal but fully formed rings. “What is this?” Kaz asked, gently reaching out so that he could snag at least one of them and look it over. He was successful because Jesper knew better than to try and hide palm-sized items from his mate. 
Kaz laid the ring down in his hand and then turned it over so that he could see the other side. It was a perfect circle with woven copper and iron that crested at the front around a beautiful white stone that glittered like an opal or quartz. He traded it out for another and then examined it as well.
“It’s, well, this is going to sound really stupid, but Wylan was talking about how Matthias had gotten you a ring to try and cement the whole pack thing in a Kerch tradition instead of just his Fjerdan way because he’s been struggling a lot with his country lately,” Jesper rambled. He was shuffling his feet back and forth to try and stifle down the excess energy that was rolling off of him in massive waves. 
Since it was becoming apparent that they were having a private conversation, David jerked into a standing position. “I am going to go find the others. I knew Alina said that she was craving fish and chips so I will check those restaurants first. I’ll let the others know where you are, Jesper,” he said in that awkward, stilted way that he always did when he was nervous. He darted out of the room as quickly as he could but securely shut the door behind himself.
Then, it was only them and their feelings swirling through the room. Slowly, the omega returned the ring to where it belonged and then placed a hand on his leg. He hadn’t been okay with touch earlier because he had been so overwhelmed by the new smells and people in his space, but his alpha was so upset that he wanted to comfort him above his own limitations. 
“I know that we’ve done the Zemini ritual, but I wanted to be able to mate you all in the Kerch way too. Both places are my home and I want to be your mate in them both,” Jesper explained quietly. “David is a much better Durast than me, to the point where I would suggest you hire him to be in the Dregs if he wasn’t already the leader of a whole school in Ravka.”
“Jesper…” Kaz rasped. He could see where this was going and it was already overwhelming his chest with emotion that he had to get out lest he suffocate under the force of it.
“I’m not done,” the alpha said quickly. Kaz shut his mouth and clenched his teeth so that nothing else would spill out. Jesper had something that he needed to say and he deserved to get his emotions out just as much as Kaz did. “I asked him to help me make some rings for you all while he was staying here, which is where I’ve been going every time I’m not with you all or helping Wy. He said that they would be more special if I made them myself instead of just commissioning him to make them so that I could gift them.
“And don’t even start with the whole rant about how Matthias bought the ones for the rest of you, I can make them and I should so that they’re special. I just… I can’t get any of them right, none of them look the way that they did in my head. I don’t want to give them to you if they’re imperfect because it might make you all realize that I’m imperfect,” Jesper finished. His eyes were staring down at the rings that he was still presenting out in his hand, the metal of which was now wobbling back and forth as he toyed with his power.
“That’s the stupidest thing that I’ve ever heard,” Kaz snorted.
Jesper pouted, his shoulders hunching forward like they always did when he was nervous about something. Immediately, Kaz realized that he had said the wrong thing out loud and kept too many of his thoughts to himself. He reached out towards his husband and looped their fingers together so that their knees were forced to knock together. “The idea of perfection is something that only exists in the tales of the Ghezen, Saints, and Djel, it’s not real. Look at someone like Marya: she appears to be the perfect mother but she still let Jan do all of those things to Wylan without helping him. That doesn’t make her less worthy of staying here and being cared for by us but it does make her imperfect. Imperfection also does not disqualify one from being loved.”
There was a dark rumbling then that filled the hut that they were setting in. It was like a rush of warm water or a late spring breeze that was sweeping around Kaz all at once, reminding him that he belonged to Jesper and he had just made the alpha very happy. Jesper reached forward and placed both of his hands on Kaz’s hips to draw the omega onto his lap. He peppered kisses over the side of his husband’s face when he was met with no resistance and then asked, “When did you become such the poet?”
Kaz didn’t know why something as simple as the alpha purring had dissuaded all of the apprehensions he had about touch only moments before, but he was guessing that it was actually the concentration of Jesper that the receptors in his brain were picking up on in the workspace. The fact that his mate had just gone through so much work to make them something so kind and heartfelt was also enough to make him want to crawl inside of his husband’s skin, which certainly helped.
“I’ve always been like this, you’ve just never had the patience to listen,” he lied as he eagerly leaned into the affections that he was receiving. “I want to see the one that you made for me,” he wiggled away from the alpha so that he could pry Jesper’s hand open and see the rings.
“I haven’t finished them, I just explained that,” the zowa squeaked in fear as he clenched his fingers even tighter.
“I don’t care if they’re not up to your insanely high standards, they’re good enough for our pack and I want to see them,” he demanded. Jesper growled low enough that if Kaz were a regular omega, he would have quivered or been lulled into paying attention to what was being asked of him. Given that he was both the back leader and Dirtyhands, it was nothing more than play for the two of them. Kaz leaned back into his alpha as he continued to work at getting Jesper’s fingers apart and then snagged the one that was meant for him, which had been moved out to the edge of Jesper’s palm with the alpha’s abilities.
Deft, somehow bare, fingers picked it up and then turned it over a few times so that he could look at it from every angle. It appeared to be simple, a green band encapsulated inside of two silver ones that was completely smooth. Upon further inspection, though, there was a carefully written saying in purple woven into the crushed gemstones encased in clear glass in the center. “What does this say?” Kaz whispered, his eyes filling with tears too quickly for him to be able to make it out.
He knew that his partners loved him, he knew that with the entirety of his soul. It was one thing to know that he was loved and another to be holding a physical representation of it in his hands. It was a constant reminder that he was adored the same way that the ring on the chain from Matthias and the simple band around his wrist was.
“I told you that it was unfinished. I wasn’t able to get the writing to look the way I wanted because I poured the glass too soon and now I’m working through another layer of something entirely. Sorry that the letters are so bad you can’t read them,” Jesper sighed. To anyone else, it would have sounded like something bitter and almost cruel towards Kaz. He knew his mate better than anyone else so was able to tell that it was simply another self-deprecating jab at the alpha himself.
“Will you shut up that mind of yours for one second? You’re brilliant but it is such a liar,” Kaz sighed.
It worked at least a little bit as Jesper wrapped his arms tighter around Kaz and then hid his face in his omega’s shoulder so that he wasn’t exposed to the outer world, like it would somehow save him from embarrassment. “You’re going to think it’s cheesy and hate me for it.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“It says: With this ring, we become one in soul, body, prosperity, and commerce. It’s a combination of some of the things I heard people say in bonding ceremonies and what the Kerch say during wedding vows,” he explained, squirming nervously.
Kaz flipped around so that the two of them were facing each other again, despite the creak that his knee gave in protest. “Jesper, listen to me very carefully,” he said as he brushed the hand that was still gloved over his mate’s face. “You’re going to stop panicking over these. You’re going to bring them inside, along with me, and you’re going to give them to our partners as soon as they get back from dinner.”
“We’re not also going to dinner?” he asked, looking a bit put out. Kaz was just glad that Jesper hadn’t tried to object to the other part of the plan.
He shook his head, “I have other plans for the two of us.”
---
Jesper would have been mad if his husband hadn’t known him so well, that much Kaz knew for certain. They were both laying in the master bedroom feeling strung out and much more relaxed than they had been before. While the rest of the house smelled like their visitors and put them both on the barest amount of edge, their room smelled like only their pack and safety so it soothed their minds. Kaz had also made sure that their room was covered in their happy pheromones by dragging Jesper into it and riding him for the better part of an hour, even coaxing his knot out despite them not being anywhere near their estrus.
“Do you really think they’ll like them?” Jesper asked, his lips moving against his mate’s skin as he traced lazy designs over the back of Kaz’s hip. He had just finished soothing the muscles in Kaz’s bad knee, so he had to let his hands wander elsewhere to relax his own cramping hand.
“Do I need to fuck you more than I just did? Of course they’re going to like them,” Kaz snorted. Slowly, he rolled over so that he was facing up instead of laying face down on the bed. When he saw that there was still worry shining in his lover’s deep gray eyes, he placed both of his ungloved hands on either side of Jesper’s face and kissed the tip of his nose. “They’re perfect because you made them and you clearly put a lot of work into them. We don’t need something that a queen could wear because we’re thugs, thieves, and pirate captains. Wylan hates the shit that his father left him because it’s perfect. Imperfections make something perfect to get attached to.”
“I guess so,” the alpha mumbled, dropping his forehead down so that it was resting on Kaz’s shoulder. “Do you think that we should get dressed before the others get back?”
“No,” he said, like a petulant child. As he spoke, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist to bring them down on the bed that they were cuddled together. “Alina should have already learned her lesson about walking in where she’s not wanted.”
It was a testament to how much the sex and being in his master bedroom had soothed him that Kaz didn’t notice that the door had opened until Nina spoke, “But are we wanted?”
“Course you are, love,” Jesper grinned as he propped himself up on his forearms. “You look absolutely ravishing, my dear.”
She dramatically flicked some of her chocolate ringlets over her shoulder and then said, “Why thank you.”
“Move, please,” Matthias said politely as he walked up behind her. He had just enough time in the moment of surprise that he was able to lean down and kiss her cheek. Soon the entire pack had filed into the bedroom and were disrobing from their winter clothing.
Inej cast them a knowing glance and rolled her eyes dramatically before she continued on towards the bathroom. She sat down on the pouf in front of the huge mirror where she, Nina, and Jesper would get ready every morning. Kaz peaked his eyes up from where he had buried his face into Jesper’s stomach so that he could watch the long tresses of her black hair come unwoven from the bun they had been locked in that morning. She took great care with running the brush through them, as if to show off for them since they were on display for her. Kaz never forgot how much he loved her, but it was wonderful to be reminded like that.
“You two were having fun without us? So not fair,” Wylan pouted as he walked over to the bed, now devoid of his boots and coat. He leaned over and gave Jesper a long kiss before he turned to Kaz, hovering to ask what the omega was okay with. Soon they were also kissing, which made the beta smile like a total idiot. “I told you that you would find Jesper.”
“You do need to start leaving notes for us, love,” Nina said as she slipped into the bed. She had obviously been uncomfortable in the outfit that she had picked for herself that day, which Kaz and Matthias had warned her about, because she was now in nothing other than her chemise. She dropped her arms over her eyes and let out a low moan of pleasure as the tenseness in her shoulders and back was able to release.
Jesper dislodged from Kaz so that he had the chance to stand and dress, suddenly feeling very exposed compared to the rest of his partners. With a flurry of movement and routine, they were all getting ready for bed like they had been with each other for the entire evening. Kaz knew that he had picked the right pack the first time that they had done that, after Inej, Nina, and Matthias had been away for nearly six months while on their respective missions. 
They were all cushioned on or under the massive blankets that decorated their master bedroom’s bed, surrounded by the scents and pheromones of their pack and no one else. Kaz himself was cushioned between Matthias and Inej, holding hands with Wylan underneath the other beta while staring at Jesper. The alpha squirmed like he could feel what Kaz was doing, but refused to say anything. When he had finally gotten fed up, Kaz loudly declared, “Jesper has something to give you!”
“I hate you,” the alpha hissed as he whirled around to face his mate.
“That’s not what you were saying earlier,” he smirked, joy flooding through his system as he watched the way that Matthias and Nina both flushed red. He had sex with Inej and Wylan too, but neither of them understood the absolute beast that emerged from the omega when he was knotted outside of his estrus and the lengths he would go to so that he could get it. 
“Jes, what do you have for us?” Inej asked. She had known them the longest and thus was able to tell when they were about to get in one of their little spats, though now they resulted in kisses far more than they did bruised feelings. 
The zowa shifted on the bed and then reached over Nina so that he could grasp in the top drawer of the left nightstand, his drawer. She giggled when she felt his weight over her stomach and poked at him until he batted her hand away with the one trapped between them. He returned to his sitting position and then awkwardly unfurled his delightfully long fingers so that he could present his hard work to them. “I know that they’re not really up to par with what Matthias got, but I wanted to propose to you all under Kerch traditions because this is also my home.”
“Oh, Jesper,” Inej whispered. She wiggled away from where she had been buried against Kaz and a pile of pillows so that she could see what was in her mate’s hands better. Her agile fingers immediately picked out the one that was meant for her and then turned it over so that she could see it better. It had an even, beautiful clasp on the back so that it could be worn as an earring or as a ring depending on what she was doing. The petals of the flower on the front would fold out over her finger or spine together when it was hanging from her earlobe, the rainbow colors dancing in the dim lamplight.
“These are beautiful, jewel,” Wylan said. Kaz opened his mouth to tease his mate about the choice in pet name given what they were currently doing but then snapped it shut again when he saw how mystified they all were with the gifts that they were receiving.
Wylan’s ring was a simple bad of onyx stone wrapped around iron so that it would lay flat under Mercher gloves or play nicely with a pen while he was working. It glinted and shimmered when it was turned in the light as the beams refracted back on each other, enough that their attentions were immediately drawn to the flexing tendons in the back of his hands while he admired it.
Nina’s ring was the biggest and most extravagant out of all of them. It was a rose gold color with a large white gem inlaid at the front, surrounded by several other blue and red gems to symbolize where she had come from and where she was going in the pack. As soon as she had the item resting on her finger, she grasped Jesper’s face between her hands and kissed him like mad.
Matthias’ ring was simple, likely because when he wore something too expensive or extravagant he got very nervous that he was going to lose it. This way, it was personal to him and also not something that he had to panic about all the time. The metal was a dull yet still somehow shiny gray color that clung to his skin when he slipped it onto his finger. There was a very small carving of a wolf’s face on the front with the tiniest red gem that Kaz had ever seen.
“I… I wanted to work on them more so that they didn’t have the imperfections that they do, but I was found out and convinced that you would all like them as they are now,” Jesper said once everyone had finished grabbing their rings so that they could try them out. He slipped the other ring that Kaz had examined onto his own finger, right where it belonged.
“I thought that we agreed that you wouldn’t go looking for him,” Wylan chided from where he was now sitting in the alpha’s lap.
“I said nothing of the sort,” Kaz snorted as he turned his face away. He could feel the place that Matthias’ hands were dancing over the duel rings now resting right next to his heart and he settled immediately. This was the pack that he had always dreamed of when he had been out on the streets and then again when he was trying to heal from whatever wound he had inflicted upon himself that week. They were compassionate but hard enough that he didn’t have to worry about their safety, and they loved each other with the devotion of a postulant. He was warm and safe in their embraces and cherished beyond words.
11 notes · View notes
aphroditestummyrolls · 4 months
Note
I’d love the engagement series for the wip
game. It’s one of fav you’ve done.
Hi anon! Thanks so much for sending this— writing out the rest of this little scene was such a nice break from working on BHaD chapter 3!
“I want to ask Wy to marry me.”
Well. Well, that was just… That was a bloody sunbeam through a cloud. That was what that was.
Colm couldn’t have kept the smile off his face for anything in the world. He couldn’t keep the happy little twitch from his fingers or try to squash the warm expansion that filled up his chest. He very nearly wanted to cry.
Jesper blinked at him. “What is happening to your face right now?”
“Oh hush, I’m so happy for you!” He gushed. His hands reached out and took his son— his grown, wonderful, clever, handsome boy— by the cheeks. By some miracle Jesper humoured him, and Colm was grateful. Through the misty eyed lens of time, he could see all the variations of wild and young that his boy had been, and all the ways he’d grown. All of the wonderful future paths he could take.
That he and Wylan could take together.
Jes patted his hand over Colm’s, only a little awkwardly, laughing a little. “C’mon Da, it’s not like he’s said yes yet.”
Colm tsked, swatting at the words like an irritation. It was a mere formality. “Oh, don’t give me that! I barely spent an hour with the two of you before I knew you two were special.”
“You did not—“
“The point is,” he let the bubbles of his joy settle a little, taking his son’s hands in both of his, “that that boy is clearly ass over tea kettle about you. And you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
That was the moment, it seemed, where Jesper finally let himself relax into the moment. His shoulders deflated, a proper grin spreading across his face like a sunrise. Those grey eyes were sparkling and bright, and he exhaled in a gust. It must be something, to get the weight off his chest.
“Is this the first time you’ve said it all out loud?”
He shrugged a little. “It’s the first time it feels really real, I suppose. I asked Marya for her blessing just before we left, but this feels… different.” It was a good different, clearly. It was the type of different that lit Jesper up from within, the type of different that glowed so bright, it warmed the whole room ten degrees.
It made him look terribly like his mother.
“Jesper, I…” it came out a little raspier than he’d like, clearing his throat. “Your momma—“
“Da, I—“
“Jesper Fahey.” They’d spent too long hiding her memory in the shadows, wearing her like a yoke around their necks. It still took so much to say the words aloud. But, they’d both promised to change, and this was the most important thing— learning how to carry her with them in a way that wasn’t stifling. “Your mother would be so, so proud of the man you’ve become. And she would love your Wylan.”
Jesper blinked hard, fluttering his short lashes as he looked down at their hands. But his smile didn’t waver.
“I, um… actually, I wanted to ask you about her. Is there anything of hers— her jewelry, I mean— around? Maybe something that I could fabrikate a bit?” He was fiddling with Colm’s fingers, not looking up at him. “It’s alright, if you can’t part with anything! It’s just that having something of hers, it would mean a lot, for making Wylan part of the family, I think. It would mean a lot to him— to us. And I wanted to make it, y’know? Like how you pass down and, and remake family rings in the Wandering Isle? It’s alright, though, if—“
Colm stood up and pulled Jesper with him, pulling him into a hug that could hopefully ease the nervous rambling. He didn’t even know what to say, or how else to express it all otherwise. Jesper had put so much thought into this. So much care.
He wanted to honour them.
Colm didn’t ease up his hold on his son until he finally let himself be held. He wrapped his gangly arms around Colm’s shoulders, and went comfortably quiet for a moment.
Thanks for playing! ❤️❤️❤️ (want to play? click the link for WIP list!)
12 notes · View notes
ruins-and-rewritez · 6 months
Text
DAY 5: SPICE: Wesper
The kettle releases a unearthly high pitched scream and Jesper essentially leaps over the counter before it can be noticed by any one else. Stealth is absolutely neccessary if he is going to complete this mission unnoticed.
He sticks his head into the hallway for a moment, searching for any signs of life, left to right and back in quick succession. Glancing right is a pointless endeavour since the only room on that end is a dusty storage compartment that even he hasn't visited in his time here but better safe than sorry.
He ducks back into the safety of the kitchen, determined to finish the task quickly before Wylan notices that he hasn't been by to bother him for hours. (Something unheard of with Jesper's constant energy and need to make sure that his boyfriend didn't accidently blow himself up when he was distracted polishing his pistols)
Jesper taps his fingers impatiently on the counter, counting the seconds needlessly as there's a clock hanging on the wall not five feet away, but being off by even a second could result in a disaster.
When the minute finally inches its way to seven past six, he steps quickly toward the oven, reaching out to grab the handle, hissing when he singes his fingertips. The pains of being in a constant state of overeagerness.
With the door open, hands gripping potholders this time, Jesper carefully manuevers the pan off the rack and settles it on the counter beside the other steaming dishes.
His practicing with Marya must be paying off to some extent because everything he's made at least appears to be edible, a far cry from their first attempt when he'd pulled a charred black log of something that was once mixed ingredients out of the oven's depths.
He smiles at the memory, neither of them held any particular skill in the kitchen but the mutual need to have something distracting was enough to get them to take a shot at cooking and baking recipes from unused books while Wylan was off locked up in his lab trying to somehow make explosions more efficent.
"Jes?"
"In here," he calls back hurrying to pull a set of china plates from the cupboard.
Jesper stands beside the counter, busying his hands with transfering food from pots and pans to the plates, trying to make it look more appeatizing then it is, while he waits for Wylan to make the trek from the sunroom to the kitchen.
"What's all this."
He turns to see Wylan in the doorway, head tilted curiously like a puppy or maybe a kitten, goggles still in place holding back his curls, a smudge of indeterminate origins streaked over his left cheek, his one sleeve singed and flaking. Adorable.
"I made dinner."
Wylan blinks surprised, before asking, "this isn't going to be like New Years' is it?"
They both cringe at the memory, he'd tried to make everyone breakfast last New Years Day after they'd spent half the night drinking the alcohol Nina and Matthias had brought back from Ravka and a suspicious drink from home that Colm would only refer to as 'an old secret family recipe' that Jesper highly suspected was actually a special brew from old man Raken who used to live down the road aways.
It had been a bountiful feast of burnt toast, watery coffee, and scrambled eggs seasoned with salt, pepper, and the timeless addition of crunchy shells. The only thing that had managed to be unpoisoned was the bowl of apples he'd brought upon from the cellar.
Jesper swallowed nervously, "I sure hope not," he admitted.
Whatever reservations he had, Wylan still allowed him to lead him over table and place the plate before him.
He was tentive in his movements, not quite sure whether or not he wanted to risk it, but eventually he gave in. Jesper watched on as he led a slice of beef into his mouth.
Wylan paused, eyes widening, before continuing to chew. "I can't believe you made this."
Jesper beamed, proud he had finally beaten the odds against his ability to cook. He settled in his chair and cut off a sample for himself. Hmm. It was good.
They chatted in between bites. Wylan was finally making progress on what he called "Inferni in a can", the final product would be a miniture cannister, about the size of your thumb, that when set alight and thrown into the desired area, would cause a blast of fire that could burn down the space of a small building.
Jesper told him how he'd almost caught his pant leg on fire while he was cooking when he'd added a log to the flames and spark flew out and landed on the cuff, he showed the small hole it'd made before he'd managed to put it out.
Finally, the plates empty, save the last dregs of the sauce he'd made for the meat and potatoes, Jesper got up to grab the desert. Pumpkin bread and a frothy, buttery cream that he'd whipped up.
He cut them each a slice, regaling Wylan with a tale of how he'd run into a member of the Council at the store earlier (quite literally) and how the old man had been dragging himself along behind his wife like a petulant child who'd been denied chocolate muttering an exsasperated 'yes dear' everytime she'd added another thing to her list.
Wylan smiled and commented along the way, lifting the bread for a bite, when Jesper took the conversation over again.
He let out a cough, then another, soon becoming red face as his lungs tried to dispell whatever bacteria had invade their domain.
"Wy?"
"Water," he managed to choke out.
Jesper rushed to the pump over the sink, filling the glass until it overflowed and spilled on his shoes, before hurrying back.
Wylan grasped the cup desperately and brought it to his mouth, taking long gulps, draining it before he could finally breath again.
"What the hell is in that," he rasped pointing at the bread lying on his plate accused.
Jesper wrinkled his brow, "pumpkin, eggs, water, sugar, cinnamon-"
"What's in there that is so fucking spicy?"
Now Jesper was really confused, he'd followed the recipe, adding the ingredients and stirring and pooring and baking. "I don't..."
"Show me what you used."
He led him over to the counter where the dry ingredients still sat uniformly beside the sink.
Wylan picked up the containers one by one eventually stopping on the can of ground cinnamon. His shoulders began shaking and for a moment Jesper was truly afraid he'd upset him to the point of tears.
Wylan turned putting the can into the other man's hand, "Jesper what does this say."
Jesper held it up and read the label, "100% pure ground cayanne pep- oh-"
Wylan started laughing. The kind that start in your belly and bubble up until they overflow.
"I'm so so sorry Wy I didn't mean I mean I'd never-"
Wylan put a finger to his lips, "maybe next time read the label." He burst into another fit a giggles at that a held onto Jesper's shoulder for support.
When he finally calmed down, he took a small step closer, "if you wanted to spice things up, there are probably better ways then almost killing me."
Jesper blinked, before his mouth pulled itself into a small smirk, "oh, well I guess I could think of a few."
~~~~
For anyone wondering how Wy could even tell what the can said, I imagine he spent lot of time in the kitchen when he was little because of the similarities between cooking and chemistry and he knows most of the ingredients by the size and shape of their containers, in this case he knows that cinnamon is in a medium, square can as opposed to the medium, circular one that holds the actual spice like pepper and paprika. And Jesper just saw 'ground' and assumed it was the cinnamon instead of actually reading the label
17 notes · View notes
astrhae · 10 months
Note
alright I just read your hanaki!Wesper story and when I tell you it emotionally wrecked me in the best way possible im being so for real!!! I never cry at fics it's like a flex for me but this made me sob like a baby
its so poetically written and gut wrenchingly heartbreaking and I hope I can tear somebody apart so lovingly and put them back together like you do with your wonderful writing one day!!
akdjdhdhk hi hello! one day i hope to read your writing and be lovingly torn apart and put back together by it 💙 also, thank you so much and sending you all the hugs and *slides some tissues and a fluffy (ish) deleted scene* i hope this helps with the tears :)
Some days, Wylan still coughed, dry and painful, the phantom feeling behind his throat forcing him to claw for air. Even with the flowers gone from him, his body still remembered, still carried all the marks of his past mistakes. “I love you,” Jesper would remind Wylan on those days, his gentle, gentle hands tucking Wylan’s curls behind his ears, forcing Wylan to look at him. To look, and to be seen in return. “I want you,” Jesper would add, his voice a wave lapping gentle over shores of hurt. “You have me.” And Wylan would tilt his head until his lips brushed Jesper’s palm, a kiss and an apology. A kiss, and a confession: you have me, too. Like this: wretched and broken. Wretched, and healing, and trying. For you, for you, for us. “Thank you,” Wylan would say after, when the clouds had passed and his lungs were light, and Jesper would shake his head. “Don’t.” “Why not?” “Because,” Jesper would lead them “Because,” Jesper would always have a warm cup of tea ready, sweetened with just a hint of honey to help soothe the cough, “I haven’t even earned your forgiveness yet.” “I’ve forgiven you,” Wylan would remind him, because he has, and he will again. “And I’ve forgiven you,” Jesper would reply, because Wylan hadn’t been faultless in it either. “But it’s harder to forgive myself.” They’d taken back out the old oil paintings that Wylan had hidden away after Jesper had left. The miniature portraits that Marya had painted of them grinning, the grand canvas of them stealing glances at each other that used to hang over the entryway, naive and young and still fresh with a love untested, the first thing anyone would see when they entered the Van Eck mansion – at least, if they entered it the proper way, without lockpicks and shadows. The first thing: a declaration of their happiness. But Marya had painted a new portrait of them for the entryway, with Wylan’s hand clasped in Jesper’s, and a ring hanging from a chain around Wylan’s neck, and a laugh shared between them, their eyes crinkled around the corners and their cheeks flushed with fondness, with a love hardwon. It was, Wylan realised, less a declaration of happiness, and more of hope. One day, one day they’d get there. “Jesper,” Wylan would offer the tea back to him, “I loved you. I love you. I don’t regret it.” And Jesper would shake his head again, as lost as Wylan had been. “Why not?” Wylan thought of Kaz and Inej, Nina and Matthias. He thought of his mother, and his father, and he thought he understood a little better now, a little braver now. “I can’t regret it,” he repeated, “because I can’t regret us.” Some days, they still needed time to find their way back, but Wylan tipped his chin up toward the sun, toward the future, toward Jesper’s smile, and he smiled back. Sometimes forgiveness looked like patience. Sometimes love looked like Jesper’s spoons beside Wylan’s forks, like Jesper’s shirt on Wylan’s shoulders. Sometimes, happiness looked like this: fractures, fractals, the branches of the cherry tree reaching higher into the sky, covering the blue with greens and pinks and the edge of promise. Sometimes, happiness was this: a cup of tea passed between them, warmth spilling inside them, and the truth, the truth sitting between them – less a poison, more a bedrock.
29 notes · View notes