abraxaslogs | There is a swelling storm and I'm caught up in the middle of it all

Wilhelm catches Jesper's laughter, smiling shyly as he presses that kiss to his knuckles. Studying the trinkets for sale in the next stall, chewing on his skewer, his expression shifts subtly like the weather. Sheepish as Jesper waltzes him back through his early attempts at flirting — which only failed because Wilhelm wasn't sure how to answer. Pleased as he alludes to a certain afternoon spent tangled up together. Playfully scandalized, he gives Jesper a light shove.

"As long as they didn't distract you."

He doesn't know how to explain that his slow warming to Jesper's charms had nothing to do with him and everything to do with another boy who broke his heart. Or that he'd stared at his perfect lips and radiant smile that first night and missed Simon. He still misses Simon. It's just that Jesper makes it easier to smile; he's good at pulling him out of his thoughts and into the present. Wilhelm needs that.

"I can play for you sometime, sure. But only if you show me what you're learning." He points his eyebrows at Jesper like this is a threat. "And yeah, rowing like in a boat. You have a team you row with, and you race the other team."

"They may have distracted me a time or two. It was a long journey."

He laughs at the shove. Jesper also did some things with his abilities that are weighing on him now, in terms of being caught, but honestly, it's so easy to not worry about any of that when he's with Wilhelm. He is a very sweet distraction, the type of sweet that he knows can get spicy at the right times.

"Oh is that another date you're planning for us? I accept."

Jesper smiles very smugly and he can't help it, snagging Wilhelm's hand and tugging him close. To his side, rather than his front, because then he will absolutely kiss him, but instead he puts an arm around his shoulder and walks that way with them side by side.

"Never heard of rowing as an activity. I'm from a port town, you row 'cause you need to. To want to do that, you'd be a sailor or a pirate." Both are acceptable in his opinion. Inej is one of the latter, after all. "You should definitely visit my part of the Horizon though, not just so we can play together, also so you can help me add things to my television. I made one after seeing it at Dean and Wanda's, but I've only copied a few things I watched there."

Jesper had never seen a television before and he's limited to what he's seen. So sue him for wanting to deepen his collection!

Wilhelm can't hide his grin as Jesper pulls him close and corrals him there with an arm curled around his shoulder. Enthralled by Jesper's easy company, he's already forgotten to glance around him. The crowd filling the marketplace just fades away from his consideration, like fog evaporating in the sun. Even when Jesper throws out the word date, which had tied his nerves into knots as he got ready this morning, he feels only a little jolt of excitement.

This casual stuff isn't as hard as he thought it would be.

"I'll have to think of some good movies to show you." Wilhelm tilts a curious look up at him. "What about video games? Have you played any?"

From everything Jesper has said about his home world, Wilhelm gathers that it's not what he would consider modern. The way he describes "his television" just solidifies this impression.

The next stall they pass houses an array of toys: animals carved from wood, cloth dolls, puppets. Nothing he would give a second look. What catches his interest is a row of snow globes, old-fashioned things made of pewter and glass instead of plastic. In each one lies a different miniature landscape. Pausing, he runs a finger over the curved glass.

Jesper was excited about this date too, it's always a thrill to see how things go with someone new. Sex is easy, sex is beautiful, and their time together was invigorating. But he likes when he gets to have this too, when the thrill in their veins is about stealing glances and touches as well as kisses. Casual dating should always be fun, and he plans on giving his pigeon exactly that.

They hooked up in the Crow Club section of his Horizon which is why he keeps referring to his side. Kaz and Inej share the Crow Club too, it's all of their home, but his little cabin in the back is all his. He recently changed it and he feels pretty proud of how it turned out. He likes the idea of Wille being in it.k

"No idea what a video game is, but I like games." He has seen televisions and computers, those were mindblowing enough. Jesper's time he would say is closer to Cadens than anything else, they are about the same tech wise. Although he has yet to see a tank!

Jesper is always curious in things that are for sale. Sometimes because he can just make it himself later if he wants to be inspired by something. It's nice to wander around Nocwich without much of an agenda, a handsome lad under his arm. He notices Wilhelm's attention though and glances at it.

"You want one, love? Which one? I'll get it for you." Hey, he never gets to be the rich one, although he isn't really rich anymore. But money enough.

He looks up at Jesper, surprise splashed across his face. Although Wilhelm is pretty well used to getting whatever he wants, at least materially, he's not used to gorgeous boys offering to buy anything for him.

"Oh, it's..." Eyes drifting back down to the snow globes, he shakes his head. "It just reminds me of something my brother once gave me. That's all."

Though, as he tears the last bit of meat off of his skewer, he picks one up to study it more closely. A tiny pond is encapsulated inside, surrounded by delicate trees. He gives it a shake, sending the glittery stuff suspended inside into a swirling flurry.

"I'll teach you how to play video games too. It'll be fun."

Jesper finishes off his meat and tilts his head curiously at Wilhelm. A brother. Intriguing. See, this is why dating is fun, you learn things about someone else. Sometimes he has sexual partners where they don't know anything else about each other, and that's fine depending on the vibe, but it's not his natural state of being. He finds people interesting.

"A brother, huh? Being an only child, I'm always a little envious of siblings." Not entirely, he liked all the attention, but it would have been helpful to have someone else to lean on after his mother died. His father was a mess and Jesper had to take over some of his mother's duties as a child. Another sibling would have been nice.

"Pick one, I'll buy it for you. Consider it a down payment on your video game teaching sessions." Jesper runs his fingers playfully up Wilhelm's back and then ruffles his hair.

Even as he shakes his head, he can't help but grin as Jesper ruffles his hair. Well, if he insists...

"Okay. Thanks, Jesper."

Wilhelm wonders if it's lonelier to grow up without any brothers at all, or to grow up with one only to lose him. He has a hard time imagining Jesper, who connects with people like a puzzle piece that fits anywhere, lonely. But it must happen sometimes.

"The other members of your gang are kind of like brothers and sisters, right?" he asks, as he deliberates over the row of snow globes. After a moment, he selects the one featuring the tiny pond and holds it up for Jesper to see.

"This one."

Jesper made the life he wanted for himself when he went to Ketterdam, but he was lonely growing up. He lived on a farm and had to support his father, and while he always got along very well with other people, most of them knew about his mother and suspected he was a Grisha. There wasn't hate thrown his way but wariness was expected even in safer areas. He got to remake himself and never have to be lonely again.

"I would say we're family, but the kind of family that shares no blood so it's not strange that we sometimes hook up." It's a gang full of hot young people on the whole. These things happen. Not to mention the Crows all paired off into their little couples, so they can be family and also together. "I think of much of the Cadens group as my family too." They're very tight knit.

Jesper looks at the snowglobe and it's sweet that Wille went with something casual like a pond. Most people would want dramatic buildings or cities in theirs. He smiles and nods, turning to offer the merchant the coin needed for it.

"What's your brother like?"

Wilhelm snorts a surprised laugh at the comment on hooking up, though he shouldn't be surprised anymore. He balances it with a thoughtful hum as Jesper describes the other Summoned as a sort of family.

He would be surprised to learn that Jesper's childhood echoes his own. He was different, too, in a way that nobody can see but everybody knows — not because of any power coursing through his veins, but because of his royal blood. His title was like a wall that isolated him from other kids. He had friends, but how many really knew him? How many really understood him? How many cared about him for who he was, and not what he was?

Erik was the only one on his side of the wall.

As Jesper passes coins to the proprietor, Wilhelm peers at the snow globe again. He likes the little pond because it reminds him of the frog in the one his brother had passed down to him. It reminds him of the lake at Hillerska, his school, too.

"Kind. Thoughtful," he answers.

Once the exchange is made, the snow globe gets wrapped in thick paper and tied with a string. Wilhelm takes it, cradling it carefully. They begin to walk again.

"Erik has always been the person I look up to the most. He was always on my side, and I could talk to him about anything."

Jesper hid his abilities and his past even from his closest friends for quite some time, Kaz being the only one who really knew from the start. That is no doubt why he recruited him, but there was a part of him he hid. Being a Grisha was not a source of joy, not for him, until here, and even then it's not shared with everyone. It's hard for anyone to truly know someone else, in his opinion, but if they know enough, that counts.

With Wilhelm needing to hold the globe he lets him have his hand back, although he keeps an arm slung around his shoulders because he can. Jesper glances down at him when he catches the 'was' and 'could.' He pays close attention to people when they talk and reads through them. He knows what that means. No wonder he was feeling wistful about the globes.

"That sounds lovely. Everyone should have one of those if they're lucky." He hopes that even if the brother is lost, the things he'll remember about him will eventually be only the good parts. That's how he has been about Matthias and his mother lately. "We may not be blood, but that's been Inej for me."

He nods. In one measure, at least, he was lucky. He can't imagine what his life would be like if there had never been an Erik, what he would be like absent Erik's influence, beyond the blurriest outline. He'd be much lonelier, he supposes. His thumb brushes over the packaging cradling his new snow globe, contemplating its contents. That's two gifts Jesper has gotten for him now; he would have to find a way to repay his generosity.

As they resume their walk through the market, Wilhelm settles into his place tucked into Jesper's side, bracketed by his arm. He likes it there. At the dropping of Inej's name, his expression brightens with recognition.

"I know Inej, she's cool," comes his glowing review. "So she's a part of your Cadens family?"

As Jesper had called it. It's a nice concept. In Thorne, they feel less like a family and more like a hostage situation these days.

"She's a part of my gang, we're from the same world." Jesper doesn't know if that's come up if he knows Inej. The two of them are inseparable in Cadens so everyone there knows the two are locked at the hip, they live together, but outside of Cadens it may not be as obvious.

"We've been best friends for years. When I got here, she was in Solvunn, she was able to move to Free Cities during the peace summit to join me." The two of them couldn't bear the idea of staying a faction apart so when the option came up, they had to take it. But Inej knew that staying in Solvunn would probably have driven Jesper insane. He doesn't want to ever go back to a farmland, Cadens is far more his scene, and so she moved without question. Now with Kaz there it feels like it was the best move.

"She is very cool. Did you know she's an incredible acrobat? A tight rope walker."

Inej, much like Jesper, seems too kind to belong to a gang. Wilhelm tries not to think too deeply about what such a life must demand. And he tries not to pass judgment, because from what Jesper had described, their city is a dog-eat-dog sort of place. It could be that finding a gang to stick with is the only way to make sure you don't get ground up in the jaws of the city.

Besides, the royal court is a kind of gang. The nobility is a kind of gang. The only difference is that they have the best lawyers and the arm of the media to cover up their crimes.

"I've seen her climb straight up and down a wall. And I never hear her footsteps, she's like a ghost." He laughs. "Now it all makes sense."

That would be a fair assessment. Ketterdam is half criminals, half merchants, and sometimes both sides flip depending on the day or circumstance. Jesper joined that end after his addiction and his boredom made school untenable, and he's never looked back. Until right before coming here, when he agreed to be a merchant's house boyfriend for a time. He has no shame when it comes to criminal activity or what he's done in his past.

"I've known her for years and I still have no idea when she's behind me. It's become a joke between us." Jesper laughs. "Sometimes I'll just turn around and pretend I knew she was there, and then she'll be on the other side of me." He loves that about her though. He technically could change it, due to him practicing with his super hearing, but he hasn't been able to get that precise. And it's their thing. "Kaz is the only one who knows, I have no idea how."

"Another friend of yours?" he asks. His eyes wander over the wares offered at every stall they pass, but most of his attention sticks to Jesper.

He likes hearing about Jesper's friends, the kaleidoscope of people he surrounds himself with. Jesper's world — not necessarily the literal planet he's from, but more so the space he's inhabited, the life he's lived — is so different from his. More interesting, more exciting.

Most of Wilhelm's friends were just people to pass the time with. The roots never really stretched deeper than joking around and having fun. For all that he'd bitched about having to leave his friends behind when he was sent to boarding school, the texting dried up fast. Group chats became foreign countries full of inside jokes he wasn't part of.

It's nice that Jesper has at least one friend from home here with him. So many months removed from his old life, Wilhelm wouldn't know what to do if suddenly a familiar face popped up. Well, maybe with one or two exceptions.

"Kaz? Yeah, he's the boss. The leader of the Dregs, of the Crows." Jesper wonders what Kaz would make of Wilhelm. Probably the obvious, a sweet pigeon, exactly how Jesper saw him at first. Kaz has been trying to interact more with people here, maybe he won't be so quick to write someone off. A question for another time.

"I'm his second, always have been." His right-hand man, the one that Kaz puts faith in when sometimes he shouldn't have. Jesper's information-gathering and charming personality made him a very good contrast to the serious Kaz. There is fondness in his voice, the same as when he talks about Inej, he loves them, deeply.

"He's here too. Bit quiet and well, he'd stab me if I said shy, so let's say introverted." Although he would say in some ways Kaz is very shy. He puts on the Dirtyhands persona for good reasons, but underneath that, he is more hesitant about other people and what they think of him. "If you see someone tall, dark-haired, always wearing gloves, cheekbones that could cut glass, watching people instead of talking, that'd be him."

Wilhelm starts to laugh, but then realizes that...Jesper might be dead serious about the threat of stabbing. He can tell by the warmth in his tone, though, that their relationship extends beyond the roles they play in their gang. It would be hard to thrive in that world, he supposes, without knowing who exactly you were entrusting your back to.

"Second in command? I didn't realize I was in the company of someone so important," he teases, leaning into Jesper's side.

Kaz probably won't stab him now, but there was definitely a point in time when he wasn't entirely certain what his boss would do. He was very good at making them guess!

Jesper laughs. "That's right, second in command of the rising star gang the Dregs, you should be extremely impressed." Technically he gave up that position when he moved in with his merchling boyfriend, but maybe he'll always be it. It's not as if Kaz has replaced him yet. "And very turned on." He kisses his cheek.

Wilhelm laughs, hooking his fingers in Jesper's coat to keep him in his space. If he had another hand free, he'd be sliding it into Jesper's curls — but that can wait for later. He has two free lips, though, and he presses them to Jesper's for a little slip of a kiss. The crowd bustling around them doesn't matter much, and the perpetual twilight of Nocwich helps to create a sense of secrecy despite being out in the open.

"That's for being extremely impressed."

And...yes, turned on. He's stopped walking now. Leaning in again, he lets the next kiss linger.

"And that's for the snow globe."

There is a swelling storm and I'm caught up in the middle of it all

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Maybe start to wrap on this one?

sounds good