Jesper Fahey Imagines

Guns Blazing, Tides Rising (Part Two)

Jesper sits alone in his room. The walls seem to close in on him, but he doesn't move a muscle.

At last, he can stand it no longer and pushes off from a rickety wooden chair, moving to the window and leaning his palms against it like he's a broken man who needs even this bare minimum of support to stand. He's completed a circuit like this many times before- from the chair to the window to the desk and back again. He can't help it- the nervous energy is rattling around inside him, driving his fingers to never stop tapping and his feet to never stop moving.

It's a habit, yes, but one that's grown over the past week. He thinks he's polished his pearl-handled revolvers so many times, hands desperate for something to do, that they may be ground away to nothing. He wasn't like this, not before. Not before that heist with the mercher's mansion, and not before a girl he'd thought of as an enemy had ended up almost bleeding out in his arms.

Jesper's almost afraid to admit it, but he's been running. Sometimes it feels like that's all he's ever done, all he'll ever be able to do, just keep on running and never stop. He ran from his father's farm, he ran from the university, and he's running now. He had tried to stay as long as he could, to stay by that bed and the frail body of the Tidemaker, but in the end even his best attempts hadn't been quite enough.

First he'd left for just a day, taking on some mission Kaz needed completed for the Dregs. He'd visited after that, said his hellos and goodbyes and asked how Y/N was doing as always. Then he'd disappeared again, this time for not one day but two. He didn't know how to explain this restless energy, this voice in his head telling him to leave. If he stays, Jesper thinks, he might finally have to sit himself down and reconcile him to the fact that everything has changed. Maybe that's why he's always running- he's too centered on the future to look around and see what's happening right now.

Jesper couldn't help it. It was the way Y/N looked, eyes closed and breath uneven, that dug a hook beneath his skin and tugged hard. It wasn't right, it wasn't natural. Jesper had seen Y/N survive a thousand fights and come up victorious. Hell, he'd even shot her himself once or twice, and she'd always come back to soak him in a particularly well-aimed wave or knock him down a step, forever with a smile or triumphant smirk. It was practically addicting, the competition, the drive to be ahead.

Now that's gone, replaced with a girl almost dead on a bed in the Slat. Technically, she's not there anymore, hasn't been for a week. Inej, in a moment of compassion, had made sure Jesper had an errand available on the day Y/N was supposed to leave her sickbed. The Wraith had taken one look at Jesper, hands worrying the sleeves of his coat as he danced around the idea of entering her room or just walking by and pretending he'd never been there at all, and sighed in understanding. She'd just shaken her head, not judgmental or damning, just accepting.

Inej. She was another person Jesper had wronged. He can still remember that night on the shores of the mercher's mansion, after the bloodlust had evaporated away and he'd been left with Y/N's body at his feet and countless guards dead by his bullets. He'd never killed that many people, not in one sitting. He'd never had a reason good enough for that. Jesper had looked up, eyes darting to find Inej. What would she think of him? Would her Saints forgive him for a lapse like this?

Yet Inej hadn't regarded him as a monster or a killer like Kaz. She had just seen the frenetic energy in his eyes as Jesper carried Y/N's unconscious form across the harbor. Inej had called for a Healer and perched at his windowsill, sharpening her knives one by one so he wouldn't have to be alone. A few days later, she'd come to him with an offer. Kaz had asked her to patrol the streets, making sure no word of their escapade to Joeri ter Steege's mansion had reached the various gangs, and she wanted him there with her.