Shadows: A Six of Crows Fan fic

Chapter Twenty: Jesper

Jesper cheered Inej on as she and Kaz fought across the length of the ship. Their swings were strong and their blades quick. Their fight was intense and captivated the entire audience letting no eye stray far. In the ruckus and hype, it was easy for Jesper to give into the ever-constant itch that had always plagued him day and night. He knew that Wylan would scold him if he ever found out, but Wylan wasn't there right now so what did it matter?

What if he would never be there to find out?

Pissed off at the world he started to call for bets. Kruge was practically thrown at him as he made his way around, hyping up the crowd to go higher and higher just as Kaz had trained him to.

Saints, he hoped Inej would beat him. Not only for the bets he'd put on her but mainly just because it would feel so, so good.

He screamed and cheered with the crowd. He laughed at their crude taunts and jokes, cracking a few of his own, doing anything and everything to fill the whole growing bigger and bigger inside of him. Energy coursed through his veins and filled his entire being. He felt like there was a coil inside of him being pressed on slowly with more and more pressure causing everything inside of him to feel compressed, imprisoned, tight, bound up. No matter how hard he screamed, no matter how big he forced his smile, no matter how much he jumped from platform to platform, racing to follow the fight, the coil wouldn't spring. The pressure kept building, building, building.

By the time the fight ended, the winnings distributed, and the winner congratulated, the coil inside of him was still left unsprung. He'd thought with Inej's victory, maybe it would alleviate at least some of its pressure, but still it continued, winding tighter and tighter until he felt he could hardly breathe.

The bellowing cheers and revels of the crew followed him as he stumbled his way down the stairs below deck. As the ship bounced in the waves below, he bumped into the hallway walls as he went, looking practically drunk despite not having a drop of liquor inside of him. Perhaps that was his issue. Maybe what he really needed was a nice, stiff drink to help ease the pressure building, to release his shoulders from his muscles bunched up grip, to forget why the dark shadows consuming him were growing bigger and bigger, darker and darker. He finally stumbled his way to the doorway of the medical room and as his eyes fell upon the sole, unmoving, occupant of the room a much more reasonable solution to the building pressure entered his mind.

He would simply kill Dawa Yul-Neshyenyer.

He would kill the short, cocky, idiot by putting a bullet straight through his head. And oh, how he would savor the smell of the smoke from his revolvers and the sound of his body smashing to the ground beneath him. He would make it swift, for Wylan's sake, but it was a task he felt confident should be completed by none other than him and his precious guns. He was so itching to use the pretty things anyways after going so long without during his sabbatical from crime with Wylan.

He knew he sounded more like Kaz than anyone at the moment, but looking at Wylan's prone form, he had to admit that Kaz's ways were not necessarily all ineffective.

Inhaling as deeply as he could pass the blockage in his throat, he stepped further into the room and made his way to the rickety stool placed beside Wylan's bed. The stool was one of the shortest he'd ever seen in his life, how they'd ever managed to find it he would never know, but despite its height, Jesper's own lanky frame made up the difference. It left him in the perfect position to rest his forehead against Wylan's shoulder and move his hand to hold his. He closed his eyes as the boat rocked around them and silence filled the air. Only the fading tendrils of the crew's joviality could be heard seeping through the planks of the upper deck.